World awaits outcome of US presidential race

People outside the US could only watch, wait and fume as Americans lined up to vote today in an election that provoked an extraordinary degree of emotional involvement beyond US borders.

It wasn’t just leaders and the news media riveted by the Bush-Kerry choice. Ordinary people are convinced that a world feeling the effects of the US-led occupation of Iraq, cultural and religious conflict and the war on terrorism had a huge stake in the outcome as well.