Over to Obama

What do you think of Obama's speech? Read and listen to it here.

My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

Source: Telegraph

Bye bye Bush!

How do you think Bush will go down in history?

What are the images that come to mind when you think about his Presidency?

Here are a few reminders. Watch these videos: Part 1 and Part 2 and have a look at these photos to jog your memory.

Look at this humourous site which celebrates all things Bush.

More Palin revelations

Sarah Palin 'did not know Africa was a continent', say aides

Sarah Palin spent "tens of thousands" more than the quoted $150,000 on clothes for the Republican campaign, met McCain aides in her hotel room dressed in nothing but a towel, and did not know Africa was a continent, according to new reports.

Fox news has reported that Mrs Palin did not understand that Africa was a continent, not a country, and did not know what countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In separate claims made in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine, the Republican vice presidential nominee was reported to have been told to buy three suits for the Republican convention, and to hire a stylist. Instead, she went on a spending spree in upmarket stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

Quoting unnamed sources within the McCain camp, the magazine alleges that most of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who "was shocked when he got the bill."

An angry aide described the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast", and predicted that the truth would eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

The magazine also claimed that Mrs Palin used low ranking staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards, and that up to $40,000 was spent on clothes for her husband Todd.

A number of articles of clothing have been lost, the magazine states.

The disclosures are made in "How He Did It, 2008", in Newsweek's Special Election Project, a behind-the-scenes account of the presidential election produced the day after the polls closed.

The magazine also claims that at the GOP convention in St. Paul, when aides Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her, Ms Palin walked into the room wearing only a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat to Todd, adding: "I'll be just a minute."

Other election revelations include that on the night Hillary Clinton officially lost the Democratic nomination, she enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain.

"Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama," reports the magazine. "Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow. "

Source: The Times

Listen to the telephone conversation between Palin and (who she thought was) Sarkozy.

Before she is confined to the dustbin of history; here is one more chance to admire the interview skills and the foreign policy credentials of Sarah Palin.

USA's Oldest Voter

Profile: Ann Nixon Cooper, 106, singled out for praise by Barack Obama

Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old black voter picked out by Barack Obama as embodying the spirit of his election victory, is an Atlanta housewife who has overcome personal hardship to raise a family and serve her community.

Mr Obama said that of all the millions of voters who had cast their ballot Mrs Nixon Cooper was on his mind, because of the enormous sweep of American history that her long life had witnessed.

"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin," said the president-elect, before a rapturous crowd of more than 125,000 in Chicago's Grant Park.

"And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: 'Yes we can'."

The centenarian was born Ann Louise Nixon on January 9 in 1902 in Shelbyville, Tennessee, one of six siblings. When her mother died the brothers and sisters were split up, and Mrs Nixon Cooper was raised by her aunt.

In 1922 at the age of 20 she married Albert Berry Cooper, a dentist from Nashville, Tennessee. The young couple moved to the city of Atlanta, in Georgia, where for a few months she worked as a policy writer for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, before starting a family.

As her husband's dentist's practice prospered, Mrs Nixon Cooper turned to public work, serving for more than 50 years on the board of the Gate City Nursery Association, and helping to found the Girls Club for African-American Youth in Atlanta.

"At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot," said Mr Obama.

Like other black Americans, Mrs Nixon Cooper would have gained the right to vote a mere 43 years ago, at the age of 63. She was still active in the community, teaching residents to read as part of a tutoring programme at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the 1970s.

In 1980 Mrs Nixon Cooper's contribution to welfare and civil rights was recognised by Atlanta's WXIA-TV which awarded her a community service medal for her activism, working to improve conditions in the African-American community. This was followed in 2002 by the Annie L McPheeters Medallion for community service, awarded by the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History.

"She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome," said Mr Obama.

"A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Mr Obama asked what changes and what progress would his own daughters and their children would see if they should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper.

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment," he said.

"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

Source: The Times

McCain Gaffe

You gotta feel for José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Here the Spanish Prime Minister is only four months from an end to his government's strained relations with that of President George W. Bush and blam! — along comes John McCain to suggest that the next four years might not be any better. During an interview in Miami earlier this week with Spanish-language station Union Radio, a reporter asked McCain whether, if elected, he would receive Zapatero in the White House. McCain answered, "Honestly, I have to analyze our relationships, situations and priorities, but I can assure you that I will establish closer relationships with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to harm the United States."

