Barack Obama's message of change for Burma

Wednesday, 05 November 2008 12:26
Barack Obama won an historic presidential election. He became the 44th U.S. President just four years after he won a seat in the United States Senate from the State of Illinois. Throughout his quest for the presidency, his campaign has focused on one word – change. Between 2004 and 2008, President-elect Barack Obama had two opportunities to deliver his message of change for Burma, and he did deliver it.

The first opportunity was during the Saffron Revolution. In September, 2007, Obama issued a strong statement condemning the Burmese military regime's inhumane attacks on peaceful demonstrators in his capacity as a U.S. Senator. In his statement, he called on the regime to release Aung San Suu Kyi and to begin national reconciliation.

The second was in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. He called the tragedy in Burma heartbreaking. In May 2008, he joined Senator John Kerry for a Senate resolution on calling for humanitarian aid for Cyclone Nargis' victims.

In addition, Vice President-elect Joe Biden has been a longtime supporter of Burma's democracy movement. In July 2008, Congress passed the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act under his leadership. Biden said, "I look forward to the day when a democratic, peaceful Burma will be fully integrated into the community of nations."As Vice President, Biden will strengthen Obama's message for change in Burma.

The voters who elected Obama, however, were far more focused on the economy than on foreign affairs.

The financial meltdown as well as a rise in unemployment has given him a chance to take the U.S. in a new direction. The Obama administration must immediately launch a plan for economic recovery in the first 100 days after his inauguration on January 20, 2009. It appears the 44th president's domestic agenda, such as energy independence, health care, education and more, will significantly occupy his four years in the White House, much as was the case with former President Bill Clinton. If he does well, the chance for reelection in 2012 is promising. Despite these efforts, President Obama will also have to deal significantly on the international scene as well.

In fact, the Obama administration will try to end the war in Iraq, and continue to pursue al-Qaeda. These will be his main foreign policy priorities. As such, human rights and promoting democracy may not even rise to be a mid-level agenda during his first term at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. However, it appears likely that he will want to deal with the genocide in Darfur that has touched his mind and heart since 2005. In this scenario, the new administration will have to talk to China, a key ally of Sudan. If that is the case, the White House could also raise the issue of Burma at the same time. Obama will be able to kill two birds with one stone.

Samantha Power, Obama's former foreign policy adviser, doesn't believe the current UN approach towards Burma will produce a tangible result. In October 2007, she wrote in the Time that "history has shown that envoys rarely succeed unless the Security Council is united behind them." She further suggested a multilateral approach towards China.

Obama, Biden, and Power share the same policy: Multilateralism.

Obama has supported economic sanctions against Burma He has backed President Bush's actions as well as his rhetoric on Burma. However, he has a fundamental difference with the Bush administration on how to approach Burma itself. He sees Bush's approach as one of unilateralism. This difference in foreign policy approach was reflected by Obama's opposition to the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Instead, Obama will likely pursue a multilateral approach; that is working together with ASEAN, the European Union, Japan, India, and China. Indeed, Obama suggests the United States should lead these key international players on Burma in a multilateral effort.

President-elect Obama has a clear message of change for Burma's opposition groups too. His statement in September was that change must come from within Burma.

Unless change begins from within Burma, it appears likely that Obama's hands might be too tied to act. While he believes in change for Burma, it is up to the people of Burma to create the opportunity for him to act.

Obama Statements on Burma

Searched For: Burma Results 1 - 10 of 11.

1. Senator Obama Statement on Burma | US Senator Barack Obama

... Senator Obama Statement on Burma. ... "The people of Burma have endured terrible oppression under that country''s brutal military junta. ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/070926-senator_obama_s_1/-7k

2. Obama Statement on the Situation in Burma | US Senator Barack ...

... Obama Statement on the Situation in Burma. Monday, October 1, 2007. ... Meanwhile, President Bush is right to try to increase pressure on Burma's repressive regime. ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/071001-obama_statement_88/-7k

3. Obama Joins Kerry Resolution on Humanitarian Aid for Burma | US ...

... Obama Joins Kerry Resolution on Humanitarian Aid for Burma. Thursday, May 8, 2008. Printable Format. ... "The tragedy in Burma is heartbreaking," said Obama. ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/080508-obama_joins_ker_1/-14k

4. Statement of Senator Barack Obama on the 63rd Birthday of Daw Aung ...

... WASHINGTON, DC - US Senator Barack Obama today released the following statement on the 63rd birthday of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma: ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/080619-statement_of_se_39/-8k

5. Obama Statement on the Continued Detention of Aung San Suu Kyi in ...

... Obama Statement on the Continued Detention of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma. Tuesday, June 19, 2007. Printable Format. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ben LaBolt. ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/070619-obama_statement_68/-7k

6. Statement of Senator Barack Obama on the ASEAN Regional Forum ...

... I remain particularly concerned about conditions in Burma. I commend ASEAN for its attempts to reach the suffering people in southern ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/080724-statement_of_se_49/-10k

7. Obama Encourages President to Urge Tibet Resolution | US Senator ...

... including denuclearization of North Korea, ending Iran's nuclear program, stopping the genocide in Darfur, confronting repression in Burma, and combating ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/080328-obama_encourage_1/-11k

8. Statement of Senator Barack Obama on the US Visit of Philippine ...

... Together, we must address many challenges going forward, including the future of ASEAN, the continuing tragedy in Burma, implementation of recently-authorized ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/080624-statement_of_se_43/-10k

9. Statement of Senator Barack Obama on International Human Rights ...

... The hundreds of thousands killed and two million displaced by the genocide in Darfur; the shell-shocked Buddhist monks in Burma; the political opposition in ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/071210-statement_of_se_12/-13k

10. Obama Joins Senators Feinstein and Smith, Bipartisan Group of ...

... Unfortunately, China instead has engaged in a harsh repression of the people of Tibet, adding to their already negative influence in the crackdown in Burma. ...

http://obama.senate.gov/press/080407-obama_joins_sen_1/-17k 11. Barack Obama - US Senator for Illinois ... Senator Obama voted in favor of the measure, which passed by a vote of 92 to 6. Obama Joins Kerry Resolution on Humanitarian Aid for Burma. May 8, 2008. ...

