Obama Will Not Meet With Critically Ill Mandela

President Barack Obama plans to visit privately Saturday with relatives of former South African President Nelson Mandela, but doesn't intend to see the critically ill anti-apartheid activist he has called a "personal hero."

The White House did not disclose any details for Obama's plans to meet the family in a brief statement issued upon Obama's first morning in South Africa during a weeklong tour of the continent. The statement simply said that Obama and his wife would offer their thoughts and prayers at the family's difficult time.

"Out of deference to Nelson Mandela's peace and comfort and the family's wishes, they will not be visiting the hospital," the statement said.

Obama told reporters on the flight to South Africa Friday that he was grateful that he, his wife and daughters had a chance to meet Mandela previously. Obama hangs his photo of the introduction he had to Mandela in 2005 in his personal office at the White House — their only meeting, when Obama was a senator.

"I don't need a photo op," Obama said. "The last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition."

Obama will be just a couple miles from the hospital where 94-year-old Mandela has been for three weeks after being admitted with a lung infection. The U.S. president has a bilateral meeting and news conference with President Jacob Zuma at the Union Buildings, where Mandela was inaugurated as the country's first black president in 1994 after 27 years behind bars under racist rule.

Obama has said the imprisoned activist's willingness to risk his life for the cause of equal rights helped inspire his own political activism. Obama said his message during the visit will draw on the lessons of Mandela's life, with a message that "Africa's rise will continue" if its people are unified instead of divided by tribe, race or religion.

"I think the main message we'll want to deliver if not directly to him but to his family is simply a profound gratitude for his leadership all these years and that the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with him and his family and his country," Obama said on his flight into the country.

Obama also is paying tribute to the fight against apartheid by visiting the Soweto area Saturday afternoon for a town hall with students at the University of Johannesburg. At least 176 young people were killed in Soweto township 27 years ago this month during a youth protest against the apartheid regime's ban against teaching local Bantu languages. The Soweto Uprising catalyzed international support against apartheid, and June is now recognized as Youth Month in South Africa.

The university plans to bestow an honorary law degree on the U.S. president, while protesters are planning demonstrations against U.S. policy on issues including the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the war in Afghanistan and global warming. Hundreds marched to the U.S. Embassy on Friday, carrying signs that read: "No, You Can't Obama," a message inspired by Obama's "yes, we can" campaign slogan.

Obama, the son of an African man, has been trying to inspire the continent's youth to become civically active and part of a new democratically minded generation. Obama hosted young leaders from more than 40 African countries at the White House in 2010 and challenged them to bring change to their countries by standing up for freedom, openness and peaceful disagreement.

Obama wraps up his South Africa stay Sunday, when he plans to give a sweeping speech on U.S.-Africa policy at the University of Cape Town and take his family to Robben Island to tour the prison where Mandela spent 18 years.

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Mandela Is 'Inspiration To The World,' Obama Says

Friday in Pretoria, South Africa, people gathered outside a hospital to pray for former President Nelson Mandela. He remains in critical condition with a lung infection.

Hailing Nelson Mandela's "moral courage," President Obama on Saturday paid tribute to the anti-apartheid icon and former South African president, who remains hospitalized in critical condition. Doctors have been treating him for a lung infection for the past three weeks.

Speaking in Pretoria at a joint news conference with South African President Jacob Zuma, the American leader said "Madiba" (Mandela's clan name, by which he is affectionately known in South Africa) and South Africa's transition to a "free and democratic nation" have been "a personal inspiration to me ... [and] an inspiration to the world."

Mandela, whose 95th birthday is July 18, has been hospitalized since June 8. In his welcome to Obama on Saturday, Zuma said South Africans "continue to pray for Madiba's good health and well-being." Zuma's office has not updated its information about Mandela's health since Thursday, when it reported that he had improved somewhat but remained in critical condition.

