Obama and Odinga share the same Luo heritage and history and has made it possible for them to share the same spotlight at this defining moment in Kenyan and American histories about hope and fear.

On December 27th, 2007, when Raila Odinga lost the presidential election to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages, such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of Christians were burned to death in a church set on fire.  Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people have been politically murdered in the last few days.

Islam had picked Raila to win.

The Evangelical Alliance of Kenya has posted on its website a photograph copy of a Memorandum of Understanding, dated and signed on August 29, 2007, between Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya.

Here is a summary on the agreement which was signed:

* It pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila’s election.  In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees to 14 actions, listed a) through n) on page two.

* Within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions.

* Within one year facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters.  [Note: everywhere in Kenya, not just in "Muslim declared regions."]

* Popularize Islam, the only true religion… by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes.

* Impose a total ban on open-air gospel crusades by worshippers of the cross…

* Outlaw gospel programs… on KBC, the National Broadcaster.

* Impose a total ban on the public consumption of alcoholic beverages…

* Impose an immediate ban on women’s public dressing styles that are considered immoral and offensive to the Muslim faith…

Obama's involvement in Kenyan politics, whether tribal or religious, is bothersome.

Especially if it is both.

Then, On January 2nd, 2008, in classic Marxist tradition, Odinga, accused President Mwai Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 election, and rallied his Luo followers in western Kenya, demanding a new election.

Kibaki "must step down or there must be a re-election -- in this I will not be compromised.  You cannot steal my cow, and I catch you red-handed, and then expect me to share the milk because the cow is mine."

More than 1,000 people, mostly Kikuyu Christians, have been killed and 300,000 forced from their homes by Odinga's followers.

Kezia said, "I'm very proud that he wants to include us in his life. As a family, we are very friendly, very close.  "The family are still very important to him. That would make Barack Sr. very happy.  "We have seen each other many times since that first visit, in the US, in Kenya and in England. I was very fond of Barack Jr.'s mother, Ann. "She came to Kenya after Barack Sr. died and she and I became great friends. She was like a sister to me."

Since then, the Obamas have formed an extraordinary bond -- despite their fractured family history and the vast cultural and geographic differences.

As well as Auma, Kezia has three sons by Barack Sr. Her two youngest, Bernard and Abo, live in Nairobi.  Bernard sells mechanical parts while Abo runs an international telephone shop.

Bernard converted to Islam 18 years ago.  The father of one said, "I’m a Muslim, I don’t deny it.  My father was raised a Muslim."

Bernard leads a quiet life, running a car parts firm in Nairobi, Kenya, but he is a regular visitor to the UK to visit Elvis fan Kezia.

Bernard smiled when he spoke of his famous half-brother. He said:

"I was around 17 when I first met Barack."

"He was visiting Kenya and it was obvious from the way he spoke and his charisma that he was going to be a success."

"He is charming, very good company and very charismatic."

"I’ve met him since with his wife Michelle in Kenya. She’s very nice, a very strong and intelligent person.  I don’t think we will see him on this visit to Britain.  It’s official business and he’ll be very busy."

Bernard is remaining with Kezia for the next month as she recuperates from illness.

According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two meter by three meter shack is decorated with football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world.

Vanity Fair also noted that he had a front page newspaper picture of his famous brother -- born of the same father as him, Barack Hussein Obama, but to a different mother, named only as Jael.

He told the magazine: "I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist."

Related:  the Evening Standard recently revealed the fact that Obama also failed to honor the pledges of assistance that he made to a school in his father's village, named in his honor, when he visited here amid great fanfare two years ago.

Also related:  according to Obama’s tax returns from 2000-2006, in all but the two most recent years reported, the Obamas gave around 1% or less of their income to charity. Their contributions increased in 2005 and 2006 to 4.7% and 6.1% respectively -- illuminating video.

Obama frequently mentions his relatives in Kenya when he needs the political relationship, but this millionaire hasn't done a damned thing to help them.  He won't go into his pocket.

But he'll tax Americans into the next century in order to send them our tax money, while he keeps his book-millions safe in a tax-exempt trust.

Obama is tight with his and loose with yours.

Jael, George's mother, is a new name.  Perhaps the mistress mentioned on the Family page.

It was only a matter of time: A website has been created to provide donations to Obama's half brother, who lives on $12 a year in a shack in Kenya.  Called "Help Obama's Brother", the site draws attention to George Hussein Onyango Obama, living in a hut in the "tough" town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi. 

"If Barack Obama won't send his brother a few bucks for rent, we can step up and help a brother out," headlines the site.

Malik Obama, older brother to Barack Obama, holds an undated picture of Barak, left, and himself, middle, and an unidentified friend wearing traditional Muslim garb in his shop in eastern Kenya.

  
Mark's internet-based company, Worldnexus Ltd., provides corporate communications and website design to Chinese firms seeking customers in English-speaking markets, of which the United States is the biggest.

Worldnexus is not registered to conduct business in Shenzhen and officials at the city’s commercial administration bureau said this raised potential issues of taxation and compliance with the law by its customers.

Ndesandjo, who had an elite education in the United States, collecting a degree from Brown University, a masters in physics from Stanford and an MBA from Emory, did not share Obama’s emotional view of his roots.

Obama painted a disappointed picture of his half-brother in his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, in which he celebrated his own return to Kenya and rediscovery of his African inheritance.

At a rather tense lunch, Obama quoted "Mark" -- his family name is never given away in the book -- as saying Kenya was "just another poor African country" to which he felt little attachment.

Mark added: "there’s not much work for a physicist, is there, in a country where the average person doesn’t have a telephone."

According to Obama’s account, Mark looked him in the eye and said: "You think that somehow I’m cut off from my roots, that sort of thing.  Well, you’re right."

"At a certain point I made the decision not to think about who my real father was.  He was dead to me even when he was still alive.  I knew that he was a drunk and showed no concern for his wife and children.  That’s enough."

Barack Obama senior fathered eight children by four different women.

Obama has described Mark as "a black man of my height and complexion with a bush Afro and horn-rimmed glasses" who was studying physics at Berkeley during Obama's 1987 visit.

Obama wrote that Mark didn’t want to ask himself a lot of questions about the meaning of racial identity, dismissing the idea with the words: "life’s hard enough without all that excess baggage."

Asked last week whether he was quoted accurately in the book, Ndesandjo did not respond.

Obama wrote that on parting, "we exchanged addresses and promised to write, with a dishonesty that made my heart ache."

Two decades after that encounter, the extended and complex Obama family is bound to come under further scrutiny as the US election enters its final months after the Democratic and Republican party conventions.

"That not enough has been written about his family is strange," wrote columnist Roger Cohen in the New York Times last March, "If nominated, Obama’s family baggage will be pored over."