ဘားရက္ အိုဘားမားႏွင့္ ျမန္မာ့အေရး သူ႔သေဘာထား

ဗုဒၶဟူးေန႔၊ ႏုိဝင္ဘာလ 05 2008 18:00 - ျမန္မာစံေတာ္ခ်ိန္

ေမြးေန႔ ၾသဂုတ္လ ၄ ရက္၊ ၁၉၆၁ ခုႏွစ္ ဇာတိ ဟိုႏိုလူလူ၊ ဟာဝိုင္ရီ ေမြးအမည္ ဘားရက္ ဟူစိန္ အိုဘားမား လူမ်ဳိး အာဖရိကန္ - အေမရိကန္ ပါတီ ဒီမိုကရက္ ဇနီး မစ္ခ်ယ္လီ အိုဘားမား (၁၉၉၂ လက္ထပ္) သားသမီး မာလီယာ အန္ (သမီး၊ ၁၉၉၈ ေမြး) နာတာရွာ (ဆာစ္ဟာ) (သမီး၊ ၂ဝဝ၁) ေနရပ္ ခ်ီကာကို၊ အီလီႏြိဳက္ျပည္နယ္ ပညာေရး ဟားဗတ္ဥပေဒေက်ာင္း၊ ကိုလံဘီယာတကၠသိုလ္၊ ေအာစီဒင္တယ္ေကာလိပ္ ကိုးကြယ္သည့္ ဘာသာ ပရိုတက္စတင့္ ခရစ္ယာန္ ငယ္စဥ္ဘ၀ ဟာ၀ိုင္ရီရွိ အေမရိကန္တကၠသိုလ္ University of Hawaii at Manoa အတြင္းရွိ ႏုိင္ငံျခားသား ေက်ာင္းသားတဦးျဖစ္သည့္ ကင္ညာႏိုင္ငံသား လူမည္းလူမ်ဳိး ဖခင္ ဘားရက္ ဟူစိန္ အိုဘားမားႏွင့္ ေဒသခံ Kansas နယ္မွ အေမရိကန္ လူျဖဴလူမ်ဳိး မိခင္ Ann Dunham တို႔ လက္ထပ္ခဲ့ၾကၿပီး အေမရိကန္သမၼတ ျဖစ္လာမည့္ ဘားရက္ အိုဘားမားကို ေမြးဖြားခဲ့သည္။ အိုဘားမား ၂ ႏွစ္အရြယ္တြင္ မိဘမ်ား ကြာရွင္းခဲ့ၾကသည္။ ဖခင္မွာ ကင္ညာႏုိင္ငံသို႔ ျပန္သြားခဲ့သည္။ ၁၉၈၂ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ဖခင္ျဖစ္သူ ဆိုင္ကယ္ မေတာ္တဆမႈ ျဖစ္ပြားကာ ေသဆံုးသည္အထိ ဖခင္ျဖစ္သူႏွင့္ အိုဘားမားမွာ တႀကိမ္သာ ေတြ႔ဆုံခဲ့ရသည္။ မိခင္မွာ အင္ဒိုနီးရွားလူမ်ဳိး လုိလို ဆိုးတိုရိုႏွင့္ လက္ထပ္ခဲ့ကာ ၆ ႏွစ္အရြယ္ သားငယ္ အိုဘားမားႏွင့္အတူ အင္ဒိုနီးရွားႏုိင္ငံသို႔ ၁၉၆၇ ခုႏွစ္ ေျပာင္းေရႊ႕ေနထုိင္ခဲ့ၾကသည္။ အင္ဒိုနီးရွားႏိုင္ငံ ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္ ဂ်ာကာတာတြင္ ၁၀ ႏွစ္အရြယ္အထိ ေက်ာင္းေနခဲ့ရသည္။ ၁၉၇၁ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ မိခင္ဘက္မွ အဘိုးအဘြားမ်ားရွိရာ ဟာ၀ိုင္ရီသို႔ သြားေရာက္ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ၿပီး၊ ဟာ၀ိုင္ရီရွိ ပုဂၢလိကေက်ာင္း တခုျဖစ္သည့္ Punahou ေက်ာင္းတြင္ ၅ တန္းမွ ၁၉၇၉ ခုႏွစ္ ေက်ာင္းၿပီးသည္အထိ တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့သည္။ မိခင္မွာ ဟာ၀ိုင္ရီသို႔ ျပန္လာကာ အခ်ိန္အတန္ၾကာ အိုဘားမားႏွင့္အတူ ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ၿပီး၊ သူ၏ ေဒါက္တာဘြဲ႔အတြက္ သုေတသနျပဳလုပ္ရန္ အင္ဒိုနီးရွားသို႔ ျပန္လည္ ၀င္ေရာက္ ေနထိုင္ခဲ့သည္။ ၁၉၉၅ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ သားအိမ္ကင္ဆာေရာဂါျဖင့္ မိခင္ကြယ္လြန္သည္။ အိုဘားမားသည္ အထက္တန္းေက်ာင္း တက္ေရာက္စဥ္ ေဆးေျခာက္၊ ကိုကင္းႏွင့္ အရက္မ်ား သံုးစြဲခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ လူထုေဟာေျပာပြဲတြင္ ၀န္ခံခဲ့ၿပီး စာရိတၱေရးရာပ်က္စီးမႈ ျဖစ္ခဲ့ဖူးေၾကာင္း ၀န္ခံခဲ့သည္။ အထက္တန္းေက်ာင္းအၿပီး ကယ္လီဖိုးနီးယားျပည္နယ္၊ ေလာ့စ္အိန္ဂ်ယ္လိစ္ၿမိဳ႕ရွိ Occidental College တြင္ သြားေရာက္ ပညာသင္ၾကားခဲ့သည္။ ထို႔ေနာက္ နယူးေယာက္ၿမိဳ႕ရွိ Columbia University သို႔ ေျပာင္းေရႊ႕ပညာသင္ၾကားခဲ့ၿပီး၊ သူ႔တြင္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ဆက္ဆံေရး ပညာရပ္ အထူးျပဳေလ့လာကာ ႏုိင္ငံေရးသိပၸံျဖင့္ B.A ဘြဲ႔ကို ၁၉၈၃ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ရရွိခဲ့သည္။ ၁၉၈၃ ႏွစ္ဦးပိုင္းမွ စတင္ၿပီး Business International Cooperation တြင္ တႏွစ္ၾကာ ၀င္ေရာက္လုပ္ကိုင္ခဲ့ကာ New York Interest Research Group တြင္ ပါ၀င္လုပ္ကိုင္ခဲ့သည္။ ထို႔ေနာက္ ခ်ီကာကိုသို႔ ေျပာင္းေရႊ႕ကာ ေဒသခံ ကက္သလစ္ခရစ္ယာန္ အသင္းေတာ္မ်ား အေျချပဳ လူထုစည္းရံုးေရး လုပ္ငန္းမ်ား လုပ္ကိုင္သည့္ Developing Communities Project - DCP တြင္ ဒါရိုက္တာအျဖစ္ ၃ ႏွစ္ၾကာ ၀င္ေရာက္လုပ္ကိုင္သည္။ အိုဘားမား ဦးေဆာင္သည့္ ကာလအတြင္း ၀န္ထမ္းမ်ား တိုးပြားလာကာ ၀င္ေငြမွာလည္း ေအာင္ျမင္ တိုးတက္လာခဲ့သည္။ ၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္ ႏွစ္လယ္ပိုင္းတြင္ ဥေရာပသို႔ သံုးပတ္ၾကာသြားေရာက္ လည္ပတ္ခဲ့ၿပီး ဖခင္ႏွင့္ ေဆြမ်ဳိးမ်ားရွိရာ ကင္ညာသို႔ သြားေရာက္ခဲ့သည္။ ဖခင္အပါအ၀င္ ေဆြမ်ဳိးမ်ားအား ပထမဆံုးအႀကိမ္ ေတြ႔ဆံုခဲ့သည္။ ၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္ ႏွစ္ကုန္ပိုင္း ဟားဗတ္ ဥပေဒေက်ာင္းသို႔ ၀င္ေရာက္ ပညာသင္ၾကားခဲ့သည္။ တႏွစ္အၾကာ သူ၏ အရည္အခ်င္းေၾကာင့္ ဟားဗတ္ ဥပေဒသံုးသပ္ေရး ဂ်ာနယ္တြင္ အယ္ဒီတာအျဖစ္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ျခင္း ခံခဲ့ရသည္။ ၁၉၉၀ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ဒုတိယႏွစ္ေက်ာင္းသားကာလတြင္ ဥပေဒသံုးသပ္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥကၠဌအျဖစ္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရသည္။ ပထမဆံုး လူမည္း ဥပေဒသံုးသပ္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥကၠဌအျဖစ္လည္းေကာင္း၊ အယ္ဒီတာခ်ဳပ္အေနျဖင့္လည္းေကာင္း၊ ဥပေဒသံုးသပ္ေရးအဖြဲ႔၀င္ အယ္ဒီတာ ၆ ဦးကို ဦးစီးလမ္းၫႊန္သူအျဖစ္လည္းေကာင္း ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရသည္။ ပထမဆံုး လူမည္း ဥပေဒသံုးသပ္ေရးအဖြဲ႔ ဥကၠဌ အျဖစ္ ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရမႈအား က်ယ္ျပန္႔စြာ ေဆြးေႏြးတင္ျပခဲ့ၾကၿပီး အခ်ိန္အေတာ္ၾကာအထိ ေဆြးေႏြးစရာကိစၥ ျဖစ္ခဲ့သည္။ ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရၿပီးေနာက္ လူ႔အသားအေရာင္ကြဲျပားမႈမ်ား ဆက္စပ္မႈအေၾကာင္း စာအုပ္ေရးသားရန္ ကံထရိုက္ရခဲ့ၿပီး၊ University of Chicago Law School က ထုိစာအုပ္ေရးသားရန္ ၀န္ထမ္းတဦးႏွင့္ ရံုးခန္းတခုအား ျပင္ဆင္ေပးခဲ့သည္။ ၎စာအုပ္အား တႏွစ္အတြင္း အၿပီးသတ္ရန္ ျပင္ဆင္ခဲ့ေသာ္လည္း အခ်ိန္ၾကာျမင့္ခဲ့ကာ ေနာက္ပိုင္းတြင္ ကိုယ္ပိုင္ ဘ၀ျဖတ္သန္းမႈမ်ားကို ေရးသားသည့္ စာအုပ္အသြင္သို႔ ေျပာင္းလဲသြားသည္။ “Dream From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” စာအုပ္အား ၁၉၉၅ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ထုတ္ေ၀ခဲ့ၿပီး ၎စာအုပ္သည္ အုိဘားမား ႏိုင္ငံေရးနယ္ပယ္ထဲသို႔ မ၀င္ေရာက္မီ ဟားဗတ္ ဥပေဒသံုးသပ္ေရးဂ်ာနယ္ ဥကၠဌအျဖစ္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနစဥ္ ေရးသားထုတ္ေ၀ခဲ့ျခင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး၊ သူ၏ ဘ၀ျဖတ္သန္းခဲ့မႈမ်ားကို ေရးသားခဲ့ျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။ ၁၉၉၂ ခုႏွစ္မွ စတင္ကာ University of Chicago Law School တြင္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုဆိုင္ရာ ဥပေဒဘာသာရပ္အား ၁၂ ႏွစ္ၾကာ သင္ၾကားခဲ့သည္။ ၁၉၉၆ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ အီလီႏိြဳက္ျပည္နယ္ လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္အျဖစ္ ေရြးေကာက္တင္ေျမွာက္ခံခဲ့ရသည္။ ၁၉၉၈ ခုႏွစ္ႏွင့္ ၂၀၀၂ ခုႏွစ္အထိ အီလီႏိြဳက္ျပည္နယ္ လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္အျဖစ္ ဆက္တိုက္အေရြးခံခဲ့ရသည္။ ၂၀၀၄ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္အျဖစ္ အေရြးခံရန္ အီလီႏြိဳက္ျပည္နယ္ လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ ရာထူးမွ ႏႈတ္ထြက္ခဲ့သည္။ ၂၀၀၄ ခုႏွစ္ ႏို၀င္ဘာလ အေထြေထြေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ အီလီႏိြဳက္ျပည္နယ္အတြင္းမွ ၇၀ ရာခုိင္ႏႈန္း ေထာက္ခံမဲျဖင့္ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္အျဖစ္ ေရြးေကာက္တင္ေျမွာက္ခံရသည္။ အေမရိကန္သမိုင္းတြင္ ပဥၥမေျမာက္ အာဖရိကန္-အေမရိကန္လူမ်ဳိး အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ျဖစ္ၿပီး၊ ဇႏၷ၀ါရီလ ၄ ရက္၊ ၂၀၀၄ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ က်မ္းသစၥာက်ိန္ဆိုသည္။ ၂၀၀၇ ခုႏွစ္ ေဖေဖာ္၀ါရီလ ၁၀ ရက္တြင္ ေအဗဟမ္လင္ကြန္း၏ ၁၈၅၈ ခုႏွစ္အတြင္းက ေက်ာ္ၾကားခဲ့ေသာ မိန္႔ခြန္းမ်ား ေျပာၾကားခဲ့သည့္ အီလီႏိြဳက္ျပည္နယ္ Springfield တြင္ အေမရိကန္ သမၼတေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၌ ၀င္ေရာက္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေၾကညာခဲ့သည္။ ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ မဲဆြယ္စည္း႐ံုးေရးကာလအတြင္း ဒီမိုကရက္ပါတီအတြင္း ၿပိဳင္ဘက္ျဖစ္သူ ဟီလာရီကလင္တန္ႏွင့္ အခ်ိန္အေတာ္ၾကာ ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ခဲ့ၾကရသည္။ ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ ႏို၀င္ဘာလ ၄ ရက္ေန႔ အေမရိကန္ သမၼတ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ သမၼတအျဖစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ခံခဲ့ရသည္။ အိုဘားမားႏွင့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ နာဂစ္ျဖစ္ပြားၿပီး လူသားခ်င္းစာနာသည့္ အကူအညီေပးရန္ ဆီးနိတ္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ ဂၽြန္ကယ္ရီ တင္သြင္းသည့္ နာဂစ္ဒဏ္ခံ ျပည္သူမ်ားအား အကူအညီေပးေရး ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္အား ေထာက္ခံခဲ့ၿပီးေနာက္ “နာဂစ္ဒဏ္ခံ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၏ အေျခအေနမွာ စိတ္မေကာင္းဖြယ္ျဖစ္ၿပီး၊ အေမရိကန္အစိုးရ၏ လူသားခ်င္းစာနာသည့္ အကူအညီ အစီအစဥ္အား ေထာက္ခံေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ ျမန္မာအစိုးရကို လိုအပ္သည့္ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈအားလံုးကို လုပ္ေဆာင္သြားရန္” တိုက္တြန္းေျပာဆိုသည္။ ၂၀၀၇ စက္တင္ဘာ အေရးအခင္းျဖစ္ပြားၿပီး အိုဘားမား၏ ေၾကညာခ်က္ “ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ေထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာေသာ ျပည္သူမ်ားသည္ ဘာသာေရးေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၏ ဦးေဆာင္မႈျဖင့္ ႏွစ္ရွည္လမ်ား ရွည္ၾကာခဲ့ေသာ အခက္အခဲမ်ားကို ေျပာင္းလဲပစ္ရန္ ေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့ၾကသည္။ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔ လူသားမ်ား၏ ရဲစြမ္းသတၱိကို မ်က္ျမင္ႀကံဳေတြ႔ခဲ့ရသည္။ ဗုဒၶဘာသာ ထံုးတမ္းစဥ္လာေအာက္ရွိ အၾကမ္းမဖက္လမ္းစဥ္၏ စြမ္းအားကို ျမင္ေတြ႔ခဲ့သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ယေန႔ ျမန္မာအစိုးရက ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ေတာင္းဆိုသူမ်ားအား ရိုက္ႏွက္ျခင္း၊ မ်က္ရည္ယိုဗံုးမ်ားျဖင့္ ပစ္ခတ္ျခင္း၊ လူအမ်ား ဖမ္းဆီးျခင္းျဖင့္ ရက္စက္စြာ ႏွိမ္ႏွင္းခဲ့သည္။ စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားသည္ သူတို႔၏ အၾကမ္းဖက္မႈမ်ားကို ခ်က္ခ်င္းရပ္တန္႔သင့္သည္။ ျပည္သူမ်ား၏ ဆႏၵမ်ားကို အေရးတယူ နားေထာင္သင့္သည္။ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ကို လႊတ္ေပးသင့္ၿပီး အမ်ဳိးသား ျပန္လည္သင့္ျမတ္ေရးကို ေဆာင္ရြက္သင့္သည္။ ျမန္မာျပည္သူမ်ားသည္ စစ္အစိုးရ၏ ဖိႏွိပ္မႈမ်ားကို ခံစားေနရသည္။ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္ႏွင့္ အျခားၿမိဳ႕ လမ္းမမ်ားေရွ႕တြင္ ရဲ၀ံ့စြာ ရပ္ေနေသာ သူရဲေကာင္းမ်ားအား ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔က ခိုင္မာစြာ ေထာက္ခံထိုက္သည္။ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ားသည္ ေထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာေသာ ျပည္သူမ်ား အသတ္မခံရမီ အၾကမ္းဖက္မႈမ်ား ရပ္တန္႔ရန္အလို႔ငွာ လိုအပ္ေသာ အေရးယူေဆာင္ရြက္မႈမ်ားကို ေဆာင္ရြက္ရမည္။ ျမန္မာျပည္မွ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈမ်ား ျဖစ္ေပၚလာရမည္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ႏိုင္ငံတကာအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ားအေနျဖင့္ ရဲရင့္ေသာ ျမန္မာျပည္သူမ်ားအား ေထာက္ပံ့ရန္ အေရးႀကီးသည္။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ျမန္မာျပည္ကို ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူေရးအား ေထာက္ခံခဲ့ၿပီး၊ ကုလသမဂၢ အေထြေထြညီလာခံတြင္ အေမရိကန္ သမၼတ၏ ျမန္မာျပည္အား ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူေရး အဆိုျပဳမႈကို ႀကိဳဆိုပါသည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ အျခားလိုအပ္မ်ားကိုလည္း ခ်က္ခ်င္း ေဆာင္ရြက္ရမည္။ အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံအေနျဖင့္ တဦးထဲ ေဆာင္ရြက္၍ မရပါ။ တျခား အဓိကက်သည့္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀ိုင္းမ်ားျဖစ္သည့္ အာဆီယံ၊ အိႏၵိယ၊ ဥေရာပသမဂၢ၊ တ႐ုတ္ႏုိင္ငံတို႔ႏွင့္အတူ အေမရိကန္က ဦးစီးလုပ္ကိုင္ရမည္။ ျမန္မာျပည္ အခက္အခဲမ်ားကို ကူညီေဆာင္ရြက္ရန္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေသာ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ျဖစ္သည့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားအပါအ၀င္ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးမ်ားကို အၾကမ္းမဖက္သင့္ေၾကာင္း ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရအေပၚ ေျပာဆိုလုပ္ကိုင္မႈတြင္ ပူးေပါင္းပါ၀င္ရမည္။ “ျမန္မာျပည္သူမ်ား လြတ္လပ္မႈအတြက္ ရပ္တည္မႈမ်ားအတိုင္း ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔လည္း သူတို႔ႏွင့္အတူ ရွိရမည္”

