President-elect says demonstrations “very unfair” amid riots in Portland and marches in cities on East and West Coasts.

People have rallied in US cities against Trump’s win for a second day [Jonathan Bachman/Reuters]

Protests in the US against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s election victory have turned violent as demonstrators take to the streets for a second day.

Thousands of protesters on Thursday threw objects at police in Portland, Oregon, and damaged a car park, the Portland Police Department said on Twitter.

“Many in the crowd are trying to get anarchist groups to stop destroying property, anarchists refusing. Others encouraged to leave area,” the department said on Twitter after declaring the demonstration a riot.

As thousands of people marched, some vandalised shop windows, lit firecrackers and set waste bins on fire.

An estimated 4,000 protesters chanted “We reject the president-elect!”, with some throwing objects at police, prompting several arrests.

On the East Coast, protests occurred in Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, while on the West Coast demonstrators rallied in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland in California besides Portland.

Dozens in Minneapolis marched on to Interstate 94, blocking traffic in both directions for at least an hour as police stood by.

A smaller band of demonstrators briefly halted traffic on a busy Los Angeles freeway before police cleared them off.

Baltimore police reported about 600 people marched through the downtown Inner Harbor area, with some blocking roadways by sitting in the street.

Two people were arrested, police said.

In Denver, a crowd that media estimated to number about 3,000 gathered on the grounds of the Colorado state capitol and marched through downtown in one of the largest of Thursday’s events.

Hundreds also demonstrated in Dallas.

Thursday’s gatherings were generally smaller in scale and less intense than Wednesday’s, and teenagers and young adults again dominated the racially mixed crowds.

“Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!” Trump said in on Twitter on Thursday night.

Police pitched special security barricades around two Trump marquee properties that have become focal points of the protests – his newly opened Pennsylvania Avenue Hotel in Washington DC and Trump Tower, where he lives in Manhattan.

In the nation’s capital, about 100 protesters marched from the White House, where Trump had his first transition meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday, to the Trump International Hotel several blocks away.

At least 200 people rallied there after dark, many of them chanting “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!” and carrying signs with such slogans as “Impeach Trump” and “Not my president”.

Trump supporters say the protesters are not respecting the democratic process.

As of Thursday, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate, was leading Trump in votes nationwide 47.7 percent to 47.5 percent, but Trump secured victory in the Electoral College.

Thousands of people opposing president-elect Donald Trump march in Chicago and New York, chanting “not my president”.

A march in Chicago was one of Wednesday’s many anti-Trump rallies [Felicia Darnell/Al Jazeera]

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in several US cities to protest against Republican Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the presidential election, condeming his campaign rhetoric around immigrants, Muslims and other groups.

On Wednesday evening, thousands of protesters thronged streets in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Some burned a US flag as they reached the Trump Tower while other chanted: “Not my president”.

In Chicago, roughly 1,000 people attempted to gather outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower downtown while chanting phrases like “No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA”.

Chicago police closed roads in the area, blocking the demonstrators’ path.

Protesters condemned Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants and other policies perceived as affecting people of colour.

In his victory speech, however, Trump said he would be president for all Americans, saying: “It is time for us to come together as one united people.”

In Chicago, Angie Victoria, 27, told Al Jazeera: “I think [Trump] getting elected is an atrocity. There’s no way he’s qualified to be president, he’s so erratic. There’s no platform; he just appealed to people stewing in bigotry and racism.”

Izzy Mosser, 19, said: “A presidency under Trump is … scary. The only good thing is that people are coming together to stop him. It’s dividing and uniting at the same time.”

In Austin, the Texas capital, about 400 people staged a march through the city’s streets, police said.

Other protests were organised in Washington, DC, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Tennessee and other cities.

Earlier in the day, some 1,500 California students and teachers rallied in the courtyard of Berkeley High School, a San Francisco Bay Area city known for its progressive politics, before marching towards the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hundreds of high school and college students walked out in protest in Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles and three other cities in the Bay Area, Richmond, El Cerrito and Oakland.

A predominantly Latino group of about 300 high school students walked out of classes on Wednesday morning in Los Angeles and marched to the steps of City Hall, where they held a brief but energetic rally.

Chanting in Spanish, “The people united will never be defeated,” the group held signs with slogans such as “Not Supporting Racism, Not My President” and “Immigrants Make America Great.”

Many of those students were members of the “Dreamers” generation, children whose parents entered the US with them illegally, school officials said, and who fear deportation under a Trump administration.

Wednesday’s demonstrations followed a night of protests around the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the country in response to Trump’s political upset.

