Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela hails Obama

Anti-apartheid leader and Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela has said that the first black United States president Barack Obama will bring a "new voice of hope" to the world.

Nelson Mandela, 91,in a letter to Obama, who was sworn in as America's 44th president in Washington on Tuesday said, "Mr president, you have brought a new voice of hope that these problems can be addressed and that we can in fact change the world and make it a better place."

South Africa's first democratic president Mandela said he believed that in the rise of Obama the entire nation had witnessed something truly historic, not only in the political records of the US, but of the world.

Obama's election to the high office, he said, had inspired people as few other events in recent times had done.     

The Nobel peace prize winner (1993) said that people, not only in South Africa but around the world, were inspired to believe that through "common human effort, injustice can be overcome and that together a better life for all can be achieved".

The anti-apartheid icon hoped that "the challenges we all face, be they economic, the environment, or in combating poverty or the search for peace will be addressed with a new spirit of openness and accommodation."

We are aware that the expectations of what your Presidency will achieve are high and that the demands on you will be great. We share in that excitement and pride."

Mandela wished President Obama and his family strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years ahead. "You will always be in our affection as a young man who dared to dream and to pursue that dream. We wish you well," he said.