U.S. President Barack Obama was in sunny Hawaii Saturday for a 16-day vacation after a grueling year at the White House.

Obama, his wife Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha landed in Honolulu around 11:30 pm Friday (0930 GMT Saturday) and were met on the tarmac by Admiral Samuel Locklear, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday shrugged off suggestions that 2013 has been his worst year in office but conceded frustration at the failure of Congress to tighten gun regulations.

In a final news conference before flying to Hawaii for the Christmas holidays, Obama said that "we have had ups and we have had downs" throughout his five years in the White House.

U.S. President Barack Obama Friday gave the Pentagon a year to fix the scourge of sexual assaults that have sparked calls for commanders to lose the power to adjudicate such crimes.

The military in August launched a raft of new measures to combat sexual assaults but their action did not appease some lawmakers who want much stronger measures to deal with hundreds of alleged offenses from harassment to rape.

U.S. President Barack Obama will cap a challenging political year by giving a news conference at 2:00 pm (1900 GMT), the White House said Friday.

The president has seen his second term agenda stall in 2013, a year spent in furious political and fiscal showdowns with Republicans, and is also facing fierce foreign policy challenges, including over Iran, Syria and an increasingly belligerent foreign policy by China.

U.S. President Barack Obama warned that South Sudan stands at the "precipice" of renewed civil war, amid spiraling violence including an attack on a U.N. base that killed three Indian peacekeepers.

The United Nations Security Council readied emergency consultations on the the rapidly fledgling nation Friday, amid growing fears the country was sliding towards greater civil strife.

The White House warned Congress Thursday that President Barack Obama would veto a bill threatening new sanctions on Iran, saying it could derail diplomacy aimed at sealing a comprehensive nuclear deal.

The bill, backed by both Democratic and Republican senators, would impose new sanctions on Tehran if it violated an interim nuclear agreement reached last month or if no final deal is reached.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro spoke in praise Thursday of his brother Raul's brief encounter and handshake in South Africa with U.S. President Barack Obama.

"I congratulate comrade Raul for his brilliant performance, and especially for his firmness and dignity when with a friendly but firm gesture he greeted the head of government of the United States and said to him in English: 'Mr President, I am Castro.'"

The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial, who claimed schizophrenia after being accused of being an arm-flapping fraud, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, South African media reported Thursday.

Thamsanqa Jantjie sparked outrage for his translations of eulogies, including by U.S. President Barack Obama and Mandela's grandchildren, at the service last week, with sign language experts saying his signing amounted to little more than "flapping his arms around" and "just making funny gestures."

A White House-picked panel Wednesday recommended curbing the secretive powers of the National Security Agency (NSA), warning that its mass spying sweeps in the war on terror had gone too far.

The report said the NSA should halt the mass storage of domestic phone records, and called for new scrutiny on snooping on world leaders plus privacy safeguards for foreigners and fresh transparency over U.S. eavesdropping.

The White House will release a review Wednesday calling for reforms in National Security Agency spying sweeps, exposed by Edward Snowden, which have angered U.S. allies and raised legal and privacy concerns.

President Barack Obama's spokesman Jay Carney said the report by a review panel was being released earlier than a planned date in January due to incomplete and inaccurate media reporting about its contents.