Barack Obama, who became the 44th president of the US Tuesday, told cheering supporters "change has come to America" and called on Americans to back a spirit of unity to tackle the country's pressing challenges.

In a powerful speech in front of a crowd of an estimated 100,000 people jammed into Chicago's Grant Park on Tuesday, US President-elect Obama said a new dawn of American leadership was at hand and stressed the shared destiny of the United States and the rest of the world.

 

"It's been a long time coming. But tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America," Obama said.

In conversations and e-mail exchanges with SPIEGEL ONLINE, European leaders and thinkers express their wishes for US President-elect Barack Obama. Yes, they want the US to join the Kyoto successor. And, yes, they want to see Guantanamo close. But many also know that theirs is a view from Mars.

Barack Obama in Berlin: "If we're honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny."

Margot Wallström of Sweden is the vice-president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive.

On Tuesday the American people cast their votes electing a new President of the United States. I believe we are entering into a new era of trans-Atlantic relations.

In these times of extreme financial instability, it is more important than ever to strengthen trans-Atlantic relations and work together to solve global problems. Europe and the US share the same goals and values. We both want a peaceful, prosperous and stable world, where democracy is the norm, the rule of law prevails and human rights are respected.

reposted from the former Salon

European leaders said they hoped for a "new deal" for the world after Barack Obama's historic and sweeping election victory which makes him the first African-American to lead the United States.

European leaders on Wednesday hailed Obama's historic victory, saying they hoped the Democrat President-elect would usher in a new order of international cooperation between the EU and the US.

 

European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso said Obama's victory heralded "a time for renewed commitment between Europe and the United States of America," adding that a new trans-Atlantic bond must now be forged.

 

European leaders are hopeful that the US under Obama will once again closely work together with EU allies.

 

"I sincerely hope that with the leadership of President Obama, the United States of America will join forces with Europe to drive this new deal. For the benefit of our societies, for the benefit of the world," Barroso said.

GAZA: From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth -- call it America -- where such a thing happens.

Even where the United States is held in special contempt, like here in this benighted Palestinian coastal strip, the "glorious epic of Barack Obama," as the leftist French editor Jean Daniel calls it, makes America -- the idea as much as the actual place -- stand again, perhaps only fleetingly, for limitless possibility.

"It allows us all to dream a little," said Oswaldo Calvo, 58, a Venezuelan political activist in Caracas, in a comment echoed to correspondents of The New York Times on four continents in the days leading up to the election.

Tristram Hunt, a British historian, put it this way: Obama "brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to -- that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen."

But wonder is almost overwhelmed by relief. Obama's election offers most non-Americans a sense that the imperial power capable of doing such good and such harm -- a country that, they complain, preached justice but tortured its captives, launched a disastrous war in Iraq, turned its back on the environment and greedily dragged the world into economic chaos -- saw the errors of its ways over the past eight years and shifted course.

European leaders have hailed the triumph of Democrat Barack Obama in the US presidential election.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the victory was "brilliant", while UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed Mr Obama's "vision for the future".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the result was "historic", while the European Commission president called for "a new deal for a new world".

Moscow said it was expecting a "fresh approach" in US relations with Russia.

European Union expectations of a "new deal" for the world at a time of global economic crisis and hopes for a more Europe-friendly United States are running high after Barack Obama's sweeping election victory.

José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, said he hoped the Democrat President-elect would herald a new world order of international cooperation between the EU and US.

"This is a time for a renewed commitment between Europe and the United States of America," he said. "We need to change the current crisis into a new opportunity. We need a new deal for a new world."

EU diplomats and officials are convinced that under President Obama's leadership, next year, the US will be more engaged in multilateral international organisations than under the "unilateral" Presidency of George W. Bush.

"I sincerely hope that with the leadership of President Obama, the United States of America will join forces with Europe to drive this new deal. For the benefit of our societies, for the benefit of the world," Mr Barroso said.

Will President Barack Obama be a modern-day Franklin D Roosevelt, who pulled the US back up over the economic precipice, or will he be a disastrous copy of his predecessor, Herbert Hoover?

In the midst of these historically grim times, and with the US facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the question is a haunting one. The ebb and flow of presidential fortunes are often at one with the ebb and flow of the economy, and the 44th holder of the office will be defined by his handling of the present crisis - and probably very quickly.

