Our Alcoholic Father Beat Me, Says Barack Obama's Half Brother, Mark
THE TELEGRAPH: As President Barack Obama begins his China visit, his half brother who lives there reveals that when he was a child their father was a violent drunk

Barack Obama's half brother, Mark Ndesandjo, paints a shocking picture of his and President Obama's father. Photo: The Telegraph
The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen is a world away from Washington DC.

The booming border town and the staid American capital are both home to members of the Obama family. That, though, is where the similarities end, because while Barack Obama resides in the splendour of the White House and is perhaps the most recognisable person on the planet, his younger half-brother Mark lives anonymously in a rented two-bedroom flat in Shenzhen's suburbs.

Now, on the eve of his older sibling's first-ever visit to China, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo has emerged from the shadows to reveal the disturbing truth about the late Barack Obama Sr, his and President Obama's father.

Last week, Mr Ndesandjo published an autobiographical novel, Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Tale of Love In The East. It paints a shocking picture of his abusive and alcoholic father, one that is at odds with the man portrayed in Dreams From My Father, President Obama's best-selling 1995 memoir.

"I can remember my father hitting my mother and me. They're memories I don't like to dwell on because it's very painful for me," said Mr Ndesandjo, who has lived in China for seven years.

"I had a very difficult early childhood and there were things that happened to me that really hardened me."

In his book, Mr Ndesandjo describes a father who was a heavy drinker and who began to abuse his wife, verbally and physically, soon after they were married. Their son witnesses his mother running, screaming, into the night to escape being beaten. >>> David Eimer in Guangzhou | Saturday, November 14, 2009

Ce demi-frère qu'Obama va retrouver en Chine
Même silhouette longiligne et athlétique, Mark Ndesandjo présente aussi de vraies ressemblances dans les traits avec son demi-frère Barack Obama. Crédits photo : Le Figaro
LE FIGARO: Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, né du même père et d'une autre mère, vit à Shenzhen au sud de la Chine. Il vient de publier un roman autobiographique et sera dimanche à Pékin pour accueillir le président.

En s'aventurant pour la première fois en terre chinoise, dimanche, Barack Obama pourra s'appuyer sur une épaule familiale s'il est pris du vertige du grand dépaysement. Son «frère chinois» devrait être là pour l'accueillir. Resté jusqu'à présent très discret sur sa parenté si intime avec le président américain, Mark Ndesandjo vient de sortir un peu de l'ombre.

Longtemps, l'homme avait tu cette prestigieuse affinité­ lignagère, y compris à ses bons amis, jusqu'à ce que la presse le débusque l'an dernier. Depuis, il avait refusé toutes les sollicitations. Aujourd'hui, c'est cependant fort opportunément que Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo sort un livre, à mi-chemin entre le roman et l'autobiographie, à l'aube du voyage du président américain à Pékin. Si pour Barack Obama, le chemin s'est fait de Hawaï à Washington, celui de Mark l'a conduit De Nairobi à Shenzhen, titre de son ouvrage. Le demi-frère de l'homme le plus puissant du monde, comme on le souligne ici, a fait souche depuis sept ans dans la grande ville du sud de la Chine, à un jet de pierre de Hongkong. Une ville qui reste le symbole des réformes lancées par Deng Xiaoping, le temple du capitalisme rouge, pour ne pas perdre tous ses repères américains.

David, le nom du héros du roman, y pose son sac dans le sillage du 11 septembre 2001, après avoir perdu son travail. Il tombe sous le charme de la Chine par l'intermédiaire «d'une femme magnifique et d'un jeune orphelin». David est le fils d'une mère juive américaine, divorcée de son mari kényan. Dans la vraie vie, Obama père, divorcé en 1964 de la mère de l'actuel président, Stanley Ann Dunham, a ensuite rencontré une autre de ses quatre femmes, la jeune Ruth Nidesand, avec laquelle il est reparti l'année suivante au Kenya, où il a eu six nouveaux enfants. Ce père est au cœur du livre de Mark Ndesandjo, comme il l'était des célèbres Mémoires de Barack Obama, Les Rêves de mon père. Les deux hommes se rejoignent en peignant douloureusement le portrait d'un homme brillant, mais qui n'a jamais pu ou su tenir ses talentueuses promesses ni ses responsabilités familiales. Il disparaît dans la nature quand Barack a 2 ans, et le jeune garçon ne reverra son père que brièvement huit ans plus tard. Obama Senior est mort dans un accident de la route en 1982, à l'âge de 46 ans. Cette absence du père a été la grande blessure du président américain, en quête de cette part fuyante de son identité. Son cadet Mark, qui tait son âge, a connu les mêmes blessures. Il raconte ce père grignoté par l'alcool, battant sa mère, le frappant lui-même. De manière émouvante, il a confié combien l'élection de son demi-frère avait en ce sens transformé sa vie. La fierté ressentie devant ce succès et la liesse de millions d'Américains transfigurés par un nouvel espoir l'ont réconcilié «avec beaucoup de choses, y compris le nom d'Obama». >>> Par correspondant du Figaro à Pékin, Arnaud de La Grange | Vendredi 13 Novembre 2009

