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Michelle Obama Explains Baracks Motivation at Convention Opening Night

Jennifer Bendery, jen.bendery@huffingtonpost.com
 Elise Foley, elise@huffingtonpost.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michelle Obama was the overwhelming star of Tuesday night’s Democratic National Convention, delivering a powerful personal narrative about her husband still being the same deeply principled man she fell in love with 23 years ago when they were both broke and watching their families struggle.

Obama’s speech contrasted with barnburners from the rest of the night, which attacked GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney on everything from his Swiss bank accounts to flip-flopping on abortion. But the first lady’s remarks also touched on the message that others, including the keynote speaker, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, made earlier: Struggle and success aren’t just Republican ideals, and there’s nothing un-American about getting help.

Obama’s speech, like Ann Romney’s at the Republican National Convention last week, focused on her relationship with a candidate that she knows as a husband and a father. But while Romney’s talk of saving money by eating tuna and pasta fell flat, Obama’s stories of student loan debt and family hardships made for a more convincing case that the can relate to middle-class struggles. Continue reading “Michelle Obama Explains Baracks Motivation at Convention Opening Night”

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French take over Abidjan airport

BBC News

France has sent extra troops to Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, and taken control of its airport.

It comes as fighting continued between forces loyal to the UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, and his rival, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

The city’s pro-Gbagbo TV station called for people to mobilise against the French ‘”occupation”.

An adviser to Mr Ouattara said his forces were preparing a final push to depose Mr Gbagbo, AP reports.

France has sent an extra 300 soldiers to Ivory Coast, military spokesman Thierry Burkhard said, taking the total French force to about 1,400.

The airport had been secured by UN troops since Friday, but the French move meant the airport was now able to re-open, Mr Burkhard said.

He said there were no immediate plans to start evacuating foreigners.

More than 1,500 foreigners are sheltering in a French army camp.

They include about 700 French nationals, some 600 Lebanese citizens and 60 Europeans of assorted nationalities, French media report.

‘Lives at stake’

Ivorian state TV, which is controlled by Mr Gbagbo, accused the French troops of preparing a genocide like the one in Rwanda in 1994, when more than 800,000 people were killed.

A strap line on state TV on Sunday read: “[French President Nicolas] Sarkozy’s men are preparing a Rwandan genocide in Ivory Coast. Ivorians, let us go out en masse and occupy the streets. Let us stay standing.”

Mr Sarkozy has called a cabinet meeting for Sunday afternoon to discuss the crisis in Ivory Coast.

On Saturday, heavy artillery fire was heard in Abidjan as the two sides fought for key sites including the presidential palace, the headquarters of state TV and the Agban military base.

Four UN soldiers were seriously wounded when special forces loyal to Mr Gbagbo fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a UN armoured personnel carrier.

Duekoue ‘massacre’

The west of Ivory Coast has also seen vicious battles between rival militias and ethnic groups. On Saturday, the Caritas aid agency said its staff had found the bodies of hundreds of people in Duekoue, and estimated that 1,000 may have died.

The killings occurred between 27 March and 29 March in the Carrefour district, which was controlled at the time by fighters loyal to Mr Ouattara, spokesman Patrick Nicholson told the Associated Press.

“Caritas does not know who was responsible for the killing, but says a proper investigation must take place to establish the truth,” he said.

Most of the 1,000 peacekeepers based in Duekoue had been protecting about 15,000 refugees at a Catholic mission there, Mr Nicholson added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross put the death toll at about 800, while the UN said more than 330 people were killed as Mr Ouattara’s forces took over Duekoue, most of them at the hands of his fighters. However, more than 100 of them were killed by Mr Gbagbo’s troops, it added.

Sidiki Konate, a spokesman for Mr Ouattara’s government, said that while some people had been killed in the fighting between the two sides in recent days, there had been no deliberate killings of Gbagbo supporters.

ICRC staff who visited Duekoue on Thursday and Friday to gather evidence said the scale and brutality of the killings were shocking.

Tens of thousands of women, men and children have fled the fighting.

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Before Egypt and Libya, There was Ivory Coast

Libya (left), Ivory Coast (right)

Foreign Policy Hypocrisy of Our Generation

Over the past two months, the world has keenly being following the political events in Egypt and Libya. Television screen at homes, schools, workplaces and major airport had one item on the waiting list: when the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would make his next statement and what would be the response of the US President Barack Obama. Facebook and Twitter were and are still floating in traffic like hell. Journalists who were hitherto unknown are now household names because of their coverage of the North African revolution. Some journalists were happily beaten up just to cover the news and they still enjoy it. Some risked their very lives just get their stories out.