In heavily Democrat Washington, DC, hundreds of Trump opponents and a few of his supporters gathered by the White House, chanting in support of immigrants and against the president-elect.

Demonstrators attacked storefront windows and set garbage and tyres ablaze late on Tuesday in the business district of Oakland, California.

Washington: As Americans go to the polls on Tuesday to elect their 45th president, here’s what to watch out for:

All 50 states and Washington D.C. go to the polls across six different time zones on election day. Thirteen of the states are operating with split time zones.

Depending on the state, polling booths will open between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time and close between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. (If a voter is in line when polls close, then he or she gets to vote.)
But it is not just winning the popular vote that counts. The US’ system is a race to secure 270 out of the 538 votes in the electoral college.

Most of the US will have to wait for polling stations to close (typically between 5.30 a.m Wednesday and 6.30 a.m Indian time) for state projections.

One small town, Dixville Notch in New Hampshire, which is keeping alive a tradition of a midnight vote that began in 1960, has declared its result before the polls even open everywhere else.

Once the polls have closed, there will be a projection for each state based on opinion polls taken throughout the day, which are a good indication of the results – but not always correct.

According to CNN, the solid Republican states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The lean Republican comprise Georgia, Iowa, Maine 2nd Congressional District, Ohio and Utah.

The solid Democratic states comprise California, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Minnesota and New Mexico.

The leans Democratics are Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Battleground or Swing states (a state where the two major political parties have similar levels of support among voters, important to determine the overall result) are Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Nebraska 2nd Congressional District, New Hampshire and North Carolina,

The results are expected to be known in India by 9.30 a.m. IST on Wednesday morning. That’s when West Coast polls close and history suggests a winner’s declared. It was bang on the hour in 2008, and 15 minutes later in 2012.

Polls begin to close in western states from about 10 p.m. ET — or 8.30 a.m. India time.

Usually by around 11 p.m. ET November 8 on the East Coast it becomes clear that one side has prevailed, although the result could come sooner than that.

All eyes will be on the key battleground state of Virginia, which voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but was previously solid Republican.

Georgia is another one to watch. The state has voted Republican since 1996, but the party’s margin of victory has eroded in recent elections.

Also expect projections from Indiana, home to Trump running mate Mike Pence, Kentucky, South Carolina and Vermont.

Half an hour later, polls close in two further important states, North Carolina and Ohio, the swing state which has backed the winner at every presidential contest.

By 8 p.m. ET (6.30 a.m. IST), Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma will begin their state projections.

Another half hour later (7 a.m. India time) polls will close in Arkansas, which backed former President Bill Clinton at successive elections in the 1990s, but has voted Republican since 2000.

New York, Colorado, Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming and Nebraska might show their projections by now.

Polls close in the biggest electoral prize on the map, California, which is a Democratic stronghold, as well as Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Hawaii — 10.30 p.m. ET or 9 a.m. India time.

Depending on how the electoral college is stacking up, every media outlet could declare the next president of the US.

The president-elect will not actually become the 45th president of the US until January 20, 2017, which is Inauguration Day. The president-elect will place his or her hand on the bible and take the Oath of Office at noon.

From then, the government is in their hands. So is the White House. Usually, the sitting president and their spouse host the incoming-First Couple for tea before the ceremony.

About six hours later, the new First Family moves in.

Rights groups say recruitment of residents to counter alleged threat of Rohingya fighters will lead to more abuses.

Rohingya civilians have been displaced by a crackdown following the October 9 attacks [AP]

Authorities in Myanmar say security forces have begun arming and training non-Muslim residents in the north of Rakhine state to counter an allegedly growing threat from fighters belonging to the ethnic Rohingya minority group.

Human rights advocates say the move could lead to more conflict and abuses against civilians in Rakhine.

Colonel Sein Lwin, Rakhine police chief, told Reuters news agency on Wednesday that his force had started recruiting new “regional police” from among Buddhist Rakhine and other non-Muslim ethnic minorities in the border town of Maungdaw.

Candidates who did not meet the educational attainment standards, or criteria such as minimum height, required for recruitment by the regular police would be accepted for the scheme, he said.

“But they have to be the residents,” said Sein Lwin. “They will have to serve at their own places.”

Min Aung, a minister in Rakhine parliament and a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, said only citizens would be eligible to sign up for the police training, ruling out the 1.1 million Rohingya living in Rakhine, who are denied citizenship by the government.

Police will also start recruiting civilians in Sittwe, Rakhine state’s capital, next week.

