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.



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today's papers Hunger Artists Conor Clarke Posted Sunday, April 27, 2008, at 5:48 AM ET The New York Times leads with news that the Justice Department continues to claim American intelligence operatives can use interrogation methods that might be illegal under international law. The Los Angeles Times gives its top news spot to an investigative piece on Barack Obama's financial relationship with longtime political supporter Robert Blackwell. Seven years ago, Obama received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell one day after writing a letter urging Illinois officials to provide one of Blackwell's companies with a state grant. The Washington Post leads with a feature on what it calls the world's "worst food crisis in a generation." Driven by rising demand and stagnant supply, world grain prices are skyrocketing to levels not seen since the 1970s. Between 2005 and 2008, food prices climbed 80 percent, an ascent produced by an unhappy coincidence of events: a weak harvest in the United States and Europe, soaring oil prices in Argentina and Ukraine, and a fiscal crisis that has led investors to move funds out of mortgages and into grain futures. The dietary deficit has sparked "food-related violence" in at least 14 nations, including riots in Haiti that led to the resignation of the country's Prime Minister. To continue reading, click here. Conor Clarke is an editor at the Guardian's Washington, D.C., bureau. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate News & Politics Who's Really More Electable, Clinton or Obama? Arts & Life Harold and Kumar Should Go Back to White Castle News & Politics Solving a Mystery About Persian Women	Advertisement
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Boosted by increased national standing, he went on to win election to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 with a landslide 70% of the vote in an election year marked by Republican gains. "Lugar-Obama" expands the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines. In the fall of 2002, during an anti-war rally at Chicago's Federal Plaza, Obama said: I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. " He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known.

Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious people, saying, "if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at—to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own—we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. " Expressing a similar view, New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch wrote: "When black Americans refer to Obama as 'one of us,' I do not know what they are talking about. On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive. Born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive. The New York Times described Obama as "the prize catch of the midterm campaign" because of his campaigning for fellow Democratic Party members running for election in the 2006 midterm elections.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. Obama took an active role in the Senate's drive for improved border security and immigration reform. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia.

In a nationally televised speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke forcefully on the influence of ethnic rivalries and corruption in Kenya.