Trump loses another election court challenge

 The US state of Pennsylvania’s supreme court has dismissed another legal challenge to the election by supporters of President Donald Trump, further reducing his already near-impossible odds of overturning the results.

A Republican lawsuit sought to invalidate mail-in ballots in the battleground state – which President-elect Joe Biden won by about 81,000 votes – or to throw out all votes and allow the state’s legislature to decide the winner.

The court dismissed both claims on Saturday in a unanimous decision, calling the second one an “extraordinary proposition that the court disenfranchise all 6.9 million Pennsylvanians who voted in the general election”.

The lawsuit argued that a Pennsylvania law from 2019 allowing universal mail-in voting was unconstitutional.

The judges said their November 21 challenge to the law was filed too late, coming more than a year after it was enacted and with the election results “becoming seemingly apparent”.

Pennsylvania officially certified Biden’s victory there on November 24. The lawsuit had also sought to stop certification.

Saturday’s decision follows a long line of similar ones, including a ruling the day before in which a federal appeals court flatly dismissed Trump’s claim that the election was unfair and refused to freeze Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.

Trump has refused to give up on his claims of fraud in the November 3 election despite repeated court defeats, tweeting conspiracy theories and vowing to continue his legal fight.

On Thursday, he said for the first time that he would leave the White House if Biden is officially confirmed the winner by the Electoral College on December 14.

But on Friday he tweeted that “Biden can only enter the White House as president if he can prove that his ridiculous ‘80,000,000 votes’ were not fraudulently or illegally obtained”.

Biden, who is to be sworn in on January 20, won 306 votes in the Electoral College to Trump’s 232.

The president-elect has said Americans “won’t stand” for attempts to derail the vote outcome.

Sudan forces seize large weapons haul near Ethiopia

 Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have seized significant amounts of weapons, ammunition and military equipment on its eastern border with Ethiopia.

The RSF made the announcement on Saturday of the seizure in Kassala state, the official SUNA news agency reported.

The seized weapons included a number of mortar rounds and assault weapons, said the report.

“The weapons were seized as part of the operations carried out by the security forces these days on the border line in anticipation of any security threat,” it said.

The RSF did not specify the threat to security. However, fighting has raged for three weeks in neighboring Ethiopia between federal troops and forces of the northern Tigray region.

An estimated 40,000 Tigrayan refugees have fled Ethiopia into Sudan overwhelming local authorities with the UN warning of a humanitarian disaster.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced the end of military operations in Tigray on Saturday after the army said it was in “full control” of the regional capital, Mekelle.

But hours later, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the heavily armed Tigrayan forces would keep fighting the federal government. Some experts have warned of a drawn-out conflict that could destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.

Al Jazeera

Dozens killed in attack on farm workers in Nigeria

 Attackers have killed dozens of people working in rice fields in northeastern Nigeria, according to several local sources cited by news agencies.

The assailants on Saturday tied up the agricultural workers and slit their throats in the village of Koshobe, near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

“We have recovered 43 dead bodies, all of them slaughtered, along with six others with serious injuries,” Babakura Kolo, the leader of a local militia fighting armed groups in the region, told AFP news agency.

Reuters news agency, citing a village leader, a local fighter with the Zamarmari group and a police source, also reported the attack, putting the death toll to at least 40 people.

A search by the authorities for the attackers has been launched, it added.

Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are both active in northeast Nigeria. You have thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, which has displaced about two million since 2009.

“It is no doubt the [work] of Boko Haram who operate in the area and frequently attack farmers,” Kolo, who helped the survivors, said of Saturday’s attack.

The victims were laborers from Sokoto state in northwest Nigeria, roughly 1,000km (600 miles) away, who had traveled to the northeast to find work, said another militiaman, Ibrahim Liman, who gave the same toll.

“There were 60 farmers who were contracted to harvest paddy in the rice fields. Forty-three were slaughtered, with six injured, ”Liman told AFP.

Eight others were missing, presumed to have been kidnapped by the attackers, he said.

The bodies were taken to nearby Zabarmari village, where they would be kept ahead of burial on Sunday, according to resident Mala Bunu who took part in the search and rescue operation.

Last month, Boko Haram fighters killed 22 farmers working on their irrigation fields near Maiduguri in two separate incidents.

Boko Haram and ISWAP have increasingly targeted loggers, herders and fishermen in their violent campaign, accusing them of spying and passing information to the military and the local militia fighting them.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

Brazilians to vote in municipal runoff as COVID-19 rages

 Brazilians are preparing to head to the polls for municipal election runoffs on Sunday, the COVID-19 infections continue to arise in the South American country.

Voters will cast their ballots in mayoral and city council races in 57 Brazilian municipalities, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the country’s two most-populous cities, where mayoral races remain undecided.

Brazil’s first round of voting on November 15 involved some 500,000 city council candidates and 19,000 mayoral candidates in more than 5,570 municipalities.

