US: The US mid-term election results were greeted with jubilation around the world.
From Paris to Pakistan, politicians, analysts and ordinary citizens said they hoped the Democratic takeover of Congress and the departure of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld would force US president George Bush to adopt a more conciliatory approach to the globe's crises and teach a president many see as a "cowboy" a lesson in humility.
European politicians who opposed the war in Iraq said they felt vindicated by the Democrats' victory and governments expressed hopes for a new era of open dialogue on a more equal footing with Washington.
Italy's prime minister, Romano Prodi, who came to power in May on an anti-war platform and has vowed to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq by the end of the year, said he hoped US-European relations would have "less friction and more collaboration".
His foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, was far more direct. "The cycle of preventative wars, of unilateralism, has ended in a great failure that even the American public has acknowledged," he said.
France, perhaps Europe's fiercest opponent of the war, said Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld had been forced to read the writing on the wall.
"We always said what we thought about this action. It's up to them to analyse the situation and draw conclusions from that analysis," said French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
The ruling Socialist Party of Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero, who pulled Madrid's troops out of Iraq after his surprise election victory in March 2004, said the vote was a thumbs-down to Washington's strategy on the war on terrorism.
Germany's Green party, a junior partner in the Berlin government at the time of the invasion and now in opposition, seemed to reflect the view of many left-wing parties.
"The [ election] will put a strong damper on the one-sided and dogmatic policies of George W Bush . . . This was the bill to the White House for their disaster in Iraq," Jürgen Trittin, deputy head of the Greens' parliamentarians, said.
In a joint statement, more than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as "the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world" and said they left the Bush administration "seriously weakened".
But, in Afghanistan, the government expressed sadness over Mr Rumsfeld's abrupt departure. "We are sad that he has resigned," Jawed Ludin, the chief of staff for Afghan president Hamid Karzai, said. "We in Afghanistan are very pleased and very grateful for [ Rumsfeld's] support for Afghanistan."
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of the administration, applauded Mr Rumsfeld's resignation and suggested that Mr Bush should quit as well.
Passions were even higher in Pakistan, where Mr Bush is deeply unpopular despite billions in aid and staunch support for President Pervez Musharraf.
One opposition politician, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, said he welcomed the election result but was hoping for more. Mr Bush "deserves to be removed, put on trial and given a Saddam-like death sentence," he said.
Australia's conservative prime minister John Howard said he did not believe Washington would pull its troops out of Iraq.
"The strategy is not going to change," he said. "Clearly the president has reacted to the vote, obviously he has and that is sensible, but his reaction does not amount to a fundamental change in direction."