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eyes on the U.S.

Obama Adds Florida, Turns Focus To Fiscal Cliff

THE MIAMI HERALD, WASHINGTON POST, REUTERS (U.S.)

Worldcrunch

WASHINGTON - Fresh from his election victory and emotional Thank You's (see below), Barack Obama will turn back to the gritty business of trying to turn the U.S. economy around.

The first order of business will be a Friday appearance to address the so-called "fiscal cliff," a set of looming deadlines, which if not resolved could send the economy spiralling back into recession. The Washington Post reports that Obama will try to set the tone for upcoming negotiations with Congressional Republicans.

The President will come in with a bit more fire power, as it looks clear now that he also won the state of Florida in Tuesday's ballotting. The head of Florida's Democrat Party has issued a statement congratulating Obama, in what now seems likely to be a victory in the only state yet to declare an official result.

As of Thursday evening, Obama leads the Republican candidate by a margin of just 58,055 votes in the Sunshine State, or 49.92% to 49.22%. However, the votes yet to be counted are in heavily Democrat areas.

Mitt Romney's aides in Florida have also basically conceded defeat: “The numbers in Florida show this was winnable,” Brett Doster, Florida advisor for Romney, said in a statement to the Miami Herald.

“We thought based on our polling and range of organization that we had done what we needed to win. Obviously, we didn’t, and for that I and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won’t happen again," he said.

Of course Florida's 29 electoral college votes would not have changed the victor in the race for the White House, as Obama had already garnered 303 electoral votes to Romney's 206.

Still, Obama will have little

However, the painfully slow outcome in the state has brought back memories of 2000 when Republican candidate George W. Bush won Florida by only 537 votes and later won the White House after a bitter recount dispute with Democrat Al Gore that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Election day in Miami - @OFA_FL via Twitter

Obama's campaign team cited Florida's 1.4 million Latino community as the success of the Democrat Party. Obama won a record 61% of Hispanic votes in Florida, compared to 57% in 2008, according to Reuters.

Obama also made surprising gains in the usually Republican voting Cuban-American electorate, winning 48%.

A Florida win means victories for the President in all the key swing states except North Carolina.

Okay, three days and we still don't know who won Florida. I say, next time, they don't get to vote. They've had their chance.

— Christopher Moore (@TheAuthorGuy) November 9, 2012

Obama's campaign team posted a video Thursday night of the President thanking his team at the campaign headquarters in Chicago.

Addressing the largely young team, Obama was visibly emotional after the bitterly fought campaign slog. “What you guys accomplished will go on in annals of history…but the most important thing you need to know is your journey’s just beginning. You’re just starting," he said.

“That’s been my source of hope. It’s been why the last four years when people ask me how do you put up with this or that, the frustrations of Washington, I think of what you guys are doing. That’s the source of my hope, my strength and my inspiration.”

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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