Washington - President-elect Barack Obama faces a mammoth task in averting a series of domestic and global crises and managing the near-impossible expectations that have built up around his candidacy.

As congratulations poured in from leaders around the world Wednesday morning and Americans erupted in spontaneous celebrations, the tasks facing an Obama administration in January were clear.

Obama enters the White House with a shrinking US economy, a global financial system teetering on the brink of collapse and the United States still enmeshed in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cairo  - In a region where the presence of the US can not be more evident in political life, Egyptian political forces are hopeful that the victory of Barack Obama will bring the "change" he vowed, to their part of the world.

Essam al-Erian, a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, described Obama's victory as "historical."

"Obama's victory is a historical moment for the US and can be historical for the whole world," al-Erian told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

Madrid  - Representatives of Spain's black community Wednesday hailed US president-elect Barack Obama's victory as changing the perception the world had of black people.

"This totally changes the vision" that people have of "the capacity of the black community," said Luis Alberto Alarcon, an Afro-Colombian activist who lives in Madrid.

Obama's election as US president proved that blacks could reach the highest levels whenever "the political context allows them to move forward," Alarcon, who heads the Spanish section of the ecologist Life Foundation, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Abuja - Nigerians were jubilant Wednesday after Barack Obama was declared the 44th president of the United States of America.

Many Nigerians stayed glued to their television sets to monitor the election.

The moment Obama was announced to have won Ohio and Pennsylvania, cheering erupted in beer parlours and homes across Africa's most populous nation.

Lai Mohammed, spokesman of Action Congress, Nigeria's main opposition party, whose 2007 presidential candidate is still contesting the election of Umaru Yar'Adua, hailed the poll as an example to other nations.

Wednesday Islamabad - As celebrations erupted in many parts of the world over the victory of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people in Pakistan, a key US ally in the fight against terrorism, remained generally indifferent and even apprehensive.

"What difference does it make for us? His victory can be good for America, perhaps for many people around the world. But for us, he seems as bad as Bush," said Bilal Ahmad, 35, a shopkeeper in Islamabad's main commercial centre, known as the Blue Area.

Riga/Tallinn/Vilnius  - Senior politicians in the three small Baltic states added their voices to the chorus of congratulations for Barack Obama after his US election victory Wednesday.

There was unanimity in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that the result offered a chance to deepen an already warm transatlantic relationship.

Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa: "We congratulate Obama and his team on this victory. Bilateral relations between Estonia and the US will be as active, good and deep as they have been so far."