Ouch. The question about Zapatero came after a series of questions on how McCain sees relations with Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. He said he would not speak to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez "without any sort of preconditions, as Senator Obama has said he would," and said Chávez was "depriving his people of their democratic rights." He judged Bolivia's Evo Morales as "very similar" and also condemned Cuba's Raúl Castro. When the questioner said, "Now let's talk of Spain" and asked whether he'd invite Zapatero, McCain responded with a vague statement that he would meet "with those leaders who are our friends" and then cited Mexican President Felipe Calderón as an example. The questioner tried several more times to steer the Senator back to a clear answer on Spain, but McCain never directly addressed the nation, saying, "What I would say is that my record is that of someone who has worked in a friendly atmosphere with those who are our friends and faced up to those who aren't."

From this, much of the Spanish press has concluded that the Republican candidate, who hails himself as the experienced foreign policy choice in this election, confused Spain — a NATO member and key ally in the fight against terrorism — with one of those troublesome Latin American states. That was certainly the interviewer's impression, for she followed up with a gentle reminder that Spain was a country in Europe. As Spanish newspaper El País put it, "In the best-case scenario, [his answer] demonstrates his ignorance with respect to Zapatero."

Of course, there's a worst-case scenario: that McCain would, if elected, maintain his predecessor's chilly relationship with Spain. Spaniards may, on the whole, revile American politics and American comida de basura (junk food), but they still tend to measure their Prime Minister's international worth by the esteem with which the U.S. President holds him. And so, for the past four years, the Spanish Prime Minister has tried, ever so earnestly, to prove that he's one of the big boys. At every international summit he has tried to maneuver himself into position for a photograph with Bush. The press has breathlessly reported on every perfunctory exchange the two have had. And the much longed-for invitation to the White House — let alone to a certain ranch in Texas — has been the object of countless pages of speculation. But for all the aspiration, Zapatero has never managed to achieve anything like that famous 2003 photo of his predecessor, José María Aznar, in the Azores looking like he just got invited to the cool kids' party.

Of course, the fact that the cool kids' party happened to be taking place in Iraq explains a lot of the distance between the two current leaders: upon taking office in April 2004, Zapatero immediately pulled Spanish troops out of "the alliance of the willing." Which is one of the ironies of this situation — that Spain can so strongly support a foreign policy opposed to the Bush doctrine (whatever that is), while so strongly hoping for a show of respect from Washington. On Thursday, Spanish newspaper ABC's regret was palpable when it lamented that "the coldness between the governments of the U.S. and Spain could continue if the Republican candidate John McCain reaches the White House."

As for Zapatero himself, the Prime Minister is apparently taking this latest attack on his ego with characteristic equilibrium. McCain may not know who Spain's leader is, but Zapatero promised to work with the new Administration "whatever it is."

Source: Time

Wall Street turmoil

Shares on Wall Street plummet* 3%

Leading US stock market indexes have plummeted around 3% after the price of oil soared* to yet another record high.

The Dow Jones index of 30 leading shares fell nearly 400 points to close at 12,209 - a drop of 3.13%.

The S&P500, seen as a better market barometer, fell 43 points to 1,360.68, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq shed 75 points to close at 2,474.

Investor confidence had been shaken by a sharp increase in US unemployment, and a jump of $11 in the price of oil.

It was the largest one-day rise in the history of US oil markets, with one barrel of light crude oil now trading for around $139.

Earlier in the day markets had been surprised by a sudden rise during May in the US rate of unemployment, from 5% to 5.5% - the sharpest increase in more than two decades.

Financial services firms and airlines were the biggest losers on Wall Street, with United Airlines down nearly 15%, Washington Mutual down 12.5%, and Northwest Airlines, Continental and American Airlines all seeing their shares drop just under 9%.

The bad economic news from the United States had also startled European investors, with London's FTSE 100 index falling 1.48%, Frankfurts Dax shedding 1.99% and the Cac 40 in Paris down 2.28%.


Vocabulary Focus

*plummet means to fall rapidly while *soar means to rise rapidly. Look at the following ways to describe increases and decreases:

• There has been a dramatic increase in mobile phone sales over the last 10 years...
• .....while there has been a steady decrease in the number of people buying radios.
• The number of people buying on-line has risen sharply.
• Advanced bookings have dropped slightly this year.
• Binge drinking is on the increase among youngsters.
• Consumer confidence is continuing to tumble.
• Inflation climbed to a peak of 7.5%.
• The government's opinion poll rating has sunk to it's lowest ever.
• Crime rates have shot up since this government came to power.
• House prices have diminished substantially recently.
• Unemployment went up steadily last year but this year it seems to have levelled off.
• Church attendance has dwindled over the past 20 years.
• The cost of the project has jumped by 10%.
• My savings are shrinking fast.
• Spiralling costs mean that more and more families have difficulties reaching the end of the month.

So you see that there are many ways to express increases and decreases. Use some of the examples above to create some statistics of your own.