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US leader stands accused of the same bullying he himself denounced on eve of African trip. President Barack Obama’s cajoling of Kenyan leaders to accept “LGBT rights” has met with a notable backlash from African bishops and other state and religious leaders, with one African bishop drawing attention to the hypocrisy of Obama's LGBT agenda. Obama arrived in Kenya for a two-day visit on Friday, his first visit to his father’s homeland as US president, before heading to Ethiopia on Sunday for a one-day visit. At a joint press conference held with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday, Obama...

President Barack Obama on Saturday lectured Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta about his country's gay rights record. "When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode," Obama said at a joint press conference with the Kenyan leader in Nairobi. "And bad things happen." Under Kenyan law, sexual activity between men is illegal and punishable with a maximum imprisonment of 14 years. Obama equated legalized discrimination of gays to legalized racism in America. "And when a government gets in a habit of...

The White House has shrugged off demands by some leaders that President Barack Obama steers clear of support for gay rights while in Kenya on July 25. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that Obama was not expected to back away from addressing any particular tropic while in Kenya. He was answering a question on the matter while addressing journalists during a daily briefing at the White House on Tuesday. "I had not been made aware of that particular announcement from Kenya. Obviously, we have been clear that when the President travels around the world, he does not hesitate...

Obama on Kenya: There's a reason my name is Barack Hussein Obama"This is personal for me," Obama said. "There's a reason why my name is Barack Hussein Obama."

NAIROBI, Kenya – President Barack Obama and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta sparred over support for gay rights here Saturday, with Obama urging fast changes and Kenyatta saying it was not something Kenyan culture or society would “accept.” Linking LGBT discrimination in Africa to the history of Jim Crow laws in America, Obama said ensuring gay rights must be a priority on a continent — and in a country — where bias against gays is accepted, and violence against gays is common. Standing by Obama’s side at a joint press conference here in front of the Kenyan state house, Kenyatta repeated...

President Barack Obama on Saturday lectured Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta about his country's gay rights record. "When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode," Obama said at a joint press conference with the Kenyan leader in Nairobi. "And bad things happen." Under Kenyan law, sexual activity between men is illegal and punishable with a maximum imprisonment of 14 years. Many Kenyan leaders had encouraged Obama not to discuss gay rights on his first trip to the country as President....

President Obama said he will voice support for gay rights during his Friday trip to Africa, despite warnings from some leaders to steer clear of the issue. In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Obama said he has delivered a "blunt" message on gay rights to African leaders in the past and the topic will be "front and center" when he visits Kenya and Ethiopia.

US president’s visit to land of his father has sparked Obama-mania, but critics question decision to meet Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopia’s authoritarian regime

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama voiced strong support for gay rights in Africa on Thursday as he began a trip to the continent, bucking calls from some African leaders to keep his views on such controversial issues to himself. Obama, who departed Washington late Thursday for a trip to Kenya and Ethiopia, had faced criticism from rights groups and growing calls to press the issue aggressively while in a region known for a bleak record on human rights. In an interview with the BBC, Obama said he had been "blunt" with African leaders about gay rights in the past...

President Barack Obama departed for Kenya on Thursday, his first trip to his father's homeland as U.S. president, kicking off a swing through Africa that will also include a stop in Ethiopia. Obama, the first black U.S. president, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. He traveled to Kenya as a U.S. senator but has not gone since winning the White House.

... "Welcome Home Sir..." says a message on a fake cake (made of Styrofoam) with red, white and blue icing in a display case at the cafe. A large cardboard cutout of Obama sits at the entrance. Ngugi led an Associated Press reporter to an upstairs table where she said Obama sat many years ago, before he was a public figure and when the restaurant was called Green Corner. ...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- President Barack Obama heads to Kenya this week for a global economic summit. It will be Obama's first visit as president to his father's homeland. While some hope the trip will bring closer ties between our two countries, there's one subject many Kenyans don't want the president to talk about: gay rights and same-sex marriage. The streets are already buzzing in anticipation of his arrival, with polls showing Obama enjoys widespread popularity among Kenyans. "I think this is a guy who really appreciates his roots," said one resident of the capital city. "Because he is our brother,...

