MUMBAI: In the run-up to the US Presidential Inauguration, BBC World Service and Washington DC's WAMU 88.5 have joined forces for a global debate about the challenges the next US administration will face.

Obama's Washington and the World will be broadcast live at 13.00 EST (18.00 GMT) on Saturday 10 January 2009 from the American University' Washington College of Law  The programme will be broadcast to the BBC's audiences across the world.

The panel includes Susan Eisenhower, consultant, author and expert on international security; Lawrence Mishel, Director of Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC; lobbyist Grover Norquist; Richard Perle, political advisor and lobbyist; and Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters  The debate will cover issues such as how the current financial crisis, as well as the events in Gaza and the wider Middle East will affect the next US presidency, and whether Obama will be able to keep his campaign-trail promises to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison and get the US troops out of Iraq.

The panel will be fielding questions from live audience as well as those submitted by BBC listeners around the world via the webpage MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "www.bbc.co.uk" claiming to be bbcworldservice.com/news.

Co-presenters - WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi and BBC World Service's Owen Bennett-Jones – say they are looking forward to a dynamic discussion about what's in store for the new president at home and on the world stage in the months and years to come 

Owen Bennett-Jones says:  It's a very exciting time to be in Washington, and I'm looking forward to hearing the questions our live audience are going to put to such a distinguished panel of guests....

Kojo Nnamdi adds: ""Every day, our show's mission is to connect issues important to our Washington community to issues throughout the world. I see this joint BBC-WAMU event as a wonderful opportunity to connect the world to Washington - and a truly unique way to celebrate this historic Inaugural."