Israel's Arad: We failed to stop Iran

The Israeli prime minister's National Security Advisor has admitted that the regime has had no success in hindering Iran's peaceful nuclear progress.

Israel displayed an "abominable" failure to address Tehran's nuclear development between 2003 and 2007, Benjamin Netanyahu's aide Uzi Arad said, according to a Friday interview published in Haaretz.

The head of Israel's National Security Council also suggested threatening the Islamic Republic with a naval blockade in a change to the "scorched earth" policy that Netanyahu inherited from the previous administration.

"The more credible and concrete the option, the less likely that it will be needed," he said.

Arad also said "living with" a nuclear Iran, as the West has done with the Soviet Union and China, was not an option for Israel.

The Israeli official claimed that the Middle East would turn into a multi-nuclear region if the West fails to shut down Iran's centrifuges, describing such a scenario as a “nightmare.”

He made the remarks as Israel is known to be the region's sole nuclear-armed state with over 200 ready to launch atomic warheads.

Despite its sizeable arsenal of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, Tel Aviv is bent on portraying Iran as the real threat to the region, an accusation that Tehran throws back at Israel.Iran argues that, unlike Israel, it is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has willingly opened its atomic activities to the most stringent supervision of UN nuclear watchdog inspectors, according to the terms of the NPT.

Tehran also denies having any intentions of acquiring nuclear weapons, while staying adamant that it will continue to defend its 'inalienable right' to pursue uranium enrichment for civilian applications, allowed to under the NPT, no matter how hard that may be for Israel and its Western allies to accept.

Preoccupied with the paradox of the co-existence of civilized taste and bestial behavior, the literary critic George Steiner has written much about the conduct of Nazi officers who murdered Jews by day while listening to classical music by night.

Many years ago, when Steiner first highlighted this paradox, Jews were widely seen as archetypal victims; at the same time, they were regarded as pre-eminently civilized, “People of the Book.”

It is one of the great ironies of modern history that, in the aftermath of the Nazi effort to eliminate European Jewry, a racially exclusive Jewish state emerged that has shown itself to be capable of monstrous inhumanity.

Yet, despite the mounting evidence of Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinian people, few Jews are prepared to acknowledge that their collective credentials as civilized human beings are other than exemplary.

Indeed, many think of Jews as possessing, especially by comparison with Arabs, an inordinately well-developed sense of the value of human life — as was illustrated not long ago when the British Jewish actress, Maureen Lipmann, remarked that for Palestinians life is cheap.

It is because of this self-image that the suggestion that Israel is an apartheid state arouses such howls of indignation in Israel and among the Jewish diaspora. The other day, at the London launch of Ben White’s book, “Israeli Apartheid”, which details Israel’s apartheid-style subjugation of the Palestinians, an Israeli couple repeatedly sought to shout the author down, denouncing him as a liar.

White is by no means the first writer to draw a parallel between Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and apartheid South Africa, but nobody has made the case more concisely. Sub-titled “A Beginner’s Guide”, his book is a brisk and lucid summary of key facts, which could be of great value in the worldwide campaign to achieve justice for the Palestinians.White points out that, for all the differences between Israel and apartheid South Africa, the similarities are unmistakable. In the South Africa of old the legal system “consolidated and enforced dispossession” by securing the “best land control over natural resources for one group at the expense of another,” and exactly the same applies to the Israeli legal system.

What is also true is that the discriminatory laws, commissions of inquiry, spot fines, pass books, police raids, location permits, removal vans, bulldozers etc., that defined South African apartheid now find striking parallels in the humiliations routinely visited on Palestinians.

Consider above all the stark resemblance between the sealed-off, ostensibly autonomous, reservations that were known in South Africa as “Bantustans” and the vicious system of segregation to which Palestinians are subject in the occupied territories. In 1984, Desmond Tutu noted that Bantustans were “arbitrarily carved up” pieces of land with “no territorial integrity or any hope of economic viability” intended to give a “semblance of morality to something that had been described as evil.” Tutu’s account of “fragmented and discontinuous” settlements in “unproductive and marginal” parts of the country with no control over “natural resources or access to territorial waters” could equally be a description of conditions in the West Bank.

