Omoda and Jaecoo held a grand launch in Riyadh

Updated 31 July 2024

July 30, 2024 21:37

Omoda and Jaecoo held a grand brand launch event on July 29 at the Fairmont Hotel in Riyadh.

The event attracted over 250 renowned local media and industry key opinion leaders (KOL) and received significant attention from the Saudi Ministry of Investment and the Ministry of Energy.

Several high ranking government officials were also present to witness the launch.

The event commenced with a dazzling light show, and digital hologram host made a surprise appearance to host the live event.

This innovative approach not only provided a stunning visual and auditory experience for the audience but also showcased Omoda and Jaecoo’s commitment to future technology and fashion trends.

Omoda and Jaecoo target new generation lifestyle enthusiasts and urban elites, respectively. The former aims to explore new avenues in the smart and electric vehicle era, while the latter, with its fearless spirit of exploration, strives to break boundaries in the global off-road vehicle market.

In the Omoda series, the C5, with its "Art in Motion" design philosophy, embodies a unique and stylish crossover SUV style.

Its exterior design combines a diamond-cut geometric matrix grille, dynamic and powerful waistline, 18-inch dual-color blade wheels, and the signature coupe SUV fastback silhouette, exuding a futuristic technological feel.

In terms of safety, the C5's body is made of 78 percent ultra-high-strength steel and comes standard with advanced intelligent driving assistance systems, providing world-class safety and comfort for passengers.

At the event, the Omoda C5, as one of the star models in the OMODA series, showcased its distinctive and stylish crossover SUV style with its "Art in Motion" design philosophy.

Its exterior design features a diamond-cut geometric matrix grille, dynamic and powerful waistline, 18-inch dual-color blade wheels, and a couple of SUV fastback silhouette, highlighting its futuristic technological feel.

This model, with world-class safety capabilities, has a body made of 78 percent ultra-high-strength steel and is equipped with advanced intelligent driving assistance systems to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers.

The Jaecoo J7, equipped with the ARDIS all-terrain intelligent system, exemplifies the Jaecoo series' "From Classic to Beyond Classic" concept.

This system endows the J7 with excellent passability on various complex terrains such as sand, mud, and off-road, ensuring Saudi users can enjoy an ultimate driving experience in any travel scenario.

In terms of power, the J7 is equipped with a 1.6TGDI engine with a peak torque of 290N·m, paired with a 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, providing an excellent driving experience. All J7 models are built to extremely high safety standards, featuring an innovative energy-absorbing cage body design, over 80 percent high-strength steel, and leading ADAS systems, collectively constructing a "Beyond Classic" safety system and intelligent protection.

Omoda and Jaecoo CEO Shawn Xu delivered a strategic speech at the launch event, sharing the brand's remarkable achievements in the global market.

In just over a year since its establishment, Omoda and Jaecoo has achieved cumulative global sales exceeding 260,000 units, with export sales in the first half of 2024 seeing a 54 percent year-on-year increase.

This achievement not only confirms the brand's status as one of the fastest-growing automotive brands globally but also demonstrates its strong competitiveness in the global automotive market.

Behind these achievements is Omoda and Jaecoo's relentless pursuit of deep market penetration and product innovation.

In the future, Omoda and Jaecoo will continue to deepen their presence in the Saudi market, positioning it as a crucial hub for rapid advancement in the Middle East and the global market.

As a personalized new energy vehicle brand, Omoda and Jaecoo will focus on the new energy field, offering models with various power options, including BEV, PHEV, and ICE, to meet diverse consumer needs.

Omoda and Jaecoo's global strategy extends beyond the Middle East. In Europe, the brand is expanding rapidly.

From the launch event in Spain this February, the establishment of the first factory in Barcelona, to the market layout in Poland and Italy, Omoda and Jaecoo are not only expanding their sales and service network and supply chain system rapidly but also demonstrating their service capabilities and system construction ability in the global automotive industry.

Additionally, the "Go Paris" tour event held during the centennial sports event in Paris further highlighted the brand's charm and determination to expand in the European market.

Looking globally, Omoda and Jaecoo view the European market as a testing ground for the survival of technology and products and as a key area for building an international brand.

