| Danish fishermen pin hopes on Brexit deal Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:38 PM PST  In Thyboron, a port in western Denmark, the sky is grey and overcast and fishermen look just as gloomy as soon as the word Brexit is mentioned.
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| Iraq's pro-Iran factions see smoother sailing with Biden at helm Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:09 PM PST  Iraq's pro-Tehran factions have welcomed Joe Biden's election as US president, alarming officials and activists in Baghdad who fear a US-Iran deescalation could empower hardliners in their own country.
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| Putin fails to congratulate Biden on defeating Trump as world leaders note the historic victory Posted: 08 Nov 2020 04:52 PM PST  President-elect Joe Biden has received congratulatory messages from scores of world leaders after officially defeating President Donald Trump and winning the White House this weekend, all of them pledging to work with the new administration come January. As millions of Americans celebrated the former vice president's historic victory on Saturday, various heads of states issued public statements complimenting Mr Biden on his accomplishment and noting their strategic partnerships and alliances with the United States, including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, among others. There were some caveats, however, like Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he would not congratulate either candidate until Mr Trump's lawsuits against the electoral process had been settled — an apparent attempt to avoid conflict with the current administration.
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| US election results: Joe Biden kicks off transition process as Trump refuses to concede Posted: 08 Nov 2020 04:28 PM PST  Full election results 2020 Pressure grows on Donald Trump to go quietly Johnson risks Biden rift over controversial Brexit legislation Nick Timothy: Biden's election tells us nothing about British politics Tom Harwood: US election deniers are behaving like diehard Remainers Subscribe today for a one-month free trial US President-elect Joe Biden has taken the first steps towards moving into the White House 73 days from now, as Donald Trump again refused to admit defeat and tried to sow doubt about the election results. With congratulations pouring in from world leaders, Mr Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris launched a transition website, BuildBackBetter.com, and a Twitter feed, @Transition46. Meanwhile, Mr Trump played golf at his course near Washington, the same place where he was on Saturday when the US television networks delivered the news that Mr Biden had secured enough Electoral College votes for victory. "Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be?" Mr Trump complained in a tweet on Sunday. Follow the latest updates below.
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| US election live results: Joe Biden kicks off transition process as Trump refuses to concede Posted: 08 Nov 2020 03:11 PM PST Full election results 2020 Pressure grows on Donald Trump to go quietly Johnson risks Biden rift over controversial Brexit legislation Nick Timothy: Biden's election tells us nothing about British politics Tom Harwood: US election deniers are behaving like diehard Remainers Subscribe today for a one-month free trial US President-elect Joe Biden has taken the first steps towards moving into the White House 73 days from now, as Donald Trump again refused to admit defeat and tried to sow doubt about the election results. With congratulations pouring in from world leaders, Mr Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris launched a transition website, BuildBackBetter.com, and a Twitter feed, @Transition46. Meanwhile, Mr Trump played golf at his course near Washington, the same place where he was on Saturday when the US television networks delivered the news that Mr Biden had secured enough Electoral College votes for victory. "Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be?" Mr Trump complained in a tweet on Sunday. Follow the latest updates below.
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| Trump's election night party adds to virus scrutiny Posted: 08 Nov 2020 02:59 PM PST  Instead, the Trump campaign's election night watch party in the White House East Room has become another symbol of President Donald Trump's cavalier attitude toward a virus that is ripping across the nation and infecting more than 100,000 people a day. Polls suggest that attitude was a serious drag on the president's reelection bid as voters chose to deny Trump a second term in favor of his Democratic rival, now President-Elect Joe Biden. The White House has repeatedly refused to say who else has tested positive, even as the virus continues to spread.
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| Christian churches mirror country's political division Posted: 08 Nov 2020 01:43 PM PST  The messages in Christian houses of worship on the first weekend since the election were as divided as the country's electorate, with religious leaders mostly calling for peace and unification even as some bemoaned the result and others celebrated. Hours after the news broke Saturday of Democrat Joe Biden's victory, St. Joseph on the Brandywine Deacon Michael Stankewicz led a prayer during afternoon Mass at the president-elect's home church in Wilmington, Delaware, in which he asked "that our newly elected officials lead with wisdom and integrity to bring about unity, peace and reconciliation in our country and around the world." In Oklahoma, which voted for President Donald Trump by a 2-to-1 margin, civil rights activist and minister Warren G. Blakney Sr. started the Sunday morning service at North Peoria Church of Christ by noting the toll the virus is taking on his hometown of Tulsa and mourning the death of a church member the day before.
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| Egyptians wrap up 2nd stage of parliamentary vote Posted: 08 Nov 2020 11:40 AM PST |
| SNP plot Biden charm offensive in bid to soften US stance on independence Posted: 08 Nov 2020 10:41 AM PST  Scottish nationalists are planning to launch a charm offensive on Joe Biden's White House aimed at softening United States opposition to independence, it has emerged. Alyn Smith, the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman, said that he believed the close relationship between Scotland and Ireland could give SNP leaders an "in" with the new administration, and that a Biden presidency "increases our reach to tell Scotland's story". Foreign Policy magazine, a US publication based in Washington DC, reported that the SNP is preparing a "diplomatic effort" to "reassure" a Biden White House that an independent Scotland would be a reliable ally to America. Mr Smith told the magazine that he wanted to make sure there was a "visible Scottish angle" to US discussions over Brexit and that "connections with our Irish friends" could help. Unlike Donald Trump, the president-elect is concerned about Brexit and particularly the implications for the Good Friday Agreement and a hard border in Ireland. While Mr Trump's mother was Scottish, he was a vocal critic of the SNP administration having fallen out with Alex Salmond over his golf course development in Aberdeenshire and wind farms. Mr Biden, meanwhile, is proud of his Irish roots and there is speculation that he sees rebuilding relations with the EU, rather than securing a US/UK trade deal, as a priority.
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| Stacey Abrams credited for boosting Democrats in Georgia Posted: 08 Nov 2020 10:23 AM PST  Stacey Abrams spent years working to convince political power players that Georgia is a genuine two-party battleground, a Deep South state where the left could compete if it organized Black voters, other sporadic voters and stopped apologizing for being Democrats. President-elect Joe Biden is on track to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in nearly three decades. The state's two U.S. Senate seats are heading to a runoff after Democratic candidates mounted strong challenges to Republican incumbents, and the outcome is likely to determine which party controls the chamber.
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| Ethiopia's army chief sacked as Tigray fighting continues Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:49 AM PST  A reshuffle comes just days after the PM ordered a big military operation against Tigrayan forces.
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| Biden Could Roll Back Trump Agenda With Blitz of Executive Actions Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:17 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- President-elect Joe Biden is poised to unleash a series of executive actions on his first day in the Oval Office, prompting what is likely to be a yearslong effort to unwind President Donald Trump's domestic agenda and immediately signal a wholesale shift in the United States' place in the world.In the first hours after he takes the oath of office on the West Front of the Capitol at noon on Jan. 20, Biden has said, he will send a letter to the United Nations indicating that the country will rejoin the global effort to combat climate change, reversing Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord with more than 174 countries.Biden's afternoon will be a busy one.Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesHe has vowed that on Day 1 he will move rapidly to confront the coronavirus pandemic by appointing a "national supply chain commander" and establishing a "pandemic testing board," similar to Franklin D. Roosevelt's wartime production panel. He has said he will restore the rights of government workers to unionize. He has promised to order a new fight against homelessness and resettle more refugees fleeing war. He has pledged to abandon Trump's travel ban on mostly Muslim countries and to begin calling foreign leaders in an attempt to restore trust among the United States' closest allies."Every president wants to come out of the gate strong and start fulfilling campaign promises before lunch on the first day," said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and helped choreograph Obama's first days in the White House. "Executive orders are the best way to do that."For Biden, who won the election in a deeply divided nation, the early signals he sends as the country's new leader will be critical. On the trail, he repeatedly said he was campaigning as a Democrat but would govern "as an American." Following through on that promise will require him to demonstrate some respect for parts of the Trump agenda that were fiercely supported by the more than 70 million people who did not cast ballots for him."How far is he going to go?" Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, asked on CNN on Saturday, hours after Biden had been declared the victor. "If you want to show that you want to work on a bipartisan basis, then you don't go out right away and sign all the executive orders on immigration and bypass the Congress."But there is no question that Biden and members of his party are eager to systematically erase what they view as destructive policies that the president pursued on the environment, immigration, health care, gay rights, trade, tax cuts, civil rights, abortion, race relations, military spending and more.Some of that will require cooperation with Congress, which may remain divided next year. If Republicans maintain control of the Senate, Biden's pledges to roll back Trump's tax cuts are almost certain to run headfirst into fierce opposition from that chamber. Efforts to advance a more liberal agenda on civil rights and race relations -- centerpieces of Biden's stump speech during his campaign -- may falter. And his efforts to shape the new government with appointments could be constrained by the need to win approval in a Republican Senate.But Biden may be able to achieve some of his goals with nothing more than the stroke of a pen. Trump largely failed to successfully negotiate with House Democrats during his four years in office, leaving him no choice but to use executive actions to advance his agenda. Biden can use the same tools to reverse them.Prior presidents have tried to do just that, though not always successfully.On his first full day in the White House in 2009, Obama issued an executive order on presidential records and a second one on ethics that, among other provisions, tried to ban members of his administration from lobbying the federal government for two years after they leave. Ethics watchdogs later complained that some officials had found ways around the restrictions.The next day, Obama ordered an end to torture by the government, responding to an outcry over the use of harsh interrogation measures by his predecessor. He also ordered the closure of the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- which members of Congress were continuing to block by the time he left office eight years later.Trump, too, moved quickly. In the first hours after he was sworn in, Trump issued an executive order pledging to repeal the Affordable Care Act and directing the government to "take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the act."In the week that followed, Trump issued executive orders on immigration, requesting changes to asylum proceedings at the border, increasing deportations of immigrants in the country illegally and banning travel from several mostly Muslim countries -- an order that incited chaos at several airports as border officials struggled to understand whom it applied to.Some executive orders have become almost automatic at the start of a new administration. Biden is almost certain to move immediately to revoke the so-called global gag rule, which prohibits federal government funding for foreign organizations that provide or even talk about abortion. The rule, also known as the Mexico City policy, has been a political Ping-Pong ball since Ronald Reagan was president and is typically in place only under Republican administrations. Trump reinstated it on his first business day in office.But Biden has signaled that his top priority will be demonstrating a much more muscular federal approach to the pandemic than Trump's leave-it-to-the states strategy.Aides said he would use the power of his office to invoke the Defense Production Act -- the Korean War-era law that allows the president to order businesses to manufacture products necessary for national defense -- to build up supplies more aggressively than Trump has.While Biden would like to see a national mask mandate, his advisers have concluded that he does not have the legal authority to impose one. So he will try to increase mask wearing in other ways. He has already said that, as president, he would require masks on all federal property, an executive order that could have wide reach and is likely to come in the first hours or days of his presidency.In addition to mandating masks in federal buildings, Biden has said he would require them on "all interstate transportation."The president-elect has also repeatedly derided Trump's lack of ethical standards, accusing him of waging an extensive assault on Washington's norms and traditions. Biden's response to that will probably take the form of an ethics pledge to impose tough new requirements on the people who serve in his government."The Trump administration has shredded those standards," Biden's campaign wrote on his website. "On Day 1, Biden will issue an ethics pledge, building and improving on the Obama-Biden administration's pledge, to ensure that every member of his administration focuses day in and day out on the best outcomes for the American people, and nothing else."In addition to rejoining the climate accord, Biden has also made it clear that he will immediately begin using the levers of executive authority to reestablish Obama's regime of environmental regulations that Trump systematically shredded during his tenure.That is likely to include a rapid rescission of an executive order Trump issued early in his administration that itself called for revoking all regulations addressing climate change and instead promoting fossil fuel development -- and replacing it with one that declares a Biden administration's intention to cut planet-warming greenhouse gases."Revocation of executive orders can be done immediately," said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University who has studied what climate regulation might look like in a Biden administration. "That's a big deal because the executive orders give direction to administrative agencies about how to exercise their discretion and what the priorities are for the administration."Biden may also move quickly to restore national monuments that Trump shrank soon after taking office; stop the Trump administration's expedited reviews of fossil fuel projects such as oil pipelines; and reverse a 2017 order to "encourage energy exploration and production" offshore, including the outer continental shelf.Efforts to assist poor communities -- often situated in proximity to toxic polluting sites and bearing the brunt of climate change consequences -- could also be undertaken from the White House. That might include executive orders establishing an environmental justice advisory council that can coordinate policy across agencies; creating screening tools to better understand environmental disparities across the country; and increasing pollution monitoring in frontline communities.Passing bigger parts of Biden's environmental agenda, like eliminating fossil fuel emissions from the power sector by 2035, would almost certainly require Congress to pass a clean-energy-specific law, most likely in the form of a mandate that an increasing percentage of electricity generated in the United States will be produced by zero-emissions sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric power and possibly nuclear power.Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, an organization that supports the use of fossil fuels, said that "if history is a guide," Republicans would be unlikely to support any type of mandate."Certainly does not have a mandate for his climate plan," Pyle said. "He will be constrained to executive orders and carefully crafted regulations."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| U.K.'s Johnson, praised by Trump, seeks new bond with Biden Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:09 AM PST  Boris Johnson, widely seen as an ally of President Trump, is looking to forge ties with President-elect Joe Biden as Brexit is about to take effect.
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| Top French diplomat visits Cairo amid tensions over cartoons Posted: 08 Nov 2020 09:06 AM PST  France's top diplomat visited Egypt on Sunday in an effort to calm tensions with the Muslim world following anti-French protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and three Islamic extremist attacks on France. Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke at a press conference amid meetings with Egyptian political and religious leaders, saying that France is fighting against terror and extremism, not Islam. The current controversy, which has seen protests in parts of the Mideast and South Asia, comes amid heightened tensions over the caricatures published in French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron's policies toward freedom of expression and Islamism.
