America Archive

Washington, Nov 4 (DPA) Republicans appeared headed for victory Tuesday in two US state elections that were being viewed as an early measure of President Barack Obama’s popularity.

Bob McDonnell was elected governor of Virginia in a landslide, winning 59 percent to 41 percent for Democrat Creigh Deeds and recapturing a state that voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

In New Jersey, usually a reliably left-leaning state, Republican Chris Christie was winning 50 to 44 percent over Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine with more than 80 percent of the votes counted.

The elections in Virginia and New Jersey are the first major polls since Obama was elected in November 2008. The November 2010 congressional elections will be the bigger test, when the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate is up for grabs.

The country’s struggling economy was a dominant issue in both states. Republicans tapped into anger over still-rising unemployment and what some voters perceive as reckless spending by centre-left Democrats to revive the economy.

Both elections garnered national attention as Republicans looked to reverse their fortunes of the last few years. Democrats hoped to maintain the momentum of the election a year ago but struggled to harness the excitement that was generated by Obama’s candidacy.

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called the Virginia victory a ‘blow’ to Obama’s Democrats and ‘a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president’s liberal agenda’.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had played down the day’s elections, warning against drawing too many inferences for the Democrats’ electoral future.

A majority of Virginia voted for Obama a year ago, marking the first time the state sided with a Democrat for president in more than four decades. Republicans had lost the state’s last two elections for governor before Tuesday.

McDonnell campaigned on a promise of reviving job growth and smaller government in Virginia, mirroring the national campaign themes of centre-right Republicans.

Christie, a former prosecutor, campaigned heavily on curbing corruption in New Jersey, a state that has been dogged by political scandals.

The elections attracted some major political star power. Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former president Bill Clinton all returned to the campaign trail over the last month. Top Republicans including former presidential candidates John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee also campaigned.

Voters were also choosing mayors Tuesday in several major cities, including New York, Atlanta and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In New York, billionaire Michael Bloomberg was widely expected to win an unprecedented third four-year term as mayor. But early results showed him locked in a surprisingly close race against Democratic challenger William Thompson. Bloomberg led 49-48 percent with about half of the votes counted.

A special election for Congress in upstate New York was also being watched closely. Initial results gave Democrat Bill Owens the lead in a district that has been a Republican stronghold for more than a century.

Owens benefited from a split among Republicans. Republican Party candidate Dede Scozzafava, a moderate with left-leaning views on social issues, quit the race Saturday after many of her party’s national figures threw their support behind a conservative third-party candidate, Doug Hoffman.

Washington, Nov 4 – German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made an impassioned plea to the US and European nations to accept binding obligation on climate change to influence countries like China and India without whom no agreement was possible.

‘There can be no agreement without India and China,’ she said in an historic address before both houses of the US Congress on Tuesday. ‘No doubt about it, in December, the world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans. And it is true, there can be no agreement without China and India.’

‘But I’m convinced, once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements; we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in,’ she said.

‘We need an agreement on one objective: Global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius,’ Merkel said stressing the importance of work together on efforts to curb global warming and to help forge a binding climate-change deal at an international meeting in Copenhagen next month.

Merkel said that people must tear down mental walls that blocked them from seeing the plight of future generations if warming continued unchecked with the same resolve that Germans had when they brought down the Berlin Wall on Nov 9, 1989.

The first German chancellor to address a joint session of the US Congress in 50 years, Merkel also called for building a stable partnership with India, China and Russia, noting that the world today is both freer and more integrated than ever before

‘The fall of the Berlin Wall, the technological revolution in information and communication technology, the rise of China, India and other countries to become dynamic economies-all of this has changed the world of the 21st century into something completely different from what we knew in the 20th century,’ she said.

‘There is no doubt NATO remains the crucial cornerstone of our common security,’ the German Chancellor said. But ‘Europeans, I am convinced, may contribute even more in the future, for we Europeans are currently working on giving a new contractual basis to our European Union,’ she said.

‘This will make the European Union stronger and more capable of action, and thereby turn it into a strong and reliable partner for the United States. We can build stable partnerships on this sound basis, first and foremost with Russia, China and India,’ Merkel said.

As leader of Europe’s largest economy, Merkel also pledged to keep working with the Group of 20 major economies, including India, to take coordinated steps to prevent a another global financial meltdown.

‘The cooperation between the Americans and the Europeans is a crucial cornerstone. It is not an exclusive, but an inclusive cooperation. The G-20 have shown they are capable of action. And we need to resist the pressure of those who almost led the nations of this planet to the abyss.’ she said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

Washington, Nov 4 – Two Pakistan-born Chicago men charged with plotting to launch terrorist attacks in India and Denmark in association with Pakistan based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were targeting India’s National Defence College (NDC), a US court was told.

