WASHINGTON: Barack Obama, battered yet still popular after a bruising first term as president, raises his right hand on Sunday to be sworn in for another four years as the leader of an America that is, perhaps, as divided politically and socially as at any time since the US Civil War 150 years ago.

When Obama first took office as the 44th US president, many Americans hoped the symbolism of the first black man in the White House was a turning point in the country’s deeply troubled racial history. Obama vowed to moderate the animus that was engulfing the country, but, four years later, the nation is only more divided. While Obama convincingly won a second term, the jubilation that surrounded him four years ago is subdued this time around.

Obama guided the country through many crushing challenges after taking office in 2009: ending the Iraq war, putting the Afghan war on a course toward US withdrawal and saving the collapsing economy. He won approval for a sweeping health care overhaul. Yet onerous problems remain and his success in resolving them will define his place in history.

He faces fights with opposition Republicans over gun control, avoiding a default on the nation’s debts, cutting the spiraling federal deficit and preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Obama begins his second term at noon (1700 GMT) on Sunday, January 20, the date and time specified by law. He will take his oath in a simple White House ceremony.

On Monday, he will repeat the oath and give his inaugural speech on the steps of the US Capitol before hundreds of thousands of people in a ceremony laden with pomp. He then makes the traditional journey, part of it on foot, down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

Fancy dress balls, fewer than in 2009, consume the evening hours. Monday is also the holiday marking the birth of Martin Luther King, the revered civil right leader who was assassinated in 1968.

On the eve of his Sunday start of a new term, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama stained a bookcase as part of a national service event organized by the inaugural committee. Speaking at the elementary school where the event took place, Obama reminded the nation of the coming remembrance of King’s birth and life.

“We think about not so much the inauguration, but we think about this is Dr. King’s birthday we’re going to be celebrating this weekend,” the president said.

“He said everybody wants to be first, everybody wants to be a drum major. But if you’re going to be a drum major, be a drum major for service, be a drum major for justice, be a drum major for looking out for other people,” Obama said of the civil rights leader whose birthday is celebrated as a national holiday on Monday.

Americans increasingly see Obama as a strong leader, someone who stands up for his beliefs and is able to get things done, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The survey shows him with a 52 percent job approval rating, among the highest rankings since early in his presidency. His personal favorability, 59 percent, has rebounded from a low of 50 percent in the 2012 campaign against Republican Mitt Romney.

Domestic issues, notably the economy and health care, dominated Obama’s first term, but there were also critical international issues that could define his next four years.

Obama may have to decide whether to launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, something he is loath to do. Washington and its allies believe Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. (AP)

Iran says its program is intended for producing electricity. Obama has vowed to keep Iran from crossing the line to nuclear-armed status, but insists there is still time for diplomacy. But Israel is pressuring him to take military action sooner rather than later.

Obama will also have to deal with the civil war in Syria, Israel-Palestinian tensions, a chill in relations with Russia and a series of maritime disputes in Asia. The administration has long talked of making a “pivot” toward Asia after the U.S. has directed much of its energy to the Middle East in the past decade.

Yet, as Obama has begun setting the course for his second term, the political battles at home continue to dominate his attention. He faces tough opposition from Republicans, especially from among its tea party wing _ lawmakers determined to shrink government and reduce the taxes. Republicans are themselves divided between tea party loyalists adamantly opposed to compromises on taxes and spending and mainstream Republicans more open to negotiations.

A confrontation is brewing on the need for Congress to raise the limit on US borrowing. Republicans now plan to avoid a fight in the short term but they will raise the issue again before summer and will again demand steep spending cuts to reduce the government’s debt. Obama has said he won’t allow them to hold the nation’s economy hostage and will not negotiate, as he did in 2011. A failure to reach an agreement could leave the government without money to pay its debts and lead to the first-ever U.S. default or a government shutdown.

Beyond the debt-ceiling debate are other big budget fights. Looming are automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs, originally scheduled for Jan. 1. Now they in late winter unless Congress and the president act. And the US budget runs dry in March, leading again to a potential shutdown unless both sides agree on new legislation.

Obama is also seeking new restrictions on guns and ammunition, a move avidly opposed by most Republicans and the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobbying group which believes they would violate constitutional protections for gun owners. Obama was spurred to action by the massacre last month of 20 children and six adults at their school in Newtown, Connecticut. He has pledged to use “whatever weight this office holds” to fight for his proposals.

Among the second term’s other top-tier issues, immigration may be the one in which Obama enjoys the most leverage. That’s a dramatic change from his first term, when it was relegated to the background.

