As the pair staged rivalries at duel rallies in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state, the US presidential candidate Kamala Harris has accused her Republican rival Donald Trump of threatening democracy.
On Monday night, Harris and Trump addressed their respective supporters in Oaks, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, while Trump held a town hall in the city of Erie.
A second Trump term poses a significant risk to both the United States and the country. According to Harris, “Donald Trump is becoming more unstable and unhinged,” Harris cited recent remarks in which Trump vowed to confront an “enemy from within”.
As the race for the White House rages on incessantly ahead of the vote on November 5th, Trump has leaned in.
The former president has used dehumanizing language about immigrants and recently suggested that the nation faced internal enemies that could be defeated with military might.
When asked about potential chaos on Election Day, he responded, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” he said in an interview that aired over the weekend. “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics”.
He added: “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by]the] National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military”.
Trump has also previously made comments on his social media platform that suggested his political rivals were traitors who needed to face military tribunals.
Democrats have been trying to portray Trump as a threat to US democracy for years, especially after a group of his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 to thwart Congress’s decision to declare the election results of 2020.
In the presidential election of 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump, who claimed the ex-president’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign was an “extremist movement that does not share the fundamental beliefs in our democracy.”
However, recent polls indicate that Harris and Trump are competing for the White House in a fiercely competitive election.
Harris has been conducting a media blitz in recent weeks to appeal to diverse demographics, including Black men as well as Arab and Muslim Americans, whose support for the candidate is declining.
She warned against extending Trump’s presidency by displaying clips of his most recent remarks at her rally on Monday.
“He considers anyone who doesn’t support him, or who will not bend to his will, an enemy of our country”, the US vice president said.
In Pennsylvania, a state in the northeast that could be crucial for the upcoming election, Harris has a slim lead of less than 1%, according to polling averages.
Trump, for his part, reiterated his commitment to increase US oil drilling at an event in the Pennsylvania town of Oaks, which he claimed would lower costs given that domestic production is at record highs.
“We’re going to drill baby drill. We’re going to have so much energy and we’re going to bring prices down”, Trump said.
The Republican candidate requested the audience play the song Ave Maria after medical issues at the crowd’s interruption of his town hall.
A doctor from the UK on his third medical mission to Gaza pleads with the world to put an end to the war. His plea comes after a Palestinian hospital’s tents were attacked for Palestinian refugees.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Malaysia’s stock market is experiencing a steady revival as billions of dollars pour into an exchange once written off as one of the region’s worst performers.
The benchmark index for Malaysia has increased by up to 17 percent over the past year as a result of the country’s robust post-pandemic economic growth and US tech companies’ surge in foreign investment.
The Bursa operator claims that during the first seven months of 2024, 289, 000 new trading accounts were opened, nearly double what they had opened for the entire year of 2023.
“The market appears to be emerging from a ‘ lost decade, ‘ where it was previously undervalued with little upward movement”, Stephen Yong, a licensed financial planner with Wealth Vantage Advisory, told Al Jazeera.
Long-time investor in the local stock market Yong said there was “significant room” for growth and that many businesses had been historically undervalued.
“The outlook is positive as we enter a recovery phase, with more investor funds flowing into the Asia Pacific region, including Malaysia”, he said.
Political unrest and a lack of economic competitiveness have been seen as a drag on Malaysia’s stock market over the past ten years.
During the 2010s, the Bursa’s Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI), consisting of the top 30 companies by market cap, hovered between 1, 500 and 1, 900 points.
In 2018, the market entered a years-long spiral of decline, as a rapid turnover of prime ministers, the fallout of the 1MDB financial scandal, and the COVID-19 pandemic battered investor confidence.
A Bloomberg article in 2019 dubbed the Bursa the “world’s worst major stock market” after it suffered a 14 percent slump over a year.
On May 7, 2021, during the first day of the third Movement Control Order in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [Vincent Thian/AP], motorcyclists wearing masks pass the Twin Towers.
Ignatius Luke Jr Tan, an investment banker for more than 40 years, said Malaysia’s market had until recently been effectively “moribund”.
“For years, it was neither here nor there… A lot of people in Malaysia did not believe the stock market was a place to make money”, Tan told Al Jazeera.
Feted as an emerging tiger economy during the 1990s, Malaysia began to lose steam after the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis, losing pace to neighbours such as Singapore, Tan said.
The economy is reflected in the stock market, according to the author. And post-2005, our economy was not primed towards growth. It was just chugging along”, Tan said.
Owner of The Edge, Tong Kooi Ong, noted in a stinging commentary in December that the KLCI had generated a return of about 1% over the previous ten years, which is below the typical return on a fixed deposit.
However, as the economy showed signs of growth and US tech giants announced billions of dollars in investments in Malaysia to expand their cloud and AI capabilities, market sentiment started to change this year.
