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Obama faces huge challenges, impossible expectations

The ‘Obama-Ayers’ ConnectionWashington - 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.

Arabs are ready for change to come to the Middle East

Barack ObamaCairo  - 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.

Turkey must do better for membership, Brussels says

Nine Turkish police officers hurt in suicide bomb attack in Mersin Brussels - Turkey has proven itself to be a reliable international partner and a key energy transit route, but it must work harder on political and human-rights reforms if it wants to join the European Union, the EU's executive said Wednesday.

Brussels gives Croatia 2009 target to end EU talks

Croatia raises guarantees for savings to 75,800 dollars Brussels - Croatia should be able to finish all talks on joining the EU by the end of 2009, paving the way for it to enter the bloc as early as 2011, the EU's executive body said Wednesday.

It is the first time that the European Commission has set out a timetable for the former Yugoslav republic to complete all EU accession negotiations.

Arsenal's Adebayor out for three weeks

London  - Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor is set to be out for three weeks with an ankle injury, his manager Arsene Wenger confirmed.

Spain's blacks hail Obama's "symbolic" victory

barack obamaMadrid  - 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.

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