President Barack Obama handily defeated Gov. Mitt Romney and won himself a second term on Tuesday after a bitter and historically expensive race that was primarily fought in just a handful of battleground states. Obama beat Romney after nabbing almost every one of the 12 crucial battleground states.(from google.com)

The Romney campaign’s last-ditch attempt to put blue-leaning Midwestern swing states in play failed as Obama’s Midwestern firewall sent the president back to the White House for four more years. Obama picked up the swing states of New Hampshire, Michigan, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Ohio. Of the swing states, Romney picked up only North Carolina.

In a sweeping victory speech early Wednesday morning, Obama thanked every American who voted, and vowed to work with leaders from both parties to tackle the country’s challenges.

In his speech, he offered clues to the policy goals of his second term, which included a deficit reduction plan that combines tax increases with spending cuts, a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s federal immigration laws and tax reform. He called on Republicans to join him in achieving those goals.

The battle for the White House between Obama and Romney divided the nation, causing, at times, bitter disputes between the parties. Obama urged his supporters to look beyond fight of the past several months and defended the process of choosing a president.

The Obama victory marks an end to a years-long campaign that saw historic advertisement spending levels, countless rallies and speeches, and three much-watched debates.

The Romney campaign cast the election as a referendum on Obama’s economic policies, frequently comparing him to former President Jimmy Carter and asking voters the Reagan-esque question of whether they are better off than they were four years ago. But the Obama campaign pushed back, blanketing key states such as Ohio early on with ads painting him as a multimillionaire more concerned with profits than people. The Obama campaign also aggressively attacked Romney on reproductive rights issues, tying Romney to a handful of Republican candidates who made controversial comments about rape and abortion.

The ads were one reason Romney faced a steep likeability problem for most of the race, until his expert performance at the first presidential debate in Denver in October. After that debate, and a near universal panning of Obama’s performance, Romney caught up with Obama in national polls, and almost closed his favorability gap with the president. In polls, voters consistently gave him an edge over Obama on who would handle the economy better and create more jobs, even as they rated Obama higher on caring about the middle class.

But the president’s Midwestern firewall—and the campaign’s impressive grassroots operation—carried him through. Ohio tends to vote a bit more Republican than the nation as a whole, but Obama was able to stave off that trend and hold an edge there over Romney, perhaps due to the president’s support of the auto bailout three years ago. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, all but moved to Ohio in the last weeks of the campaign, trying and ultimately failing to erase Obama’s lead there.

A shrinking electoral battleground this year meant that only 12 states were really seen as in play, and both candidates spent most of their time and money there. Though national polls showed the two candidates in a dead heat, Obama consistently held a lead in the states that mattered. That, and his campaign’s much-touted get-out-the-vote efforts and overall ground game, may be what pushed Obama over the finish line.

Now, Obama heads back to office facing what will most likely be bitterly partisan negotiations over whether the Bush tax cuts should expire. The House will still be majority Republican, with Democrats maintaining their majority in the Senate.

Kanayo F. Nwanze is President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations. A severe food crisis currently threatens southern Sudan. In East Africa, where millions of people already are dependent on food aid, a sharp rise in the cost of staple crops looms.
(Interview 29.08.2010 from project-syndicate.org)

These are just the latest sources of concern in a turbulent period that began two years ago when food shortages hit many countries in Africa and Asia due to a worldwide spike in prices. Higher food prices meant that poor people, already struggling to meet basic human needs, were pushed deeper into poverty. On its heels came the global financial crisis, which also hit the poorest the hardest.

Agriculture is the main employer, job creator, and export in most developing countries. Historically, agriculture has driven economic performance in many countries, generating growth that has been shown to be at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Investment in agricultural and rural development is therefore vital to food security and sustainable economic development.

Indeed, the vast majority of today’s developed countries grew from strong agricultural foundations, where surplus production generated wealth and prosperity. This is what is happening today in Vietnam, and it is the path that China and India took on their way to becoming engines of economic growth.

Poverty is predominantly rural. Globally, three-quarters of people living in extreme poverty are in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. About 380 million women, children, and men in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1.25 a day.

Many are malnourished or hungry. But, with some 80 million small farms in sub-Saharan Africa producing 80% of agricultural goods, smallholder farmers have a key role to play in resolving the financial and food crises and unleashing Africa’s potential to feed itself.

In order to lift people out of poverty and ensure food security, a sustained effort is needed to develop Africa’s agriculture and the associated infrastructure – notably roads, telecommunication, and energy – needed to unleash agricultural potential. Strengthening agriculture is one of the best investments any African country can make.

Members of the African Union recognized this in 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique, pledging to increase spending on agriculture to at least 10% of national budgets. Although eight countries have met or surpassed that target, the continent as a whole has not.

But reaching this target is not enough. Governments must create the right policy environment to allow for appropriate investments in research and development to enhance productivity and increase production.

Investment in agriculture in Africa must focus on creating a dynamic smallholder sector. A vibrant rural sector generates local demand for locally produced goods and services. In turn, this can spur sustainable non-farm employment growth in services, agro-processing, and small-scale manufacturing. This is crucial for rural employment, without which poor rural young people will be driven away from their communities in search of work in the cities.

Agriculture, predominantly on a small scale, accounts for about 30% of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP and at least 40% of export value. In a number of small countries in Africa, agriculture plays an even greater role, representing 80% or more of export earnings.

The potential in these numbers will remain untapped unless African countries put the right policies in place to help agriculture to develop and flourish. But transformation of African agriculture will not happen until the private sector is fully engaged in agricultural production, processing, and marketing. Governments must become more investor-friendly to attract greater private-sector interest.

More broadly, African countries need to put their political and economic houses in order. They must continue to deepen the foundations of democracy and ensure the political stability that is so critical to economic growth. It is also crucial that they continue to improve their systems to create an enabling environment for dynamic rural growth to transform subsistence farmers into entrepreneurs.

Given their central role not only as mothers and caregivers, but also as farmers, rural women hold the key to food security. That is why any nation that does not provide opportunities for women will not reach its full potential. Significant progress must be made in Africa to advance both women’s empowerment and their status in society – particularly with regard to land and credit.

Finally, although investment in development assistance is key to supporting Africa’s advancement, nations will ultimately have to take responsibility for their own development. No nation, no people, ever experienced growth that sprang solely from external support.

So Africa’s development must be made in Africa, by Africans, for Africans. Every tree, every plant, must be fully rooted in its own soil to flourish. Change cannot be imposed from outside, it must be cultivated from within.

A leading human rights activist from the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Friday that he had narrowly escaped what appeared to be an assassination attempt when gunmen infiltrated his home, took his children hostage and killed a security guard in a spray of bullets before fleeing in the family car. (from nytimes.com)

On Thursday evening, four or five unidentified gunmen entered the home of the activist, Dr. Denis Mukwege, 57, while he was out, forced his two daughters and their friend onto the floor, confiscated their telephones and threatened to shoot them if they made any noise, according to a statement from Physicians for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization based in the United States, and a neighbor.Dr. Mukwege, one of Congo’s most high-profile personalities and a past Nobel Peace Prize nominee, said in a telephone interview on Friday that when he pulled up to the gate at his home in Bukavu, in eastern Congo, about an hour later, he saw “very strange people.” The gunmen forced their way into his car, and one stepped out and trained his gun on the doctor. Then one of his security guards appeared out of nowhere. The gunman menacing Dr. Mukwege whirled around and opened fire on the guard instead, Dr. Mukwege said, then fired at him. “They were shooting bullets in my direction,” he said. He scrambled to get away, and the assailants ran out of ammunition without hitting him. “And then they just jumped again in the car.”

The three children were also unharmed, but Dr. Mukwege’s security guard — Papa Djef, as he was known to the family — was killed. “He was like my child,” Dr. Mukwege said. “He was really a brave man. He just paid his life to save mine.”