The US president, Barack Obama, joked about the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and issues much closer to home as he headlined the White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday night.

The annual tradition has the president mocking others and himself as celebrities mingle with journalists and politicians.

Obama made fun of conservative television hosts' talk about Putin's bare chest and a comment from one last year about Putin being headed for a Nobel peace prize. "To be fair, they give those to just about anybody these days," said Obama, who received the prize in 2009. The president also joked about opposition claims that he had been born overseas rather than in the United States. Looking ahead to a possible successor, Obama said it will be a lot harder for Republicans to prove that Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in Kenya.

The president poked fun at CNN's extensive coverage of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. He said he was still jet-lagged from his visit in recent days to Malaysia and added, "The lengths we have to go to get CNN coverage these days!"

Obama also turned the humour on himself and his difficult 2013, including the deeply troubled rollout of the website for his health care overhaul.