18/12/2015 World News Today

This is BBC World News today with me, Alice Baxter.

President Barak Obama delivers his end of the year presss

conference - it's expected to deal with a huge range of issues.

World powers discuss an ambitious plan aimed at ending

An advisor to President Assad tells the BBC the West must

I think there is a certain reality that has been created in the heads

of Western media and people that has no relation to our reality

whatsoever. Rwandans vote on changes

to the constitution, which could mean President Paul

Kagame remaining in power A warm welcome to you. We are

waiting and expecting President Obama to speak in just a few minutes

at his end of the year press conference. Now we can go live to

Washington, DC to speak to our correspondent who is waiting for

President Obama to take to the podium. What only expecting? There

is no doubt that he is going to try to trump and what he sees as his

achievements. I'm sure he will talk about the climate agreement from

Paris and the Iranians are killer deal and the importance of diplomacy

and the talks going on in New York right now over Syria. -- nuclear

deal. He doesn't want to send graduates to Syria or carpet bomb,

but he will have to refer to the fact that Americans are very anxious

following the attacks in Paris by Islamic State and an Islamic State

attack in San Bernardino in California, in fact the president

before he goes on the occasion will fly to Sam Bernadino to meet some of

the families of those 14 victims who were killed in that mass shooting a

couple of weeks ago. There is always a difficulty between the press and

the president. You can see that the room is packed and reporters are

eagerly awaiting the president. They will want to ask him about that

exciting race to be the next occupant of the White House,

especially the Republican race where the businessman Donald Trump is

leading the polls. Reporters will want to ask the president what he

thinks about Donald Trump and people want to tell them. It should be a

good show. I think it will be indeed, because journalists can ask

whatever want. You mention some of the topics that are going to make

the agenda, terrorism, gun control, climate change, immigration reform

is also something that has frustrated President Obama as he has

tried to push forward his plans and the Republican-controlled Congress.

On both gun control and immigration the president has found it very

difficult to get his plans through and on immigration reform and a path

to citizenship for people who are in the country illegally, the president

did want to take action on that by himself but it has become marred in

the courts. On gun control, in wake of the shooting three years ago when

all of those tiny children were gunned down with their teachers,

even in the wake of that, the president couldn't get gun control

through Congress. The White House has been talking about executive

action, asking if there is something the president can do independently

of Congress, is there anything he can do to get background checks on

people who are buying guns on the Internet or at gun shows, those are

two areas that are exempt. It will be an extremely interesting about

and there is always quite a lot of humour in this, and end of time

feeling, everyone is getting out of time, the president is going to the

beach in Hawaii and will be playing golf, he still gets security

briefings on vocation but he does get out of Washington, DC, which is

not his favourite place in the whole world. -- while on the occasion. The

White House does get to select who asks the questions, so that gives

them some control over the agenda. They have called women reporters, in

previous years, they have tried to play around with the order of what

is asked and who asks that. This is the President's panel pin it --

penultimate press statement. In this specimen he will want to tell the

American people what he thinks his achievements have been in the last

year and no doubt he will talk about the climate accord and diplomatic

relations with Cuba, and the importance of diplomacy in trying to

change the complex and difficult world that we live in. He will not

be able to escape from what he has called a new phase of terrorism.

This is the fact that there are apparently Islamic State implied

spill back inspired attacks, -- Islamic State inspired attacks and

the president will be trying to reassure people about this. Another

achievement that has eluded him recently and other has the talk of

him taking executive action on is the closing down of Guantanamo Bay,

I wonder if that is good to come up? That has come up at pretty much

every single press conference and that has been a fight with Congress,

there is so much detail that has bogged down the White House and

Congress about closing the facility, how did people that are still there

will be transported away from the islands to wherever they are going.

There have been rows about whether they can be transported in US

military aircraft. This is the level of detail. The president is still a

lot -- the president is still frustrated by that one. There is a

lot of concern in America by terrorism. He is now speaking. This

is not the most important event that is taking place in the White House

today, there is a screening of Sarwar is -- Star Wars coming up. I

will try to be this link. Let me say something about the year behind us

and the year ahead and questions. As I look back on this year, one thing

I see is that so much of our steady and persistent work is paying off

for the American people in big and tangible ways. Our early action to

rescue the economy set the stage for the longest streak of private sector

job growth in Blackwood, with new jobs being created in that time. The

unemployment rate has been cut in half, 25%, and most importantly

wages grew faster than any time since the recovery began, so over

this year a lot of the decisions that we made early on he paid off.