The White House is hinting at a comprehensive bill this year that would include a path toward citizenship for millions of immigrants now in the country illegally. Republicans, stung by heavy losses among Hispanic voters in the last two presidential elections, say they also want to revamp immigration laws. (AP)

Lahore: Fiery cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri, who led a massive protest against Pakistan government, has claimed that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, who had once “carried him on their shoulders” to show their love and respect for him, had now started the “worst propaganda” against him.

Qadri, who heads the Tehrik Minhaj-ul-Quran, said the incident had occurred some years ago when the Sharif brothers were living in self-exile in Saudi Arabia. “Both brothers once carried me on their shoulders up to the Ghar-e-Hira (Holy Mountain) in Mecca just to express their love and devotion to my ideology. Now they have started the worst propaganda against me,” said Qadri, who led a four-day sit-in by thousands of his supporters outside the Parliament here recently.

The cleric launched the protest to press the government to implement his charter of demands, including dissolution of Parliament and electoral reforms. The protest ended after Qadri and the government signed an agreement. Qadri was very close to the Sharifs in the 1990s but later fell out with them.

He alleged at a news conference here yesterday that the Sharif brothers had allocated Rs three billion from the PML-N government fund in Punjab to launch a “character assassination” campaign against him in the media. (PTI)

BRUSSELS/GENEVA: Fighters from around the world have filtered into Syria to join a civil war that has split along sectarian lines, increasingly pitting the ruling Alawite community against the majority Sunni Muslims, UN human rights investigators said on Sunday.

The deepened sectarian divisions in Syria may diminish prospects for any post-conflict reconciliation even if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled. And the influx of foreign fighters raises the risk of the war spilling into neighbouring countries, riven by the same sectarian fault lines that cut through Syria.

“As battles between government forces and anti-government armed groups approach the end of their second year, the conflict has become overtly sectarian in nature,” the investigators led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro said in an updated report.

As a result, they said, more civilians were seeking to arm themselves in the conflict, which began 21 months ago with street demonstrations demanding democratic reform and evolved into an armed insurgency bent on toppling Assad.

“What we found in the last few months is that the minorities that tried to stay away from the conflict have begun arming themselves to protect themselves,” Karen Abuzayd, a member of the group, told a news conference in Brussels.

Syrian government forces had increasingly resorted to aerial bombardments, including shelling of hospitals, and evidence suggests that such attacks are “disproportionate”, the report said. The conduct of hostilities by both sides is “increasingly in breach of international law”, it added.

“Feeling threatened and under attack, ethnic and religious minority groups have increasingly aligned themselves with parties to the conflict, deepening sectarian divides.”

Most of the “foreign fighters” slipping into Syria to join rebel groups, or fight independently alongside them, are Sunnis from other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the UN investigators found, reporting on their findings after their latest interviews conducted in the region. “They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighbouring countries,” said Abuzayd, adding that names from 29 states had been recorded so far. (PTI)

Sanaa: Three US drone strikes killed nine suspected members of Al-Qaeda in the Yemen province of Marib, a tribal chief and witnesses said on Sunday.

One raid late yesterday targeted a vehicle transporting four suspected members of the jihadist network in Wadi Abida, east of the city of Marib, 170 kilometres east of Sanaa, the tribal source said.

“The bodies of the four dead were charred,” he said, requesting anonymity, adding that only the body of Ismail bin Jamil, a local Al-Qaeda chief, was identified.

A witness said that car was engulfed in flames. Another raid struck a vehicle in the same area killing five people including Hamad Hassan Ghreib, a member of Al-Qaeda, the tribal source later said, adding that all five belonged to the extremist group.

Local sources said that two of the passengers were Saudi Qaeda militants. A raid earlier in the evening targeted another vehicle transporting four people, but a rocket missed the car allowing the passengers time to flee, a witness said.

The latest raids bring to at least 23 the number of people killed in US drone strikes since attacks were intensified on December 24.

Washington has been stepping up its support for Yemen’s battle against militants in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which it regards as the most active and deadliest franchise of the global network.

US drone strikes in Yemen nearly tripled in 2012 compared to 2011, with 53 recorded against 18, according to the Washington-based think tank New America Foundation.

AQAP took advantage of the weakness of Yemen’s central government during an uprising in 2011 against now ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seizing large swathes of territory across the south.

But after a month-long offensive launched in May last year by Yemeni troops, most militants fled to the more lawless desert regions of the east. (AFP)