Obama is to meet with Mandela's family privately during his visit to Pretoria, but will not be going to the hospital where Mandela is being treated. According to a statement from the White House, "out of deference to Nelson Mandela's peace and comfort and the family's wishes, [the Obama family] will not be visiting the hospital."

The president told reporters Friday that "the last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition."

On Sunday, Obama and his family plan to visit Robben Island, where Mandela and others were imprisoned during the long struggle against apartheid.

As we've previously written:

Mandela, NPR's Jason Beaubien reminds us, was born in a country that viewed him as a second-class citizen. But from his childhood as a herd boy, Mandela went on to lead the African National Congress' struggle against the racially oppressive, apartheid regime of South Africa. For his efforts, he spent 27 years behind bars as a political prisoner, finally being released in 1990.
In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk — the nation's last white leader. They were recognized for "their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa."
Then, in 1994, Mandela was elected president in South Africa's first democratic elections. He pledged to serve just one term and left office in 1999.

Outside the hospital where Mandela is being treated, "supporters have been gathering," as South Africa's News 24 reports:

" 'I came to pray for our father Nelson Mandela. We are wishing for our father to be fine,' said Thabo Mahlangu, aged 12, part of a group from a home for abandoned children who travelled to Pretoria.
"A wall of handwritten prayers for Mandela's recovery has become the focal point for South Africans paying tribute to the father of their nation, with singing and dancing by day and candlelight vigils at night.
"One message read: 'If you can fight prison, you can beat this.' "

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South Africa's Mandela 'improving' as Obama flies in

 Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela, addresses journalists in Soweto, June 28, 2013.
PRETORIA/JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's ailing anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela is doing much better in hospital, his ex-wife Winnie said on Friday, as U.S. President Barack Obama arrived for a visit that will pay homage to a man he calls his "personal hero".
The faltering health of the first black president of South Africa, a revered symbol of racial reconciliation, has drawn world attention since the 94-year-old was rushed to hospital with a recurring lung infection nearly three weeks ago.
Earlier this week, the government said Mandela's frail condition had turned critical, but since Thursday President Jacob Zuma has reported that his health is improving.
"I'm not a doctor, but I can say that from what he was a few days ago, there is great improvement," Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, told reporters outside Mandela's former home in the Johannesburg township of Soweto.
But, she added, he remained "clinically unwell".
Aboard Air Force One prior to arriving in South Africa, Obama paid tribute to Mandela for the way he led his nation out of apartheid after years of struggle, but said he did not need a "photo op" with the former president.
"Right now, our main concern is with his wellbeing, his comfort, and with the family's wellbeing and comfort," he told reporters before the U.S. presidential aircraft touched down on Friday evening at Waterkloof air force base in Pretoria.
During his weekend trip to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, his second stop of a three-nation Africa tour, Obama is scheduled on Sunday to visit Robben Island, where Mandela passed 18 of the 27 years he spent in apartheid prisons.
White House officials have said they will defer to the Mandela family on whether a visit to the hospital to see Madiba, as he is affectionately known, would be appropriate.
LESSONS OF MANDELA
Obama told reporters his message in South Africa would draw from the lessons of Mandela's life.
"If we focus on what Africa as a continent can do together and what these countries can do when they're unified, as opposed to when they're divided by tribe or race or religion, then Africa's rise will continue," he said.
White House officials said Obama would hold a "town hall meeting" on Saturday with youth leaders in Soweto, the Johannesburg township known for 1976 student protests against apartheid.
Obama, in office since 2009, is making his first substantial visit to Africa following a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.
While well-wishers and journalists crowded outside the hospital in the capital Pretoria where Mandela is being treated, a few blocks away, hundreds of demonstrators protested against Obama's visit, some burning U.S. flags.
Nearly 1,000 trade unionists, Muslim activists and South African Communist Party members marched to the U.S. Embassy shouting slogans denouncing Obama's foreign policy as "arrogant and oppressive".
Muslim activists held prayers in a car park outside the embassy. Leader Imam Sayeed Mohammed told the group: "We hope that Mandela feels better and that Obama can learn from him."
South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to fulfill a pledge to close the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.
"TWO GREAT MEN"
Protesters said the first African-American president should not try to link himself to the anti-apartheid figure.
"Mandela valued human life ... Mandela would condemn drone attacks and civilian deaths, Mandela cannot be his hero, he cannot be on that list," said Yousha Tayob.
Not far away at the Pretoria heart hospital, some of the people paying tribute to Mandela had words of praise for Obama, who met Mandela in 2005 when he was still a U.S. senator.
Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to the wall of the hospital, where flowers, tribute notes and gifts for Madiba, as Mandela is affectionately known, have been piling up.
"These are the two great men of my lifetime," he said.
As Mandela's health has deteriorated this year, the realization has grown among South Africa's 53 million people that the man who forged their multi-racial "Rainbow Nation" from the ashes of apartheid may be nearing his end.
The possibility of his dying has already generated controversy among the extended Mandela clan.
A dispute between two factions over where the family grave should be went to court on Friday when his eldest daughter and more than a dozen other relatives sought an injunction against Mandela's grandson, Mandla.
The state broadcaster SABC said a court had ordered Mandla to return the remains of three of Mandela's children from the village of Mvezo, where the anti-apartheid icon was born and where Mandla is now an influential tribal chief, to their former graves in Qunu, the village 20 km (13 miles) away where Mandela spent most of his childhood.
Mandla, 39, has built a memorial center in Mvezo that many have interpreted as an attempt to ensure Mandela is buried there.

