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Biden, Trump Clinch Nominations, Kicking Off Bruising Presidential Rematch
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both clinched their parties’ nomination on Tuesday, kicking off the first US presidential election rematch in nearly 70 years.
Biden needed 1,968 delegates to win the nomination, and he passed that number on Tuesday night as results began to come in from the primary contest in Georgia, Edison Research said. Results were also coming in from Mississippi, Washington state, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Democrats living abroad.
Hours later, Trump clinched the 1,215 delegates required to secure the Republican presidential nomination as four states held contests, including Georgia, the battleground where Trump faces criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 results. There were 161 delegates at stake on Tuesday in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington state.
Biden, 81, issued a statement after he sealed the Democratic nomination, taking aim at what he called Trump’s “campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America.”
“Voters now have a choice to make about the future of this country. Are we going to stand up and defend our democracy or let others tear it down? Will we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms or let extremists take them away?” he said.
The outcome of Tuesday’s voting was essentially predetermined, after Trump’s last remaining rival for the Republican nomination, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, ended her presidential campaign following Trump’s dominant performance last week on Super Tuesday, when he won 14 of 15 state contests.
In a video posted on social media, Trump said there was no time to celebrate, and instead put the focus on beating Biden, whom he called the “worst” president in US history.
“We’re going to drill, baby, drill. We’re going to close our borders. We’re going to do things like nobody has ever seen before. And we’re going to make our nation’s economy be the best ever in the world,” said Trump.
Biden, meanwhile, faced only token opposition in the Democratic primary campaign, though liberal activists frustrated by his support for Israel‘s war in Gaza have convinced a sizable minority of Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in protest.
Both men have already turned their attention to the Nov. 5 general election, holding dueling rallies in Georgia on Saturday.
In Rome, Georgia, Trump, 77, again repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent and accused the Fulton County attorney, Fani Willis, of prosecuting him for political reasons. He also attacked Biden for failing to stem the flow of migrants at the US southern border, an issue he intends to keep front and center throughout the campaign, as he did in 2020.
The Biden campaign launched a more aggressive phase on Friday, announcing Biden would tour several battleground states amid a $30 million ad buy. The campaign said it raised $10 million in the 24 hours after Biden’s State of the Union speech, adding to Democrats’ financial edge over Republicans.
VOTERS UNENTHUSIASTIC
The last repeat presidential matchup took place in 1956, when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower defeated former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat, for the second time.
This year, voters have expressed little enthusiasm for a repeat of the bitter 2020 election, with Reuters/Ipsos public polls showing both Biden and Trump are unpopular with the majority of voters.
Trump’s myriad criminal charges — he faces 91 felony counts across four separate indictments — could harm his standing among the suburban, well-educated voters whose support he has historically struggled to garner.
He is scheduled to become the first former American president to go on trial in a criminal case on March 25 in New York, where he faces charges he falsified business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star.
The most serious case against him is generally thought to be the federal indictment in Washington, DC, accusing him of plotting to reverse the 2020 election. But the case is on hold after the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, and it is unclear whether a trial can take place before Election Day.
Biden has been dogged by the perception among a majority of voters that he is too old to serve a second four-year term, though allies believe his fiery State of the Union address may serve to counter that notion.
The ongoing crisis at the US-Mexico border, where an influx of migrants has overwhelmed the system, is another weakness for Biden. He has sought to transfer the blame to Trump after the former president urged congressional Republicans to kill a bipartisan border security bill that would have stepped up enforcement.
The economy, as always, will be a central campaign issue.
Biden has presided over an expanding economy, with inflationary pressure easing and stocks hitting all-time highs. But polls show Americans unwilling to credit the president and frustrated about high prices of items like food in the wake of the pandemic.
The post Biden, Trump Clinch Nominations, Kicking Off Bruising Presidential Rematch first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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