According to the "2030 Strategy" plan, the brand aims to enter over 60 countries and regions worldwide, establish more than 3,000 global sales and service networks, and lead the automotive industry trend through continuous technological innovation and product upgrades, providing global consumers with safer, greener, and smarter travel experiences.

Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely

Updated 6 min 20 sec ago

November 04, 2024 22:39

Trump wants the presidential winner to be declared on election night. Why that’s unlikely

Updated 6 min 20 sec ago

November 04, 2024 22:39

Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his demands that the winner of the presidential race be declared shortly after polls close Tuesday, well before all the votes are counted.
Trump set the pattern in 2020, when he declared that he had won during the early morning hours after Election Day. That led his allies to demand that officials “stop the count!” He and many other conservatives have spent the past four years falsely claiming that fraud cost him that election and bemoaning how long it takes to count ballots in the US
But one of many reasons we are unlikely to know the winner quickly on election night is that Republican lawmakers in two key swing states have refused to change laws that delay the count. Another is that most indications are this will be a very close election, and it takes longer to determine who won close elections than blowouts.
In the end, election experts note, the priority in vote-counting is to make sure it’s an accurate and secure tally, not to end the suspense moments after polls close.
“There’s nothing nefarious about it,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The time delay is to protect the integrity of the process.”
Trump’s demand also doesn’t seem to account for the six time zones from the East Coast to Hawaii.
David Becker, an elections expert and co-author of “The Big Truth,” debunking Trump’s 2020 election lies, said it’s not realistic for election officials in thousands of jurisdictions to “instantly snap their fingers and count 160 million multi-page ballots with dozens of races on them.”
Trump wants the race decided Tuesday night
During a Sunday rally in Pennsylvania, Trump demanded that the race be decided soon after some polls begin closing.
“They have to be decided by 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock on Tuesday night,” Trump said. “Bunch of crooked people. These are crooked people.”
It was not clear who he was targeting with the “crooked people” remark.
Timing is one example of why Trump’s demands don’t match the reality of conducting elections in the US By 11 p.m. Eastern time, polls will just be closing in the two Western swing states of Arizona and Nevada.
Trump has led conservatives to bemoan that the US doesn’t count elections as swiftly as France or Argentina, where results for recent races have been announced within hours of polls closing. But that’s because those countries tabulate only a single election at a time. The decentralized US system prevents the federal government from controlling elections.
Instead, votes are counted in nearly 10,000 separate jurisdictions, each of which has its own races for the state legislature, city council, school boards and ballot measures to tabulate at the same time. That’s why it takes longer for the US to count votes.
Declaring a winner can take time
The Associated Press calls races when there is no possibility that the trailing candidate can make up the gap. Sometimes, if one candidate is significantly behind, a winner can be called quickly. But if the margin is narrow, then every last vote could matter. It takes a while before every vote is counted even in the most efficient jurisdictions in the country.
In 2018, for example, Republican Rick Scott won the US Senate race in Florida, a state conservatives regularly praise for its quick tally. But the AP didn’t call Scott’s victory until after the conclusion of a recount on Nov. 20 because Scott’s margin was so slim.
It also takes time to count every one of the millions of votes because election officials have to process disputed, or “provisional,” ballots, and to see if they were legitimately cast. Overseas ballots from military members or other US citizens abroad can trickle in at the last minute. Mail ballots usually land early, but there’s a lengthy process to make sure they’re not cast fraudulently. If that process doesn’t start before Election Day, it can back up the count.
Some states, such as Arizona, also give voters whose mail ballots were rejected because the signatures didn’t match up to five days to prove they actually cast the ballot. That means final numbers simply cannot be available Tuesday night.
Election rules are to blame in some states
Some of the sluggishness is due to state-specific election rules. In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two of the most important swing states, election officials for years have pleaded with Republican lawmakers to change the law that prevents them from processing their mail ballots before Election Day. That means mail ballots get tallied late, and frequently the results don’t start to get reported until after Election Day.
Democrats have traditionally dominated mail voting, which has made it seem like Republicans are in the lead until the early hours of the next morning, when Democratic mail votes finally get added to the tally. Experts even have names for this from past elections — the “red mirage” or the “blue shift.” Trump exploited that dynamic in 2020 when he had his supporters demand an abrupt end to vote counts — the ballots that remained untallied were largely mail ones that were for Joe Biden. It’s not clear how that will play out this year, since Republicans have shifted and voted in big numbers during early voting.
Michigan used to have similar restrictions, but after Democrats won control of the state Legislature in 2022 they removed the prohibition on early processing of mail ballots. That state’s Democratic Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, said she hopes to have most results available by Wednesday.
“At the end of the day, chief election officials are the folks who have the ability to provide those accurate results. Americans should focus on what they say and not what any specific candidate or folks who are part of the campaign say,” said Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Trump allies urge him to declare victory swiftly
Some of Trump’s allies say he should be even more aggressive about declaring victory this time around.
Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, who in 2020 predicted the then-president would declare victory before the race was called, advocated for a similar strategy during a recent press conference after he was released from federal prison, where he was serving time for a contempt of Congress conviction related to the investigation into Trump’s effort to overturn his loss in 2020.
“President Trump came up at 2:30 in the morning and talked,” Bannon said. “He should have done it at 11 o’clock in 2020.”
Other Trump supporters have taken a darker tone. His former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, suggested during a recent interview on the right-wing American Truth Project podcast that violence could erupt in states still counting ballots the day after Election Day because people “are just not going to put up with it.”
Trying to project a sense of inevitability about a Trump win, the former president and his supporters have been touting early vote data and favorable polls to contend the election is all but over. Republicans have returned to voting early after largely staying away at Trump’s direction in 2020 and 2022. In some swing states that track party registration, registered Republicans are outvoting Democrats in early voting.
But that doesn’t mean Republicans are ahead in any meaningful sense. Early voting data does not tell you who will win an election because it only records who voted, not how they voted.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has been explicitly targeting Republicans disillusioned by Trump. In each of those states where more Republicans have voted, there also are huge numbers of voters casting early ballots who are not registered with either of the two major political parties. If Harris won just a tiny fraction more of those votes than Trump, it would erase the small leads Republicans have.
There’s only one way to find out who won the presidential election: Wait until enough votes are tallied, whenever that is.

