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Obama hits back at European snub rumors
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-07 15:39

Obama hits back at European snub rumors
(L-R) US President Barack Obama, Britain's Prince Charles, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy attend a D-Day commemoration at the US military cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer June 6, 2009. [Agencies]

On Friday, in Germany, at a press conference sandwiched between talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a visit to the former concentration camp at Buchenwald and a trip to see wounded soldiers at a military hospital in Germany, Obama betrayed some of his frustration at the press.

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"I think your characterisation of wild speculations is accurate," Obama told a reporter who asked about reports that he was not getting on too well with Merkel.

Local press was speculating on a list of supposed differences from Afghanistan policy to why Merkel and Obama were not having lunch together.

"They are very wild and based on no facts," Obama said.

"Most of the speculation around my schedule here in Germany doesn't take into account simple logistics, traveling, trying to get from one place to the other: coming off a Middle East trip having to go to Normandy ... there are only 24 hours in a day."

"So stop it, all of you," said Obama, with a smiling scold of reporters.

"I know you have to have something to report on but we have more than enough problems out there without manufacturing problems."

White House aides, new to the business of world travel with a president, and to the gossipy tone of some foreign press outlets, appear a little mystified at the flurry of speculation that greets Obama's every move.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs last week got riled by a Daily Telegraph report about the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal which the White rejected as untrue.