Obama: 'I'm the first Kenyan-American to be president'

 














obama delivers powerful speech to the people of Kenya 02:40

Story highlights

• Obama inspires Kenyan crowd
• 'We are all part of one tribe'

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN)President Barack Obama capped an emotional return to his father's home country of Kenya on Sunday with an impassioned speech that was steeped in pride in his own African heritage.

"I'm the first Kenyan-American to be president of the United States. That goes without saying," Obama said.

Inside a packed Nairobi gymnasium filled with nearly 5,000 cheering Kenyans, Obama offered his own personal history as evidence that all Africans have the potential to rise from even the most difficult circumstances.

"When it comes to the people of Kenya, especially the youth, I believe there is no limit to what you can achieve," Obama said. "You can build your future right here, right now."

Obama also urged nations across Africa to reject the oppression of women, likening the problem to Americans who cling to the Confederate flag, as a symbol of white power.

"Just because something is a tradition doesn't mean it's right," Obama said.

"Treating women as a second-class citizen is a bad tradition. It's holding you back," he added, condemning domestic violence, sexual assault and genital mutilation.

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The president acknowledged he risked offending his Kenyan hosts when he called on the country's leaders to reject ethnic divisions and government corruption.

"I don't want everybody to get too sensitive," Obama told the crowd. "But here in Kenya it's time to change habits," Obama added, calling corruption "an anchor that weighs you down."

Recalling his family's struggles, Obama recounted how his grandfather worked as a cook for the British military. "He was referred to as a boy, even though he was a grown man," Obama said.

But the president pointed to his own family's progress from those humble beginnings.

"What these stories also tell us is about the arc of progress," Obama said. "We have to know our history so that we learn from it."

Obama also vowed the U.S. will intensify its cooperation with the Kenyan government in its ongoing battle against the terrorist group, al Shabaab.

The terror fight was a major subject of Obama's bilateral discussion with Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.

"We will stand shoulder to shoulder with you in this fight against terrorism -- for as long as it takes," Obama said during Sunday's speech.

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The president was introduced to the crowd by his half-sister, Auma Obama, who said her brother "continues to be very attached to us."

She relayed the story of how she picked up a young Obama at the Nairobi airport, during the future president's first trip to Kenya, in an old Volkswagen Beetle, noting that he has returned in the presidential limousine, known as "The Beast."

"He gets us," Auma Obama said. "He's one of us."

Also in the audience, along with members of Congress and U.S. business leaders, was the president's half-brother, Malik Obama, who said he was grateful his powerful sibling "finally came to Kenya" as commander-in-chief.

"This is an important step in uniting everybody and showing the whole world a true sense of brotherhood," Malik Obama said.

Although Obama did not visit his father's village of Kogelo during this visit, the president spent portions of each night in Kenya with relatives.

At a state dinner hosted by Kenya's president Saturday night, Obama described the evening as a "somewhat unusual Obama reunion."

"I suspect that some of my critics back home are suspecting that I'm back here to look for my birth certificate. That's not the case," Obama joked, before dancing and singing with the dinner's attendees.

In his speech to the Kenyan people Sunday, Obama made a concerted effort to weave his own family story into a larger narrative of hope for the African people.

"You are poised to play a bigger role in this world," the president said. "In the end, we are all a part of one tribe, the human tribe."

The president's message on female oppression resonated with Josephine Kulea, a women's rights activist who wore a radiant traditional African dress for the historic speech.

"The things he mentioned are real here and they need to be tackled," said Kulea.

China to lead the world's economy by 2026

China is set to edge ahead of the US in just over a decade, while India is expected to move up the rankings to third place – pushing Japan out of the world's top three economies.



China is expected to overtake the US in 2026 in nominal GDP terms to become the world's largest economy, and will maintain this position until at least 2050 according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
In a new report, Long-term macroeconomic forecasts: Key Trends to 2050, which extends the EIU's economic forecast for 82 countries up to 2050, emerging markets are expected to grow faster than developed economies, and as a result countries such as China and India are likely to overtake current global leaders such as Japan and Western Europe.
The report finds that:
• China is expected to narrowly edge ahead of the US for the first time in 2026, with a nominal GDP of US$28.6trn versus the US's US$28.3trn.
• By 2050, China will boast a GDP of US$105.9trn, compared with the US's US$70.9trn.
• The UK will fall out of the world's top 5 economies by 2026.
• Indonesia and Mexico will rank among the top ten economies at market exchange rates by 2050, overtaking economies such as Italy and Russia.
• Asia will continue its rise and by 2050 will represent 53% of global GDP, compared with from 32% in 2014.



