World

A sharply polarized United States on Tuesday braced for a tense night of election results and legal challenges ahead as control of Congress and the future of President Joe Biden’s agenda stood in the balance.

A Republican victory could pave the way for a White House comeback bid by Donald Trump — who returned to his playbook of airing unsubstantiated claims of fraud, after a campaign fought largely over economic issues.

Biden, whose Democrats face a steep climb to hang on to the House of Representatives and Senate, has warned that Republicans pose a dire threat to democracy with more than half their candidates repeating Trump’s debunked claims of cheating in the 2020 election.

With razor-thin margins in key races, a full picture may not be available for days or even weeks.

In Arizona, expected to be one of the closest states, Republicans filed a lawsuit to keep polls open after problems with ballot machines in the most populous county of Maricopa, although officials said no one was being prevented from voting.

“I hope it’s not malice,” said Kari Lake, the Trump-backed candidate for governor. “When we win, there’s going to be a come-to-Jesus for elections in Arizona.”

In his final pitch, Biden vowed that the Democrats would defend pensions, health care and the freedom to have an abortion, after a Supreme Court transformed by Trump rescinded the right to choose.

“It’s all on the ballot. This election is too important to sit out,” Biden tweeted in a last-minute bid to drive voters to the polls.

But the president’s party has traditionally lost seats in midterm elections and Biden’s favorability ratings are hovering in the low 40s, with Republicans hitting him hard over stubbornly high inflation as well as crime.

– Trump teases new bid –

Among early projections by US networks, rising Republican star Ron DeSantis won a second term as Florida governor. He is seen as one of few who could challenge Trump for the 2024 nomination after making a name with tough talk against Covid mitigation measures and transgender rights.

One voter in Florida is Trump himself, who went to the polls teasing an expected announcement next week of a presidential run, telling reporters that November 15 “will be a very exciting day for a lot of people.”

All eyes will be on a handful of closely fought Senate races including in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Ohio, with a single seat enough to swing control of the Senate — now evenly divided and controlled by Democrats only through the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The outcome may also determine whether Biden, who turns 80 this month and is the oldest president ever, will seek a second term in 2024.

The bitter political divide in the country was on the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots.

“Some of the candidates who have been up for office recently are into mudslinging and negative campaigns,” said Quonn Bernard, a 39-year-old software engineer in Union City, an Atlanta suburb. “I just don’t want those people representing me.”

Voting in Phoenix, Arizona, Kenneth Bellows, a 32-year-old law student, said runaway inflation is “hurting Americans who are just trying to get by.”

Biden has said he believed Democrats would hold the Senate but it would be “tough” to retain the House and his life may become “more difficult.”

If both the House and Senate flip, Biden’s legislative agenda would be paralyzed as Republicans launch aggressive investigations and oppose his spending plans.

That would raise questions over everything from climate policies, which the president will be laying out at the COP27 conference in Egypt this week, to Ukraine, where some Republicans are reluctant to maintain the current rate of US military support.

– Machine trouble in Arizona –

Despite facing criminal probes over taking top secret documents from the White House and trying to overturn the 2020 election, Trump has used the midterms to cement his status as the de facto Republican leader.

The 76-year-old Trump immediately began casting doubts on the midterm vote through his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, pointing to problems with voting machines in Arizona.

“Same thing is happening with Voter Fraud as happened in 2020???”

Officials in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, said about 20 percent of the 223 polling stations there were experiencing difficulties but it would not affect the probity of the vote.

The campaign was marred by scattered violence with an intruder espousing far-right beliefs breaking into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and bludgeoning her husband with a hammer. 

Pelosi, who was the highest-ranking woman in US history at the time she first became speaker in 2007, said the Democrats hoped to prevail but would accept any election outcome.

Election Day is “a day where the sanctity of the vote is revered, where people vote, and we have to respect the results of that,” Pelosi told the PBS Newshour.

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Hairdresser Kimtse Kimo Castello is adamant that the small town where he lives, near a tropical forest, lies in Guyana and not Venezuela, which claims it.

“It’s not about giving it back. I doubt they (Venezuela) ever owned it, so there’s no question about giving it back, it’s ours!”

Castello is talking about Essequibo, a disputed area of 160,000 square kilometers that is administered by Guyana but which Venezuala has long argued is its territory. 