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Saffron toward ဘေလာ့ဖတ္သူမ်ား၊Saffron Mail Letter ဖတ္သူမ်ားခင္ဗ်ား
ဒီေန႔သတင္းမ်ားတြင္ထူးျခားျဖစ္စဥ္ႏွင့္သတင္းမ်ား မ်ားျပားလွသျဖင့္
ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔အေနျဖင့္ထူးျခားမႈရွိသည္ဟုယူဆေသာသတင္းကိုေရြး
ခ်ယ္ေပးရန္အခက္အခဲေတြ႔ရပါသည္။
ထိုကဲ့သို႔ေရြးခ်ယ္ေပးလိုက္လွ်င္ဘေလာ့ဖတ္သူမ်ားအေနႏွင့္အျခားစံု
လင္ေသာသတင္းမ်ားကိုဖတ္ရမည္မဟုတ္ေပ။ထို႕အတူသတင္းအကုန္
လံုးကိုဘေလာ့ေပၚတင္ေပးလိုက္လွ်င္လည္းရွည္လွ်ားမ်ားျပားေသာ
သတင္းမ်ားထဲမွမိမိတို႕ဖတ္လိုေသာ၊စိတ္ဝင္စားေသာသတင္းကိုသာေရြး
ခ်ယ္ဖတ္ရန္အတြက္ၿငီးေငြ႔စရာျဖစ္ေပလိမ့္မည္။ထို႔အတြက္သတင္းေခါင္း
စဥ္မ်ားႏွင့္လင့္မ်ားကိုသာထည့္ေပးလိုက္ျခင္းကိုနားလည္ေပးပါရန္
ေတာင္းပန္အပ္ပါသည္။
ယေန႔အထူးသတင္းအေနျဖင့္အေမရိကန္သမၼတသစ္အိုဘားမားႏွင့္ပါတ္
သက္ေသာသိေကာင္းစရာမ်ားကိုသာတင္ဆက္ေပးလိုက္ပါသည္။
ေလးစားစြာျဖင့္
ွSaffron toward