‘Panic buttons,’ SWAT teams: US braces for election unrest

Updated 10 min 46 sec ago

AFP

November 04, 2024 22:32

‘Panic buttons,’ SWAT teams: US braces for election unrest

Updated 10 min 46 sec ago

AFP

November 04, 2024 22:32

WASHINGTON: Panic buttons for poll workers, special weapons teams deployed on rooftops, and hundreds of National Guard personnel on standby.
The 2024 US presidential campaign has been a particularly volatile one, and security for Election Day on Tuesday is being ramped up to unprecedented levels given concerns over possible civil unrest, election chicanery, or violence against election workers.
The states of Oregon, Washington and Nevada have activated the National Guard — and the Pentagon says at least 17 states have placed a total of 600 National Guard troops on standby if needed.
The FBI has set up a national election command post in Washington to monitor threats 24 hours a day through election week, and security has been bolstered at many of the nearly 100,000 US polling stations.
Nineteen states have enacted election security enhancement laws since 2020, the National Conference of State Legislatures says.
With Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump deadlocked at the climax of the 2024 race, authorities are keen to reassure jittery Americans that their votes are secure. But they are also bolstering physical security for election operations nationwide.
Runbeck Election Services, which provides security technology for poll operations, confirmed to AFP Monday it has ordered some 1,000 panic buttons for clients that include election facilities and their workers.
These small devices, worn as a lanyard or held in a pocket, are paired with a user’s cell phone and contact law enforcement or other authorities in case of emergency.
Officials in the seven key swing states are eager to convey confidence in a secure and fair election.
“Here in Georgia, it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. Our systems are secure and our people are ready,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters on Monday.
Fringe activists might bring some “extra drama” to the proceedings, he said.
But Raffensperger added he expects the election to be safe in Georgia, where Trump faces criminal charges over his interference in the 2020 election.
In Arizona, a southwestern swing state that became a fulcrum of election night unrest and conspiracy theories that year, officials have turned the state’s main election and ballot counting facility, in Maricopa County, into a veritable fortress.
It now has wrought-iron fencing, barbed wire, armed guards and a SWAT presence on the roof, according to officials.
“Since January of 2021, our office has increased badge security access, installed permanent barriers, and added additional cybersecurity measures based on the recommendations of law enforcement and other experts,” Taylor Kinnerup, communications director for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, told AFP on Monday.

