US midterm elections: Barack Obama hits the campaign trail

 Democrats hope the former president can help them keep control of Congress – in most midterms, the incumbents lose seats.

Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn’t during his own two terms as United States president: help his Democratic Party win midterm elections when they already hold the White House.

Obama is more popular than he was back then, and now it’s President Joe Biden, his former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke.

Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states on Friday in Georgia, and he will travel on Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

The itinerary, which includes rallies with Democratic candidates for federal and state offices, was drawn up as Biden and his party try to stave off a strong Republican push to upend the Democrats’ narrow majorities in the House and Senate and claim key governorships ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Four states have competitive Senate races where Republican candidates appear to be gaining momentum. Michigan has a competitive governor’s race.

Republicans need to pick up just one additional Senate seat to secure control of that chamber, and Georgia and Nevada are their prime targets.

Republicans are expected to win enough seats to take over the House of Representatives. Holding both chambers would enable them to stonewall Biden’s agenda; block his nominees, including federal judges; and launch investigations of his administration.

With Biden’s approval among voters hovering at 39 percent, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, it is Obama who is assuming the role as the party’s closer in the final days of campaigning ahead of the November 8 elections.

“He’s probably a better ambassador for swing-state Democrats than Biden is since he’s more popular – especially in the competitive states – and less tied to the current issues on voters’ minds,” Jacob Rubashkin, an election analyst in Washington with Inside Elections, told the Reuters news agency. “He’s also a more natural campaigner.”

Biden’s low job approval ratings make him an albatross for Democrats like Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. Party strategists see Obama as having extensive reach even in a time of hyperpartisanship and economic uncertainty.

“Obama occupies a rare place in our politics today,” David Axelrod told the Associated Press. He helped shape Obama’s campaigns from his days in the Illinois state Senate through two presidential elections. “He obviously has great appeal to Democrats, but he’s also well-liked by independent voters.”

Former US President Barack Obama has higher approval ratings than incumbent Joe Biden, and  Democrats hope his star power will help bring voters to the polls in the midterm elections 

Neither Biden nor former President Donald Trump can claim that, Axelrod and others noted, even as both men also ratchet up their campaigning ahead of the elections.

“Barack Obama is the best messenger we’ve got in our party, and he’s the most popular political figure in the country in either party,” Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat and prominent political commentator, told AP.

Obama left office in January 2017 with a 59 percent approval rating, and Gallup measured his post-presidential approval at 63 percent the following year, the last time the organization surveyed former presidents. That’s considerably higher than his ratings in 2010 when Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in a midterm election that Obama called a “shellacking”. In his second midterm election four years later, the GOP also regained control of the Senate.

Trying to swim against those historical tides, Biden travelled on Thursday to Syracuse, New York, for a rare appearance in a competitive congressional district. After months of Republican attacks over inflation, he offered a closing economic argument buoyed somewhat by news of 2.6 percent GDP growth in the third quarter after two previous quarters of retraction.

“Democrats are building a better America for everyone with an economy … where everyone does well,” Biden argued.

Yet Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said Obama is better positioned to take that same argument to Americans who haven’t decided whom to vote for or whether to vote at all.

“If it’s just a straight-up referendum on Democrats and the economy, then we’re screwed,” Smith said to AP, acknowledging that no incumbent party wants to run at a time of sustained inflation. “But you have to make the election a choice between the two parties, crystallize the differences.”

Obama, she said, did that in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections “by winning over a lot of working-class white voters and others we don’t always think about as part of the ‘Obama coalition’”.

He couldn’t replicate it in the midterms, but he’s not the president this time. Smith and Axelrod said that means Obama can more deftly position himself above the fray to defend Democratic accomplishments, from the specifics of the Inflation Reduction Act to the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package that many Democrats have avoided touting because Republicans blame it for inflation. Smith said Obama can remind voters of years of Republican attacks on his 2010 health care law that now seems to be a permanent and generally accepted part of the US health insurance market.

Beyond those policy arguments, Sellers noted that Obama, as the first Black president, “connects especially with Black and brown voters”, a bond reflected in the opening days of his itinerary.

