Democrats trying to block Palestine-supporting Jill Stein’s party from key US swing state: Report

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a Pro-Palestinian protest in front of the White House on June 8, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Updated 15 August 2024
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Democrats trying to block Palestine-supporting Jill Stein’s party from key US swing state: Report

  • Complaint alleges Green Party is ineligible in Wisconsin
  • Stein emerging as top choice for Arab-American voters

RIYADH: The Green Party’s nominee for the upcoming US presidential election, Jill Stein, who is emerging as the most-favored candidate of Arab Americans, is reportedly being targeted by allies of Vice President Kamala Harris.

An employee of the Democratic National Committee, David Strange, filed a complaint Wednesday seeking to remove Stein from the ballot in the key state of Wisconsin, arguing that the party was ineligible, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.

It is the “latest move by the DNC to block third-party candidates from the ballot,” said the report, noting that Democrats are also seeking to stop independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in several states.

The report was carried by various media outlets in the US.

Stein, known for her vocal support of Palestinian rights, has emerged as the top choice among Arab-American voters for the Nov. 5 elections, according to a poll conducted late last month by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Stein, a physician and environmentalist, received support from more than 45.3 percent of the respondents, while Harris received 27.5 percent.

Republican candidate Donald Trump polled only 2 percent, while 17.9 percent were undecided.

The Green Party’s appearance on the presidential ballot could make a difference in the swing state of Wisconsin, where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by between 5,700 and 23,000 votes, the AP report said.

Stein is expected to become the Green Party’s presidential nominee at its national convention, which begins Thursday. The party has yet to respond to the DNC’s move.

Why Jill Stein?

Arab-American voters have increasingly gravitated toward Stein owing to her advocacy for Palestinian rights and her opposition to the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza since October, the ADC’s national executive director Abed Ayoub explained earlier in a post on X.

The latest survey showed a big jump in backing since the ADC’s last opinion poll in May, where she led with 25 percent support. In that poll, President Joe Biden, who was still the presumptive Democratic candidate before he withdrew from the race in July, got 7 percent of the Arab-American vote.

Trump polled only 2 percent.

Chris Habiby, the national government affairs and advocacy director for the ADC, said Stein’s support for a two-state solution and an end to Israel’s brutal military offensive in the Gaza Strip is driving her popularity among Arab- and Muslim-American voters.

Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip has killed over 40,000 civilians, most of them women and children.

“Dr. Jill Stein has been very clear and emphatic in her anti-genocide message,” Habiby said on The Ray Hanania Radio Show, as reported earlier in Arab News.

In his column in Arab News, Hanania noted that while the poll numbers for Harris was much better compared to Biden’s, her scornful response to a handful of Detroit protesters calling on her to press for a ceasefire in Gaza may not augur well for her campaign.

Hanania said her response was “a major political blunder that has sparked robust debate in many swing states.” This was where Arabs and Muslims showed during the Democratic primary elections, over the past six months, that “they can deflect thousands of votes away from Biden.”

This had erased his slim margin of victory in 2020 over Trump, wrote Hanania.

“The Democrats are afraid to acknowledge the anti-Biden vote, and the likelihood that it will grow if Harris refuses to take the Arab and Muslim community seriously,” Hanania added.

 

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

Veteran pollster John Zogby, president and founder of the polling company John Zogby Strategies, noted that Harris was currently leading the upward trendline mainly because she was enjoying a short honeymoon driven by her newness as a candidate.

However, this popularity could change, he said, noting that Arab and Muslim voters have more influence today than they have ever had since first settling in this country, and that the issue driving their vote was Gaza.

In 2022, 2.2 million people in the US reported having Arab ancestry in that year’s Arab Community Survey. The majority are native-born, and 85 percent in the US are citizens.

While the community traces its roots to every Arab country, the majority have ancestral ties in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Iraq. The top four states by Arab-American population size are California, Florida, Minnesota and Michigan.

