CLEVELAND: There’ll be no handshake, but venom to spare when President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden meet in Cleveland on Tuesday for the first of three televised debates that could shake up an already volatile race for the White House.
Covid-19 restrictions will give the debate moderated by Fox News star Chris Wallace a streamlined look with a smaller audience. Naturally, there won’t be the once standard — even if occasionally forced — show of goodwill in shaking hands as the rivals go on stage.
What the 90-minute clash will have is a chance for Americans finally to see Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, go head to head.
With Trump claiming Biden is virtually brain dead — “Biden doesn’t know he’s alive” — and Biden branding the president “a toxic presence,” it won’t be for the faint hearted.
Significantly behind in the polls, Trump is in fighting mode, embarking on an endurance-testing schedule of rallies in key battlegrounds several times a week.
Biden, though, comes hoping to press his advantage.
And he arrives aided by The New York Times’ publication of a report purporting to reveal the contents of Trump’s deeply secret tax returns — finding that the self-proclaimed billionaire and champion of the working class avoids paying almost all federal income taxes.
Trump, who fancies his skills as a verbal pugilist, is expected to hit hard and low.
For months he has painted Biden as senile. As the debate approached he increasingly focused on his claim that Biden takes performance enhancing drugs.
Biden has laughed off the suggestion, but Trump, a past master at getting slurs to stick to his opponents, is doubling down.
“Joe Biden just announced that he will not agree to a Drug Test. Gee, I wonder why?” Trump tweeted Monday.
Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield responded in kind, saying that if Trump wants the debate to be conducted through “urine” samples, “he can.”
Trump, arguably, has little to lose. His hardcore support is already baked in and Americans are by now almost incapable of feeling shocked by his convention-wrecking style.
He also goes to Cleveland with what he hopes will be his own silver bullet — the nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
If Barrett is quickly confirmed, as the Republican-led Senate expects, Trump will have managed to tilt the highest court firmly to the right for years to come.
Democrats are crying foul over the rushed timing on the eve of an election, but Trump expects the power play to energize many conservatives.
The president is sure to go heavy on previous claims that Biden’s son was involved in corruption in Ukraine. Last year Trump was impeached for using the power of his office to try and pressure the Ukrainian government into publicly backing that theory.
Biden, as frontrunner, wants to stay steady, but he has a reputation for losing his cool when challenged in public.
“I hope I don’t get baited into a brawl with this guy, because that’s the only place he’s comfortable,” he said.
Biden will instead aim to keep his sights trained on the coronavirus pandemic, which polls show about two thirds of Americans say Trump handled badly.
He will also shoot back at the filling of the Supreme Court seat, saying that Trump’s plan is for the court to restrict abortion and reverse the Obamacare health program — two areas that could worry swing voters.
But the most fiery moments may come when Biden himself gets personal, painting Trump as a spoiled playboy who only poses as a friend of the white working class that helped him get elected in 2016.
Biden, who spent his early childhood in the rough-edged town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is increasingly mocking Trump’s glitzy New York roots, calling it a “Scranton vs Park Avenue” election.
Trump points out that Biden only lived in Scranton as a young boy and spent most of his life in Congress. But the Times report on the president’s ability to avoid almost all federal income taxes will give Biden a trove of new ammunition.
Trump, Biden head into first debate with presidency on the line
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Trump, Biden head into first debate with presidency on the line
- What the 90-minute clash will have is a chance for Americans finally to see Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, go head to head
Indonesia’s Supreme Court reverses acquittal of former official in slavery case
- A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Supreme Court jailed a former government official accused of human trafficking for four years, reversing a lower court decision to acquit him after people were found in cages in his palm oil plantation.
Condemned internationally and at home, the senior official in the provincial government in North Sumatra, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, had been accused of human trafficking, torture, forced labor, and slavery.
Prosecutors launched an appeal after a lower court acquitted him of the charges in July.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court said he would serve four years in jail, without specifying reasons, in a ruling dated Nov. 15 and seen on the court’s website on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court and prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters has sought comment from Terbit’s lawyer.
The macabre case came to light in 2022, when a police corruption investigation into Terbit found people detained in cages on his property, drawing condemnation from rights groups.
A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010, court documents showed.
Terbit, who was jailed for nine years for corruption in 2022, had previously claimed the detained individuals were participating in a drug rehabilitation program.
Prosecutors said they had been tortured and forced to work on his plantation. Six had died in captivity, Indonesia’s rights body found.
Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani protesters demanding the release of ex-prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday killed four members of the nation’s security forces, the government said, as the crowds defied police and closed in on the capital’s center.
More than ten thousand protesters armed with sticks and slingshots took on police in central Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, AFP journalists saw, less than three kilometers (two miles) from the government enclave they aim to occupy.
Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.
But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies. Tuesday’s is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading toward the government sector.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle.”
“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”
The government said Monday that one police officer had also been killed and nine more were critically wounded by demonstrators who set out toward Islamabad on Sunday.
The capital has been locked down since late Saturday, with mobile Internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.
The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Monday.
Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.
But PTI convoys traveled from their power base in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab, hauling aside roadblocks of stacked shipping containers.
“We are deeply frustrated with the government, they do not know how to function,” 56-year-old protester Kalat Khan told AFP on Monday. “The treatment we are receiving is unjust and cruel.”
The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile Internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were also ordered shut on Monday and Tuesday.
“Those who will come here will be arrested,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters late Monday at D-Chowk, the public square outside Islamabad’s government buildings that PTI aims to occupy.
PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of their party.
They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.
Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.
“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment — a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published Monday.
“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “blocking access to the capital, with motorway and highway closures across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has effectively penalized ordinary citizens.”
The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order.”
Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment, which analysts say engineers the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.
But as opposition leader, he led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.
PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut them out of power.
Russia’s Medvedev warns West over discussing nuclear weapons for Ukraine
MOSCOW: Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.
Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.
“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.
China sends naval, air forces to shadow US plane over Taiwan Strait
- The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait
BEIJING: China’s military said on Tuesday it deployed naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US Navy patrol aircraft that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, denouncing the United States for trying to “mislead” the international community.
Around once a month, US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates democratically governed Taiwan from China — missions that always anger Beijing.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and says it has jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the strait is an international waterway.
The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait “in international airspace,” adding that the flight demonstrated the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military criticized the flight as “public hype,” adding that it monitored the US aircraft throughout its transit and “effectively” responded to the situation.
“The relevant remarks by the US distort legal principles, confuse public opinion and mislead international perceptions,” the military’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.
“We urge the US side to stop distorting and hyping up and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
In April, China’s military said it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a US Navy Poseidon in the Taiwan Strait, a mission that took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and US defense chiefs. (Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Ukraine says Russia launched ‘record’ 188 drones overnight
KYIV: Russia staged a record number of drone attacks overnight over Ukraine, damaging buildings and “critical infrastructure” in several regions, the air force said Tuesday.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the air force said, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the figure at 188.