The region is home to 125,000 of Guyana’s 800,000 residents. Like the rest of Guyana, they speak English.

The former British colony sees its current borders, established by a court of arbitration in Paris in 1899, as accurate.

But Venezuela insists that the Essequibo river to the east of the region is the more natural border between the two countries, as was the case in 1777.

In 2018, Guyana asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to resolve the dispute and ratify the current borders.

– ‘Kind, welcoming people’ –

“Essequibo is 100 percent Guyanese. We are very clear about where our borders are,” Guyana President Irfaan Ali told AFP. 

However, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro often punctuates speeches with the claim that “the Venezuelan sun rises over Essequibo.”

Although not quite at the level of Argentina’s obsession with the Falkland Islands, the Venezuelan claim to Essequibo is regularly repeated in schools and barracks.

In September, Maduro published a photo of the Kaieteur Falls, the world’s largest single-drop waterfall and Guyana’s main tourist attraction, on social media with a map including Essequibo in Venezuela.

Many Guyanese demanded that Facebook and Twitter remove the “illegal and offensive publications.”

“It’s over, it’s Guyanese. We’ve been speaking English ever since,” said mechanic Andrew Bailey, 33.

“I actually (only) learned Venezuela was claiming it when I finished school,” he added, pointing to the region’s oil reserves as Venezuela’s motivation.

“They will always claim it,” said the hairdresser Castello as he cleaned his electric shavers in his small shop in Port Kaituma.

“I always felt Guyanese, and we are kind people, people that welcome anybody into the area,” he said, adding that explained the large numbers of Venezuelans in the area.

Around 25,000 Venezuelans who fled their country’s economic collapse live in Guyana, according to local authorities. Several thousand of them live in Essequibo.

– ‘Life better than in Venezuela’ –

Ironically, in the past, it was Guyanese, fleeing one of the poorest countries on the planet, who migrated to Venezuela where Caracas automatically bestowed citizenship on those born in Essequibo. 

In Port Kaituma, dozens of Venezuelan migrants squat in a three-story building abandoned by a Chinese company.

Anneris Valenzuela, 23, and her husband Tucupita, came from the Amacuro Delta, one of Venezuela’s poorest regions.

“We had nothing. We had nothing to feed our children,” she said.

Tucupita works as a day laborer.

“Life is better than in Venezuela, although it’s pretty tough. There’s no electricity, we use lanterns.”

Running water is intermittent, and when it rains, the building’s inhabitants bring out buckets, saucepans, and other receptacles to collect water.

“It’s a tough situation,” added Alexis Zapata, 47, who lives with seven family members in two rooms in the building, sleeping in hammocks attached to the walls.

“Here, at least we can find something to eat,” adds Zapata, who also left the Amacuro Delta, in August 2021.

He chose Guyana because of ease of access: there were no people smugglers to pay or police to avoid, and he could come on foot.

Zapata unloads boats that arrive at Port Kaituma and insists he is paid “less than the Guyanese” whom he says take advantage of the migrants’ precarious situation.

He insists Essequibo is Venezuelan. 

“That’s what I learned and what’s written in the (Venezuelan) books.”

However, the children of most of the Venezuelans living in Essequibo learn the opposite in Guyana schools.

Paul Small, 52, has dual Guyanese-Venezuelan nationality and went to school in both countries.

Born in Guyana, he moved to Venezuela at the age of around six or seven.

He spent most of his life there before returning to Guyana with his wife and children.

An odd-job man, he lives better than most migrants in a small house close to the center of Port Kaituma. 

“Life is better here. There is freedom, work, healthcare in hospital, security,” he said.

And for him, “Essequibo belongs to Guyana because it’s been that way since I was born.”

Hackers on Wednesday began leaking sensitive medical records stolen from an Australian health insurer with nearly 10 million customers, including the prime minister, after the firm refused to pay a ransom.

Medibank told investors that a “sample” of data from some 9.7 million clients had been posted on a “dark web forum” — and that more leaks were likely. 

Sensitive records were posted anonymously in the early hours of Wednesday and included names, birth dates, passport numbers and information on medical claims for hundreds of customers.

The victims were separated into a “naughty” list and a “nice” list. 