DNC’s ‘Strange’ argument

The last time Stein was on the ballot in Wisconsin for the Green Party was in 2016, when she got just over 31,000 votes — more than Trump’s winning margin that year of just under 23,000 votes.

Some Democrats blamed Stein for helping Trump win the state and the presidency, the AP report said.




Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at a Pro-Palestinian protest in front of the White House on June 8, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)

The bipartisan elections commission in February unanimously approved ballot access for the Green Party’s presidential nominee this year because the party won more than 1 percent of the vote in a statewide race in 2022.

Green Party candidate Sharyl McFarland got nearly 1.6 percent of the vote in a four-way race for secretary of state, coming in last.

But the complaint filed with the commission by Strange, deputy operations director in Wisconsin for the DNC, alleges that the Green Party cannot nominate presidential electors in Wisconsin, and without them they are forbidden from having a presidential candidate on the ballot.

State law requires that those who nominate electors in October be state officers, which includes members of the legislature, judges and others. They could also be candidates for the legislature.

The Green Party does not have anyone who qualifies to be a nominator, and therefore cannot legally name a slate of presidential electors as required by law, the complaint alleges.

Because the Green Party could have mounted write-in campaigns for legislative candidates in Tuesday’s primary, but did not, the complaint could not have been brought any sooner than Wednesday, the filing alleges.

“We take the nomination process for President and Vice President very seriously and believe every candidate should follow the rules,“ Adrienne Watson, senior adviser to the DNC, said in a statement.

“Because the Wisconsin Green Party hasn’t fielded candidates for legislative or statewide office and doesn’t have any current incumbent legislative or statewide office holders, it cannot nominate candidates and should not be on the ballot in November.”

This is not the first time the Green Party’s ballot status has been challenged.

In 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court kept the Green Party presidential candidate off the ballot after it upheld a deadlocked Wisconsin Elections Commission, which could not agree on whether the candidates filed proper paperwork.

This year, in addition to the Republican, Democratic and Green parties, the Constitution and Libertarian parties also have ballot access.

The commission is meeting on Aug. 27 to determine whether four independent candidates for president, including Kennedy and Cornel West, meet the requirements to appear on the ballot.

The DNC member, Strange, has asked that the commission also consider its complaint at that meeting.

The AP report stated that there “are signs in some swing states, including Wisconsin, that those behind third-party candidates are trying to affect the outcome of the presidential race by using deceptive means — and in most cases in ways that would benefit Trump.

“Their aim is to offer left-leaning, third-party alternatives who could siphon off a few thousand protest votes.”

The latest Marquette University Law School poll conducted July 24 through Aug. 1 showed the presidential contest in Wisconsin between Democrat Harris and Trump to be about even among likely voters.

Stein barely registered, with about 1 percent support, while Kennedy had 6 percent.


UPDATE 1-Germany says Moldova could be next in line if Ukraine falls

Updated 2 min 18 sec ago
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UPDATE 1-Germany says Moldova could be next in line if Ukraine falls

“Everything that we do to support Ukraine also means fostering stabilization with regards to Moldova,” Baerbock said
“It is clear what the greatest concern of the people here is: that if Ukraine falls, Moldova is the next country in line“

