Ghanaians sporting Barack Obama hats and T-shirts and holding portraits of the US president danced through the streets of the capital Accra early yesterday in anticipation of his arrival on a landmark visit to the country.
Obama was due to arrive in Ghana late yesterday on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since being elected president.
Despite tight security, which saw some 10,000 police deployed across the seaside capital, residents drummed and gyrated in the streets, with many dancing to a song about Obama composed by a radio presenter known as Black Rasta.
Street vendors did brisk trade in Obama memorabilia from keyrings and coffee mugs to huge colorful umbrellas with Obama and Ghanaian President John Atta-Mills’ portraits emblazoned on them.
From as early as 8am, police blocked off some of the major roads including the airport road, from ordinary motorists.
During his 24-hour visit, Obama and his wife Michelle were due to tour Cape Coast Castle, one of Africa’s biggest former slave trading posts.
Authorities in Cape Coast, a town some 160km west of Accra, even banned all funerals this weekend on account of Obama’s visit.
Before leaving Italy for Ghana yesterday, Obama was to meet Pope Benedict XVI for the first time, with their talks expected to both areas of agreement such as foreign policy and those that divide them, notably abortion.
Obama “recognizes that this is much more than your typical state visit,” his aide Denis McDonough said in L’Aquila, Italy, where a three-day G8 summit was winding up.
“There are issues on which they’ll agree, issues on which they’ll disagree, and issues on which they’ll agree to continue to work on going forward,” McDonough said.
Vatican expert John Allen said the two share a long list of common views: “There’s foreign policy, Islam, the environment, the poor, health care, and on and on.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS