Obama calls for reform in Independence Day address

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama urged Americans, who celebrate Independence Day Saturday, to implement broad economic and social reforms, expressing confidence the country will be able to overcome the challenges it is facing.
“We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time,” the president said in his weekly radio address. “We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession.”
The president said that in order to lay the foundation of growth and prosperity, Americans would have to revamp their education system and build schools that would prepare every child to compete with workers around the world.
He pointed out that the United States also needed to reform its health care system, bringing down medical costs for all Americans. Obama also urged Americans to make clean energy the profitable kind of energy “so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil.”
“We are not a people who fear the future,” the president concluded, reminding Americans of the spirit of the country’s founding fathers. “We are a people who make it. And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more.”
Meanwhile, the United States wants to forge new relations on an equal footing with Russia, President Barack Obama said in a television interview broadcast Saturday to the Russian-language audience.
“America respects Russia, we want to build relations where we deal as equals,” he told the international Russian-language news channel Vesti ahead of his landmark visit on Monday to Moscow.
Obama said relations had “left a lot to be desired in recent years” under predecessor George Bush and reminded his audience that he wanted to hit the “reset” button from day one in the White House.