- ဘားရက္ အိုဘားမားႏွင့္ ျမန္မာ့အေရး သူ႔သေဘာထား click
- ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအတြက္ အေျပာင္းအလဲဆိုသည့္ အိုဘားမား၏ သတင္းစကား (ေဆာင္းပါး) click
- ေရေၾကာင္းအျငင္းပြားလည္း ျမန္မာက ဓာတ္ေငြ႔ဆက္ရွာမည္ click
- ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေရွ႕ဖက္ေဒသ၌ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈမ်ား ရွိေနဆဲ၊ ယခင္ထက္ပို၍လွ်ိဳ႕၀ွက္ၿပီး စနစ္တ က် က်ဴးလြန္ေန click
- ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံတြင္း အုိးမဲ့အိမ္မဲ့ ေရွာင္တိမ္းေနရသူေပါင္း ၄၅၀,၀၀၀ ေက်ာ္ရွိ click
- စင္ၿပိဳင္အစိုးရ ျပဳျပင္ဖြဲ႔စည္းရန္ ေဆြးေႏြးမည့္ ညီလာခံက်င္းပေရး အမ္ပီယူႏွင့္ အန္စီဂ်ီယူဘီ သေဘာထား ကြဲ click
- ရန္ကုန္အိုင္စီတီျပပြဲကုိ ကြန္ျပဴတာအေရာင္းပြဲဟု ျပပြဲလာသူမ်ား ယူဆ click
- ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားအဖြဲ႔ (အမ္ပီယူ) ဒု-ဥကၠဌ ေဒၚစန္းစန္းႏွင့္ ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္သတင္းေထာက္ ကုိ၀ုိင္း ေမးျမန္းခန္း (အင္တာဗ်ဴး) click
- ေ႐ႊေစ်းကြက္ကို အၿပီးထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ေတာ့မည္ click
- ၈၈ မ်ိဳးဆက္ေက်ာင္းသားအဖြဲ႕၏ ေရွ႕ေနကို တရား႐ုံးက ၀င္ခြင့္မေပး click
- နာဂစ္ဒဏ္သင့္ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေက်ာင္းမ်ား ျပဳျပင္ေရး ခက္ခဲေနဆဲ … (ေဆာင္းပါး) click
- ၿမိဳ႕နယ္မွာ စစ္ေဆးသည့္ အမႈေတြကို အင္းစိန္ေထာင္တြင္းမွာ စစ္ေဆးမည္ click
- သတိေပးမႈၾကားက အဂၤါဆုေတာင္းပြဲကို အန္အယ္လ္ဒီအဖြဲ႔၀င္ေတြ ဆက္လုပ္ click
- Bangladesh asks China for help in Myanmar sea row click
- Myanmar refugees sold off at M’sian border, MP claims click
- Farmers in cyclone-hit delta face bleak future click
- Myanmar mobilise warships in Bay of Bengal click
- အုိဘားမား ႏုိင္ၿပီ click
- အေမရိကန္သမၼတအျဖစ္ အိုဘားမား ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံရ click
- စင္ၿပိဳင္အစိုးရ ျပဳျပင္ဖြဲ႔စည္းေရး ေဆြးေႏြးမည့္ ညီလာခံက်င္းပေရး အမ္ပီယူႏွင့္ အန္စီဂ်ီယူဘီ သေဘာထား ကြဲ click
- ရန္ကုန္အိုင္စီတီျပပြဲကုိ ကြန္ျပဴတာအေရာင္းပြဲဟု ျပပြဲလာသူမ်ားယူဆ click
- ႏိုင္ငံေရးအမႈလိုက္ ေရွ႕ေနႀကီးေတြ တရားစြဲခံေနရ click
- သမိုင္းတြင္မယ့္ သမၼတေရြးေကာက္ပဲြအတြက္ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံသားေတြ မဲေပးေနၾကၿပီ click
- ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရ္ွ ေရပိုင္နက္ က်ဴးေက်ာ္ဟု စြပ္စဲြခ်က္ မမွန္ကန္ဟု ျမန္မာတာ၀န္ရိွသူတို႔ ျငင္းဆို click
- ျမန္မာႏွင့္ ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ ေေရတပ္သေဘၤာမ်ား ရင္ဆိုင္ေတြ႔ေန click
- တိုင္ၾကားစာမ်ားကို ႐ိိုက္ကူးမေပးဖို႔ ကြန္ပ်ဴတာဆိုင္မ်ားကို တားဆီးမိန္႔ထုတ္ click
- အျငင္းပြား ပင္လယ္ျပင္သို႔ ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ ေရတပ္သေဘၤာတစင္း ထပ္လႊတ္ click
- ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေရးကို ကုလအတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္ အေလးထား ေဆာင္႐ြက္သြားမည္ click
- တရား႐ံုးခ်ဳပ္ေရွ႕ေနႀကီးႏွစ္ဦးအား တရား႐ံုးကို မထီမဲ့ျမင္ျပဳမႈျဖင့္ တရားစြဲဆို click
- တရား႐ံုးထုတ္ အမႈစစ္ေဆးရာမွာ သံဃာႏွင့္ ရဲမ်ား ႐ုန္းရင္းဆန္ခတ္ ျဖစ္ပြား click

Big Burmese Interest in Result of US Presidential Electionအေမရိကန္ သမၼတသစ္အေပၚ ျမန္မာတို႔အျမင္

A crowd of about 600, most of them young people, packed the US Embassy’s American Center in Rangoon on Wednesday morning to watch Barack Obama sweep to victory in the US presidential election.

The city’s teashops were also crowded with customers watching the historic event on satellite TV.

President-elect Barack Obama waves to his supporters behind bullet-proof glass as he takes the stage to deliver his victory speech at the election night party on Tuesday night. (Photo: AP)

The US Embassy’s American Center held an “Election Watch.” People gathered there from 9 a.m.—“Most of them are young people,” an American Center official told The Irrawaddy.

An American Center student, Ko Ye, said: “I support Obama. I think he will bring change to the world. As a young man, Obama can act dynamically.”

A young staffer with a UN agency in Rangoon said the election had also commanded big interest in his office.

A Rangoon journalist told The Irrawaddy that colleagues and civil servants kept each other informed on cell phones about Obama’s election to the White House.

He said the election had been followed in Burma more closely than any previous one because the Burmese people, encouraged by the removal of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, were hoping the US would act to end the tyrannical rule of Snr-Gen Than Shwe and his junta.

Thakin Chun Tun, a veteran politician and diplomat, said: “Obama’s victory shows how leadership skill is more important than skin color and race.”

Burmese living abroad also followed the election intensely. Ko Jay, who lives in New York, said he agreed with the general view that history had been made by Barack Obama.

Moe Thee Zun, a former student leader now living in the US, said that although he had supported Republican contender John McCain because of his Burma policy, Obama’s victory showed liberalism winning over conservatism and youth over old politics. “We should appreciate Americans who fight for what they want to be,” he said.

Some of those American citizens are Burmese who have won US citizenship—Ko Shwe, for instance. Voting in New York in his first election ever, he chose Obama.

“The first vote in my life puts me on the winning side,” he said.