None of this is to imply that Israeli apartheid and that formerly practiced in South Africa are indistinguishable.

Unlike Israeli apartheid, the South African version meant the rule of the white minority over an overwhelming black majority. Nor can Israel be accused of practicing South African “petty apartheid”: There are no public lavatories in Israel marked “Jews” and “non-Jews.” Within Israel, moreover, Palestinians enjoy full voting rights and their own political representatives. And yet, as Ben White remarks, in a sense Israeli apartheid is more extreme. For whereas South Africa exploited blacks as cheap labor, Israel was founded on a Zionist project aimed not at making use of Palestinians but at their elimination, their complete disappearance as the prelude to the creation of an all-Jewish state.

The fact is that Zionist thinking has never yet come to terms with the living reality of the Palestinians. This state of denial is by no means uncommon even among Israel’s more erudite apologists. In her new book, “The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot”, the eminent U.S. Jewish historian, Gertrude Himmelfarb, discusses the contribution to the Zionist cause made by the leading British 19th century novelist, George Eliot, while barely acknowledging the existence of the Palestinians, let alone the injustice they have suffered.

Though herself a nonbeliever, George Eliot nursed a passionate attachment to the idea of the Jews putting behind them centuries of persecution and making a triumphant journey to the Holy Land.

In her novel “Daniel Deronda” (1876), the eponymous protagonist, who discovers that he is Jewish, is impelled by forces almost beyond his understanding to migrate from Britain to Palestine — not to escape anti-semitism but to fulfill a proud and unique ethno-religious destiny.

Himmelfarb lauds George Eliot because she saw Judaism as intrinsic to the evolution of modern civilization. “Daniel Deronda”, she writes, enshrined a conception of the Jews and their religion that anticipated the thinking of the Soviet dissident turned Israeli citizen, Natan Sharansky, who evokes Judaism as an identity, a national consciousness, that “gives life meaning beyond life itself.”

“The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot” speaks to the sensibility of Jews like Sharansky whose Zionist zeal has inspired them to exalt their own needs and aspirations, their own being, above everybody else’s. In the minds of such Jews, Palestine remains the geographical entity projected by Zionist propaganda: a “land without people for a people without land.”

Gertrude Himmelfarb attempts to reaffirm Zionism as a noble cause. Ben White by contrast exposes the chasm between the noble idea of Zionism and its increasingly ignoble reality. It is hard after reading their books not to conclude that apartheid was the inescapable outcome of the Zionist enterprise. It is hard not to conclude, too, that the Palestinians are victims of a fantasy, a literary vision of Jewish redemption that was translated into fact with ruthless indifference to the welfare of others.

Troops 'fighting for UK's future'