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| Fraud claims aimed in part at keeping Trump base loyal Posted: 08 Nov 2020 08:32 AM PST  The Trump campaign's strategy to file a barrage of lawsuits challenging President-elect Joe Biden's win is more about providing President Donald Trump with an off-ramp for a loss he can't quite grasp and less about changing the election's outcome, according to senior officials, campaign aides and allies who spoke to The Associated Press. Trump has promised legal action in the coming days as he refused to concede his loss to Biden, making an aggressive pitch for donors to help finance any court fight. Trump and his campaign have leveled accusations of large-scale voter fraud in Pennsylvania and other states that broke for Biden, so far without proof.
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| For some who bore toll of virus, Biden offers sign of hope Posted: 08 Nov 2020 08:26 AM PST  After a brutal year of trying to save the sick and burying the dead, news of Joe Biden's ascension to president-elect came to some as a glimmer of hope that an end to the coronavirus misery might be in sight. Donna Taylor of Playa del Rey, California, whose 83-year-old mother died of COVID-19 in July, fell asleep with her TV tuned to CNN and felt like her mother nudged her awake to see the headline announcing Biden's victory. "I feel that we are now going to start listening to science," said 56-year-old Taylor, who blamed President Donald Trump's handling of the virus for her mother's death.
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| AP PHOTOS: Joe Biden and his decades of public life Posted: 08 Nov 2020 07:43 AM PST  Joe Biden mounted two previous presidential bids in 1988 and 2008, never making it out of the Democratic primaries. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden has been a fixture in Democratic national politics since he won an upstart campaign to become a U.S. senator from Delaware in 1972. Biden represented the country at international summits, and was among those in the Situation Room the night that Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.
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| Biden shores up fragile 'blue wall' in industrial north Posted: 08 Nov 2020 07:26 AM PST  Joe Biden shored up the Democrats' "blue wall," — more sturdily in Michigan, more tenuously in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to rebuild the party's path back to the White House. Trump had stunned the country four years ago by winning the three states that had been carried for decades by Democrats by a total of 77,000 votes. Biden, from the start, sought to reclaim at least some of those voters, making his appeal as a son of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who attended a state college, had known financial struggle, and could relate to their concerns.
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| US election: African leaders congratulate Joe Biden Posted: 08 Nov 2020 07:04 AM PST  Many say they look forward to working with a politician with a proven track record.
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| Iran's president calls on Biden to 'compensate for past mistakes' Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:36 AM PST  Iran's president called on President-elect Joe Biden to "compensate for past mistakes" and return the U.S. to Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
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| Lebanese official says US sanctioned him over Hezbollah ties Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:30 AM PST  Lebanon's former foreign minister said Sunday that last week's U.S. sanctions targeted him over alleged corruption because he repeatedly refused Washington's calls to severe ties with Iran-backed Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese militant and political group. The U.S. Treasury designation on Friday said Gebran Bassil was "at the forefront of corruption" in Lebanon. The Treasury designation did not mention Bassil's alliance or links to Hezbollah, but the sanctions against him appeared to be part of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against Iran and its allies in the region.
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| 10 things you need to know today: November 8, 2020 Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:27 AM PST |
| The Latest: Former WH officials urge cooperative transition Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:16 AM PST  A bipartisan group from the last three White Houses is urging the Trump administration to move forward "to immediately begin the post-election transition process." The call from the Center for Presidential Transition advisory board comes as the General Services Administration has yet to formally recognize Democrat Joe Biden as the president-elect. The statement was signed by Bush White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt as well as Bill Clinton-era chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty and Obama Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
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| Joe Biden Win Stuns the World’s Tyrants into Nervous Silence Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:01 AM PST  The global congratulations for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' historic win over President Donald Trump ranged from leader's expressing their delight and relief to humor—like the Australian newspaper that ran the headline "Phew," or the cheeky London Sunday Times with its play on Trump's criticism of the former vice president: "Sleepy Joe Wakes up America." London's Madame Tussaud's wax museum wasted no time in changing Trump's presidential red tie and suit to a purple golfing outfit.> His campaign may not have been a hole in one, but @realDonaldTrump is now on course to dedicate more of his time to his favourite sport as MadameTussaudsLondon re-dresses his figure in golfing attire to reflect his potential 2021 wardrobe �� @PA pic.twitter.com/pGUs8jKOnW> > — Madame Tussauds London (@MadameTussauds) November 7, 2020But many others who had banked on a Trump re-election have remained silent, including Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Brazilian president Jair Bolsanaro and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who had called Biden a "low-IQ individual" who is "seized by ambition for power." Nor has the world heard from the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who has benefitted from Trump's ambivalence over condemning him for his involvement in the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would wait to congratulate the president elect until Trump's legal challenges are played out. "We don't want to be reckless," he said Sunday. Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban, a vocal supporter of Trump, wished Biden luck in a statement from his press secretary. "Allow me to congratulate you on the successful presidential campaign," the statement signed by Orban said. "I wish you good health and continuous successes in carrying out your extremely responsible mission."German magazine Der Spiegel followed up on its 2016 cover in which it depicted Trump cutting off the head of the Statue of Liberty with a cartoon of Biden carefully putting it back in place. > Am 4.2.2017 veröffentlichte Der SPIEGEL ein weitweit beachtetes Titelcover, auf dem Donald Trump "Lady Liberty" den Kopf abtrennt. Heute, am 7.11.2020, nehmen wir Bezug auf dieses Cover - mit dem neuen Titelbild auf unserer Ausgabe ... 46. // (c) @edelstudio BidenHarris2020 pic.twitter.com/jHcRtsXoqm> > — DER SPIEGEL (@derspiegel) November 7, 2020More left-leaning mayors were friendly than right-leaning leaders. The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo tweeted, "Welcome back, America" and London mayor Sadiq Khan, who has publicly sparred with Trump, tweeted, "London looks forward to working with you — it's time to get back to building bridges, not walls."> Welcome back America! Congratulations to @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris for their election! While we are about to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, this victory symbolizes our need to act together more than ever, in view of climate emergency. ����Election2020> > — Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) November 7, 2020Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his Sunday cabinet meeting with a hearty congratulations, even as he had expressed a preference for a second term Trump administration. "I have a personal, long and warm connection with Joe Biden for nearly 40 years," Netanyahu said, "And I know him to be a great friend of the State of Israel."He also thanked Trump "for the great friendship he showed to the State of Israel and to me, personally." He went on to praise him for his "recognition of Jerusalem and the Golan, for his standing up to Iran, for the historic peace treaties and for bringing the alliance between Israel and the U.S. to unprecedented heights. Thank you, President Trump."The French president Emanuel Macron, once called the "Trump whisperer" for his ability to get through to the president, tweeted, "The Americans have chosen their president. We have a lot to do to overcome today's challenges. Let's work together!" British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had been assured his Brexit deal would include a lucrative trade detail with the U.S. thanks to his "good friend" Trump, tried to play nice by mentioning climate change: "The US is our important ally and I look forward to working closely together on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose phone call with Trump became a key element of the impeachment fight, chose Twitter to relay his congratulations, saying Ukraine "is optimistic about the future of the strategic partnership with the United States."Trump's sworn enemies, like Iranian president Hassan Rouhani cheered, but warned that Biden would have to work hard. "Trump's damaging policy has been opposed," Rouhani said in a statement. "The next U.S. administration should use the opportunity to make up for past mistakes."Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau—who Trump often ridiculed— was predictably nice, and side stepped any sense of relief: "I look forward to working with President-elect Biden, Vice President-elect Harris, their administration, and the United States Congress as we tackle the world's greatest challenges together."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump’s Iran Policy Can Be an Opportunity for Biden Posted: 08 Nov 2020 06:00 AM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The next U.S. president will have to come to terms with "the will of the Iranian people" and end the economic war against the Islamic Republic, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech Thursday. Bluster aside, there is a kernel of truth to his prediction — and President Donald Trump's Iran policy may make negotiations easier for President-elect Joe Biden.Iran will hold presidential elections next year, and Rouhani is dealing with an economy that has been pummeled by the sanctions that the U.S. imposed after 2018, when it withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement. Both Trump and Biden have said they would negotiate with Iran after the 2020 election. In those negotiations, the Biden administration should use Trump's "maximum pressure" policy to its advantage.This sounds like a contradiction. When Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, Biden and most Democrats denounced what they perceived as reckless petulance. Former Secretary of State John Kerry even advised Iran's foreign minister to wait out the Trump administration until the 2020 elections, in the hopes of salvaging the agreement.Biden has also pledged that the U.S. will re-enter the nuclear agreement if Iran "returns to strict compliance with the deal," he wrote in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. This means that he would lift many of the nuclear sanctions that Trump has re-imposed if Iran brings its low enriched uranium stockpiles back under the limits in the 2015 deal.Biden's position is more moderate than many Democrats who argue that the U.S. should re-enter the nuclear deal unconditionally. Nonetheless, his stated position risks missing an opportunity.But don't take my word for it: Biden himself and many of his top advisers have acknowledged that the 2015 agreement must be improved. Limits on low enriched uranium production, for example, which can be further enriched into fuel suitable for a nuclear weapon, begin to expire in 2026. Last month, a U.N. ban on selling advanced conventional weapons expired. In a few years, Iran will be able to begin installing more efficient, advanced centrifuges.Biden has said that he would pursue fixes to the nuclear deal after the U.S. rejoined the agreement. He has described this as using "our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend" the agreement, and work with those allies to more effectively push back against "Iran's other destabilizing activities."That is a worthy goal. But it makes no sense to think that Iran would be more inclined to make concessions it has not already made after economic sanctions are lifted. Here the Trump administration has done its successor a favor. Not only has Trump imposed nuclear sanctions on Iran's oil exports and crucial economic sectors such as metals and petrochemicals, but it has also imposed a series of sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism.Just last month, the Trump administration sanctioned Iran's oil ministry, its national oil company and its national tanker company for support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force. The administration's 2019 decision to sanction Iran's central bank was also tied to its financial support for terrorism, not its nuclear program.So Biden could lift nuclear-related sanctions but still keep terrorism-related ones in place if the Iranians do not agree to make further concessions. Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me that Biden is in a position to ask Iran's regime to "help me, help you."There are a few reasons for this. For one, Republicans could win back the presidency in four years. As Iran has learned, any agreement with the U.S. that is not ratified by the Senate as a treaty can be withdrawn by the next president.There is also the broader issue of risk and perception of risk for financial markets. If the Iranian regime wants money to invest in its oil sector and economy, large banks and corporations must be assured that they will not face problems down the road. Biden alone cannot make those assurances if Iranian banks continue to engage in terror financing and money laundering. This will require Iran to up take more substantive reforms on its own.None of this is to say that Biden cannot and will not lift some sanctions in exchange for some Iranian concessions. All of that is likely to happen. The test for the Biden administration will be to use the leverage Trump has created to improve the 2015 nuclear agreement and pressure Iran to end its regional aggression.(Corrects second paragraph to remove reference to Hassan Rouhani running for president next year.)This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| One week in an America riven by politics and the plague Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:49 AM PST  On Nov. 1, as election week dawned, Dr. Juan Fitz lay dying in the same Lubbock, Texas, hospital where he had worked in the emergency room for nearly 20 years. On that same day, President Donald Trump sprinted across the country, trying to seal the deal on his reelection in the waning moments of the campaign. At his fifth rally of the day, in Opa-locka, Florida, he lamented that when "You turn on the news, it's COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID."
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| First plane with Israeli tourists lands in UAE after deal Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:46 AM PST  The first flight carrying Israeli tourists to the United Arab Emirates landed Sunday in the city-state of Dubai, the latest sign of the normalization deal reached between the two nations. FlyDubai flight No. FZ8194 landed at Dubai International Airport just after 5:40 p.m., bringing the tourists to the skyscraper-studded city after a roughly three-hour trip. The flight flew across Saudi Arabia and then over the waters of the Persian Gulf to reach the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms also home to Abu Dhabi.
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| Convention centers, museums become classrooms amid pandemic Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:39 AM PST  Megan Kohlman teaches literature and writing inside one of the rooms, separated from a math teacher's space by only a plastic sheet. Districts are setting up makeshift outdoor shelters, bringing in trailers to house classrooms and making use of otherwise empty spaces like museums. School systems could take cues from the health care system, which has found ways to increase capacity when coronavirus cases surge, said Joseph Allen, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health associate professor of exposure science who runs the school's Healthy Buildings Program.
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| Renowned world correspondent Seymour Topping dead at 98 Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:31 AM PST  Seymour Topping, among the most accomplished foreign correspondents of his generation for The Associated Press and the New York Times and later a top editor at the Times and administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, died on Sunday. Topping passed away peacefully at White Plains Hospital, his daughter Rebecca said in an emailed statement. As a correspondent for the AP in 1949, he was eyewitness to the fall of Nanking, then the capital of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government, to Mao Zedong's Red Army.
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| 5 states OK measures eradicating racist language, symbols Posted: 08 Nov 2020 05:09 AM PST  Alabama voters reversed themselves from a few years ago and removed racist vestiges of segregation from the state constitution that courts long ago ruled unconstitutional. Rhode Island did a similar a U-turn to eradicate the word "plantations" from the state's official name. In a year when discussions of racial justice have dominated U.S. society like few others, five states voted to cleanse the public sphere of words, phrases and symbols that to many were painful reminders of the nation's history of slavery and the systematic oppression of Black people.
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| UK's Johnson, praised by Trump, seeks new UK bond with Biden Posted: 08 Nov 2020 04:06 AM PST  Boris Johnson's famous charm worked wonders on Donald Trump, but he faces a tougher audience in Joe Biden. Britain's prime minister promised Sunday to work with the U.S. president-elect to spread democracy, defend human rights and combat climate change, as he sought to woo a leader who sees the world very differently to the outgoing American leader. In an interview with The Associated Press in 10 Downing St.. Johnson stressed the strength of trans-Atlantic ties, saying the two countries' "common global perspective" would be vital to shore up a rules-based global order that is under threat.
