NIAMEY, Niger Amid the fever of excitement over President Obama’s first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office, the debate over why he chose Ghana has been almost as prevalent as the many bars, stores and barbershops bearing his name …
Posts Tagged ‘President Obama’
WATCH LIVE: President Obama Speaks To Ghana’s Parliament
July 11th, 2009 |
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Andy Worthington: Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
July 11th, 2009 |
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On Wednesday, I reported how Retired Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, the former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy from 1997 to 2000, had…
Hope amid horror
July 11th, 2009 |
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By Komla Dumor
BBC World Service, Cape Coast
The 17th Century Cape Coast Castle overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Ghana is a testament to man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.
A few metres below where I am sitting, thousands of black African captives were kept in conditions that make me shudder even to imagine.
They were chained, naked and hungry in hot filthy conditions – waiting for slave ships that would cart millions to a life of degradation and humiliation.
As I went below into the darkness of the cells, those who came through here whispered stories to me in the silence – women clutching crying babies, groans of pain, and tears, yes, so many tears.
I saw the faces of those dragged and whipped, kicking and screaming through the door of no-return into the belly of a slave ship.
This is a desolate, dark, miserable place.
I have been to the Cape Coast Castle before and it is always traumatic.
But in this place of human shame there is a light.
It is a tiny square in the corner of the high wall that the architects of this place provided to ventilate the thousands they so insensitively crammed into this dungeon – through it a single powerful stream of light shines.
No ordinary visitor
Two centuries after the first major attempt to end the slave trade, another visitor with an African father and a white American mother will stand close to where I am and perhaps battle with the same emotions.
But he is no ordinary visitor – Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States.
"Coming to Ghana is, for many African Americans, the equivalent of a spiritual journey"
He is the man who is widely seen to embody the hopes a generation of black, white, Hispanic and Asian people around the world.
The people of Ghana are extremely excited about President Obama’s arrival.
His pictures are everywhere. Songs have been written in his honour.
His choice of Ghana is significant on many levels.
Ghana was the first black African country to attain independence from British rule in 1957 – an inspiration to others across the continent.
At the time, many African Americans, burdened by segregation and discrimination, looked to Ghana and its founder Kwame Nkrumah as a beacon of hope.
The story is told of Vice-President Richard Nixon – the US guest of honour at our independence celebrations – who greeted a well-dressed black man with the question: "So how does it feel to be free"
The man replied: "I don’t know… I am from Alabama."
Frustration
The local papers have been running pictures of a young Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King celebrating Ghana’s independence.
Coming to Ghana is, for many African Americans, the equivalent of a spiritual journey so common to all faiths.
Generations of African American doctors, lawyers teachers and educators still call Ghana home.
At independence, Kwame Nkrumah declared that this was "Our chance to show the world that… the black man can manage his own affairs."
Decades later we are still struggling to prove it.
The frustration runs deep across Africa, from Ghana through Nigeria to Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Contemporary politics does not take notice of something as vague as the word "hope".
The Obama presidency will be measured by how he deals with a global economic crisis, the threat of terrorism and the spiral of environmental degradation.
It would be naive for Africans to assume that the election of Barak Obama means an economic windfall for the continent or that the president does not have a strategic interest in securing this region’s oil.
That ‘thing’
Bill Clinton and George Bush both came to Ghana during their presidencies.
Nonetheless, the emotion involved with the arrival of Barak Obama is immeasurable.
What Barak Obama represents is that "thing" – the thing that Maya Angelou says "Makes the caged bird sing."
I see it in the faces of young girls from northern Ghana who carry back-breaking loads for a few cents in the markets clutching dreams of owning their own business.
I see it in the face of the taxi-driver who works extra hours so his children can go to a better school than the one he attended.
I’ve seen the same look on the face of a young doctor at Korle Bu teaching hospital who is overworked and underpaid and still delivers some of the best medical practice in Africa.
They do not want a handout, they just want a fair chance to achieve their potential.
That look is called "enyidaso" in the Akan language of West Africa.
It is the light that shone hundreds of years ago on the tear-stained faces of the human beings who passed through the Cape Coast dungeons.
Barak Obama calls it "hope."
Komla Dumor presents BBC World Service’s The World Today programme. Born and raised in Ghana, he worked for Accra-based Joy FM, Ghana’s leading commercial radio station before joining the BBC.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
AIG In Talks With U.S. Over Another $250 Million In Bonuses
July 11th, 2009 |
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American International Group’s recent discussions with President Obama’s compensation czar have centered on whether the company should pay about $250 million in promised bonuses that come due during the next nine months.
