11 dead, 41 hurt as suicide bombers hit Indonesian churches

Feb 4: Americans on Monday kicked off the first vote of the 2020 presidential race as the midwestern state of Iowa began its caucuses, the closely-watched first step in deciding which Democrat will face incumbent Donald Trump in November's election.

The two frontrunners, left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden face a key test in the sparsely populated state, with a handful of others looking to make their mark to give their campaigns momentum.

The Iowa vote is a critical early look at the viability of the 11 Democratic candidates still in the race - even though just 41 Iowa delegates are up for grabs, a fraction of the 1,991 needed to secure the party nomination in July.

Iowa Democrats filed into nearly 1,700 caucus sites - schools, libraries, churches, mosques and meeting halls with Sanders and Biden in the lead in the state, followed by former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is also on the left of the party.

But polling has fluctuated and Iowa's quirky caucus system - where voting is not by secret ballot but by public declaration for a candidate - makes the night hard to predict.

Luke Elzinga, a volunteer for Sanders, appeared early at Lincoln High School in Des Moines which was converted into a caucus location.

"I think he really inspires a lot of young people, a lot of disaffected voters who might not otherwise turn out," Elzinga, 28, told AFP news agency shortly before the caucusing began.

"And so I think he's the best candidate to beat Trump."

Three candidates - Sanders, Warren and Amy Klobuchar - have faced the unprecedented scenario of spending much of the past two weeks tethered to Washington for the impeachment trial of Trump instead of on the campaign trail in Iowa.

Even as candidates sought to make 11th-hour impressions on undecided voters, the senators were obligated to return to Washington for the trial's closing arguments on Monday.

Defeating Trump

In a vote scheduled for Wednesday, Trump is almost certain to be acquitted by the Republican-led upper house on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

For Democrats, second-tier hopefuls Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang look to outpace expectations and seize momentum heading into the next contest in New Hampshire on February 11.

Earlier on Monday Biden - who still holds the lead in national polls - brought pizza to a field office in a strip mall near Des Moines to thank volunteers.

"I'm feeling good about today," he said.

Like many candidates, Biden spent the weekend crisscrossing Iowa in a final push to convince undecided voters he is best placed to accomplish Democrats' number one goal: defeating Trump.

The president has not stood idly by. On Sunday he branded Biden "Sleepy Joe" and described Sanders as "a communist," previewing a likely line of attack were Sanders to win the nomination.

Unlike secret ballot voting, caucus-goers publicly declare their presidential choice by standing together with other supporters of a candidate.

Candidates who reach 15 percent support earn delegates for the nomination race while supporters of candidates who fall short can shift their allegiance to others.

Turnout is critical, and candidates and their representatives will seek to persuade voters on issues including healthcare, taxes and ending Washington corruption.

One key candidate who has opted not to contest in Iowa is billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, who entered the race in November but has surged into fourth place in RealClearPolitics' national polling average.

The former New York mayor, who has spent more than $300m on advertising, according to Advertising Analytics, is focused on running a national campaign with particular emphasis on states that vote on "Super Tuesday," on March 3.

Washington, Feb 21: US President Donald Trump has made yet another tall claim about the size of the crowd that will welcome him in Ahmedabad, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told him that there will 10 million(1 crore) people to greet him on his arrival for his maiden visit to India.

President Trump and First Lady Melania are scheduled to travel to Ahmedabad, Agra and New Delhi on February 24 and 25.

Speaking to reporters at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Tuesday, Trump said that Modi told him that "we'll have 7 million people between the airport and the event."

"So it's going to be very exciting. But he says between the stadium and the airport, we'll have about 7 million people. So it's going to be very exciting. I hope you all enjoy it," he said.

On Thursday, Trump upped the crowd size by three million at a 'Keep America Great' rally in Colorado.

"I hear, they are going to have 10 million people. They say anywhere from six to 10 million people are going to be showing up along the route to one of the largest stadiums in the world, the largest cricket stadium in the world, which is brand new and beautiful," said Trump, who is seeking reelection in the November presidential polls.

But according to a top civic official in Ahmedabad, the total population of the city is only around 70 lakh.

The authorities believe that between one to two lakh people are expected to line up along the 22-km route of the road show by Modi and Trump from the airport to the Motera cricket stadium, said to be the world's largest.