Fifteen UK soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last 10 days Foreign Secretary David Miliband has insisted fighting in Afghanistan is key to ensuring UK security, after eight soldiers were killed in 24 hours. Some 184 service personnel have died there since 2001, more than the 179 killed during the war in Iraq. But Mr Miliband dismissed calls for UK forces to withdraw, saying they were stopping Afghanistan becoming "a launch pad for attacks" by terrorists. "This is about the future of Britain," he added. Fifteen soldiers have died in 10 days in southern Afghanistan as UK troops continue Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther's Claw. See a graph of UK troop deaths in Afghanistan This major assault against the Taliban in Helmand aims to improve security ahead of next month's Afghan elections. Lt Col Nick Richardson, in Afghanistan, told the BBC it had resulted in more casualties because troops had been "taking the battle to the enemy". "It's the only way to secure a future for Afghanistan and ultimately eliminate the risk posed to the international community that the Taliban and insurgents there bring," he said."We ask people to remember 9/11 and 7/7 and ask themselves whether they thought trying to prevent this from happening would be a worthwhile cause." The Stop the War coalition has announced an emergency protest in London on Monday, calling for British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan in light of the heavy losses. A group spokesman said: "The troop surge which was meant to pacify Helmand province has become a nightmare for the British army. "This unwinnable war must stop now." However, Mr Miliband said troops were there to "ensure that Afghanistan can not again become an incubator for terrorism and a launching pad for attacks on us". "This is about the future of Britain because we know that the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan have been used to launch terrible attacks, not just on the US but on Britain as well," he added. Britain's mission in Afghanistan would not be over until the country was secure, he said. Mr Miliband refuted claims by Conservative leader David Cameron that those fighting on the front line were not properly equipped - particularly with helicopters. Equipment pledge The foreign secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the government had spent £10bn on equipment for force protection - including 1,200 new vehicles - in the last five years. Former defence secretary John Hutton told the BBC it could be time to "tilt the balance" away from funding high-tech equipment for conflict between nations, towards resources for counter insurgency operations. And Chancellor Alistair Darling said the government would always ensure that front-line troops were well-resourced. FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme "You can't send troops into the front line and not be prepared to see it through in terms of the equipment, the resources that they need," he added. BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said many on the front line talked about helicopters being in short supply. But she added: "Some say they have better personal kit than they've had before. "They do complain about the sheer weight of it. It was 45C there two weeks ago... it's physically absolutely exhausting." On Friday in Helmand, five soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles were killed in two separate blasts near Sangin, while a member of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment died near Nad Ali. A day earlier, a soldier from 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in a blast near Nad Ali while another from Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, attached to 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was killed fighting insurgent forces near Lashkar Gah. Col Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004, said: "You develop immense bonds of comradeship between all ranks, and therefore if one of your number is killed or even seriously wounded... it hits you hard." But he added that the Taliban were suffering casualties "in the region of a hundred enemy dead for every one of our dead", which were not being reported. Jane Ford, whose son Pte Ben Ford, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, died in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2007, backed the UK's mission. "We've got to say to these lads: 'You're doing a good job'," she said. "We are sorry they're losing their lives, it's awful. But if we pull out now, that bully [the Taliban] has won." BRITISH CASUALTIES IN AFGHANISTAN MARCH 2006 - JULY 2009 1: Highest monthly toll with 19 dead including 12 killed when a RAF Nimrod crashes in Afghanistan. 2: British death toll reaches 100. Among the 13 fatalities in June is the first British female soldier. 3: British casualties surge as major offensive against Taliban begins in the south. Many are lost to powerful Improvised Explosive Devices.

Iran to offer West 'new package'

Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr is close to going online Iran's government says it is preparing a new package of proposals to put to the West. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said it would concern "political, security and international issues". He was speaking in Tehran hours after G8 leaders said they were appalled at Iran's disputed presidential election. US President Barack Obama said global leaders were also "deeply troubled" by Iran's nuclear programme. Iran denies it is trying to build a nuclear bomb. Mr Mottaki played down international concerns, saying there had been "no new message from the G8". "We are going to present our package which will be a basis to negotiate all regional and international issues," he told a news conference in Tehran, without giving further details. "The package can be a good basis for talks with the West." The US has threatened tough sanctions if Iran rejects offers of engagement over its nuclear programme. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but has been accused by Western countries of seeking nuclear weapons.

Riot-hit western China allows Friday prayers

Urumqi Boisterous crowds in this riot-hit western China city turned up at mosques despite announcements that Friday prayers were canceled due to the recent ethnic violence, forcing officials to let them in. Some of the mosques were in areas of Urumqi that saw street fighting earlier this week, after angry demonstrations by minority Muslim Uighurs sparked a crackdown by security forces and clashes with the Han Chinese majority that left at least 156 dead.
They included the White Mosque, one of the most popular places to worship in the large Uighur neighborhood of Er Dao Qiao. About 100 men argued with guards, demanding they be allowed in for prayers, a focal point of the week for Muslims. A Uighur policeman guarding the mosque, who would not give his name, said: "We decided to open the mosque because so many people had gathered. We did not want an incident." On Liberation Road near the White Mosque, a group of about 40 Uighur men and women began to march, shouting, crying and pumping their fists in the air as they walked. Madina Ahtam, a woman in a multicolored headscarf, begged foreign reporters to stay with them as they walked. "Every Uighur people are afraid," she said in English. "Do you understand? We are afraid. ... The problem? Police." A group of 10 police in bulletproof vests and helmets and armed with batons and stun guns blocked their march within minutes, followed shortly by several dozen more police who surrounded the group and forced them to squat on the sidewalk. Police pushed journalists away from the area. Kaishar, a 23-year-old car salesman, said his heart hurt when he first saw that the gates to the mosque were closed.
"There was no reason to shut the gate. They said it was for our safety but actually there is no need, nothing will happen here," said Kaishar, with a red prayer mat folded under his arm.
It was not known how many of the mosques across the city of 2.3 million people were opened.
A few blocks from the White mosque at the Yang Hang mosque, hundreds of men streamed in clutching green and red and blue prayer mats. A white notice that had been glued to the front gate canceling the day's service was gone. An mosque official, who refused to give her name, had said earlier the closure was ordered for public safety reasons after the widespread ethnic violence between Uighurs (pronounced WEE-ger) and Han Chinese. She didn't elaborate.
The Government has imposed curfews and flooded the streets with security forces to avoid a repeat of the running street battles earlier in the week. The secretary-general of the Urumqi Islamic Association, who would give only his surname Ma, denied there had been any order to shut the mosques and said individual mosques may have decided to do so independently.
But a man from the Urumqi Administration for Religious Affairs, who refused to give his name, said only mosques in areas not affected by the violence were told they could open. "In the areas where there were serious clashes and violence, some mosques were closed for the safety of the religious people," he said. Despite tight state control over Islam - imams are paid and vetted by the Government - there are too many mosques in Xinjiang to enforce a mass closure, said Barry Sautman, who specializes in China's ethnic politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. There are 23,000 mosques in Xinjiang, the highest mosque-to-Muslim ratio in the world, and that provides room for some anti-Goverment critics to slip through, said Sautman.
"It's impossible to control such an extensive number of religious personnel," Sautman said. In rural areas, he said, many officials in charge of religious affairs are Uighurs and are more sympathetic to Islam. The violence in Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee) began Sunday when Uighurs clashed with police while protesting the deaths of Uighur factory workers in a brawl in another part of the country. The crowd then scattered throughout Urumqi, attacking Han Chinese, burning cars and smashing windows. Riot police tried to restore order, and officials said 156 people were killed and more than 1,100 were injured. Other cities in Xinjiang, such as Kuqa, where bombs were set off before the Olympics last year, said mosques opened as normal.
The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the director of the Urumqi Civil Affairs Bureau, Wang Fengyun, as saying that families of innocent civilians killed in Sunday's riot would each receive 200,000 yuan (about $30,000) for each fatality.

Over Rs 14 cr missing in name of Naxal war in Jharkhand

Ranchi In Naxal-hit Jharkhand, the first stop for 20 Union Secretaries working on a counter-Naxal strategy and where President’s Rule was extended for six months last week, the withdrawal of over Rs 14 crore Secret Service funds by Director General of Police V D Ram and other officials has been questioned by the office of the Accountant General which has called for an investigation saying rules were not followed and “the possibility of fraud, embezzlement and misappropriation of government funds cannot be ruled out”.

