Editor's note: Eileen Pollack is director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan and taught Uwem Akpan, author of "Say You Are One of Them." Akpan's book is the choice of the Oprah Book Club, which will be discussed November 9 at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.com Live or Oprah.com.

Uwem Akpan and Eileen Pollack at a holiday dinner.

Eileen Pollack
Special to CNN

Even among the hundreds of applications, this one stood out. Most applicants to creative writing programs submit stories about the angst of their suburban childhoods. This writer's stories concerned the daily ordeals of a boy living with his family on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, and the horrific plight of a Rwandan girl whose mother is Tutsi and father Hutu.

Not only did the applicant have what writers call "material," he was blessed with an uncanny ear for human speech and the poetry to describe his characters' very unpoetic lives.

I can still remember the young Kenyan boy watching his mother decant the glue she intends to sniff. The glue, the boy tells us, "glowed warm and yellow in the dull light," and when his mother had poured enough, "she cut the flow of the glue by tilting the tin up. The last stream of gum entering the bottle weakened and braided itself before tapering in midair like an icicle."

Still, this applicant gave us pause. The writer had so much to say, he seemed to be trying to channel a raging waterfall through the tiny funnels of two short stories. His use of punctuation was idiosyncratic, to say the least. And the applicant was a priest!

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Somali military recruiters are enlisting men from Kenya's Dadaab camps say Human Rights Watch. The Dadaab refugee complex is the largest of its kind in the world.

Moni Basu
CNN

A global human rights group is urging Kenya to stop Somali military recruiters from enlisting displaced men and boys in Kenya's sprawling Dadaab refugee camps to fight in their war against Islamic militants.

"Recruitment of fighters in refugee camps undermines their very purpose, which is to be a place of refuge from conflict," said Letta Tayler, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, who spent a week interviewing refugees for the group's Thursday report about the practice. "The boys and men who are in these camps risked their lives to flee. Now they're being asked to return to that."

She said allowing recruiters to enlist young refugees in a new force intended to fight on behalf of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government is a violation of U.N. regulations that govern refugee camps.

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Program Note: Tune in tonight for an exclusive AC360º dispatch to watch Anderson Cooper's full report on the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations estimates that 200,000 women and girls have been raped in the Congo.

from Oxfam International

The five-year war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which involved the armies of five other countries, officially ended in 2003 and democratic elections were held in 2006. However, fighting involving a plethora of armed groups continues, especially in the east of this mineral-rich country. Throughout all this conflict it is the civilians who continue to suffer the most.

The DRC has the world's largest peacekeeping force, totaling some 17,000 personnel. But they struggle to maintain security in a country the size of Western Europe with a population of 60 million.

Fighting was fuelled by the DRC’s tremendous mineral resources and by the flow of small arms into the country.

- Humanitarian crisis -

Since the war started in 1997, an estimated 4 million people have died from violence, hunger and disease as a result of the conflict, and 2.5 million have been made homeless – 1.5 million displaced within the DRC’s borders and one million forced to flee to neighboring countries.

Read more...

After Congo, the secretary of state will travel to Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

CNN

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought an offer of help Tuesday for victims, especially victims of sexual violence, of Africa's longest war, a regional conflict that's dragged on for more than a decade.

Clinton on Monday delivered a blunt message to Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito of the Democratic Republic of Congo when he hosted a dinner in her honor.

"There must be an end to widespread financial corruption and abuses of human rights and women's rights," she said. "There must be an improvement in governance and the respect for the rule of law."

She also called for "changes in the business climate, changes in the rules and regulations that involve contracts and the protection of property" to promote foreign investment.

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Top diplomat Hillary Clinton speaks at the African Growth and Opportunity conference in Nairobi Thursday.

Charles Kenny
The Root

Not in the slightest. It's true that some countries in the region are as poor as England under William the Conqueror, but that doesn't mean Africa's on the verge of doomsday. How many serfs had a cellphone? More than 63 million Nigerians do.

Millions travel on buses and trucks across the continent each year, even if the average African road is still fairly bumpy. The list of modern technologies now ubiquitous in the region also includes cement, corrugated iron, steel wire, piping, plastic sheeting and containers, synthetic and cheap cotton clothing, rubber-soled shoes, bicycles, butane, paraffin candles, pens, paper, books, radios, televisions, vaccines, antibiotics, and bed nets.

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Anderson with Dr. Nathan Wolfe, a virus hunter who has published new research about the origins of Malaria.

Program Note: Posted below is the latest article from Dr. Nathan Wolfe, a virus hunter who believes he has discovered how humans first contracted Malaria. One of the world's deadliest diseases, Malaria claims the lives of more than 1 million people a year, most of whom are children. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will have a full report on the study and Dr. Wolfe will join us on AC360° tonight at 10p ET.

Dr. Nathan D. Wolfe et al.
Global Viral Forecasting Initiative

The distinguished anthropologist Frank B. Livingstone conjectured that P. falciparum may have been acquired by a transfer to humans of a chimpanzee parasite. The plausibility of Livingstone’s hypothesis was based on the supposition that, as humans developed increasingly larger agricultural societies, they encroached upon the dwindling forest habitats of species such as the chimpanzee, and so there may have been repeated opportunities for horizontal transfer.

Today, human encroachment into the last forest habitats has further extended, leading to a higher risk of transfer of new pathogens, including new malaria parasites. Our results confirm Livingstone’s conjecture and, moreover, suggest that the world’s extant populations of P. falciparum derive from a single transfer of P. reichenowi from chimpanzees to humans.

How and when did the host transfer occur? A hypothesis proposed in the past was that the ancestors of P. falciparum would have been transferred from another host to humans as our Neolithic ancestors transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists some 10,000 years ago. This proposal was based on anthropological information about the history of our species, but also on the estimated age of hemoglobin mutants that render humans resistant to malaria infection.

Click here to read the rest of the article...

Researchers compared malaria DNA from infected chimps in Cameroon and Ivory Coast with human malaria.

Stephanie Smith
CNN Medical Producer

Nathan Wolfe is a hunter, but he doesn't carry a gun. His prey are invisible to the naked eye.

Wolfe leads expeditions into the mysterious world of viruses and pathogens.

"They are everywhere," said Wolfe, a microbiologist who speaks of his targets - infectious organisms - with the giddy lilt of a teenager on a first date. "We have the potential to explore a completely new biological world and go out and really find new things all the time."

One bug has been Wolfe's singular obsession for more than a decade, arguably the biggest menace to humans: malaria.

"If you think about HIV virus as a singular hurricane event, malaria is like the hurricane that's been hitting for thousands of years - constantly," said Wolfe, who heads a research institute called the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative.

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Sec. Clinton will begin a week-long visit to nations throughout Africa tomorrow.

Jill Dougherty
CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is embarking on her biggest international trip yet: Africa. Seven countries in eleven days. Issues as diverse as economic entrepreneurship and gender-based violence.

The trip comes just three weeks after President Obama’s trip to Accra, Ghana and Secretary Clinton will highlight many of the themes he struck. The State Department notes it’s the earliest trip by a Secretary of State and a President to Africa of any previous administration. In an administration that prides itself on a plethora of “priorities,” officials say they are putting Africa toward the top of the list.

The Secretary begins her trip in Nairobi, Kenya at the U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum, delivering a speech at the forum’s ministerial opening ceremony.

In Kenya she plans to meet with President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, encouraging them to proceed with their intention to rewrite the country’s constitution. The country was hit with a wave of violence two and a half years ago following flawed presidential elections.

Also in Kenya she will meet briefly with Somalia’s president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

His country is under intense pressure from an Islamist extremist movements affiliated with Al Qaeda of al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam.

On her next stop, South Africa, she will meet with the country’s new leader, President Jacob Zuma, and the Foreign Minister. Top of the agenda for the country, under severe economic pressure, are the crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe and HIV/AIDS.

The State Department describes her next destination, Angola, as a country with “enormous economic potential.” Angola is one of the largest energy producers in Sub-Saharan Africa and is a major supplier of both petroleum and LNG to the U.S. market.

There are some trouble spots on the Secretary’s trip and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of them. For more than 15 years, eastern Congo was torn by civil strife and massive use of rape. Secretary Clinton will meet with some of the victims of that violence to underscore the United States’ commitment ending gender-based violence.

In Nigeria Secretary Clinton will see what the State Department calls “probably the most important country in Sub-Saharan Africa.” With 140 million people, it is a major source of petroleum imports for the United States.

The Secretary will discuss with the Nigerian Government security in West Africa, democratic development, fighting corruption and promoting economic development.

In Liberia, founded by slaves from the United States, Secretary Clinton will reaffirm U.S. support for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the only female African president. Besieged by violent conflict for 20 years, Liberia, still fragile, now is strengthening its democracy and Clinton will highlight development assistance.

Last stop:  Cape Verde, which the State department calls “an African success story,” Secretary Clinton will see a country democratically run and well managed.

In its briefings for reporters on Clinton’s African trip, the State Department has not specifically stressed human rights although, as with other parts of the world, it links development and human rights.

Amnesty International Executive Director Larry Cox, in a letter to Secretary of State Clinton, is urging her to discuss human rights concerns with the African leaders she will meet this week.  "Failure to discuss human rights abuses in a meaningful way,” he says, “would send the wrong signal about the seriousness with which the United States views the human rights situation in those countries.”

China has launched a broad economic outreach to Africa,. Asked whether Clinton’s trip is a way of sending a message to Beijing, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson says “Our presence there has nothing to do with anyone else’s operations on the continent.  The mention of our colleagues from Asia is a Cold War paradigm, not a reflection of where we are today.”

Evaluating the prospects for Secretary Clinton’s African trip, the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS)  J. Stephen Morrison says Clinton “may be signaling through the scope and timing of her trip that Africa has graduated into a mainstream U.S. foreign policy priority and that she intends to guide U.S. policy.  That would be a significant shift,” Morrison says, and a very welcome change – if sustained.”

Obama points to the Door of No Return, which would shut before Africans were put on slave ships.

Wayne Drash
CNN

President Obama slowly walked across the grounds of Cape Coast Castle, a slave outpost in Ghana where hundreds of thousands of Africans were shipped as human cargo to a life of bondage in the United States, South America and the Caribbean.

"You almost feel as if the walls can speak. You try to project yourself into these incredibly harrowing moments," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

When the president reached the "Door of No Return," an arched gateway with thick doors that would shut behind African men, women and children before they were forced onto slave ships, Obama looked out over the Atlantic Ocean where waves crashed onto rocks. "Obviously there's a sense of what a profound sorrow must've been felt as people were hauled off into the great unknown," he said.

What does he tell his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, about slavery?

Keep reading...

Editor's Note: An article in Thursday's New York Times details recent findings about Michelle Obama's genealogical roots.  Genealogist Tony Burroughs previously wrote this post for us about the challenges associated with tracing our roots and how professionals are working to better understand our collective histories.

Burroughs Family Photo, Chattanooga, Tennessee 1889. Pictured standing, left to right: Morris Burroughs; Malachias Williams; UNK; Samuel P. Johnson. Seated in the front row are: Robert Elliott Burroughs (baby); Mary Jane Lillie Williams Burroughs; & Martha Williams.

Tony Burroughs
Professional Genealogist and Author

Many African Americans have longed to know their African roots, especially because our language and heritage have been destroyed by colonizers.

Historians have long documented that large numbers of Blacks were brought from different areas in Africa to what is now the United States. But in genealogy research, researchers have to prove the identity of specific individuals, and then document and prove relationships of them to their ancestors.

Genealogical proof is similar to that required in a probate court where relatives of the deceased have to be identified in order to distribute assets of the deceased. But the Board for Certification of Genealogists actually has a higher standard of proof for genealogy than a probate court.

There are several challenges to connect one’s ancestral genealogy back to Africa. Here’s why:

Identifying slave owners
One of the most difficult challenges in African American genealogy is to positively identify the last slave owner. This is essential for researching the slavery period. Unfortunately most researchers assume they are looking for an owner with the same surname as their ancestor. That led me astray for 20 years. It was only after I realized the name was probably different that I finally located the right person.

Tracing slaves with only a first name
So much of genealogy is contingent upon knowing an ancestor ’s first and last names. This is why women are often so challenging to research because they replace their maiden name with their married name. With African Americans, the vast majority of enslaved people are only listed in owner’s records with a first name. It is difficult enough trying to prove someone is your ancestor, and not just someone with the same name. There were many people with the same first and last names, even in small communities. So the challenge of identifying individuals with only first names is monumental.

Scarcity of slave records
There are probably tens of thousands of slave records. However, finding the ones for your individual ancestor often depends on luck. The odds are better if your ancestor lived on a plantation. But what most people don’t realize is that only 50 percent of enslaved people lived on plantations. The other 50 percent worked in mines, factories, offices or small family farms.

