Main US Presidential Candidates Still Tied in Intended Votes
The fight for the White House between US President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney will finish today at the polls but remains hard-fought, leaving little space for specific predictions.
Surveys published prior to today’s vote showed both contenders tied in terms of intended votes around the country, just slight advantages in the states where their respective parties are stronger.
A poll by the CNN television network granted 49 percent to each candidate, while the joint assessment from Politico and George Washington University granted them 48 points apiece.
Polls by other media sources as NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, ABC and The Washington Post show a breach of just one point in favor of Obama, although they show a 46-percent tie for the first time among the independent voters; those who are not registered as Republicans or Democrats.
The key to the tie-breaker is in the votes from Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio, all of them without a defined political trend.
These territories as a whole contribute 110 of the 538 electoral votes at stake during the contest and to reach the US presidency, a candidate needs at least 270 of those votes.
Thus, Obama and Romney have traveled frequently around these undecided states and targeted their respective propaganda campaigns there, in order to obtain the votes of their residents.
According to pollsters, the Democratic president leads those states by a narrow margin, while the Election Projection website predicted that he would obtain 303 electoral votes from around the entire country.
However, analysts put forward racial origin as a determining factor in the selection of the new head of state.
They recalled that Obama has great support from ethnic minorities (Asians, Muslims, Jewish, Afroamericans and Hispanic people) and Romney has white support, the proportion of which decreased from 69.1 percent in 2010 to 63.7 this year.
Besides the Democratic and Republican aspirants to the White House, the November 6 ballot will also include the names of Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party), Jill Stein (Green Party), Virgil Goode (Constitution Party) and Rocky Anderson (Justice Party), although they have little possibilities of winning.
Republican candidate Mitt Romney cast his vote on Tuesday morning in Boston, where his family’s residence is located, while Obama became the first president to cast an early vote, on Thursday, October 25, in Chicago.
Statue of Pharaoh Ramses II Found in Egypt
German archaeologists have excavated a granite statue of King Ramses II, covered by sand for millions of years in an area of the Lower Egypt Sector, announced official sources.
Adel Hussein, director of the Lower Egypt sector for the Antiquities Ministry, said the 2.47-meter granite statue shows Ramses II sitting between the goddess Bastit and the god Atum.
Ramses II is one of the most significant rulers in Egyptian history and ruled Egypt between 1279 and 1213 B.C.
Islamic Group Blamed for Death of 3,000 Nigerians
Nigeria’s Army blamed the radical Islamic group Boko Haram for the death of 3,000 people during violent actions since 2009, according to declarations of a high-ranking official of that body.
The estimated death toll, the highest reported by an official source on the victims of that organization, is the result of attacks in northern localities where Muslims represent the majority, stated Army Chief Azubuike Ihejirika.
Operations by ultra-orthodox militias in the last three years have forced our ground troops to update methods in accordance with the local Constitution, noted the spokesman.
Some Joint Action Force divisions have been deployed in the northern zone of the country, where radicals carry out most of their actions, but also operate in southern territories where Christians live.
Boko Haram carries out attacks against churches, Christian communities and state objectives such as police stations and other buildings.
Via PL