As Barack Obama makes way for Donald Trump at the White House, media outlets around the world were full of scrutiny for both the outgoing and incoming US presidents.
“Barack Obama is leaving the White House with polls showing him to be one of the most popular presidents in recent decades. This makes sense. His achievements, not least pulling the nation back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, have been remarkable — all the more so because they were bitterly opposed from the outset by Republicans who made it their top priority to ensure that his presidency would fail,” said the New York Times in an editorial.
“Many Americans celebrated the election of the first African-American president as a welcome milestone in the history of a nation conceived in slavery and afflicted by institutional racism. Yet the bigotry that President-elect Donald Trump capitalised on during his run for office confirmed a point that Mr Obama himself made from the start: that simply electing a black president would not magically dispel the prejudices that have dogged the country since its inception. Even now, these stubborn biases and beliefs, amplified by a divisive and hostile campaign that appealed not to people’s better instincts but their worst, have blinded many Americans to their own good fortune, fortune that flowed from policies set in motion by this president,” the paper said.
The Washington Post meanwhile chose to focus on the legacy of Obama’s Cuba policy. “President Obama boasted about his opening to Cuba once again... but as we have noted repeatedly, that policy has yielded paltry results so far, both in economic terms and, most important, in terms of greater freedom for the Cuban people. The latest, and perhaps final, act in Mr Obama’s ‘normalisation’ programme toward Cuba came as an agreement with Havana under which Washington granted the former’s long-standing demand to abandon a 20-year-old American policy that offered permanent residency to Cubans who manage to reach US territory, even via unauthorised means. This particular change seems more necessary and proper than previous ones. Existing policy, known as ‘wet foot, dry foot’, because the United States sent back Cuban migrants unlucky enough to be intercepted at sea, was as logically consistent as that derisive nickname implies. It not only induced discontented Cubans to make a dangerous journey, but also relieved pressure on the regime to meet their legitimate demands at home.”
Elsewhere, the Guardian highlighted the dangers ahead in Northern Ireland. “The sudden decision by Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness to step down as deputy first minister looks almost certain to capsize Northern Ireland’s assembly. His departure is the latest in a series of political dramas which have deepened a crisis building in the province for weeks,” the paper said in an editorial.
“The scandal over a flawed renewable heating scheme, which will leave taxpayers facing a bill of at least £400 million (Dh1.79 billion), has smouldered since February. But it erupted when it emerged that Arlene Foster, now the Democratic Unionist first minister but in 2013 the person in charge of the initiative, had been contacted by a whistle-blower over its serious flaws... The worry now is a resurgence of a tribalism that rests upon a counsel of fears. It is in nobody’s interests to see the collapse of the assembly that has taken years to build.”
The Globe and Mail in Canada meanwhile examined the impact of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year speech. “The Supreme Leader of North Korea struck two strangely different notes in his annual televised New Year’s speech this year. Alongside the customary grandiosity and boastfulness, Mr Kim was also uncharacteristically conciliatory. His speech was full of the regime’s perennial threats of nuclear annihilation against the United States and its allies. Yet even there, some scholars detected a hint of moderation — at least by Kim dynasty standards. President-elect Donald Trump — sometimes an optimist — is certain that Mr Kim’s missiles can never reach the US. That’s still true now. It might not be true for ever. If there is any opportunity now, in which Mr Kim is willing to step back from the nuclear-weapons brink, then the US, its allies and the United Nations Security Council should take a serious look at it,” the paper said.
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