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Maryland voters turn out in force, say Trump ‘needs to go’

InternationalNov 04. 2020First-time voter Elijah Olsson, 18, waits in line at Tuscarora High School in Frederick, Md., on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Katherine Frey 

By The Washington Post · Rebecca Tan, Ovetta Wiggins, Rachel Chason · NATIONAL, POLITICS

Maryland looked set to vote overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and to approve a statewide measure to legalize sports betting as preliminary election results rolled in late Tuesday night.

Clad in masks and face shields, Marylanders oscillated between feelings of anxiety and determination as they headed to the polls earlier in the day, performing an Election Day ritual made fraught by the pandemic, the president’s allegations of voter fraud and rumblings of post-election unrest.

By the end of the night, more than 2.8 million Marylanders had voted, narrowly exceeding the total in 2016. Most – 2.3 million – had cast their ballots before Election Day through early voting or mail-in voting.

Preliminary results, which were delayed until 11 p.m. because of long lines in rural Calvert County, showed Biden with a 33-point lead over President Donald Trump. Maryland’s eight congressional incumbents were all ahead of their challengers, including Rep. Kweisi Mfume, a Democrat who led Trump-backed Republican Kimberly Klacik by nearly 50 points in the Baltimore-based 7th District.

Statewide measures to legalize sports betting and shift control of the state budget appeared popular, with a majority of tabulated votes indicating approval.

In Baltimore, Democrat Brandon Scott, 36, was poised to become the city’s youngest mayor, while in Montgomery County, voters leaned toward passing two county-backed ballot initiatives that would change property taxes and the council’s structure. There were also some local school board and municipal races.

Election officials had counted about 70% of votes cast by the end of the night, but it may take until Thursday to finish tabulating the deluge of mail-in ballots that were submitted.

Deep-blue Maryland, which has 10 electoral college votes, had been expected to vote for Biden and to return its incumbent representatives to Congress.

Results were initially less certain for down-ballot initiatives, such as the proposal to legalize sports betting. Gambling companies spent millions supporting the measure, which lawmakers say could generate up to $40 million in tax revenue for public education. But polling from February showed Marylanders deeply divided on the issue.

In the nine days of in-person voting, those who flocked to the polls in the heavily Democratic suburbs bordering Washington were mostly focused on one task: getting rid of the incumbent president.

“He needs to go,” said Gladis Richardson, 63, who waited in line for more than an hour with a broken ankle to vote for Biden in Prince George’s County. “I’m excited about Joe, and the man could not be worse than what we have now.”

In neighboring Montgomery County, Dijana Trajkovic, 42, said her plan to vote against Trump was four years in the making. Originally from Bosnia, Trajkovic applied for citizenship days after Trump was elected, with the aim of voting him out of office. She had moved to the United States 16 years ago but never felt urgency to become a citizen until 2016, she said.

Not all voters made up their minds about Trump four years ago. Some said they were apolitical or disenchanted during the last election, but became driven to participate this year because of Trump’s record. Biden supporters cited the president’s insults toward military veterans, his crackdown on immigrant communities and his handling of the coronavirus crisis; Trump supporters pointed to his foreign policy, which they see as effective.

“The guy gets stuff done,” said Tim Dull, a Republican in Howard County who said he voted for Trump this year but not in 2016. “Peace in the Middle East, nobody said he could do it,” said Dull, 64. “Nobody pushed back on the Chinese until he did.”

David Rucker, 51, said he was among the 1.4 million eligible voters in Maryland who sat out the 2016 election. He had “trust issues” with both candidates, he said, but has since grown increasingly alarmed by Trump’s proposals to change Social Security.

“Hopefully this makes a difference,” Rucker said before casting his vote for Biden.

Sandra Anaya O’Brien, 56, and her daughter Isabel O’Brien, 18, also held out hope that their votes would matter as they left a polling site in Silver Spring on Friday. As Trump supporters, they know they are a minority in liberal Montgomery County and try to avoid airing their political views in public. But amid such a divisive election, the older O’Brien said, they wanted their votes to show that Montgomery is not as monolithic as some might assume.

“It’s important that people know we live here,” she said. As an immigrant from El Salvador and a devout Catholic, O’Brien said, she balances her ambivalence toward Trump’s immigration policies with her support of his antiabortion views.

When it comes to the U.S. House, all eight incumbents in Maryland – seven Democrats and one Republican – were expected to pull off reelection smoothly.

The race in the 7th District, formerly represented by Rep. Elijah Cummings, garnered national attention after one of Klacik’s provocative campaign ads went viral, earning her a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. But Mfume, a seasoned figure in Maryland politics, defeated her with nearly 75% of the vote during a special election in April and was expected to win again.

A 45-year-old woman who went by the name Queen said before voting in Baltimore on Monday that she was undecided on the presidential election but supported Mfume.

“I have only seen or heard from Kimberly Klacik for the past three months,” she said. “And while I have some issues with Mfume, he graduated from Morgan [State University] and knows this community.”

More than the presidential or congressional races, the statewide measure to approve sports betting drew divided perspectives from voters at the polls.

Potomac residents Shruti and Frank Abbato, 48 and 47, both voted for Biden but were split on sports betting.

Shruti Abbato approved of legalization because she had read that the generated tax revenue would help pay for an elaborate but expensive plan to improve the state’s public school system. Her husband disagreed: “Gambling distributes money from the poor to the rich,” he said. “I’m against that.”

After a 2018 Supreme Court ruling, dozens of jurisdictions across the country have legalized sports betting, including the District of Columbia, Virginia and West Virginia.

Voting in Rockville on Election Day, Nathan Barash, 31, said Maryland could lose business and tax revenue by keeping sports betting illegal.

“If people want to bet, then they’re going to,” said Barash, who voted “yes” on the measure. “Those dollars are going to be spent somewhere. Why not here?”

Jorge Perez, president of MGM National Harbor in Prince George’s County, said the corporation spent $500,000 to persuade voters to approve the measure. Recent surveys suggest the effort was effective.

“It’s not a guarantee,” Perez said Monday. “But things are looking optimistic.”

In Montgomery, voters were also deciding on four local ballot initiatives. Questions A and B were competing proposals on how to calculate property taxes. Questions C and D were competing measures on how to change the structure of the council.

Current and former politicians led a broad coalition of groups to rally support for the council-backed options – Questions A and C – which appeared to prevail when early voting data was released. At the polls, however, many voters seemed undecided or unaware of all the ballot initiatives. Some said after voting that they indicated “yes” on all four questions, even though they presented conflicting proposals.

Stephen Kim, of Rockville, said he voted against both measures to change the council structure because he worried that they would add more red tape to the legislative process. While advocates say increasing the council size would improve representation for a county that has grown in population, Kim, 40, said, “That’s just a political tool.”

Council member Evan Glass, D-At Large, who spearheaded Question C, said it was unfortunate that the presidential election drowned out attention for down-ballot initiatives that have the potential to more directly affect residents.

Nonetheless, he added, “I will always put my faith in the voters. . . . Ultimately, they’ll make the right decision.”

