Anxious Americans go to the polls with faces masked, stores boarded up

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Voters wait in line at the Oakmont United Methodist Church on November 3, 2020 in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, a suburban community outside Pittsburgh. (AFP)
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A voter with "I Voted" sticker is seen during the US presidential election in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 3, 2020. (AFP)
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Updated 03 November 2020
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Anxious Americans go to the polls with faces masked, stores boarded up

MCCONNELLSBURG, Pennsylvania: Millions of Americans will cast ballots on Tuesday in an Election Day unlike any other, braving the threat of COVID-19 and the potential for violence and intimidation after one of the most polarizing presidential races in US history.
In and around polling places across the country, reminders of a 2020 election year shaped by pandemic, civil unrest and bruising political partisanship will greet voters, although more than 90 million ballots have been already submitted in an unprecedented wave of early voting.
Many will wear masks to the polls — either by choice or by official mandate — with the coronavirus outbreak raging in many parts of the country.
Some voters in major US cities will see businesses boarded up as a precaution against politically motivated vandalism, an extraordinary sight on Election Day in the United States, where voting is typically peaceful in the modern era.
The tensions surrounding this year’s presidential election were in the air on Monday in the gun section of the Buchanan Trail Sporters store in the small town of McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania.
“No matter who gets in they have a feeling there will be some civil unrest,” Sally Hoover, the shop’s co-owner, said as half a dozen shoppers browsed the cases filled with weapons and bullets.
Hoover is supporting President Donald Trump, a Republican, as he fights for a second term against the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, a former vice president who is ahead in the polls.
“These people around here aren’t going to go looking for the fight,” Hoover said. “But if the fight comes to them, they are going to defend their property and way of life.”

TENSIONS FROM TIMES SQUARE TO TEXAS
The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups said they were watching closely for signs of voter intimidation.
The ACLU’s Georgia affiliate deployed around 300 lawyers across the state at about 50 potential “hot spots” for voting trouble on Tuesday, including 15 polling places in Atlanta.
“We have poll observers who are looking out for any voter intimidation,” Andrea Young, ACLU Georgia’s executive director, told reporters. “We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we want to be as ready as possible.”
The US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is deploying staff to 18 states to monitor for voter intimidation and suppression, including in some battleground counties and in cities shaken by civil unrest this year.
Police and business owners said they were taking precautions to protect property, with memories still fresh of sometimes violent protests over racial injustice in many cities over the summer.
In New York City, the Macy’s department store and the skyscraper that houses the Trump-favored Fox News channel were among the buildings that were boarded up. On Rodeo Drive, one of the most expensive shopping streets in California’s Beverley Hills, staff stripped the display windows at Tiffany & Co. and Van Cleef & Arpels of their jewels.
“Hopefully this is all for nothing,” Kathy Gohari, vice president of the Rodeo Drive Committee, the merchants association, said on Monday as she watched workers nail plywood over luxury storefronts.
Still, fists, eggs and expletives have already flown in New York City’s Times Square in recent days among ardent Trump fans, Democrats and adherents of the anti-fascism movement known as antifa.
An alleged plot by an anti-government militia group to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, uncovered last month, has highlighted the potential for political violence on Election Day. Police in Graham, North Carolina, doused a group of anti-racism activists with pepper spray as they were marching to a polling station on Saturday.
On a Texas highway on Friday, in a spectacle reminiscent of the movie “Mad Max,” a convoy of pickup trucks mounted with billowing Trump flags surrounded a Biden-emblazoned bus filled with campaign staffers in what seemed an attempt to force the bus off the road.
Trump praised the pickup drivers as “patriots,” and expressed impatience with his Federal Bureau of Investigation when the agency said it was looking into the matter.
In the New York City area and elsewhere, convoys of vehicles with Trump flags stopped on highways and bridges, according to local media, snarling traffic in a defiant show of support for the president.
Even once votes are cast, Americans from the president down have expressed anxiety over what could be a protracted ballot count.
As the United States has suffered through the deadliest coronavirus outbreak on the planet, many states have expanded early voting to reduce contagion-spreading crowds at polling stations.
A record-setting 97.7 million early votes had been cast either in-person or by mail as of Monday afternoon, representing about 40% of all Americans who are legally eligible to vote.