Most slave ship records don’t include names
Europeans came from Europe to America and are listed by names on ship passenger lists, records at Ellis Island, and records where they boarded vessels in Europe. Very few such records exist for Africans, who were treated as cargo during the Middle Passage. There are names of Africans listed on some of the vessels captured during the illegal slave trade after 1807, but good luck transforming an African name to an American name.

It’s not all about sources
Part of the challenge of African American genealogy is methodology – how do you research African American genealogy? The process is sometimes similar to standard American genealogy, but many times it differs. Ancestors must be placed into historical context and myths have to be destroyed to achieve genealogical success.

When I discovered my enslaved ancestor did not use the same surname of his last slave owner, I discovered I was not alone. I learned this was actually more common. To solve the problem, I came up with new techniques to researching African American genealogy.

Despite the challenges, the future holds promise
There are some historical and genealogical sources of African origins. Currently, the best source of African origins are for African Americans with roots in Colonial Louisiana. Retired Rutgers University history professor Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall identified records for 100,000 enslaved peoples in Louisiana, many of which indicate their native African country and tribe, and 10,000 list their African name along side their American slave name. These are now digitized and on the web. However, genealogists have to advance their genealogy research to the colonial period to take advantage of these records, and hope their ancestors didn’t migrate to New Orleans from the Chesapeake region.

Some slave owners took note of a slave’s ethnicity or country of origin when listing him or her in a runaway slave notice. Thousands of newspapers are currently being digitized. Additionally, ten million handwritten pages of Spanish records are being digitized, some of which are 500 years old and contain information on slaves from Africa.

And lastly, new records are continually being discovered, catalogued, transcribed, and digitized. In spite of what some have said, the paper trail never ends. Many are unaware of the vast amount of records that exist, and the scarcity of those that are digitized or even catalogued. One institution alone, the National Archives, has only 125,000 scanned images on their website out of 4 billion documents in their collection. That's one page for every 34,000 documents. It lets you know what you are missing if you limit your search to the internet alone.

The National Archives has another 85 million electronic records from databases on their website, but these are out of 10 billion electronic records, and none of these are scanned images or photographs. Private companies are now digitizing records from the National Archives. So genealogists will be able to do things in the future they can’t do now.

Even if you don’t get your family tree back to Africa, the genealogical journey is fun, exciting, filled with information, and richly rewarding.

Through my own research I’ve met dozens of new relatives and scanned thousands of photos and documents of ancestors I’d never seen. I learned of an ancestor who was president of a county bar association, one who attended Spelman College in 1885, four years after the school was founded. I learned about a Pullman Porter who organized porters 24 years before A. Philip Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. There was also a relative who was one of the few Blacks to fight with Commodore Oliver Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie. Several more fought in the Civil War, as well as some who were cooks, farmers, barbers, and bank robbers.

All have made me who I am. I stand on their shoulders and I am forever indebted to their hard work and sacrifice.

Editor's Note: Tony Burroughs taught genealogy at Chicago State University for 15 years and is the author "Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree" (Simon & Schuster). He was a guest expert in the television documentaries Remembering Roots; (BBC); The Real Family of Jesus (The Discovery Channel); African American Lives; Oprah’s Roots and Ancestors (all PBS). Find more about his work here.Edit

Editor's Note: African Americans moving back to Africa choose to relocated to Ghana more than any other country on the continent. Tonight on AC360°, we talk with African Americans who have moved back to Ghana to hear their stories.

Program Note: The first African-American President visited Ghana this past week and Anderson Cooper tagged along for the journey. Here are a few snapshots from the trip. For more on the President's historic visit, tune in to AC360° tonight 10p ET.

AC360°

Anderson shooting a segment in Ghana.

President Obama and Anderson talk during their sit-down interview.

Anderson talks with Mrs. Imahkus Okofo, who used to live in the United States, at a former Slave Fortress on the Cape Coast of Ghana ahead of President Obama's visit to Ghana.

Anderson bends down to look at a poster welcoming President Obama to Ghana.

Anderson shoots a segment on the Cape Coast of Ghana.

Anderson and President Obama talk on the grounds of the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.

Anderson walks by a parade celebrating the appointment of a new official on the Cape Coast of Ghana.