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| Thai protesters defy police water cannons to deliver letters Posted: 08 Nov 2020 03:57 AM PST  Pro-democracy protesters in Thailand were confronted by riot police and sprayed by water cannons Sunday as they tried to approach Bangkok's Grand Palace to deliver letters about their political grievances addressed to the country's king. The pro-democracy movement has been pushing a bold challenge to reform the country's monarchy with almost daily demonstrations. Sunday marked the second time water cannons were used against the protesters during several months of demonstrations.
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| Ethiopia reshuffles top officials as Tigray conflict grows Posted: 08 Nov 2020 03:46 AM PST  Ethiopia's prime minister announced major changes to his government's military and intelligence leadership on Sunday as he sought to defend a growing military action against the country's defiant Tigray region, and urged citizens not to target the ethnic Tigrayan people amid fears of civil war. At least 60 people have been wounded and six killed in one location along the Tigray border alone, Doctors Without Borders said Saturday, and the United Nations warns of a major humanitarian crisis if up to 9 million people flee all-out fighting or the Tigray region remains largely cut off from the world. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's cabinet reshuffle included little explanation but appeared aimed at bringing the most outspoken supporters of the operation in Tigray to the forefront.
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| Iran's president calls on Biden to return to nuclear deal Posted: 08 Nov 2020 02:21 AM PST  Iran's president called on President-elect Joe Biden to "compensate for past mistakes" and return the U.S. to Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a state-run news agency reported Sunday. Hassan Rouhani's comments mark the highest-level response from Iran to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris clinching the Nov. 3 election.
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| Wrecking ball: the damage Trump could do while still president until January Posted: 08 Nov 2020 02:00 AM PST  The next 11 weeks could be the most dangerous in US history, some analysts believe, with a vengeful and fearful lame duck incumbent * Biden wins: follow the latest election news and reaction * Trump v Biden – full resultsSome of the mayhem that will follow Donald Trump losing the presidential election is already known. The US exited the Paris climate agreement on Wednesday regardless. The coronavirus pandemic that has already claimed almost a quarter of a million lives in America will worsen. Trump has hinted he will attempt to fire Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert in infectious diseases.But Trump's defeat also sets the clock ticking on 11 weeks that some analysts believe could be the most dangerous period in US history, the time before the 20 January inauguration of Joe Biden during which a vengeful president can wreak havoc if he choses to do so."If Trump loses power he'll spend his last 90 days wrecking the United States like a malicious child with a sledgehammer in a china shop," said Malcolm Nance, a veteran intelligence analyst and political author, speaking before the result of the election was known."We're likely to see the greatest political temper tantrum in history. He may decide he wants to go out with a bang, he may decide he will not accept the election result. Who knows what a cornered autocrat will do?"Nance's fears are based as much on Trump's past record, such as failing to take any steps to counter the spread of Covid-19, as what he may yet do. Self-preservation in the face of mounting legal and financial pressures will be paramount, Nance believes, with the president pushing his executive and constitutional powers to the limit or beyond."He'll pardon himself. Absolutely no question about that," Nance said. "He expects the supreme court to cover for him. He has always fixed things in his life, and he now believes he owns the American judicial system."While a flurry of executive actions to further roll back environmental and industrial regulations is possible, analysts believe a beaten Trump will be less motivated by politics and more focused on himself. Nance's main concern is the possibility of civil unrest, from Trump supporters including armed militias, white supremacists and other activists fired up by perceived calls-to-arms by their leader."All these 100-truck convoys may start marching like they're going into Mosul," he said. "It's like an insurgency. We're going to find out … whether they rise up en masse and say we don't accept this, Donald Trump's our man, and they start parading and taking over boards of elections."Disgraced Trump associates who have fallen foul of the law could also be beneficiaries of the outgoing president's benevolence, among them his former campaign chair Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon, the architect of Trump's 2016 victory currently facing fraud charges.There will be new scrutiny on Trump's own financial dealings. The Manhattan district attorney's office has been investigating Trump and his business empire for possible criminal bank and insurance fraud, but has been unable to take action while he is in office.Trump will soon lose the protection of Bill Barr, the attorney general whom critics have accused of acting like the president's personal lawyer. That means Trump has a shortening window of opportunity to prepare for whatever legal consequences may await."He's a compromised person, a broken asset of a foreign power, and has been under the thrall, the pay, or most likely the debt of Vladimir Putin," Nance said. "Anything which benefits him personally, anything that benefits what he believes is his brand, he will do."Other analysts agree."Trump will likely spend his last months in a flurry of self-dealing, tossing out pardons and trying to discredit his opponents and the system itself," Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and chair of the Human Rights Foundation, said in an opinion piece for CNN."Americans who want to see the rule of law restored and strengthened must be ready to fight for it, in the courts and in the streets if necessary, peacefully but persistently, because there is little doubt that Trump and his supporters will not go quietly."Not all experts believe a Trump "lame duck" presidency will be completely volatile. "What will stop him is fear of prison," Stuart Stevens, a veteran Republican consultant, told Salon."Why has the postmaster general kind of backtracked?" Stevens asked of Louis DeJoy, the Republican donor who many believe was installed in an attempt to cripple the mail-in vote. "He does not want to go to jail. He's willing to do a lot of stuff for Trump, but he didn't want to go to jail. That fear is what would stop Trump."Ultimately, Trump will spend his final days in the White House trying to avoid looking like a loser or a failure, analysts say."I've had a lot of experience with autocrats, despots and third-world potentates, so I got to see how these people behave," Nance said."There's been a change in the way autocrats and wannabe autocrats like Donald Trump have ended their careers. In the old days, if you weren't killed by your political foes, you took a billion dollars, went off to the French Riviera, and disappeared. They just went off the stage."Now they no longer want to do that. They want to have all of their money and remain in power, and spend the money. Who knows with Donald Trump?"