In one instance, DGP Ram withdrew Rs 5.60 crore in cash from the Secretariat branch of the State Bank of India on March 16, 2006 — a fortnight before he gave the withdrawal and disbursal power to the Additional DGP.
With the AG raising objections, Chief Secretary A K Basu has written to Ram: “DAG has raised certain objections regarding non-observance of provisions of Special Branch Manual and Bihar Financial Rules regarding Secret Service Expenditure. The objections are very serious in nature and it needs to be examined thoroughly. Please send a detailed up-to-date report regarding the steps taken by you in this matter so that further course of action can be decided upon.”
Money from the SS fund, according to Rule 4 of the Special Branch Manual (SBM), was to go to “informers who have given or are likely to give useful information of a secret nature, and whose identity must not be disclosed.” Jharkhand is one of the states worst hit by Naxal violence with large swathes under the control of ultra-Left extremists who regularly target police, politicians and the railways.
Although the SBM states that the Secret Service Expenditure (SSE) account is not subject to scrutiny by an audit authority, the Bihar Financial Rules (BFR), which still apply in Jharkhand, make it clear that “in respect of each officer authorized to incur secret service expenditure, Government will nominate a controlling officer who should conduct at least once in every financial year, a sufficiently real administrative audit of the expenditure incurred and furnish a certificate to the Accountant General”.
Copies of official documents in possession of The Indian Express show that the following withdrawals were made from the treasuries:
• July 2005: Rs 2.60 crore vide voucher no. 0092 from Doranda.
• March 2006: Rs 5.60 crore vide voucher no. 0025 from Secretariat.
• May 2006: Rs 60 lakh vide voucher no. 0080 from Doranda.
• June 2006: Rs 88.50 lakh vide voucher no. 0061from Doranda.
• May 2007: Rs 1 crore vide voucher no. 0082 from Doranda.
• September 2007: Rs 1 crore vide voucher no. 0044 from Doranda.
• March 2008: Rs 2.50 crore vide voucher no. 0021 from Doranda.
• Total withdrawal: Rs 14,18,50,000.
For none of these withdrawals, documents mandated by law were submitted to the AG and the amounts have been placed in the “objection” category and are being treated as outstanding against the officer(s) who made the withdrawals.
AG Rakesh Kumar Verma was not available for comment but Deputy AG M Roy Malakar pointed out: “It is a matter of concern that in spite of reminders, the provisions of the Special Branch Manual and Bihar Financial Rules are not being followed by the police department and the requisite documents mandated by these rules and manual have not been furnished to this office.”
Jharkhand follows the Bihar practice where the withdrawal and disbursal officer of the SSE fund is the Additional DGP, Special Branch and the Chief Secretary conducts an administrative audit and furnishes a utilization certificate to the AG.
Chief Secretary Basu did not conduct an administrative audit nor furnish the utilization certificate. Plus DGP Ram withdrew Rs 5.60 crore in cash from the Secretariat branch of the SBI on March 16, 2006 — a fortnight before Ram gave ADGP G S Rath the withdrawal and disbursal power on April 1, 2006 though Rath had been on the post since August 21, 2005.
Given this backdrop, Malakar drew the attention of the state government, stating that in accordance with the BFRs “a sufficiently real administrative audit” of secret service funds should have been done and a certificate furnished to the AG.
“This was not done. In view of the huge amounts involved and the inordinate delay in submission of the requisite documents, the possibility of fraud, embezzlement and misappropriation of government funds cannot be ruled out. In view of the seriousness of the matter, it is requested that immediate action may be taken to investigate the matter and ensure that the rules governing the accounting of the secret service funds are followed scrupulously,” Malakar wrote to Basu on June 17.
When contacted, DGP Ram, a recipient of the President’s police medal for meritorious service and another for distinguished service, said the utilization certificate was not furnished because the state government had not nominated any controlling officer. “The state government has been requested to do the needful to ensure compliance of the administrative audit provision,” he said.

