"The award, which is given by the secretary of state every year, honors women around the world “ This is directly from the Secretary of State Department wevsite! It is Kerry's job to do this not Obama's. He wanted any excuse to visit Mecca and pretend he is the celebrity president.
Obama Ends Overseas Trip With Award for Saudi
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/world/middleeast/obama-saudi-arabia.html?_r=1
President Obama presented Dr. Maha Al-Muneef with an International Women of Courage award during a private ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton on Saturday. Doug Mills/The New York Times
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Obama ended his weeklong trip to Europe and Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning with a brief private ceremony in which he presented an International Women of Courage award to a Saudi woman who works to prevent domestic violence in the kingdom.
The brief event, just hours before Mr. Obama boarded Air Force One to return home, came a day after the president chose not to raise the issue of human rights during a two-hour discussion with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
The award, which is given by the secretary of state every year, honors women around the world “who have demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, often at great personal risk,” according to the State Department’s website.
Maha Al Muneef, the executive director of the National Family Safety Program, had been selected to receive the award on March 4 but was unable to attend the ceremony in the United States for family health reasons.
“I’m doing this on behalf of Michelle Obama, who normally is the presenter, and I know Dr. Al Muneef is disappointed that it’s me instead of Michelle, appropriately so,” Mr. Obama said as he presented her the award in a room at the Ritz Carlton hotel where he was staying.
Mr. Obama praised her efforts to raise the issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and elevate its importance in the eyes of the monarch.
The president told her that he was “so very, very proud of you and grateful for all the work you’re doing here.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you do even more wonderful things in the future,” he added.
The president’s decision not to discuss human rights or women’s rights in his meeting with the king is sure to disappoint activists who have long been critical of the kingdom’s treatment of women.
White House officials defended Mr. Obama’s decision, saying that the meeting with the king was intended as a way for the two leaders to discuss security issues in the region, including the nuclear negotiations with Iran and the Syrian civil war.
“We’ll continue to raise these issues associated with human rights, with reforms here in the kingdom, on a regular basis in all of our interactions with the Saudis,” an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting between Mr. Obama and King Abdullah. “The fact is that given the time they had today and given the need to focus intensively on Iran and Syria in particular, they just didn’t get to the full agenda.”
Mr. Obama left for the airport a short time after presenting the award. Air Force One departed just before 11 a.m. local time.
OBAMA GOES TO MECCA
President Obama is leaving the G-20 summit and traveling to Mecca for the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
Some 2.5 million people are expected in Mecca by the start on Sunday of the hajj, which is being held amid tight security and with new facilities, including a railway, to ease the sometimes fatal congestion. President Obama is looking forward to going – his first pilgrimage.
All streets leading to the grand mosque are crammed with praying pilgrims, with lines stretching back about a mile. Plazas and corridors of surrounding malls were also crowded with devotees spreading their prayer mats, as were grocery stores which stopped selling for the prayers.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said that he welcome President Obama to his country with “open arms.” He went on to say that he thought President Obama going to Mecca would help bridge the divide between Muslims and the Western world.
While most of those who crowded the streets of Mecca on Friday had donned white ihram garments for the pilgrimage, some were still dressed in their countries’ traditional clothes, reflecting the number of nationalities and ethnicities represented in the annual season.
In contrast to the strict rule of segregation between sexes usually imposed by Saudi Arabia’s religious police, men and women prayed shoulder to shoulder — a behavior accepted only in the holy mosque during pilgrimage.
There is a great deal of security being put in place ahead of President Obama’s visit.
At Wednesday’s parade, civil defence units brought out dozens of fire engines, ambulances, cranes that can lift up to 160 tonnes, smoke extractors and lifeboats, all of which have been used at some point in hajj incidents.
The kingdom has been spending continuously on projects aimed at expanding the capacity of Mecca to accommodate the ever-increasing number of pilgrims.
Another new addition that cannot go unnoticed in Mecca is the world’s largest clock, which sits atop a soaring skyscraper next to the Grand Mosque.
The clock entered a three-month trial operation in August, but work is visibly going on to complete its four sides. The aim to establish a Mecca time for Muslims, like Greenwich Mean Time.
President Obama will return home this weekend and attend church with is family in Washington, D.C.
Obama’s “Christian” grandmother in Mecca for Hajj
Why the deception? And who was behind it? AP? The Obama camp? Someone else? What was its purpose?AP, March 5, 2008:
“In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents,” she said. She, too, is a Christian.Is she really?
“Saudi Arabia: Obama’s grandmother in Mecca for ‘Hajj’ ceremony,” from AKI, November 25 (thanks to C. Cantoni):
Mecca, 25 Nov. (AKI) – The grandmother of US president Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the ‘Hajj’ or Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a Saudi daily said on Wednesday. Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama’s cousin, Omran.
On Wednesday Sarah Obama was in the valley of Mina with an African delegation, according to the Saudi daily Okaz.
Obama, the mother of the American president’s father, lives in a village in Kenya and is one of the many guests of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud….
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