UK Armed Forces ill-equipped to back Israel as Middle East conflict escalates: Experts

Updated 7 sec ago
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UK Armed Forces ill-equipped to back Israel as Middle East conflict escalates: Experts

  • RAF Typhoons played no part in intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles launched on Tuesday 
  • Ex-defense secretary: Royal Navy destroyers, carrier groups, F-35 jets not at optimal capacity for deployment to warzone

LONDON:The UK lacks the military means to help Israel defend itself from Iranian ballistic missile attacks, defense experts have told the Daily Telegraph.

Iran struck Israel with nearly 200 long-range ballistic missiles on Tuesday, but RAF Typhoon aircraft based in Cyprus lacked the weapons needed to intercept them.

They were instead relegated to a monitoring role, with the Ministry of Defense saying they “did not engage any targets.”

The Royal Navy’s fleet of Type-45 destroyers is also ill-equipped to respond to such attacks, according to former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.

Its two carrier groups, meanwhile, are reportedly understaffed to the point where they would struggle if deployed to an active war zone.

Tom Sharpe, former navy commander, told the Telegraph: “Our involvement (in the response to Iran) was underwhelming and it’s a reflection of 40 years of underfunding. Given what is going on in the Middle East and Russia, we need to expedite our ability to provide ballistic missile defense from our T-45 destroyers.”

MoD sources told the newspaper that “the Armed Forces remained open to the changing situation in the Middle East,” and were capable of destroying incoming ballistic missiles.

RAF jets took part in defending Israel from an Iranian missile barrage in April following an Israeli attack on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus. However, that Iranian attack involved less sophisticated cruise missiles and drones.

The ballistic missiles used in Tuesday’s attack fly faster and on higher trajectories, making them harder to intercept.

Tehran is believed to have spent large sums on developing its ballistic missile program in recent years, and US intelligence believes it to have a stockpile of over 3,000.

The UK plans to equip its Type-45s with next-generation Aster 30 interceptor weapons to intercept ballistic missiles, but the development program, though approved by the MoD, is yet to get underway.

Wallace, who green-lit the program, told the Telegraph: “Britain could have the capability to have a Type-45 permanently guarding our shores equipped with the upgraded Aster 30.

“We should, with immediate effect, seek to accelerate the already planned upgrade of their missile systems in light of what we are seeing in the Middle East.”

The US was able to deploy three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to help defend Israel against the missile salvo.

UK forces, initially deployed to the region to conduct missions against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, have seen their numbers bolstered since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas last year.

However, their combat capabilities have been repeatedly questioned, including after a Telegraph investigation discovered that manpower shortages meant the Royal Navy was not at “optimal readiness” to be deployed to the Red Sea to counter the threat posed by the Houthis in Yemen to global shipping.

A source told the Telegraph: “The Navy has clearly been hiding the fact it has a clear problem with getting sailors to sea. They don’t have enough people to crew the ships they already have, let alone new ships.”

Wallace said the UK’s F-35 aircraft, which fly from its carrier groups, were also poorly equipped to deal with threats in the Middle East.

“Sadly, because of slow walking by the F-35 Joint Programme Office in the US, Britain’s F-35s cannot enjoy the full range of weapons that we would like to put on them.

“This limits its utility and means that a land-based Typhoon still offers the best offensive capability in the Gulf region.”

He added: “If F-35s were properly equipped with the right missiles it probably is worth sending, but at the moment it isn’t. It would go down there and guard American aircraft carriers and not maximize its potential.”

Sharpe said: “We are getting a little fixated by drones and swarm attacks and yet, if you look at the Red Sea, 94 percent of attacks on shipping contained missiles.

“Tuesday was 100 percent missiles. The good old missile is not going away. All of this needs more money.”