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| Azerbaijani leader: Forces seize key Nagorno-Karabakh city Posted: 08 Nov 2020 01:46 AM PST  Azerbaijani forces have taken control of the strategically key city of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh where fighting with Armenia has raged for more than a month, the country's president said Sunday. In a televised address to the nation, President Ilham Aliyev said "Shusha is ours — Karabakh is ours," using the Azerbaijani version of the city's name.
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| "Warmest human spirit": UK's former chief rabbi Sacks dies Posted: 08 Nov 2020 01:23 AM PST |
| Mideast heads for policy revamp under Biden Posted: 08 Nov 2020 12:04 AM PST  Contrary to Donald Trump's impulsive policies in the Middle East, Joe Biden is expected to shift back to a more conventional US stance and re-engage with Iran, redrawing regional geopolitics.
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| Biden seeks to move quickly and build out his administration Posted: 07 Nov 2020 09:52 PM PST  President-elect Joe Biden signaled on Sunday he plans to move quickly to build out his government, focusing first on the raging pandemic that will likely dominate the early days of his administration. Biden named a former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, and a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, David Kessler, as co-chairs of a coronavirus working group set to get started, with other members expected to be announced Monday. Transition team officials said that also this week Biden will launch his agency review teams, the group of transition staffers that have access to key agencies in the current administration to ease the transfer of power.
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| Trump, who never admits defeat, mulls how to keep up fight Posted: 07 Nov 2020 09:49 PM PST  President Donald Trump never admits defeat. After nearly four tortured days of counting yielded a victory for Biden, Trump was still insisting the race was not over. While some in his circle were nudging Trump to concede graciously, many of his Republican allies, including on Capitol Hill, were egging him on or giving him space to process his loss — at least for the time being.
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| Message of Election 2020: Trump lost, but Trumpism did not Posted: 07 Nov 2020 09:37 PM PST  President Donald Trump lost. It won in the parts of the country and with the voters whom Trump catered to over four years, constantly jabbing the hard edges of almost every contentious cultural issue into Red America, on the bet that fear and anger were a winning hand. Joe Biden defeated Trump to win the presidency, and is on pace to win up to 306 electoral votes, a total that would match what Trump exaggerated as a "landslide" four years ago.
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| Eta expected to be hurricane and strike Florida Keys Posted: 07 Nov 2020 09:01 PM PST  A strengthening Tropical Storm Eta sliced across Cuba on Sunday and was aimed at the southern tip of Florida, where officials braced for a storm that could hit at hurricane force after leaving scores of dead and over 100 missing in Mexico and Central America. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami declared hurricane and storm surge warnings for the Keys from Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas, including Florida Bay, with the storm expected to reach that area by Sunday night or early Monday.
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| Firecrackers and prayers as Indians celebrate Harris' win Posted: 07 Nov 2020 07:14 PM PST  Waking up to the news of Kamala Harris' election as U.S. vice president, overjoyed people in her Indian grandfather's hometown set off firecrackers and offered prayers on Sunday. Groups gathered at street corners in Thulasendrapuram, a tiny village of 350 people, reading newspapers and chatting about Joe Biden and Harris' victory before moving to a temple. Most of them had gone to sleep by the time Biden clinched the winning threshold of 270 Electoral College votes, making Harris the first woman and the first person of South Asian descent to be elected vice president.
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