'This Is Painful': Hillary Clinton Addresses Stunned Staff And Nation In Defeat

November 10, 2016

Washington, Nov 10: Hillary Clinton saw a rancorous campaign through to its bitter end on Wednesday, conceding the presidency to a man she had called unfit for the office and a threat to the fabric of the country.

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In defeat, Clinton turned one of her central attacks on Donald Trump into a charge for the presidency she was denied, urging the next president and her disheartened supporters to respect the peaceful transfer of power.

"We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought," Clinton said hours after losing a presidential election she had been widely seen as sure to win. "But I still believe in America, and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future."

Speaking to a hastily assembled group of campaign staff, volunteers and supporters, Clinton went on: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead."

She grew misty-eyed but maintained her composure even as her supporters could not throughout a speech she never imagined giving, in a hotel ballroom farther in feel than in distance from the exquisitely planned celebration she did not have on Tuesday night.

Hours earlier, Clinton had also planned to speak of the promise of "an America that's hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted." She had planned to call for unity and healing, with her own history-making election as the first female president a galvanizing example.

That dream started to unravel about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, when roughly half the states had voted and results showed a Trump lead that Clinton's confident, data-driven campaign had not foreseen.

Clinton's second unsuccessful run for the White House relied heavily on a complex computer algorithm that the campaign was prepared to publicly unveil after the election.

As election results rolled in Tuesday, Clinton watched from a suite in the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan as her would-be electoral advantage disappeared. The gulf opened and never closed as Trump performed more strongly than expected in several upper-Midwestern states that had voted for Democrats for a generation.

Earlier in the night, top Clinton aides bounced around the room doing media interviews and chatting with reporters, projecting optimism that Clinton's voters would come through with record turnout.

But by 9 p.m., the early warning signs had become dire. Virginia, a state that they thought would be an easy win, was looking like a squeaker. Florida had begun to appear out of reach. And Trump's victories in Iowa and Ohio, which were expected, became the leading edge of a Trump wave that swamped Clinton.

Not only did Trump capture big margins in battleground states, outperforming expectations for a divisive and damaged candidate, but he outperformed 2012 nominee Mitt Romney in some categories. Meanwhile, Clinton underperformed with the groups she needed most - minorities and younger voters - showing that she could neither recreate the much-admired "Obama coalition" nor assemble what her aides had begun to call her own "Hillary coalition."

One by one, Clinton aides began disappearing from the main hall and not answering their phones. They retreated to a nearby war room, which was cordoned off and guarded, and never returned. The mood outside the room turned from confusion to disbelief, anger and dejection.

Back at the Peninsula, campaign aides who were not part of Clinton's small core of intimate friends and advisers gradually peeled away and came to the Javits Center in ones and twos. Eventually it was only Clinton, her family and the closest advisers including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills making the decision first to put off a concession speech and then to concede by phone.

Mills smiled softly and shook her head when asked Wednesday what those hours were like.

"It's too raw," she said as she talked with Clinton supporters outside the New Yorker Hotel, where Clinton, flanked by running mate Sen. Tim Kaine, Va., and her husband and daughter, had said goodbye.

Clinton did not dwell Wednesday on what other friends said was an agonizing reckoning in that hotel room, but the mood was akin to the funeral for a sudden death - shocking, mystifying and starkly real. It was clear that no one - not Clinton, not her husband, not her supporters, not the core team of her campaign - had seen it coming.

"I know how disappointed you feel because I feel it too, and so do tens of millions of Americans who invested their hopes and dreams in this effort," Clinton said. "This is painful, and it will be for a long time."

Time and time again, Clinton and the team seemed to miss the magnitude of the forces that would overtake her in the Democratic primary and later against Trump.

It wasn't until Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont showed surprising strength in Iowa that the Clinton campaign put real stock in the strength of his populist economic message. The same forces helped Trump win on Tuesday.

Clinton would need voters to choose her over her opponents because of how she would "handle the economy and relate to the middle class," her campaign manager Robby Mook wrote in an email to close advisers in March 2014.

But more often, the effort to disqualify Trump based on his temperament took precedence over an economic focus.

Clinton's aides knew that there were soft spots in the Obama voting coalition that could pose problems for Clinton's bid. Her support among young voters was fragile, and in early voting, African American turnout and enthusiasm lagged.

