Asia offers Obama a warm welcome - BBC

[Guest guest]

Asia offers Obama a warm welcome

Wednesday, 5 November 2008

 

Asian leaders welcomed the election of Barack Obama as the next

president of the United States - as did the region's financial

markets.

 

Some regional leaders said Mr Obama's victory in the US poll was the

start of a new, more hopeful era.

 

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the victory represented a

message of hope not just for America, but for the rest of the world

as well.

 

Many regional stock markets rose sharply on the news.

 

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index initially increased by 5.2% and Japan's

Nikkei 225 stock average jumped by 4.5%.

 

Indonesia's pride

 

The Australian prime minister's hope that Mr Obama's victory would

help solve pressing global problems was shared by other leaders in

the Asia-Pacific region.

 

Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso said problems involving the world

economy, terror and environment needed resolving.

 

Meanwhile Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

said: " Indonesia hopes the US can take concrete measures to settle

the global economic crisis and the financial crisis in the United

States. "

 

There was a special air of pride and celebration in Jakarta, reports

the BBC's Lucy Williamson - where Mr Obama spent four years of his

childhood in Indonesia, and many hope he will understand the Muslim

world better as a result.

 

Hundreds of people joined an election countdown organised by the US

embassy in Jakarta, and many others watched the results come in on

television and radio.

 

'New period of history'

 

The South Korean presidential office issued a statement saying Mr

Obama's vision of change and hope was shared by its own President Lee

Myung-bak.

 

Even China's President Hu Jintao said this was a " new period of

history " when he contacted Mr Obama to offer his congratulations.

 

" It is of great importance to develop a healthy, long-term and stable

Sino-US relation, " he told Mr Obama, according to a statement

released by China's Foreign Ministry.

 

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said: " Senator Obama will be

taking office at a critical juncture.

 

" There are many pressing challenges facing the international

community, including the global financial crisis and global warming. "

 

The optimism shown by regional political leaders was shared by the

main money markets, although analysts warn that the financial crisis

means the outlook for the global economy remains grim.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7710239.stm

 

, " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org wrote:

>

> Proud to be American once again

>

> MARGARET WENTE

> From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

>

> E-mail Margaret Wente | Read Bio | Latest Columns

> November 3, 2008 at 11:36 PM EST

>

> I don't know what kind of president Barack Obama will be, but I

know this: He has made me proud of America again. And also of

Americans.

>

> Today, they are turning out in record numbers to repudiate the

> leaders who disgraced and failed them. Today, they're doing what no

> one would have dared imagine a few years ago: electing a biracial

> president with a foreign-sounding name who self-identifies as

black.

> They are taking a courageous leap of faith, because they're

disgusted

> with what's happened to their country.

>

> I am a Canadian who was born and grew up in the United States. For

> most people like me, the past few years have been dreadful. We lost

> our native country to men without honour. We lost it to people who

> authorized torture, secret prisons and indefinite detention. We

lost

> it to people who made America hated and feared around the world and

> then, for good measure, presided over a global financial collapse.

We

> gave up trying to defend America to all those critics who love to

> wallow in its wickedness - because, for once, they were right, and

we

> were ashamed.

>

> I don't know how Mr. Obama will do as president, but I know this:

He

> will give Americans their country back. He will work to make it the

> kind of country that people can respect again.

>

> I come from a long line of corn-fed Midwesterners, Republicans,

> mostly. They were an optimistic lot, and they were immensely proud

of

> their country. From the time I was little, I, too, knew that my

> country stood for freedom, justice and doing the right thing.

>

> That idealized nation never did exist, of course. When Mr. Obama's

> parents got married in Hawaii, it was still illegal for them to do

so

> in Virginia. Eventually, I learned that America wasn't always just,

> and that quite a few Americans lived in a country quite different

> from the one I knew. By the time I settled in Canada, I was

relieved

> to leave behind the race wars, the wounds of Vietnam and the

operatic

> hysteria of Watergate.

>

> I've been a citizen of Canada for 30 years, and I never think of

> going back. But it's been painful to see my native land turn into a

> place that would dismay my grandparents. The moderate Rockefeller

> Republicans of my youth were banished long ago, replaced by a gang

of

> moral absolutists who derive their certainty on both abortion and

> foreign wars from divine revelation. They weren't conservatives at

> all. They were radicals, who practised a sort of ideological slash

> and burn. They created tribal divisions so bitter that, today,

> Republicans and Democrats can scarcely talk to one another.

>

> The optimism of my grandparents disappeared, too. Seven years after

> 9/11, America is still behaving like a nation under imminent

threat -

> defensive, inward-looking and overly afraid. There are smarter ways

> to fight the terror wars, with less apocalyptic rhetoric, more

> confidence and less pointless harassment of the public in airports.

> Maybe Mr. Obama will find them.

>

> I'm proud, too, proud and profoundly moved, that black Americans

who

> haven't bothered to vote in years are voting today. I see them and

I

> cry. The racial conversation will never end, but it will be

> different. The bitter narrative of oppression and grievance is

over.

> The narrative of possibility - of Martin Luther King - can begin

> again.

>

> I'm under no illusion that Americans will start holding hands

> tomorrow and sing Kumbaya. I have no idea whether Barack Obama will

> be able to succeed, or even muddle through, with the nasty hand

he's

> been dealt. But I do know that what's happening today is a fresh

> start, and a relief, and even redemptive.

>

> " The cradle of the best and the worst. " That's what Leonard Cohen

> sings about America and, as usual, he's absolutely right. So,

> tonight, please join me in raising a glass to democracy in the

United

> States. Americans are about to get their country back, and so am I.

>

> MARGARET WENTE

> From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

>