Pennsylvania’s Department of State, which oversees elections in the nation’s largest swing state, said its preparation includes defenses of infrastructure and partnerships with security and law enforcement agencies, although it did not provide details.
The new layers of security follow the election chaos from 2020, particularly after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021 aiming to halt certification of the election results that confirmed Joe Biden as the winner.
Officials are also warning of major cyber and hacking threats, particularly from abroad.
Russia, Iran and China are conducting influence operations to undermine American confidence in election legitimacy and “stoke partisan discord,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly recently told NBC News.
This “firehose of disinformation,” she added, is “creating very real physical threats to election workers.”
Meanwhile in Washington, high metal fencing has been erected around the vice president’s residence and the White House, and some shopfronts have been boarded up.
“There will be no tolerance for violence in our city,” DC Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters Monday.
“Should it require additional time to know the results of this election, we want everyone to know that we are ready to handle many different scenarios, and we have the right people in place to keep our city safe,” she said.

Topics: US Election 2024

Israel hostages forum demands probe in secrets leak case

Updated 14 min 8 sec ago

AFP

November 05, 2024 01:37

Israel hostages forum demands probe in secrets leak case

“The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement

Updated 14 min 8 sec ago

AFP

November 05, 2024 01:37

JERUSALEM: A Gaza hostages campaign group called Monday for an investigation into the alleged leak of confidential documents by an ex-aide to Israel’s premier, which may have undermined efforts to secure their release.
A court announced Sunday that Eliezer Feldstein, a former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, had been detained along with three others for allegedly leaking documents to foreign media.
The case has prompted the opposition to question whether Netanyahu was involved in the leak — an allegation denied by his office.
“The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.
“Such actions, especially during wartime, endanger the hostages, jeopardize their chances of return and abandon them to the risk of being killed by Hamas terrorists.”
The forum represents most of the families of the 97 hostages still held in Gaza after they were seized in the unprecedented October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war.
The Israeli military says 34 of them are dead.
“The suspicions suggest that individuals associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the greatest frauds in the country’s history,” the forum said.
“This is a moral low point like no other. It is a severe blow to the remaining trust between the government and its citizens.”
Critics have long accused Netanyahu of stalling in truce negotiations and prolonging the war to appease his far-right coalition partners.
Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet and the army launched an investigation into the breach in September after two newspapers, British weekly The Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s Bild tabloid, published articles based on the classified military documents.
One article claimed a document had been uncovered showing that then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — later killed by Israel — and the hostages in Gaza would be smuggled into Egypt through the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The other was based on what was said to be an internal Hamas leadership memo on Sinwar’s strategy to hamper talks toward the liberation of hostages.
The Israeli court said the release of the documents ran the risk of causing “severe harm to state security.”
“As a result, the ability of security bodies to achieve the objective of releasing the hostages, as part of the war goals, could have been compromised,” it added.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli soil, mostly civilians, according to AFP’s count based on official Israeli data, including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 43,341 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.
Meanwhile, late on Monday Netanyahu asked the attorney general to begin investigating other alleged leaks from cabinet meetings during the war.
“Since the beginning of the war, we have witnessed an incessant flood of serious leaks and revelations of state secrets,” he said in a letter to the attorney general, which was posted on his Telegram channel.
“Therefore, I am appealing to you to immediately order the investigation of the leaks in general.”

Topics: War on Gaza

Thousands protest alleged election fraud in Georgia

Updated 24 min 39 sec ago

AFP

November 05, 2024 01:28

Thousands protest alleged election fraud in Georgia

Protesters have accused Georgian Dream of derailing the country’s goal of joining the European Union

