BBC News ..Obama releases 'long form' birth certificate( For those on a slow network
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The White House has released President Barack Obama's birth certificate, in response to persistent rumours he was not born in the US.
Mr Obama had previously released an official "certification of live birth" showing he was born in Hawaii.
But fringe "birther" theorists have insisted Mr Obama was actually born in his father's native Kenya, making him ineligible to be president.
Recently potential Republican candidate Donald Trump has revived the rumour.
On Wednesday, Mr Obama described the unprecedented move as an effort to rid the US political debate of a distraction.
"We do not have time for this kind of silliness," Mr Obama said. "We have better stuff to do. I have better stuff to do. We have problems we have to solve but we're gonna have to focus on them, not on this."
Mr Obama said he had watched "with bemusement" as the birther conspiracy had built and developed over the past years.
The release of Mr Obama's long form birth certificate, which had been stored in a vault in Hawaii since his birth in August 1961, comes after years of speculation among conspiracy-minded conservatives.
The "birther" conspiracy held that Mr Obama was born in Kenya or in Indonesia, where he lived as a child, or that the birth certificate revealed other unwholesome information about the president.
During the 2008 presidential campaign Mr Obama released a computer print-out of the birth certificate information that is recognised as an official record of his birth, and Hawaiian public health officials vouched for its authenticity.
But the move did little to quell the birthers, even as most mainstream Republicans have sought to quash the movement, calling it a distraction from substantive policy disagreements.
On Wednesday, the White House released copies of the original birth certificate, with a stamp indicating it was received from Hawaiian officials on Monday.
It shows Barack Hussein Obama II was born 4 August 1961 at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, to Barack Hussein Obama, a 25-year-old student, and Stanley Ann Dunham, 18, and includes the signature of the attending physician.
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