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Ghana Awaits Obama བོད་སྐད།
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By Scott Stearns
Accra
10-07-2009
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| U.S. President Barack Obama announce climate change
agreements at the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy, 09 Jul
2009 | U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Ghana
Friday on his first visit to Sub-Saharan Africa as president.
More than
10,000 plain-clothed and uniformed police are on duty across the Ghanian
capital, Accra, to maintain security during the president's visit.
Mr.
Obama meets with President John Atta Mills Friday after an official welcome at
the airport. They are joined for breakfast Saturday by former Ghanian leaders
John Kufuor and Jerry Rawlings.
Ghana has had five successive democratic
elections since 1992. President Obama says he is making Ghana his first stop in
Sub-Saharan Africa because he wants to highlight the achievements of stable
countries that are governed well, where leadership is accountable to the people
and institutions are stronger than any one person.
"Ghana is a bastion of
good governance, and he realizes that there are certain shocks to our system,
you know. And that we have some way to go before we can imbed it completely
within it in our culture," said Betty Mould-Iddrissu, Ghana's justice
minister.
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| Street vendor sells US flags to public transport driver
caught in traffic, in central Accra, 09 Jul 2009 | She
says Ghana hopes President Obama's visit will help strengthen justice and good
governance.
"We are not looking for hand-outs. We are looking for
assistance to help our people. And when our country is able to go forward
appropriately, I think that it will be a benefit to America as well to have a
strong ally and a prosperous country in Africa," she said.
There had been
high expectations for President Obama addressing thousands of Ghanians at the
nation's Independence Square. But the start of the rainy season has moved that
speech indoors to a conference center. Mr. Obama and his family will then visit
Cape Coast Castle, from where slaves were shipped across the Atlantic to the
Americas for nearly 300 years.
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