ကိုသက္ | ႏိုဝင္ဘာ ၅၊ ၂၀၀၈

မေန႔ကစတင္က်င္းပတဲ့ ၂၀၀၈ ခုႏွစ္ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲႀကီး ေအာင္ျမင္စြာၿပီးဆံုးသြားခဲ့ပါၿပီ။ ဒီေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲမွာ ဒီမိုကရက္တစ္ပါတီက ၅၂ ရာခိုင္ႏႈန္းနဲ႔အႏိုင္ရခဲ့ၿပီး တကမာၻလံုးကေမွ်ာ္ေနၾကတဲ့အတိုင္း အာဖရိကႏြယ္ဖြား ဘရက္ခ္ အိုဘားမား (Barack Obama) ဟာ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ ပထမဆံုး လူမည္း သမၼတ ျဖစ္လာခဲ့ပါၿပီ။

ေလးႏွစ္ကိုတႀကိမ္ပံုမွန္က်င္းပေနၾက အေမရိကန္ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဟာ မဲဆႏၵရွင္ အေမရိကန္ျပည္သူေတြခ်ည္းသက္သက္ စိတ္ဝင္စားတဲ့ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ိဳးမဟုတ္ဘဲ တကမာၻလံုးက ရင္တထိတ္ထိတ္နဲ႔ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ေလ့ရွိတဲ့ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ိဳး ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

အေမရိကန္ဟာ ကမာၻ႔အင္အားႀကီးႏိုင္ငံတႏိုင္ငံျဖစ္သလို အေမရိကန္သမၼတေတြရဲ႕ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ဟာလည္း ကမာၻ႔လူသား ေတြအေပၚ သက္ေရာက္မႈေတြရွိေနတာေၾကာင့္ လူအမ်ားအာ႐ံုထားမႈကို ခံရတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ဒီတေခါက္ျပဳလုပ္တဲ့ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲကေတာ့ အရင္လုပ္ခဲ့တဲ့ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲေတြနဲ႔မတူ ထူးျခားေနလို႔ တကမာၻလံုးရဲ႕ အာ႐ံု စိုက္ျခင္းကို ခံရတာလည္း ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီထူးျခားခ်က္ကေတာ့ ဒီမိုကရက္တစ္ပါတီကေန ဝင္ေရာက္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္တဲ့ သမၼတေလာင္းဟာ အာဖရိကန္ႏြယ္ဖြား လူမည္းတေယာက္ ျဖစ္ေနလို႔ပါပဲ။

အေမရိကန္ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ျပည္တြင္း၊ ျပည္ပမွာရွိၾကတဲ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားေတြကလည္း အထူးစိတ္ဝင္စားစြာ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္။

ရန္ကုန္မွာရွိေနတဲ့ သတင္းသမားတဦးကေတာ့ “အဲဒီေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို စေလာင္းေတြကေန တိုက္႐ုိက္ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ၾကတယ္။ သာမန္ျပည္သူကအစ ဘယ္သူသမၼတျဖစ္မလဲဆိုတာကို စိတ္၀င္စားၾကတယ္။ အဓိကေတာ့ လူမည္းသမၼတျဖစ္တာေၾကာင့္ေပါ့” လို႔ ဧရာဝတီကို ေျပာပါတယ္။

ကုမၸဏီ ဝန္ထမ္း တဦးကလည္း “က်ေနာ္သာ အေမရိကန္တေယာက္ဆိုရင္ သူ႔ကိုပဲ (အုိဘားမား) မဲေပးမိမွာ၊ ျပည္သူ ေတြက ေဆာ္မယ္တီးမယ္ဆုိတာကို သိပ္မလိုခ်င္ၾကေတာ့ဘူးေလ” လို႔ ေျပာပါတယ္။

ကြန္ပ်ဴတာပညာရွင္တဦးကမူ “အိုဘားမားကိုႀကိဳက္တဲ့သူမ်ားတာကေတာ့ သူကအသက္ငယ္လို႔ တက္တက္ႂကြႂကြလုပ္ႏိုင္ မယ္လို႔ေမွ်ာ္လင့္လို႔၊ ေနာက္ၿပီး အေမရိကန္ျပည္သူေတြက ခုခ်ိန္မွာ အေျပာင္းအလဲကို အရမ္းလိုခ်င္ေနၾကတယ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ အိုဘားမားကို ေထာက္ခံၾကတာ” လို႔ ေျပာပါတယ္။

တခ်ိဳ႕ကလည္း ကမာၻ႔ႏိုင္ငံေရးအခင္းအက်င္းေပၚမူတည္ၿပီး အေမရိကန္ သမၼတသစ္ကို စိတ္ဝင္စားၾကတာပါ။ မစၥတာ အိုဘားမား ကေကာ အေမရိကန္ျပည္သူေတြအျပင္ ကမာၻ႔ျပည္သူေတြအႀကိဳက္ ဘာေတြမ်ားလုပ္ျပဦးမလဲဆိုတာကို စိတ္ဝင္စားသူက ထုနဲ႔ေဒးပါ။

“လူေတြက အီရတ္စစ္ပြဲအေျခအေနကိုသိခ်င္ၾကတယ္၊ သမၼတ ဘုရွ္က အီရတ္ကုိတိုက္ၿပီး ဆဒမ္ဟူစိန္ကို ျဖဳတ္ခ်ေပးခဲ့ တာကို သေဘာေတြ႔ၾကတယ္။ အာဏာရွင္ကိုဒီလိုျဖဳတ္ခ်ခဲ့တယ္ဆိုတာကို ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားက လက္ခံၾကတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ဆီမွာေကာ အဲလိုျဖစ္မလာႏုိင္ဘူးလားဆိုၿပီး ေမွ်ာ္ၾကတယ္။ ဆိုလိုတာက ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးကို အေမရိကန္က ကယ္ႏုိင္တယ္ဆိုၿပီးေမွ်ာ္လင့္ေနၾကတယ္” လို႔ ျမန္မာျပည္သူေတြၾကားက ေျပာဆိုမႈေတြကို အထက္ပါ သတင္းသမားက ျပန္လည္ရွင္းျပပါတယ္။

တခ်ိဳ႕ကလည္း အေမရိကန္ျပည္သူေတြက မစၥတာ အိုဘားမားကို သမၼတ အျဖစ္ ေ႐ြးလိုက္ျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ကမာၻေပၚက အသားအေရာင္ခြဲျခားမႈေတြဟာ ၂၁ ရာစုမွာ အဆံုးသတ္သြားၿပီလို႔ သံုးသပ္ၾကပါတယ္။

ျမန္မာ စာေရးဆရာအမ်ားစုကလည္း အိုဘားမား ႏုိင္မယ္ဆိုၿပီးခန္႔မွန္းခဲ့ၾကလို႔ အခုေတာ့သူတို႔ရဲ႕ အေတြးေတြ တကယ္ျဖစ္ လာခဲ့ၿပီဆိုၿပီး ဝမ္းသာေနၾကပါတယ္။

