HAHAHAHA - Obama won!?!

DurangoKiD · Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:58 pm

And so it begins... What message have we sent the world?

Barack Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States. BBC correspondents report on the mixed expectations from around the world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7708238.stm

They may be a long way from the celebrations and razzmatazz in Washington, but Korean farmers will be cheering America's choice for its new president just as loudly.

Last year the US and South Korea signed a free trade deal, the second biggest in US history.

If it is ratified by both parliaments, farmers here believe their livelihoods will be swamped by cheaper food from across the Pacific.

Barack Obama turns out to be an unlikely ally.

He's of the opinion that the agreement is bad news for American car workers, and he wants it renegotiated.

South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak, a strong supporter of the free trade agreement, may have another reason for viewing the Obama presidency with caution.

Compared to his liberal predecessors, the conservative Mr Lee has taken a tougher line with North Korea.

His insistence on raising the issue of human rights, and linking further aid and trade to progress on nuclear disarmament, has infuriated Pyongyang.

Mr Obama will continue with the multilateral "six-party talks" on North Korea.

But he has also promised to be a president "willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe."

The possibility of closer US engagement with North Korea, at the same time as the South gives it the cold shoulder, could leave Seoul out of the loop.

Barack Obama: the view from Russia

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=65

Russians this morning reacted enthusiastically to Obama's victory - with many voicing the hope that he will improve US-Russian relations, which have severely strained during the Bush years.

There was also relief that John McCain - seen in Moscow as the more aggressively anti-Russian of the two presidential candidates - failed to win.

McCain had infuriated the Kremlin by calling for Russia's expulsion from the G8 club of industrialised countries following August's war in Georgia. On this occasion the US electorate had got it right, several said.

"I always assumed that Americans were rational and that they would pick Obama," Alexander Sukhov, 47, a lawyer, said today, near his Moscow office.

Sukhov said that McCain's chances had risen during the war in Georgia - only to sink again with the global economic crisis. He added: "I don't expect relations with Moscow and Washington to change fundamentally, but I do think they will go in a better direction."

Medvedev: US to blame for global financial crisis

Russia's president says the United States is to blame for the global financial crisis — and presents his case in an online preview of his state-of-the-nation speech.

The highly anticipated speech Wednesday will be President Dmitry Medvedev's first state-of-the-nation address since taking office in May. A preview of the speech is available in a video posted on the Kremlin Web site.

Medvedev also says he will discuss the international consequences of the war in August that Russia fought with Georgia.

Russia sets tough tone with new White House
November 05, 2008
By Conor Sweeney

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev voiced hope on Wednesday for better relations with the new U.S. president, but also presented him with a headache by vowing retaliation for a U.S. missile defense plan.

Washington's relations with Moscow plunged to a post-Cold War low during George W. Bush's presidency, and many in Russia have been cautiously hopeful for an improvement under Barack Obama, who they believe will take a fresh approach.

"I would like to stress: we have no problems with the American people. We have no innate anti-Americanism," Medvedev said in his annual address to parliament.

"We hope that our partners -- the new US administration -- will make a choice in favor of fully-fledged relations with Russia," Medvedev said.

Medvedev attacked the U.S. plan to station parts of its missile defense system in Europe, and said Moscow would respond by deploying missile systems in its Western outpost of Kaliningrad.

He accused Washington of triggering the world financial crisis through its blunders and said selfish U.S. foreign policy had sparked August's war between Russia and Georgia.

Karzai demands Obama end civilian deaths

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_ ... fghanistan

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."

Russian leader blasts US, vows to deploy missiles near EU

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081106/wl ... 1106013204

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to deploy missiles on the EU's doorstep in a warning shot to US president-elect Barack Obama and Washington's allies in central Europe.

Just hours after Obama's election victory, Medvedev on Wednesday rounded on the United States for ills ranging from the global financial crisis to the recent war in Georgia in his debut state-of-the-nation speech.

He announced the deployment of Iskander short-range missiles in the western Russian territory of Kaliningrad, wedged between Lithuania and Poland, in response to US plans to site missile defence bases in eastern Europe.

Iran: Obama's victory proves 'failure of Bush's policies'

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034631.html

Tags: U.S., Barack Hussein Obama

Iranian officials on Wednesday welcomed Barack Obama's victory in U.S. presidential elections, calling it a sign of failure of President George Bush's policies and Americans' demand for essential changes.

"Obama's election as the U.S. president shows the American people's demand for essential changes in the country's domestic and foreign policies," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA, while urging the new administration "to distance itself from the wrong approaches of current politicians."

As the first reaction by an Iranian official earlier on Wednesday, Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel - senior advisor to Iran's supreme leader - said the victory of the slogan of "change" is the admission of the American people to the failure of Bush's policies.
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"The next U.S. president should abandon the course taken by President Bush and the American people have to change their policies in order to get rid of the quagmire that he created for them," former parliament speaker Hadad-Adel was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Arab commentators want to be able to admire America again

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034305.html

Tags: Barack Obama, Arabs

"The hope that Barack Obama's mere candidacy for office in the U.S. presidential race will generate a fundamental change for the better in President George Bush's policy in the White House is not a reasonable one," the Saudi publicist Hamad Al-Majid wrote recently, in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat daily newspaper.

"But if he Obama is elected, then two positive elements will materialize. First, It will put an end to the white man's monopoly on the White House. Additionally, it will create the optimal conditions for adoption of minor adjustments into American foreign policy, so as to make it less arrogant and less impulsive than the one championed by his predecessor."

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