In Africa, Obama lauds democracy but urges progress on gay rights

DAKAR - President Barack Obama, kicking off a long-awaited African tour, lauded a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage as a victory for democracy and urged African nations to end discrimination against homosexuals.

In only his second visit to Africa since taking office, Obama hailed the advance of democracy there and said he was looking at ways to extend the AGOA free trade agreement, due to expire in 2015, to create more jobs on the world's poorest continent.

"I see this a moment of great promise for the continent," Obama told a news conference in Senegal's capital Dakar. "All too often the world overlooks the amazing progress that Africa is making, including progress in strengthening democracy."

Flanked by Senegal's President Macky Sall, Obama said the treatment of lesbians and gays in Africa remained "controversial". Homosexuality is illegal in Muslim Senegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday, announced as Obama flew to Senegal aboard Air Force One, made married gay men and women eligible for federal benefits, striking down part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

"It was a victory for American democracy," Obama said. "At the root of who we are as a people, who we are as Americans, is the basic precept that we are all equal under the law."

However, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right of gay people to marry, meaning there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage.

Human rights group Amnesty International had urged Obama to use his African trip to speak out against threats to gays and lesbians, which it said were reaching dangerous levels on the continent.

Consensual same-sex conduct is a crime in 38 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with some seeking to enact new laws that increase existing penalties, Amnesty said.

While voicing respect for the diversity of cultures and religions in Africa, Obama - the first African-American president of the United States - called for steps to make homosexuals equal before the law. He compared gay rights in Africa to racial struggles in the United States.

"When it comes to how the state treats people, how the law treats people, I believe that everybody has to be treated equally," Obama said, though he added he had not specifically discussed this with Sall.

SENEGAL "NOT HOMOPHOBIC"

Sall, who won office last year in West Africa's oldest democracy, said there was no persecution of gays in Senegal.

"We are not homophobic," he said "Senegal is a country that respects freedoms. Gays are not persecuted, but for now they must accept the choices of other Senegalese."

Obama was feted by flag-waving crowds on Dakar's streets. During his first term, Obama's only African trip was a one-day stopover in Ghana and many Africans have been impatient for him to make an extended tour of the continent.

Visiting Senegal's Supreme Court, Obama praised the independence of the former French colony's judiciary.