Some on the “naughty” list had numeric codes that appeared to link them to drug addiction, alcohol abuse and HIV.

For example, one record carried an entry that read: “p_diag: F122”. 

F122 corresponds with “cannabis dependence” under the International Classification of Diseases, published by the World Health Organisation.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, himself a Medibank customer, said the attack was a “wake-up call” for corporate Australia.

“I am a Medibank Private customer as well and it will be of concern that some of this information has been put out there,” he said.

The leaked data was posted on a dark web forum that cannot be found using conventional web browsers.

Medibank — which provides private health insurance to Australians wishing to supplement universal public healthcare — informed the Australian Securities Exchange about the leak shortly before the market opened. 

“The files appear to be a sample of the data that we earlier determined was accessed by the criminal,” the company said in a statement.

“We expect the criminal to continue to release files on the dark web.” 

The hackers were following through on an earlier threat to publish the data unless Medibank paid an undisclosed ransom. 

“P.S I recommend to sell Medibank stocks,” the purported hackers wrote on the forum about 24 hours before the first batch of data was released. 

With the political backing of Australia’s federal government, Medibank on Tuesday refused the demand — instead warning customers to remain “vigilant”. 

“Based on the extensive advice we have received from cybercrime experts we believe there is only a limited chance paying a ransom would ensure the return of our customers’ data and prevent it from being published,” Medibank boss David Koczkar said. 

– ‘Scumbags’ and ‘crooks’ –

The group also uploaded what they said were a series of exchanges between themselves and Medibank representatives.  

“We will do everything in our power to inflict as much damage as possible for you, both financial and reputational,” one message read. 

The security breach has already wiped hundreds of millions of US dollars off Medibank’s market value, with the company’s share price down over 20 percent since October, when news of the leak first emerged. 

AFP Assistant Commissioner Cyber Command Justine Gough said the “criminal or criminal groups” responsible for the hack could be operating outside of Australia. 

Australia’s assistant treasurer Stephen Jones said they were “scumbags” and “crooks”. 

“We shouldn’t be giving in to these fraudsters,” he told Sky News Australia. 

“The moment we fold, it sends a green light to scumbags like them throughout the world that Australia is a soft target.” 

As Medibank scrambles to contain the leak, it is also staring down the barrel of a potentially-costly class action lawsuit. 

Two law firms said Tuesday they had joined forces to investigate whether Medibank had breached its obligations to customers under the country’s Privacy Act.

The Medibank hack followed an attack on telecom company Optus in September that exposed the personal information of some nine million Australians.

NASA again rescheduled its long-delayed uncrewed mission to the Moon on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Nicole churned toward the east coast of Florida, officials said.

A launch attempt, which had been scheduled for November 14, will now take place on November 16, Jim Free, a senior official at the US space agency, said on Twitter.

It is the third delay of the highly-anticipated launch in as many months.

“Our people are the most important aspect of our mission,” wrote Free, who is NASA’s Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development. “Adjusting our target launch date for #Artemis I prioritizes employee safety and allows our team to tend to the needs of their families and homes.”

The Atlantic Ocean storm was expected to develop into a hurricane Wednesday near the Bahamas, before making landfall in Florida either later that evening or early Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said.

A hurricane warning has been issued near the Kennedy Space Center, where the rocket — NASA’s most powerful ever — is to blast off.

With Nicole gaining strength, “NASA… has decided to re-target a launch for the Artemis I mission for Wednesday, Nov. 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the storm has passed,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday evening.

NASA added that a launch occurring during a two-hour window that opens at 1:04 am EST (0604 GMT) on November 16 would result in a splashdown on Friday, Dec. 11.

A back-up launch date has been set for November 19.

NASA said it would leave the giant SLS rocket on the launch pad, where it had been placed several days before.

After two launch attempts were scrubbed this summer because of technical problems, the rocket had to be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building to protect it from Hurricane Ian.

Last week, the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket was rolled back out on a giant platform known as the crawler-transporter designed to minimize vibrations.

Earlier Tuesday, Nicole was packing sustained winds near 65 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) with higher gusts and was expected to strengthen even further, according to the NHC.

Some experts have voiced concern that the rocket, which is estimated to cost several billion dollars, could be damaged by debris from the hurricane if it remains exposed. 