Years of steady implementation of the affordable care act helped to

drive the rate of the uninsured in America below 10% for the first time

since records were kept on that. Health care prices have grown at the

lowest level in five decades, 17 million more Americans have, and we

know that 6 million people have signed up through the website for

coverage beginning on the 1st of January. 600,000 on Tuesday alone.

New customers are up one third over the last year and more who sign up

-- and the more who sign up the stronger the system becomes.

Americans no longer need to worry about only being one accident away

from financial hardship. On climate, investment on clean energy ignited a

clean energy industry boom. Our actions to help reduce our carbon

emissions brought China to the table and last week in Paris nearly 200

nations forged a historic agreement that was only possible because of

American leadership. Around the world, we have been reaching a deal

to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon, establishing better

relationships with Cuba, to concluding a landmark trade

agreement ensures American businesses are operating on a level

playing field and that we rather than China by setting the rules for

global trade. We have shown what is possible when America needs. After

decades of dedicated advocacy, marriage equality became a reality

in all 50 states. I want to point out, I said at the beginning of this

year that interesting things happen in the fourth quarter and we are

only half way through. I want to help Congress for ending the year on

a high note. I got to sign an education bill that is going to fix

some of the challenges that we have but no Child left behind, promises

to invest more in high-quality early education, and we signed a

transportation bill, although it is not as robust as I think that we

need, it allows local governments to plan and get people back to work by

rebuilding roads and bridges. We have support for American exports

and they have passed a budget deal. I'm not wild about everything in it

but it is a budget that, as I insisted, invest in our military and

middle class without ideological provisions that would have weakened

Wall Street reform. It is part of an agreement that will extend tax

credits to 24 million working families. It includes strengthening

America's leadership at the IMF and because it eliminates the

possibility of a shotgun for the first time, or for the first nine

months of next year, we have a long time to get some important things

than of the American people. There is still a lot of work to do. There

is still more that Congress can do to promote job growth and increase

wages in this country. I want to work with Congress, Democrats and

Republicans, to reform our criminal justice system. Today I committed

the sentences of 95 men and women who observed a debt to society,

another step forward in upholding our fundamental ideas of justice and

fairness. Are most important job is to keep Americans safe. I have had a

lot to say about that this week but let me reiterate, the United States

continues to be the global coalition to destroy Islamic State. They have

already lost about 40% of the popular -- populated areas in Iraq

and it is losing territory in Syria. We will continue to hit them harder

than ever, taking out the leaders and forces. We are stepping up our

support for partners on the ground as they push back. Our men and women

in uniform are carrying out their mission with the trademark

professionalism, courage, and this holiday season we are united in our

gratitude to them for the their service and we are vital to their

families because they serve along with those two are deployed.

Squeezing Isil's heart will make it harder for them to spread the

propaganda to the rest of the world. As we know from San Bernardino, we

have to remain vigilant at home. Our counter terrorism intelligence are

working 24-7 to protect our homeland. We can do our part by

staying vigilant, by saying something if we see something that

is suspicious, by refusing to be terrorised and staying united as one

American family. For all the progress that America has made in

the last seven years, we have some unfinished business and I plan on

doing everything I can with every minute and David I have left as

president to deliver on behalf of the American people. -- every minute

and every day. I am optimistic, more so than I have been before. Let me

take some questions. Mr President, as you said earlier this week he

told the nation there is no credible threat of a similar attack, but how

is it possible to know? Are similar plots not going to be as hard as

detect beforehand? Some people are saying that the government should

review the social media of people coming to this country. What do you

think of that idea? You are right that it is very difficult for us to

detect plots involving a husband-and-wife because despite the

incredible vigilance and professionalism of our law

enforcement, it is not that different from us trying to detect

the next mass shooting. They are not always communicated publicly and if

you do not catch what they are saying publicly it is a challenge.

We are continuing to work at every level to make sure there is no slip

between information sharing among agencies. We are continuing to

strengthen our information sharing with foreign countries and because

of the tragedy in Paris you are seeing much greater cooperation from

our European partners on these issues. This is a different kind of

challenge than the sort that we had with an organisation like Al-Qaeda,

that involved highly trained activists who wrote working

ourselves or a network. Here you have Isil trying to encourage or

induce somebody who may be prayed to the sort of propaganda and it

becomes more difficult to see. It does mean that they are less likely

to carry out large-scale attacks, but as we saw in San Bernardino

utensil do enormous damage. The issue of reviewing social media for

those who are obtaining visas may have got a little bit garbled, it is

important to distinguish between posts that are public, social media

on a Facebook page, versus private medication is through various social

media or apps. Private revocation. Our law enforcement and intelligence

confessionals are constantly monitoring public posts and that is

part of the Visa process that people are investigating what individuals

have said publicly and questioned about any statements they may make.

