Obama returns to public life next week

US president Barack Obama is ending his selfimposed exile from public life with a series of events starting with one in Chicago on Monday, but aides tamped down expectations he will confront successor Donald Trump on their many differences.

Trump wants to kill Obama’s legacy legislation on healthcare, routinely criticises him on Syria and the Iran nuclear deal and, in a stream of tweets, accused his predecessor of ordering surveillance on him and called him a “bad (or sick) guy”.

Obama has not said a word yet. Conceding the limelight to his successor, he withdrew from public life as he had said he would after leaving office. He went on a vacation with family and friends Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey and others.

But now the former president is back. His office announced on Friday he was travelling to his adopted hometown of Chicago on Monday for a “conversation on community organising and civic engagement” with young leaders at the University of Chicago.

He has a string of events coming up thereafter — including paid speeches — going up to a a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in May, where he will be joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to The New York Times.

His public appearances and speeches will be scoured for overt and covert swipes at his successor, especially by Democrats who are looking for leadership in a post-Obama America.