A crumbling housing market has left millions of Americans facing foreclosure, income inequality is at its greatest in 80 years, and a credit squeeze has pushed homes, student loans and even cars out of the reach of many families. It was all quietly adding up to an economic crisis, even before the bottom fell out of the financial markets in September, laying waste to people's retirement savings and threatening a surge in unemployment that will be apparent in figures out as soon as Friday.

Meanwhile, the Durst Organisation had to squeeze a "1" on the front of its national debt clock, as it ticked over $10trln last month - a stark symbol of what economists have been warning for years, namely that the US has mortgaged its future to overseas lenders who could pull their money out at the slightest whiff of a budget crisis, or simply if they come up with a better idea for their investing their money (say, for instance, China's own growing economy).

As euphoric celebrations continue over the election of the first black US president, some are sounding a note of caution that Barack Obama may not be able to live up to all that is expected of him.

As black French civil rights activists and their friends began celebrating US President-elect Barack Obama's election early Wednesday, Nov. 5, in a private club in Paris, one reveler sounded a sobering, and largely unappreciated, note of caution.

 

"Obama is an American politician, and he will govern like an American president," said Cameroonian journalist Paul Heutching. "Let's not jump to unrealistic conclusions just because he looks like us."

 

As the world celebrates the election of the first African-American US president -- as a symbolic watershed in American society and a repudiation of the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush -- it seems as if many people, such as France's disenfranchised blacks, regard Obama as a kind of messiah capable of curing all ills.

 

A typically euphoric reaction was that of US television host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who told CNN television, "It feels like there is a shift in consciousness... It feels like something really big and bold has happened."

 

Most international newspapers seemed happily surprised by Barack Obama's victory. The election was a lesson in democracy, one Paris commentator wrote while others said disappointment may be on the road ahead.

Milan's Corriere della Sera writes: "Barack Obama, who was praised as the new Kennedy at the beginning of his campaign, instead crossed the finish line wearing the jersey of the 'black Roosevelt' -- the man who can save America from utter breakdown with a New Deal. (...) He even won over the financial markets, which is surprising, since the Democrats' new front man wants to give more power to labor unions and rein in free trade.

 

"But in fact, in the 1930s it took Roosevelt's policies a long time to create jobs, and it turned out to be a cure-all for the markets. Unsettled by the financial crisis, Americans are anxious for security. The country wants to see projects in the works, and it needs vision. This is what Obama gave the American voters early on, while John McCain continued to change his script throughout the campaign."

WECH BAGHTU, Afghanistan - The Afghan president congratulated Barack Obama and called on him Wednesday to halt civilian casualties as villagers said U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people , most of them children.

President Hamid Karzai said airstrikes cannot win the fight against terrorism.

"Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes," Karzai said. "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States , to put an end to civilian casualties."

Karzai spoke about the deaths at a news conference held to congratulate Obama on his election victory.

Obama has talked about the issue of civilian deaths in the past. In remarks in August that drew criticism from Republicans, he said: "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."

President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to make his first political appointments as part of plans to move swiftly with his transition to power in January.

Reports said that Rahm Emanuel, 48, a Democratic congressman from Mr Obama's home town Chicago, had been offered the key post of White House chief of staff.

Nicknamed "Rahmbo" for his sharp elbows and uncompromising style, the choice of Mr Emanuel indicated Mr Obama wanted a bad cop to balance his good cop routine.

He reportedly told Tony Blair before his first meeting with Mr Clinton, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal: "This is important, don't f*** it up."

A skilled ballet dancer as a teenager, the father of three volunteered for the Israeli Defence Force in the first Gulf War and later joined the Clinton administration as an adviser.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

That rather sad, muffled noise you hear behind the whoops and cheers of Democrat America is not the sound of defeated neocons mourning the passing of trickle-down economics; it is the sound of sobbing in the Élysée Palace. For Carla Bruni, reigning queen of First Ladies, the game is finally up. Cindy McCain would have been a push-over; even Sarah Palin she could have coped with, sexy specs or otherwise. But in Michelle Obama, Ms Bruni has truly met her match. This is a First Lady like none before.

As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

The Onion, of course.