A little-known party has sought permission to show US President Barack Obama the differences between a man and a woman through a nude protest. The peaceful demonstration against homosexuality will begin at 10 am at the Freedom Corner, on July 22 and 23, said Republican Liberty party leader Vincent Kidala. "The procession shall be carried out by approximately 5,000 totally naked men and women to protest over Obama's open and aggressive support for homosexuality," Kidala said in a letter to the county commander on Monday.

Hundreds of Kenyan pastors have had enough of President Barack Obama’s aggressive push for African nations to forsake their religious convictions and fully embrace homosexual behavior and same-sex “marriage.”The Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, comprised of 700 pastors, welcomes Obama to visit their nation this summer — provided he stop pressuring Kenyans to forsake their religious convictions by endorsing the homosexual lifestyle. “President Barack Obama is welcome to visit Kenya this summer — but please, leave the preaching to us,” the ecumenical coalition of religious leaders proclaimed. Bishop Mark Kariuki, a megachurch pastor who advises some 700 pastors as the leader...

Nairobi - US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Kenya on Sunday for talks on security co-operation and ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to his late father's home country. The trip to the east African nation is the first high-level visit since 2012, and comes after a year of tensions surrounding Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta being charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The ICC has since abandoned the case against Kenyatta over his role in the 2007-2008 post-election violence, citing a lack of evidence and Kenya's failure to cooperate - somewhat removing Kenyatta's...

Militants say they have released all Muslims but are "holding many Christians alive" after storming a university in Kenya. Hostages have been taken by masked terrorists who have killed at least 70 people after storming a university in eastern Kenya, the country's interior minister said. Two police officers are among the dead following heavy gunfire and explosions in a campus building at Garissa University. At least 79 others have been wounded. Interior minister Joseph Nkaissery claimed the siege was almost over. "We are mopping up the area," he told reporters. Somalia's al Shabaab militant group has claimed responsibility for the...

The height of the Ebola outbreak in Africa, Europe, and the United States also coincided with a period in which the Obama administration came under the heaviest scrutiny over its response to that health crisis. Amid criticism, President Barack Obama rejected calls from lawmakers to impose some travel restrictions on the areas affected by Ebola, but he did say his administration was open to appointing one figure to oversee his government’s response to the crisis. Days later, Obama appointed Ron Klain, a long-time Democratic political operative and veteran of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s presidential campaigns, to serve as...

Monrovia - Six U.S. military planes arrived in the Ebola hot zone Thursday with more Marines, as West Africa's leaders pleaded for the world's help in dealing with "a tragedy unforeseen in modern times." "Our people are dying," Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma lamented by videoconference at a World Bank meeting in Washington. He said other countries are not responding fast enough while children are orphaned and infected doctors and nurses are lost to the disease. Alpha Conde of Guinea said the region's countries are in "a very fragile situation." "This disease is today an international threat and deserves...

Since the eighties, our military has been shrinking. This is deliberate. It's not about saving money or new technology making so many military bases unnecessary(I believe these were a couple of the excuses they used when they closed all those bases) Now they're sending our best to the ebola hellhole in Africa. How many of these elite forces have the special training needed to carry out their mission safely? I believe obola has something really bad planned for his last days in office. Something so evil that our military might finally rise up and deal with it. People say obola...

Only a small number of highly trained U.S. troops among the thousands bound for West Africa will have direct contact with potential Ebola patients, military leaders said Tuesday. Those soldiers will be posted at testing labs to help identify people showing Ebola-like symptoms. They “meet the highest level of standards” and are already trained to deal with major crises, including nuclear disasters, said U.S. Army Gen. David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Rodriguez also pledged during a Pentagon news conference that the 4,000 service members deployed to the ravaged region will be kept safe — and won’t...