Washington - President-elect Barack Obama has made his first White House appointment - picking Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and will meet with President George W Bush to discuss the transition phase on Monday.

Emanuel, a close friend of Obama's who served as a senior advisor in former president Bill Clinton's White House in the 1990s, accepted the job on Thursday, a Democratic Party aide confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Washington - President-elect Barack Obama has made his first White House appointment - picking Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and will meet with President George W Bush to discuss the transition phase on Monday.

Emanuel, a close friend of Obama's who served as a senior advisor in former president Bill Clinton's White House in the 1990s, accepted the job on Thursday, a Democratic Party aide confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The first-term senator and now the President-elect, Barack Obama, will get versed with the "burdens of office" on Thursday, when he will receive his first 'top secret briefing' from Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence. Vice-president elect, Joseph Biden, will receive a separate briefing from the CIA.

Intelligence officials told ABCNews. com that McConnell will be accompanied by the CIA's top intelligence analyst, Michael Morel, the Director for Intelligence, and two senior CIA briefers.

Barack Obama has little time to relax after he triumphed over Republican John McCain, and made history as the first African-American elected the US president - he has to grapple with two wars and a deepening financial crisis.

Aides on Capitol Hill and other Democratic insiders said Wednesday that Obama began the transition by asking Illinois congressman, Rahm Emanuel - a former Clinton White House adviser - to be his White House chief of staff.

Turin, Italy - Barack Obama's victory in the US presidential vote marks a "great step forward for humanity" that could be mirrored with the election of a black pope, according to a top US Roman Catholic cleric.

"If Obama at the White House is like the first time man (stepped on) the moon, then it can certainly happen at the threshold of St Peter's," the Archbishop of Atlanta, Wilton Daniel Gregory, was quoted as saying in an interview published Thursday in an Italian newspaper.

Baghdad, Nov 6: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that US President-elect Barack Obama won’t stick to his stance of withdrawing US troops within 16 months of taking over the White House, as promised during the election campaign.

“There won''t be quick disengagement here. A great deal is at stake,” the Daily Times quoted Zebari as telling a foreign news agency.

He said that Baghdad would respect the will of the American voters and that it was looking for a successful partnership with Obama.