Obama To Make Fourth Trip To Oil Disaster Zone

US President barrack Obama plans to fourth trip to the Gulf of Mexico next week, with his three-state tour reflecting the widening footprint of the US oil disaster zone.

Obama has made three previous trips to the disaster area, all of them to Louisiana, until now the main focus of efforts to mop up the oil slick, and to plug the ruptured well that caused America's worst environmental disaster.

The oil spill remains high on the president's agenda, as political fallout grows over the worst man-made environmental disaster in US history, with a third of the Gulf's waters still closed to fishing and a growing number of dead birds and other marine animals.