Yet in terms of individual spending power, today's advanced economies are likely to continue to dominate. Emerging economies such as China, India and Indonesia are projected to see levels of consumer spending to rise significantly by 2050, but at best will represent 50% of the individual spending power of an American consumer. Despite their low growth outlook, advanced economies cannot be ignored, as the spending power of consumers in these regions will remain significantly higher.
Patricia Morton, Lead Economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit, comments: "Given China's and India's economic might, they will take on a much bigger role in addressing global issues such as climate change, international security and global economic governance. In the medium term, this will require the world's existing powers – notably the US – to let India, and especially China, play a greater role on the world stage and adapt international institutions to allow them to exert greater influence."

NASA finds the most Earth-like planet yet

NASA has announced the discovery of Kepler-452b, an exoplanet that is near-Earth-size and orbiting the habitable zone of a Sun-like star.

This artist's impression compares Earth (left) to the new planet, Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter (right). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone on the journey to finding “Earth 2.0.”
The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date found inside the habitable zone of a G-type star, like our sun. Today's confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed exoplanets to 1,030.



“On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.”
Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets of this size have a good chance of being rocky.
While Kepler-452b is somewhat larger than Earth, its orbit is remarkably similar, being only 5 percent longer at 385 days. The planet is just 5 percent farther from its parent star than Earth is from our Sun. The star Kepler-452 has the same temperature as our own sun, is around 20 percent brighter and with a diameter 10 percent larger. Its age is estimated at 6 billion years, which is 1.5 billion years older than our sun.
“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment,” said Jon Jenkins, data analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Centre, California. “It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”



In addition to confirming Kepler-452b, the team has increased the number of new exoplanet candidates by 521 from their analysis of observations conducted from May 2009 to May 2013, raising the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696. Candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.
Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one to two times that of Earth, and orbit in their star's habitable zone. Of these, nine orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature.



“We've been able to fully automate our process of identifying planet candidates, which means we can finally assess every transit signal in the entire Kepler dataset quickly and uniformly,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the analysis of a new candidate catalogue. “This gives astronomers a statistically sound population of planet candidates to accurately determine the number of small, possibly rocky planets like Earth in our Milky Way galaxy.”
The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. At the speed of New Horizons, it would take about 25.8 million years to reach there. A research paper reporting NASA's findings has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

A modular vertical city concept

Luca Curci architects studio have presented their "Vertical City" concept, a project proposal for a modular city-building settled in the water.



Italian architecture studio, Luca Curci, has presented "Vertical City" – a project proposal for a vertical city-building settled in the water. The project combines sustainability with population density and aims to be a "zero-energy city-building".
The architects explain how they analysed the contemporary skyscraper, and re-interpreted it as an opened structure, with green areas on each level and more natural light and ventilation. This new interpretation would allow residents to enjoy a healthier lifestyle, in connection with natural elements and improving their local community.



The building's design is based on a modular structural prefabricated element, which is repeatable horizontally as well as vertically. The singular shape of this element creates a 3-D network which sustains every single floor. The structure is surrounded by a membrane of photovoltaic glasses which provide electricity to the whole building and make it energy independent, with any excess solar energy able to be exported to the mainland.
The city-building is completely perforated to permit the circulation of air and light on each level, hosting green areas and vertical gardens. Green zones are spread all over the tower, while meeting and social areas can enhance community life.



The city-building consists of 10 modular layers overlapping. It reaches the height of 750 metres (2,460 ft). With a total volume of 3.8 million cubic metres it can host up to 25,000 people, with green areas encompassing 200,000 square metres, including the public garden square at the top of the building. Each modular and repeatable layer has a diameter of 155 metres (508 ft). The tower has 18 floors, with a mixture of homes, commercial services and other facilities for a large community. Residences have different sizes and shapes for each floor, and they include apartments, duplex and villas.



