Global press agency AFP have already released their selection of 2012’s best pictures — even though there is still a full month to go. The incredible images capture every major news story of the year so far, from triumph at the Olympics to the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in the US and ongoing violence in Syria. (more…)
The presidential election was often brutal and bitter, with both candidates’ fierce desire to win being clear throughout the campaign.
But when it became clear that the race was over and Barack Obama had won, Mitt Romney accepted his defeat with grace, refusing to allow his staff to contest the results in key swing states.
Republican aides were about to send four planes to oversee recount efforts in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, but the candidate stopped them, saying: ‘It’s not going to happen.’ (more…)
Some people on this continent expected more from the son of man who grew up herding goats in a village in western Kenya.
President Barack Obama made only one, cursory trip to sub-Saharan Africa during his first term, and at the time made it fairly clear that he would not be smothering the continent with attention.
“Africa’s future is up to Africans,” he said in Ghana, in a speech that quietly acknowledged the limitations of American influence in a region that now trades more with China than the US. (more…)
Barack Obama’s step-grandmother led celebrations in his ancestral Kenyan homeland today as he rolled to re-election and a second term in the White House. Meanwhile children at his old school in Jakarta celebrated in their classrooms as the results were announced. Sarah Onyango Obama was seen singing and dancing in Nyang’oma Kogelo village where she lives in western Kenya, some 400km north of the capital Nairobi – is also the place where the president’s late father Barack Obama was raised.
Limelight: President Barack Obama’s grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama, (more…)
COMING into election night Barack Obama had many more paths to victory than Mitt Romney. In the end he seems to have taken most of them. The news was never good for the Republican nominee, as the poll-crunchers were proven correct in state after state. In the end, Mr Obama will return to the White House with a convincing electoral victory (though the popular vote is still quite close).
Of the swing states, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire went early for the president. They were soon (more…)
FOUR years ago, The Economist endorsed Barack Obama for the White House with enthusiasm. So did millions of voters. Next week Americans will trudge to the polls far less hopefully. So (in spirit at least) will this London-based newspaper. Having endured a miserably negative campaign, the world’s most powerful country now has a much more difficult decision to make than it (more…)
KASA