WASHINGTON: A woman in the White House? President Barack Obama says that will happen “very soon,” according to remarks released yesterday.
“We have some amazing female (public) servants all across the country and there is no doubt that sometime very soon, we’re going to have a female president,” he said in an interview with broadcaster ABC.
What’s more, “I’m confident that she will do a great job,” he told veteran journalist Barbara Walters.
ABC, which released extracts of the interview on its website before it airs later yesterday, did not specify whether Obama mentioned Hillary Clinton in this context.
There is much buzz that the former secretary of state, who unsuccessfully ran against Obama in a bid to snag the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, might be considering another run.
The former first lady and New York senator leads polls on who should become her party’s pick for the 2016 race for the White House. Clinton holds a lead of at least nine points against other potential Republican rivals, including Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, both senators, and Congressman Paul Ryan.
Italy premier to call new confidence vote
ROME: Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said yesterday he would call a new confidence vote in parliament to confirm his government’s majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition.
Letta’s comment came days after his government won a confidence vote on the 2014 budget in the Senate comfortably by 171 votes to 135, despite Forza Italia formalising its move to the opposition by voting against the coalition.
Speaking on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Lithuania, Letta said the vote would be held after his centre-left Democratic Party elects a new leader on December 8 and would be based on a new agenda for 2014 which would be discussed with coalition partners.
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