Vietnam condemns China for assault on its fishermen in the disputed South China Sea

Updated 12 min 58 sec ago
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Vietnam condemns China for assault on its fishermen in the disputed South China Sea

  • The fishermen first reported the assault near the Chinese-controlled islands by radio on Sunday but did not identify the attackers

HANOI: Vietnam condemned China on Thursday while saying that Chinese law enforcement personnel assaulted 10 Vietnamese fishermen, damaged their fishing gear and seized about 4 tons of fish catch near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
The fishermen first reported the assault near the Chinese-controlled islands by radio on Sunday but did not identify the attackers.
Three of the fishermen suffered broken limbs and the rest sustained other injuries, according to Vietnamese state media. Some were taken on stretchers to a hospital after they returned to Quang Ngai province late Monday.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed Chinese law enforcement personnel on Thursday for the high-seas attack, saying it had “seriously violated Vietnam’s sovereignty in the Paracel Islands,” international law and an agreement by the leaders of the rival claimant countries to better manage their territorial disputes.
Chinese officials did not immediately issue a reaction.
Vietnam conveyed its protest and alarm over the attack to the Chinese ambassador in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.
Vietnam demanded that Beijing respect its sovereignty in the Paracel Islands, launch an investigation and provide Hanoi with information about the attack, Vietnamese spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website.
China has become increasingly aggressive in asserting its claims in virtually the entire South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in global trade transits each year. The busy sea passage is also believed to be sitting atop vast undersea deposits of oil and gas.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the strategic waterway.
The United States has no claims in the disputed waters, but it has deployed Navy ships and Air Force fighter jets to patrol the waterway and promote freedom of navigation and overflight. China has warned the US not to meddle in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
The Vietnamese newspaper Tien Phong cited one of the fishermen, Tran Tien Cong, as saying that two foreign boats approached them from the rear and that personnel from those vessels boarded their boat and started beating the fishermen with a meter-long (three-foot-long) stick, apparently made of iron.
The Vietnamese fishermen panicked and did not fight back because they were overwhelmed by an estimated 40 attackers. Another fisherman, Nguyen Thuong, was cited as saying that the attackers, who spoke through a translator, ordered them to sail back to Vietnam. The assailants then seized their fishing gear and fish catch.
After being beaten, the Vietnamese fishermen were forced to kneel and were covered with plastic sheets before the attackers left.
The Paracel Islands lie about 400 kilometers off Vietnam’s eastern coast and about the same distance from China’s southernmost province of Hainan. Both countries, along with the self-governing island of Taiwan, claim the islands.
The islands have been under the de facto control of China since 1974, when Beijing seized them from Vietnam in a brief but violent naval conflict.
Last year, satellite photos showed that China appeared to be building an airstrip on Triton Island in the Paracel group. At the time, it appeared the airstrip would be big enough to accommodate turboprop aircraft and drones but not fighter jets or bombers.
China has also had a small harbor and buildings on the island for years, along with a helipad and radar arrays.
China has refused to provide details of its island construction work other than to say it is aimed at promoting global navigation safety.
It has rejected accusations, including by the US, that it is militarizing the sea passage.


Bangladesh recalls five envoys in major diplomatic reshuffle

Updated 33 min 48 sec ago
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Bangladesh recalls five envoys in major diplomatic reshuffle

  • Political upheaval in the South Asian nation ushered in the interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus
  • The departure of Sheikh Hasina’s government has triggered a broad administrative overhaul