Senegal is pursuing a high-level corruption case against the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade on charges of embezzling up to $1.4 billion during his father's 12-year presidency.

It is also conducting a trial of Chad's ex-dictator Hissene Habre on charges of crimes against humanity - the first time a former leader of one African state has been tried by another.

"Trade and investment around the world increasingly flow to places where there are rules and courts play an important role in that," Obama said, praising Senegal's institutions.

Obama said he had instructed U.S. officials to finalize a new trade and investment pact with the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, which includes economic heavyweight Nigeria.

Washington is also looking to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) when it expires in 2015. The deal, signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 2000, slashes customs duties for African countries building free markets.

"I am looking for ways to renew it but also improve it so it can generate more jobs," Obama said.

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Obama jabs Russia, China on failure to extradite Snowden

DAKAR - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday he would not start "wheeling and dealing" with China and Russia over a U.S. request to extradite former American spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Obama, who appeared concerned that the case would overshadow his three-country tour of Africa begun in Senegal, also dismissed suggestions that the United States might try to intercept Snowden if he were allowed to leave Moscow by air.

"No, I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker," he told a news conference in Dakar, a note of disdain in his voice. Snowden turned 30 last week.

Obama said regular legal channels should suffice to handle the U.S. request that Snowden, who left Hong Kong for Moscow, be returned to the United States.

He said he had not yet spoken to China's President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin about the issue.

"I have not called President Xi personally or President Putin personally and the reason is ... number one, I shouldn't have to," Obama said sharply.

"Number two, we've got a whole lot of business that we do with China and Russia, and I'm not going to have one case of a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues."

Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong in May, a few weeks before publication in the Guardian and the Washington Post of details he provided about secret U.S. government surveillance of Internet and phone traffic.

The American, who faces espionage charges in the United States and has requested political asylum in Ecuador, has not been seen since his arrival in Moscow on Sunday. Russian officials said he was in a transit area at Sheremetyevo airport.

A Russian immigration source close to the matter said Snowden had not sought a Russian visa and there was no order from the Russian Foreign Ministry or Putin to grant him one.

CHARGES OF U.S. HYPOCRISY

Snowden's case has raised tensions between the United States and both China and Russia. On Thursday, Beijing accused Washington of hypocrisy over cyber security.

Obama's remarks in Senegal seemed calibrated to exert pressure without leading to lasting damage in ties with either country.

"The more the administration can play it down, the more latitude they'll have in the diplomatic arena to work out a deal for him (Snowden)," said Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

Obama indicated that damage to U.S. interests was largely limited to revelations from Snowden's initial leak.

"I continue to be concerned about the other documents that he may have," Obama said. "That's part of the reason why we'd like to have Mr. Snowden in custody."

Still, Snowden's disclosures of widespread eavesdropping by the U.S. National Security Agency in China and Hong Kong have given Beijing considerable ammunition in an area that has been a major irritant between the countries.

China's defense ministry called the U.S. government surveillance program, known as Prism, "hypocritical behavior."

"This 'double standard' approach is not conducive to peace and security in cyber space," the state news agency Xinhua reported, quoting ministry spokesman Yang Yujun.

In Washington, the top U.S. military officer dismissed comparisons of Chinese and American snooping in cyber space.

"All nations on the face of the planet always conduct intelligence operations in all domains," Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience at the Brookings Institution.

"China's particular niche in cyber has been theft and intellectual property." Dempsey said. "Their view is that there are no rules of the road in cyber, there's nothing, there's no laws they are breaking, there's no standards of behavior."

In Ecuador, the leftist government of President Rafael Correa said it was waiving preferential rights under a U.S. trade agreement to demonstrate what it saw as its principled stand on Snowden's asylum request.

Correa told reporters Snowden's situation was "complicated" because he has not been able to reach Ecuadorean territory to begin processing the asylum request.

"In order to do so, he must have permission of another country, which has not yet happened," Correa said.

