Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

[1]Court Clears Musharraf to Run Again

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 28 -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf scored a badly needed victory Friday when the Supreme Court cleared the way for him to run for another term, despite a challenge from opponents who say he is ineligible.

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092800179.html?nav=rss_print/asection

Griff Witte Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

[1] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092800179.html?nav=rss_print/asection>

I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I don't succumb. 55 million for candidates he supports and his own 2010 re-election fund. " Obama writes: "It was because of these newfound understandings—that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved—that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. Obama's fundraising prowess was affirmed again in the second quarter of 2007, when his campaign raised an additional $32.5 million, the most ever raised by a Democratic Presidential candidate in a single quarter. Obama also met with a group of Palestinian students two weeks before Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election. Agreeing with Obama's own assessment that "people project their hopes on him," Noonan attributed some of Obama's popularity to "a certain unknowability."

Obama said, "The time has come for universal health care in America Z...Z I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country. Obama spoke out in June 2006 against making recent, temporary estate tax cuts permanent, calling the cuts a "Paris Hilton" tax break for "billionaire heirs and heiresses. Obama took an active role in the Senate's drive for improved border security and immigration reform. His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, with whom she had one daughter, Maya.