Leaders across the world have congratulated George Walker Bush on his re-election as the United States President for second time. The first call from overseas came from British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "I can only feel joy that the American people did not allow itself to be intimidated, and made the most sensible decision."

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated Bush for his landslide victory in US. Extending the invitation to President Bush to visit India, Manmohan Singh said his visit would be a "milestone" in Indo-American bilateral relations.

"My good wishes as well as those of the government and the people of India are with you as you prepare to lead your great nation, drawing on a strong mandate, in the years ahead," the Prime Minister said.

European Commission President Romano Prodi hoped Bush’s second term will see the United States and the whole world enjoy the political stabilisation and the guarantee of collective security. "Europe will continue to work to strengthen its bonds of friendship and cooperation with the United States. Those bonds ... are vital to maintaining peace in the world on the basis of multilaterally shared principles and values," he said.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said: "I will continue the good and close cooperation that we have. This is in the interests of the United States as well as those of Germany and Europe."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Bush would continue with the policy that assigns the United States the role of defender and promoter of freedom and democracy.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said: "I would like to express the desire of the Spanish government to contribute to a relationship based on efficient and constructive cooperation with the government of the United States, with President Bush."

After 36 years, in which he influenced and at times dominated their lives, Arafat’s death was still hard to absorb for Palestinians here, even though his hospitalisation and coma took part of the shock away. A heroic collective memory and myth were being constructed through words, posters, and black flags. "Yasser Arafat is all the people and the people don’t die," shouted dozens marching in Ramallah. On Amari’s litter-strewn main street, where Arafat’s picture was placed alongside existing posters of martyred fighters clutching Kalashnikovs, graffiti showed a rifle rising out of a map of historic Palestine. Black smoke wafted in from burning garbage and the mosque loudspeaker chanted the Koranic chapter of Imran. It speaks of God helping those who strive and of learning from misfortunes.

Then an announcer called for national unity, amid concerns the passing of Arafat will intensify Palestinian infighting. "We hope the people will have harmony between their hearts," he says.

Khamis Ibrash, a middle-aged man with white stubble, says, "I feel a great amount of pain. Abu Ammar was 100 per cent with the people. Those who come now we don’t know about.... He was a good-hearted man, a sincere man, he was faithful to his people and that is why we love him." Like other Amari residents, Ibrash has an anecdote about Arafat. His son Mohammed was a wanted fugitive from the Al Aqsa brigades, militia affiliated with Arafat’s Fatah movement. Mohammed took shelter in Arafat’s headquarters, the Muqata, surrounded by the Israeli army. "He spent six months with the President," Ibrash says. "My son told me that the President came by himself and divided an apple between him and three others. It shows how he felt concern. We have lost a great man."

In Israel, there were memories considerably less fond of terrorist attacks and failed peace negotiations. "It is good that he is gone," Justice Minister Yosef Lapid told Israel’s Y-net News Service. "The man murdered thousands of Israelis and Jews and really gave birth to international terror. Al Qaeda is the continuation of what Arafat started. There is no reason to be sad over his death. Public opinion is sophisticated enough to know that he will be remembered in history as the father of international terrorism."

In Amari, Wasfiya Idris, mother of a female suicide bomber, recalls that Arafat visited their home to pay condolences after the 40-day mourning period was over. "He came to the house and hugged the children and cried with them. He didn’t say anything. He came to show his solidarity and compassion," she says. Wearing a white hijab and sitting on a couch, Idris says that people identified with Arafat’s being confined to his headquarters by Israel after the April 2002 reoccupation of West Bank cities. "Just like us, he was imprisoned and besieged. Despite all the shellings he never gave up and stuck to what he believed in." Ramzi Jabber, a vegetable merchant, says: "Arafat was always the red line for the Palestinians. He started the revolution and he protected it. I cannot absorb or comprehend the possibility of another person filling in."

"I’m worried about the internal situation," he adds. "I hope we don’t have internal rivalry and conflict." Asked if Arafat had made any mistakes, he said, "It would have been better if we had one unified leadership and there was combating of corruption. He tried to combat corruption, but it reached alarming levels."