WASHINGTON, Jan 18: The US capital came alive on Sunday in festival and ceremony to honour Barack Obama’s inauguration this week as the 44th president of a nation weighed down under a crushing economic recession and two difficult wars.

Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families arrived the night before by train from Philadelphia, a symbolic journey recalling that of Abraham Lincoln in equally troubled times in 1861 before the outbreak of the US Civil War.

The president-elect and Biden began Sunday with a sombre wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. Obama and Biden stood, hands over hearts, as a bugler played Taps, the military call sounded over soldiers’ graves.

Then the Obamas and Bidens attended church services separately.

At Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in northwest Washington, the congregation erupted in applause when Obama and wife, Michelle, walked in with daughters Malia and Sasha and Michelle Obama’s mother. They sat in the second row, which had been set aide for them.

Obama was told anew that his rise follows the achievements of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose memory the nation celebrates on Monday.

When times turn tough and critics sound off, Pastor Derrick Harkins said, Obama should turn to the strength of his wife and to God. “Understand that God has prepared you, and God has placed you, and God will not forsake you,” Harkins told the incoming president.

In the afternoon, the Obamas were to attend a concert on the National Mall, the start to a dizzying four-day round of spectacle and tradition that ends with a prayer service on Wednesday morning.

Sunday’s concert will feature, among other stars, U2, Beyonce and Bruce Spingsteen. A crowd expected to reach a half-million also will hear dramatic readings from top stars of film, television and the sports world.

Somewhere between 1 million and 2 million people are expected to make their way to Washington for the swearing in ceremony and inaugural parade on Tuesday. Some 240,000 tickets have been issued for the festivities at the Capitol.

First day plan

Although he may not get to bed before 3am after the inaugural balls, Obama plans to make Wednesday, his first full day as president, a jam-packed affair of prayer, diplomacy, war discussions and welcoming hundreds of visitors to the White House.

Perhaps most importantly, however, will be Obama’s plan to fulfil his pledge to assemble the nation’s military leaders to take a hard look at starting the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq – six years after outgoing President George W. Bush declared `Mission Accomplished’ following the initial US invasion of the Mideast nation.

His day one could well be crowded as well with the Middle East and the bloody Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Obama also is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow US military guidelines for questioning prisoners, according to two US officials familiar with drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow exceptions in extraordinary cases.

At the start of Saturday’s train journey, Obama promised the crowd assembled in Philadelphia to bring the country “a new Declaration of Independence” – free from small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.

He cited the faltering economy, warfare not only in Iraq and but also in Afghanistan – “one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely” – the threat of global warming and US dependence on foreign oil.—AP