Newspaper: Obama has Tanzanian blood_English

Special Report: U.S. presidential election 2008

DAR ES SALAAM, Nov.1 (Xinhua) -- A local newspaper on Saturday reported that United States presidential candidate Barack Obama has Tanzanian blood flowing in him as well.

The Weekend African newspaper said in a bylined frontpage story that Obama's grandmother on his father's side had hailed from the Kowak Village in Tarime in Tanzania's Mara Region which borders southwestern Kenya.

In the final days before the election, the U.S. presidential race appears to be tightening again.

U.S. Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama campaigns during an election rally in Sarasota, Florida, October 30, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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The newspaper quoted Philemon Sarungi as saying that he had met in Tarime some of Obama's relatives on his grandmother's side.

Kowak is a village that comes under the Rorya Constituency where Sarungi is the current member of parliament who went there for a by-election campaign only recently.

The newspaper also reported that Sarungi was once taught by Obama's father in Uganda where Obama Senior taught as one of three African teachers at the Seventh Days Adventist Church Missionary College in 1954.