Around the Globe, Relief Over U.S. Vote

Officials and analysts in other nations embraced the prospect of changes in U.S. social policies.

Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, a Social Democrat, told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, "There is hope that our concerns in the world -- for peace, development, environmental and climate protection -- will be given more weight on the political agenda in the USA."

On the opposite side of the globe, Mexican officials said they hope Democrats will use their new power to improve Bush's approach to immigration issues, particularly the question of constructing a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.

"The electoral strategy that proposed the possibility of building the wall as an element of the electoral battle failed," said Rubén Aguilar, spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Some European analysts expressed fear that some pressing issues, including the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, could be neglected with a lame-duck leader in the White House.

Britain's Daily Mail newspaper said in an editorial that Bush had received a "richly deserved bloody nose," but the results had "left the free world with a severely compromised leader, stripped of moral authority at home and abroad."

But one of Iran's hard-line newspapers, Kayhan, relished the prospect of a politically diminished White House. "Bush's government will be obliged to take more cautious steps and instead of creating war around the world, it will be obliged to fight politically with Democrats," it said.

Finn reported from Moscow. Correspondents Edward Cody in Beijing, Manuel Roig-Franzia in Mexico City and Kevin Sullivan in London and special correspondents Corinne Gavard in Paris and Shannon Smiley in Berlin contributed to this report.