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Washington: We will defeat you: that is new US President Barack Obama's message to "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror".

"We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you," Obama said in his inauguration speech here Tuesday.

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and on-believers," he said.

Obama has promised to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months and indicated that he wants to focus his entire attention on Afghanistan.

"With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet," Obama said, indicating that non-proliferation and climate change would be another issues

on his table of foreign policy.

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be

broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you," Obama said at the historic function attended by millions of his supporters here.

Obama spelt out reassuring words to the citizens of his country hungry for change after George W Bush's divisive wars in two distant lands and the economic troubles that shook the country and the rest of the world.

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