Pew: Focus on U.S. race waning globally

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- While praise for U.S. President Barack Obama is down among Arab nations, most country's aren't paying attention to the 2012 election, poll data indicate.

Obama is running for re-election against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. A survey conducted the Pew Research Center found attention to the U.S. presidential race was down in all countries except China when compared to the election cycle in 2012.

Pew reported that respondents in Europe, Asia and Latin America expressed confidence in Obama while Russia, China and Muslim countries expressed a lack of confidence in Obama.

The survey comes as world leaders travel to the United States to attend the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi will address the conference later this week, a first for Egyptian president in decades.

Pew reported that while Morsi has praised Obama's leadership in addressing issues in the Middle East, 11 percent of the 1,000 Egyptians who spoke in person with pollsters expressed frustration with Obama's handling of issues like the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Morsi is expected to have economic talks with world leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. meeting this week. A U.S. State Department official briefing reporters on background said Washington was committed to providing Cairo with economic assistance.

Pew's methodology for its Global Attitudes Survey varied by country. For Egypt, the survey, conducted in person in Arabic, had a statistical margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.