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Key states too close to call as results may take days

InternationalNov 04. 2020Voters lined up early in Cranberry, Pa., at the Cranberry Highlands Golf Course on Tuesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Michael S. Williamson 

By The Washington Post · Philip Rucker, Toluse Olorunnipa, Annie Linskey · NATIONAL, POLITICS

WASHINGTON – The presidential election in a country convulsed by crisis was headed toward a potential legal showdown early Wednesday morning, with President Donald Trump prematurely declaring he had won even as Democratic nominee Joe Biden had paths to victory and key states continued to tally votes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/1ecbe6e5-06b3-43ad-969b-a9c7ba782abd?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

Democratic hopes for a resounding coast-to-coast repudiation of Trump over his management of the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and race relations did not immediately materialize.

Instead, Trump was buoyed by projected victories in Florida and Ohio, while also keeping his margins with Biden tight in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas – all of them too tight to declare a winner as of 1 a.m.

Still, Biden showed strength with an early lead in Arizona, a traditionally Republican state where Trump was especially vulnerable. And Biden’s clearest path to clinching a majority of electoral college votes remained in sight: A trio of Rust Belt states that both campaigns had prioritized.

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were slow to report returns Tuesday night, especially from cities and suburban areas populated with Democrats. Both campaigns were prepared for legal challenges over ballots, meaning the result may not be clear until Wednesday or later.

Addressing the nation from the White House about 2:30 a.m., Trump challenged the integrity of the vote to an unprecedented and breathtaking degree. The president said the ongoing vote count in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other key battleground states amounted to “a major fraud on our nation,” and he vowed to file lawsuits to stop it.

Claiming a conspiracy to keep from declaring him the victor, Trump said, “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”

The president claimed, “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.” He added, “We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”

Each state has its own election laws, and challenges to their procedures and practices would be filed in lower level courts.

Earlier in the morning, Biden addressed supporters at an outdoor drive-in rally in his hometown of Wilmington, Del., where he urged Democrats to “keep the faith” and projected confidence that he ultimately would prevail.

“We knew this was going to go on, but who knew we were going to go into maybe tomorrow morning, maybe even longer?” Biden said at an outdoor drive-in rally in his hometown of Wilmington, Del. “But look, we feel good about where we are. We really do. I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.”

“We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying votes is finished,” Biden added. “And it ain’t over till every vote is counted.”

With voter turnout on pace to break historic records, Biden wagered that legions of women and minority voters who have recoiled from Trump’s divisive conduct in office would bring an end to his tumultuous presidency. The former vice president offered himself as a healer with the compassion and empathy he said was needed to usher in an era of civility and restore the soul of America.

Biden also sought to make history with Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate. A daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, she was trying to become the country’s first female, first Black and first Asian American to hold the No. 2 job.

But as the electoral prize of Florida appeared to slip out of reach, Biden and his aides settled in for a long slog, with aides pointing to silver linings and bracing for an extended wait as results are slowly reported in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump, meanwhile, sought to overcome his deficit in the polls all year with an energetic final burst of campaigning in which he demonized Biden, embellished his record and promised to end the pandemic and revitalize the economy.

In the run-up to Tuesday, Trump complained about a potentially drawn-out vote count that would not be completed on election night, repeatedly attacking the Supreme Court in recent days for its rulings allowing some states to continue accepting ballots if they arrive after Election Day. He has exhibited a special focus on Pennsylvania.

Trump told supporters such a scenario could be “physically dangerous” for the country, and he has threatened to challenge late-arriving ballots. “We’re going to go in night of, as soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” Trump told reporters Sunday, bemoaning the potential for the counting of late-arriving ballots to delay the election results.

With the pandemic still raging across the country, more than 100 million Americans voted early in person or by mail – by far a record – and overall turnout was expected to exceed the 136.7 million who voted in the 2016 presidential campaign.

In many key states, Biden led in early vote totals, a recognition of his campaign’s push for Democrats to vote early. But Election Day voters broke for Trump, in some places by wide margins, according to preliminary exit poll data.

Also at stake in Tuesday’s elections was the battle for control of both houses of Congress. Democrats were expected to maintain or even expand the House majority they secured in 2018, but Republican control of the Senate appeared in jeopardy.

Democrats would need three seats to gain control of the upper chamber if Biden wins and four if Trump prevails. In Colorado, Democrat John Hickenlooper, a former governor, was projected to defeat Sen. Cory Gardner, R, in a state that Biden also was projected to win.

In South Carolina, where Democrat Jaime Harrison’s fierce challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R, drew national attention and record-breaking fundraising, Graham was projected to hold on to win another term.

And in Kentucky, home to another nationally watched race, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R, was projected to win reelection and easily dispatch a challenge from well-financed Democrat Amy McGrath.

Early returns showed Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., trailing Democrat Mark Kelly, while other Republican incumbents faced stiff challenges in Iowa, Maine, Montana and North Carolina.

Republicans picked up at least one Senate seat and had hopes of winning a second. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., was projected to lose to Republican challenger Tommy Tuberville in a heavily Republican state. And in Michigan, Democratic incumbent Gary Peters was trying to fend off a spirited challenge from Republican John James.

At Biden’s election night event in Wilmington, where Democrats had prepared to possibly celebrate an early landslide victory, campaign aides played down the national ramifications of his disappointment in Florida, where he was projected to lose the state after significantly underperforming in the vote-rich Miami area.

“I always knew this was going to be a tough race,” said Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., a Biden supporter. “We can all hope for an immediate early answer. But I think we need to be patient and wait for every vote to be counted.” Coons added that Biden had “campaigned his heart out.”

Though Biden did not have to win Florida to secure the 270 electoral college votes required to win the presidency, he invested heavily in the state and dispatched the Democratic Party’s most popular figure, former president Barack Obama, to campaign in Miami on Monday night.

While Biden built up a large lead in early and absentee voting in Florida in October, Republicans gained ground as Election Day neared, with Trump winning about two-thirds of Election Day voters, according to preliminary exit polls. With almost 11 million votes counted – a significant jump from the 9.4 million total in 2016 – Trump led 51.3% to 47.8% late Tuesday.

Trump showed surprising strength in Miami-Dade County, the most populous in Florida and one that traditionally leans Democratic and is home to a large community of Cuban Americans and immigrants from Venezuela. Trump’s message to that community and to other Hispanic voters appeared to prove pivotal, as he relentlessly branded Biden as a “socialist.”

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County by a margin of almost 30 percentage points, but on Tuesday, Trump appeared to have narrowed Biden’s lead there to less than 10 points.

Meanwhile, in Central Florida, where Puerto Rican voters are a large and powerful voting bloc, Biden performed better than Clinton, but it was not enough to make up for Trump’s surge in the Miami area. Additionally, strong turnout among the state’s smaller, more rural counties also boosted Trump’s vote total, allowing him to overcome Democrats’ advantage in the state’s large cities.