မစၥတာ အိုဘားမား အႏိုင္ရခဲ့လို႔ ျမန္မာျပည္သားအမ်ားစုက ဝမ္းသာၾကည္ႏူးေနခ်ိန္မွာ တခ်ိဳ႕ကလည္း မတူညီတဲ့ စိတ္ခံစား မႈေတြ ျဖစ္ေနၾကပါတယ္။

ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ႏုိင္ငံေရးသံုးသပ္ခ်က္ ေရးသားေနသည့္ ျပည္တြင္းက စာေရးဆရာတဦးက “က်ေနာ္ကေတာ့ မက္ကိန္းရႈံးသြား လို႔ စိတ္မေကာင္းဘူး။ သူကေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔လည္း ေတြ႔ဖူးတယ္။ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကို ပိုလုပ္ႏိုင္မယ္ထင္တယ္။ ေနာက္ သူက အသက္ႀကီးေတာ့ အေတြ႔အႀကံဳပိုရွိတယ္။ စစ္ေရးေကာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးမွာေကာ ပုိၿပီးလုပ္ႏိုင္မယ္ ထင္တယ္” လို႔ ေျပာပါတယ္။

အခုအခ်ိန္မွာက ျမန္မာျပည္သူေတြဟာ တျခားေသာ ကမာၻ႔ႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာလိုပဲ အေမရိကန္ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲအေၾကာင္းကိုသာ ေျပာဆိုေနၾကတာ မ်ားပါတယ္။

နိဂုံးခ်ဴပ္ရရင္ေတာ့ အေမရိကန္သမၼတေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို အထူးစိတ္၀င္စားၾကတဲ့ ျမန္မာ့ပညာတတ္ အသိုင္းအ၀န္းမွာ အိုဘားမား ႏုိင္တာကို ႀကဳိဆိုၾကတယ္။ ႏုိင္ငံတုိင္းမွာ ဒီမုိကေရစီစနစ္ပင္ျဖစ္လင့္ကစား အေျပာင္းအလဲကို ျမင္ခ်င္ၾကတယ္၊ လိုခ်င္ၾကတယ္ဆိုတာ ပိုထင္ရွားလာတယ္။

ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံလိုု စစ္အာဏာရွင္ေအာက္မွာေနၾကတဲ့ ျပည္သူေတြအားလုံးလည္း အေျပာင္းအလဲကို အရမ္းလိုခ်င္ေနၾကတယ္။ ကိုယ့္ဆီမွာ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္လို႔မရတာကို သူမ်ားတုိင္းျပည္က ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကိုၾကည့္ၿပီး

အေမရိကန္ျပည္သူေတြနဲ႔အတူ အေျပာင္းအလဲကိုေထာက္ခံအားေပးေနၾကတယ္ဆိုတာ ေသခ်ာလြန္းလွပါတယ္။

RAW DATA: Barack Obama's Victory Speech

The president-elect delivers his victory speech from Chicago.

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

BARACK OBAMA: Hello, Chicago.

(APPLAUSE)

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

(APPLAUSE)

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

(APPLAUSE)

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton...

(APPLAUSE)

... and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years...

(APPLAUSE)

... the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady...

(APPLAUSE)

... Michelle Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

Sasha and Malia...

(APPLAUSE)

... I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us...

(LAUGHTER)

... to the new White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.

(APPLAUSE)

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe...

(APPLAUSE)

... the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

To my chief strategist David Axelrod...

(APPLAUSE)

... who's been a partner with me every step of the way. To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics...

(APPLAUSE)

... you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy...

(APPLAUSE)

... who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

(APPLAUSE)

And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.

There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!

OBAMA: There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.

But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

(APPLAUSE)

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

(APPLAUSE)

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

(APPLAUSE)

To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

(APPLAUSE)

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

(APPLAUSE)

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

OBAMA: America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?

What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

Obama Elected First African-American US President

Democrat Barack Obama has become the first African-American elected president of the United States. The Illinois senator defeated Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. VOA's Kent Klein reports from Washington.

Supporters cheer as they gather in Grant Park for the election night party for President-elect Barack Obama in Chicago, 4 Nov. 2008

In cities across America, large crowds gathered to celebrate the election of the first African-American U.S. president.

VOA reporter Kane Farabaugh was in President-elect Obama's home city of Chicago, Illinois, where tens-of-thousands of jubilant supporters celebrated in Grant Park.

"Everybody here has the largest smiles," he said. "There's a lot of laughing, there's a lot of hugging, there's a lot of embracing. Certainly, I don't think this moment is lost on anyone here. I think the precedent is set, the sort of historic moment that it is going to become certainly is not lost on anyone here. There's a few tears, but certainly many more smiles. I would say that the atmosphere here is jubilant."

Sen. John McCain with wife, Cindy, delivers remarks during an election night rally in Phoenix, 4 Nov. 2008

A short time later, Senator McCain delivered his concession speech. In his home city of Phoenix, Arizona, the Republican candidate encouraged his supporters to get behind Mr. Obama.

"I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited," he said.

Senator Obama captured almost all of the so-called "swing" states, where the election is most competitive.

President-elect Barack Obama smiles as he gives his acceptance speech at Grant Park in Chicago, Nov. 4, 2008

Each of the 50 U.S. states is allotted electoral votes, depending on the size of its population and congressional representation. In most states, the candidate who wins the largest part of the popular vote wins all of that state's electoral votes. The winning candidate must get at least 270 electoral votes out of the total of 538.

Voter turnout in this year's election is expected to be among the largest on record, and there were long lines at many polling stations across the country. Voter registration has increased by seven percent since the last presidential election in 2004.

The slumping U.S. economy was the top issue on voters' minds, and Mr. Obama was able to link McCain to the policies of his fellow Republican, President George Bush. An Associated Press exit poll showed that six of every 10 voters named the economy as the most important issue facing the country.

Obama says "change has come to America"

• Supporters Ecstatic By Historic Win CBS 3 Philadelphia
• Play Video Video: McCain gives 'dignified'concession speech KTVK 3TV Phoenix
• Play Video Video: '08 winner's daunting "to do" list Reuters

CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama told cheering supporters on Tuesday "change has come to America" and called on Americans to back a spirit of unity to attack the country's pressing challenges.

Obama congratulated defeated Republican John McCain for the long, hard campaign that he fought. He called on Americans to support a "new spirit of sacrifice."

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there," he said.

Analysis: Next up after Obama win, governing

By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer

AP Photo/M. Spencer Green

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Now the hard part. Barack Obama essentially came out of nowhere, beat the Democratic establishment, conquered doubts about his experience and overcame questions about his race to be elected the first black president after a grueling campaign that lasted nearly two years.

As president-elect, he faces three immediate challenges: confronting the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, determining the next steps in two lingering wars, and leading his Democrats, including liberals expecting that the change he promises will come instantly. It won't.

On the heels of a campaign in which cash wasn't a concern, Obama must tackle all of those tasks with no room in the budget as the nation heads for a painful, perhaps long-lasting, recession.

No new president has faced so much since Franklin Delano Roosevelt - and even he didn't have two wars on his plate.

Roosevelt had four months to come up with programs to address the Great Depression before he took office on March 4, 1933.

