KYIV: Russian strikes late Sunday on the northeast city of Kharkiv wounded nine people and cut power to part of the city, local officials and police said.
The latest barrage came as Ukrainian officials prepare for a new wave of bombardments they think will target the country’s energy network ahead of winter, as Moscow has done the last two years.
Russia has targeted the country’s power supplies to make the harsh winter harder to endure for the country’s civilian population in an effort to put more pressure on the authorities.
Police said in a statement on Telegram that Russia had launched strikes at around 10:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) injuring four women and five men.
Among the buildings hit were residential buildings, garages, service stations, houses and cars, the statement added.
Medical services were mobilized to help the injured, but the strikes cut power to parts of the city, said police.
Governor of the region and city mayor Oleg Synegubov confirmed in a Telegram post that part of the city was without power.
Neither he, nor the police, said how much of the city had been affected by the power cuts, nor which part of the power network had been hit.
Kharkiv, the main city of the northeast region of the same name, is a regular target of Russian strikes. It lies less than 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Russian border.
In May, Russia’s army tried to push forward in this border region, officially to create a buffer zone to limit Ukrainian attacks against military and industrial targets on Russian soil.
But the offensive has not succeeded in stopping Kyiv from targeting Russian territory on a daily basis.
Nine wounded in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv: local officials
https://arab.news/j8zp5
Nine wounded in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv: local officials
Elon Musk’s $1 million giveaway to voters who sign PAC petition raises red flags: Election experts
- Musk has posted on X that he would offer people $47 — and then $100 — for referring others to register and signing the petition
- Experts say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and Space X and owner of X who’s gone all-in on Republican Donald Trump’s candidacy for the White House, has already committed at least $70 million to help the former president. Now he’s pledging to give away $1 million to voters for signing his political action committee’s petition backing the Constitution.
The giveaway is raising questions and alarms among some election experts who say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the state’s former attorney general, expressed concern about the plan on Sunday.
“I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning,” he said on NBC’ “Meet the Press.”
A closer look at what’s going on:
What is Musk doing?
Musk promised on Saturday that he would give away $1 million a day, until the Nov. 5 election, for people signing his PAC’s petition supporting the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and the Second Amendment, with its right “to keep and bear arms.” He awarded a check during an event Saturday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to a man identified as John Dreher. A message left with a number listed for Dreher was not returned Sunday. He gave out another check Sunday.
What’s the broader context here?
Musk’s America PAC has launched a tour of Pennsylvania, a critical election battleground. He’s aiming to register voters in support of Trump, whom Musk has endorsed. The PAC is also pushing to persuade voters in other key states. It’s not the first offer of cash the organization has made. Musk has posted on X, the platform he purchased as Twitter before renaming it, that he would offer people $47 — and then $100 — for referring others to register and signing the petition.
Trump, who was campaigning Sunday in Pennsylvania, was asked about Musk’s giveaway, and said, “I haven’t followed that.” Trump said he “speaks to Elon a lot. He’s a friend of mine” and called him great for the country.
What’s the issue with that?
Some election law experts are raising red flags about the giveaway. Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer, said the latest iteration of Musk’s giveaway approaches a legal boundary. That’s because the PAC is requiring registration as a prerequisite to become eligible for the $1 million check. “There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law,” Fischer said in an email.
Rick Hasen, a UCLA Law School political science professor, went further. He pointed to a law that prohibits paying people for registering to vote or for voting. “If all he was doing was paying people to sign the petition, that might be a waste of money. But there’s nothing illegal about it,” Hasen said in a telephone interview. “The problem is that the only people eligible to participate in this giveaway are the people who are registered to vote. And that makes it illegal.”
Michael Kang, an election law professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said the context of the giveaway so close to Election Day makes it harder to make the case that the effort is anything but a incentivizing people to register to vote.
“It’s not quite the same as paying someone to vote, but you’re getting close enough that we worry about its legality,” Kang said.