In a report released by intelligence company DC Byte in July, Malaysia’s southern state of Johor, which borders Singapore, was named the fastest-growing market for data centres in Southeast Asia with more than 1.6 gigawatts of total supply.
Malaysia recorded 83.7 billion ringgit ($19.3 billion) in approved investments for the first quarter of the year, up 13% from the previous year, with more than half of those funds coming from outside.
In August, Malaysia’s central bank announced that gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.9 percent in the second quarter of 2024, the biggest expansion in Southeast Asia apart from Vietnam and the Philippines.
In the week ending August 30, foreign investors bought a net total of 1.50 billion ringgit ($34m) in Malaysian stocks, the biggest net buying spree since March 2016, according to MIDF Research.
IPOs on the rise
Additionally, initial public offerings have increased.
In comparison to 31 IPOs in the entire year of 2023, the exchange had 34 in the first nine months of this year.
Those included the market debut of 99 Speed Mart, which raised 2.36 billion ringgit ($542.8m) in the biggest listing in the country in seven years.
Valued at nearly 2 trillion ringgit ($430bn), Malaysia’s Bursa is still dwarfed by regional peers such as Tokyo, Seoul, Mumbai, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
However, its recent performance has outperformed that of much bigger rivals.
In a report from July, financial audit firm Deloitte reported that Southeast Asia’s IPO market had dominated in Malaysia during the first half of the year, raising about $450 million.
The Bursa hit 460 million ringgit for the first time in May, breaking the 1,600 mark for the first time in two years, and it has remained close to that level ever since.
A Bursa spokesperson told Al Jazeera that “the stronger economic fundamentals of the Malaysian economy, along with a number of macroeconomic factors,” supported the market’s positive performance.
“Analysts echo that there is room for further growth toward the year-end due to catalysts such as Fed rate cuts, continuous foreign direct investment (FDI) momentum, earnings recovery, ringgit strength, and positive news flows from infrastructure project awards”.
A remisier with four decades of experience in securities cautioned potential investors to exercise caution despite the local market’s robust performance calling it a “welcome change.”
“People watching the market right now may be tempted to jump on the bandwagon”, the remisier, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera.
There is no telling when foreigners will leave the market because they quickly cut their positions and leave the market if they find employment elsewhere.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim holds a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Germany on March 11, 2024]Liesa Johannssen/Reuters]
Political stability had a significant impact on the state of the economy, according to the remisier, despite the US tech firms’ interest in Malaysia being welcome.
Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia, outlived his three predecessors despite his election record of 68 percent after his election in November 2022.
He has not faced a significant public backlash for his rule despite having a government that featured former political rivals.
According to Sunway University economist Yeah Kim Leng, there are “sharply slower global growth, a heightened global financial market volatility, or supply chain disruptions that would spill over to the highly open Malaysian economy.”
Eza Ezamie, managing director of Laughing Tree, a business funding matchmaker, said he is optimistic about the stock market’s trajectory.
According to Ezamie, who spoke about the Overnight Policy Rate, the Malaysian central bank’s benchmark interest rate, the stock market will continue to grow for the next few weeks or few months as long as Malaysia maintains its consistency and OPR.
India and Canada have rekindled a diplomatic conflict that has been simmering for a while, with the two nations announcing the expulsion of diplomats amid allegations that Indian government agents are engaged in a terrorism-related activity that threatens Canadians’ safety.
The most recent row started on Monday when India’s Ministry of External Affairs claimed to have received “diplomatic communication” from Canada claiming Indian diplomats were being treated as “persons of interest” in connection with an investigation in the North American nation.
After the Canadian government announced it was looking into a link between Indian government agents and Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s killing on Canada’s west coast, New Delhi and Ottawa’s relations reached new lows last year.
New Delhi has denied any involvement in Nijjar’s killing, reiterating on Monday that it “strongly” rejected the “preposterous imputations” from Canada and would be withdrawing its diplomats and other officials from the country.
The Canadian government then announced the expelling of six Indian diplomats after they learned that federal police had found proof that Indian agents were engaged in a public safety investigation.
What we know about the growing diplomatic conflict, what Canada and India have said in response, and what might come next:
What has Canada said?
The federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) uncovered “clear and compelling evidence” that Indian government agents have engaged in and continue to do so, according to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday.
“This includes clandestine information-gathering techniques, coercive behaviour targeting South Asian Canadians, and involvement in over a dozen threatening and violent acts, including murder”, Trudeau said during a news conference.
The RCMP earlier in the day announced that it had discovered evidence of Indian government agents’ involvement in “serious criminal activity in Canada,” including connections to “homicides and violent acts” and “irregular interference in democratic processes,” among other things.
The RCMP stated in a statement that the evidence was directly presented to Government of India officials, asking for their cooperation in halting the violence and requesting that our law enforcement partners work together to address these issues.
Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign affairs ministry, then announced that six Indian diplomats and consular officials were being kicked out of Canada “in response to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents connected to the Government of India.”
Among those given instructions to leave was India’s high commissioner in Canada.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly directly connected the Indian officials to the Nijjar case in a statement. “The decision to expel these individuals was made with great consideration and only after the RCMP gathered ample, clear, and concrete evidence that identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case,” Joly said.
Trudeau speaks to reporters in Ottawa, Canada, on October 14]Blair Gable/Reuters]
What has India said?
India’s Ministry of External Affairs vehemently rejected Canada’s allegations, saying in a statement on Monday that “on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains”.
The ministry added that, “despite many requests from our side, the Canadian government has not shared a shred of evidence” with the Indian government.
The ministry later claimed to have called Canada’s charge d’affaires in India to inform him that “the Indian High Commissioner and other Canadian diplomats and officials were completely unacceptable.”
“We have no faith in the current Canadian Government’s commitment to ensure their security. Therefore, the Government of India has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials”, it said, adding that New Delhi “reserves the right to take further steps” in response.
The ministry then announced in a tongue-in-cheek manner that it would be ejecting six Canadian diplomats from India, including the acting high commissioner, and would give them until October 19 to leave.
Before the 2023 G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian counterpart Trudeau shake hands. [Photo via AFP]
How did India-Canada ties reach this point?
After Trudeau announced that Canadian authorities were looking into “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the killing of Canadian citizen Nijjar, tensions between the two nations soared in September 2023.
Nijjar was fatally shot on June 18, 2023, outside a Sikh temple where he served as president, in Surrey, British Columbia. He had a leading role in the Sikh campaign for a sovereign state in the Punjab region of India known as the Khalistan movement.
The Indian government has urged Western countries to repress leaders of the Khalistan movement, despite the country’s own largely dormant internal security apparatus.
India vehemently denied the allegations that it was involved in Nijjar’s killing, calling them “absurd”. It also accused Nijjar of being involved in “terrorism” – a claim rejected by his supporters.
After India and Canada’s accusations were first made public, both nations withdrew their respective diplomats.
In May 2024, Canadian police announced that they had arrested three men, all Indian nationals, accused of being involved in Nijjar’s murder. The RCMP stated at the time that it was also “investigating any connections to the Indian government.”
A fourth man, also an Indian national, was arrested and charged in Nijjar’s killing later that month.
Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar claimed that the country was “compelled” by the “political compulsion” to blame India for the recent events in Canada.
What comes next?
It remains to be seen if India, as its foreign ministry said on Monday, would take “further steps” in response to Canada’s accusations – and if it does, what those steps could entail.
The most recent accusations by Canada, according to Stephanie Carvin, a political analyst and professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, were “very serious” and “very likely to hampered India’s relations.” That “puts Canada in a difficult position”, she said.
“We are currently witnessing countries from all over the world trying to develop their relations with India,” according to the European Union, the United States, and Australia. She told Al Jazeera, “This kind of makes us offside all of our other allies.”
Practically speaking, Carvin also noted that Canada has a sizable population of South Asians and that many Indian students also study there. “These Indian]nationals], they do need consular services, they need diplomatic representation in this country”, she said.
Sikh Canadians reported to Al Jazeera over the past year that their ethnic group, which includes the largest Sikh diaspora outside of India and has 770, 000 residents spread across Canada, was concerned about Indian state interference.
The World Sikh Organization of Canada, a nonprofit that advocates for the community, said it welcomed the Canadian government’s announcement on Monday and demanded “the full prosecution of all individuals involved” in Nijjar’s killing, including Indian diplomats.
The Government of India’s continued foreign-interference activities in Canada and its history of deceiving Sikhs there have been Sikhs’ lived experiences for the past 40 years, according to the group.
Following a number of Israeli attacks on the UN peacekeeping force, the UNSC has expressed support for UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon.
The 15-member council urged “all parties to respect the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and premises” in a statement released on Monday that did not specifically mention Israel.
They “remembered that UN peacekeepers and UN facilities never should be the target of an attack,” the statement reads.  , “They reiterated their support to UNIFIL, underscoring its role in supporting regional instability”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking out against the UN peacekeepers, urging them to “heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way.”
UNIFIL has been ordered by the Israeli government to leave its positions in Lebanon, where Israel has intensified ground operations and a heavy bombing campaign that has resulted in the displacement of a quarter of the country’s population.
Gabriel Elizondo, a member of the UN Security Council, reported from the UN’s New York headquarters, “This meeting was about the Security Council coming together to make a statement and voice one support for UNIFIL.”
Israeli forces have attacked their positions several times over the past week, according to the UN peacekeepers, with two injured people who were injured when Israel attacked UNIFIL headquarters twice in 48 hours.