Obama gets just 2 1/2 to put together his government; inauguration is Jan. 20.

He will chart the country's course against this dreary backdrop: Unemployment is at 6.1 percent and predicted to rise as high as 7.5 percent next year; pessimistic consumers have curtailed borrowing and spending; home foreclosures are rampant; Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security face huge financial problems; and, 152,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq more than five years after the initial invasion, while 32,000 are in Afghanistan in the sixth year of the war against terrorism.

With Democrats expanding their majorities in both the House and Senate, Obama will have to figure out how to lead a country that's more conservative than liberal while trying to satisfy the left wing of his party. He will face demands for a quick withdrawal from Iraq. He's promised withdrawal, but carefully.

From the outset, how Obama acts to deal with these conditions will set the tone for his presidency.

Voters got an early glimpse of his style last month when Wall Street collapsed, stocks fluctuated and the government intervened. He struck a cautious stance and deferred to lawmakers dealing directly with the problems. He was deliberative and careful in his response - perhaps just the approach voters were seeking after eight years of what critics call President Bush's cowboy approach.

Yet, Obama may be blamed for recession woes despite the fact that he inherited the mess from Bush. The troubles are on Obama's watch now even if there's little he can do about them. The president in power always suffers when the economy tanks. Just ask the first President Bush in 1992.

Indeed, coming in with a big victory doesn't guarantee success.

Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won with 61 percent of the vote in 1964. He won his Great Society programs in his first two years but his administration essentially collapsed in the final two with the escalation of the Vietnam War.

In choosing Obama as the 44th president, the nation took a historic leap beyond its legacy of slavery and toward healing racial tensions just four decades after the tumultuous Civil Rights movement.

Politically, Obama's election amounted to a wholesale rejection of the status quo after eight years of Bush and Republican rule.

Voters were willing to take a chance on a relative newcomer to the national stage. Obama is a 47-year-old black man from Chicago with a liberal voting record who is in just his first Senate term and has offered few specifics on how he would govern.

Culturally, Obama's victory was so much more for a nation on the verge of becoming a true melting pot; government estimates say white people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042.

The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, Obama's call for change created a movement at a time of great upheaval in the country. And, that proved to be a large enough force to overcome lingering prejudices.

To be sure, the economy proved a powerful motivator.

Preliminary exit poll results showed that six in 10 voters named it as their top issue, far more than other problems named including Iraq and terrorism. Obama was leading among this group. And, nearly all voters - nine in 10 - said the economy was in bad shape and said they were worried about the economy's direction. Obama had the advantage among these voters, too.

Four in 10 said their family financial status was worse than four years ago - the highest number to report that in a presidential race since at least 1992. Nearly three quarters of this group voted for Obama.

Race didn't appear to be much of a hurdle.

Nearly one in 10 whites said race was an important factor in selecting a candidate, though only a tiny fraction said it was the most important factor. In both groups, about six in 10 were voting for McCain.

Obama won nearly half of the white vote while nearly all blacks and two in three Hispanics supported him.

Although Obama played down his skin color, it played a part in his general election strategy. Minorities, as well as youth, were identified early on as a key demographic to register and court.

It appeared to work.

Obama was the overwhelming choice of the one in 10 voters who went to the polls for their first time Tuesday. One in five of the new voters was black, almost twice the proportion of blacks among voters overall. Another one in five of the new voters was Hispanic. About two-thirds of them were under 30 years old.

All - whites, blacks, women, Hispanics, young people, Democrats, Republicans and independents - will have high expectations for Obama's presidency.

US Voters Come Out in Big Numbers for Historic Election

Polls are open across the United States as voters line up to choose a new president and members of Congress. High turnout is reported at many polling stations. The last major preference polls showed Democrat Barack Obama with a significant advantage over Republican John McCain. VOA's Brian Wagner reports from Florida, one of several key states the candidates are hoping to win.

Line of voters waiting to cast ballots in New Orleans, 04 Nov 2008

Voters streamed into libraries, government buildings and schools to cast ballots in an election many voters are saying is the most significant in the nation's history.

Some polling stations in eastern states like New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania reported long lines of voters who gathered before dawn to cast ballots.

Election officials say they expect massive turnout on Election Day, and they are asking voters to be patient and brace for possible delays.

Virginia resident Renu Ahluwalia got in line early Tuesday, and said she would arrive late to her job at the Department of Homeland Security "I just started my wait, but I was told it was up to an hour. I think no matter what time you came the lines were going to be long, but it is exciting. I am making up the hours later in order to come out here this morning," she said.

Officials in New Jersey said they were giving paper ballots to some voters because of problems with electronic voting machines. Other areas encountered minor problems, but officials voiced no major concerns.

Voters cast their ballots at Centreville High School in Clifton, Virginia, 04 Nov. 2008

Near Washington, American University law student, Angela Edmond, was part of a volunteer team working to make sure all people qualified to vote are able to do so. "There was only one problem with a man whose wife had applied for an absentee ballot, and she didn't receive it and she was given a hard time inside. She should be able to vote provisionally, but we're not sure, so we are waiting to see when she comes out," she said.

In Miami, college student Paul Torres, said he voted for Obama because of his economic policy, even though he considers himself a Republican. "It was not really a hard decision in this election, because I see people on television saying McCain is going to fix this. But he has the same strategies as George Bush," he said.

Fellow student Andres Suarez said he raced to the polls to vote for John McCain before his morning classes. "I voted today, very early in the morning. It was about an hour and a half [wait], but compared to other friends who waited five hours, it was not that bad," he said.

Voters use benches to fill their ballots in Calais, Vermont, 04 Nov 2008

Long delays were common in Florida and some of the 29 other states that held early voting in recent weeks. Officials say early turnout was unprecedented with more than 40 million Americans casting their ballots before Election Day.

On the final day of campaigning, Barack Obama spoke to thousands of supporters in Virginia - a state no Democrat has won since 1964. "I've just got one question for you, Virginia. Are you fired up? Are you ready to go? Fired up? Ready to go? Fired up? Ready to go? Fired up? Ready to go? Virginia, let's go change the world. Thank you and God Bless the United States of America," he said.

Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and his wife Michelle, cast their votes at a polling place in Chicago, 4 Nov. 2008

Senator Obama is spending Election Day with his family in Illinois, before a major rally in Chicago later in the day.

Senator McCain is in his home state of Arizona after making a whirlwind tour of several crucial states on Monday.

At a rally in Indiana, he pointed to some polls showing that he held a narrow lead over his opponent. "We've got the momentum. We've the momentum my friends. We've got it!"

Final national polls showed the presidential contest was narrowing, but Obama held a comfortable lead of between five and 11 points.

Democrats also are expected to make gains in Congressional voting, which includes all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 in the 100 member Senate.

Most projections have Democrats expanding their current 36 seat House advantage by at least 20. Potential losses could give Democrats their strongest majority in 18 years, putting Republicans far below their current 199 seat minority.

Democrats would like to widen their current narrow 51-49 margin of control in the Senate to or near a 60-seat majority that could make it easier to win votes on legislation.