Israelis abduct 2 wall protesters

Israeli forces have abducted two Palestinian civilians during raids on non-violent protests in the Occupied West Bank villages of Bil'in and Ni'lin. Last Friday, Israeli soldiers attacked the Palestinian villagers, along with the international and Israeli peace advocates, who had joined them during their weekly protest against the Apartheid Wall. The attacks took place in the village of Bil'in near the central West Bank city of Ramallah and Ni'lin, which lies west of Ramallah. The protesters marched towards the construction site and were welcomed by rubber-coated bullets and tear gas fired by Israeli troops. Scores were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. During the attack, the troops captured two civilians. The protesters demanded a halt to the building of illegal Israeli settlements, as well as the construction of the wall. On Thursday, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, called on the Israeli prime minister to stop construction of the now seven-year old Apartheid Wall in the West Bank. "Tear down that wall, Mr. Netanyahu", said Falk. He made the comments at a conference in The Hague on the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) issuance of the Advisory Opinion, which denounced Tel Aviv's erection of the 723-kilometer (449-mile) barrier as illegal. "There will be no peace between these two peoples until Israel shows respect for Palestinian rights under international law," said Falk, who added that a good place to start would be with the wall. Israeli forces have kidnapped two Palestinian civilians during their raids on the weekly non-violent protests in the West Bank villages of Bil'in and Ni'lin. Israeli soldiers attacked Palestinian villagers along with their international and Israeli peace supporters during the weekly protest against the Apartheid Wall in the villages of Bil'in near the central West Bank city of Ramallah and in Ni'lin ,west of Ramallah on Friday. The protesters marched towards the construction site and were welcomed by rubber-coated bullets and tear gas fired by Israeli troops. The protesters demanded the halt of Israeli illegal settlement activities and construction of the wall. On Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, called on the Israeli prime minister to cease the construction of the now 7-year old wall in the West Bank. "Tear down that wall, Mr. Netanyahu", said Falk. He made the comments in The Hague at a conference on the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) issuance of the Advisory Opinion which denounced Tel Aviv's erection of the 723-kilometer (449-mile) barrier as illegal. "There will be no peace between these two peoples until Israel shows respect for Palestinian rights under international law," said Falk. "And a good place to start would be with the wall," he added.

Steinmeier: Israeli settlements obstruct peace

Germany says a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be formulated as long as Tel Aviv continues to erect settlements in the West Bank. "A solution has to be found ... but a solution will not be found as long as the settlements continue to be expanded," the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told foreign journalists in Berlin on Friday. The German minister however praised the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent 'careful acceptance' of a Palestinian state. He added that Tel Aviv needs guarantees of security from its neighbors, particularly the Palestinians. Earlier in June, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said that the ongoing construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank imperils efforts of the two-state solution with the Palestinians. "I think it is now important to get commitments from all sides and that includes the issue of settlement building. I am convinced that there must be a stop to this. Otherwise we will not come to the two-state solution that is urgently needed," Merkel said in a speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament. Under the 2002 Roadmap for Peace plan brokered by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, Israel has to 'dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and also freeze all settlement activity'. More than 285,000 Israelis currently live in the settlements -- considered by the international community as having been illegally constructed.

Gaza-bound aid expires while awaiting entry permit

Egypt says it will destroy a large amount of humanitarian aid which contains tainted and expired supplies meant for the besieged people of Gaza. Egyptian officials announced on Friday that the aid consignments included food items, pesticide and medicine which were expired while the shipment awaited Israel's permission t al-Quja border crossing, Ma'an news agency reported. The authorities also said they discovered four tunnels between Egypt and Gaza in the Salah Al-Deeb. Officials also confiscated goods stored in a warehouse in al-Arish claiming that they were set to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip. The seized goods included clothes, blankets and a number of large vessels filled with food. A man was also arrested in connection with the case. Israel toughened its blockade on the populated strip since Hamas took the control of the coastal sliver. Aid agencies have warned that the area, home to almost two million people, is facing a humanitarian crisis.

Obama speaks of hopes for Africa

Obama calls for good governance in Africa US President Barack Obama, on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office, has said Africa must take charge of its own destiny in the world. Mr Obama also told parliament during his one-day stay in Ghana that good governance was vital for development. Major challenges awaited Africans in the new century, he said, but vowed that the US would help the continent. The US president's trip comes at the end of a summit of eight of the world's most powerful nations, held in Italy. Ghana was chosen as the destination for the president's visit because of its strong democratic record. "We wanted to make sure to come to an African country after the G8 and after my business in Moscow to emphasise that Africa is not separate from world affairs," Mr Obama said after meeting President John Atta Mills in the capital, Accra. "What happens here has an impact everywhere," he said. Africa's choice Speaking to parliament shortly after that meeting, Mr Obama wore a broad grin as he was greeted at the podium by a series of rousing horn blasts from within the chamber. Development depends upon good governance. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans US President Barack Obama Key excerpts: Obama's speech Obama hope amid dark memories Send us your comments "Congress needs one of them," he joked, before turning to more serious matters. "I have come here to Ghana for a simple reason," the US president said: "The 21st Century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Ghana as well." Delivering a message that "Africa's future is up to Africans", Mr Obama conceded that the legacy of colonialism had helped breed conflict on the continent. "But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants," he added. He praised Ghana's own progress, governance and economic growth, saying Ghana's achievements were less dramatic than the liberation struggles of the 20th Century but would ultimately be more significant. "Development depends upon good governance," Mr Obama told legislators. "That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. "And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans." 'Yes you can' Expanding on his message, Mr Obama said four key areas were critical to the future of Africa and of the entire developing world, citing democracy, opportunity, health and the peaceful resolution of conflict. ANALYSIS Andrew Harding, BBC News, Accra The speech has gone down extremely well. This is a country that has been enormously proud to play host to Mr Obama and referred to him as a brother. People say endlessly that he is part of the family and they are expecting a great deal of him. It was a very broad-ranging speech but Mr Obama has an ability because of his heritage, his Kenyan father, to reach out and speak to Africans in a way that I think most foreign leaders would find very difficult. There are very few barriers for Mr Obama in this conversation that he is trying to initiate with Africans and I think that this speech will have ticked many, many boxes. This is Mr Obama trying to link Africa into the international community. He hailed Ghana's democratic society, calling for strong parliaments, honest police, independent judges and a free press across Africa. However, there were some blunt words directed at other countries, many of which have been undermined by despotic leaders and corrupt politicians. "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions," Mr Obama told his audience. "No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny." He pledged to continue strong US support for public healthcare initiatives in Africa, and called for sensible use of natural resources such as oil in the face of the threat of climate change. "Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war," Mr Obama added. "But for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. He described wars as a "millstone around Africa's neck". "You have the power to hold your leaders accountable, and to build institutions that serve the people," Mr Obama said, describing freedom as Africa's "inheritance" and urging the continent to beat disease, end conflict and bring long-lasting change. In an echo of his presidential election campaign, he drew his speech to a close with a version of his trademark slogan: "Yes you can," he told the gathered legislators. Tight security On the streets of Accra, many billboards welcoming Barack Obama have been erected, including one showing an image of the president and wife with the words: "Ghana loves you". People have poured into Accra for a glimpse of the president during his 24-hour stay in Ghana. But security is tight for the president's visit, and few ordinary Ghanaians will have the chance to glimpse the first African-American President of the United States. Barack Obama's speech was welcomed by Ghanaians of all ages Mr Obama is expected to visit the Gold Coast Castle, a seaside fortress converted to the slave trade by the British in the 17th Century. He will be accompanied by his wife, Michelle, a descendant of African slaves. Mr Obama arrived in the capital late on Friday, fresh from the G8 summit in Italy where heads of state agreed on a $20bn (£12.3bn) fund to bolster agriculture - the main source of income for many sub-Saharan Africans. The visit to the slave fort will be a poignant moment for the country's first African-American president and for his wife Michelle, whose ancestors are believed to have come from West Africa.