Over the bitter objections of some black leaders, the US Justice Department approved a plan on Thursday for New Orleans' first elections since Hurricane Katrina.
The department still needs to approve a few polling place changes but otherwise gave its blessing to plans to hold elections for mayor, city council and other posts on April 22. Department officials also said they will send observers to monitor the balloting.
Black leaders have charged that Louisiana officials have not done enough to ensure that voters scattered by the storm will be able to vote. The state plans to set up satellite polling places around the state for New Orleans residents driven from their homes, but chose not to create such stations outside Louisiana.
"Two-thirds of the eligible population has been disenfranchised," the Reverend Jesse Jackson complained after the Justice Department decision. "This is more onerous than the poll tax laws of 1965."
The civil rights leader said he will organize marches and sue to block the election.
New Orleans was about 70 percent black before Katrina, and some blacks fear they will lose political power if the polls go forward now, when fewer than half of the city's 465,000 inhabitants before the storm have come back.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's president, Bruce Gordon, was among those who had urged the Justice Department to block the elections.
The mayoral election was originally scheduled for Feb. 4 but was postponed because of the damage and dislocation caused by Katrina.
Election procedures in Louisiana and many other Southern states are subject to justice department approval because of their history of racial discrimination.
Louisiana Secretary of State Al Ater has vigorously defended the plan. In addition to setting up the satellite voting stations, state officials are making it easier to vote by mail and plan to come to New Orleans to help strapped city agencies.
Also, information packets were sent to displaced voters on how to vote by mail and full-page ads were placed in newspapers around the country.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS