{"id":283765,"date":"2011-02-28T02:37:06","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T02:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/"},"modified":"2011-02-28T02:37:06","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T02:37:06","slug":"obama-backs-bahrain-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama backs Bahrain reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div readability=\"60.2009174312\">\n        \t\t  <span><br \/>\n    <span>27 February 2011<\/span><br \/>\n<span>Last updated at <\/span><span>21:37 ET<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>US President Barack Obama has expressed his support for the King of Bahrain&#8217;s affirmed commitment to reform.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Obama welcomed a cabinet reshuffle by King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa in which four ministers, including two royal family members, were replaced. <\/p>\n<p>The move followed two weeks of Shia protests against the Sunni-led regime.  <\/p>\n<p>President Obama said he supported a national dialogue initiative led by Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa in Bahrain.<\/p>\n<p>He urged that the process should be inclusive, non-sectarian and responsive to the people of the Gulf Kingdom. <\/p>\n<div>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-12593334#story_continues_2\">Continue reading the main story<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n<h2>Mid-East unrest: Bahrain<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t<!-- pullout-items--><\/p>\n<p>\t<!-- pullout-body--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> King Hamad, 61, has been in power since 1999<\/li>\n<li> Population 800,000; land area 717 sq km, or 100 times smaller than Irish Republic <\/li>\n<li> A population with a median age of 30.4 years, and a literacy rate of 91%<\/li>\n<li> Youth unemployment at 19.6% <\/li>\n<li> Gross national income per head: $25,420 (World Bank 2009)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- pullout-links--><\/div>\n<p><span>Manama protests<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I welcome the announcement by King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa about making important changes to the cabinet and restating his commitment to reform,&#8221; said Mr Obama in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of demonstrators remain camped out on Pearl Square in the capital, Manama, as protests move into a 15th day.<\/p>\n<p>They have called for a genuinely democratic elected parliament and the sacking of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa ibn Salman al-Khalifa after 40 years in power. <\/p>\n<p>Shia account for about 70% of the country&#8217;s 525,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>Bahrain &#8211; home to the US Navy&#8217;s Fifth Fleet &#8211; is the first Gulf country to be thrown into turmoil by the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen visited Bahrain and described the country as a critical long-time ally.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more from the original source:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/go\/rss\/int\/news\/-\/news\/world-middle-east-12593334\" title=\"Obama backs Bahrain reform\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Obama backs Bahrain reform<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> 27 February 2011 Last updated at 21:37 ET US President Barack Obama has expressed his support for the King of Bahrain&#8217;s affirmed commitment to reform. Mr Obama welcomed a cabinet reshuffle by King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa in which four ministers, including two royal family members, were replaced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Obama backs Bahrain reform - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Obama backs Bahrain reform - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"27 February 2011 Last updated at 21:37 ET US President Barack Obama has expressed his support for the King of Bahrain&#039;s affirmed commitment to reform. 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Mr Obama welcomed a cabinet reshuffle by King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa in which four ministers, including two royal family members, were replaced","twitter_creator":"@ghanamma","twitter_site":"@ghanamma","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/"},"author":{"name":"","@id":""},"headline":"Obama backs Bahrain reform","datePublished":"2011-02-28T02:37:06+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/"},"wordCount":297,"commentCount":0,"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/","name":"Obama backs Bahrain reform - Ghanamma.com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-02-28T02:37:06+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/02\/28\/obama-backs-bahrain-reform\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/","name":"Ghanamma.com","description":"News In Ghana - Latest Ghana News Headlines","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}