In Atlanta, he’ll be on stage with Warnock, the first Black US senator in Georgia’s history, and Stacey Abrams, who’s running to become the first Black female governor in American history. Warnock faces a stiff challenge from Republican nominee Herschel Walker, who is also Black. Abrams is trying to unseat Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who narrowly defeated her four years ago.

In Michigan, Obama will campaign in Detroit with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is being challenged by Republican Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin, he’ll be in Milwaukee with Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trying to oust Republican Senator Ron Johnson. Each city is where the state’s Black population is most concentrated. Obama’s Pennsylvania swing will include Philadelphia, another city where Democrats must get a strong turnout from Black voters to win competitive races for Senate and governor.

With the Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties and Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the deciding vote, any Senate contest could end up deciding which party controls the chamber for the next two years. Among the tightest Senate battlegrounds, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three where Black turnout could be the most critical to Democratic fortunes.

Plans have been in the works for Obama and Biden to campaign together in Pennsylvania although neither the White House nor Obama’s office has confirmed details.

A wider embrace for Obama is a turnabout from his two midterm elections, but it’s at least partly a rite of passage for former presidents. “Most of them — maybe not President Trump, but most of them — are viewed more favorably after they leave office,” Axelrod said.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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Two men acquitted of Malcom X murder to receive $36m

 The two men, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, always maintained they did not kill the civil rights leader in 1965.

The two men whose convictions for the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X were overturned last year will receive $36m from the city and state of New York, their lawyer confirmed.

“The tragedy of Malcolm X’s murder was felt all over the world, and compounded by the fact that it led to the convictions and imprisonment of two innocent, young, Black men in America,” their lawyer David Shanies said in an emailed statement to AFP on Sunday night.

The two men, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, always maintained they did not commit the murder.

Aziz, 84, had sought $40m after serving about two decades in prison and more than 55 years after being wrongly blamed in the case that raised questions about racism in the criminal justice system. Aziz is married and has six children.

Islam, who died in 2009 at age 74, also spent more than 20 years in prison and was exonerated in November 2021. His estate had also filed a $40m suit.

They were released in the mid-1980s, but it was not until November 2021 that their names were fully cleared by the New York State Supreme Court, which called their convictions almost a half-century ago “a failure of justice”.

“Today we acknowledge that injustice and take a modest step towards rectifying it,” said Shanies.

He confirmed a report from the New York Times that the city of New York will pay $26m to be split between 84-year-old Aziz and the family of Islam.

The state government of New York will also pay five million dollars each, for a total of $36m in compensation.

Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the New York City Law Department, told the New York Times on Sunday: “[T]his settlement brings some measure of justice to individuals who spent decades in prison and bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murdering an iconic figure.”

For more than half a century, the official record held that three members of the Black nationalist group Nation of Islam – which Malcolm X had recently renounced – shot the iconic 39-year-old leader in front of his wife and children when he arrived to speak at the podium of a Harlem ballroom.

A man with a sawn-off shotgun rushed the stage and shot Malcolm once in the chest. Two others with semi-automatic pistols charged forwards, firing at him. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital with 21 gunshot wounds.

Malcolm X speaks to reporters in Washington, DC, May 16, 1963 [AP Photo]

His funeral in Harlem was attended by leading Black civil rights leaders and as many as 30,000 mourners in the streets. Aziz, Islam and a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, were convicted in 1966 – but historians had long cast doubt on that thesis.

Abdul Halim – now 81 and released from prison in 2010 – confessed to the murder but maintained the innocence of the other two.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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‘Halloween nightmare’: Witnesses recount deadly Seoul crowd crush

 Survivors describe people ‘falling like dominoes’ and being trapped in a crush of bodies in a disaster that killed at least 151 people.

The crush on Saturday night happened in a narrow lane in Seoul’s Itaewon district, after a huge crowd of people celebrating Halloween pushed into the downhill alley, witnesses said.

At least 151 people, mostly women and young people in their 20s, were killed. The dead included 19 foreigners, according to officials. Dozens more were injured, with at least 19 of them in critical condition.