Biden campaign officials said other signs from Florida could bode well. One official pointed to gains in suburban parts of the state, adding that similar movements were being seen elsewhere nationally. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said that Cuban Americans tend to vote differently from other Hispanic voters, making the Miami-Dade result less representative of national dynamics.

A quadrennial swing state that awards a whopping 29 electoral college votes, Florida drew hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign advertising this year, more than any other state.

Emotions were running high among Florida voters, according to preliminary exit poll data. About 2 in 3 Biden voters said they would be “scared” if Trump were to be reelected, while more than half of Trump voters said the same about the possibility of a Biden presidency.

The Biden campaign was seeing early signs it liked elsewhere, including outperforming Clinton’s 2016 margins in suburban counties in Ohio and in two Kentucky counties that surround Cincinnati, which they see as an indicator of how he might perform in Pennsylvania’s all-important suburban counties.

Before polls closed Tuesday, both candidates sounded notes of optimism, though they were anticipating a close finish – especially in Pennsylvania, a new bellwether that both campaigns considered key in their paths to 270 electoral votes.

“Philly’s the key! Philly is the key!” Biden said as he thanked volunteers in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, where he was hoping to drive up turnout among Black voters and other Democrats to offset Trump’s rural strongholds.

Biden and his campaign advisers have said carrying Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was their clearest path to victory. But with Trump on the defensive in the closing days of the campaign, the Biden campaign made a late push for a possible landslide that would include four states that traditionally lean Republican: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.

“Look, you can’t think of an election in the recent past where so many states are up for grabs,” Biden said. “The idea I’m in play in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida – I mean, come on.”

Trump, his voice raspy from long days of addressing back-to-back outdoor rallies, sounded confident of victory in a morning interview but later was wistful and even downbeat as he visited with campaign staffers at their headquarters in Arlington, Va.

“Winning is easy. Losing is never easy. Not for me, it’s not,” Trump said, making what for him is a rare public admission that he might not come out on top.

The election took place amid a once-in-a-century pandemic that has killed more than 232,000 people in the United States and upended the economy. The number of cases has surged across the country, including in many of the political battleground states, and public health experts have been warning that the spread could worsen heading into winter.

But Trump – whose handling of the crisis is a top reason he had trailed Biden in the polls for so many months – has been insisting on the campaign trail that the country is “rounding the curve” on the virus. The president also has been promising that a vaccine and various therapeutics will soon be widely available, which is more optimistic than the timelines provided by health officials.

Preliminary exit polls showed about a third of voters said the economy was the most important issue in their vote, while roughly 2 in 10 listed the coronavirus or racial inequality. Smaller shares named crime or health-care policy, according to the polls, conducted by Edison Research.

Among Trump supporters, the most important issue was the economy, which about 6 in 10 named. Among Biden supporters, meanwhile, roughly a third said racial inequality was the most important issue to their vote, while slightly fewer named the pandemic.

The preliminary data showed voters nationally are divided about the state of the economy. Roughly half rated it negatively, with about 2 in 10 voters calling the economy “poor” – the lowest rating available to survey takers. About half of voters rated the economy positively, with about 1 in 10 calling it “excellent.”

In 2016, by contrast, exit polling found 62% of voters rated the economy negatively, with 21% rating it “poor.”

The early exit poll data also showed that voters are divided over whether U.S. efforts to contain the coronavirus were going “well” or “badly.”

In the three “blue wall” Rust Belt states that Barack Obama carried in his 2008 and 2012 campaigns but Trump won in 2016 – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – the economy rated as the top issue, with roughly a third of voters citing it as the issue that mattered most, according to preliminary exit polls.

In all three states, Trump voters were far more likely to cite the economy than Biden voters, roughly a third of whom pointed instead to the pandemic as their top issue.

The outcome of the race carried especially high stakes for Trump, whose presidency has polarized the country on a wide range of fronts, including assaults on immigration and the rule of law.

With a string of unfulfilled promises and a number of national crises that have occurred on his watch, the president made a feverish effort to secure a second term and prevent his time in public office from ending in failure.

The president closed the campaign with a mad dash of boisterous rallies that defied public health guidelines and showcased the personal grievances he had amassed over the past four years.

While Trump sought to drive home a message that despite being the incumbent president, he was a political outsider with the tenacity to take on the establishment, he regularly drifted from his core pitch to court controversy. He accused doctors of profiteering from the coronavirus crisis by inflating the death count, declined multiple opportunities to disavow fringe right-wing groups, praised supporters for using pickup trucks to ambush a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway, made baseless allegations of electoral fraud and threatened to fire the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci.

It was a distillation of a presidency that catered to a political base that represents a minority of the public and stoked battles with an ever-growing list of foes.

Throughout the campaign, Biden pitched himself to voters as a uniter who would usher in an era of civility, restore norms, repair foreign alliances and respect democratic institutions. His slogan, emblazoned on campaign buses, signs and T-shirts, was “restore the soul of the nation.”

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Experts: Next US president should shift China policy

InternationalNov 04. 2020

By ZHAO HUANXIN
China Daily/ANN

The next United States administration should recognize the “unstoppable expanding role” of the Chinese economy, avoid a policy of “decoupling”, and unilaterally remove commitment targets for purchases by China in the US-China phase one trade deal, according to researchers at a Washington-based think tank.

As US voters cast their ballots to choose between incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, US researchers are compiling “actionable” to-do lists to tell policymakers what needs to be repaired while the country is heading into a new presidential term.

“No matter who wins the US presidential election tomorrow, work needs to be done to repair the global economy, which was fracturing even before the pandemic,” Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said on social media on Monday in introducing his institution’s policy proposals for the new presidency.

Nicholas Lardy, a leading US expert on the Chinese economy, said the incoming administration should assume that China’s economy and its influence on the overall world economy will continue to expand.

In a memo to the chair of the US delegation for bilateral economic talks with China, Lardy suggested the next administration “recognize China’s unstoppable expanding role” and “adopt and work toward obtainable goals”.

“These would not include slowing China’s economic rise or promoting regime change,” said Lardy, as “there is little the United States can do to significantly slow China’s economic rise and its increasing role in the global economy”.

For one thing, China is leading the global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily because it was successful in controlling the pandemic within three months of the initial outbreak, according to Lardy.

“In contrast, the United States and several other advanced economies continue to struggle more than six months after their initial outbreaks,” he wrote.

The new US presidential term will coincide with the start of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25). In explaining the proposals for the draft plan last week, President Xi Jinping said, “China has the world’s largest consumer market, which also possesses the greatest potential. The room for growth is huge.”

The International Monetary Fund said last month that China continues to be the only major economy to show positive growth in 2020, while the United States is forecast to see a 4.3 percent contraction in its gross domestic product during 2020.

“China accounted for 30 percent of global economic expansion in 2019, and its share in 2020 will almost certainly be larger. Thus, a US decoupling strategy would be a policy of economic self-isolation from a major source of global growth and trade,” Lardy said in the memo.

Little interest shown

Other countries have shown little interest in participating in a US-led decoupling strategy, given China’s growing global economic and financial role. They have even less of an appetite for joining a US-led effort to promote regime change in China, according to Lardy.

Even a narrower US decoupling in technology is likely to be a high-cost strategy for the United States. For example, shutting US semiconductor companies out of the China market will lead to the loss of 124,000 US jobs, he said.

Lardy proposed that the new president recognize that the “trade war” has failed and it should avoid weaponizing trade policy, such as through tariffs on Chinese imports, because the costs to the US will likely exceed anticipated benefits.

Chad P. Bown, another senior fellow with the Peterson institute, proposed that Washington “unilaterally drop the artificial targets of purchase commitments” in the US-China phase one agreement, “as these do not encourage trade liberalization or market reform”.

Bown, who runs a US-China phase one tracker, said he thinks that the incentives for China to fulfill its commitments relate to increased purchases by State-owned enterprises, not China’s private sector. He said the targets also encourage China to divert trade from US allies, undermining multilateral cooperation.

Other researchers, like Jason Furman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson institute and a former White House top economic adviser, highlighted international cooperation on climate change as a priority for the next administration.

Last week, the Brookings Institution also said that whoever wins the election will be challenged by an ongoing pandemic and the ensuing economic and social devastation, but will face opportunities, too, including the chance to make “highly consequential and hopefully constructive” choices on China, international trade and post-COVID-19 recovery.

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Is Facebook interfering in Myanmar’s politics?

InternationalNov 04. 2020Facebook had removed Dr Yan Myo Thein’s posts for breaching Community Standards. 

By ZAW MIN NAING
Eleven Media/ANN

As the 2020 General Election nears, posts written by political observers and analysts are getting removed or blocked by Facebook.

Many such posts, with the absence of any swearing or defamatory language, are being removed through targeting by the social media platform.

“It is getting worse. People are asking me to complani to Facebook. I’m not going to do it,” said a Myanmar political analyst Dr Yan Myo Thein.

Dr Yan Myo Thein is a veteran analyst and an author who has written political articles since the reign of the military junta in platforms such as True News, Flower News, Myanmar Post and many news journals. His body work consisted of many perspectives into the political hemisphere, particularly that of the formation of the 2008 constitution and is still continuing to put out political articles in both local and international media.

Ever since 2016-2017, he started noticing that his politics-related posts were getting removed from Facebook.

“It didn’t used to happen. It became quite notable in 2016 and 2017. I have always been critical but no action like this. Lately, a lot of it gets taken down. Even if it is just an observation, it is getting blocked and punished,” said Dr Yan Myo Thein.

Facebook removed his post on October 20 regarding the incident in which candidates from the National League for Democracy (NLD) that were captured by the Arakan Army (AA).

In that post, he shared his thoughts regarding the photos and statements regarding Rakhine NLD candidates captured by the AA. It was removed despite the post stressing the need to release captured candidates and encouraging discourse.

On October 31, Dr Yan Myo Thein wrote two posts concerning the Myanmar election. It only took minutes before it was taken down.

Those posts can be said to be critical of the ruling NLD as it concerns things that can happen to the NLD in the election, particularly in ethnic areas.

In the first one, Dr Yan Myo Thein pointed out that any predictions that claim that the NLD will see a bigger victory than the 2015 election is shallow and lofty, leading to negative consequences. If NLD leadership believes that to be so fully then it is rather detached from the true facts of the situation. It should be expected that as ethnic parties get stronger, the danger of losing many seats to them in the regional parliaments is a danger. It has to be expected that Tanintharyi, Ayeyawady, northern Sagaing and townships outside of Yangon’s municipality will have to be carefully waged competition.

Facebook removed the above mentioned post for 11 times total.

The second post stated that the “insinuation that ethnic parties engaging in fierce rallying to win landslide victories in their areas, causing the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to gain more power, is one-sided. Ethnic parties fight to win their own region, their own homes. They are the locals. As far as I understand, the NLD was stubborn in negotiating politically with friendly and colleague ethnic parties and thus, the current risk of ethnic parties winning their local seats. They are fighting for the betterment of their own people and that is deserving. But apart from pointing out that ethnic parties winning will strengthen the USDP in a battle between the NLD and USDP by some political analysts, more priority should be given to discussing the NLD not establishing political alliances with ethnic parties. If this goes on, ethnic states will see higher chances of ethnic parties winning as well as the USDP winning. I believe that this is a result of political greed and pride darkening the truth. I wish for the ethcnic parties to win their areas in the 2020 General Election.”

It was also removed as it went against ‘Community Standards’. It was never able to go back up no matter when or how many times was tried.

But those that copy-pasted from his post never had their posts removed.

Facebook is putting restrictions on not only political analysts but also toward some political parties.

Ko Nay Yan Oo, a Pyithu Hluttaw candidate representing Kamaryut Township for the People’s Pioneer Party (PPP), claims that online panel discussions that the PPP does weekly via Facebook Live gets taken down if there ever involved words that criticised the government. 

Ko Nay Yan Oo was an IT professional and was also a regular writer regarding the Union government staff. His posts were also removed as it supposedly went against the rules.

“Initially, I just upload things that are part of my life and then, nothing was ever removed. Facebook started digging into me in 2019 when I criticized the union civil servants. I uncovered their mess. So then my post started getting targetted and removed,” said Ko Nay Yan Oo.

He also claims to have faced more restrictions campaigning online after he announced his decision to be a part of the PPP.

“It is worse now, especially more so as I am an opposition politician. It happened before the election period and also during it.”

“Number one is that I couldn’t upload anything on my Campaign Page on the very first day of the election period. No texts, no pictures, no videos, nothing. And it isn’t only the Campaign Page. There is another page that writes about the union government but Facebook had blocked it. So if it is the election campaign time and due to COVID-19, we cannot campaign on the ground so we have to do it online and the online option gets blocked then what do we do? The second thing is that we always hold a panel discussion online weekly every wednesday. We do it live with our voters. We faced this twice; everything was fine until we started criticizing the government. The alleged reason was that whatever we were talking about fringing copyright with BBC Burmese. So the excuse was that BBC reported us. In reality, the BBC did not report us. We have asked. And the other thing is we are talking live. We are not using any photos or texts or videos. We are speaking like we are speaking now on the phoe. There is no way that was getting copyrighted. It happened not the one time but twice. The last one, I think, many people have experienced. Things couldn’t be boosted. I tried boosting my picture with a western suit on (as I don’t have a lot of my photos in traditional clothing and it was COVID period so photo studios were closed) but I couldn’t boost it. Apparently my picture was too sexual. How is it possible that I have a suit on with a necktie that I am being sexually suggestive?” said Ko Nay Yan Oo.

Someone cleared to reply to The Daily Eleven had said that Facebook is working on blocking content that will use the political, religious and racial situation to incite hate.

The Daily Eleven had asked Facebook, in the middle of October, over the email regarding the removal of content from political analysts and how exactly were they qualified to be removed as those posts do not contain any words that may incite hate or utilized inflammatory language.