"We believe that around one to two lakh people will gather to welcome the dignitaries during the road show," Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra said on Thursday, contradicting the claims made by the US President.

As per the road show route plan, Trump and Modi will first reach the Sabarmati Ashram, a place closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, from Ahmedabad airport.

Addressing his supporters, Trump spoke about his India visit and said the "Namaste Trump" rally in Ahmedabad would spoil him.

"Prime Minister Modi said, we will have 10 million people greet you. Here's my problem. We have a packed house. We have a lot of people, thousands of people that couldn't get in. It's going to look like peanuts from now on," he said.

"I'll never be satisfied with the crowd. If we have 10 million people in India, how can I be satisfied when we fill up like a 60,000-seat stadium? I am getting spoiled," Trump said.

One of Trump's supporters from the audience then suggested that he build a bigger stadium.

As the deadly coronavirus has spread worldwide, it has carried with it xenophobia -- and Asian communities around the world are finding themselves subject to suspicion and fear.

When a patient on Australia's Gold Coast refused to shake the hand of her surgeon Rhea Liang, citing the virus that has killed hundreds, the medic's first response was shock.

But after tweeting about the incident and receiving a flood of responses, the respected doctor learned her experience was all too common.

There has been a spike in reports of anti-Chinese rhetoric directed at people of Asian origin, regardless of whether they have ever visited the centre of the epidemic or been in contact with the virus.

Chinese tourists have reportedly been spat at in the Italian city of Venice, a family in Turin was accused of carrying the disease, and mothers in Milan have used social media to call for children to be kept away from Chinese classmates.

In Canada, a white man was filmed telling a Chinese-Canadian woman "you dropped your coronavirus" in the parking lot of a local mall.

In Malaysia, a petition to "bar Chinese people from entering our beloved country" received almost 500,000 signatures in one week.

The incidents are part of what the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine has described as "misinformation" which it says is fuelling "racial profiling" where "deeply distressing assumptions are being made about 'Chinese' or 'Asian-looking' people." Disease has long been accompanied by suspicions of foreigners -- from Irish immigrants being targeted in the Typhoid Mary panic of 1900s America to Nepali peacekeepers being accused of bringing cholera to earthquake-struck Haiti in the last decade.

"It's a common phenomenon," said Rob Grenfell, director of health and biosecurity for Australia's science and research agency CSIRO.

"With outbreaks and epidemics along human history, we've always tried to vilify certain subsets of the population," he said, comparing the behaviour to 1300s plague-ridden medieval Europe, where foreigners and religious groups were often blamed.

"Sure it emerged in China," he said of the coronavirus, "but that's no reason to actually vilify Chinese people." In a commentary for the British Medical Journal, doctor Abraar Karan warned this behaviour could discourage people with symptoms from coming forward.

Claire Hooker, a health lecturer at the University of Sydney, said the responses from governments may have compounded prejudice.

The World Health Organisation has warned against "measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade", but this has not stopped scores of countries from introducing travel bans.

The tiny Pacific nation of Micronesia has banned its citizens from visiting mainland China altogether.

"Travel bans respond largely to people's fears," said Hooker, and while sometimes warranted, they often "have the effect of cementing an association between Chinese people and scary viruses".

Abbey Shi, a Shanghai-born student in Sydney, said the attitude shown by some of her peers has "become almost an attack on students who are Chinese".

While Australia's conservative government has banished its citizens returning from Wuhan -- the central Chinese city at the epicentre of the virus -- to a remote island for quarantine, thousands of students still stuck in China risk their studies being torpedoed.

"Right now it looks like they have to miss the semester's start and potentially the whole year, because of the way the courses are set up," Shi said.

According to Hooker, studies in Toronto on the impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS -- another global coronavirus outbreak in 2002 -- showed the impact of xenophobic sentiment often lasted much longer than the public health scare.

"While there may be a cessation of direct forms of racism as news about the disease dies down, it takes quite a bit of time for economic recovery and people continue to feel unsafe," she said.

People may not rush back to Chinese businesses or restaurants, and may even heed some of the more outlandish viral social media disinformation -- such as one popular post imploring people to avoid eating noodles for their own safety.

"In one sense you might think the effects lasted from the last coronavirus to this one because the representation as China being a place where diseases come from has been persistent," Hooker said.