Lin Lin Oo, a police official, said that initially 100 recruits aged between 18 and 35 would undergo an accelerated 16-week training programme in Sittwe on November 7.

Authorities said the auxiliary recruits would not form a new “people’s militia”, like those that fight in ethnic conflicts elsewhere in Myanmar.

Such militias – which are often accused of abuses against civilians – raise their own funds and are overseen by the army. The new recruits in Rakhine will be paid and come under the control of the border police.

Communal tensions

Human rights organisations and a leader of the stateless Rohingya told Reuters that the move risked sharpening intercommunal tensions in a region that has just seen its deadliest month since 2012, when hundreds of people were killed in clashes between Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

Soldiers have poured into the northern region along Myanmar’s frontier with Bangladesh following attacks on three border posts on October 9 in which nine police officers were killed.

Security forces have locked down the area – shutting out aid workers and independent observers – and conducted sweeps of villages in Maungdaw, where the vast majority are Rohingya.

Official reports say five soldiers and 33 alleged fighters have been killed.

The UN has called for an investigation into allegations that security forces have killed, raped and arbitrarily detained thousands of Rohingya civilians and razed their homes to the ground in a crackdown following the October 9 attacks.

The government has denied abuses by troops.

The military has also recently forced hundreds of Rohingya to flee their houses.

Ethnic Rakhine political leaders have urged the government to arm local Buddhists against what they say is rising security threats from Rohingya fighters.

“The minority ethnic people need to protect themselves from hostile neighbors,” said Min Aung, referring to non-Muslim ethnicities who are in a minority in the region.

“That’s why the government supports them as regional police, as well as with employment.”

Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has invited diplomats and the senior United Nations representative in the country on a visit to Rakhine from Wednesday to try to assuage concerns over aid access and rights violations.

But international experts working to rebuild relations in Rakhine, and human rights groups, say arming and training local non-Muslims could make the situation on the ground worse.

“It’s sad and telling that the authorities regard this move as part of a security solution,” said Matthew Smith, founder of Fortify Rights, an advocacy group.

Arming local Buddhists who may regard all Rohingya a threat to their safety was “a recipe for atrocity crimes”, Smith said.

“It can only inflame the situation and will likely lead to unnecessary violence.”

Kyaw Win, an ethnic Rakhine resident of Kyein Chaung village, in Maungdaw, told Reuters on Wednesday that he was interested in signing up for the training, but said he doubted the plan would allay his community’s security fears.

“It is not possible to live together with Muslims because they are invading and seizing our own land day by day,” he said.

A Rohingya community leader in Maungdaw, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said he was concerned Muslims might come under attack from the newly armed recruits.

“If they have guns in their hands, we won’t be able to work together as before,” he said.

London: Paul Beatty has become the first American author to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for “The Sellout” — a satire of race and class in the United States.

The novel, described by the judges as “shocking and unexpectedly funny”, tells the story of an African-American man who attempts to assert his identity, ironically by reintroducing slavery and segregation in his Los Angeles neighbourhood.

The 54-year-old author collected the 50,000 pound literary award at a ceremony at London’s Guildhall last night.

Beatty appeared overwhelmed with emotion and struggled for words as he began his acceptance speech.

“I hate writing,” the Los Angeles-born writer said.

“This is a hard book,” he went on. “It was a hard for me to write, I know it’s hard to read. Everyone’s coming at it from different angles.”

The author’s caustic wit and humour set against the backdrop of US politics earned him high praise from the judges, who compared his work to the likes of Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift.

Amanda Foreman, chair of the judging panel, said the novel had been chosen unanimously after four hours of deliberation.

“‘The Sellout’ is one of those very rare books that is able to take satire, which is in itself a very difficult subject and not always done well, and it plunges into the heart of contemporary American society with absolutely savage wit of the kind I haven’t seen since Swift or Twain,” she said.

“It both manages to eviscerate every social taboo and politically correct nuance, every sacred cow, while both making us laugh and wince. It is both funny and painful at the same time, and it is really a novel for our times,” she said.

Beatty, who now lives in New York, has three previous novels – “Slumberland”, “Tuff” and “The White Boy Shuffle”.

This is the third year that the award has been open to writers of fiction of any nationality. The shortlist included two British, two US, one Canadian and one British-Canadian writer.

The Sellout beat five other novels, including Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing, the bookies’ favourite.

Others in the running were Graeme Macrae Burnet for his Scottish crime thriller “His Bloody Project”, Deborah Levy for her novel “Hot Milk”, Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Eileen”, and David Szalay’s “All That Man is”.

The shortlisted authors each receive 2,500 pounds and a specially bound edition of their book.