Facebook sent a reply that until November 22, they will be removing any content that can mislead and obstruct voters with misinformation or unverifiable rumors or anything that can harm the election process will all be removed. 

“We have a clear set of rules on action against inciting hate and violence. If those rules were broken in Myanmar or anywhere else, it will be removed. On top of removing any potentially dangerous content, Facebook had also introduced technological products to lower the amount of incidents of inciting violence and hatred before and after the election period,” replied Facebook.

It also said that attacks under the religious or racial guise are being removed such as calling groups like migrants or the Bengali that are without citizenship rights “trespassers” or “illegal immigrants” or any other word that comes close to its meaning.

Facebook had also announced the expansion of their bullying and harrasment policies to include journalists, activisists, humanitarians and other distinguished persons that always easily come under attack.

According to its announcement, Facebook removed around 300 thousand hate speech related content in the second quarter of 2020. It also cited utilizing AI that can recognize and remove content written in a total of 45 languages, including Burmese, with hate speech in them before anybody could see.

But lately, the removal of posts from political analysts and party candidates as well as campaigning by political parties are arguable in its capacity to be removed by Facebook due to infringing ‘Community Standards’.

Even when the usage of inflmmatory language was involved with breaching community standards, users that exercise their right to colourful speech that are supporters of the ruling NLD do not see any action from Facebook while those that go against them will surely be removed or made not visible by Facebook.

Incidents of posts that get removed despite not containing any explicit language amount to censorship of the freedom of speech.

The (6/2017) meeting of the Union Government approved the formation of the Social Media Monitoring Team (SMMT) in order to keep tabs on social media platforms including Facebook. The President’s Office formed the team on Februaruy 7, allowing them a budget of 6.462 billion Kyats from the special presidential reserve to purchase necessary technologies and equipment.

Thus the criticisms that the ruling party is sending to Facebook requests that will benefit the ruling party.

In a nation utilizing the democratic system, the rights of citizens in their freedom of thinking and speech is a basic commodity and Facebook’s restrictions, despite not utilizing language that are inflammatory racially, class or otherwise, it certainly begs the question whether a deal was made with the current government between it and Facebook.

While the act of preventing and removing misinformation, fake news and manipulations is welcome at any time, election period or otherwise, the Facebook Team must be responsible for acting upon the taboo of censoring the people’s freedom of speech.

Moreover, it harms the election ultimately as it restricts the mind of the voters from going through with enough mental exercises with thoughts and opinions derived from political parties campaigns as well as observations of the professionals.

“It makes sense if they were removing criticism based on fake news, hate speech or abusive language. But rethinking is necessary for acts of punishment because it was against their community standards, despite it being real news or me extrapolating and analyzing facts. If they are to go on this way, the reputation of a network that is working towards fariness and free from political bias can be damaged,” said Dr Yan Myo Thein.

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Ant Group’s IPO suspended

InternationalNov 04. 2020The logo of Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, is pictured at its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Oct 26, 2020. [Photo/Agencies] 

By SHI JING
China Daily/ANN

Fintech giant Ant Group’s initial public offering on the STAR Market will be suspended, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced on Tuesday night.

The Shanghai bourse explained that Ant Group has reported major matters, such as the change in supervision environment concerning fintech, due to which Ant Group may not be able to meet listing requirements at the bourse or meet related information disclosure requirements. Based on the stock exchange’s regulations and sponsors’ opinions, Ant Group’s IPO on the STAR Market will be postponed. The fintech company and its sponsors are required to make relevant announcements.

China’s top financial regulators, including the People’s Bank of China, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, conducted a joint regulatory talk with Alibaba’s top management on Monday. Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Ant Group’s chairman Eric Jing and the fintech company’s CEO, Simon Hu, attended the meeting. Further details were not provided.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange also referred to the Monday meeting in its latest announcement.

Ant Group, which also filed for a dual listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, announced on Tuesday it will suspend the listing on the Hong Kong bourse.

Ant Group, which filed in late August to float on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market, is poised to raise $34.4 billion in a record IPO, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion listing last year. Ant Group is estimated to be valued at about $315 billion, based on public filings. Its debut on the two exchanges was scheduled for Nov 5.

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Temasek CEO on its investment in developing Covid-19 vaccine

InternationalNov 04. 2020

By Goh Yan Han
The Straits Times/ANN

SINGAPORE – Temasek Foundation has invested in the effort to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, said Temasek International executive director and chief executive officer Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara on Tuesday (Nov 3).

He said this in response to a question on Temasek’s role in helping to procure and distribute the vaccine, during a discussion at the Temasek Trust Conversation.

Temasek Trust is the philanthropic arm of Singapore investment firm Temasek.

Mr Pillay said the foundation had invested in an entity considered to be a leader in the quest for developing an effective vaccine, but added that the responsibility for ensuring that sufficient vaccines are available is that of the Government.

The foundation will provide whatever help it can through its network and relationships as it is a collaborative effort, he added.

Amid the pandemic, Temasek has supported its foundation and partners in diagnosis, containment and contact tracing, treatment, protection and prevention, and enablement, which entails the donation of key supplies such as masks, test kits and ventilators to about 35 countries.

Reports have also said that Temasek is among the investors who have injected US$250 million (SGD$340 million) through private placement in German biotech firm BioNTech which is developing a Covid-19 vaccine.

Locally, Temasek has distributed 11 million masks to Singaporean residents and one million face shields to young schoolchildren and front-line workers in the food and beverage industry, while 250,000 oximeters – devices used to measure blood oxygen levels – were donated to various groups in the community.

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An Election Day history lesson: Americans often waited days or weeks for the outcome

InternationalNov 04. 2020

By The Washington Post · Robert Mitchell · NATIONAL, POLITICS, WHITEHOUSE, HISTORY

Americans accustomed to learning on election night who their next president will be may mistakenly think, along with President Donald Trump, that the law requires a winner to be proclaimed that evening.

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“I think it’s terrible when we can’t know the results of an election the night of an election in a modern-day age of computers,” said Trump, who also vowed to challenge the results in court.

But there is nothing in the Constitution or federal law that says the winner must be determined in the hours immediately after the polls close. And for much of American history, that would have been impossible.

The outcome of many presidential elections remained unresolved for days, weeks and – in one case – months.

In fact, in the early days of the republic, there was no single Election “Day.” States determined when they held their elections. Congress passed legislation in 1845 requiring the selection of presidential electors to occur on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Election Day – and election night – was born. But it did not produce immediate clarity.

In 1848, the first presidential election held under the new law, the New York Herald reported on the day after the presidential election that the “probable result” was a landslide win by Whig candidate Zachary Taylor over Democrat Lewis Cass. The Herald was half right: Taylor won, but with only 47.3% of the vote to Cass’s 42.5%. The big story of the election was the 10.1% received by the anti-slavery Free-Soil Party led by former president Martin Van Buren.

Several factors clouded 19th-century election results. Newspapers depended on the telegraph for information and typically went to press with incomplete results. They often reported on returns through a partisan prism that downplayed unfavorable trends for their favored candidate. Vote-counting could be excruciatingly slow.