A message seeking comment was left with the PAC on Sunday, as was a request for comment from the Justice Department.
Can the PAC and Trump’s campaign coordinate?
Typically coordination between campaigns and so-called super PACs had been forbidden. But a recent opinion by the Federal Election Commissioner, which regulates federal campaigns, permitted candidates and these groups to work together in certain cases, including getting out the vote efforts.
Trump hands out french fries in Pennsylvania, Harris visits Georgia churches in swing-state appeals
- Harris emphasizes unity, voting rights at Georgia church events
- Trump mocks Harris with McDonald’s visit; she calls it sign of desperation
ATLANTA/PHILADELPHIA: With the US presidential election just over two weeks away, Democrat Kamala Harris visited two churches on Sunday while her Republican rival, Donald Trump, visited another kind of American temple: a McDonald’s, where he again accused Harris of lying about having previously worked at the fast-food chain.
Both candidates were scrambling for votes in the most competitive states, with Harris, the US vice president, appealing to early voters in Georgia and Trump, the former president, campaigning in Pennsylvania ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Harris highlighted the heroism of those who responded to Hurricane Helene, which caused deaths and destruction in Florida earlier this month. She drew a contrast between her vision for America and the harsh rhetoric of the current political climate, although she did not mention Trump by name.
“At this point across our nation, what we do see are some trying to deepen division among us, spread hate, sow fear and cause chaos,” she told thousands of congregants at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, in Stonecrest, Georgia.
Some measured the strength of a leader as “who you beat down” instead of being guided by “kindness and love,” she said, urging congregants to vote for a more compassionate future.
Harris was more direct in an interview with MSNBC when asked about Trump’s comments at an earlier rally in Pennsylvania in which he called her a “shit vice president,” telling civil rights leader Al Sharpton: “The American people deserve so much better.”
At a McDonald’s in suburban Philadelphia, Trump removed his suit jacket, put on a black and yellow apron and cooked batches of french fries, something he said he had wanted to do “all my life.”
The former president dipped wire baskets of potatoes in sizzling oil before salting them and handing them out to some of his supporters through the drive-through window of the restaurant, which had been closed to the general public. Thousands of people lined the street opposite the restaurant to watch.
“I like this job,” said Trump, whose adoration for fast food has been well chronicled. “I’m having a lot of fun here.”
Trump has said the McDonald’s visit was intended in part as a jab at Harris, who says she worked at the fast-food chain during her college years in California. Trump claims Harris never worked there but has provided no evidence to back that up.
Harris spokesperson Ian Sams said the stunt was a sign of the real-estate mogul’s desperation.
“All he knows how to do is lie,” he said. “He can’t understand what it’s like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it.”
The Harris campaign said Trump’s visit also belied his opposition to an increase in the federal minimum wage and his support for a rule that could make it more difficult for workers to win legal claims against the parent company if a franchise owner violated minimum-wage and overtime laws.
‘Happy birthday’
Harris, who was raised in the teachings of the Black church and sang in a church choir, marked her 60th birthday on Sunday while campaigning outside of Atlanta.
At Divine Faith Ministries International in Jonesboro, Georgia, music icon Stevie Wonder performed, singing his hit “Higher Ground” and a version of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.”
Asked about polls showing a lack of enthusiasm for her candidacy among Black men who have been a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, Harris told Sharpton she was working to earn their votes as well.
“There’s this narrative about what kind of support we are receiving from Black men that is just not panning out in reality,” Harris said. “Because why would Black men be any different than any other demographic of voter? They expect that you earn their vote.”
Harris will need strong results in the majority non-white cities of Detroit and Atlanta and their surrounding suburbs to repeat President Joe Biden’s 2020 wins in Michigan and Georgia.
At a campaign event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Trump extended birthday wishes to Harris, drawing boos from his crowd.
“Happy birthday, and many more, and I mean it,” Trump said, although he continued to criticize Harris’s policies and speculating that his opponent may have “a cognitive problem.”
