President Obama’s second stop of a three country African tour
Africa.com CEO and Executive Editor, Teresa Clarke, brings you a video roundup of what President Barack Obama and the First Family got up to in South Africa during the second leg of their three-country Africa tour.
We continue our live coverage traveling with the White House. President Obama’s historic trip to Africa has continued here to South Africa where he spent two days. Saturday he spent in Johannesburg Sunday in Cape Town.
On Saturday morning President Obama met with President of the African Union. From there he went to the Grand Union Buildings in Pretoria where he met with President Jacob Zuma. The two men focused on investment into Africa and President Obama delivered a strong message that African governments must focus on good governance in order to get more investment into the United States.
This trip continues to be overshadowed by President Mandela’s frail health. President Mandela lies at a hospital not far from the Union Buildings in Pretoria where he is definitely spending some of the last days of his life. President Obama met with members of Mandela’s family in order to pay his respects.
From there, President Obama held a very dynamic youth town hall in the University of Johannesburg in Soweto. Mr. Obama again was sending a very strong message by having a significant event outside of the major cities of this country and hosting something in the black township at the University of Johannesburg in Soweto. Students were teleconferenced with other young people from across the continent. Interestingly, almost all of the questions that the students asked focused on the economy and job creation, wondering how young Africans can improve their economic lot in this global economy.
On Sunday, President Obama met with Bishop Tutu in order to focus on the AIDS issue and the good work that Bishop Tutu has been doing.
The keynote address that President Obama delivered on Sunday evening at the University of Cape Town was also quite historic. During that speech President Obama focused on the importance of women and how the measure of any country can be by how they treat their women.
“YOU SEE WOMEN DOING WORK AND NOT GETTING RESPECT. YOU CAN MEASURE HOW WELL A COUNTRY DOES BY HOW IT TREATS ITS WOMEN.”