When the election was a landslide – as in 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant walloped Democratic candidate Horace Greeley – the result was clear. But the partisan equilibrium of the Gilded Age produced one agonizingly close election after another, many of which went days before a winner could be determined.

– 1876

This one was historic. Americans waited four months before learning the outcome of the election. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was not certified as the winner of the election (by one electoral vote, although he received fewer votes than Democrat Samuel Tilden) until March 2, three days before he was inaugurated in Washington.

– 1884

Democrat Grover Cleveland faced Republican James G. Blaine in a campaign whose outcome depended on New York, where vote totals came in with agonizing slowness. “It took more than a week,” historian Mark Wahlgren Summers has written, for Democrats to be sure that their candidate carried the Empire State and won the election.

– 1888

Four years later, Cleveland found himself in another nail-biter, this time against Republican Benjamin Harrison. Although the Los Angeles Herald published a wire story two days after the voting indicating that a Harrison victory appeared probable, the paper hedged its bets with a headline – “A Game of Guess” – that suggested the election was still up in the air. Harrison was elected but fell just short of winning a majority of the popular vote.

Election night uncertainty continued into the 20th century.

– 1916

More than two weeks passed before the election pitting Democratic President Woodrow Wilson against Republican Charles Evan Hughes was settled. “Presidential Vote Very Close; Both Parties Claiming Victory,” read the banner headline across the top of The Washington Post on Nov. 8, the morning after the election. Despite returns in the days that followed showing Wilson ahead, enough uncertainty remained to keep Hughes from formally conceding defeat until Nov. 22.

– 1948

Conventional wisdom, backed by polling, tabbed Republican Thomas E. Dewey as the likely winner over President Truman on Nov. 2. It seemed so probable that the headline on The Washington Post’s Election Day story read: “Dewey Deemed Sure Winner Today.” The Chicago Tribune, forced into an early press run because of a printer’s strike according to a history of the newspaper, splashed a banner headline across its Nov. 3 front page that declared “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

That’s not how things turned out. Returns coming in on election night showed a competitive race whose outcome, as The Post went to press, was uncertain. “Truman Takes Slight Early Lead in Both Popular and Electoral Votes,” The Post headline on Tuesday’s results read. The president’s narrow lead proved durable. Dewey stayed up until 8:30 a.m. Nov. 3 poring over the returns before taking a two-hour nap, studying the vote counts one final time, and sending a congratulatory telegram to Truman, United Press reported.

– 1960

Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy held a narrow lead over Republican Vice President Richard Nixon as returns came during the evening of Nov. 8 and into the early morning hours of Nov. 9. The battleground state of Illinois swung back and forth until late returns from Chicago put Illinois in Kennedy’s column. Although Republicans from President Eisenhower on down wanted Nixon to challenge the returns, Nixon conceded defeat in a telegram released Nov. 9.

– 1976

Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican President Gerald Ford closed a hard-fought campaign with an election night that dragged into the next morning before Carter could claim the presidency. Carter’s victory in Mississippi – no Democrat has carried the state since – put the peanut farmer and former Georgia governor over the top at 4 a.m. Eastern time, The Post’s David Broder reported.

– 2000

Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Texas Republican Gov. George W. Bush squared off in the most bitterly contested election since 1876. Election night came down to Florida, whose electoral votes would put one of the candidates into the White House, but confusion regarding the outcome in the Sunshine State continued for more than a month. On Dec. 12, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision ended recounts in Florida and effectively gave the election to Bush.

Of course, not all elections have been cliffhangers. Perhaps the most lopsided came in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan easily defeated Democrat Walter Mondale. Reagan carried 49 states, losing only Minnesota and the District of Columbia to Mondale.

CBS election night coverage began at 6:30 p.m., The Post’s Tom Shales reported. “Dan Rather and CBS News crowned Ronald Reagan president of the United States again, just after 8 o’clock, and about 52 minutes later Rather declared, ‘Walter Mondale has seen the light at the end of the tunnel – and it’s out,’ ” Shales wrote. “Life can be cruel, and so can anchormen.”

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Seoul braces for uncertainty on peninsula as US head to polls

InternationalNov 04. 2020

By Ahn Sung-mi
The Korea Herald/ANN

As Americans head to the polls Tuesday, the South Korean government is watching closely and bracing itself for uncertainty. Whoever is elected, the result will have a lasting impact on the Korean Peninsula and the bilateral alliance for the next four years.

Seoul’s national security officials and related ministries are monitoring the election that will determine whether US President Donald Trump will lead the country for another four years or Democratic challenger Joe Biden will sweep the White House as polls have suggested. The final polls were incredibly bullish on former Vice President Biden, who is leading nationally and in the most important swing states, but Trump’s reelection remains a possibility.

For Seoul, several critical issues hinge on the battle between the two candidates, who offer starkly different visions of the US’ role in the world. They include the stalled efforts to denuclearize North Korea, the Seoul-Washington defense cost-sharing standoff and the future of the alliance amid heated US-China rivalry.

Observers say Trump will likely double down on his “America First” agenda in regards to foreign policy, keeping up pressure on the US’ allies to pay their “fair share” of the defense costs. In contrast, Biden is pledging to strengthen the alliance with Seoul. As for North Korea, the Trump administration is expected to continue its top-down approach and to arrange for Trump to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again. In contrast, Biden would likely opt for a “step-by-step” approach and push for tighter sanctions on Pyongyang, with a greater focus on coordinated efforts with allies and working-level talks, and less on summit diplomacy.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry launched an internal task force in August, preparing possible responses under both scenarios — either Trump heading for a second term or Biden winning the White House. Its officials have been analyzing the two candidates’ election pledges and their basic positions on major issues in order to grasp how the election outcome will affect Seoul’s foreign policy. Led by First Vice Minister Choi Jong-kun, the team consists of officials from bureaus in charge of North America affairs, nuclear negotiation with Pyongyang and bilateral economic affairs, among others.

The Defense Ministry here is also analyzing and preparing for the election result and its impact on the Korean Peninsula and the alliance, as well as keeping close tabs on North Korea due to the possibility of any provocations, in mind of Pyongyang’s precedent of military actions around or after the US election.

“The South Korean and the US intelligence authorities are carefully monitoring related movements while maintaining close coordination,” JCS spokesperson Col. Kim Jun-rak said Monday, on whether the military detected any unusual movement in the North after reports of increased activity at Pyongyang’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The Unification Ministry, which is in charge of inter-Korean affairs, said it is closely watching the result with related agencies and experts, due to the possibility of change in North Korea policy depending on the result.

Seoul’s key security officials are also planning to visit Washington after the election, in a move to manage pending issues on North Korea and the bilateral relations.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha is slated to meet her counterpart US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington after the election, though the exact timing hasn’t been decided yet. The two will address an array of outstanding bilateral issues, including the defense cost-sharing and deadlocked denuclearization efforts on North Korea.

Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator Lee Do-hoon is also expected to make a visit to Washington along with Kang, meeting his counterpart Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, who doubles as the US point man on talks with the North. The two sides are likely to discuss on how to move stalled talks with the reclusive regime forward.

Unification Minister Lee In-young could also visit Washington after the election for the first time since he took office in July, observers said. The ministry on Tuesday has neither confirmed nor denied Lee’s possible visit to Washington.

Depending on the election results, Seoul officials’ trip to Washington will likely be tasked with different agenda. If Biden wins, officials will likely take some time to build rapport behind-the-scenes with people and experts that have connection with Biden’s aides and circles.

If Trump wins, the authorities will likely double down commitment on its bilateral alliance to solve unsettled issues and put efforts to move forward in dealing with North Korea.

The election result might become apparent on Wednesday (Korea time), but could also take longer because of an unprecedented number of mail-in and early in-person votes this year.

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Vienna gun attack by Islamic State sympathizer shatters an evening of revelry

InternationalNov 04. 2020

By The Washington Post · Denise Hruby, Loveday Morris, Luisa Beck · WORLD, EUROPE

VIENNA – Peering out a window at Vienna’s main synagogue compound Monday night, Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister watched as a gunman opened fire on customers in the bars and restaurants of the city’s main nightlife district.

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The shots rang out – dozens of volleys, perhaps hundreds, he isn’t sure – sending people fleeing through the streets in panic and into bars to seek cover. The attacker followed them inside, Hofmeister said. More gunfire followed.

The shooting left at least five dead, including an assailant, a joint Austrian and North Macedonian citizen along with 22 people wounded.

The slain suspect was identified as Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, who had been sentenced to 22 months in detention for trying to join the Islamic State but was released from prison early.

The militant group on Tuesday claimed credit for the attack.

The shooting came amid an uptick in extremist violence in Europe, with four people killed in knife attacks in France over the past month. Britain on Tuesday raised its terror threat to “severe” as a “precautionary measure.”

Terrorist attacks have been extremely rare in Austria, however. The last major incident was in 1985, at the Vienna airport.

Monday’s attack unfolded as the city’s residents relished a few final hours of revelry before a new coronavirus lockdown. Armed with an assault rifle, machete and fake suicide belt, Fejzulai spread mayhem for nine minutes until he was killed, officials said. In the initial chaos, police reported that there were multiple attackers, but security officials backpedaled Tuesday, saying that the videos examined so far – among tens of thousands sent submitted by the public – indicated a single shooter.

“It was an attack motivated by hate – hate for our core values, hate for our way of life, hate for our democracy in which all people are equal in rights and dignity,” Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in a morning news conference. “But it’s clear that we will not be intimidated by the terrorists. It is a battle between civilization and barbarism, and we will fight this battle with all determination.”

A total of 18 house searches have been carried out with weapons discovered and 14 preliminary arrests made, authorities said.

The Islamic State described Fejzulai as a “soldier of the caliphate” in a statement released by the group’s Amaq News Agency Tuesday evening. It named him by the nom d’guerre Abu Dujana al-Albani. Earlier, Islamist militant forums circulated an image they claimed to be of Fejzulai, said Rajan Basra, a researcher at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London. The picture showed a bearded man holding a large knife, a pistol and a Kalashnikov-style rifle. It was accompanied by a pledge to Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.

Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the attack, coming after Fejzulai’s early release from prison, pointed to “gaps” in the country’s deradicalization efforts. The suspect had “fooled” the system, he said.

“This is obviously going to raise huge questions in Austria about why he was released early,” said Basra, who specializes in researching Islamist militants within criminal justice systems.

Fejzulai was sentenced in April 2019, but was released by December that year.

He had set out to Syria in September 2018, according to news coverage of his trial. He made it to an Islamic State safe house in Turkey, but was detained there and spent four months in a Turkish jail. He and a co-defendant said they’d been ready to fight with the Islamic State, but a defense lawyer argued that they had renounced the group.

Fejzulai explained his radicalization by saying he’d gone to the “wrong mosque,” according to Austria’s Der Standard newspaper’s report at the time.

Countries across the continent saw citizens leave to fight alongside the Islamic State, at the height of its self-declared Caliphate. And since then countries have struggled with how to repatriate and reintegrate those citizens.

“Every country around Europe is facing that same issue,” Basra said, noting that individuals have convinced experts that they have reformed, or were taken advantage of, and pose less of a threat than they do.

Austrian security officials said the whole system needed to be evaluated. There is never “absolute certainty” that a person has been correctly assessed, said police President Gerhard Pürstl.

The gunfire began around 8 p.m. Monday in Vienna’s “Bermuda Triangle,” an area of the city known for bars where one can disappear during a night of heavy drinking.

Hofmeister, the rabbi, said he could not be sure about the number of shooters, but that he saw at least one attacker who seemed “professional.”

“He wasn’t shooting around randomly. It was very targeted and coordinated,” Hofmeister said, adding that he had called the police.

The rabbi said there was no indication that the synagogue was a target. The building was closed at the time, and there was no activity inside, whereas the streets outside in the Innere Stadt neighborhood were busy.

“We are here in a popular nightlife district, the nightlife district of the city,” he said. “It was a very warm evening, so a lot of people were out, and it was the evening before the lockdown.”

As midnight approached, the one suspect had been killed by law enforcement officers, but authorities said the situation remained active. Heavily armed officers swarmed the capital, blocking roads and searching vehicles. Medics set up a triage area to treat the wounded. Police urged residents to stay inside during the manhunt – and to stay home from work and school if possible Tuesday.

According to an initial law enforcement assessment, the shooting took place at six locations. But authorities said assessments were still being made and more details would be released later.

As the shooter roamed the streets, an elderly man, an elderly woman, a young passerby and a waitress were killed “in cold blood,” Kurz said. Fourteen people were wounded, including a police officer who stepped between civilians and a gunman, he said. That officer was in stable condition Tuesday after surgery.

Sara, a 20-year-old Albanian who moved to Vienna a year ago, was drinking coffee nearby. She heard shots but did not think it was a “big deal,” she said. Sara said she was too scared to have her last name published, with attackers still potentially on the loose.

“We thought it was maybe a stupid guy shooting at someone or a fight on the street,” she said.

Then people began running. They moved to another bar. “A guy came to us running and told us it was a terrorist attack,” she said. “And then we were scared. We saw the panic. We saw a girl, she was running, she was injured. She was crying.”

Sara lives in an apartment in the area and said she barely slept. Before Monday night, she had thought Vienna was the “safest city in the world,” she said. “We never expected this to happen. I don’t know how we are going back to our normal lives after this.”

Despite having some of Europe’s most lax gun ownership laws and a relatively high rate of private gun ownership, mass shootings are rare in Austria. The initial reports that a synagogue may have been attacked brought back memories of 1981, when Palestinian militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades attacked the main synagogue during a bar mitzvah service and killed two people.

On Monday, Barbara Lovett, a 52-year-old opera singer manager, was watching a three-hour performance at the city’s opera house when the shooting started a half-mile away. It was only when she turned to her phone at 10 p.m., when the performance ended, that she realized what was happening. Police held the audience in the building.