In the end, Clinton's inability to bring out Democratic voters in the election was a dramatic failure that left her more than 5 million votes shy of Obama's total in 2012, according to preliminary results. Trump was ultimately able to claim victory having earned fewer votes than Romney did in 2012.

Latino voters did turn out in 2016, but many more than expected were willing to give Trump a shot at the White House. Among nonwhite voters, Clinton led Trump by 54 points - a whopping advantage but less than Obama's 61-point lead four years ago.

These miscalculations probably cost Clinton key states that Obama won four years ago: Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and Pennsylvania. Clinton walked away having won the popular vote but having lost badly to Trump in the electoral college.

While her reliance on analytics became well known, the particulars of "Ada" the algorithm's work were kept under tight wraps, according to aides. The algorithm operated on a separate server than the rest of the Clinton operation as a security precaution, and only a few senior aides had access.

According to aides, a raft of polling numbers, public and private, were fed into the algorithm, as well as ground-level voter data collected by the campaign. Once early voting began, those numbers were factored in, too.

With that, aides said, Ada ran 400,000 simulations a day of what the race against Trump might look like. It spat out a report giving campaign manager Mook and others a detailed picture of which battleground states were most likely to tip the race in one direction or another - and guiding decisions about where to spend time and deploy resources.

But was it the right guidance? It appears that the importance of some states Clinton would lose - including Michigan and Wisconsin - never became fully apparent or that it was too late once it did.

Clinton made several visits to Michigan during the general election, but it wasn't until the final days that she, Obama and her husband made a concerted effort.

As for Wisconsin, Clinton didn't make any general-election appearances there at all.

Said Mook, in a wee-hours thank-you note to campaign workers: "Campaigns are incredibly hard, and sometimes the results don't reflect the merit, work and commitment that goes into them. This is one of those times."

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News Network
April 18,2020

Washington, Apr 18: The United States on Friday passed 700,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

With the highest number of cases and deaths of any country in the world, the US had recorded 700,282 cases of COVID-19 and 36,773 deaths as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday), according to the Baltimore-based university.

That marked an increase of 3,856 deaths in the past 24 hours, but that figure likely includes "probable" virus-linked deaths, which had not previously been counted.

This week, New York City said it would add 3,778 "probable" virus deaths to its official count.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a toll Friday night of 33,049 dead, including 4,226 probable virus-linked deaths.

The United States has seen the highest death toll in the world in the coronavirus pandemic, ahead of Italy (22,745 deaths) although its population is just a fifth of that of the US.

Spain has recorded 19,478 deaths, followed by France with 18,681.

Trump announces $19 billion relief for farmers amid COVID-19 epidemic

President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion financial rescue package to help the agriculture industry weather the staggering economic downturn sparked by measures to defeat the coronavirus.

Trump told a press conference the government "will be implementing a $19 billion relief program for our great farmers and ranchers as they cope with the fallout of the global pandemic."

The program will include direct payments to farmers, ranchers and producers who Trump said have experienced "unprecedented losses during this pandemic."

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said US farmers have been hit hard by a sharp shift in demand, as schools and restaurants close and more Americans eat at home.

That has disrupted the food supply chain, forcing farmers in many places to destroy dairy output and plow under crops that no longer have buyers.

"Having to dump milk and plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them," Perdue said.

Perdue said some $3 billion of the money would go to buying produce and milk from such farmers, and redistribute it to community food banks.

Millions of Americans have recently turned to food pantries for meals and groceries after losing their jobs.

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News Network
June 19,2020

London, Jun 19: Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner who once took a bullet for campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan, was over the moon on Friday after completing her degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Britain's prestigious Oxford University.

Malala, 22, who attended Oxford's Lady Margaret Hall college, took to Twitter to share two pictures that show her celebrating the milestone with her family.

"Hard to express my joy and gratitude right now as I completed my Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford," she said in the tweet, accompanied by two pictures - one showing her sitting with her family in front of a cake that says: 'Happy Graduation Malala', and the other in which she is covered with cake smiling for the camera.

In the tweet, the famed human rights activist also revealed her plans for the immediate future - Netflix, reading and sleeping.

"I don't know what's ahead. For now, it will be Netflix, reading and sleep," she wrote.

Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban militants in December 2012 for campaigning for female education in the Swat Valley in northeastern Pakistan.

Severely wounded, she was airlifted from one military hospital in Pakistan to another and later flown to the UK for treatment.

After the attack, the Taliban released a statement saying that they would target Malala again if she survived.

At the age of 17, Malala became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her education advocacy in 2014 when she shared the coveted honour with India's social activist Kailash Satyarthi.

Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, she moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.

The Taliban, who are against girls' education, have destroyed many schools in Pakistan.

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News Network
May 9,2020

Beijing, May 9: Mounting a strong defence of the ruling Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping has said the COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership and the country's socialist political system can overcome any challenge.

Xi's comments came as China faced global criticism for its initial inaction to act against the novel coronavirus, which according to Chinese officials emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year.

Pressure is also mounting on Beijing to agree for an international probe on the origins of the vicious virus, including from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as claimed by the US leadership.

China curbed the spread of the coronavirus in over a month and brought COVID-19 under control at its first epicentre in Wuhan in about three months, Xi, also the General Secretary of the CPC, said at a symposium held on Friday to get suggestions from non-ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) parties on COVID-19 prevention and control.

He termed the curbing of the COVID-19 pandemic as "hard-won achievements" for the world's most populous country and the second-biggest economy.

The COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership, China's socialist system and its governance system can overcome any challenge and make big contributions to the progress of human civilisation, he said.

Xi said China had basically curbed the spread of the virus in over one month, managed to bring the daily number of new domestically-transmitted cases down to single digits in about two months, and secured decisive achievements in protecting epicentres Wuhan and Hubei province in about three months.

"For a huge country with 1.4 billion people, these are hard-won achievements," he said

Besides the top CPC officials, the symposium was attended by members of the central committees of non-CPC parties in China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and persons without party affiliation.

The speakers at the symposium praised the Chinese leadership in handling the crisis, saying it fully demonstrated the political advantage of China's socialist system and showed that China was a major responsible country.

Xi, who is also the head of the People's Liberation Army, praised China's one-party political system governed by the CPC.

His comments on the country's political system came as Beijing is also defending the role of the CPC as US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have blamed the ruling party for not being transparent in the fight against the pandemic.

Both Trump and Pompeo have been pressing Beijing to allow American experts for a probe on whether the virus emerged from the WIV, China's premier research lab where viruses of different types are reportedly researched.

At the symposium attended by the top CPC officials, Xi's leadership came for praise for successfully handling the situation, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

"Attendees noted the major strategic achievements in the COVID-19 fight under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core," the report said.

The meeting was held amid reports of murmurs of internal criticism within the CPC about Xi's handling of the coronavirus crisis.

While China's move of handling the coronavirus from January 23 by locking down Hubei province and its capital Wuhan to prevent the spread of the virus and curbing it by deploying 42000 medical personnel has been praised, Beijing is criticised for its slow reaction after it emerged in December last year.

China used less than a week to identify the full genome sequence of the novel coronavirus and isolate the virus strain, produced various testing kits and swiftly selected a number of effective drugs and treatments. Different types of vaccines have also entered clinical trials.

President Xi said during the COVID-19 fight, China upheld the centralised and unified leadership of the CPC and concentrated the nation's best doctors, the most advanced equipment and the most needed resources to treat patients, with all treatment expenses covered by the state.

It managed to maximise the testing and cure rates while minimising the infection and fatality rates.

As of Friday, the COVID-19 death toll in China remained at 4,633 with no new fatalities reported for several days while the total number of cases stood at 82,887. In contrast, Chinese officials point out the death toll in the US which has crossed 75,000 with over 1.2 million cases, besides the mounting global toll.

Almost all countries in the world have been under lockdown for weeks to control the spread of the virus.

Xi called for mobilising the whole society, leveraging the institutional strength of concentrating resources to get things done and tapping the composite national strength as well as closely relying on science and technology.

On international cooperation, Xi said China had helped countries and international organisations to the best of its ability, demonstrating the nation's sense of responsibility as a major and responsible country.

Xi also stressed fixing the shortcomings in the country's major epidemic prevention and control mechanism and for the national public health system to raise the ability to deal with major public health emergencies.

He emphasised on targeted and effective measures to guard against the importation of cases and prevent a resurgence of the epidemic.

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