The award was presented to Beatty by Camilla Parker-Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall.

(PTI)

WikiLeaks implied its supporters may be behind the attack and asked them to “stop taking down the US internet”.

The disruptions come at a time of unprecedented fears about the cyber threat in the US [Beck Diefenbach/Reuters]

Several of the world’s best-known websites were inaccessible across parts of the United States on Friday after hackers unleashed a series of attacks on a company that acts as a switchboard for the internet.

The attacks affected access to Twitter, Paypal, Spotify and other customers of the infrastructure company in New Hampshire called Dyn, which processes large volumes of internet traffic.

“The attacks came in waves,” Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from Los Angeles, said. “First targeting the East Coast of the United States, spreading then to the other parts of the country and even to Western Europe.”

“The websites that were disrupted were some of the top names in the internet: CNN and the New York Times, AirBnB, Reddit, HBO … a whole variety of sites were attacked.”

“Dyn is kind of a middle man that directs users to different websites and routes traffic from server to server in a complex way,” said Reynolds.

The attackers used hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices that had previously been infected with a malicious code that allowed them to cause outages.

“This type of attack is known as a distributed denial of service attack [DDoS],” explained our correspondent. “They used affected computers to fire requests at the servers of Dyn simultaneously and essentially overwhelm it.”

“The complexity of the attacks is what’s making it very challenging for us,” Dyn’s chief strategy officer, Kyle York, told Reuters news agency.

York said that at least some of the malicious traffic was coming from connected devices, including webcams and digital video recorders, that had been infected with control software named Mirai.

Security researchers have previously raised concerns that such connected devices, sometimes referred to as the Internet of Things, lack proper security.

The Mirai code was dumped on the internet about a month ago, and criminal groups are now charging to employ it in cyber attacks, said Allison Nixon, director of security research at Flashpoint, which was helping Dyn analyse the attack.

The Department of Homeland Security last week issued a warning about attacks from the Internet of Things, following the release of the code for Mirai.

‘Attacks continue’

On Friday, Dyn said in a statement that it had resolved one morning attack, which disrupted operations for about two hours, but disclosed a second a few hours later that was causing further disruptions. By Friday evening, it was fighting a third.

“The company fought back and was able to get things under control again,” our correspondent said. “But there were additional waves of attack. So this seems to be an ongoing situation.”

Attacking a large domain name service provider like Dyn can create massive disruptions because such firms are responsible for forwarding large volumes of internet traffic.

The disruptions come at a time of unprecedented fears about cyber threats in the US, where hackers have breached political organisations and election agencies.

The US government has formally accused Russia of conducting cyber attacks against US political organisations during the campaign for the November 8 presidential election, including hacking of  Democratic Party emails.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said they were investigating the attack on Dyn.

“We still don’t know who is responsible for this attack,” Reynolds said. “But it certainly seems to be an attack that took coordination and possibly a lot of resources. So this is not some teenaged kid in a basement somewhere hacking for fun.

“The purpose behind their attack is also very vague since nothing was stolen. It was just disruptive, so some people are theorising that someone is trying to figure out how to shut down the internet.”

WikiLeaks, a whistle blowing organisation that has been publishing hacked emails that allegedly belong to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, implied in a tweet that its supporters may be behind the attack and asked them to “stop taking down the US internet”.

WikiLeaks has recently said that founder Julian Assange’s internet access has been cut by an unidentified state actor.

Ecuador’s government later admitted that it had partly restricted internet access for Assange, who has lived in the South American country’s UK embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden since mid-2012.

WikiLeaks’ decision to publish documents affecting the US election was entirely its own responsibility, and the country did not want to meddle in election processes or favour any candidate, Ecuador said.

French president’s remarks in a new book draw criticism as he also says too many immigrants are arriving.

by Al Jazeera

President Francois Hollande told the authors of a book just published that France has “a problem with Islam” and there are too many immigrants arriving in the country who “shouldn’t be here”.

Hollande made the controversial remarks to the authors of A President Shouldn’t Say That… in December 2015, a month after gunmen attacked Paris, killing 130 people. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the deadly assault.

“It’s true that there’s a problem with Islam. No one doubts it,” Hollande is quoted as saying in the book published this week.

“It’s not that Islam poses a problem in the sense that it is a dangerous religion, but in as far as it wants to affirm itself as a religion of the Republic.”

Hollande also told the Le Monde journalists Gerard David and Fabrice Lhomme: “I think there are too many arrivals of immigration that shouldn’t be there.”

Immigration and national identity are key themes in campaigning for next year’s presidential election.