It was not immediately clear what led the crowd to surge into the narrow sloped alley near the Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul. Fire officials and witnesses said the crush happened when those at the top of the sloped street fell, sending people below them toppling over others.

“People kept pushing down into a downhill club alley, resulting in other people screaming and falling down like dominos,” one survivor was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency. “I thought I would be crushed to death too as people kept pushing without realising there were people falling down at the start.”

Bodies of victims covered with blankets in the popular nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul on October 30, 2022 

Another survivor, a young man in his 20s identified as Kim, described the scene as a “Halloween nightmare” and said he also saw people falling.

“I heard voices calling for help, and I saw people who couldn’t breathe,” Kim told the Hankyoreh newspaper, adding that he was trapped in the crowd for about an hour and a half before he was rescued. “My legs are numb,” he said.

The Korea Joong Ang Daily newspaper said most of those who were killed were found near the northwest corner of the Hamilton Hotel. One witness told the newspaper he made it out via a small side street near the hotel before the crush turned deadly. “It was people fighting to leave and people fighting to get in,” he said.

Another survivor in his 20s said he avoided being trampled by managing to get into a bar whose door was open in the alley, Yonhap reported, while another said she managed to make it out alive because she was standing off to the side.

The woman, surnamed Park, told Yonhap: “[I] could survive as I was located on the sideline of the alley. It looks like people in the middle suffered the most.”

One victim’s mother, surnamed Ahn, told Yonhap that she had heard that her daughter had been under a pile of people for more than an hour.

“Her boyfriend called me around midnight, crying, saying she was dead, that she’d been under a pile of people for over an hour and that he’d tried to pull her out but couldn’t,” Ahn told Yonhap. “I rushed here after getting his call but haven’t received confirmation.”

Rescue workers, firefighters and police officers on the street near the scene in Seoul, South Korea, October 30, 

The sheer number of victims quickly overwhelmed paramedics called to the scene, according to emergency workers.

In an interview with local broadcaster YTN, Lee Beom-suk, a doctor who administered first aid to victims described passers-by stepping in to administer first aid.

“When I first attempted CPR, there were two victims lying on the pavement. But the number exploded soon after, outnumbering first responders at the scene,” Lee said. “Many bystanders came to help us with CPR.”

“It’s hard to put in words to describe,” he added. “So many victims’ faces were pale. I could not catch their pulse or breath and many of them had a bloody nose. When I tried CPR, I also pumped blood out of their mouths.”

Saturday’s disaster was the deadliest crowd crush in South Korea’s history. President Yoon Yuk-seol has declared a period of national mourning and promised an investigation into what happened.

Seoul’s Metropolitan government meanwhile said it has received reports about some 355 missing people since the disaster.

Ju Young Possamai, a bartender in Itaewon, said he had been to several Halloween celebrations in South Korea and was shocked by the tragedy.

“It was very sad to see something that we never, never expected,” Possamai, 24, told the AFP news agency. “It’s always crowded, but nothing like this has ever happened before.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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World reacts as Lula wins Brazil presidential election

World leaders praise conduct of election after losing rival Jair Bolsonaro made baseless claims of electoral fraud.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won Brazil’s election by a whisker, defeating incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a closely-fought second-round vote.

Brazil’s election authority said Lula, a former union leader who was previously president between 2003 and 2010, secured 50.8 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election compared with 49.2 percent for Bolsonaro.

The 77-year-old tweeted a photo of his hand touching the Brazilian flag with the word ‘democracy’ written above in celebration of his victory, marking a stunning comeback for a politician who was jailed on corruption charges that were overturned by the Supreme Court last year.

Lula’s inauguration will take place on January 1.

Politicians from around the world have begun to send messages of congratulations on social media and through official statements.

Here are some of them.

Argentina President Alberto Fernandez

“Congratulations @LulaOficial! Your victory opens a new era for the history of Latin America. A time of hope that begins today. Here you have a partner with whom you can work to create a better life for all our peoples.”

Chile President Gabriel Boric Font

“Lula. Joy!”

Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso

“Congratulations to @LulaOficial for his election as president of Brazil. In democracy, we will continue to strengthen friendship and cooperation between our countries to ensure better days for our citizens.”

Bolivian President Luis Alberto Arce Catacora

“Congratulations brother @LulaOficial, elected president of Brazil.

Your victory strengthens democracy and Latin American integration. We are sure you will lead the Brazilian people along the path of peace, progress and social justice.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

“We celebrate the victory of the Brazilian people, who on 30Oct elected @LulaOficial as their new President. Long live the peoples determined to be free, sovereign and independent! Today in Brazil democracy triumphed. Congratulations Luna! A big hug!”

US President Joe Biden

“I send my congratulations to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his election to be the next president of Brazil following free, fair, and credible elections. I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

“The people of Brazil have spoken. I’m looking forward to working with @LulaOficial to strengthen the partnership between our countries, to deliver results for Canadians and Brazilians, and to advance shared priorities — like protecting the environment. Congratulations, Lula!”

French President Emmanuel Macron

“Congratulations @LulaOficial, on your election which opens a new page in the history of Brazil. Together we will join forces to address the many common challenges [we face] and renew the bond of friendship between our two countries.”

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa

“I look forward to working together in the coming years with great enthusiasm, in favour of Portugal and Brazil but also around significant global issues.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez

“Congratulations @LulaOficial for your victory in elections in which Brazil has decided to back progress and hope.

Let’s work together for social justice, equality and to tackle climate change.”

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles

“Brazilian citizens went to the polls to elect their new president in a peaceful and well-organised election.

Parabens @LulaOficial on your election!

I look forward to working together and advancing EU-Brazil relations with your government, and with new Congress & State authorities.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

“Huge congratulations to @LulaOficial on a tremendous victory in the Brazilian elections. Look forward to working with you on protecting our global environment.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

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US DEMOCRACY – Georgia mail truck potentially carrying absentee ballots destroyed by fire

 A U.S. mail truck possibly carrying absentee ballots in Georgia was completely destroyed after it caught fire on Monday.

The Baker County Sheriff’s Office shared pictures on Facebook of the Jeep engulfed in flames in a rural area near Pretoria/Tarva Road, approximately ten miles southwest of Albany.

The sheriff’s office said the delivery driver was not injured, but the car is a total loss along with all the mail inside of it.

Deputies said the Newton Post Office has a list of packages and mail that was being delivered on the route. Those missing a delivery can contact the post office for more information.

During a press conference on Tuesday, the Secretary of State’s Office addressed the fire and said election officials have already spoken with the election’s director in that area, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

“There are 43 outstanding ballots in the county. We’re working with USPS to see if they have images of what might have been on that truck, to reissue them,” Interim Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling said. “Worst comes to worst, we’ll reissue the 43 ballots, or the county will reissue the 43 ballots, and first across the line for those voters will be the ballots that are accepted.”

Sterling added that this is one example of many things state election officials might deal with during an election cycle.

GEORGIA ELECTION LAW PROVISION BLASTED BY DEMOCRATS ALLOWED TO STAND FOR MIDTERMS AMID LEGAL CHALLENGES

According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s Twitter account, more than a million votes had been cast in the state’s midterm election as of Tuesday evening.

Fox 5 also reported 100,000 absentee ballots were received on Tuesday alone and another 124,000 Georgia residents voted in person during the early voting period.

Baker County is located in southwest Georgia and is about 150 miles south of Atlanta.

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UK – Sunak begins “fixing mistakes made” by his predecessor

 LONDON – Roughly twelve hours after giving his first speech as prime minister of the United Kingdom yesterday, former Chancellor, now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had completed appointing his cabinet of 31.

A day later, Sunak sat down with his ministers in his first official cabinet meeting to begin the work of fixing the mistakes that he claimed in his speech that predecessor Liz Truss made.

“The PM outlined how economic stability and fiscal sustainability would be at the heart of this government’s mission – acting with compassion and protecting the most vulnerable,” read a tweet from the official page of the prime minister.

The meeting will outline details of the medium term economic package agreed to between the prime minister and his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

“The package will contain the UK’s medium term fiscal plan to put public spending on a sustainable footing, get debt falling & restore stability,” reported 10 Downing Street.

