CAIRO - PRESIDENT Barack Obama warmly greeted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday in this ancient seat of Islamic learning and culture before delivering a dose of 'truth-telling' about the often fraught relations between Americans and Muslims to a vast, electronically linked-in global audience.

Aides said Mr Obama's long-promised speech would blend hopeful words about mutual understanding with carefully chosen language on Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian standoff, plus blunt talk about the need for Muslims to embrace democracy, women's rights and economic opportunity.

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After spending the night at Saudi King Abdullah's horse farm in the desert outside Riyadh, Mr Obama arrived at Egypt's imposing, ornate Qubba Palace on a lush property in the middle of Cairo with nearly two dozen horses leading his motorcade down the wide, palm-lined palace drive.

The US president jogged up the steps to greet his Egyptian counterpart with a handshake and the region's traditional double-cheek kiss. As the two leaders stood on a balcony, a military band in blue dress uniforms played both countries? national anthems.

Later, Mr Obama was delivering his long-promised speech to an audience at Cairo University. His brief stay in the city also was to include a visit to the Sultan Hassan mosque, a 600-year-old center of Islamic worship and study, and a tour of the Great Pyramids of Giza on the capital's outskirts. Aides said the schedule also would afford Mr Obama time to talk to Egyptian journalists and young people.

By the time Mr Obama had arrived, some of Cairo's main thoroughfares, normally packed with cars in the morning rush, were near empty. Many residents chose to stay home rather than try to navigate the sprawling city of 18 million with the heavy traffic restrictions.

The independent newspaper Al-Dustour ran a front-page banner headline that read: 'Today Obama visits Egypt after evacuating it of Egyptians.' Another paper's headline said: 'Cairo closed.'

Some major streets around areas Mr Obama was visiting were closed to traffic and lined with police in white uniforms and central security forces. Sidewalks and bridges around the airport road and the presidential palace were freshly painted and cleaned. Near the Sultan Hassan mosque, Egyptian authorities moved an entire bus station to keep crowds far away. Traffic police spread flyers to let drivers know which roads were closed.

And lest any miss Mr Obama's outreach, the tech-savvy White House planned a communications onslaught: a live Webcast of the speech on the White House site; remarks translated into 13 languages; a special State Department site where users could sign up to get - and answer - speech highlights; and plans to push excerpts out to social networking giants MySpace, Twitter and Facebook.

Though the speech was co-sponsored by al-Azhar University, which has taught science and Quranic scripture here for nearly a millennium, the actual venue was the more modern and secular Cairo University. The lectern was set up in the domed main auditorium on a stage dominated by a picture of Mubarak. -- AP