“As far as staying at the pad, we want to see peak winds less than 74.1 knots, and that’s kind of the key requirement that we’re tracking,” said chief rocket engineer John Blevins.

The SLS rocket is designed to withstand 85 mile-per-hour (74.4-knot) winds at the 60-foot level with structural margin, NASA said. It is designed to also withstand heavy rains at the launch pad and the spacecraft hatches have been secured to prevent water intrusion.

The uncrewed mission, dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States a step closer to returning astronauts to the Moon five decades after humans last walked on the lunar surface.

The goal of Artemis 1, named after the twin sister of Apollo, is to test the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule that sits on top.

Mannequins are standing in for astronauts on the mission and will record acceleration, vibration, and radiation levels.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday that the UK will continue to play a vital role in NATO for generations, ahead of a visit by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The NATO chief will be the first international leader Sunak has met in Downing Street since he took office last month.

Wednesday’s talks will centre on UK support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February, and the alliance’s future, Sunak’s office said.

“As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, we must not take peace at home for granted,” Sunak said in a statement.

“I am determined the UK will be the bedrock of NATO for generations to come,” he added.

“But in order to face the challenges of the future we must evolve as an alliance to meet, and remain ahead of, the threat from our adversaries.”

NATO said separately that Stoltenberg would also meet UK foreign minister James Cleverly.

Stoltenberg will meet Sunak after visiting a military facility where Ukrainian troops are being trained by British military.

Britain has offered to train a total of 19,000 Ukrainian recruits in vital battlefield skills including marksmanship, weapons handling, urban and trench warfare and first aid.

Sunak announced on Tuesday that the UK is sending Ukrainian soldiers extra equipment to help them get through the harsh winter, including more than 25,000 sets of extreme cold weather clothing, 12,000 sleeping kits and 150 heated tents.

One of the new prime minister’s first calls in the job was to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had close ties with former prime minister Boris Johnson.

Sunak promised him he would continue Britain’s “steadfast support” and solidarity for Ukraine.

Sam Bankman-Fried has undergone a rapid transformation from top of the heap in the world of cryptocurrencies as chief of the FTX digital exchange to embattled executive forced to seek help from rival Binance.

The rapid about-face was a shock: Only Monday, Bankman-Fried insisted FTX was financially stable.

But in a tweet Tuesday, Changpeng Zhao, head of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, said the group had signed a non-binding letter of intent “to fully acquire FTX.com,” in response to the company’s request for help amid “a significant liquidity crunch”.

It was a stunning setback for the 30-year-old billionaire, known on social media as SBF, who was hailed by many for his meteoric rise. Fortune magazine went so far as to wonder in August if he was the new Warren Buffett.

After founding cryptocurrency investment fund Alameda Research in 2017, Bankman-Fried moved to Hong Kong and co-founded FTX.

The company was valued early this year at $32 billion, a capitalization which put it close to giants Coinbase and Binance. 

– Rapid rise –

Bankman-Fried, a vegan who sleeps four hours a night, had become a public face of crypto money, with a personal fortune estimated at nearly $25 billion, which according to Forbes magazine has since shrunk to $16.6 billion. 

The success of FTX allowed the platform to forge prestigious partnerships, notably with American football legend Tom Brady and former supermodel Gisele Bundchen, and it featured comedian Larry David in a Super Bowl television advertisement. 

Almost always appearing with a hoodie and a dark T-shirt, Bankman-Fried has pledged to donate almost all of his fortune to his favored causes, like animal welfare and the fight against global warming.

The son of Stanford Law School professors and a graduate of the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he worked as a broker on Wall Street before turning to cryptocurrencies in 2017. 

Bankman-Fried moved the company to the Bahamas, where taxes are almost nonexistent, saying the Caribbean nation is “one of the few countries that has a comprehensive licensing regime for cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges.” 

He has been a vocal advocate for smoother access to the crypto market for the general public, particularly in the United States. 

“It would be healthy for everyone involved if there was a regulatory pathway to getting licensed and bringing federal oversight,” he told AFP during a February interview.

– Stunned – 

In early July, as the virtual currency market took a nosedive, FTX came to the rescue of cryptocurrency lending company BlockFi, which was in the midst of its own liquidity crisis. FTX put up an option to buy it out for $240 million. 