Updated 24 min 39 sec ago

AFP

November 05, 2024 01:28

TBILISI: Several thousand Georgians protested in Tbilisi on Monday over alleged election rigging by the governing party and Russian interference in last month’s parliament election, which the opposition denounced as “stolen.”
The pro-Western opposition has refused to recognize the ruling Georgian Dream party’s win in the October 26 election or to enter the newly elected parliament, which it calls “illegitimate.”
The European Union and the United States blasted “irregularities” in the vote, while Georgian Dream’s opponents have accused it of putting the Caucasus country on a pro-Kremlin track.
Protesters gathered outside Georgia’s parliament on Monday evening, blocking traffic on Tbilisi’s main road, after opposition groups called on supporters to take to the streets.
“The Georgian people will never accept falsified election results, an invincible protest movement is rising up and it will sweep away the regime, which has stolen our votes,” the leader of the Akhali party, Nika Melia, told the crowd.
He vowed daily protests, with the next rally set for Tuesday.
Mamuka Khazaradze, leader of the Coalition for Change, said: “We demand a fresh vote, an international investigation into election falsification, and we will not surrender until our objectives are met.”
President Salome Zurabishvili — who is at loggerheads with the governing party — also called the vote “illegitimate” and accused Russia of interference.
Moscow has denied meddling.
“We have no choice but to take to the streets every day to show our government and the world that Georgians will never put up with rigged elections,” one of the demonstrators, 25-year-old shop assistant Lidia Kirtadze, told AFP.
Protesters have accused Georgian Dream of derailing the country’s goal of joining the European Union.
“Russia and its stooges in our government want to steal not only the choice of the Georgian people but also our European future,” said Leo Grigalashvili, a 49-year-old winemaker.
“We will never accept this.”
Ahead of the election, Brussels had warned it would determine Georgia’s chances of joining the bloc.
“The situation following the elections remains concerning,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen told Zurabishvili during a phone call on Monday.
“If Georgia wants to keep a strategic orientation toward the EU, we need concrete actions from the leadership,” she said on X.
On Monday, a court in Georgia’s southern town of Tetritskaro ordered the annulment of election results from several precincts over violations of ballot secrecy.
Georgian rights groups said the ruling sets an important judicial precedent as the same violation had been observed at around 70 percent of polling stations.
A group of Georgia’s leading election monitors said earlier that they had uncovered evidence of a complex scheme of large-scale electoral fraud that swayed results in favor of Georgian Dream.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the alleged fraud.
Monday’s protest came after tens of thousands gathered in a demonstration in the capital city last week.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said the elections were “entirely fair.”
But critics have blamed his increasingly conservative Georgian Dream for bringing Tbilisi back into Moscow’s orbit.

Topics: Georgia Georgian Dream party

Greek police arrest third suspect over bombing as minister warns of new generation of extremists

Updated 24 min 25 sec ago

November 05, 2024 00:50

Greek police arrest third suspect over bombing as minister warns of new generation of extremists

The intended target and timing of the planned attack remain under investigation. All three suspects – as well as the man killed in the blast – are Greek nationals

Updated 24 min 25 sec ago

November 05, 2024 00:50

ATHENS, Greece: Greek police arrested a third suspect Monday in connection with an explosion in central Athens last week that authorities have blamed on an alleged aspiring domestic extremist group.
The 30-year-old woman surrendered to Greek authorities Monday at Athens International Airport after being located in Switzerland, authorities said.
The Oct. 31 blast gutted a third-floor apartment in the central Ambelokipi neighborhood, killing a 36-year-old man believed to have been assembling an explosive device. A 33-year-old woman was severely injured and remains hospitalized under police guard. A 31-year-old male suspect surrendered to authorities.
“It was a monstrous bomb with concentrated explosive material,” Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis told private Skai television. “It would have caused great destruction, because it was very powerful.” The apartment block has been declared uninhabitable due to blast damage.
Chrisochoidis said those allegedly involved were young people who appeared to aspire to become a new generation of domestic terrorists in Greece.
Anti-terrorism units searching the blast site, three additional locations and a vehicle seized two handguns with magazines, digital devices, disguise materials including wigs and rubber masks, and handwritten diagrams.
Greece has a history of far-left extremism dating to the 1970s, with militants carrying out multiple bombings and assassinations, though major groups have been dismantled.
Recent years have seen reduced activity, with the last significant incident occurring in December 2023 when police defused a bomb at riot police headquarters following an anonymous warning.
“I think we are dealing with an attempt of some young people who are aiming to become a third generation of terrorism in Greece,” Chrisochoidis said.
The intended target and timing of the planned attack remain under investigation. All three suspects – as well as the man killed in the blast – are Greek nationals.

Topics: Greek police extremists Greece

Omoda and Jaecoo held a grand launch in Riyadh