Over the weekend, Israeli tanks also smashed through a UNIFIL location.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who wrote in a social media post on Sunday that attacks against UN peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime,” has received widespread condemnation for those atrocities.
Despite Israeli pressure to leave its positions, the UN force has declared that it will continue to exist.
“We are staying. It’s crucial to maintain an international presence and the UN flag in the area because we are in the south of Lebanon under a Security Council mandate, according to a group spokesman on Monday.
UNIFIL consists of some 10, 000 peacekeepers from more than 50 countries, including Indonesia, India and Ireland.
On Sunday, the UN said it had observed 1, 557 incidents across the Blue Line, a demarcation point between Lebanese and Israeli-held territory, with 93 percent of that fire coming from Israel into Lebanon.
“There are a lot of peacekeepers there,” he said. Some in the hundreds, a couple with over a thousand”, Al Jazeera’s Elizondo said of UNIFIL.
Federal emergency personnel and meteorologists are being asked to take precautions after being threatened by the public because of recent storms that have caused such confusion.
Because of concerns over “armed militia” threatening government employees, according to the Washington Post, according to an email sent to federal agencies, forest workers were told to stop working over the weekend in one area of western North Carolina, which was hit by Hurricane Helene.
A statement from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office confirms that an armed suspect has been detained for threatening Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees in North Carolina.
A US Forest Service official who is supporting recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene, along with FEMA, sent a press release to other agencies on Saturday, urging them to “stand down and evacuate the county immediately.”
According to the message, National Guard personnel reported seeing trucks carrying armed militia “claiming to be searching for FEMA.”
Debris is strewn on the lake in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, October 2, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina, the United States]Mike Stewart/AP Photo]
A 44-year-old white man was detained for making threats against FEMA employees near Lake Lure, one of the most devasted areas, according to a statement from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office confirming that it had made the arrest.
However, it came to the conclusion that the suspect had performed alone and that no relief workers had been targeted by militia members.
The workers were forced to leave the area temporarily because of the threat, but they returned to work on Sunday afternoon clearing trees and delivering supplies, according to the newspaper.
Death threats
Meteorologists in Washington, DC, and Houston, Texas were accused of helping in cover-ups and government manipulation related to hurricanes, The New York Times reported. Additionally, a television station forecaster in Michigan claimed she had been subjected to death threats.
“Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes”, the forecaster in Michigan, Katie Nickolaou, wrote in a social media post. “I can’t believe I just had to type that”.
Weather forecasters typically have meteorology degrees. Some people claim that climate change is occurring, but they occasionally experience abuse online because of it.
Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist at an Iowa television news station, resigned from his position last year after receiving a death threat for his climate change on-air interviews.
With the US election looming in three weeks, the hurricane season has been particularly tense this year.
After a slow start, the hurricane season erupted in October with two major hurricanes, Helena and Milton, which have wreaked havoc in Florida and North Carolina and killed more than 300 people.
“We’re all talking about how much more it’s ramped up”, Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program, told The New York Times. He claimed there has been “a discernible difference in tone and aggression toward people in my field.”
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (centre) speaks as US President Joe Biden (right) and US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (left) in Raleigh, North Carolina, on October 2]Mandel Ngan/AFP]
Misinformation
Officials have complained that misinformation and rumors have made recovery more difficult in recent weeks.
After a rumor that government officials planned to seize the famined village of Chimney Rock and bulldoze bodies beneath the rubble, Rutherford County, hard-hit North Carolina, has become a source of unrest.
On TikTok, conspiracies abound with bizarre claims that Helene was “geo-engineered” by the government to disrupt voting in Republican districts. According to scientists, there is no technology that can cause a storm.
According to emergency responders and officials, including US President Joe Biden, the flurry of conspiracies about Helene stirs confusion and undermines relief efforts.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell stated to the ABC TV network on Sunday, “This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people.” “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. The state has backed us without a doubt.
Republican state senator Kevin Corbin from North Carolina pleaded in a Facebook post on October 3 to “Please stop this conspiracy theory junk.” People trying to do their jobs are merely distracted by it.
FEMA has so far distributed $40,000 in relief funds to 30, 000 homes in North Carolina, helping thousands of people who had been evacuated from their homes.
Around 1,500 active-duty soldiers are stationed in the state, and $100 million in federal funds are available for road and bridge repairs.
Distress helpline
Authorities and news outlets have repeatedly refuted allegations that militias continue to circulate on the internet to protest FEMA.
FEMA has made frequent announcements about how to assist hurricane survivors on social media, trying to do so.  , The agency also offers an emotional “Disaster Distress Helpline” for survivors.
“It’s okay to not be okay after a hurricane. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone”, one FEMA announcement reads on social media. “Take care of yourself — you matter”.
