PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK Obama has discussed the global financial crisis and other issues with a number of foreign leaders as he continues his preparations for assuming office next January, writes Denis Stauntonin Chicago
Mr Obama spoke to the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Israel to thank them for their congratulations on his election.
During a 30-minute conversation with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the two presidents discussed a number of international issues and agreed to meet "in the near future".
Mr Obama spoke to Britain's Gordon Brown for 10 minutes, during which they touched on the world economy, the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Middle East peace process.
The new president agreed to work closely with German chancellor Angela Merkel on Iran's disputed nuclear programme, Afghanistan, climate change and the financial crisis, German officials said.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become the first leader of his country to congratulate a US president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, sending his good wishes in a letter to Mr Obama.
The Iranian leader said he hoped the new president would serve the American people "and leave a good name for history" during his term in office.
Republicans in Washington continued to criticise Mr Obama's early appointments yesterday, claiming that his choice of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and David Axelrod as special adviser signalled a partisan approach to government.
Accepting the post of chief of staff after an initial hesitation, Mr Emanuel made a point of praising Republicans in Congress and promised to work with them in the White House. "We often disagree, but I respect their motives," he said.
"Now is a time for unity, and Mr President-elect, I will do everything in my power to help you stitch together the frayed fabric of our politics, and help summon Americans of both parties to unite in common purpose."
The new chief of staff's father, Benjamin Emanuel, an Israeli who fought with the Irgun guerrilla group, told an Israeli newspaper that the Jewish state would have a good friend in the White House.
"Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel," Ma'ariv quoted him as saying. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
In his first public statement since Mr Obama's election victory, the president-elect's former pastor Jeremiah Wright said he regretted the controversy over some of his sermons that led the Democrat to repudiate him.
"The world doesn't know about my 41 years of ministry, or my writing of books, because it was all taken down to a 10-second soundbite that the media chose to show about a sermon that was delivered seven years ago," Rev Wright told a church group in Connecticut.
"The media didn't care about the whole sermon and what it was about. They just used those 10 seconds and used it as a weapon of mass destruction against his campaign."
Rev Wright said the greatest danger following Mr Obama's election was that people would read too much into it and conclude that the struggle for civil rights was over.
"My biggest fear is that we will take what's just happened in this country and think a whole lot has changed," he said.
"If you take a Tiger Woods, a Michael Jordan or a Barack Obama, their success should not lull us into thinking society has changed."