A Somali rebel points a heavy machine gun in the direction of government forces July 3.

David McKenzie
CNN

Amid worsening conflict in Somalia, the country's president made a plea for Somalis living in the United States to stop sending their young men to fight.

"I call on the Somali-American community not to send their youth to Somalia to fight alongside al-Shabaab," President Sheik Sharif Ahmed said on Sunday.

He was referring to the militant group that is waging a brutal war against his administration in Mogadishu.

"I am saying to those young men from abroad: 'Your families fled your home to America because of insecurity. You should not return here to ferment violence against your people,'" he said.

Somalis began arriving in the United States in significant numbers after the U.S. intervention in Somalia's humanitarian crisis in 1992.

A sizable group of young Somali-American men left Minneapolis last year and were feared recruited by al-Shabaab.

In October, Shirwa Ahmed, 27, a Somali-American who had been radicalized by al-Shabaab in his adopted home state of Minnesota, traveled to Somalia and blew up himself and 29 others.

The incident - the first-ever suicide bombing by a naturalized U.S. citizen - raised red flags throughout the U.S. intelligence community.

The president's call came after fresh fighting erupted Sunday between Somalia's transitional government forces and Islamist rebels.

According to several witness accounts, AMISOM - the African Union Mission to Somalia - supported government forces to push back al-Shabaab as the militia attacked the presidential palace.

AMISOM tanks and soldiers were involved in the fighting, according to witnesses.

"The sound of heavy artillery in Mogadishu was very loud and continuous," a witness told CNN. "It was shaking the ground, and many buildings were destroyed by the shelling."

The president called the operation "a clear victory" against al-Shabaab.

"Our forces have weakened the strength of the al-Shabaab militia in this fighting," Ahmed said.

Government forces displayed the bodies of five al-Shabaab fighters in their trademark green uniforms.

Al-Shabaab, a group that is on the U.S. government's terror watch list, remains entrenched in the northeast and sections of the south of the capital.

The group categorized the involvement of AMISOM as a shift in their attempts to overthrow the transitional government.

"The fighting in Mogadishu has entered a new phase. Now it's between us and AMISOM," said Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for al-Shabaab. "AMISOM was backing up the government directly, but we will keep fighting."

Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and sparked brutal clan infighting.

The transitional government has struggled to establish authority, challenged by Islamist groups that have seized control of Mogadishu and much of the south.

The United Nations estimates that more than 200,000 people have been forced to flee Mogadishu since the latest round of fighting began in early May between the government and the Al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam groups.

The Somali-American population in the United States is now concentrated in clusters primarily in Minneapolis; Columbus, Ohio; Seattle, Washington; and San Diego, California.

The potential recruitment of young Somali-American men has been made possible by "a number of factors that come together when a dynamic, influential and extremist leader gains access to a despondent and disenfranchised group of young men," Andrew Liepman, deputy director for intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center, said earlier this year.

Many refugees, he said, "lack structure and definition in their lives" and are "torn between their parents' traditional tribal and clan identities, and the new cultures and traditions offered by American society."

Program Note: President Obama makes his first official trip to Ghana today. He is the first African-American President to visit the African continent. Anderson sits down with President in Ghana to talk about the significance of his trip and the President's own African history. Tune in tonight for more from Anderson next week for the interview. AC360°, 10 p.m. ET.

Charlie Moore
AC360° Senior Broadcast Producer

These pictures were taken at the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, which was used in the trans-Atlantic slave as the final departure point for slaves bound for the western hemisphere. Thousands of slaves were held in the dungeons of the castle before being transferred to boats. More on the slave trade next week during our special, "President Obama's African Journey."

The courtyard of the Cape Coast Castle.

The "door of no return." Slaves would exit this door and board ships bound for the western hemisphere.

The castle was fortified from attack.

Fishing boats just outside castle on the coast of Ghana.

Anderson explores Ghana and the 'door of no return' tonight on 360º.

Anna Duning
AC360º Intern

Anderson is in Ghana where President Obama arrived just a couple hours ago. Tomorrow, Anderson will sit down with the President for an exclusive interview. Tonight, we’ll look at why Mr. Obama chose to visit the West African nation. Anderson joins us from the capital city Accra to share the excitement on the streets. And, he’ll take us inside a centuries-old trading post, a dark and eerie place where African slaves were kept before being shipped across the Atlantic.