Earlier, Sunak had spoken to world leaders including President Joe Biden of the United States and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

DNT News, London.

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Prominent Haitian journalist survives assassination attempt

 Roberson Alphonse, who works at the daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste and radio station Magik9, is recovering in a hospital in Port-au-Prince.

A well-known Haitian journalist survived an assassination attempt in which he was shot in his car while on his way to work in the capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, officials said.

Roberson Alphonse, who works at the daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste and radio station Magik9, has undergone two operations so far and is hospitalised and expected to recover, according to Frantz Duval, chief editor for both media.

The incident highlights the deteriorating security situation in a country racked by gang violence.

Haiti’s Ministry of Culture and Communication said it learned “with horror the news of the assassination attempt” that occurred in the Delmas neighbourhood.

“His rigour, his effort to be impartial, and his sense of perfection make him a model for the profession,” the ministry said in a statement.

Many colleagues echoed the sentiment, including Widlore Mérancourt of the online news site AyiboPost.

“My friend, Roberson Alphonse could be anything he wants anywhere in the world. He picked Haiti. He also could’ve (made) millions selling his platforms. He opted for integrity and independence. I love him and I wish him well,” he wrote.

Duval thanked an unidentified person he said rescued Alphonse and applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding before medical help arrived. He noted the car had more than 10 bullet holes.

Body of another journalist found

The attack on Alphonse comes just weeks after Haitian leaders requested the immediate deployment of foreign security forces as the country faces an unprecedented crisis.

Also on Tuesday, authorities found the body of another journalist who had been missing for several days. Garry Tess used to host a political talk show in the southern city of Les Cayes, according to the government’s Office of Citizen Protection, which said it was extremely worried about the security of journalists in Haiti and urged they be protected.

No one has been arrested in either case, although journalists in Haiti have long been the target of warring gangs who have grown more powerful since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Meanwhile, the president of Haiti’s Senate, Joseph Lambert, demanded a judicial investigation.

The attacks come more than a month after two other journalists identified as Tayson Latigue and Frantzsen Charles were fatally shot and their bodies set on fire while reporting in a slum controlled by gangs.

In January, gang members killed two other journalists who were reporting in Laboule, a community south of Port-au-Prince.

The Miami-based Inter-American Press Association says this year has been one of the most violent for the press since record-keeping began in 1987.

Journalists also are still seeking justice in the March 2018 disappearance of freelance photographer Vladjimir Legagneur, who was last seen in Port-au-Prince’s Grand Ravine, one of its poorest and most dangerous areas.

The government’s decision to seek international security assistance has triggered anger and protests, with Haitians shouting against “foreign occupation” and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who had asked international partners for “the immediate deployment of a specialised armed force, in sufficient quantity” to stop the “criminal actions” of armed gangs across the country.

One of Haiti’s most powerful gangs surrounded a main fuel terminal more than a month ago, demanding Henry’s resignation as they prevented the distribution of petroleum.

Gas stations have shut down, banks and grocery stores are operating on limited hours and potable water is becoming scarce as the country battles a cholera breakout that has killed at least 40 people, with more than 1,750 suspected cases so far.

US soldiers on guard on the roof of the US Embassy watching a protest rejecting international security assistance and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince, October 17, 2022 [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo]

UNICEF warned on Monday that the actual number of cholera cases is likely much higher, given under-reporting. The agency noted that it has only been able to find a third of the 318,000 litres (70,000 gallons) of fuel needed to serve more than half of 16 cholera treatment centres in Port-au-Prince.

On Tuesday, the European Union said it was extremely concerned about the deterioration of Haiti’s situation, adding that it has reached unsustainable levels.

“The EU regrets that as a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds and protests have been co-opted by gangs, escalating into violence, looting and territorial gains for armed gangs, political actors have so far failed to find a political solution to the crisis,” it said.

“The EU, therefore, urges all political actors to …engage in constructive negotiations to overcome the current political crisis and its security and humanitarian consequences.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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