If you have private and occasions between two individuals that is

harder to discern by definition. One of the things that we will be doing

is engaging with the high-tech community to find out how we can in

an appropriate way do a better job if we have a lead to be able to

track a suspected terrorist, but we're going to have to recognise

that no government is going to have the capacity to read every single

text and e-mail or social media. If it is not posted publicly then there

are going to be feasibility issues that are probably insurmountable at

some level and it raises questions about our values. Keep in mind that

it was only a couple of years ago when we were having a major debates

about whether the government was becoming like Big Brother and

overall I think we have struck the right balance in protecting Civil

Liberties and making sure that US citizens' privacy is preserved and

there is oversight of what our intelligence agencies do, but we are

going to have to continue to balance our needs for security with people's

legitimate concerns about privacy and because the Internet is global

application systems are global the values that we apply here are often

people who are trying to come into the country are benefiting from

because they're using the same technology. This is why we're

working very hard to bring law-enforcement intelligence and

high-tech companies together, because we need to review what we

can do both technically and consistent with our laws and values

in order to try and discern more rapidly some of the potential

threats that may be out there. Congress has made it clear it will

not let you transfer prisoners to the United States for trial. Do you

believe you have the authority and are you willing to exercise a? We

have been working systematically. Another example of persistence. We

have been reducing the population. We have our review process for those

eligible for transfer, we located in countries that have accepted some of

these detainees, they monitor them and it has been determined they can

be transferred. My expectation is that by early next year we should

average as their population below 100 and we will continue to steadily

chipped away at the numbers and Guantanamo Bay. It will come to a

point where we have an irreducible population, people who pose a

significant threat but for various reasons it is difficult for us to

try them in an article three court. Some of them are going through the

military commission process, but there is going to be a challenge

there. At that stage, I am presenting a plan to Congress about

how we can" animal Bay. I am not going to automatically assume that

Congress will soon know, I am not being coy, there is going to be

significant resistance from some quarters to that, but I think we can

make a strong argument that it makes sense for us to be spending an extra

100,000,000-$500,000,000 to have a secure setting for 50-70 people. We

will wait until Congress has definitively said no to a well

thought out plan with numbers attached to it before we say

anything definitive about my accepted authority. I think it is

preferable if I can get things done with Congress. I think you have seen

me on a bunch of issues like immigration, I'm not going to

forward leaning on what I can do without Congress before I have

tested what I can do with Congress will sometimes they will surprise

you and this may be one of those places because I think you can make

a strong argument. Guantanamo Bay continues to be one of the main

magnets for jihadi recruitment. The question earlier was about how do

they convince someone in the United States who may not have a criminal

record or history of terrorist activity to start shooting people.

This is part of what they feed, this notion of a gross injustice, that

America is not living up to its professed ideals. We see the

Internet traffic, we see how Guantanamo Bay has been used to

create this mythology that America is at war with Islam and for us to

close it is part of our counterterrorism strategy that is

supported by our military, diplomatic, and intelligence teams.

When you combine that with the fact that it is very expensive, that we

are detaining a handful of people and each person is costing several

million dollars to detain, when there are more efficient ways of

doing it. I think we can make a strong argument. I will take your

points that it will be an uphill battle. Every battle I have had with

Congress and the last five years has been uphill, but we keep surprising

everyone by getting things done. We try not to get ahead of ourselves. I

want to ask you about some of the broader challenges in the Middle

East. Some people argue that the Middle East and America would be

safer if you had had resumed changes. Considering the experiences

of the Arab Spring, I wonder what you think is the American role in

the Middle East in terms of pushing dictators out of power. Could you

advise future presidents and on Syria, is that your expectation that

President Assad's presidency will outlast yours? There has been a lot

of revisionist history, sometimes by the same people eating different

arguments depending on the situation. Maybe it is useful for us

to go back over some of these issues. We did not dispose them

barrack. Projections that because of their dissatisfaction with the

corruption and authoritarianism of the regime. We had a working

relationship with them. We did not trigger the Arab Spring. The notion

that the US was in a position to pull the strings on the largest

country in the Arab world is mistaken. For our viewers on BBC

Four we're taking you away from Washington DCE for President Obama

has been delivering his end of your press conference. For those who want

to hear what the president has to say, stay with us on BBC World Cup

magnets. The first part of the recount will be a continuation of

what many of us are seen in the past couple of days, it will be cloudy,

mild and be some rain. But the whole weekend will not be a