We also have new developments on the Michael Jackson death investigation. A friend of Michael Jackson for 30 years says the singer was so weak and frail, he shouldn’t have had to prepare for 50 sold-out concerts in London. Concert prompter AEG says Jackson passed a five-hour medical exam. The friend is also sharing new details on what he says was Jackson’s addiction to prescription drugs.

And, we have a 360º follow from Gary Tuchman. He’s traveled to a small town in Mexico where two Americans who were members of polygamist sect have been shot and killed by drug cartels this week. The victims’ families share their emotional story. They talk about how 25 commandoes in camouflage ran up to their house - and the chaos and heartache that followed.

Also tonight, Dr. Sanjay Gupta teams up with activist and lawyer Erin Brockovich for a stunning report out of a small town in Tennessee. In December, one billion gallons of oil mixed with toxic sludge spilled over 300 acres. It’s the largest environmental disaster in U.S. Yes, bigger than the Exxon Valdez disaster. Who’s to blame? And, what’s being done to clean up the mess? We’re keeping them honest.

From Ghana to L.A. to Mexico to Tennessee, we give you a 360º view of the world tonight. See you at 10pm ET!

President Obama says he chose Ghana partly because of the country's commitment to democracy.

CNN

President Barack Obama was due in Ghana Friday, generating excitement in the west African nation and envy among its neighbors with many seeing his visit as sending a message to governments over their poor records on stability.

Across Ghana, street vendors were stocking miniature American flags while citizens donned attire with pictures of the U.S. leader.

"People in Ghana are printing clothes for this occasion," said Adrian Landry, general manager of a beach hotel in the capital, Accra.

"The fact that his father is African and he picked us makes us special," he said. "He is endorsing our strong democracy in Ghana. This is historic."

The president's visit to the nation is the third by a sitting American leader. Bill Clinton was the first U.S. president to visit Ghana in 1998 as part of a six-nation Africa tour. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, stopped there as part of a four-nation Africa tour during his last year of office.

Keep reading...

President Obama says he chose Ghana partly because of the country's commitment to democracy.

Editor's Note: To watch Anderson's interview with President Obama in Ghana, tune in to AC360° on Monday night at 10p ET.

Bono
For the New York Times

Imminent. About now, actually.

Soon, Air Force One will touch down in Accra, Ghana; Africans will be welcoming the first African-American president. Press coverage on the continent is placing equal weight on both sides of the hyphen.

And we thought it was big when President Kennedy visited Ireland in 1963. (It was big, though I was small. Where I come from, J.F.K. is remembered as a local boy made very, very good.)

But President Obama’s African-ness is only part (a thrilling part) of the story today. Cable news may think it’s all about him — but my guess is that he doesn’t. If he was in it for a sentimental journey he’d have gone to Kenya, chased down some of those dreams from his father.

He’s made a different choice, and he’s been quite straight about the reason. Despite Kenya’s unspeakable beauty and its recent victories against the anopheles mosquito, the country’s still-stinging corruption and political unrest confirms too many of the headlines we in the West read about Africa. Ghana confounds them.

Keep reading...

Program Note: President Barack Obama travels to Ghana this weekend and Anderson will sit down with him in Ghana's captial, Accra, for an exclusive interview. Tune in to AC360º at 10 P.M. et Monday to watch the interview and for full coverage of the President's trip.

President Obama will travel to Ghana for two days after the G8 Summit.

Charles Cobb Jr., Tami Hultman and Reed Kramer
AllAfrica

"Lifting up successful models" of democracy in Africa encourages more democracy on the continent, President Barack Obama told AllAfrica Thursday, explaining why he chose the West African nation of Ghana as the first sub-Saharan African country he would visit next week as President of the United States.

"Countries that are governed well…where leadership recognizes that they are accountable to the people and that institutions are stronger than any one person have a track record of producing results for the people", the president said. Ghana's new president, John Atta Mills, has demonstrated "the kinds of democratic commitments that ensure stability in a country. And we want to highlight that."

The pace of progress to good governance is uneven, Mr. Obama acknowledged. "In my father's own country of Kenya, I'm concerned about how political parties do not seem to be moving into a permanent reconciliation that would allow the country to move forward. And Kenya is not alone."

Africa is a place of "extraordinary promise," Obama told AllAfrica, but is "not going to to be able to fulfill those promises unless we see better governance."

Read more...