CHISINAU: Support for Ukraine guarantees the survival of neighboring Moldova, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday at a conference to address concerns about broadening Russian interference in the region.
“Everything that we do to support Ukraine also means fostering stabilization with regards to Moldova,” Baerbock said. “It is clear what the greatest concern of the people here is: that if Ukraine falls, Moldova is the next country in line.”
Baerbock was visiting Chisinau for the Moldova Partnership Platform, together with her counterparts from France, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania.
Germany, one of Kyiv’s main military supporters in Europe, initiated the platform after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, painting it as part of broader efforts to stabilize Moldova’s economy and shield it from Russian disinformation.
Moldova, which has a Romanian-speaking majority and large Russian-speaking minority, has alternated between pro-Russian and pro-Western governments since the fall of the Soviet Union, and now has a strong Western-oriented administration. Moscow has troops stationed in a region where pro-Russian separatists broke from Chisinau’s control in a short war in the early 1990s.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who has accused Russia of trying to overthrow her government, said Moldova still faces serious challenges and urged partners to increase their support.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine, which we condemned from the very first day, has caused enormous damage to our economy,” Sandu said.
“The uncertainty caused by the war continues to seriously hinder our economic development and will continue to hinder it as long as the war lasts,” she added.
Within the framework of the platform, agreements were signed to provide Moldova with more than 300 million euros ($334 million) in loans and 80 million euros in grants, the government’s press service said.
Allies also welcomed Moldova’s efforts to join the European Union. Under Sandu, Moldova, which lies between Ukraine and NATO and EU member Romania, hopes to join the bloc by 2030.
France, Germany and Poland voiced their “unwavering and continuous support for Moldova” in its bid to join, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters following a meeting of the three countries’ top diplomats.
The countries, known as the Weimar Triangle, also promised support to the Moldovan armed forces to defend the country, both bilaterally and as EU partners.
In May, Moldova signed a security and defense partnership with the EU, the first country to agree such a deal with the bloc.

Turkiye, Sweden to hold first security talks since NATO entry

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Turkiye, Sweden to hold first security talks since NATO entry

  • The meeting will take place during a visit to Ankara by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard

ANKARA: Turkiye and Sweden will hold their first meeting on Wednesday addressing a security pact the sides agreed to ensure Ankara’s approval of Stockholm’s NATO membership bid, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Tuesday.
The meeting will take place during a visit to Ankara by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, and it carried “special importance” in terms of improving cooperation on terrorism, the source said.
Turkiye approved Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance in January after a more than year-long delay over concerns about Sweden’s stance on groups and individuals it deems terrorists, and over an arms embargo that Stockholm later lifted.
As part of the approval, Ankara demanded that Stockholm amend anti-terrorism laws and crack down on members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — also labelled a terrorist group by the United States and European Union — as well as a group it accuses of orchestrating a 2016 failed putsch.
The formation of the “Security Compact” was agreed by NATO’s then-chief Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish and Swedish leaders at an alliance summit in 2023. The parties had also agreed that Stockholm would present a “roadmap” on counter-terrorism.
Sweden joined NATO in March.
“Cooperation in the field of security, especially the fight against terrorism, will be discussed within the framework of the road map,” the source said, adding that the talks aimed to pave the way for additional steps on the PKK and its Syrian offshoots, as well others.
Turkiye’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and Stenergard will also discuss bilateral ties during the meetings, the source added.


Portugal battles wildfires as death toll climbs to four

Updated 8 min 5 sec ago
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Portugal battles wildfires as death toll climbs to four

  • More than 1,000 firefighters worked through the night to control a cluster of four blazes in the northwestern Aveiro district
  • Authorities have closed several motorways, including a stretch of the main highway linking Lisbon and Porto

NELAS, Portugal: Four people have died so far in wildfires raging in central and northern Portugal and over 40 have been injured, state news agency Lusa reported on Tuesday, as authorities evacuated more villages overnight.
The civil protection authority accounted for three deaths as of Monday night and would not comment on Lusa’s report.
More than 1,000 firefighters worked through the night to control a cluster of four blazes in the northwestern Aveiro district.
Reuters footage showed local residents pouring buckets of water on advancing flames near the town of Nelas about 50 km (31 miles) east of Aveiro.
There were 48 active wildfires in mainland Portugal mobilizing around 5,000 firefighters.
In Aveiro alone, the blazes have burned through more than 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of forest and scrubland in the past two days, officials said, roughly the same acreage that was consumed by fires through the end of August in the entire country.
National emergency and civil protection commander Andre Fernandes said late on Monday the Aveiro fires could engulf a further 20,000 hectares.
Authorities have closed several motorways, including a stretch of the main highway linking Lisbon and Porto, and suspended train connections on two railroad lines in northern Portugal.
Portugal and neighboring Spain have recorded fewer fires than usual after a rainy start to the year, but both remain vulnerable to the increasingly hot and dry conditions that scientists have blamed on global warming.
Temperatures topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) across the country over the weekend, when the fires first broke out and were fanned by strong winds. The meteorology agency IPMA forecasts they would stay above 30 C (86 F) for the next two days, amid extremely low humidity.
The danger of fires will remain ‘high, very high or maximum’ in the northern and central regions, it said.
“We need to be realistic. We will have difficult hours in the coming days and we have to get ready for it,” Prime Minister Luis Montenegro told reporters on Monday night.
The government on Monday requested help from the European Commission under the EU civil protection mechanism, leading Spain, Italy and Greece to send two water-bombing aircraft each.


India condemns Iran supreme leader’s comments on treatment of minorities

Updated 17 September 2024
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India condemns Iran supreme leader’s comments on treatment of minorities

  • India and Iran have typically shared a strong and close relationship
  • India signed contract in May to develop, operate Iran’s Chabahar port

NEW DELHI: India has condemned comments made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the treatment of Muslims in the South Asian nation, calling his remarks “misinformed and unacceptable.”

“We cannot consider ourselves to be Muslims if we are oblivious to the suffering that a Muslim is enduring in Myanmar, Gaza, India, or any other place,” Khamenei said in a social media post on Monday.

In response, India’s foreign ministry said it “strongly deplored” the comments.

“Countries commenting on minorities are advised to look at their own record before making any observations about others,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said.

The two countries have typically shared a strong relationship, and signed a 10-year contract in May to develop and operate the Iranian port of Chabahar.

India has been developing the port in Chabahar on Iran’s south-eastern coast along the Gulf of Oman as a way to transport goods to Iran, Afghanistan and central Asian countries, bypassing the ports of Karachi and Gwadar in its rival Pakistan.

Khamenei, however, has been critical of India in the past over issues involving Indian Muslims and the troubled Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.


Zimbabwe to cull 200 elephants to feed people left hungry by drought

Updated 17 September 2024
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Zimbabwe to cull 200 elephants to feed people left hungry by drought

  • The El Nino-induced drought wiped out crops in southern Africa, impacting 68 million people and causing food shortages across the region

HARARE: Zimbabwe plans to cull 200 elephants to feed communities facing acute hunger after the worst drought in four decades, wildlife authorities said on Tuesday.
The El Nino-induced drought wiped out crops in southern Africa, impacting 68 million people and causing food shortages across the region.
“We can confirm that we are planning to cull about 200 elephants across the country. We are working on modalities on how we are going to do it,” Tinashe Farawo, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks) spokesperson, told Reuters.
He said the elephant meat would be distributed to communities in Zimbabwe affected by the drought.
The cull, the first in the country since 1988, will take place in Hwange, Mbire, Tsholotsho and Chiredzi districts. It follows neighboring Namibia’s decision last month to cull 83 elephants and distribute meat to people impacted by the drought.
More than 200,000 elephants are estimated to live in a conservation area spread over five southern African countries — Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Angola and Namibia — making the region home to one of the largest elephant populations worldwide.
Farawo said the culling is also part of the country’s efforts to decongest its parks, which can only sustain 55,000 elephants. Zimbabwe is home to over 84,000 elephants.
“It’s an effort to decongest the parks in the face of drought. The numbers are just a drop in the ocean because we are talking of 200 (elephants) and we are sitting on plus 84,000, which is big,” he said.
With such a severe drought, human-wildlife conflicts can escalate as resources become scarcer. Last year Zimbabwe lost 50 people to elephant attacks.
The country, which is lauded for its conservation efforts and growing its elephant population, has been lobbying the UN’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to reopen trade of ivory and live elephants.
With one of the largest elephant populations, Zimbabwe has about $600,000 worth of ivory stockpiles which it cannot sell.