Moldovan president appears set to win 1st round of presidential race, but EU vote could be rejected
- Of 95 percent of votes counted in the referendum, about 52 percent voted “no” against 47 percent in favor of joining EU
- Sandu said there were clear evidence that "criminal groups" linked to Russia had used "dirty money" to corrupt votes
CHISINAU: Moldova’s pro-Western president early Monday looked set to win the first round of a presidential race but accused “criminal groups” of undermining a referendum asking voters to decide whether to secure a path toward European Union membership, which risked being narrowly rejected.
Nearly 95 percent of votes were counted in the EU referendum that asks voters to choose whether to enshrine in the country’s constitution a path toward the EU. About 52 percent of a total 1.2 million ballots voted “no,” while 47 percent voted “Yes.”
However, ballots cast among the country’s large diaspora were still being tallied and tended to favor the EU path.
“Criminal groups, working together with foreign forces hostile to our national interests, have attacked our country with tens of millions of euros, lies and propaganda, using the most disgraceful means to keep our citizens and our nation trapped in uncertainty and instability,” said President Maia Sandu after about 90 percent of the votes had been counted.
“We have clear evidence that these criminal groups aimed to buy 300,000 votes — a fraud of unprecedented scale,” Sandu added. “Their objective was to undermine a democratic process.”
The two pivotal ballots were held amid ongoing claims by Moldovan authorities that Moscow has intensified an alleged “hybrid war” campaign to destabilize the country and derail its EU path. The allegations include funding pro-Moscow opposition groups, spreading disinformation, meddling in local elections and backing a major vote-buying scheme.
In the presidential race of 11 candidates, Sandu looked set to win the first round with 39 percent of the vote but was unlikely to win an outright majority. She will likely face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a Russia-friendly former prosecutor general who outperformed polls with around 28 percent of the vote, in a run-off on Nov. 3.
After polls closed at 9 p.m. local time, more than 1.5 million voters — about 51 percent of eligible voters — had cast ballots, according to the Central Electoral Commission.
Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland University, told The Associated Press that votes from the diaspora could prove crucial at this late stage.
“If I were a pro-EU politician … that’s where I’d look for signs of good news,” he said. “I think the ideal scenario for them would have been to have something that showed overwhelming support for the EU — and that simply did not happen.”
US national security spokesman John Kirby echoed Russian interference concerns this week, saying in a statement that “Russia is working actively to undermine Moldova’s election and its European integration.” Moscow has repeatedly denied it is interfering in Moldova.
“In the last several months, Moscow has dedicated millions of dollars to influencing Moldova’s presidential election,” Kirby said. “We assess that this money has gone toward financing its preferred parties and spreading disinformation on social media in favor of their campaigns.”
In early October, Moldovan law enforcement said it had uncovered a massive vote-buying scheme orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled pro-Russia oligarch who currently resides in Russia, which paid 15 million euros ($16.2 million) to 130,000 individuals to undermine the two ballots.
Shor was convicted in absentia last year and sentenced to 15 years in prison on fraud and money laundering in the case of $1 billion that went missing from Moldovan banks in 2014. He denied the allegations, saying “the payments are legal” and cited a right to freedom of expression. Shor’s populist Russia-friendly Shor Party was declared unconstitutional last year and banned.
Constantin Celac, a 37-year-old multimedia producer, said in central Chisinau that he cast his ballots in favor of Sandu and EU integration because “it is the best way” forward for Moldova. He said that while he does have concerns about Russian meddling, “I trust our government … to fight against them.”
On Thursday, Moldovan authorities foiled another plot in which more than 100 young Moldovans received training in Moscow from private military groups on how to create civil unrest around the two votes. Some also attended “more advanced training in guerrilla camps” in Serbia and Bosnia, police said, and four people were detained for 30 days.
Sandu cast her own ballot in the capital on Sunday and told the media that “Moldovans themselves must choose their own fate, and not others, nor the dirty money or the lies.”
