Jubilation and Resignation as World Reacts to Arrival of New US President

Barack Obama took office amid fevered speculation that the moderate former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, was to announce his candidacy for Iran's upcoming presidential elections.

Khatami told aides that he would announce his decision in the next few days, local Iranian news agencies reported.

Hope for better relations

With the prospect of a renewed Khatami presidency, thousands of Iranians who were watching the inauguration ceremony via their illegal satellite dishes were given a glimmer of hope that three decades of Iran-US hostility might be about to end.

Hamed Mohaghegh, 21, an industrial civil engineering student in Tehran, watching the ceremony on the BBC, said that the US had given its democracy a boost by electing an black man as president.

"Before Obama was elected, we had this impression in our country that a black man will never succeed to become the president of the States, a candidate who had an Arabic middle name, Hussein."

"[Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad [the Iranian president] has also doubted, saying that he thinks that [American voters would] not let a black man become the president of the US," said Reza Ahmadi, 40, an Iranian maths teacher at a high school.

Obama did not reply to Ahmadinejad's letter

Yet, others were disappointed that Obama had not responded to the letter of congratulation sent to him by Ahmadinejad.

"It seems that the whole world has a share of Obama's 'change that can happen' except Iranian people", he added.

Ali Mohammadi, 37, an Iranian businessman, thinks that bringing Obama on to the US political stage was the only choice Americans had.

"America is not popular and powerful as before; the US is rather notorious for its background in Iraq and Afghanistan right now and is facing an economic crisis, so Obama was the only one to stabilise the States not only economically but also to get back the US ex-reputation in the world," he said.

"Obama will not change relations"

Media Kashigar, 52, a well-known Iranian intellectual and critic, believes that US foreign policy toward Iran has not changed in at least the past 30 years.

"Iran-US conflict is not a governmental or administrational problem. It is a mutual state problem, so I think neither Obama nor anyone else in Iran can ease the debate easily in [the near] future," he said.

"I don't think the US president has much influence to change American foreign policy. We've experienced JF Kennedy, we've seen Clinton and Bush, but has there been any foreign policy apparent change in [the] past 60 years in the US?" said Amirmehdi Rezaee, 60, an Iranian retired-employee of the country's government.

Xan Rice reports from Kisumu:

"I'm tingling like I'm in a sauna," said Samson Wakoli, a 26-year-old bank worker, as he watched Obama's speech with thousands of other Kenyans tonight on a giant screen near the shores of Lake Victoria. "This gives me strength. We have waited so long. God is good, God is good, God is good."

As Bob Marley's One Love began to play, Ruth Odaga said she had been "touched in a very special way".

"Obama has given us happiness"

"Last January we were fighting here" – the town of Kisumu was badly hit in Kenya's post-election violence – "and now look at the happiness Obama has given everyone," she said.

Celebrations were already in full swing across the country that includes "the small village where my father was born" that Obama referred to in his speech. In nearby Kogelo, where Obama Sr grew up, the party was at Barack Obama primary school, where classrooms had become makeshift hotels with names like Something Cold and Connie of Siaya.

"He is our son"

"We are so proud of Barack," said Consolata "Connie" Oguna, a 55-year-old teacher. "He is our son."

Male dancers wearing short pink-and-blue sisal skirts, feathers strapped to their arms and the occasional cloak made from the silky black and white fur of a colobus monkey, entertained the crowd.

Hawkers sold T-shirts, calendars and traditional print wraps. A photographer was selling framed portraits of his own holy trinity: Obama, Jesus Christ and the Kenyan prime minister, Raila Odinga, who is from this region.

George Otieno, 19 and in his final year of study at the adjacent secondary school, said: "By becoming US president, Obama has given us all hope. If you believe something then you can do it."

Back at the sports ground in Kisumu, a young boy, perhaps eight years old, danced along to the music, telling anyone who would listen: "I'm the next Barack Obama, OK?"

Luke Harding reports from Moscow:

Obama's inauguration provoked a lukewarm response in Russia, with state television covering the event patchily, and the only public displays of attention breaking out in overtly expatriate venues.

Sympathy for Obama but no great optimism

"I don't think the relationship between our countries will change greatly," Igor Krasavin, 28, a philosophy lecturer from Yekaterinburg, predicted after the speech. He added, however: "Personally, I like him."

Most Russians appear to agree – praising his "powerful" delivery but also noting he looked a bit nervous, especially at the beginning. They were generally optimistic that Obama would now bring positive changes, though.

"I expect him to practise a greener kind of politics," Konstantin Zgurovsky, a 56-year-old ecologist, said. "I think he will pay greater attention to domestic problems and pull the US army out of Iraq."

Others were more equivocal. "Unquestionably there will be changes. But what they are we still don't know yet. I hope he quickly resolves the US's crisis, so that Russia's economic problems become easier," Tatyana Bazlova, 27, from Pskov said.

He can only be better than Bush...

There was also general agreement that the 44th president could only be an improvement on the disastrous 43rd; George Bush is seen in Russia, as elsewhere, as a warmonger. Obama's speech was seen by many as a direct repudiation of the Bush legacy.

"I hope that Obama means that Russia and the US develop a pragmatic partnership. I hope Obama prefers to use his intelligence rather than war as a means of influence," Alena Pravidla, 31, from Moscow said.