DHAKA: Bangladesh has recalled five envoys, including the ambassador to neighboring India, foreign ministry officials said on Thursday, in a major diplomatic reshuffle as the interim government clears out holdovers from the previous administration.
Political upheaval in the South Asian nation ushered in the interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus after weeks of violent protests forced the Aug. 5 resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who then fled to India.
The foreign ministry ordered envoys in Brussels, Canberra, Lisbon, New Delhi and the permanent mission to the United Nations in New York to immediately return to the capital, Dhaka, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“It’s possible the government doesn’t want them to continue, as they were appointed by Hasina’s administration,” said one government official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if more changes in the diplomatic corps follow.”
The departure of Hasina’s government has triggered a broad administrative overhaul, with hundreds of senior officials being re-assigned or transferred, and the contracts of some key ones terminated, forcing many of them to resign or retire early.
All the recalled diplomats are set to go on post-retirement leave in December, another foreign ministry official said.
“You are requested to leave your current posts and return to Dhaka without delay,” the ministry told the diplomats in its notice, seen by Reuters.
The step follows the recall from Britain of Saida Muna Tasneem, the high commissioner, or ambassador, who was similarly told to return.
A foreign ministry spokesperson made no comment on when the replacements might be announced.
More than 700 people died as a result of the student-led movement that ousted Hasina, straining ties with India. The neighbors have a 4,000-km (2500-mile) border and maritime boundaries in the Bay of Bengal.
Minority groups in Bangladesh have made accusations of attacks on Hindus after the political changes, though the government says the violence was motivated by politics, not religion.


Swedish teenagers charged over blasts near Israel’s Copenhagen embassy

Updated 38 min 50 sec ago
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Swedish teenagers charged over blasts near Israel’s Copenhagen embassy

  • The two teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were detained on Wednesday on a train at Copenhagen’s main railway station

COPENHAGEN: Two Swedish teenagers were charged in a Danish court on Thursday with possessing five hand grenades and detonating two of them on a rooftop near Israel’s embassy in Copenhagen, the prosecutor said in court.
No one was injured in the two explosions early on Wednesday, but the building near the embassy sustained some damage, investigators said.
The two teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were detained on Wednesday on a train at Copenhagen’s main railway station, and were questioned on Thursday in a Copenhagen city court. The court banned publication of their names.
A third man, aged 19, was detained elsewhere in the Danish capital and was released after questioning, Danish police said.
The police said they were investigating whether the embassy was the target of the explosions.
The blasts in the Danish capital followed a surge in tensions in the Middle East.
Israel, which has been fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip for nearly a year, has sent troops into southern Lebanon after months of cross-border exchanges of fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
This year at least 10 Swedes have been charged in Denmark with attempted murder or weapons possession, sparking criticism over the spread of organized crime.
Swedish authorities have previously said security police averted several planned attacks linked to Iranian security services using local criminal networks, a charge that Iran has said is “baseless.”


UK Labour MPs ‘scared’ to challenge Starmer on Gaza, Lebanon

Updated 03 October 2024
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UK Labour MPs ‘scared’ to challenge Starmer on Gaza, Lebanon

  • MP Zarah Sultana tells BBC ex-colleagues who disagree with PM risk losing their jobs
  • Labour leader has drawn criticism over failure to do more against Israel

LONDON: A former Labour MP has said colleagues are “scared for their jobs” over disagreeing with the party’s leader, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on Israel’s war in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon.

Starmer has called for immediate ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon, saying at the UN General Assembly last week that “escalation serves no one.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also announced a review into arms export licenses to Israel in July, amid fears that items sold to the country could be used to commit war crimes in Gaza. Thirty licenses were suspended in September. 

However, Starmer has found himself at odds with many in his party, with some believing that he has not done enough to facilitate an end to the fighting in the Middle East, or that he has been slow to act. Currently, 320 arms exports licenses from the UK to Israel remain valid.

MP Zarah Sultana, who was suspended by the party earlier this year, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program: “Many (disagree with Starmer) because we’re seeing (the) deaths of 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza. We’re seeing death in Lebanon, and we know the UK government could take a different route where it prioritized lives, treated them all equally and ended all arms sales.

“I think it’s deeply concerning that people aren’t willing to be public about that because they’re scared for their jobs.”

One of the program’s hosts, Nick Robinson, told listeners that he had contacted six Labour MPs to ask them to comment on Sultana’s claims, but said: “None would come on the program as they said, and I quote one of the MPs we contacted, ‘it would cost us our jobs.’”

Sultana was one of seven Labour MPs suspended by the party in July after voting for a Scottish National Party motion to amend the King’s Speech, which is the UK government’s policy platform for the coming year. She currently sits as an independent MP in the House of Commons.