Washington - The economic turmoil in the United States has pushed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ahead of Republican rival John McCain, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Wednesday showed.

Obama got the nod from 52 per cent of likely voters in the poll to 43 per cent for McCain. It was the first time since the primary season ended that Obama has taken a clear lead over McCain, the newspaper said. As recently as two weeks ago the race was a virtual tie, with McCain leading by a narrow margin.

New York, Sept. 24 : There is at least one area where John McCain and Barack Obama agree – they would not fancy lying to the public.

In separate interviews with CBS, both said that they would seek to be above board and transparent in their interactions with the American public, should either of them become president.

Washington, Sep 24: The results of this year’s US presidential election could have a tremendous impact on Iran, as many in Tehran are hoping for a change, and are pinning their hopes on Democratic nominee Barack Obama, who favours negotiations with Iran without preconditions

Escalating international pressure over Iran’s nuclear program is giving Tehran a very hard time, and officials there are struggling to curtail the impact of sanctions on the Iranian economy, the Washington Times reports.

Columbia (Missouri US), Sept. 24 : An internationally recognized scholar of presidential debates believes that the McCain-Obama presidential debates coming up this week and next month, will be as significant as the debates that took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in the run-up to the 1960 presidential elections.

With many polls showing Obama and McCain in a dead heat, many are predicting that the first presidential debate on September 26 could be a turning point in the election.

Washington, Sep 23 : Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden has said that a campaign ad that mocked Republican presidential candidate John McCain as computer illiterate was “terrible” and would not have been done had he known about it.

Obama, McCain’s Democratic rival, launched the ad earlier this month, part of an aggressive push to slow McCain’s rise in the polls after he chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

Washington, Sep 23 : John McCain trying to reclaim the advantage that slipped to Barack Obama as the Wall Street mess has unfolded, has criticized his democratic rival of running the same “corrupt Chicago political machine” as convicted felon and Obama patron Tony Rezko and the Daley family, which controls Chicago politics.

McCain’s campaign in a new advertisement said they are raising the corruption issue because the press has failed to do so, the Washington Post reported.