US News

Obama meets with half brother

BEIJING — President Obama met briefly with a half-brother who lives in China and who recently wrote a semiautobiographical novel about the abusive Kenyan father they shared.

An Obama aide said the meeting with Mark Ndesandjo took place Monday night after the president arrived in Beijing during his China tour.

“I don’t know him well. I met him for the first time a couple of years ago,” Obama told CNN. “He stopped by with his wife for about five minutes during the trip.”

Ndesandjo, who has a Chinese wife, told AP Television News yesterday, “I think he came directly off the plane, changed some clothes and then came down and saw us. And he just gave me a big hug. And it was so intense. ”