MIAMI: Frontrunner Joe Biden faced repeated criticism on multiple fronts Thursday from his Democratic rivals for the 2020 presidential nomination, including calls to leave the battle to oust Donald Trump to a younger generation.
In a sometimes scrappy showdown of the Democratic heavyweights, Senator Kamala Harris landed several blows on Biden in the second of two nationally televised debates, putting the former vice president on the defensive as he argued that he is best-positioned to take on the Republican president.
Biden blasted Trump for his “horrible” policies that have exacerbated income inequality, while his chief rival for the nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders, took it directly to the “phony” president, calling him “a pathological liar and a racist.”
But 76-year-old Biden also found himself on the receiving end of a pointed attack from a lower-tier candidate half his age.
Congressman Eric Swalwell, 38, called on him to “pass the torch” to a new generation better equipped to tackle climate change, expand health care coverage and reduce gun violence.
“I’m still holding on to that torch,” Biden snapped back.
Several rivals were clearly seeking to wrench it from his grip, including Harris, the only black woman in the race, who made a stirring call for Biden to recognize his recent “hurtful” comments about being civil with avowedly segregationist US senators.
Biden, with the room dead quiet, insisted he does not “praise racists,” and denied he opposed initiatives in the 1970s to bus children from predominantly black communities to better schools in more prosperous neighborhoods.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bussed to school every day,” Harris said, in one of the evening’s most potent moments.
“That little girl was me.”
Another candidate in the upper tier, Pete Buttigieg, has also been on the back foot on racial issues following the fatal shooting of a black man by a white police officer in South Bend, Indiana, where he is mayor.
“When I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back,” Buttigieg said, adding that such tragedies are happening in communities across America.
“It’s a mess. We are hurting.”
With so many potential challengers to Trump, the party needed to split the top 20 candidates into debates over two nights in Miami, Florida.
Thursday’s session featured four of the race’s top five candidates in national polling, including Biden’s main challenger Sanders, the 77-year-old US democratic socialist senator whose high-spending policies have pushed the party leftward in recent years.
Harris, 54, may have vaulted herself into serious contention with her composed performance and steely showdown with Biden.
But after the debate she stressed it wasn’t personal.
“I otherwise have a great deal of respect for Joe Biden,” she said. “I do not believe he is a racist.”
Biden received no quarter from the old guard either.
When he was questioned about his support for the Iraq war and insisted that he took responsibility for getting 150,000 combat troops out of the country, Sanders pounced.
“Joe voted for that war, and I helped lead the opposition to that war, which was a total disaster.”
Biden, seeking a recovery in his closing remarks, called for restoration of “the “soul” of the country after Trump “ripped it out.”
“We have got to unite the United States of America,” he added.
All candidates savaged Trump for his immigration policy, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who said the president had “torn apart our moral fabric” by separating migrant children from their parents at the border.
Author Marianne Williamson, a surprise presidential candidate, branded the policies “state-sponsored crimes.”
When all contenders signalled support for undocumented immigrants’ access to health care, Trump, who has made stopping illegal immigration a centerpiece of his presidency, weighed in from the G20 summit in Japan.
In a tweet he accused Democrats of supporting “giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited health care. How about taking care of American Citizens first!?“
Debate also addressed whether the party should embrace a shift toward more liberal policies and government involvement in the economy.
On Wednesday third-placed Elizabeth Warren called out disparities in wealth and income and pledged to work to improve the lives of struggling families.
Sanders covered the same ground Thursday, but he also acknowledged that, in a shift to his Medicare for All platform, Americans would have to pay more taxes.
Biden under attack as 2020 Democrat rivals urge passing of torch
Biden under attack as 2020 Democrat rivals urge passing of torch
- Congressman Eric Swalwell, 38, called on him to “pass the torch” to a new generation better equipped to tackle climate change, expand health care coverage and reduce gun violence
- With so many potential challengers to Trump, the party needed to split the top 20 candidates into debates over two nights in Miami, Florida
Pakistan air strikes kill 46 in Afghanistan: Taliban spokesman
- Border tensions between the two countries have escalated since the Taliban government seized power in 2021
“Last night (Tuesday), Pakistan bombarded four points in the Barmal district of Paktika province. The total number of dead is 46, most of whom were children and women,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
He added that six more people were wounded, mostly children.
A defense ministry statement late Tuesday condemned the latest strikes by Pakistan on Afghan territory, calling them “barbaric” and a “clear aggression.”
“The Islamic Emirate will not leave this cowardly act unanswered, but rather considers the defense of its territory and sovereignty to be its inalienable right,” the statement said, using the Taliban authorities’ name for the government.
Border tensions between the two countries have escalated since the Taliban government seized power in 2021, with Islamabad claiming militant groups are carrying out regular attacks from Afghanistan.
Islamabad has accused Kabul’s Taliban government of harboring militant fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity.
Kabul has denied the allegations.
Passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan, emergencies ministry says
- An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet flying from the capital Baku to Grozny in Russia crashed on Wednesday
- 72 people were on board of the plane
ASTANA: A passenger plane crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and initial reports suggested there were survivors, the Central Asian country’s Emergencies Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said emergency services were trying to put out a fire at the crash site.
Russian news agencies said the plane was operated by Azerbaijan Airlines and had been flying from Baku to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya, but had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
There was no immediate comment from Azerbaijan Airlines.
Kazakh media said 105 passengers and five crew members were on board. Reuters could not immediately confirm that information.
'Massive' ballistic missile attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv: mayor
- The regional governor counted seven Russian strikes and said casualties were still being assessed
Kyiv: A “massive missile attack” pummelled Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv, Mayor Igor Terekhov said on Wednesday morning.
