International
Rudy Salas, a key record to recover the Democratic majority in the US Lower House.
Rudy Salas has become a key file for the Democrats to regain control of the US Lower House by competing for an agricultural district of California, Hispanic and in which his party has surpassed in recent years the Republican in the voter registry.
Salas, 47 years old and who seeks to make history as the first Hispanic elected to the country’s Congress by District 22, told EFE that he hopes to give his community a leader who fights for their true needs.
The candidate faces for the second time the Republican congressman David Valadao, who won the elections in 2022 by just 4,000 votes, in a district where about 60% of eligible voters are Latinos.
“The inhabitants of this area have many concerns that can be addressed from Congress and I will work from there to improve their situation,” Salas said in a telephone interview.
The electoral contest has drawn attention at the national level because the Latino has the possibility of obtaining a victory in this agricultural area of the San Joaquín Valley, which has been a republican bastion, dominated by the interests of the great ranchers.
However, in this district, which covers the counties of Kern, Kings and Tulare, the majority of registered voters are now Democrats (41.2%), while Republicans represent 27.3% and independents 23.1%.
Rudy Salas, the Latino who wants to leave a mark
Salas said he was prepared to reach Washington after a decade in the California Assembly, where he supported laws in favor of working people like his father, with whom he cultivated in the countryside.
He had already marked a milestone before by being the first Latino member of the Bakersfield City Council, the city where he was born and the most important in the district.
When asked about the difference between this campaign and the last one, the candidate explains that the low participation in 2022 put him at a disadvantage compared to his opponent, so in this cycle he has dedicated himself to “educating voters why this election is so important for them and their families.”
The Hispanic started this process last year, which has led him and his collaborators to knock on more than 150,000 doors, make more than a million calls and dozens of forums with the community.
70% with Latin roots
In that tour he found that the greatest concerns of the inhabitants of this district, where seven out of ten have Latin roots, focus on health, education, access to drinking water, the economy, affordable housing and immigration.
“I have heard many stories of families with mixed immigration status that have been waiting for an immigration reform for ten, twenty years or more,” says the candidate, who received the support of the Agricultural Workers’ Union (UFW).
Salas supports a path to citizenship for the long-standing undocumented and opposes the proposal for mass deportations and the expansion of migrant detention centres.
But his campaign has also focused on bringing to light the contradictory positions of Valadao, who will complete 12 years in the US Congress and is currently a member of the powerful Committee on Allocations and the Budget Committee of the House.
Key to the control of the Camera
He criticizes the Republican’s votes against the laws to reduce the cost of medicines, the Affordable Health Care, better known as Obamacare, and the Infrastructure, which had bipartisan support, among many others.
The Democrats need to turn around for the least four seats of the Lower House – currently controlled by the Republicans with 221 seats – so the Salas contest has gained relevance.
Apart from the 22nd district, California has four other tight contests where the Democratic Party has its hopes to achieve a victory and regain control of Congress.
Agreass of the responsibility he carries on his shoulders, the Latino has called on voters to help him “make a difference in people’s lives.”
International
At least 120 dead in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours from Israeli attacks
At least 120 Palestinians have died in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours from Israeli attacks and the death toll since the war began amounts to 44,176, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas.
In the case of the injured, the ministry confirmed 205 in the last two days and in total since the war began, on October 7, 2023, they total 104,473, according to that count.
In addition, it is estimated that there are 11,000 missing people under the rubble.
Offensive in Yabalia and Beit Lahia
Although fatalities have been recorded in different parts of the Strip, in the last 40 days Israel’s offensive has focused on the northern half, especially in the cities of Yabalia and Beit Lahia, with more than 2,300 dead since then, and more than 6,000 injured.
Kamal Adwan hospital has been attacked again after an Israeli drone destroyed the electric generator, water tank and oxygen tanks in the center yesterday, where 80 patients remain.
“It seems that there are no limits to the cruelty inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza. For more than 40 days, the northern population is besieged: surrounded, bombed, deprived of the basic means of survival and forced to flee under threats,” denounced the head of the OCHA (UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs) office for Palestine, Jonathan Whittal.
Whittal said that his teams have been trying to access Yabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun, the most affected cities, for more than a month, but that the Israeli authorities have rejected all his requests.
