Obama: 'Africa not separate from world affairs'

Source: AP

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — President Barack Obama said his visit to Ghana today was designed to illustrate that "Africa is not separate from world affairs."

Obama said events in Africa do not lose their effects at the continent's borders and said Africa is a fully integrated part of the global economy.

"What happens here has an impact everywhere," Obama said during a meeting with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills.

Obama scheduled a 21-hour visit to the West African nation to highlight that country's democratic tradition and engagement with the West. During his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office, Obama sought to lift up the continent of his ancestors — while keeping its emotions in check.

Greeted by a rush of excitement on his arrival here, the United States' first black president planned a speech to Ghana's Parliament on Saturday outlining his hope for a future Africa prospering in democracy. He was also visiting a hospital and a one-time slave trading post, joined by his wife, Michelle, a great-great granddaughter of slaves.

But his speech was also pitched as a sobering account of Africa's enduring afflictions: hunger, disease, corruption, ethnic strife and strongman rule.

Read more: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090711/NEWS01/90711001/-1/rss

"hear" him as if we were there, too.

Recommended.

"Africa is a continent, not a country." :) Did anyone else hear it?

Source: Associated Press

By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press Writer Mark S. Smith, Associated Press Writer – 9 mins ago
ACCRA, Ghana – An American president who has "the blood of Africa within me" praised and scolded the continent of his ancestors Saturday, asserting forces of tyranny and corruption must yield if Africa is to achieve its promise.

"Yes you can," Barack Obama declared, brushing off his campaign slogan and adapting it for his foreign audience. Speaking to the Ghanaian Parliament, he called upon African societies to seize opportunities for peace, democracy and prosperity.

"This is a new moment of promise," he said. "To realize that promise, we must first recognize a fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential."

The son of a white woman from Kansas and a black goat herder-turned-academic from Kenya, Obama delivered an unsentimental account of squandered opportunities in postcolonial Africa. America's first black president spoke with a bluntness that perhaps could only come from a member of Africa's extended family.

"No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers," he said.

"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."

He added: "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions."

Obama was on a 21-hour visit to the West African nation to highlight that country's democratic tradition and engagement with the West. His visit, his first to sub-Saharan Africa as president, was greeted as a "spiritual reunion" Saturday by Ghanian legislators.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama

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Right on, President Obama! :)

I'm in awe...

No cable tho... :)

Sounds like the start of a commentary about the current kleptomaniacs, and their political enablers, controlling the financial farce we call, "Wall Street" and the "Fed"!

I haven't noticed much "wealth creation" lately in America.

How about you?

I have noticed a lot of our taxpayer's wealth being funneled to "bail out" the maladroit bankers and insurance schemers once known as the "Masters of the Universe" (In "The Bonfire of the Vanities" era)

We can only hope that Obama can shake the Wall Street leeches loose before he squanders his legacy and our "hope for change".

If the Health Care scheme that comes out of the current process isn't a single-payer system, modeled on Medicare, then the whole USA government has also been "bought off" by drug traffickers, health insurance providers, HMOs, hospitals and related institutions.

Ironic that with all of our sordid, unjust and just plain wrong policies, our inability to perform anywhere near to our potential, our belligerence world-wide, bulging prisons, growing poverty, with all of these issues and many more, our leaders have the hubris, and never mind the hypocrisy, to travel the world scolding others and offering advice.

Needless to say, we the sheeple love this sort of reinforcement of the meme, or fuzzy fiction, that the USA is the "best country in the world".

Sadly, that has never been true, but don't blame me...

I sure wish it was,

with that in some parts of Africa. It's like night and day, really.

No comparison at all. More like comparing a 7-11 robber to Dick Cheney.

become less corrupt and more democratic, but he is ignoring the increasing corruption (Iraq/Afghanistan war contractors, Katina relief contractors, etc, ad nauseum) and tyranny (Florida election '00, Ohio election '04, computerized voting machines) here in the good ole USA.

I'm glad that he's trying to inspire Africans with his flare for soaring rhetoric, but I wish he would spend some more of that on converting his Democratic party to the fold of reformers . I'll feel much better about this speech when he comes home and addresses Americans about fixing our own corruption and tyranny. Not gonna happen.

Obama is really good when he gets in the "preacher mode" and I don't mean that in a negative sense.

Fucking incredible. Our President has big, brass cojones. He says what needs to be said, and he can probably get away with saying things that no one else could.

The kleptocrrats in afica need to get out of the way for the continent to reach its potential.

.