Politics over beer

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron gives Chile President Pinera 33 bottles of beer to celebrate successful rescue of trapped miners

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron gives Chile President Pinera 33 bottles of beer to celebrate successful rescue of trapped miners

Although none of the rescued Chilean miners has said the entombed miners sang "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" to pass the time during their imprisonment a half-mile underground, British Prime Minister David Cameron toasted Chilean Prime Minister Sebastian Pinera with 33 bottles of Brit brew.

Perhaps Cameron opted for beer diplomacy to outdo President Barack Obama's vaunted beer diplomacy when he called a beer summit in July 2009 to end a racial attack allegation over a Harvard University professor's arrest in Cambridge.

Whatever the cause, Cameron has planned to give Pinera the beer after a lunch with key lawmakers in London on Monday.

Cameron also planned to present Pinera with a copy of Robinson Crusoe.

In turn, Pinera was to give Cameron a rock from the mine where the 33 'Crusoes' were trapped for 69 days until they were saved on October 13.

Pinera (60), said, "England is a key ally in Europe and I hope we will be able to strengthen our ties. With David Cameron... we share the same values, the same views and, therefore, we are looking forward to that meeting."

Also on Pinera's schedule was a visit to Buckingham Palace, where he had an audience with Queen Elizabeth II. After that, he is packing up his 33 cans of beer and heading to France and Germany.

Obama's beer Summit
President Barack Obama sat down for a beer at a picnic table outside the Oval Office with Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, and police Sergeant James Crowley in July after the professor alleged that the officer was racist towards him. The case had created a furore in the media

Queen's rocks
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera alsou00a0 presented Britain's Queen Elizabeth II with a rock taken from the bottom of the collapsed San Jose mine a symbol of his effort to turn the dramatic disaster-turned-success story into an international image makeover