The African Great Lakes are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area; and Lake Tanganyika, the world's second largest in volume as well as the second deepest.^{[citation needed]} The term Greater Lakes is also used, less commonly, for some of them.

The African Great Lakes are divided among three different catchments (river basins), and a number, such as Lake Turkana, have internal drainage systems. The following, in order of size from largest to smallest, are included on most lists of the African Great Lakes:

Some call only Lake Victoria, Lake Albert, and Lake Edward the Great Lakes, as they are the only three that empty into the White Nile. Lake Kyoga is part of Great Lakes system, but is not itself considered a Great Lake, based on size alone. Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu both empty into the Congo River system, while Lake Malawi is drained by the Shire River into the Zambezi. Lake Turkana has no outlet.

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada–United States border which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes Waterway. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth comprising 21% of the world's surface fresh water. The total surface is 94,250 square miles (244,106 km²), and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is 5,439 cubic miles (22,671 km³). The lakes are sometimes referred to as the North Coast or "Third Coast" by some citizens of the United States.

The lakes have been a major source of trade through this area, and they are home to a large number of aquatic species. Many invasive species have been introduced due to trade in the area, and some threaten the biodiversity of the area.

Though the five lakes reside in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water. The lakes form a chain connecting the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the St. Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Michigan-Huron (in the hydrological sense, a single body of water), southward to Erie, and finally northward to Lake Ontario. The lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. The Great Lakes region contains not only the five themselves but also many thousands of smaller lakes, often called inland lakes. Of the five lakes, Lake Michigan is the only one that is located entirely within the United States; the others form a water border between the United States and Canada.

John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior United States Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to then President George W. Bush.

The son of an Army Air Corps serviceman, Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado. He attended boarding school in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and went on to graduate from Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in political science. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1966 and, during 1968-1969, served a four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a Swift Boat. For that service he was awarded several combat medals that include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally recognized spokesperson and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war. During that period, he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes".