Headline

Democrats Blame Biden, Campaign Strategy, Others For Harris’ Defeat To Trump

Published

7 months ago

November 8, 2024

Democrats are facing a painful reckoning over Kamala Harris’s drubbing at the hands of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, as shock gives way to anger and recrimination in the aftermath of a devastating repudiation.

Lawmakers and strategists looking for someone to blame for Tuesday’s wipeout have so far been more likely to target President Joe Biden than Harris, who is regarded as having done a decent job with the short time she had to campaign.

The election night disaster — Trump’s triumph was accompanied by a Republican “red wave” in the Senate — has proved to be a Rorschach test, with rival factions each offering reasons for the defeat informed by their particular brand of Democratic politics.

The circular firing squad began with progressive senator Bernie Sanders arguing in a scathing statement that a party that had forsaken the working class should not be surprised to “find that the working class has abandoned them.”

That prompted an angry rebuke from Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison, who dismissed Sanders’s thesis as “straight up BS” and posted a long list of Biden’s achievements for low income families.

New York congressman Ritchie Torres hit out at what he sees as smug political correctness on the left, insisting that Trump had “no greater friend” than activists alienating voters with “absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’… or ‘Latinx.’”

– ‘Devastating loss’ –

Harris has escaped the harshest criticism, as she is regarded as having had insufficient time to campaign thanks to Biden’s initial insistence on running again at 81, despite having promised to be a bridge to the next generation.

The aging president’s sluggishness in bowing out after a disastrous debate performance against Trump deepened the challenge, as Harris had to start her campaign in July as a relative unknown, despite being the vice president.

Billionaire former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, who feels that Biden’s campaign should never have got as far as the June 27 debate, attacked the president’s team in a commentary for Bloomberg for covering up his shortcomings “until they became undeniable on live TV.”

Other Democrats blamed the ongoing economic reverberations of the coronavirus pandemic, which caused governments to fall across the globe amid anger over soaring inflation.

Biden himself heaped praise on his vice president in a televised White House address Thursday.

“She gave her whole heart and effort, and she and her entire team should be proud of the campaign they ran,” he told the nation.

While there is little she could have done about post-pandemic price hikes, many congressional Democrats told reporters behind the scenes that Harris’s team overestimated abortion access as an election winner and dropped the ball on the economy.

Another criticism is that Harris failed to distance herself from Biden once she was handed the torch, despite his approval ratings being underwater at 40 per cent.

This was exemplified in her answer that “not a thing comes to mind” when she was asked on a daytime talk show how she might have governed differently from her boss.

– ‘Bigger tent’ –

Other critics say she picked the wrong running mate in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

But evidence that Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania would have been any more effective in helping Harris win the predominantly white, working-class Rust Belt is threadbare.

Harris has also been criticized for not being clearer in disavowing unpopular leftist views she held in 2019 and explaining transparently why she tacked so dramatically to the centre.

Under this theory, Harris’s outreach to Republicans, and the assurance that “my values have not changed,” were not enough to reassure voters that they were really seeing the real woman and understood what made her tick.

Yet for all the talk of the need to learn lessons, some Democrats were keen for the bloodletting to be over so that the focus could return to opposing Trump.

“Listen, I’m all in for the messaging/strategy biopsy. Need to build a bigger tent; use economic populism as the tentpole; be less judgmental and exclusionary,” Chris Murphy, a US senator from Connecticut, posted on X.

“But folks, (Trump) might not be lying about the roundups and political prosecutions. Job one is to get ready for that.”

AFP

Headline

Bomb Scare Forces Emergency Landing Of Hajj Flight In Indonesia

Published

7 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Editor

A plane carrying hundreds of hajj pilgrims back from Saudi Arabia was diverted in Indonesia on Tuesday after an email bomb threat was sent to authorities, Indonesia’s aviation body said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation said it received a report from Indonesia’s airport operator “regarding a bomb threat sent by an unidentified person via electronic mail”.

The email at 07:30 am (0030 GMT) contained a threat to “blow up” Saudia Airlines flight SV 5276 which was flying from the Saudi city of Jeddah to the Indonesian capital Jakarta, it said in a statement.

After 10:00 am the pilot diverted the plane from its destination of Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to Kualanamu International Airport in Medan, a city on Sumatra island in western Indonesia.

The flight was carrying 442 hajj pilgrims, including 207 men and 235 women, it added.

“Upon identifying security and safety threats, the pilot decided to divert the landing to the nearest airport,” said In Journey Airports, Indonesia’s airport operator.

A transport ministry official told AFP the plane was still in Medan and Flightradar24 showed the plane there.

The airport evacuated the pilgrims and a bomb disposal unit swept the plane for explosive devices, the aviation body said in its statement.

AFP

Headline

Russian Strikes Kill 16 In Kyiv

Published

7 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Editor

Russia launched dozens of drones and missiles at Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday, killing at least 16 people and wounding dozens of others, as negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow broke down.

President Volodymyr Zelensky described the latest overnight barrage as “one of the most horrific attacks” on Kyiv since the Kremlin launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

Zelensky said a total of 440 drones and 32 missiles were launched in the strikes nationwide and urged the international community not to “turn a blind eye”.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin does this solely because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on,” he said.

AFP journalists saw smoke billowing over the capital’s skyline at dawn and a multiple-storey housing block gutted by the attack. Rescue workers were scrambling to find any survivors buried beneath the rubble.

“It was probably the most hellish night in my memory for our neighbourhood,” 20-year-old student Alina Shtompel told AFP.

“It is indescribably painful that our people are going through this right now.”

More than three years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has stepped up attacks despite efforts by the United States to broker a ceasefire.

Talks have stalled. Moscow has rejected the “unconditional” truce demanded by Kyiv and its European allies, while Ukraine has dismissed Russia’s demands as “ultimatums”.

– Diplomatic ‘facade’ –

Zelensky had been hoping to speak with US leader Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, but the US leader cut short his visit, amid the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.

Russia hit some 27 sites in Kyiv overnight and some residents were left without electricity, officials said.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, updated an earlier toll of 14 dead, saying two people had been pulled from the rubble at the scene of one strike.

“The search continues, as there may still be people under the ruins,” he said.

One person was also killed and 10 wounded in the southern port city of Odesa, while attacks on the Sumy and Kherson regions later in the day killed two others, authorities said.

The Russian defence ministry said it had carried out precision strikes on “military-industrial facilities in the Kyiv region,” in a statement similar to those releases after major attacks.

Germany vowed in response to “increase the pressure” on Russia. The strike showed that “Russia is using diplomacy merely as a facade,” the foreign ministry wrote on X.

“Putin doesn’t want a solution, he wants capitulation.”

– US citizen dead –

Dozens of residents took shelter in a metro station in central Kyiv, sleeping on mats, exchanging information on attack or reassuring pets, AFP journalists reported, while drones buzzed and explosions echoed out over the city.

“I was asleep. There was a loud bang. The window was smashed, and glass rained down on me,” Sergii, another Kyiv resident, said.

Residential buildings, educational institutions and “critical infrastructure facilities” were all hit, Interior Minister, Igor Klymenko.

Kyiv’s mayor reported earlier that a 62-year-old US citizen had died in a Russian strike on the capital’s Solomyansky district.

Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said the new attacks showed Moscow was “continuing its war against civilians”.

Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed on both sides since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to independent monitors and Western intelligence agencies.

Russian forces have been steadily advancing across the sprawling front line even since the inauguration of Trump brought about an uptick in US efforts to secure a halt in fighting.

AFP

Headline

25-year-old Nigerian Arrested With N1.8bn Drugs In India Risks 20-year Jail

Published

9 hours ago

June 17, 2025

Editor

A 25-year-old Nigerian woman, Ifeoluwa Akinwunmi, risks up to 20 years jail in India after she was allegedly caught in possession of drugs worth over N1.8bn.

Akinwunmi, reportedly a hairstylist and nail artist, was arrested last Tuesday by operatives of the Anti-Narcotics Wing of the Central Crime Branch in Bengaluru.

She was apprehended at the Tarahunase village, along Rajanukunte Main Road, after arriving from Delhi with a suspicious bag.

According to The New Indian Express, which was cited in a report by The PUNCH on Monday, the bag contained 5.325 kilograms of MDMA crystals, a banned party drug.

The contraband was concealed among 11 new churidars — traditional Indian outfits.

“She is a courier. She had come to hand over the drugs to a group of African peddlers.

“We noticed four men on two scooters in the area, but they did not collect the parcel. Akinwunmi was arrested while standing with the bag,” a police officer involved in the operation was quoted as saying.

The suspect, who claimed she travelled to India to establish a beauty salon, is now facing charges under India’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and the Foreigners Act, 1946.

Section 23 of the NDPS Act stipulates severe penalties for those caught importing, exporting, or transhipping narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

According to the Indian legal code reviewed by The PUNCH, offenders found with a commercial quantity, such as the MDMA seized from Akinwunmi, face a minimum of 10 years and up to 20 years in prison, in addition to heavy fines.

The section reads in part, “Where the contravention involves commercial quantity, [the offender shall be punished] with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years but which may extend to twenty years and shall also be liable to a fine which shall not be less than one lakh rupees but which may extend to two lakh rupees.”

Under the Foreigners Act of 1946, the Indian government also has the authority to prosecute and deport foreigners involved in criminal activities.

Akinwunmi’s arrest comes just two days after another Nigerian national, Emmanuel Bediako, also known as Maxwell, was apprehended by the Telangana Anti-Narcotics Bureau for alleged drug trafficking.