In court papers filed in Chicago Tuesday to have a federal judge detain Chicago businessman Tahawwura Hussain Rana without bond, federal prosecutors said he discussed the attack on NDC with David Coleman Headley, a Pakistan-born American national.

Prosecutors told magistrate Judge Nan Nolan that the alleged discussion of an attack on the New Delhi-based premier military college for senior service and civil officers shows that Rana was serious about taking part in terrorism and wasn’t merely Headley’s dupe as Rana’s lawyers contend.

Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian national, and Headley, whose former name was Daood Gilani, are also charged with plotting to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The newspaper sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world in 2005 by publishing 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

After a brief hearing Tuesday, the detention question was continued to Nov 10 before magistrate Judge Nolan.

The government’s memorandum in support of Rana’s detention pending trial said the planners of this attack included at least one member of LeT and Ilyas Kashmiri, who is affiliated with Al Qaeda, another terrorist organization that has been so designated since 1999.

Recorded conversations involving Rana, emails and other documentary evidence demonstrate that the Rana conspired to provide, and did provide, material support to the conspiracy, it said.

Rana was aware of the object of the conspiracy and the ongoing efforts to further the plot, the memo said. For example, on Sep 7, 2009, Rana and Headley, actively discussed the efforts to communicate with Kashmiri.

Rana and Headley also discussed the need to get Headley’s ‘reports’ and ‘notes’ to Kashmiri. ‘In doing so, Rana was neither laughing nor ridiculing Headley, as suggested by Rana during oral argument,’ prosecutors said.

In the same conversation, Headley and Rana discussed Denmark and other targets, including the National Defence College in India, the memo said noting Rana, in fact, used the English word ‘target’ in this discussion.

Rana also misled a government official, the Pakistani Consulate in Chicago, to obtain a visa for Headley to facilitate his prospective overseas travel.

Rana, the owner of a Grundy County goat farm and a Chicago immigration business, also allegedly communicated with a person affiliated with Let about smuggling in workers to the US.

He allegedly e-mailed an LeT associate last December concerning a ‘loophole’ in American immigration policy. ‘Whenever you find easy way to come to US immediately think there is a catch to it,’ Rana wrote, prosecutors said.

‘Only one loophole is business, which they believe is OK and intelligence can play a role,’ he was quoted as saying

Meanwhile, a team of Indian officials have arrived in the US to join the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in probing the foiled terror plot.

The officials were expected to interview at least Headley in a bid to determine the intended target in India and when the alleged attack was to be carried out. However, both Indian and American officials declined to ‘confirm or deny’ whether they had questioned Headley.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

Washington, Nov 4 (DPA) General Motors’ board voted Tuesday to hold on to its Opel division rather than sell a majority stake to Canada-based Magna, ending months of uncertainty and dashing the hopes of German officials.

‘Given an improving business environment for GM over the past few months, and the importance of Opel-Vauxhall to GM’s global strategy, the GM board of directors has decided to retain Opel and will initiate a restructuring of its European operations in earnest,’ GM said in a statement.

Washington, Nov 4 (DPA) The US and European Union resumed talks on climate change Tuesday as they intensify efforts to reach an accord ahead of next month’s UN summit in Copenhagen, expressing confidence a pact could be reached.

US President Barack Obama said the discussions focused ‘extensively’ on reaching a deal to reduce greenhouse gases by 2020. Obama has accepted the goals for reducing global warming but has come under increasing pressure from the European Union to do more.

While the two sides remain far apart they are still optimistic a deal can be reached at the Copenhagen conference Dec 7-18.

‘I am more confident now than I was some days before,’ Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, told reporters.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana also participated in the meeting.

Other issues on the agenda were the war in Afghanistan, curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the economic recovery, trade and the Middle East peace process.

The United States has been criticized by the EU and other countries for failing to commit to curbs on its greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. Obama has been reluctant to agree to a strong global climate treaty without the backing of

Congress, where Obama’s fellow Democrats are struggling to pass a pollution-curbing bill.

‘We are confident that if all countries involved recognize this is a unique opportunity, that we can get an important deal done,’ Obama said during a separate meeting with Reinfeldt on Monday.

The United Nations hopes governments will agree to a new treaty that can replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The US-EU talks will continue on Wednesday.

The US Senate last week began considering a bill that would force US companies to cut their climate-damaging emissions, but even administration officials have acknowledged that a bill is unlikely to reach Obama’s desk in time for the Copenhagen talks.

By contrast, the EU’s 27 member countries on Friday reached a compromise on how much money to offer developing countries to fight climate change, a key stumbling block for a global treaty. Obama has not said how much the US is willing to contribute.

The EU’s 27 national leaders endorsed estimates by the European Commission, the EU’s executive, that rich nations will have to offer developing countries around 100 billion euros ($147 billion) per year by 2020.