The building is settled on the sea bottom, with a series of underwater floors that host parking and technical areas, facilities such as spas, mediation centres and gym and luxury hotels rooms with underwater views.
It is possible to reach the Vertical City by water, by land or by air. The circular basement is equipped with external and internal docks and three naval entries: large boats can dock at the external berths, permitting public or private smaller boats only, to navigate in the inner gulf. A connection with the mainland is made possible through a semi-submersed bridge for pedestrians, cars and public electric transports, which connect the land with the basement underwater. The tower also features a heliport connected with the upper garden-square and vertical linking-installations.
The architects conclude that Vertical City is "a modular interpretation of the contemporary city – and possible future."

Global warming update – July 2015

The latest global analysis of temperature data from NOAA shows that the first half of 2015 was the hottest such period on record, at 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20th century average, surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.09°C (0.16°F).



The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released its latest Global Analysis of temperature and climate data. In addition to the warmest six months on record, a number of records were broken for individual months in the first half of 2015 – the Earth experienced its hottest ever February, March, May and June. These warm months, combined with the previous six months, make July 2014 to June 2015 the warmest 12-month period since records began 136 years ago.
Large areas of Earth's land surfaces witnessed higher than average temperatures in June. There was record warmth across the western United States, parts of northern South America, several regions in central to western Africa, central Asia around and to the east of the Caspian Sea, and parts of southeastern Asia. Western Greenland and parts of India and China were cooler than average, and northern Pakistan was much cooler than average.
For the oceans, the June global sea surface temperature was 0.74°C (1.33°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), the highest for June on record, surpassing the previous record set last year by 0.06°C (0.11°F). This also tied with September 2014 as the highest monthly departure from average for any month for the globally-averaged sea surface temperature. Record warmth was observed across the northeastern and equatorial Pacific as well as parts of the equatorial and southern Indian Ocean, various regions of both the North and South Atlantic Ocean, and the Barents Sea to the northeast of Scandinavia. Only part of the North Atlantic between Greenland and the United Kingdom was much cooler than average. 2015 looks set to become the hottest year ever, thanks to the ongoing El Niño, which is clearly seen in the image below and has a strong (80%) chance of persisting into early spring 2016. For comparison, the famous "super El Niño" of 1997-1998 is shown on the left.

The Large Hadron Collider is reactivated

The Large Hadron Collider has been reactivated after a two-year pause, during which upgrades and repairs were taking place. The machine is now able to experiment with higher energies, increasing from 8 to 13 trillion electron volts (TeV).

© CERN

Today, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) started delivering physics data for the first time in 27 months. After a two year shutdown and several months recommissioning, the LHC is now providing collisions to all of its experiments at the unprecedented energy of 13 TeV (6.5 Tev per beam), a more than 50% increase from the collision energy of its first run. This marks the start of season 2 at the LHC, opening the way to new discoveries. The LHC will now run round the clock for the next three years.
"With the LHC back in the collision-production mode, we celebrate the end of two months of beam commissioning," said Frédérick Bordry, CERN Director of Accelerators and Technology. "It is a great accomplishment and a rewarding moment for all of the teams involved in the work performed during the long shutdown of the LHC, in the powering tests and in the beam commissioning process. All these people have dedicated so much of their time to making this happen."
Today at 10.40am local time, the LHC operators declared "stable beams", a signal for the LHC experiments that they can start taking data. Beams are made of "trains" of proton bunches, moving at almost the speed of light around the 27 km ring of the LHC. These so-called bunch trains circulate in opposite directions, guided by powerful superconducting magnets. Today the LHC was filled with 6 bunches each containing around 100 billion protons. This rate will be progressively increased as the run goes on to 2,800 bunches per beam, allowing the LHC to produce up to 1 billion collisions per second.
During the first run of the LHC, the ATLAS and CMS experiments announced the discovery of the so-called Higgs boson, which was the last piece of the puzzle known as the Standard Model, a theory that describes the fundamental particles from which everything visible in the universe is made, along with interactions at work between them.



