by Erasto Mpemba
CN Africa Correspondent

Johannesburg, S.A.—With world attention fixed on the looming US election, outgoing President Obama has announced the launch of his foreign-policy brainchild, the so-called Africa Works Initiative.

The first consignment of eager Africans has already embarked for US shores and is expected at Baltimore sometime this afternoon. Officials in Washington say the trans-Atlantic migration and employment scheme, the first of its kind ever, will operate on a voluntary basis to begin with.

It’s traditional for the US President to devote his ‘lame duck’ years to projects that engage his personal passion but are unlikely to arouse opposition in Congress. Barack Obama has embraced this custom with gusto: Africa Works is said to have been at the heart of his vision for the new American workplace for years.

“Because Africa’s Greatest Natural Resource… Is Its People,” explained the President at a Washington, DC media conference earlier this month.

if it succeeds, ‘AfWorks’ would not only define Obama’s second term in office, but transform just about every aspect of US life—from the rural economy to the industrial landscape, even the makeup of the American people itself—forever.

But it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. In an embarrassing open-mic incident on September 20, Rwandan President Paul Kagame groaned audibly as Obama took the lectern to promote the scheme.

“Great,” Mr Kagame was heard whispering to a colleague, “just what we need… another white man telling us how to run our country.”

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A bluffer’s guide to those names you keep hearing but don’t quite know why.

What you should know
to avoid embarrassing yourself

Who:       Barack Obama
What:     President of the United States of America [USA]
Where:   A large republic in Subcanadian America

The People’s Dork: Obama is an unabashed Trekkie.

Although he acts and speaks like a white guy, Obama is actually biracial. On June 4, 2008 he was sworn in as the 1st black President and the 44th white President in US history.

Whereas US Republicans have a long, meritocratic history of promoting talented persons of color (think General Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice), the left has traditionally viewed race as a handicap. So it’s no exaggeration to say Obama made history by achieving such a high rank in the Democratic party, which until recently has harbored former Klansmen like Senator Robert Byrd. 

Vice President Joe Biden once credited Obama’s electability to his daily showering and use of complete sentences.

Stone cold leader: The Commander in Chief’s iconic pose at the precise moment when he kills Osama bin Laden multiple times in the head and body.

What you should toss off
to impress your friends

• Because the average rural American is so prejudiced, Obama had to change his middle name (Hussein) by deed poll in 2007. “Arabophobia and misoxeny are core flyover values,” he explained during the Presidential primaries. “They [intercostal Americans] will never vote for a candidate who sounds like Saddam.”
• Obama has been nicknamed the Black Lincoln after his preferred Presidential limousine.
• Caretakers had to remove almost a dozen mirrors from the White House, of varying degrees of historical importance, before the Obamas took up residence, and guests are asked not to bring reflective objects with them—particularly into the West Wing. All official invites include the explanation that the President “is a very humble man.”
• First Lady Michelle Obama, who is also founder and patron of Americans Against Ignance, says kids who can’t read make her ashamed of her country. On the First Blog she has described “classrooms full of missing students” and argued that the solution starts at home:

Rarely is the question asked, where our children at? What we need is a grass-roots fight against illiterate kids of all colors, and none; it’s up to us ordinary citizens to do something about them. Do you really think the fat cats in Washington are going to lift a finger? They could [sic] care less.

What he is like:
winning the conversation by taking it up to the personal level

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Wash., DC, USA: In what is already being called ‘a non-story’ and ‘fodder for the lowest stratum of the junkosphere,’ the US President last night drew a blank on the name of George Obama, the US President’s brother.

“I’m only human,” he insisted today, to a skeptical White House press corps.

Obama then challenged reporters to do better. “So I don’t always know the full name of everyone in my immediate family. Do you? No cheating by googling.”

A White House spokesman today said the slip-up was of interest only to sleazy attack journalists. So far it hasn’t been mentioned in the reputable media, nor is it likely to be. To hear about the incident Americans would have to tune in to Fox News or breitbart.com.

The editorial in this week’s TIME avoids mentioning specifics but argues that no US President has been held up to so much ridicule over such trivial gaffes since George W. Bush. It goes on to deplore the “gotcha” culture of hate that pervades the rightwing media.

George Obama was once reported to be living in Kenya on less than a dollar a day. But his years of “sleeping rough” came to an end in 2008 when, according to Wikipedia, “his aunt gave him a six-by-eight foot corrugated metal shack in the Nairobi slum of Huruma Flats.”

The President forgot his name during a guest speech at the annual NAACP ‘Beyond Nuclear’ ball, held to celebrate the full diversity of non-traditional family structures in the African American community.

The theme of the speech was gratitude for the opportunities his unusual childhood had given him. 

“We can only wish more African and Hispanic American kids had a chance to grow up dreaming of their absent, serial-monogamist fathers,” said Obama in one of the night’s most moving lines.

Among academics who study black non-privilege for a living, the overwhelming consensus is that Americans of color are falling short of their potential because there are far too many stable families in minority communities.

The President was initially reported to be “saddened and hurt” by the uproar his minor memory lapse occasioned throughout the hateblogosphere. According to handlers he locked himself in the Oval Office last night, refusing to sign legislation or touch his food. 

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