Josh Ruxin: What Obama’s Trip to Ghana Really Means
July 11th, 2009 |
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As President Obama and his family head for Africa, the choice of Ghana as the first sub-Saharan African nation to play host to the first…
Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points [85] — Roll Up! See The Show!
July 11th, 2009 |
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“Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends…” All week long, this line has been running through my head. It’s from an Emerson,…
Jim Selman: When Do We Take Action?
July 11th, 2009 |
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According to The Economist’s report on aging, one in three Americans will be over 60 in the next 11 years. The impact of this number of older people on public spending will be unprecedented.
Cynthia Gordy: Will Obama Set a New Tone in Africa?
July 11th, 2009 |
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Amid the anticipated media narrative, of Ghana excitedly welcoming the first Black President on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa, many are also wondering about the substance.
Bill Mann: Obama’s Favorite TV Series Returns This Weekend
July 11th, 2009 |
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President Obama obviously doesn’t have enough time to watch TV regularly. But when he does, he’s said in several recent interviews, he tries to catch HBO’s Entourage.
McChrystal: Afghanistan Needs More Security Forces
July 11th, 2009 |
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Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that Afghan security forces will have to expand far beyond currently planned levels if President Obama’s strategy for winning the war there is to succeed…
John R. Price: Who Killed Obama’s Health Care Reform?
July 10th, 2009 |
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Is health care reform best left to the capitalists, or to the government? These are not appealing choices. They might have been when we still naively believed that both were competent.
Scheme to let new drugs bypass NHS watchdog
July 10th, 2009 |
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• Drayson plans fast track for ‘innovative’ medicines
• Treasury fund would pay for high-cost treatments
Drug companies with “innovative” medicines would be able to bypass current safeguards and sell to the NHS at a high price under a fast-track procedure to be proposed next week by the Office for Life Sciences (OLS), run by science minister Lord Drayson.
The proposal, in a blueprint being prepared behind closed doors with input from the pharmaceutical industry, will effectively undermine the present system of approving medicines for the NHS. It will allow companies with medicines they claim are valuable and original to bypass the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which currently must assess every new drug to ensure it offers value for money before it can be used in the health service.
The pharmaceutical industry has been fiercely critical of Nice since its inception in 1999 because it blocks sales of expensive drugs to the NHS that are of only limited benefit. Its protests have been backed by an outcry from patient groups, often partly funded by the pharmaceutical industry, which want new drugs to treat their particular condition.
The proposal comes from OLS, run by Drayson, a former drug company boss. His remit is the promotion of the life sciences as potential big earners for Britain. Lord Mandelson, whose business department oversees the OLS, believes pharmaceuticals are key to the revival of the economy.
The blueprint will recommend that medicines thought suitable for fast-tracking should be allowed into the NHS for a period of time without Nice scrutiny.
Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to launch new drugs in the UK at low cost because 25% of the global market is influenced by the UK price. Under the OLS proposal, Nice would appraise the drug after perhaps three years – but at that point the company may be willing to drop the price here. Critics will say the proposal threatens to undermine Nice by allowing into the NHS costly drugs that may offer no real health gain.
It comes at a time when other countries are actively considering setting up equivalents to Nice. First among them, and most important for the pharmaceutical industry, is the US. President Obama is known to be interested in some sort of cost-effectiveness scrutiny of medicines, which is bitterly opposed by the industry.
Joe Collier, emeritus professor of medicines policy at St George’s, University of London and an adviser to the select committee on health’s inquiry into the pharmaceutical industry, said there were already safeguards in Nice to propel medicines that are truly innovative and needed into the NHS rapidly, and a fast-track proposal was not needed. “It should not need to embarrass the current arrangements. If it either is designed to, or it does, then the system has got to be rethought,” he said.
“If it is an attempt to undermine the Nice process or throw the Nice process, then it is misguided and mischievous.”
While the scheme is the brainchild of Drayson’s office, the implications for the Department of Health have led to cross-departmental negotiations, which were still going on at a late stage this week.
Crucial to winning the support of health ministers and primary care trusts‚ which foot drugs bills locally‚ has been the Treasury, which agreed to fund a pot of money to pay for “innovative” drugs, so the NHS does not have to bear the cost.
Who decides which drugs are sufficiently innovative may be more difficult. It is likely that Nice itself will be invited to help select them. Those that are original and claim to offer better treatment or a longer life – but to small groups of patients – will be prime candidates. One of the arguments for this approach is the invention of “targeted” drugs such as Herceptin, which work on people with a certain genetic make-up but not others.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Pledge time
July 10th, 2009 |
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The G8 summit in Italy has closed with world leaders pledging $20bn to help boost food supplies in the developing world.
