London - A leading British bookmaker on Saturday said it had turned away punters wanting to place bets on US president-elect Barack Obama being assassinated, media reports said.

William Hill said it had received more than 100 requests from customers wanting to place bets but that the firm was not interested, according to Britain's Press Association.

"I cannot imagine why any reputable bookmaker would even consider taking such a bet or any punter contemplate placing one," William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe was quoted as saying.

Washington - In his first radio address as president-elect, Barack Obama on Saturday called for unity among the American people as they seek solutions to the ongoing economic crisis.

He praised voters of all parties for exercising their right to vote in Tuesday's elections, in which he beat Republican John McCain, and said he would work with President George W Bush in a transition of power.

Washington, Nov. 8 : Two former White House chiefs of staff have praised President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of Representative Rahm Emanuel for the same job.

Ken Duberstein, the former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, and Leon Panetta, the former California congressman who held the post in the Clinton White House, said Emanuel’s appointment suggested that Obama was serious about getting results from his administration.

“Rahm is exceptionally well-qualified for that job,” Politico quoted Duberstein, as saying while lauding Obama for choosing a chief of staff so early in the transition process.

Wednesday Lahore, Nov 8 : African-American Democrat Barack Obama won the Nov 4 presidential poll because the White votes outnumbered non-White votes and in the end, the scope of Obama’s victory showed that he enjoyed significant, broad-based support from Americans of all racial backgrounds,” the Daily Times quoted an article published on the blog Asian-Nation as saying.

The article further stated that 52 percent of voters earning at least 200,000 dollars per annum voted for Obama as opposed to 46 percent who voted for his rival Republican candidate John McCain.

London, November 7 : A New Age guru says that success was written in Barack Obama’s name, but he adds that the U. S. President-elect may face an assassination attempt next year.

Laurence Y. Payg says that he has used a 3,000-year-old Chinese technique to study Obama’s destiny, by linking the letters in his name with a numbers grid.

“This adds up to 18 and indicates people naturally go to him with problems and difficulties,” the Daily Star quoted him as saying of how he saw the new hero’s first name ‘Barack’.

Washington, Nov. 8 : An Austrian television commentator has claimed that Barack Obama is unfit to rule because he is black.

Klaus Emmerich declared: “I do not want the western world being directed by a black man. And, if you say this is a racist remark, I say you are damn right it is.”

Emmerich, 80, covered the American presidential campaign for Austria’s state broadcaster ORF – who are refusing to sack him.