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Every weekend, Asia Pacific Daily will provide you with a run-down of the latest hot news.
This week, the following hot news you should know:
Top 1 | Biden wins Michigan, Wisconsin, now on brink of White House
Joe Biden won the battleground prizes of Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday, reclaiming a key part of the “blue wall” that slipped away from Democrats four years ago and dramatically narrowing President Donald Trump’s pathway to reelection.
A full day after Election Day, neither candidate had cleared the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. But Biden’s victories in the Great Lakes states left him at 264, meaning he was one battleground state away from crossing the threshold and becoming president-elect.
Biden, who has received more than 71 million votes, the most in history, was joined by his running mate Kamala Harris at an afternoon news conference and said he now expected to win the presidency, though he stopped short of outright declaring victory.
Top 2 | Obama: Trump failed to take pandemic, presidency seriously
Calling Joe Biden his “brother,” Barack Obama on Saturday accused Donald Trump of failing to take the coronavirus pandemic and the presidency seriously as Democrats leaned on America’s first Black president to energize Black voters in battleground Michigan on the final weekend of the 2020 campaign.
Obama, the 44th president, and Biden, his vice president who wants to be the 46th, held drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit, predominantly Black cities where strong turnout will be essential to swing the longtime Democratic state to Biden’s column after Trump won it in 2016.
The memories of Trump’s win in Michigan and the rest of the Upper Midwest are still searing in the minds of many Democrats during this closing stretch before Tuesday’s election. That leaves Biden in the position of holding a consistent lead in the national polls and an advantage in most battlegrounds, including Michigan, yet still facing anxiety it could all slip away.
Top 3 | US Defense Secretary Mark Esper Prepares Resignation Letter - Report
According to insider reports, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has prepared a resignation letter as a struggle continues between his boss, US President Donald Trump, and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over which has won the Tuesday election.
Three anonymous Pentagon officials told NBC Thursday afternoon that Esper was preparing to retire from his role as Pentagon chief regardless of which candidate is declared the winner.
While it is not uncommon for the heads of US government departments and their associated agencies to depart from their roles along with the administration that appointed them, Esper is almost certain to be swept away even if Trump emerges victorious, thanks to his repeated butting of heads with the real estate mogul-turned chief executive. Bloomberg reported Esper had notified people close to him of his impending departure as early as August.
Top 4 | Putin: Russia prioritising increasing space satellite group and building advanced satellites
A meeting on the development of the space industry is taking place in Moscow on 2 November, with one of the key areas under discussion being the country's space missions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in a statement, that the nation’s priorities in the space industry are to increase the orbital satellite group, build advanced satellites, and more innovative rockets.
According to Putin, the country’s main priorities are "the improvement of our own space infrastructure, the building up and qualitative improvement of the grouping of spacecraft", as well as the continuation of manned programmes. Among these priorities are also "the creation of a promising line of rocket complexes, an increase in the share of innovative space technology, products and services", the president said at the meeting on financing and development of the space industry.
Top 5 | Trump suggests he might try to fire Fauci post-election
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested early on Monday that he might seek to fire a highly respected member of his coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, after Fauci further criticized Trump's handling of the virus.
Fauci, the country's leading infectious-disease expert who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has taken issue with Trump's repeated assertions that the U.S. fight against the virus was "rounding the turn" when in fact tens of thousands of people are being infected daily.
“We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation," Fauci told The Washington Post on Friday. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."
Top 6 | Sanctions on Russia to stay whoever wins U.S. vote: Putin ally
Andrey Kostin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin and the head of Russian state bank VTB, believes that U.S. sanctions on Moscow will stay in place irrespective of how Americans vote next week, he told Reuters.
President Vladimir Putin, sitting next to Kostin this week at an investment forum, complained that the Trump administration had sanctioned Russia 46 times in the last four years.
Washington sanctioned Moscow after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to tilt the contest in Trump’s favour, an allegation Moscow has denied. They have also accused it of trying to meddle in the Nov. 3 vote.
Top 7 | As anger rises, Muslims protest French cartoons
Tens of thousands of Muslims, from Pakistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, poured out of prayer services to join anti-France protests on Friday, as the French president’s vow to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to roil the Muslim world.
Hardline Islamic groups across the region have seized on the French government’s staunch secularist stance as an affront to Islam, rallying their supporters and stirring up rage.
Demonstrations in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad turned violent as some 2,000 people who tried to march toward the French Embassy were pushed back by police firing tear gas and beating protesters with batons. Crowds of Islamist activists hanged an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron from a highway overpass after pounding it furiously with their shoes. Several demonstrators were wounded in clashes with police as authorities pushed to evict activists from the area surrounding the embassy.
Top 8 | UK's Prince William 'contracted COVID-19 in April': media
Britain's Prince William contracted COVID-19 in April at a similar time to his father, Prince Charles, the BBC reported citing royal sources.
The report came after newspaper The Sun carried an article exclusively revealing details about the prince's secret battle with the disease.
Prince William was treated by palace doctors and followed government guidelines by isolating himself at the family home, Anmer Hall in Norfolk. "William was hit pretty hard by the virus – it really knocked him for six. At one stage he was struggling to breathe, so obviously everyone around him was pretty panicked," a source told the newspaper. Prince Charles' office said on March 25 that Charles had tested positive for the coronavirus. He self-isolated at his residence in Scotland for seven days with mild symptoms.
Top 9 | New arrest after France church attack, security tightened
Mourners lit candles and prayed silently Friday to honor the three people killed in a French church by a young Tunisian extremist, as France heightened security at potential targets at home and abroad amid geopolitical tensions around published cartoons mocking the prophet of Islam.
Tunisian anti-terrorism authorities opened an investigation Friday into an online claim of responsibility by a person who said the attack on the Notre Dame Basilica in the French Riviera city of Nice was staged by a heretofore-unknown Tunisian extremist group.
From Pakistan to Russia and Lebanon, Muslims offended by the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and French President Emmanuel Macron’s firm stance against political Islam held more anti-French protests Friday. Macron’s government stood firm, and called up thousands of reserve soldiers to protect France and reinforce security at French sites abroad.
Top 10 | New Zealand's Ardern vows to 'crack on' with new-look cabinet
New Zealand swore in its new cabinet on Friday, including five Maori and its first openly gay deputy prime minister, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government increased its majority with the release of full results of the October 17 general election.
In separate vote results, New Zealanders narrowly rejected the legalization of recreational marijuana while deciding to push ahead with laws to legalize euthanasia.
Ardern's Labour Party increased its majority to 65 seats from 64 in the 120-seat assembly, according to final New Zealand Electoral Commission results. The results included an additional 500,000 special votes, some of them mailed in from overseas.The 20-strong new-look cabinet includes eight women.
Related news:
APD | People of Indian origin important voters in US elections
APD | Repercussions of the third 2+2 US-India Dialogue
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