The situation in Egypt and Libya ‘needed’ to be covered; the two countries play strategic roles in the US and European countries’ foreign policies. Both countries hold sweet big oil in their bosoms and the West likes that milk. Egypt does not directly make a momentous contribution to the global oil supply but it hosts the Suez Canal which is a major boulevard for oil transport to the US and other western countries. It’s also an excellent vacationer destination for the most westerners who periodically need to take a break. Libya, on the other hand, is a big player in the global oil market. The country is a swollen with pride for being a member of the OPEC and is the world’s 17th largest oil producer, the third-largest producer in Africa and holds the continent’s largest crude oil treasury. About 85% of Libya’s oil is exported to Europe. The penalty of the crisis in the two countries need not be recounted. In the US, regular fuel is now nearly $4 per gallon. Doesn’t this explain why twitter, Facebook, CNN, MSNBC and BBC are on Libya 24/7?

Another country, on the same continent, which is on the threshold of civil war and perhaps genocide, is the Ivory Coast. In fact the situation in the Ivory Coast started several months before there was a single protest in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. How much on Ivory Coast can we find on Facebook feeds? How much is atwitter? When was the last time you heard somebody call the US too weak for not calling on Laurent Gbagbo to hand over to the constitutionally elected president? In fact, how many even know who that man is?

Two weeks ago, six women were killed in the Ivory Coast by forces supporting the incumbent tyrant Laurent Gbagbo, while on a peaceful demonstration. How much coverage did the western media bestow to that story? Actually, have you heard it? How many American reporters have questioned the President of the US or his Press Secretary where US stands on the Ivory Coast crisis?

Well, the truth is unlike Egypt and Libya, the Ivory Coast has not yet had a dream of producing oil for their local consumption, how much less to export to Europe or North America. The nation has no strategic importance to either the US or UK. Genocide in Ivory Coast will not result in one cent increase in fuel price. Will it? Ivory Coast is by far the world’s leading producer of cocoa beans, and that where your chocolate comes from. The Ivory Coast crisis may lead to some increase in the price of chocolate, but don’t we celebrate Valentine Day only once a year?

Why does the Ivory Coast deserve less than Egypt and Libya. The silence demonstrated by the World’s powers towards the Ivory Crisis is deafening, and even embarrassing.

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Obama: A Poem By Tunde Oseni

President Barack Obama

Tunde Oseni

The man who has changed the world

The change is not just about the post

The change for hope that we all can share

The change in our thought that we can be what we dream

That is what Barack Obama has brought to us

Americans were wise enough

Americans uploaded the face of change

Amidst worldwide applause

And it matters less if midterm elections went roundabout

Obama is not just a man

Obama is not just a politician

Obama is actually an idea

Of what we can do if we have faith and hope

With ‘yes, we can’

Obama inspired the world

With ‘yes, we can’

Obama made millions shed tears of joy

Obama phenomenon has come to stay

Obama philosophy will never go astray

Obama the idea will never go away

Obama indeed has come to show the way

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Rev. Grahams Mission to Africa is Confusing

Amidst the controversy of whether US President Barack Obama is a Christian or not, Franklin Graham the son of Billy Graham, well known global evangelist and religious adviser to several US presidents, has made a comment on the religious origin of US President Barack Obama that makes a lot of  people, myself included, nervous. Bishop Graham said to John King the CNN Chief National Correspondent and Diane Sawyer of ABC News when asked about any question on the religious faith of the US president.

“I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name.

Another quote from Rev Graham in the same interviews read

“”Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That’s what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn’t. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said,” Graham continued, adding that “the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs.”

Rev Graham is well known for making tense religious comments in his career. The statements Rev Graham made above are statements that I will expect even Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and United States Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) to make with some hesitations. The Reverend appeared to be fueling the speculation about Mr. Obama’s faith. In any case, if Mr. Obama was a moslem, why should that matter?

The question is if Rev Graham believes that once a Muslim, always a moslem, then why does he spent millions of dollars, and risking the lives of missionaries trying to convert muslims in Africa (and other places) to Christianity? Do I miss the real meaning when I read scriptures like “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

To his credit Rev Graham is making a difference in the lives of people in several African communities. Last year (Feb, 28, 2009) the Christian Post reported that the Evangelical leader made Peace Mission to Sudan. The visit was to offer him the opportunity to meet high-level government officials to discuss a faltering peace agreement that affects Sudanese Christians. Rev Graham’s mission has established over 300 churches in Sudan; the target is 500.

I do not want believe that Rev Graham thinks that once a Muslim, always a Muslim. That will make his Mission to Sudan and other African communities of not sense (and cents) to me. Perhaps the religious leader was just doing this for political reasons which is even more disturbing. People of his standing should never forget what their ‘mission’ is.

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