Foreign press favorable to Obama

NEW YORK, June 4 (UPI) -- International reaction to Sen. Barack Obama's claiming the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination is favorable, a sampling of European and Asian press shows.

Michael Tomasky of The Guardian newspaper in Britain said presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain "wasn't getting an avalanche of press as Obama and (Sen. Hillary) Clinton duked it out, but the

press he was getting was entirely positive ... ," The New York Times reported.

Obama has to change the coverage, said Tomasky, The Guardian's U.S. editor.

"He needs to put McCain on the defensive over his support for the Iraq war and for wanting to keep alive (President) George Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy," Tomasky said.

Gerard Baker, U.S. editor of The Times of London, wrote U.S. political parties moved away from a tradition of choosing white men as standard-bearers.

"Last night, in a tumultuous break with this long history, the ultimate realization of the American dream moved a little closer, and a black man became his party's nominee for the presidency," Baker wrote.

Wamiq Zuberi, editor of The Business Recorder, said he believed Pakistanis were pleased with Obama's claim.

"Everyone is in fact impressed with the historical moment, that it is the first time an African-American has won the nomination of a party," he told the Times.

China's most popular Web portal, Sina.com, posted an Obama story Wednesday on its news front and polled visitors about whether Obama would win the presidency. By mid-afternoon local time, 20,000 people responded -- 55 percent predicted he would win, 32 percent said he would lose and 13 percent responded "hard to say."