There were also agreements among both developed and developing nations that global temperatures must not be allowed to rise to dangerous levels.
BBC correspondents at the G8 give their analysis on the main developments. Follow the links below to jump directly to their analysis.
Bridget Kendall on the G8 James Robbins on the environment Andrew Walker on developmentBRIDGET KENDALL ON THE G8 CONCEPT
Low expectations can be an advantage. The G8 has had much bad press in recent years, and the emergence of the other "Gs", as President Obama called them – groupings of G20, G5 and G14 – had threatened to undermine its exclusivity.
What was the point of a G8 club, many were beginning to ask, which was too narrowly-based to tackle today’s global problems and when it did reach a deal, never seemed able to live up to its own promises
At first glance, this year’s gathering did seem more consensual than it has been for some time. But on broader diplomatic questions, the sands soon began shifting.
The American and Russian presidents both arrived, basking in the warm glow of what appeared to be a ground-breaking summit in Moscow, crowned by a deal to get back to a new round of nuclear arms cuts.
But in his final G8 press conference President Medvedev sounded a chilly note: Russian missiles could still be re-targeted to point at Europe, he warned, if President Obama did not cancel plans for that controversial missile shield in Europe.
So much for G8 consensus building…
In the end, it seemed as though the main purpose of this summit was simply to take stock before the next global round of meetings. President Obama publicly warned Iran it had until the next G20 summit – due in September – to respond to an appeal to suspend its nuclear programme.
Many leaders invoked the Copenhagen meeting in December as the real deadline when it came to a proper global deal on tackling climate change.
So has the G8 had its day President Obama seemed to hint as much, ruefully complaining there had been far too many summits already in the six months he had been in office.
But it is much harder to dismantle clubs than it is to invent new ones. The Canadians are already preparing for next year’s event. And the French the year after. So watch this space… and see you again next year.
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JAMES ROBBINS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Few people expected a decisive breakthrough on climate change at this summit. President Obama pointed out at the end of proceedings that the G8 was never really the right forum for that.
Nevertheless, the meeting of the major economies forum he chaired did bring a greater meeting of minds and of joint political will than we have ever seen previously.
The historic polluters – the industrialised countries who make up the Group of 8 – were able to join with the emerging economic giants in a shared acceptance that global warming must be limited to a maximum temperature rise of 2C.
That could not have been taken for granted before all those leaders came to Italy.
It helps bind India and China, in particular, into a process of restricting emissions of greenhouse gases – a process to which they have previously been highly resistant or even downright hostile.
The US, under the new management of Barack Obama, has moved a long way too. His commitment to aim for emissions cuts of a whopping 80% by 2050, alongside the other G8 countries, does have its flaws.
But it is a very big target, even if it is so far in the distance that it is quite hard to judge if really tough decisions will be made now to make deep cuts by 2020. That’s what the UN scientists insist is necessary.
The failure to agree an interim target for 2020 provoked the UN Secretary General into unusually harsh criticism. Ban Ki-moon told me at this summit that the G8 leaders of the rich world were failing to shoulder their "historical responsibilities".
No wonder everyone agrees that it is going to be a very hard road indeed towards Copenhagen and the December UN summit meant to produce a new and binding global treaty.
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ANDREW WALKER ON DEVELOPMENT
The final day of the summit was dominated by food, and a new approach to tackling hunger. It involves less emphasis on food aid and more on promoting the development of agriculture.
And there is money on the table to fund the strategy – $20bn. Campaigners here generally welcomed the basic idea, but have reservations about whether the money being offered is enough and whether it is genuinely new.
The big concern they always have whenever the G8 offers aid for something is whether the money will be diverted from other development programmes.
Most say that in the immediate aftermath of the news, they don’t know. But they will be poring over the figures to see if they can work it out.
On the overall aid budget there was a great deal of criticism of some G8 countries ahead of the summit for falling behind on commitments they made at Gleneagles in 2005. Max Lawson of Oxfam says that European G8 countries made the biggest promises. But apart from the UK, he says, they are not on track to implement the aid increases they said they would by 2010.
One of the communiques issued at this summit reiterates the importance of the Gleneagles commitments. But campaigners say some G8 countries are almost certain to fall short.
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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Mark Kirk Won’t Run For Senate: Report
July 10th, 2009 |
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U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk will not run for the Senate in 2010, the Washington Post’s Chris Cilliza reports.
The North Shore Republican appeared set to enter the race just days ago, after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced she would no…
GM reborn after 40 bankruptcy days
July 10th, 2009 |
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‘Business as usual is over at GM,’ said CEO Fritz Henderson
America’s biggest carmaker, General Motors, won a second chance to prove itself as a profitable motor manufacturer today as it emerged from bankruptcy at lightning speed after a remarkably swift, smooth financial restructuring.
