Chicago, Nov. 24: Close friends of US President-elect Barack Obama believe that the man they knew and were quite familiar with, has undergone a change since he won the elections on November 4. They hope he can find comfort in Washington, a city he has never embraced.

The Washington Post quotes close friend and political mentor Terry Link as recalling the time when at least once a week, Obama and he were on the telephone, but now, he says plain old Barack has been replaced by Mr. President Barack Obama.

New York, Nov 24: US President-elect Barack Obama’s most difficult test would be Pakistan, a country with 170 million people and up to 60 nuclear weapons, WHICH may be collapsing and where terror is increasing by the day, journalists being shot dead and diplomats kidnapped, said an article in the New York Times.

It said that life for journalists have been become scary, even as Peshawar is partly controlled by the Taliban.

L'Aquila, Italy  - US president-elect Barack Obama is once again the subject of a questionable compliment from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

During a Sunday press conference, Berlusconi told reporters that "We would all like to be tanned as brown as Naomi Campbell and Barack Obama," reported the Italian news agency Ansa.

Nonetheless, Berlusconi's comments seemed to stem from genuine envy for the complexion of Obama, the first African-American to be elected US president.

Washington, Nov 23 : US President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly said that he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs.

Signaling that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than what he had outlined on the campaign trail, he said that it would be “a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face.”

In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Obama said he hoped to sign the stimulus package into law soon after taking office on Jan. 20. He is already coordinating efforts with Democratic leaders in Congress, who have said they will begin work next month.

Kabul  - The US President-elect Barack Obama told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the fight against terrorism in the region and bringing security to the war-torn Afghanistan would be the top priority of his government, the Afghan presidential palace said Sunday.

Obama assured President Karzai in a telephone conversation on Saturday night that the US assistance to Afghanistan would increase when he takes office in January, Karzai's office said in a statement. This the first direct contact between Karzai and Obama sincethe November 4 US election.

London, Nov 23 : US President-elect Barack Obama’s inclination towards retaining George W Bush''s Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and other ‘hawks’, has reportedly attracted huge criticism of selling out on his promises of change in US foreign policy.

He has been accused putting national security policy in the hands of establishment figures who supported the Iraq war, said an article in The Telegraph.