L.A. Times - Africa

Obama visits former slave depot in Ghana

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

President Obama tours Ghana's Cape Coast Castle, calling it the first step on the journey of the African American experience.

The castle stands on the shores of the western coast of Africa, a forbidding compound with dark dungeons where captives lived in sweltering heat with only tiny vents to let in fresh air before they were shipped off to slavery in the New World.

Africa's bitter cycle of child slavery

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

About 200,000 children in West and Central Africa are slaves, sold by their parents or duped. The children are starved, abused and beaten. But some get their own slaves when they grow up.

Rebecca Agwu told her 5-year-old son, John, not to cry when she sent him away to live with relatives four years ago. Mary Mootey sent away her 4-year-old son, Evans, telling him he was going off to school. The two boys, now 9, from the same town in Ghana, ended up being forced to work 14 hours a day fishing on Lake Volta and being beaten for the smallest lapse.

President Obama urges Africans to help themselves

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:19:00 -0700

Visiting Ghana, the president condemns corruption and violence and says, 'Africa's future is up to Africans.' But amid high expectations, the lack of specific policies or aid disappoints observers.

The words had never been spoken by a U.S. president: "I have the blood of Africa within me."

Obama in Africa: A unique presidential visit

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As President Obama arrives in Ghana, his background brings advantages -- as well as political perils. His visit to the West African nation will be low-key and brief.

President Obama's conversation with Africa is unlike any dialogue in history between that continent and the U.S. government for one reason: It is being led by a black American president with African roots.

G-8 pledges $20 billion to fight world hunger after appeal from Obama

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:13:00 -0700

At the end of the Group of 8 summit, President Obama says the leading industrialized nations made progress on climate change and nuclear nonproliferation. Afterward, he visits Pope Benedict.

World leaders agreed to come up with $20 billion to fight hunger after a personal appeal from President Obama, who capped the European leg of his latest foreign trip with a visit to the Vatican this morning.

Senior Iranian cleric calls for revision of election laws

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani tells worshipers that spelling out rules regarding campaigns and debates could remove tensions. An Iranian American academic is detained again.

A senior Iranian cleric called Friday for a revision of election laws to fix "shortcomings" that he said contributed to the nation's worst political crisis since the first years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

U.S. releases five Iranians in Iraq

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The men, whom the U.S. suspected of aiding Shiite militias and whom Iran said were diplomats, are handed over to Iraqi officials under the terms of the December security accord.

The U.S. military Thursday freed five Iranians who had been held since 2007 on suspicion of aiding Shiite Muslim militants, handing them over to the Iraqi government before their planned departure for Iran.

Truck bomb in Afghanistan kills 25, many of them children

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Officials think the truck may have been headed to the capital when it ran off a highway just south of Kabul. Three U.S. soldiers die in separate attacks as violence grows in scattered areas.

A powerful truck bomb Thursday killed at least 25 people, more than half of them schoolchildren, in an eastern province near Kabul. Authorities speculated that the explosives-laden vehicle was intended for an attack in the Afghan capital.

In self-policed Iraq, bombings kill 54

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Most of the deaths occur in a double suicide bombing in Tall Afar in Nineveh province, a region in the north where Arab-Kurd tensions have grown. It's the deadliest day since U.S. troops pulled back.

In the deadliest day of violence since the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq's cities last week, at least 54 people were killed in bombings Thursday in Baghdad and other locations.

Obama vows U.S. will lead the way on climate change

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 10:58:00 -0700

The president, speaking from a forum in Italy, commended efforts by assembled leaders to set guidelines, including an 80% reduction in emissions by industrialized nations by 2050.

President Obama praised efforts by industrialized and developing nations to set guidelines in the battle to control climate change and said today that the United States will increase its role in that fight.