Martin Chulov reports from Baghdad:

Many Iraqis seemed nonplussed at the swearing-in of Obama, with some not knowing the inauguration was taking place and others consumed by the fall-out from the outgoing presidency.

Muted reactions

Obama's messages of change and remaking America have yet to resonate in the country that will help shape the legacy of his first years in office. Some Baghdadis, however, were impressed by his inauguration speech.

"If he can do as well as he talks, then all our problems are over," said Abu Ali, the owner of a sparkling new restaurant, Shisha Cafe, in the city's Karada district. "I believe he is a good man, but many people in Iraq believe all American presidents are the same and that we are a playground for their interests," he added. "That's it."

Another cafe-goer, Haitham Sarkis, said that his family had long ago stopped listening to Bush and become dispirited by his last three years in office.

"He kept telling us one thing, yet we were living the other," he said. "This man never knew us and we are left with a massive mess that we must now pick up, not the new president."

US not popular in Iraq

The US presence on the streets of Baghdad may be slowly diminishing, but the withdrawal of the occupying forces is not generating a rise in America's popularity.

Iraqi children and youths regularly taunt each other by removing their shoes and threatening to throw them – mimicking the local journalist who humiliated Bush during his last visit in December.

"Obama won't get the same treatment," said a nurse from the northern suburb of Adamiyeh, Um Nassir. "But he won't have too long to prove himself to us."

Bush, however, is not a villain to all. "He always said history will judge him," said Samira Musawi, a parliamentarian. "But God will judge him as well and God has used Bush to remove the evil of Saddam and set the Iraqi nation free. It is now our responsibility to find the right way to direct this change."

Obama spoke of a world remade but Luis Fernando's Caracas slum did not look any different and he saw little reason to think US policy towards Hugo Chávez and Latin America would be any different.

Suspicious of Washington

The 50-year-old security guard watched the inauguration speech dubbed into Spanish on a flickery TV and shrugged. "Seems to me he is going to be just like the other one, Bush. He hasn't even started yet and he's already making threats against us."

Fernando, from El Valle, a hillside of precarious shacks in Venezuela's capital, supports Chávez's socialist revolution and is suspicious of the superpower. "It's good that a man of colour is in the White House; he may show solidarity with Latin America."

But the self-proclaimed "Chavista" echoed his beloved president in suspecting that as surely as a tropical sun shone overhead Washington would stir trouble.

"Obama will continue anti-Venezuelan policies"

Chávez reaped acclaim for standing up to Bush, who backed a failed coup against him in 2002 before going on to invade Iraq. The oil-rich leader cast his revolution as a beacon in the fight against imperialism and claimed Venezuela was next in the Pentagon's sights. The rhetoric galvanised his red-clad supporters and tarred opponents as CIA stooges.

The ascent of a black US president who opposed the Iraq war has presented Chávez, who revels in confrontation, with a dilemma. He initially celebrated Obama's election but recently said Obama shared Bush's "stench" and was trying to destabilise Venezuela.

State media echoed that today with warnings that Obama would be hostage to US corporate and military interests. "We don't have many illusions; he has already started baring his teeth against Venezuela," said the newspaper Diario Vea.

Fernando gazed at the TV images of cannons firing in salute and sighed. "Let's give Obama a chance. Give him some time and see what he does."

Rory McCarthy reports from Gaza City:

In the Popeye Cafe in Gaza City, dozens of young Palestinians sat in front of the television drinking tea and smoking water-pipes tonight, but, though they glanced up at Obama's speech occasionally, very few believe the new US president will make any difference to their lives.

"I have a feeling deep inside me that we shouldn't expect anything from Obama," said Taher Yazji, 24, whose family runs a printing business. "All of them speak of the Middle East as a priority but we don't see anything from them, no results at all. I don't think the ordinary people of America understand what has happened to us. I don't think that anyone looks at the Palestinians. We're just trying to defend our homeland in the same way they defend their homeland."

Call for a lift of economic blockade

Ask a Gazan what they would like to see from a US president, what would change their lives for the better, and they all give the same answer: lift the long and painful economic blockade that Israel has imposed on this small, overcrowded territory of 1.5 million people. That blockade remains in place even after three weeks of war which claimed 1,360 Palestinian and 13 Israeli lives.

Masood Samouni, 22, sat upstairs at the cafe. Two weeks ago he lost his sister, two aunts and many more relatives when the Israeli forces shelled their homes in Zeitoun, on the southern outskirts of Gaza. "I just came out to try and forget some of the bad memories," he said. He was dressed in his friend's clothes and hasn't yet had the courage to go home.

Call for empathy with Palestinians

"I know the American people are optimistic about Obama and I do believe that some of them understand our situation and show solidarity with us. But we're being squeezed here. We just want to feel safe and secure. I hope the new president will make a change and put pressure on Israel and Egypt to let them open the crossings and let us go abroad and live our lives."

His friend, Salah Khalifa, 22, a student of business administration, said: "We hope he'll make a change. I'm optimistic because we need a solution for the Palestinian issue."

Ahmed Yazji, 29, one of the waiters, stopped to watch the speech translated into Arabic on the al-Arabiya television channel but said he expected nothing new.

"We are here defending our rights and no one understands," he said. "And if anyone says they really understand then they risk being killed – look what happened to Rabin."

Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli prime minister, was assassinated by a Jewish rightwing extremist in 1995 after signing the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians. "This conflict will last until the end of time," said Yazji. (Guardian/AG)