Six In The Morning Tuesday November 8

US candidates hold final rallies before election day

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been criss-crossing America in a final push for votes before election day.

Both have held rallies in the battleground states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Mrs Clinton urged voters to back a "hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America" while Mr Trump told supporters they had a "magnificent chance to beat the corrupt system".

Polls give Democrat Mrs Clinton a four-point lead over Republican Mr Trump.

A record number of Americans - more than 46 million - have voted early by post or at polling stations.

There are signs of a high turnout among Hispanic voters, which is believed to favour Mrs Clinton.

India’s crackdown in Kashmir: is this the world’s first mass blinding?

A bloody summer of protest in Kashmir has been met with a ruthless response from Indian security forces, who fired hundreds of thousands of metal pellets into crowds of civilians, leaving hundreds blinded.
by Mirza Waheed


Tuesday 8 November 2016 06.00 GMT

For the past month, while the attention of the world has been fixed on every dramatic twist in the US presidential election, the renewal of armed conflict between India and Pakistan has barely touched the headlines. In the past few weeks, the two nuclear states have, between them, killed two dozen civilians and injured scores of others in exchanges of artillery fire across the disputed border – known as the “line of control” – that divides Kashmir into parts controlled by India and Pakistan.

The latest flare-up in the long-running war of attrition between the two countries comes on the heels of a bloody summer of protest and repression in Kashmir that has now been erased from memory by the banging of war drums in Delhi and Islamabad. Since July, when the killing of a young militant leader sparked a furious civilian uprising across the Kashmir valley, the Indian state has responded with singular ruthlessness, killing more than 90 people. Most shocking of all has been the breaking up of demonstrations with “non-lethal” pellet ammunition, which has blinded hundreds of Kashmiri civilians.

German town builds 13ft wall to separate refugees from residents

Local residents complain of noise amidst worries about house prices droppin

A suburban town in Germany is building a 13ft-high stone wall to separate residents from refugees living at a nearby migrant accomodation facility.

Officials from Neuperlach Sud, outside Munich, said the prospect of a wall was raised after locals complained about 160 unaccompanied young refugees moving into the area.

The residents argued the values of their houses would decrease due to the proximity of the refugee centre and the noise issuing from it.

The nearest houses to the shelter are located 25 meters away and are separated by a road.

Investigation of Jakarta governor fuels fears of rising Islamism in Indonesia

At least 50,000 Muslims took to the streets of Jakarta at the weekend. They want the city’s governor to be jailed on charges of blasphemy. On Monday, the police interviewed him for the first time.

Smoke rises up from the charred contents of trash cans on the boulevard outside the presidential palace in Jakarta. The cones of light beneath the streetlamps are thick with it. Street cleaners sweep past odd sandals abandoned by demonstrators in the heat of the moment. Soldiers with machine guns and batons rest on the grass. The garbage disposal teams heave barbed wire on the back of a truck for removal. Jakarta is recovering from the biggest demonstration it has seen in a long time.

Depending on whether you ask the police or the organizers, between 50,000 and 150,000 people marched through the Indonesian capital on November 4. They were demonstrating - peacefully at first, then violence broke out after nightfall - because in their eyes the governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as "Ahok," had insulted the Koran. "Ahok has to go," says Alit, a man in his late thirties wearing a Gaza-supporter T-shirt. That's why he's been out and about since seven o'clock in the morning.

Brutal Historical LogicDemocracy at a Dead-End in America

On the eve of the US election, Hillary Clinton has a lead in the polls, but it's a small one. Donald Trump's success is the logical outcome of the decades-long erosion of liberal democracy in America.

An Essay by Georg Diez

I can hardly believe it -- and my fingers are quivering as I type this -- but I'm afraid that Donald Trump will be elected as the next president of the United States.

How have I come to that conclusion?

It has been like a slow-motion train wreck that we have been watching in amazement, fear and disgust over the course of the past several months. But now, shortly before the trains finally plow into each other, something akin to understanding has set in.

It may have been misguided to focus too intently on the trains themselves. The real story is the history of this country, which is so deeply and traumatically divided. It is a country that is so profoundly rent asunder by shock and change, so gripped by fear, that it is hardly recognizable anymore.

Man in a bulletproof BMW saves 70 people from ISIS snipers

By Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN

When Ako Abdulrahman came under attack from ISIS militants advancing around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, he realized he needed protection.

The Kurdish Peshmerga fighter decided to invest in an armored car, but he had little clue the vehicle would end up saving the lives of dozens of people.

After shopping around, he settled on a bulletproof BMW, and paid $10,000 for the early 1990s model at a car auction.

"My friends were very happy when I bought the armored car," he tells CNN. "We started driving in it to the front line near Kirkuk, not worried about ISIS drive-by shootings or roadside bombs."

South Korea: Samsung offices raided in corruption probe

Electronics giant suspected of secretly funding sports activities of daughter of president's confidante Choi Soon-sil.

South Korean prosecutors investigating a confidante of President Park Geun-hye for corruption have searched the offices of Samsung, according to local media.

Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer of smartphones, televisions and memory chips, is suspected of having secretly funded the sporting activities of the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, Park's friend, it was reported on Tuesday.

Samsung, which is already reeling from the disaster surrounding its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, confirmed that its offices had been raided but gave no further details.

The company is suspected of having transferred $3.1m to a company owned by Choi in Germany.