Why Barak Obama?
There’s no argument that Barak Obama, the current president of the Unites States, has a remarkable biography. From his childhood growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, a child of interracial broken marriage, to his studies in L.A., New York and Boston, through his various administrational positions, and up to his election to presidency, Barak Obama surpassed all obstacles.
His inspirational personal story set aside, Obama is a strong believer in accepting and respecting the different, reaching out to the other and bringing people closer together with the hope of a peaceful, happier future.
Barack Hussein Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii. His parents Ann Dunham (American citizen) and Nyang’oma Kogelo, from Kenya, were separated two years after he was born.
After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro and moved to Indonesia. Between age’s six to ten, Obama attended schools in Jakarta. In 1971, he returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, and attended school from the fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979.
Following high school, he moved to Los Angeles to attend College. In 1981, after only two years he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations. After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project. He worked there as a community organizer from 1985 to 1988. Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988.
From 1992-2004 Obama served as a professor of constitutional law at the Chicago Law School. In 1993 he joined a law firm that specialized in civil rights litigation, where he was an associate for three years.
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996. He was re-elected to the Illinois Senate in1998, and was re-elected again in 2002. Obama resigned the Illinois Senate following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2005. Obama was the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history.
In 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for president of the United States. A large number of candidates entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. The field narrowed to a duel between Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. After winning at the primaries, Obama proceeded to focus on the general election campaign against Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. Throughout the campaign, Obama emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence and providing universal health care.
In November 2008, Obama won the presidency to become the first African American to be elected president. Obama announced a "new era" in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe. He also called for "a new beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States.
Obama is married to Michelle Robinson and the couple has 2 daughters.
On October 2009 the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".
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Why Angelina Jolie? Angelina Jolie walks her own path, unique in every way. Jolie uses her huge popularity as an actress to promote humanitarian causes worldwide. She has been proactive in bringing attention to crisis areas and refugees camps, particularly the fate of child-refugees. In addition to her work with the UN, she founded various humanitarian foundations and donates to charity regularly.
Angelina Jolie was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. After her parents' separation in 1976, Jolie and her brother were raised by their mother, who abandoned her acting ambitions and moved with them to New York.
When she was eleven years old, the family moved back to Los Angeles and Jolie decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
Jolie’s professional movie career began in 1993, when she played her first leading role in the low-budget film Cyborg 2. Her career gradually developed until she reached international stardom. While she is a popular female action star, she is also appreciated for her more serious roles and acting abilities.
The following films paved Angelina’s road to stardom:
George Wallace for which she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Gia, for which Jolie won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Girl, Interrupted which won her third Golden Globe Award, her second Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Gone in 60 Seconds, summer blockbuster.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider made Jolie an international superstar. The movie was an international success.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith. On the set of which Jolie met her third husband, Brad Pitt.
Changeling. A drama produced by Clint Eastwood.
Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia. She eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she visited refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in these areas. In 2001, she went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania. In the coming months she returned to Cambodia for two weeks and later met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she donated $1 million for Afghan refugees in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal. Jolie was named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.
Since then Angelina Jolie has been on undertakings around the world and has met with refugees and internally displaced persons in more than 20 countries. Over time, she has become more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level.
She began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of Congress.
In 2005, Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon, where she announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation.
In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using her public profile to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. In 2006, Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors without Borders.
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the newly created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.
Jolie has been married twice before her current marriage to actor Brad Pitt. The couple has 6 children, 3 of them adopted: Maddox from Cambodia, Zahara from Ethiopia, and Pax-Tien from Vietnam.
For a more detailed biography of Angelina Jolie, visit the following sites:
