Washington  - US president-elect Barack Obama on Sunday promised upon entering the White House later in January to begin immediate engagement in finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Speaking on US broadcaster ABC, Obama said that "what I am doing right now is putting together the team so that on January 20, starting on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole."

Obama spoke of "engaging with all of the actors ... to create a strategic approach that ensures that both Israelis and Palestinians can meet their aspirations."

Washington, Jan 10 : President elect Barack Obama's pick for CIA chief, Leon Panetta, does not belong to the intelligence community, but is a professional manager, just what the CIA might need.

Obama's nominee for CIA director has faced skepticism from some senators and intelligence insiders, but he is not the first to come to Langley with a resume in politics, FOX News reported.

George H. W. Bush faced similar criticism when President Gerald Ford tapped him to lead the embattled agency in 1975.

Hamburg - Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called in an open letter published Saturday for closer ties with the United States under its next president, Barack Obama.

He offered German aid to Iraq, and German homes for some of the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the letter, published in the news magazine Der Spiegel. Steinmeier was in Cairo on Saturday and bound for Jerusalem on Sunday on a Mideast peace mission.

In the open letter to Obama, Steinmeier wrote, "Let's write a new trans-Atlantic agenda and infuse life into it."

Washington, January 10 : Barack Obama's presidential inauguration will be marked by a performance by a band who penned a hit song about the President-elect's Irish roots.

Having found out that Obama's ancestors were from County Offaly, London-based group the Corrigan Brothers came up with a song titled `There''s No One as Irish as Barack O''Bama'.

The song with the line "O''Leary, O''Reilly, O''Hare and O''Hara... there''s no one as Irish as Barack O''Bama" became a hit on the Internet, earning over a million hits on YouTube.

Washington, Jan 10 : With the inauguration of US president-elect Barack Obama drawing near, the Presidential Inaugural Committee has opened a memorabilia store in downtown Washington, D. C.

Many Obama fans can now have a reminder of the historical day with the T-shirts, caps and coffee mugs souvenirs that the store is selling, and also with other less conventional items, reports CBS News.

The store has come out with a blue Barack Obama wristband priced at four dollars, with the date 01.20.09 printed on it.

Washington, January 10 : Tickets to watch U. S. President-elect Barack Obama''s inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue sold out in less than a minute on Friday.

Soon afterwards, many people offered to resell them on various Web sites.

Blogger Dcist has revealed that tickets went on sale at 1 p. m. and were no longer available at 1:01 p. m.

"Did anyone actually manage to score any?" the Washington Times quoted the blogger as saying.