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Obama’s popularity may have slipped but he wins re-election, beating Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The Democratic party convention in Charlotte backs Obama as nominee for the 2012 presidential race but some delegates express disappointment about his first term. One of the questions he is asked is whom he would rather fight: “100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?”
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Obama takes part in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” Q&A session on the popular news site. Obama becomes the first sitting US president to back the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. But some protesters claim Martin was only stopped because of racial profiling. The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, in Florida by an armed neighborhood-watch volunteer prompts Obama to say: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” The man who shot Martin is found not guilty of second-degree murder and acquitted of manslaughter, a lesser charge. In a speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the president is careful not to say the US won the nine-year conflict. Obama formally declares that the Iraq war is over and that the US is to pull out.
#Create a timelime barac obama president update#
Obama and his top advisers watch a live feed of the mission from the White House Situation Room.īarack Obama, vice-president Joe Biden, secretary of state Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, is killed by US special forces in a night-time raid of his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In the same month as Obama announces his bid for re-election, he also yields to “birthers” and Donald Trump, who insisted he publish his birth certificate, to quash rumours that he was born outside the US. The “worst mistake” of his presidency is how Obama described his lack of support to Libya after Gaddafi was deposed. The UK, US and France attack Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya to enforce a UN-mandated no-fly zone. Obama signs a landmark law, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act, that allows gay people to serve openly for the first time in the US armed forces. Obama later pays tribute to the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa as “a moment of opportunity” for change in the region. In response, the White House says: “President Obama supports responsible, accountable and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal.” The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, says the US authorities were afraid of being held to account.
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The Guardian publishes details of 250,000 American diplomatic cables, some marked “secret” or “confidential”, from the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website.
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The new treaty is intended to cut US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads from 2,200 to 1,550 over seven years.Īs the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes off Louisiana, leaving 11 crew members dead and threatening to cause a huge environmental catastrophe, Obama deals with what some call his “Katrina moment”. Obama and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start). The president tries to act as peacemaker by holding a “beer summit” at the White House with a black Harvard professor arrested for alleged disorderly conduct outside his home in Massachusetts and the white police officer who took him in.īarack Obama signs his signature healthcare bill into law in 2010. Leaving the UK, Obama visits Turkey, where he says: “The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam.” The president and his wife also meet the Queen. He meets the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and other world leaders. Obama flies into London for the G20 summit where talks about the global financial crisis dominate. Days later he promises to end to the war in Iraq: “Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” Obama signs a huge $787bn (£548bn) stimulus bill designed to save and create thousands of jobs to boost the beleaguered US economy.Ī surge in violence in Afghanistan sees Obama pledge an extra 17,000 military personnel, doubling the US presence there. The new president promises to close Guantánamo Bay, the contentious US facility in Cuba used to detain terror suspects, many of whom are held without charge. Barack Obama with his wife and daughters, Malia and Sasha, on election night on 4 November 2008.
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