Obama Cheneys' black sheep

There is one element of Barack Obama's family history that has remained obscure: his eighth cousin is Dick Cheney. The revelation that the man promising a new style of politics is related to a vice-president hell bent on preserving the old was made by Mr Cheney's wife.

Lynne Cheney told an interviewer that she discovered the connection between her husband and the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination while researching a memoir of growing up in Wyoming, entitled Blue Skies, No Fences, although she did not include this fact in her memoir.

She said that the two were both descended from a man who moved to Wyoming from Maryland.

"If you go back eight generations they have a common ancestor," she said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama."

A spokeswoman for Mrs Cheney said that Mr Obama was descended from Mareen Duvall, a French Huguenot.

His son married the granddaughter of one Richard Cheney, Susannah, who arrived in Maryland from England in the late 1650s.

The Duvalls are Mr Obama's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and the vice-president's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.

A spokesman for Mr Obama made the wry observation that "every family has a black sheep".

Scientist ostracized for racial claims

London's Science Museum has cancelled a talk by a Nobel prize-winning geneticist who suggested black people were less intelligent.

Dr James Watson, winner of a Nobel prize DNA research, had been due to talk at the museum today.

But the American sparked uproar by telling The Sunday Times he was "inherently gloomy about the prospects of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really."

The 79-year-old geneticist said he hoped that everyone was equal but countered that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

The Science Museum, which had been due to host Watson on a visit to Britain publicizing his latest book, said this was unacceptable.

"We know that eminent scientists can sometimes say things that cause controversy and the Science Museum does not shy away from debating controversial topics," it said in a statement.

Agencies

(China Daily 10/19/2007 page10)