Members of the orchestra began to play as they waited to be allowed to go home. “This is Vienna,” Lovett said, referencing a city famed for its opera and for producing classical composers such as Mozart, Strauss and Schubert. “We have to play music. That’s what we know.”

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In final stretch for U.S. voting, America’s allies, rivals and foes watch for what’s next

InternationalNov 04. 2020

By The Washington Post · Joanna Slater, Gerry Shih, Rick Noack, Miriam Berger, Adam Taylor · WORLD, POLITICS

The U.S. presidential election has a global audience. And as the election moved into its final stages – with the prospect of a drawn-out count – the world was watching and weighing what could come next for U.S. foreign policy ranging from allies in Europe rivals such as China and Russia and outright foes such as Iran.

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Over the past four years, Trump has upended the principles that have guided U.S. foreign policy for decades, preferring a transactional, personality-driven approach that has at times angered and unnerved some of America’s closest allies.

He has withdrawn the United States from multilateral agreements, including the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal and set in motion a U.S. pullout from the World Health Organization amid a global pandemic. On other fronts, Trump has started several trade wars, restricted immigration and curtailed refugee resettlement.

Trump knows the world is watching. “China wants me out, Iran wants me out, Germany wants me out, they all want me out,” he said at a campaign rally Saturday. “But here we are, right?”

If Joe Biden wins, the election will mark a crucial pivot for U.S. foreign policy. He has said one of his first acts as president would be to “get on the phone with the heads of state and say, ‘America’s back, you can count on us.’ “

But Biden also noted that the United States – and the world – need patience as the votes are tallied, including many mail-in ballots. He said in Wilmington, Del., that he will wait until “there’s something to talk about” – which could be a day or more after polls close.

Russian hopes for a Trump victory were reflected by pro-Kremlin media, which emphasized the idea that U.S. democracy is fraying, facing likely post-election violence or even wider internal conflicts. State-owned Vesti television focused on the construction of a fence around the White House and reported that Trump would probably spend the night after the election “in a bunker.”

In Europe, where Trump is deeply unpopular in most countries, some looked to the potential for a transatlantic reset. Others looked with worry at the U.S. political fissures.

“Hatred has found its way into the [U.S.] political system. There is no longer a center, only polarization,” tweeted the chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Norbert Röttgen.

In private, European leaders said they were bracing for uncertainty. One senior European official sent a “fingers crossed” emoji when asked about the election. The official sent the message on the condition of anonymity for fear of bringing down Trump’s wrath.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s endorsement of Biden followed years of public clashes with Trump.

Many media outlets abroad are covering the election much as they would national elections in their own countries. German newspaper Bild built an Oval Office replica from which to broadcast online coverage.

In Canada, where two out of three people live roughly 60 miles of the U.S. border, citizens and lawmakers have been keeping an anxious eye on what the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. called their “second-favorite spectator sport.” Brazilian analysts offered intricate tutorials on U.S. politics, mapping out the potential economic and political implications. “Today is the most important day in decades for the future of global democracy,” Brazilian journalist Guilherme Amado tweeted Tuesday morning. “It will show the strength of right-wing authoritarian populism.”

Allies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has made strengthened ties with the Trump the cornerstone of his foreign policy, warned that a victory for Biden would jeopardize Brazil’s dominion over the Amazon rainforest. Biden has threatened economic costs if Brazil does not slow surging deforestation.

Latin American currency and stock markets rallied slightly Tuesday as investors bet on a Biden victory, Reuters reported. Analysts are predicting that Biden pledges to pass a stimulus package and free trade policies would benefit regional economies.

In China, the election dominated social media, with many analysts predicting that a Biden win could usher in a diplomatic respite. But some were also gloomy about the long-term prospects for China-U. S. relations.

“We hope after Biden comes back, we can at least resume high-level dialogue,” said Ding Yifan, a former adviser to China’s cabinet. “Biden wants to compete with China but also collaborate, and that’s how we frame the relationship, too. To see the democratic system in the world’s most powerful country go off the rails is not a good thing.”

For some pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, Trump has become a symbol of opposition to Chinese oppression. In Taiwan, some are worried that Biden would go too far down the path of conciliating China.

The U.S. relationship with the Middle East is also hanging in balance. Trump pulled the United States out of a nuclear agreement that the Obama administration and other world powers negotiated with Iran, and brought harsh U.S. sanctions to exert “maximum pressure” on the Iranian government.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the results of the election would make no difference for Tehran’s foreign policy, and he mocked Trump for predicting fraudulent results. “This shows the ugly face of liberal democracy within American society,” he said.

In Israel, observers said a Biden win could accelerate the end of the current compromise government in Jerusalem and lead to elections in a matter of months.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has made his relationship with President Trump a key selling point to the Israeli electorate,” said Jason Pearlman, a communications strategist.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank gathered to pray for Trump’s reelection. Settler leaders have expressed concern that a Trump loss could mean a backpedaling of the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem and renewed U.S. criticism of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

For some world leaders, the Trump years have meant moments of opportunity, particularly for like-minded, right-leaning nationalists. Several such politicians have expressed their hope that Trump will be reelected, including the leaders of Hungary, Brazil, the Philippines and Slovenia.

“Go, win, @realDonaldTrump,” tweeted Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa from the home country of first lady Melania Trump.

Governments have begun to plan their responses in the face of ambiguous results, seeking to avoid the diplomatic confusion of the 2000 Bush-Gore election contest.

“The last thing you want to do is congratulate someone when it turns out a week later they didn’t actually win,” one European official said.

The official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak about the election, said various scenarios had been gamed out by governments, with the awareness that getting a final result might take weeks.

“We have to wait and see who the winner is. We’ll respond accordingly,” said Daniel Mullhall, Irish ambassador to the United States. “But obviously, it’s complicated. What I’m reading and hearing is that there may not be a clear result this evening.”

Many international observers expressed their fears for U.S. democracy. Trump has refused to commit to handing over power if he loses, and some U.S. allies spoke about the vote in terms often reserved for fragile democracies. “I hope for an outcome like what we have learned from the Americans: that the rules of democracy are accepted by everyone,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the Tagesspiegel newspaper on Sunday. “That means there are not only jubilant winners, but also good losers.”

John Hewson, former leader of the conservative Liberal Party in Australia, said the election exposed “fiction” over the perception of the United States as the world’s leading democracy, while Nigerian television journalist Mary-Ann Duke Okon tweeted, “U. S. media is sounding like they’re reporting on Africa’s elections.”

In Egypt – the president of which, Abdel-Fatah al-Sissi, Trump has called his “favorite dictator” – analyst Azza Radwan Sedky expressed her fear in the state-owned Al Ahram Weekly that no matter the outcome, the United States could descend into unrest.

“The world always looked upon the U.S. as the melting pot where races blend and live harmoniously,” she wrote. “It is where millions immigrate to achieve the unachievable elsewhere to realize the American ideals of democracy, equality, and human rights. This portrait is quickly eroding.”