"The first 3-year run of the LHC, which culminated with a major discovery in July 2012, was only the start of our journey. It is time for new physics!" said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "We have seen the first data beginning to flow. Let's see what they will reveal to us about how our universe works."
With run 2 starting today, physicists have the ambition to further explore the Standard Model and even to find evidence of new physics phenomena beyond its boundaries, which could explain remaining mysteries such as dark matter, believed to make up about a quarter of the universe, or nature's apparent preference for matter over antimatter, without which we would not exist.
Over the two-year shutdown, the four large experiments – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – also went through an important programme of maintenance and improvements in preparation for the new energy frontier.

© CERN

"The collisions we are seeing today indicate that the work we have done in the past two years to prepare and improve our detector has been successful and marks the beginning of a new era of exploration of the secrets of nature," said CMS spokesperson Tiziano Camporesi. "We can hardly express our excitement within the collaboration: this is especially true for the youngest colleagues."
"The successful restart of physics data-taking, with all systems in great shape to collect, process and analyse the new data quickly, is a testament to the commitment and immense hard work of very many people from across ATLAS during the long shutdown," said Dave Charlton, spokesperson for ATLAS. "We are now starting to delve into the new data to see what nature has in store for us at these new unexplored energies."
"All within the collaboration are tremendously excited that the new run has now begun," said LHCb spokesperson Guy Wilkinson. "It will allow us to follow up on puzzles from our run-1 studies, and to probe with higher sensitivity the difference in behaviour between matter and antimatter."
"Proton-proton collisions will provide essential reference data for the run with heavy-ion beams foreseen for the end of the year, in which the LHC will provide both higher energy and luminosity as compared to run 1," said ALICE spokesperson Paolo Giubellino. "In addition, we plan to extend the exploration of the intriguing signals that have emerged from Run 1."
There are plans for even larger experiments in the decades ahead. China is planning a 52 km (32.5 mi) particle accelerator – twice the circumference of the LHC – with construction beginning in 2019 and the first tests in 2028. Meanwhile, a successor to the LHC known as the Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC) with 50 TeV per beam is planned for 2035.

Cost of human missions to the Moon and Mars could be shrunk by a factor of ten

Through private and international partnerships, the cost of colonising other worlds could be reduced by 90 percent, according to a joint study released by the National Space Society and the Space Frontier Foundation and reviewed by an independent team of NASA experts.

The National Space Society (NSS) and Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) have announced their support for NASA’s funding of the newly released NexGen Space study, illustrating how to cut the cost of human space exploration by a factor of 10. The study, “Economic Assessment and Systems Analysis of an Evolvable Lunar Architecture that Leverages Commercial Space Capabilities and Public – Private – Partnerships”, finds that public-private partnerships could return humans to the Moon for approximately 90% less than the previously estimated $100 billion, allowing the United States to ensure national security in a new space age.
“The Space Frontier Foundation supports and recommends public-private partnerships in all proposed human spaceflight programs in order to reduce costs and enable these missions that were previously unaffordable,” said the Space Frontier Foundation’s Chairman of the Board, Jeff Feige. “This is the way that America will settle the final frontier, save taxpayers money and usher in a new era of economic growth and STEM innovation.”



NSS and SFF call attention to these conclusions from the study:

• Through public-private partnerships, NASA could return humans to the surface of the Moon and develop a permanent lunar base with its current human spaceflight budget.
• Mining fuel from lunar poles and transporting it to lunar orbit for use by other spacecraft reduces the cost of sending humans to Mars and other locations beyond low Earth orbit. These commercial fuel depots in lunar orbit have the potential to cut the cost of sending humans to Mars by more than $10 billion per year.

“NSS congratulates NASA for funding the team at NexGen that discovered how such cost reductions are possible,” said Mark Hopkins, the NSS Executive Committee Chair. “A factor of ten reduction in cost changes everything.”
Recent contracts with Boeing and SpaceX are just one example of how partnerships can work and may help with more ambitious projects in the future. The latter spent only $440 million developing its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule, where NASA would have spent $4 billion. SpaceX has also been developing a reusable rocket that aims to dramatically cut launch costs. Extracting and refining resources on the Moon, rather than having them delivered up from Earth to the lunar surface, could save a great deal of money too. There are many other examples of cost-saving measures. Click here to read the executive summary and here to download the full report.