“I voted for Moldova to be able to develop in peace and liberty,” she said.
A pro-Western government has been in power in Moldova since 2021, a year after Sandu won the presidency. A parliamentary election will be held next year.
Moldova, a former Soviet republic with a population of about 2.5 million, applied to join the EU in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and was granted candidate status that summer, alongside Ukraine. Brussels agreed in June to start membership negotiations.
Loredana Godorogea, a 29-year-old IT manager who lives in Chisinau, said she also voted in favor of the incumbent president and the path toward the EU. “I think in the next five years we can be more close economically with the European Union, and I also think a big factor will be the war in Ukraine,” she said.
Moldovans voted “no” in a referendum on joining the European Union on Sunday, according to partial results, which if confirmed will mean a major setback to pro-EU President Maia Sandu, who managed to top the first round of presidential elections held at the same time.
The double votes are seen as key tests of the former Soviet republic’s pro-European turn under Sandu but have been overshadowed by fears of Russian meddling amid the war in neighboring Ukraine.
Sandu, who beat a Moscow-backed incumbent in 2020, cut ties with Moscow and applied for her country of 2.6 million people to join the EU following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In the referendum, with some 70 percent of the vote counted, more than 55 percent had said “no” and almost 45 percent said “yes,” but results could yet change as votes are counted in the capital Chisinau, which is favorable to joining the EU, and abroad.
In the presidential election, Sandu gained 36 percent of the votes, according to the partial results, and is likely to face her closest competitor Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor backed by the pro-Russian Socialists, in the second round.
He had picked up a higher-than-expected result of almost 30 percent.
The turnout was close to 50 percent for the referendum asking whether to modify the constitution to include joining the EU as an objective, with Sandu’s camp saying that it was an underestimate because of obsolete voter lists.
A turnout of more than 33 percent was needed for the referendum result to be valid.
Voter turnout for the presidential elections stood at more than 51 percent.
“I have come to cast my vote for prosperity, peace and wellbeing in our country,” said Olga Cernega, a 60-year-old economist in the capital Chisinau.
Sandu, 52, a former World Bank economist and Moldova’s first woman president, had been the clear favorite in the race, with surveys also predicting a “yes” victory in the referendum.
“This election will determine our fate for many years,” Sandu said when she voted.
The “will of the Moldovan people” should be heard, “not that of others, not dirty money,” she added.
An hour from Chisinau in the town of Varnita, a polling booth was set up specifically for inhabitants of the breakaway pro-Russian region of Transnistria.
Nicolai, 33, an IT specialist, who declined to give his full name for fear of repercussions in Transnistria, said he had voted “yes” in the referendum and for Sandu as president.
“I want a life in a free and safe European country,” he said.
The 27-member EU began membership talks with Chisinau in June.
Sandu’s critics say she has not done enough to fight inflation in one of Europe’s poorest countries or to reform the judiciary.
In his campaign, Stoianoglo — who was fired as prosecutor by Sandu — called for the “restoration of justice” and vowed to wage a “balanced foreign policy.”
The 57-year-old abstained from voting in the referendum.
In Chisinau, voter Ghenadie, who declined to give his last name, said he was worried by what he saw as the country’s “western” drift and thought the government was “making the situation worse” economically.
Fears of Russian interference have been looming large.
Washington issued a fresh warning this week about suspected Russian interference, while the EU passed new sanctions on several Moldovans.
Moscow has “categorically” rejected accusations of meddling.
Police made hundreds of arrests in recent weeks after discovering an “unprecedented” vote-buying scheme that could taint up to a quarter of the ballots cast in the country of 2.6 million.
Police said millions of dollars from Russia aiming to corrupt voters were funnelled into the country by people affiliated to Ilan Shor, a fugitive businessman and former politician.
Convicted in absentia last year for fraud, Shor regularly brands Moldova a “police state” and the West’s “obedient puppet.”
