Kenya: Trials would aid fight against corruption - Obama
(about 3 hours later)
US President Barack Obama has praised Africa's economic and business potential in a speech in Nairobi on the first full day of his visit to Kenya.
The US president has urged Kenya to hold "visible" trials to tackle corruption, which he said could be the "biggest impediment" to further growth.
After talks in Nairobi, President Obama and Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta said they were "united against terrorism" and efforts to deal with it.
But the two leaders differed sharply in their positions on gay rights.
While Mr Obama spoke strongly against discrimination, Mr Kenyatta said Kenya did not share the same values.
Earlier Mr Obama praised Africa's economic and business potential in a speech.
"Africa is on the move... People are being lifted out of poverty, incomes are up (and) the middle class is growing," he told a business summit.
"Africa is on the move... People are being lifted out of poverty, incomes are up (and) the middle class is growing," he told a business summit.
He later visited a memorial for those killed in the 1998 US embassy bombing.
BBC Africa Live: Obama in Kenya updates
His schedule includes security talks with Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta.
He also visited a memorial for those killed in the 1998 US embassy bombing.
The trip which started on Friday has been described as a "homecoming" by Kenyan media.
The trip, which began on Friday, is Mr Obama's first visit as president to the country where his father was born.
It is Mr Obama's first visit as president to the country where his father was born.
'Breaking the habit'
Crowds cheered Mr Obama's motorcade as it travelled from the airport.
Barack Obama said he was encouraged by statements President Kenyatta had made about the need to root out corruption.
His first appearance in Nairobi on Saturday morning, was presiding over the opening of a Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
People were being "consistently sapped by corruption at a high level and at a low level, " and there was a need for "visible prosecutions," Mr Obama said, to show Kenyans that action was being taken.
Africa needed to be a "future hub of global growth", Mr Obama told young entrepreneurs and businesspeople, adding that governments had to ensure that corruption was not allowed to flourish.
"They don't have to be a forensic accountant to know what is going on,"
He said Kenya had made "incredible progress" since his last visit.
Police officers and civil servants had to be paid properly to help curb corruption, but sometimes it just required "breaking the habit".
"When I was here in Nairobi 10 years ago, it looked different from what it looks today," he said.
Later, Mr Obama visited the memorial park on the site of the US embassy where 213 people were killed in an al-Qaeda truck bombing in 1998.
Twelve Americans and 34 local embassy workers died in the blast on the same day the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was targeted killing 11 people.
Survivors attended as he laid a wreath.
Security is tight for Mr Obama's visit with about 10,000 police officers deployed in Nairobi, major roads closed and US military planes patrolling overhead.
Security and Kenya's counter-terrorism efforts are likely to dominate Mr Obama's talks with President Kenyatta.
Kenya has been targeted by the militant Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabab which killed at least 67 people in an attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping complex in 2013.
The group also staged an attack on the university in Garissa, northern Kenya, earlier this year in which 148 people died.
Although trade and security are featuring strongly in Mr Obama's visit, he has also pledged to deliver a "blunt message" to African leaders about gay rights and discrimination.
Kenyans to Obama: 'Spare us the gay talk'
On his arrival at Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, he was hugged by his half-sister Auma and later, at dinner, the president was joined by more relatives including "Mama Sarah", who helped to raise his late father.
Mr Obama's visit would have been diplomatically impossible when President Kenyatta faced charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi.
The case against Mr Kenyatta has since been dropped and the way seems clear for a restoration of ties, she adds.
After his visit to Kenya, Mr Obama will travel on to Ethiopia where he will become the first US leader to address the African Union.
"I'll be the first US president to not only visit Kenya and Ethiopia, but also to address the continent as a whole, building off the African summit that we did here which was historic and has, I think, deepened the kinds of already strong relationships that we have across the continent."
"A while back, when we started looking at strategies to reach out to the Muslim world, to reach out to developed countries, a common theme emerged, which was people are not interested in just being... patronised. And being given aid. They're interested in building capacity."
"We welcome Chinese aid into Africa. I think we think that's a good thing. We don't want to discourage it. As I've said before, what I also want to make sure though is that trade is benefiting the ordinary Kenyan and the ordinary Ethiopian and the ordinary Guinean and not just a few elites."
"As somebody who has family in Kenya and knows the history of how the country so often is held back because women and girls are not treated fairly, I think those same values apply when it comes to different sexual orientations."
