Obama year-end press conference

US President Barack Obama started his final press conference of 2014 on a cheerful note on Friday, saying that 2014 was a banner year for job growth, and praising the government for insuring 10 million Americans via the long-embattled Affordable Care Act, nicknamed "Obamacare."

Most of the questions from the press revolved around the recent hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which the FBI confirmed on Friday as stemming from North Korea, and the recent revelations that the US is going to normalize relations with Cuba after 50 years of freezing each other out.

Sony's response 'allowing hackers to censor US media'

President Obama said that while he sympathized with Sony's struggle to ensure safety for its employees and customers, he disagreed with its decision to pull the film "The Interview" from theaters following threats of violence from a shadowy hacker group calling themselves "Guardians of Peace." He declined to outline the government's planned response, saying it was not yet fully formed. He did, however, note that this incident highlighted the need to beef up cyber security.

Sony was effectively allowing "a dictator" to impose "censorship in the United States" Obama added, before quipping that any government that took a satirical Seth Rogen-starring comedy so seriously was clearly not exercising logical judgment. He also countered rumors that China was also involved in the hack, saying there was no indication any country other than North Korea participated in the cyber-attack.

'The answer to Cuba is engagement'

The reporters were also keen to press Obama on Cuba, and asked the president to address criticisms that the new policy towards the communist Caribbean nation would help the Castro regime economically without asking it to make much-need reforms.

The response Obama gave was a reiteration of what he has said multiple times in the days following the announcement of the resumption of US-Cuba relations: that you cannot do the same thing for fifty years with no change and continue on with that policy expecting something different will happen.

Engagement had a much better chance of effecting change, Obama said, but cautioned that the process of thawing the relationship would be a slow one, and that he would still press Cuban President Raul Castro on the issue of human rights.

"This is still a regime that oppresses its people," he told reporters, adding that he did not expect to make a trip to Havana as president.

Republicans, black America, and climate change

Towards the end of the press conference Obama also answered questions on working with a Republican congress when they take over the majority in January, the contentious Keystone XL Pipeline project, and the situation of African Americans following the police brutality deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

"If they don't like it," Obama replied, referring to the Republican reaction to his taking executive action on issues like immigration, "there's a simple solution: pass bills." However, he tempered this call to action by reaffirming his commitment to work with Congress, and said that he took Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner at their word that they were ready to get things done and compromise.

As to the Keystone XL Pipeline, the long-disputed project to bring oil from Canadian tar sands through the US to the Gulf of Mexico, Obama called the benefits to the American people "hyped," noting that the project would mostly help Canadian oil companies cut their transportation costs. He said the creation of jobs in the US would only be temporary and the benefit to the US consumer at the gas pump "nominal." He also voiced his concern that the planned project would worsen climate change.

President Obama's final remarks were about the state of African Americans in the US in light of the recent deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers. Obama responded that what happened to Brown and Garner "bothers everyone," and that there was bipartisan support in Congress for making reforms in the areas which perpetuate the "gap in wealth and income" between white Americans and black Americans created by slavery and segregation.

Obama ended his comments by saying that "we've gone through difficult times" in 2014 but that "things get better…have gotten better" before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in Hawaiian.

es/tj (AP, Reuters)