In a deliberately provocative touch, Correa's government also offered a multimillion dollar donation for human rights training in the United States.

The U.S. State Department warned of "grave difficulties" for U.S.-Ecuador relations if the Andean country were to grant Snowden asylum, but gave no specifics.

"USEFUL" CONVERSATIONS

Obama said the United States expected all countries that were considering asylum requests for the former contractor to follow international law.

The White House said last week that Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden leave would hurt U.S.-China relations. Its rhetoric on Russia has been somewhat less harsh.

Putin has rejected U.S. calls to expel Snowden to the United States and said the American should choose his destination and leave the Moscow airport as soon as possible.

Obama acknowledged that the United States did not have an extradition treaty with Russia, but said such a treaty was not necessary to resolve all of the issues involved.

He characterized conversations between Washington and Moscow as "useful."

Washington is focused on how Snowden, a former systems administrator for the contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, gained access to National Security Agency secrets while working at a facility in Hawaii.

NSA Director Keith Alexander on Thursday offered a more detailed breakdown of 54 schemes by militants that he said were disrupted by phone and internet surveillance, even as the Guardian newspaper reported evidence of more extensive spying.

In a speech in Baltimore, Alexander said a list of cases turned over recently to the U.S. Congress included 42 that involved disrupted plots and 12 in which surveillance targets provided material support to terrorism.

The Guardian reported that the NSA for years collected masses of raw data on the email and Internet traffic of U.S. citizens and residents, citing a top-secret draft report on the program prepared by NSA's inspector general.

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Obama heads to South Africa with Mandela on his mind

DAKAR - U.S. President Barack Obama heads to South Africa on Friday hoping to see ailing icon Nelson Mandela, after wrapping up a visit to Senegal that focused on improving food security and promoting democratic institutions.

Obama is in the middle of a three-country tour of Africa that the White House hopes will compensate for what some view as years of neglect by the administration of America's first black president.

Before departing Dakar, Obama was scheduled to meet with farmers and local entrepreneurs to discuss new technologies that are helping farmers and their families in West Africa, one of the world's poorest and most drought-prone regions.

But it was Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president who is clinging to life in a Pretoria hospital, who will dominate the president's day even before he arrives in Johannesburg.

Asked on Thursday whether Obama would be able to pay Mandela a visit, the White House said that was up to the family.

"We are going to completely defer to the wishes of the Mandela family and work with the South African government as relates to our visit," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Senegal.

"Whatever the Mandela family deems appropriate, that's what we're focused on doing in terms of our interaction with them."

Obama sees Mandela, also known as Madiba, as a hero. Whether they are able to meet or not, officials said his trip would serve largely as a tribute to the anti-apartheid leader.

"I've had the privilege of meeting Madiba and speaking to him. And he's a personal hero, but I don't think I'm unique in that regard," Obama said on Thursday. "If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages."

The president arrives in South Africa Friday evening and has no public events scheduled. He could go to the hospital then.

Obama is scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mandela spent years in prison, later during his trip.

On Friday morning, Obama will take part in a "Feed the Future" event on food security. That issue, along with anti-corruption measures and trade opportunities for U.S. companies, are topics the White House wants to highlight on Obama's tour.

Obama, who has been in office since 2009, has only visited Africa once in his presidential tenure: a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.

While acknowledging that Obama has not spent as much time in Africa as people hoped, the administration is eager to highlight what it has done, in part to end unflattering comparisons to accomplishments of predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Food security and public aid are two of the issues the Obama team believes are success stories.

"Africa has seen a steady and consistent increase in our overall resource investment each year that we've been in office," said Raj Shah, head of USAID. "And sustaining that in this political climate has required real trade-offs to be made in other areas, but we've done that."

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Obama starts long awaited Africa tour at slave port

DAKAR, Senegal - Almost four centuries after Africans started being shipped to North America as slaves, the first U.S. president of African ancestry will on Thursday visit an infamous embarkation point for those destined for lives in chains.

