Obama woos 200,000 Berliners

Barack Obama's long-awaited speech on trans-Atlantic policy in Berlin saw the US presidential candidate greeted with thunderous applause by a 200,000-strong crowd in front of whom he urged an end to the divisions between America and Europe and sought a new global partnership. On the latest leg of a week-long world tour, Obama used the rally in front of Berlin's Victory Column - his only public speech of his tour - to present himself not as a White House hopeful but, he said, as "a citizen of the world".

The Democratic candidate, who initially appeared more nervous than at any of his other appearances in the Middle East or Afghanistan, told the crowd that it was time for US and Europe to come together again. "If we're honest... we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten our shared destiny," he said. "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common."

Speaking less than a mile from where President John F Kennedy enthralled Berliners in 1963 with his famous 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech, Obama's address has not been rated as one of his oratory masterpieces. The loudest applause came when Obama offered himself, albeit subtly, as an antidote to the presidency of George W Bush, prompting one thrilled Berliner to describe the occasion as "an anti-Bush rally". Touching on a series of world problems, from nuclear weapons to genocide in Darfur, Obama declared: "No one nation, no matter how large or how powerful, can defeat such challenges alone."

Obama's Republican rival John McCain visits Europe this weekend, including a dinner in London with Tony Blair on Friday and formal meetings with Gordon Brown and the Tory leader David Cameron on Saturday.