“The result? People are under the rubble without being rescued. The sick and the wounded cannot reach the hospitals. Drinking water and food have run out. Lives have been lost,” he said.
International
At least 10 people died at the hands of strangers in a mosque in northern Afghanistan
At least 10 people were killed in an attack by unidentified armed men in a mosque in Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan, Taliban government sources confirmed to EFE this Saturday.
The attack in the Nahrin district of Baghlan, northern Afghanistan, took place on Thursday night, according to Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat.
“Unfortunately, before last night (Thursday night) in a mosque and on a pilgrimage during the night, ten people who stayed for worship were killed by strangers,” he said.
Sufi communities in Afghanistan often spend nights in mosques as a worship practice.
Research to identify the authors
Fitrat assured that investigations are being carried out to identify and bring the perpetrators to justice for this “horrible incident,” for which no armed group has claimed authorship.
“The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns this terrible act and considers it an unforgivable crime,” added Fitrat, who blames extremist groups.
“This act was committed by those extremist groups that have no respect for the blood of other Muslims,” he condemned.
In the last three years, since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan, the Afghan branch of the jihadist group Islamic State- has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on minorities and members of the Taliban, becoming the country’s greatest security threat.
Minority groups such as the Hazara Shiite community and Sufi practitioners have been frequent targets of violence by extremist groups that try to impose a rigid interpretation of Islam.
The Taliban de facto government has insistently denied that the Islamic State is a security threat to Afghanistan or any other country, while the regime’s secrecy and iron controls on the press have cut off the flow of information on the country’s security situation.
International
Ukraine attacks the port of Berdyansk with missiles, according to pro-Russian authorities
The Ukrainian army attacked the port of Berdiansk, in the Sea of Azov, with missiles on Saturday, according to the pro-Russian authorities of the Zaporyy region today.
“The enemy perpetrated an attack with guided missiles against the port of Berdiansk. The fires caused by the impact have been suffocated,” reported the governor imposed by Moscow, Yevgueni Balitski, on his Telegram channel.
The governor, who was recently received in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin, stressed that the attack did not cause injuries among the civilian population and did not interrupt the work of the port facilities.
In turn, he assured that anti-aircraft defenses continue to be on maximum alert, since new Ukrainian attacks against the city are not ruled out.
At the end of October Kiev had already attacked the strategic port under Russian control since 2022 with a dead old woman.
The Russian army controls more than 70% of Zaporiyia and tries to take control of the rest of the region as it advances at forced marches in neighboring Donetsk.
North Korean soldiers in the Belgorod region, according to Ukraine
Ukraine claims that North Korean soldiers, who until now were only in the Russian region of Kursk, were also transferred to Belgorod, which borders the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.
“Some soldiers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were transferred to the border of the Belgorod region,” the head of the Central Intelligence Department of the National Security and Defense Council, Andrí Kovalenko, wrote on Telegram.
The senior Ukrainian official stressed that “they are not in the Kharkiv region,” as some US media had reported based on Ukrainian sources.
The Kremlin rules out a second onde of mobilization
For its part, the Kremlin today ruled out a second wave of mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine with a view to the fourth year of fighting in the neighboring country.
“Our citizens very actively sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense,” Dmitri Peskov, presidential spokesman, told the official agency RIA Novosti.
Peskov stressed that volunteers carry out courses in which they are instructed “consciously,” so “now there is no need to talk about mobilization.”
“There are many, hundreds who sign contracts every day,” he added.
The Kremlin has refrained from declaring a new partial mobilization after the first one in September 2022 caused great popular discontent and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of military-age men.
1,000 days of combat
Fighting in Ukraine reached 1,000 days this week with Russian forces advancing in forced marches in the Donbas, although Moscow has not yet been able to expel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region.
Ukraine hopes to slow down the current Russian offensive with Western authorization to use American and British long-range missiles against targets in Russian territory, which Kiev used against the Bryansk and Kursk regions.
Russia responded on Thursday by launching an Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile at an arms factory in the Ukrainian region of Dnipro.
In addition, on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that there will be more launches and announced the mass production of those new generation missiles capable of circumventing any Western missile shield.
At least 120 dead in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours from Israeli attacks
At least 10 people died at the hands of strangers in a mosque in northern Afghanistan
Ukraine attacks the port of Berdyansk with missiles, according to pro-Russian authorities
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