Green Party 2024 presidential candidate Dr Jill Stein selected Butch Ware, a historian of West Africa at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as her vice presidential running mate.
“I'm so grateful to have Butch with us, with his amazing powerful voice and to be in this together as a Muslim African-American and as a Jewish white woman, this is like a team made in heaven,” said Dr Stein at an online rally on Friday night.
Dr Stein, an activist for the Palestinian cause, was expected to pick an Arab American as her vice presidential running mate. Other prospective candidates included Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee national executive director Abed Ayoub and Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American activist and human rights lawyer.
“We had wonderful candidates but because we had always centred genocide, we really wanted a leading voice who is very directly connected with the genocide,” said Dr Stein.
“I feel like I've learned so much just in my conversations with him [Mr Ware] and watching his material over the course of this last week because genocide is very much in focus … imperialism and colonialism are very much in focus.”
The Stein campaign described Mr Ware as "an activist, dedicated educator and honoured historian whose work specialises in empire, colonialism, genocide and revolution".
He taught at the University of Michigan for 10 years and earned his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.
“I am a scholar and I am a teacher. I've studied revolutionary movements and struggles. But know this that if I am called into a fight, the fight for the struggle of freedom in our time, I am not going to back down from that fight,” Mr Ware said after the announcement. He added that he would help to win over votes in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.
In Michigan, the Arab-American vote carries significant weight and is credited with helping US President Joe Biden win the state during the 2020 presidential election.
Since the start of the war, Arab Americans in Michigan have protested the policies of President Joe Biden's administration on the Israel-Gaza war and vowed not to support his administration in this election.
Dr Stein is expected to win over Arab-American voters who traditionally voted for the Democratic party and are angered by Israel-Gaza war that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians.
Jinan Deena, a Palestinian American who lives in Washington, told The National she is voting for Dr Stein in November and doesn't think Vice President Kamala Harris is different from Mr Biden in terms of her stance on Israel's war on Gaza.
“She is literally part of the administration that supported this genocide,” she said.
A poll conducted by the ADC found that Dr Stein is more popular among Arab-American voters than Ms Harris.
According to the poll, Dr Stein had more than 45 per cent support from members of the community surveyed, compared to the 27.5 per cent Ms Harris attracted.
“As Gaza goes, we all go, and it is so absolutely critical that we mobilise and that we not be silenced,” said Dr Stein.
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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Multitasking pays off for money goals
Tackling money goals one at a time cost financial literacy expert Barbara O'Neill at least $1 million.
That's how much Ms O'Neill, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University in the US, figures she lost by starting saving for retirement only after she had created an emergency fund, bought a car with cash and purchased a home.
"I tell students that eventually, 30 years later, I hit the million-dollar mark, but I could've had $2 million," Ms O'Neill says.
Too often, financial experts say, people want to attack their money goals one at a time: "As soon as I pay off my credit card debt, then I'll start saving for a home," or, "As soon as I pay off my student loan debt, then I'll start saving for retirement"."
People do not realise how costly the words "as soon as" can be. Paying off debt is a worthy goal, but it should not come at the expense of other goals, particularly saving for retirement. The sooner money is contributed, the longer it can benefit from compounded returns. Compounded returns are when your investment gains earn their own gains, which can dramatically increase your balances over time.
"By putting off saving for the future, you are really inhibiting yourself from benefiting from that wonderful magic," says Kimberly Zimmerman Rand , an accredited financial counsellor and principal at Dragonfly Financial Solutions in Boston. "If you can start saving today ... you are going to have a lot more five years from now than if you decide to pay off debt for three years and start saving in year four."