In his first - and, many Africans say, long-overdue - extended tour of the continent, President Barack Obama will focus on political and economic issues, but is also paying homage to a painful chapter in American history.

On the first leg of his eight-day visit he is taking his family to the House of Slaves, a fort built in the late 18th century on Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal, as a transit point for the human traffic and now a museum.

The visit will be a somber reminder of a shameful period in U.S. and world history and provide a powerful contrast between Obama's stature as leader of the world's most powerful nation and the historical status of Africans, once treated as property in the country he governs.

"We have moved from a society in which African Americans were not viewed as citizens, in which social, economic equality was not provided, to one in which we could elect an African American president," said Junius Rodriguez, a historian at Eureka College in Peoria, Illinois.

"It's a remarkable transformation that we've made."

Many Africans feel a bond with Obama but have voiced disappointment that he has not engaged with the continent as much as previous presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

During his first term, Obama's only African trip was a one-day stopover in Ghana and many Africans have been impatient for him to make an extended tour of the continent.

"It's a real pleasure for us, that the world has advanced enough that a black man can be president of the United States," said Abdoul Aziz Signane, a tailor, purchasing an Obama T-shirt at a shop in the Senegalese capital Dakar.

"It makes us very proud. That's why I came to buy a T-shirt so I can welcome him and tell him 'We love you Obama, a lot'."

APOLOGY UNLIKELY

While George W. Bush gave a speech at Goree Island in 2003 in which he called slavery a sin, Obama is not scheduled to use the occasion to make a speech.

The president's major address during his three-country swing through Africa is scheduled for Sunday at the University of Cape Town.

Obama - who visited Cape Coast Castle, another slave port, during his Ghana trip in 2009 - will meet civic leaders in Goree before returning to the mainland to talk with lawyers and judges, keeping the emphasis of his trip on African political stability and economic opportunities.

For all the symbolism involved in Obama's trip to Goree, it raises the question of whether the time has come for a U.S. president to apologize for slavery.

"The magnitude of slavery is unimaginable," Harvard historian Johnson said. "Can Obama heal that wound with a single speech and with the extraordinary symbolism of his visit as U.S. president, is that going to close the circle? Absolutely not."

But an apology is seen as unlikely. A sovereign admission of culpability would open the door to a reparations process, something the Obama administration is unlikely to initiate.

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Obama lays out climate action plan

President Obama said he would use his executive powers to enforce the new rules on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
US President Barack Obama has laid out a package of measures aimed at curbing climate change, including limits on emissions from power plants.

He also unveiled plans for an expansion of renewable energy projects, improved flood resilience and calls for an international climate deal.

Administration officials had earlier rejected the idea of a "carbon tax".

President Obama pledged in his inaugural address in January to act on climate change in his second term.

The activists who gathered at Georgetown University saw a president finally living up to campaign promises first made years ago.

For Barack Obama, pausing frequently to wipe the sweat from his brow - surely the White House didn't choose one of the hottest days of the year to make a point? - this was a chance to lay down a gauntlet.

It's certainly his boldest statement of intent yet on the difficult ground of climate change.

But it's been abundantly clear throughout his more than four years in office that Congress is not simply going to do his bidding. The president may think the debate over climate science is over, but there are still plenty of sceptics ready and willing to say otherwise.

Bypassing Congress may help the president to realise some of his proposals, but Mr Obama knows that tough political and legal battles lie ahead.
Speaking at Georgetown University in Washington DC, President Obama said: "As a president, as a father and as an American, I am here to say we need to act."

President Obama mocked critics who contend climate change is not a threat.

"I don't have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real," he said. "We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society."

The president said climate change posed an immediate threat, with the 12 hottest years on record all occurring in the past 15 years.

He added: "While we may not live to see the full realisation of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did."