The vote was the first time Brazilians had gone to the ballot box since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was elected in 2018.

Bolsonaro-backed candidates performed poorly in the first round, with only nine of nearly 60 candidates backed by the president advancing to the next round, according to a tally by Estado de S Paulo newspaper.

Bolsonaro, who has resisted COVID-19 restrictions and been antagonistic towards local leaders who have imposed lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus, won Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro easily in 2018.

But the two candidates he backed in those cities this time around did not advance to the runoffs.

On Saturday, Brazil registered 51,922 new cases of COVID-19 and 587 additional deaths linked to the virus, bringing its totals since the pandemic began to more than 6.2 million cases and more than 172,500 deaths.

Brazil has the third-highest tallies of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the world, after India and the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Friday, Guilherme Boulos, a rising star of the Brazilian left who is running to be mayor of Sao Paulo, tested positive for COVID-19.

The diagnosis forced Boulos to cancel his final debate against centrist incumbent Mayor Bruno Covas, who contracted the virus himself in June.

Boulos’s campaign said he is asymptomatic but “will observe the quarantine protocol for the necessary period”.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

THE ANGOLAN PRESIDENT RECOMMENDS CREATION OF MAINTENANCE FUND FOR NATIONAL ARCHIVES

 Angolan president João Lourenço has recommended the creation of a fund for maintenance of the new headquarters of the National Archives of Angola (ANA).

Inaugurated Saturday by the President of Republic, the infrastructure ushers in a new era in the scientific modernization of the country's archival policy.

Speaking to the press, after inaugurating the USD 97 million project, Joao Lourenço said that the new structure needs a budget, "whether from the State General Budget or from other revenues".

According to the Head of State, with modern facilities, the country will be able to collect, select, disinfect and preserve documents, magazines, books, maps and art pieces with a greater guarantee of longevity.

The president considered it a gain for students, scholars and researchers from various branches of science, especially culture and history, "who have a space with excellent conditions to work".

"The investment made is very large and we need to preserve it", stressed the President of the Republic, adding that the use of the site must comply with criteria that afford the users to perform the activity.

The new structure, located in Camama, began to be built in 2008, in an area of ​​four hectares and has 30,540 square meters of construction.

The new building of the National Archives of Angola, with five floors, houses 69 archive rooms, three exhibition rooms and nine training rooms, 39 offices, two laboratories, two auditoriums, among other facilities.

With an initial budget of USD 72 million, the work was increased with USD 25 million, aimed at inter-connection of the energy, water and final adjustments and equipment networks.

The building is part of the National Development Plan's agenda, which provides for the implementation of the National Archives System, among other objectives.

The infrastructure will allow the right accommodation of the existing documentation in the former premises of the National Archives of Angola, as well as the incorporation of the documents produced after 1975, by the Sovereign Bodies.

The archives will be transferred to the new facilities with the purpose of improving the conservation and quality of services, including the access of researchers and students to its collection.

The National Archives of Angola is a public institute with legal personality, administrative, financial and patrimonial autonomy, whose mission is to coordinate the national archival policy and to evaluate, collect, classify, preserve and divulge documents of archival and historical value.

Created under Decree No. 51/09 of 16 September 2009 of the Council of Ministers, the National Archives also has the functions of formulating general guidelines and supervising methodologically the functioning of the National Archive System.

Until its affirmation as an institution of the Angolan State, guarantor of the preservation of all archival heritage in the country, there has been a long history of reporting the changes that have taken place in the archives services over time.

In April 1977, the National Center for Documentation and Historical Research was created, an institution that dealt with the problem of the Archives and, as such, inherited the entire collection of the then Historical Archives of Angola.

COVID-19: ANGOLA REPORTS 79 NEW INFECTIONS, 66 RECOVERIES

 Angolan health authorities announced Saturday the record of 79 new infections, 66 patients recovered and three deaths in the last 24 hours.

According to the Secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, who was speaking at the country usual Covid-19 update session, 41 new cases were diagnosed in Luanda, 16 in Cuando Cubango, 13 in Cuanza Norte, six in Huambo and one each in Bengo, Cabinda and Uíge. 

The list of new patients, whose ages range from two months to 70 years, is composed of 46 men and 33 women.

He said that 66 patients, 63 from Luanda, two from Benguela and one from Lunda Sul, aged between four and 63 years, had been recovered.

In relation to the deaths, Mr. Mufinda said that these were three Angolan men, two living in Zaire and one in Uige, aged between 63 and 68.

Angola has a record of 15,087 cases, with 345 deaths, 7,763 recovered and 6,979 active people.

Of the active cases, six are in critical condition with invasive mechanical ventilation, 16 severe, 174 moderate, 176 with mild symptoms and 6,607 asymptomatic.

The health authorities have followed up 372 patients admitted to treatment centers in the country.