After just 40 days under court-supervised protection from its creditors, GM was resurrected as a solvent business shortly after 6.30am when lawyers, completing an all-night paperwork session, signed over its factories, stocks, equipment and intellectual property to a new entity controlled by the US government.
GM’s chief executive, Fritz Henderson, pledged to pay back $50bn (£30.9bn) of public loans well in advance of a deadline of 2015 and promised that the streamlined company would be a nimbler, less bureaucratic and more decisive organisation. GM will focus on four vehicle brands – Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.
“Business as usual is over at GM,” said Henderson at a press conference in Detroit. “Today, we take the intensity, decisiveness and speed of the past several months and transfer it from the triage of the bankruptcy process to the creation and operation of a new General Motors.”
He continued: “We recognise that we’ve been given a rare second chance at GM, and we are very grateful for that. And we appreciate the fact that we now have the tools to get the job done.”
The US government owns 60.8% of the new GM, while Canada’s government holds 11.7% and a union-controlled pension fund has 17.5%. Creditors of the old company, who were owed $27bn (£16.67), were compensated with a stake of just 10% to the dismay of Wall Street bondholders who fought a short, unsuccessful battle for a larger slice.
President Obama had initially predicted that reforming GM would take 60 to 90 days. But creditors’ objections were decisively thrown out by a New York bankruptcy judge, Robert Gerber, in a resounding win for the administration’s auto restructuring taskforce.
“This is a major victory for the Obama administration over Wall Street,” said Aaron Bragman, a motor industry analyst at IHS Global Insight in Detroit. “The government really put the screws on bondholders and enforced a deal on them that it thought was suitable.”
After swapping loans for equity, the new GM has debt of $48bn (£29.6bn), compared to the $170bn (£105bn) burden when it filed for chapter 11 protection. But the transformation has been painful for thousands of employees, parts suppliers and car dealers.
Once cutbacks are complete in 2011, GM is likely to have just 38,000 blue-collar factory workers in the US, compared to 113,000 three years ago. The number of GM plants will fall from 47 to 31 and, through a clear-out of senior management, GM’s executive team will shrink by 35%.
The firm, which was once the largest corporation in America, is in the process of selling international names including Saab, Vauxhall, Opel and Hummer as part of its downsizing. In Britain, the decision to offload GM’s European operations has cast a cloud of uncertainty over 5,500 jobs at Vauxhall factories in Luton and Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.
Henderson said GM’s emergence from the bankruptcy courts would allow “every employee, including me, to get back to the business of designing, building and selling great cars and trucks”.
He insisted that GM could shake off its reputation for uninspirational designs and slow-moving bureaucracy.
“Einstein’s definition of insane is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results,” said Henderson. “We know we have to change.”
Among GM’s priorities will be the development of environmentally-friendly vehicles such as the electrically powered GM Volt, which is due to be launched by the end of next year. GM executives have even reportedly mulled changing the company’s distinctive blue logo to a green hue, although Henderson said he did not plan to do this.
New initiatives include a joint venture with the website eBay to explore ways of auctioning cars online, and a forum called ‘Ask Fritz’ in which customers will be able to share suggestions with the chief executive.
But financial experts warned that the company faces challenges in winning back the trust of customers and the financial community.
“The legacy costs are gone. The challenge in the future is how to approach a marketplace that has been burned by GM,” said Pete Hastings, a credit analyst at Morgan Keegan.
Along with its rival Chrysler which also recently went through bankruptcy, GM has been hit by the worst slump in US vehicle sales since the second world war. The company has struggled to cope with high petrol prices, a change in tastes towards smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles and fierce competition from Asian rivals. It has lost its title as the world’s leading carmaker to Japan’s Toyota.
A new chairman, former AT&T boss Edward Whitacre, will preside over GM’s board. He told reporters: “For 100 years, General Motors was among the world’s greatest companies. It deserves to be there again and it will be there again.”
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Obama Speech: Your Reaction
July 6th, 2009 |
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US President Barack Obama has said Africa must take charge of its own destiny in the world. Do you agree
President Obama, on his first official visit to sub-Saharan Africa, has made a powerful call for Africans to stand up for their democratic rights.
He said Africa could have a prosperous future and promised American aid to fight the continent’s diseases, conflicts and lack of development.
Is this a defining moment for the continent Has President Obama lived up to expectations And what does this speech say about Africa’s place in the worldWe would like to hear from you.
Read the full story
We are currently experiencing technical problems and are unable to update HYS debates. You can email us your comments using the form below and we will publish a selection of them.
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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.