Most of the president's agenda can be executed without congressional approval, but some issues are likely to face opposition.

The top Republican in the House of Representatives, House Speaker John Boehner, has called the plans "absolutely crazy".

Finally, 16 years after the global agreement to tackle climate change in the Kyoto Protocol, the world can see how the US intends to play its part. It may be cutting CO2 only 4% on 1990 levels by 2020 - less than a fifth of the amount achieved in the EU - but this is at least a plan, and some of the US green think-tanks are grateful for it.

But this is part of what the White House calls an "all of the above" strategy which includes new efficiency standards on trucks, electrical appliances and government buildings - a change that will lift the US out of the 1950s design age; a reduction in short-lived greenhouse gases like methane and soot; a further doubling of wind power, especially on public land; future-proofing infrastructure against climate damages and more.

There are things to upset environmentalists, like the absence of any commitment to drop Keystone XL and the continuing support for biofuels. Nor is the plan as precisely quantified as the UK's climate policy, for instance, which commits to methodically cutting emissions through to 2050. But if the president has the stomach for a legal fight over bypassing Congress on coal, if he's willing to impose extra measures in a few years and if his policies don't get overturned, today's announcement could help the US achieve its international carbon pledges up to 2020. That would be a start.
On Tuesday, the president reaffirmed his 2009 commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

Critics say these reductions are too modest, and less aggressive than European Union targets.

The plan includes the first-ever limits on carbon emissions from new and existing power plants. These are the single biggest source of carbon pollution, accounting for a third of US greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of its carbon output.

But it remains unclear how strict these limits will be.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed regulating emissions from new power plants, but that plan was delayed.

Seven US governors have asked President Obama to abandon this proposal, which they say would "effectively shutter" coal-fired power plants and prevent the construction of new ones.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said imposing carbon rules on power plants amounted to a "war on coal".

"This is a huge step in the wrong direction, particularly in the middle of the most tepid recovery after a deep recession in anyone's memory," Mr McConnell said.

President Obama also called for the US to stop supporting new coal-fired plants abroad.

His plan would exempt plants in the poorest nations if the cleanest technology available in those countries is being used.
Pipeline challenge Obama: "We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society"

President Obama called for more solar and wind energy projects on public lands, with the aim of powering the equivalent of six million homes by 2020. He also set higher goals for renewable energy at federal housing projects.

In addition, he announced $8bn (£5bn) in federal loan guarantees to spur investment in green technologies.

President Obama also broached the subject of the $7bn, 1,700 mile (2,700km) Keystone XL pipeline, meant to bring heavy crude from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the refineries of Texas, saying it should only proceed if it was in the nation's interest.

"The net effects of the pipeline's impact on the climate will be absolutely critical to deciding whether this project goes forward," he said.

Backed by industry and labour unions but staunchly opposed by green campaigners, Keystone XL has turned into one of the biggest environmental challenges of the president's time in office.

Saleemul Huq, senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said the plan was "too little too late".

"While it is good to see a leader of the world's richest country and biggest cumulative polluter finally promise to take actions," he said, "after over a decade of refusal to do so, the problem has become much bigger while the US was ignoring it."

 

US court to weigh Obama appointments

  Analysts say the court could enable the Senate opposition to block appointments indefinitely The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on President Barack Obama's authority to bypass the Senate in making high-level appointments.

Under the US constitution, many of the president's top appointments require Senate confirmation - unless the Senate is in recess.

But with Senate Republicans routinely blocking confirmation, Mr Obama has resorted to recess appointments.

The plaintiffs in the suit hope to curtail Mr Obama's authority to do so.

The case centres on three appointments Mr Obama made to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which hears organised labour disputes.

After Senate Republicans had blocked the appointments, Mr Obama resorted to his recess appointment authority in January 2012, while the Senate and much of Washington was on holiday.

But in an explicit move to prevent Mr Obama from filling positions through recess appointments, Senate leaders had arranged for senators who live near Washington DC to open momentary "pro forma" sessions.