“Kharkiv is under a massive missile attack. A series of explosions were heard in the city and there are still ballistic missiles heading toward the city,” he wrote on Telegram.
The regional governor counted seven Russian strikes and said casualties were still being assessed.
Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday its forces had shot down 59 Ukrainian drones overnight while the Ukrainian Air Force reported the launch of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea, although it was not initially clear where they were headed.
Russia has accelerated its advance across eastern Ukraine in recent months, looking to secure as much territory as possible before US president-elect Donald Trump comes to power in January.
The Republican has promised to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year-long conflict, without proposing any concrete terms for a ceasefire or peace deal.
Moscow’s army claims to have seized more than 190 Ukrainian settlements this year, with Kyiv struggling to hold the line in the face of man power and ammunition shortages.
Japan’s top diplomat in China to address ‘challenges’
Beijing: Japanese foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya was due in Beijing on Wednesday for talks with counterpart Wang Yi and other top officials as Tokyo acknowledged “challenges and concerns” in ties.
The visit is Iwaya’s first to China since becoming Japan’s top diplomat earlier this year.
China and Japan are key trading partners, but increased friction over disputed territories and military spending has frayed ties in recent years.
Tensions also flared last year over Japan’s decision to begin releasing into the Pacific Ocean some of the 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of reactor cooling water amassed since the tsunami that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster — an operation the UN atomic agency deemed safe.
China branded the move “selfish” and banned all Japanese seafood imports, but in September said it would “gradually resume” the trade.
China imported more than $500 million worth of seafood from Japan in 2022, according to customs data.
Iwaya told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday that “China represents one of the most important bilateral relationships for us.”
“Between Japan and China, there are various possibilities but also multiple challenges and concerns,” he said.
“Both countries possess the heavy responsibilities for the peace and stability of our region and the international community,” he added.
China’s foreign ministry said Beijing sought to “strengthen dialogue and communication” in order to “properly manage differences” with Japan.
Beijing will “strive to build a constructive and stable China-Japan relationship that meets the requirements of the new era,” spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Japan’s brutal occupation of parts of China before and during World War II also remains a sore point, with Beijing accusing Tokyo of failing to atone for its past.
Visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni shrine that honors war dead — including convicted war criminals — regularly prompt anger from Beijing.
Beijing’s more assertive presence around disputed territories in the region, meanwhile, has sparked Tokyo’s ire, leading it to boost security ties with key ally the United States and other countries.
In August, a Chinese military aircraft staged the first confirmed incursion by China into Japanese airspace, followed weeks later by a Japanese warship sailing through the Taiwan Strait for the first time.
Beijing’s rare test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean in late September also drew strong protests from Tokyo, which said it had not been given advance notice.
China also in August formally indicted a Japanese man held since last year on espionage charges.
The man, an employee of the Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas, was held in March last year and placed under formal arrest in October.
Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of federal death row
- Presidents historically have no involvement in dictating or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, though Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump promised on Tuesday to “vigorously pursue” capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row partly to stop Trump from pushing forward their executions.
Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 of the 40 condemned people to life in prison without parole, arguing that it was senseless and insulted the families of their victims. Biden said converting their punishments to life imprisonment was consistent with the moratorium imposed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.
“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” he wrote on his social media site. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
Presidents historically have no involvement in dictating or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, though Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations. The president-elect wrote that he would direct the department to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated,” but was vague on what specific actions he may take and said they would be in cases of “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”
He highlighted the cases of two men who were on federal death row for slaying a woman and a girl, had admitted to killing more and had their sentences commuted by Biden.
Is it a plan in motion or more rhetoric?
On the campaign trail, Trump often called for expanding the federal death penalty — including for those who kill police officers, those convicted of drug and human trafficking, and migrants who kill US citizens.
“Trump has been fairly consistent in wanting to sort of say that he thinks the death penalty is an important tool and he wants to use it,” said Douglas Berman, an expert on sentencing at Ohio State University’s law school. “But whether practically any of that can happen, either under existing law or other laws, is a heavy lift.”
Berman said Trump’s statement at this point seems to be just a response to Biden’s commutation.
“I’m inclined to think it’s still in sort of more the rhetoric phase. Just, ‘don’t worry. The new sheriff is coming. I like the death penalty,’” he said.
Most Americans have historically supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to decades of annual polling by Gallup, but support has declined over the past few decades. About half of Americans were in favor in an October poll, while roughly 7 in 10 Americans backed capital punishment for murderers in 2007.
Death row inmates are mostly sentenced by states
Before Biden’s commutation, there were 40 federal death row inmates compared with more than 2,000 who have been sentenced to death by states.
“The reality is all of these crimes are typically handled by the states,” Berman said.
A question is whether the Trump administration would try to take over some state murder cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He could also attempt to take cases from states that have abolished the death penalty.
Could rape now be punishable by death?
Berman said Trump’s statement, along with some recent actions by states, may present an effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider a precedent that considers the death penalty disproportionate punishment for rape.
“That would literally take decades to unfold. It’s not something that is going to happen overnight,” Berman said.
Before one of Trump’s rallies on Aug. 20, his prepared remarks released to the media said he would announce he would ask for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never delivered the line.
What were the cases highlighted by Trump?
One of the men Trump highlighted on Tuesday was ex-Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing of an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old girl in a suburban Chicago park several years before.
The other man, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and slaying of a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana, days after shooting the girl’s mother in a wildlife park in Arizona. Court records show he admitted to both killings.
Some families of victims expressed anger with Biden’s decision, but the president had faced pressure from advocacy groups urging him to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The ACLU and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops were some of the groups that applauded the decision.
Biden left three federal inmates to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in UShistory.
