There had never been any doubt that if the outside world had been eligible to vote in the US presidential election, Mr Obama's victory would have been virtually absolute. But electoral etiquette prevented foreign leaders from getting caught up in the fever until the ballots were in and it became clear that the young Illinois senator had sold his message of change to voters back home.
European nations applauded Mr Obama's victory and expressed hope that it would lead to a “new deal” and energise relations still strained after the US-led invasion of Iraq five years ago and eight years of the Bush Administration.
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
As the curtain falls on the Bush Administration, one set piece of the Administration's policy on torture has finally been ushered offstage. The Bybee Memo, a 2002 opinion authored by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, was brushed aside last week by a federal judge overseeing the nation's first-ever criminal trial of an American accused of torture abroad.
The Federal Reserve Bank is drawing jeers for hiring a former top executive from the now-defunct investment bank Bear Stearns to help it gauge the health of other banks. 
The ozone hole over Antarctica grew to the size of North America this year – the fifth largest on record – according to the latest satellite observations.