In those, essentially, a senator banged the gavel in the empty chamber, pronounced the Senate in session, then banged the gavel again to close it.

The court case, known as Noel Canning v National Labor Relations Board, was filed by a Washington state bottling company that argued an NLRB decision against it was not valid because the board members were not properly appointed.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit subsequently ruled the NLRB appointments unconstitutional because the Senate had not technically been in recess. The Obama administration appealed that court's ruling to the Supreme Court.

In its order accepting the case on Monday, the Supreme Court asked each side to address whether the president can make recess appointments during such pro forma sessions.

If the lower court's decision stands, it could invalidate hundreds of labour board decisions made in 2012. At least 150 labour board cases have been put on hold pending the Supreme Court's decision.
'Sham' sessions
A Supreme Court decision upholding the lower court ruling would also give the Senate minority the power to block presidential appointments indefinitely, analysts say.

The court will not hear the case until October at the earliest, when it begins a new session.

In January, the White House criticised the appeals court ruling.

"It contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations," spokesman Jay Carney said at the time.

Recess appointments have been used since George Washington's time as president, and on three earlier occasions, federal appeals courts have upheld such appointments.

Democrats used similar pro-forma sessions to block recess appointments during President George W Bush's second term.

But now, the White House argues the sessions over the holiday break, some lasting only a few minutes, were a sham.

Several Republicans have hailed the original decision by the three conservative judges on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

House Speaker John Boehner said it was "a victory for accountability in government", while Utah Senator Orrin Hatch said it would "go a long way toward restoring the constitutional separation of powers".

 

Obama names James Comey to lead FBI

21 June 2013 Last updated at 19:43 GMT If he is confirmed, James Comey will begin a 10-year term as FBI director US President Barack Obama has nominated a former justice department official under President George W Bush as the next FBI director.

If confirmed by the Senate, James Comey will replace outgoing director Robert Mueller III, serving for 10 years.

At the White House, Mr Obama praised Mr Comey as a model of "fierce independence and deep integrity".

Mr Comey is known for successfully opposing a warrantless wiretapping programme backed by other Bush aides.

Mr Mueller took up his post shortly before the 9/11 attacks and is retiring as director on 4 September.

In remarks on Friday, Mr Obama said the outgoing director had displayed "a steady hand and strong leadership" during his time at the head of the FBI.
'Stands tall'
The US president said Mr Comey had "law enforcement in his blood".

"As a young prosecutor in the US attorney's office in Manhattan he helped bring down the Gambino crime family; as a federal prosecutor in Virginia he led an aggressive effort to combat gun violence that reduced homicide rates and saved lives," Mr Obama said.

He also joked that Mr Comey - who is 6ft, 8in tall (2.03m) - was "a man who stands up very tall for justice and the rule of law".

The nominee said he could not describe his excitement to work again with the FBI.

"They are men and women who have devoted their lives to serving and protecting others and I simply can't wait to be their colleague," he said.

One of the most dramatic episodes of Mr Comey's tenure as deputy attorney general in the Bush administration came in 2004, when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was ill in hospital.

Mr Bush's White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card pressed him in his hospital bed to re-authorise a controversial programme allowing federal agents to eavesdrop on phone conversations without a warrant.
Wide praise
Mr Comey, who was acting as attorney general in Mr Ashcroft's stead, rushed to the hospital and intervened.

Changes were subsequently made to the programme and Mr Comey drew wide praise.

Mr Obama alluded to the incident on Friday, saying Mr Comey "was prepared to give up a job he loved rather than be part of something he felt was fundamentally wrong".

After leaving the Bush administration, Mr Comey was general counsel for Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund in the US state of Connecticut. He now lectures at Columbia University law school in New York.

Before he became deputy attorney general, Mr Comey had a long tenure at the justice department, serving in many posts including as US attorney for the Southern District of New York.