A few days later, Voyager Digital, another specialist in cryptocurrency loans, revealed a debt totaling $75 million with Bankman-Fried’s investment fund. 

Described by his admirers as the white knight of a sector plunged into turmoil, SBF suddenly saw its star fade when Changpeng Zhao expressed doubts about the solvency of Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research and decided to withdraw its capital.

Just over 24 hours after denying rumors of trouble, Bankman-Fried announced on Twitter that he had reached a “strategic transaction” with Binance. 

The decision that left many of its subscribers stunned. 

“Can someone explain to me what this means as if I were a 5-year-old child?” asked Sahil Bloom of the SRB investment fund.

Hundreds of migrants waiting aboard rescue ships after Italy denied them entry finally came ashore Tuesday, even as a diplomatic row broke out between Paris and Rome over another vessel seeking safe harbour.

Nearly 500 migrants have been in limbo after being rescued by three different charity ships last month during their perilous crossing from North Africa to Italy’s shores.

But on Tuesday night, the Geo Barents and the Humanity 1 finally disembarked the nearly 250 migrants they carried after Italian health authorities gave them the green light at Sicily’s eastern port of Catania. 

“My life is back!” shouted one of the migrants, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which operates the Geo Barents.

Both the Geo Barents and Humanity 1, run by non-governmental group SOS Humanity, docked at the weekend in Catania, disembarking about 500 of the most vulnerable migrants.

But Italian authorities denied entry to approximately 250 others and ordered the ships to return to sea with them on board, a directive both groups rejected.

After appealing to Italy unsuccessfully since October 27 to dock, a third ship, the Ocean Viking, sailed away from Sicilian waters towards France with 234 migrants on board.

“Facing the silence of Italy and the exceptionality of the situation, the Ocean Viking has now escalated her request for a place of safety in France,” said the group, run by European charity SOS Mediterranee under a Norwegian flag.

The vessel was expected to approach Corsica by Thursday, it said. 

– Diplomacy test –

The handling of the ships is a first test for Italy’s new far-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has vowed to stop the tens of thousands of migrants who land on the country’s shores every year.  

But a diplomatic row erupted after Meloni thanked France for opening a port to the Ocean Viking — in anticipation of any confirmation, or denial, by France. 

“We express our heartfelt appreciation for France’s decision to share responsibility for the migration emergency, which until now has remained on the shoulders of Italy and a few other Mediterranean states,” Meloni said in a statement. 

France’s interior ministry declined comment, while SOS Mediterranee said they had received no confirmation from French authorities that they could dock.

A French government source told AFP the behaviour of Italy in the matter was “unacceptable, contrary to the law of the sea and to the spirit of European solidarity”. 

“We expect something else from a country that is today the first beneficiary of the European solidarity mechanism,” the source said, referring to Italy’s majority slice of post-Covid EU recovery funds. 

Italian news agency AGI, without citing sources, said France had agreed to accept the Ocean Viking at Marseille. Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed the deal Monday night during the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt, AGI reported.

– Mounting anxiety –

Earlier Tuesday, a fourth boat — the Rise Above operated by Germany’s Mission Lifeline — successfully disembarked all its 89 migrants, mostly minors, at the port of Reggio Calabria at the toe of Italy.

Rights groups have called illegal an Italian decree that permitted the Geo Barents and Humanity 1 to dock only for the time it took to help emergency migrant cases.

SOS Mediterranee said the choice of which migrants to allow onto Italian soil was “selective and discriminatory”. 

Charity groups said migrants who have been waiting on the ships were suffering from acute psychological stress. 

On Monday, migrants on the stern of the Geo Barents held up signs and chanted “Help us”!

Two Syrians jumped into the water and were pulled out, and then spent the night on the dock refusing food and water, MSF said.

Ships chartered by humanitarian organisations regularly pick up migrants from overcrowded boats in distress in the Mediterranean.

But their passengers account for only 14 percent of the more than 87,000 people who have landed in Italy so far this year, the interior ministry says.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Monday the government is acting “with humanity but firmly based on our principles”.

Piantedosi said he was working at a national and European Union level to reduce the burden on Italy after years of complaints from Rome that the bloc was not doing enough.