In addition to the suspected vote buying, hundreds of young people were found to have been trained in Russia and the Balkans to create “mass disorder” in Moldova, such as using tactics to provoke law enforcement, according to police.
Brazil’s President Lula cancels trip to BRICS summit in Russia after injuring head
- Lula will participate by videoconference in the BRICS meeting, his office said
- 3-day meet will bring some 20 world leaders to the city of Kazan beginning Tuesday
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday canceled a trip to Russia for a BRICS summit after injuring his head, his office announced.
It did not say how the injury occurred but said he was taken to a hospital where doctors found he had suffered a cut to the back of his head and advised him against long-distance travel.
Local media said Lula had fallen in his bathroom on Saturday night, causing a cut that required stitches.
The 78-year-old Lula will, however, participate by videoconference in the BRICS meeting and will carry on his normal duties this week at the presidential palace in Brasilia, his office said.
The three-day summit of BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — as well as their partners, will bring some 20 world leaders to the city of Kazan beginning Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin convened the meeting in what some analysts say was a defiant gesture to show that Russia’s war in Ukraine has not left it isolated.
Lula had been scheduled to leave Brasilia early Sunday evening for Russia.
The BRICS summit would have been Lula’s first face-to-face meeting with Putin this year. In September, the two men spoke by phone to discuss a joint Brazilian-Chinese proposal to end the Ukraine war.
Putin skipped the last BRICS summit in South Africa after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest order for him over Kyiv’s complaint that invading troops had illegally deported Ukrainian children to Russia.
On Friday, Putin announced that he would not attend a G20 summit in Brazil in November because his arrival might “disrupt” the conference.
He insisted that the ICC warrant for his arrest was not a factor, saying “that rulings of this type can be got around very easily.”
Expelled Indian high commissioner denies involvement in murder of Sikh leader in Canada
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home
VANCOUVER, British Columbia: India’s high commissioner to Canada has denied any involvement in the murder of a Canadian Sikh leader who was killed in British Columbia last year even though the Canadian government has named him as a person of interest in the assassination.
Sanjay Kumar Verma, who was expelled last Monday along with five other Indian diplomats, said in an interview on CTV’s Question Period Sunday that the allegations are politically motivated.
“Nothing at all,” Verma said when asked if he had any role in in the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was killed outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18, 2023. “No evidence presented. Politically motivated.”
Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Nijjar’s murder and are awaiting trial.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials were then passing that information to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.
Verma denied the Indian government was targeting Sikh separatists in Canada.
“I, as high commissioner of India, have never done anything of that kind,” he said.
Any action taken by Indian officials in Canada was “overt,” said Verma.
In the interview Verma condemned Nijjar’s death.
“Any murder is wrong and bad,” he said. “I do condemn.”
Verma also pushed back on comments made by Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly that compared India to Russia. She said Canada’s national police force has linked Indian diplomats to homicides, death threats and intimidation in Canada.
“Let me see the concrete evidence she’s talking about,” said Verma. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s talking politically.”
India has rejected the Canadian accusations as absurd, and its foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.
Verma said “not a shred of evidence has been shared with us” about the Canadian allegations.
The RCMP has said attempts earlier this month to share evidence with Indian officials were unsuccessful.
Verma said the RCMP had not applied for the proper visas to visit India.
“A visa needs to be affixed,” he said. “For any government delegation to travel to another country, you need an agenda to go by. There was no agenda at all.”
Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The US Justice Department announced criminal charges against an Indian government employee Thursday in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.
In the case announced by the Justice Department, Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the New York plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.
“An indictment is not a conviction,” Verma said. “It will follow its judicial process.”
India has repeatedly criticized the Canadian government for being soft on supporters of what is known as the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.
The Khalistan movement supports the establishment of an independent Sikh state in India.
The Nijjar killing in Canada has soured India-Canada ties for more than a year, but Verma doesn’t expect this will impact business relations between the two countries.
“I don’t see much impact on non-political bilateral relations,” he said.
