NEWS,17.06.2013

Poll shows confidence in Obama slipping

Confidence in President Barack Obama has dropped below 50% to its lowest level in 19 months as Americans worry over broad government surveillance and other controversies, a poll showed Monday.
The tumbling approval numbers come as the White House faces criticism about a domestic program that gathers data on millions of Americans, the US tax agency's targeting of conservative groups which applied for tax-exempt status, and secret collection of journalists' phone records.
Obama's approval rating has now dropped to 45%, an eight-point slide since mid-May, according to CNN which conducted the survey.
Some 54% of the public say they disapprove of how the president is handling his job, marking the first time since November 2011 that a CNN poll showed a majority of Americans with a negative view of Obama.
It shows that for the first time in Obama's presidency, half of Americans do not believe he is honest and trustworthy.
"The drop in Obama's support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.
Fifty-one percent of respondents say that the existing National Security Agency program that scoops up a billion phone records per day - a programme leaked by a former defense contractor - is appropriate as part of counter-terrorism efforts.
But 43% say Obama has crossed the line in restricting civil liberties in order to fight terrorism, according to the telephone poll of 1 014 people 11-13 June.
"It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama's standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well," Holland said.
Obama opponents have seized on an inspector's damning May report which concluded that Internal Revenue Service agents inappropriately targeted tea party groups, to highlight abuse of power by the administration.
They also pointed to the White House's handling of a deadly attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya last 11 September, and revelations that the Justice Department ordered the seizure of reporters' phone records as part of a leak probe.
Number two House Republican Eric Cantor told CNN that the poll sends a "troubling" message to Obama in that the public is witnessing "a government that has abused its power, and, frankly, has lost focus on the issue that most Americans care about, which is getting people back to work".
But he held fire on the surveillance programmes themselves, saying he believed they strike a balance between civil liberties and national security.

Obama: Make peace permanent in N Ireland

US President Barack Obama on Monday urged young people in Northern Ireland to finish making "permanent peace" and set an example to other parts of the world stricken by religious conflict, violence and war.

Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle, stopped in Belfast before leaving for the G8 summit, which is being held at a secluded lakeside hotel not far from the site of one of the worst killings in the province's conflict.

A 1998 peace agreement largely ended more than three decades of violence in the British-controlled province between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking union with Ireland and predominantly Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

But militant nationalists, who include former operatives who split from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) after it declared a ceasefire, still stage sporadic gun and bomb attacks.

‘A courageous path toward permanent peace’

US leaders have a long history of promoting peace in Northern Ireland and Obama was eager to put his stamp on the issue.

"If you continue your courageous path toward a permanent peace...that won't just be good for you. It will be good for this entire island, for the United Kingdom, for Europe, and it will be good for the world," he told an amphitheatre packed with students.

Obama said people experiencing ethnic, religious, and tribal conflict elsewhere in the world were watching what was happening in Northern Ireland.

"You are their blueprint to follow," he said. "You are their proof of what's possible. Hope is contagious. They're watching to see what you do next."

He did not specifically mention the war in Syria, which is expected to dominate part of the discussions among leaders at the G8.

The summit site is 8km from Enniskillen, where an IRA bomb tore through a mainly Protestant crowd at a memorial service for Britain's war dead in 1987, killing 11 and wounding 63.

The deaths rocked support among Irish Catholics for the IRA and pushed its leaders towards dialogue with Unionists, which lead to a ceasefire and the peace deal.

‘Your choice’

The summit host, British Prime Minister David Cameron, is gambling that the remnants of the IRA are too weak to trouble the visiting leaders.

Obama said there was a time when no one could imagine that such a summit could be held in Northern Ireland.

He encouraged the students to move forward with the progress made by their political leaders and parents who helped achieve peace.

"Ultimately, whether your communities deal with the past and face the future united, together, isn't something you have to wait for somebody else to do that's a choice you have to make right now," he said.

Snowden dismisses claim he is Chinese spy

The young intelligence technician who leaked details of the vast US programme to monitor private internet traffic on Monday dismissed claims that he was working as a Chinese agent.
"This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public," Edward Snowden said in an online interview hosted by the Guardian newspaper in which he was asked why he had gone to Hong Kong before making his revelations.
Earlier, AP reported that Snowden defended his disclosure of top-secret US spying programs in an online chat and attacked US officials for calling him a traitor.

He adds the government will not silence him by jailing or, in his words, murdering him.

The Guardian said that its website hosted an online chat with Snowden, in hiding in Hong Kong, with reporter Glenn Greenwald receiving and posting his questions.

Snowden says he did not reveal any US operations against what he called legitimate military targets, but instead showed the NSA is hacking civilian infrastructure like universities and private businesses.

US officials say the data-gathering programmess were legal and operated under court supervision.

An e-mail to the NSA for comment was not immediately returned.

Merkel: US helped foil terror plot

Germany's chancellor says US intelligence was key to foiling a large-scale terror plot, acknowledging her country is "dependent" on co-operating with American spy services.

But Angela Merkel also told broadcaster RTL on Monday that she was "surprised" to learn of the scope of recently leaked US spying programmes.
Merkel said the US must clarify what information on people's communications is monitored and how, reiterating that she will raise the issue in talks with President Barack Obama in Berlin on Wednesday.
However, Merkel said security services could have not foiled a 2007 terror plot without "tips from American sources".
Four Islamic extremists were then arrested while preparing an explosive device with power equivalent to more than 400kg of TNT that authorities said was meant to attack American soldiers and citizens in Germany.