A string of attacks in France in the past two years, coupled with the Europe-wide migrant crisis, have stoked anti-immigration sentiment.

A heated debate about Muslim integration in staunchly secular France came to a head over the summer when about 30 towns banned the body-concealing “burkini” swimsuit. France’s highest administrative court later ruled that such a ban was a “serious” violation of basic freedoms.

The deeply unpopular Hollande has not yet declared whether he intends to stand for re-election.

But his arch-rival Nicolas Sarkozy, bidding for the centre-right nomination, is campaigning heavily on populist anti-immigration themes.

“Politicians from across the spectrum have almost a free rein to criticise/demonise Islam and Muslims and use it as a scare tactic whenever a particular leader or political party is in a critical situation facing the public opinion – knowing that the French Muslim citizens have no real organised lobby with the capacity to exercise any influence on the parties or politicians,” French sociologist and media critic Ali Saad told Al Jazeera.

“This reality is even clearer in the case of the present government, since all the Socialist Party’s tenors – such as [Prime Minister] Valls, [former finance minister] Macron, [and women’s rights Minister Laurence] Rossignol – are on the same wavelength as the president,” he added.

The French government’s policies – particularly in the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks and the subsequent declaration of a state of emergency – have come under harsh criticism from rights groups for the targeting of Muslims through detainment and harassment.

“In the long term, such a stigma endured by Muslim citizens would force them into seclusion, which could entail grave consequences for France’s social cohesion because isolation helps religious extremism to take roots and develop,” said Saad.

Asked about Hollande’s comments, government spokesman Stephane Le Foll reiterated the president’s remarks.

“There’s a problem with Islam today because Islam is politicised by some. There is a problem – and at the same time we need to be able to overcome this problem.”

Revered monarch who ruled the Southeast Asian nation since 1946 passes after a lengthy series of illnesses.

by Al Jazeera

Thailand’s venerated King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, has died at the age of 88, the palace has announced.

King Bhumibol passed away at Bangkok’s Siriraj hospital on Thursday. The palace did not give a reason for his death. He was 88 years old.

“His Majesty has passed away at Siriraj Hospital peacefully,” the palace said, adding he died at 15:52 (0852 GMT).

The highly revered monarch spent most of the past decade hospitalised for a variety of ailments, including kidney and lung problems.

The Royal Palace recently said the octogenarian had been in a “not stable” condition for several days after receiving dialysis treatment.

Bhumibol had been Thailand’s king since 1946 and had earned the deepest respect from the vast majority of Thais.

A constitutional monarch with no formal political role, Bhumibol was widely regarded as Thailand’s unifying figure in the nation’s fractious political scene.

Since 1932, Thailand has witnessed 19 coups, including 12 successful ones. The latest was in 2014 that installed the current military government led by former army general Prayuth Chan-ocha.

As his health deteriorated, the king’s participation in public affairs sharply declined in recent years.

Concern about succession has been entwined with Thailand’s political turmoil over the past decade. Widely viewed as the choice for the next king, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn hasn’t garnered the same respect as his father.

Vajiralongkorn – who lives mostly in Germany – flew back to Bangkok on Wednesday.

US musician wins prestigious award for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”

Dylan was awarded for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” [File: Ki Price/Reuters]

US singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

The Swedish Academy announced its decision on Thursday, drawing to a close the 2016 Nobel season.

Dylan’s surprise win marked the first time the prestigious award was bestowed to someone primarily seen as a musician.

The songwriter, 74, had been mentioned in the Nobel speculation for years, but few experts expected the academy to extend the award to a genre such as pop music.

‘Greatest living poet’

Regarded by many as the voice of a generation for his influential music and lyrics from the 1960s onwards, Dylan is still writing songs and is often on tour.

“Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary music is profound,” the Swedish Academy said, when it awarded the $930,000 prize.

His songs such as Blowin’ in the Wind, Masters of War, A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, The Times They Are a-Changin, Subterranean Homesick Blues and Like a Rolling Stone captured a spirit of rebellion, dissent and independence.

“He is probably the greatest living poet,” Swedish Academy member Per Wastberg said.

Nobel ceremony

This year, the Sweden-based body, which has awarded the literature prize since 1901, registered about 220 nominees that were later cut to a short list of five.

In 2015, the academy awarded Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, citing her writings on key events affecting Belarus during and after the Soviet era, including the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Soviet-Afghan War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

This year, the literature prize was the last of the six Nobels to be announced, following those for medicine, physics, chemistry, peaceand economics.

The six awards will be handed out on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.