NZZ am SONNTAG: Der Halbbruder aus Shenzhen: Auf seinem Staatsbesuch in China trifft der US-Präsident auch einen Verwandten >>> Bernhard Bartsch, Peking | Sonntag, 15. November 2009

TIME: Obama's Half Brother Makes a Name for Himself in China >>> Ling Woo Liu / Guangzhou | Monday, November 16, 2009

TIME PHOTOGALLERY: Barack Obama’s Family Tree >>>

Death in the Dorms: Iranian Students Recall Horror of Police Invasion
THE GUARDIAN: Victims tell of arrests, threats and beatings / Two women among five killed by officers

They came in the small hours, just as the dormitories were settling down for the night. Outside, Tehran was still in ferment, a city gripped by fury two days after a "stolen election". Inside the dorms on Amirabad Street, students were trying to sleep, though nerves were jangling; just hours earlier several had been beaten in front of the main gate to the university.

What happened next developed into one of the seminal events of Iran's post-election unrest: police broke locks and then bones as they rampaged through the dormitories, attacked dozens of students, carted off more than 100 and killed five. The authorities still deny the incursion took place. But the account pieced together from interviews with five of those present tells a different story.

"We were getting ready to go to sleep when we suddenly heard them breaking the locks to enter our rooms," said one of the 133 students arrested that night. "I'd seen them earlier beating students but I didn't imagine that they would come inside. It's even against Iranian law."

Forty-six students from one dorm were arrested and taken to the basement of the interior ministry on nearby Fatemi Street. It was there, on the building's upper floors, that the vote-counting and – claim opposition supporters – the rigging, was going on. Another 87 were taken to a security police building on Hafez Street. Students spoke of torture and mistreatment.

Five died: they were Fatemeh Barati, Kasra Sharafi, Mobina Ehterami, Kambiz Shoaee and Mohsen Imani – buried the following day in Tehran's famous Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, reportedly without their families being informed. Their names were confirmed by Tahkim Vahdat, a student organisation.

Witnesses said the two women and three men were repeatedly beaten on the head with electric batons. Their families were warned not to talk about their children or hold funerals – like the parents of Neda Soltan, whose face became synonymous with the protest movement after she was filmed being shot dead in the street. >>> Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Sunday, July 12, 2009

Rape, Beatings and Bribery: Iraqi Police Out of Control
Photo courtesy of TimesOnline
TIMESONLINE: The brief film is deeply disturbing, even in a country famed for its al-Qaeda beheading videos and sniper snuff movies. The young woman, evidently drugged, vomiting and occasionally calling for her mother, tries weakly to stop the grinning man in a white T-shirt and boxer shorts from pulling off her underwear.

She fails. The man, instructing the cameraman to shoot the scene with his mobile phone from various angles, rapes her.

That is not the only shocking aspect of the film, according to Jassim al-Bidawi, former Mayor of Fallujah and now a human rights activist. He has identified the rapist as an Iraqi police officer, and says that the cameraman is one, too. They are thought to have drugged the woman as she visited her husband in a detention centre in Ramadi. Since the rapist's uncle is a senior policeman in the city the attacker is all but untouchable, Mr al-Bidawi says.

In the desperate rush to drag Iraq back from civil war, sweeping powers were granted to its new security forces. Human rights workers, MPs and American officials now believe that they are all too often a law unto themselves: admired when they defeat terrorists but also feared for their widespread abuse of power.

In this vast and largely unaccountable security apparatus, with almost a million people in uniform, corruption is rife. One of the most common ploys is to arrest innocent people and then charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for them to be released. >>> James Hider in Fallujah | Friday, April 24, 2009