 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines. Delay and counting ballot leads to uncertainty in the U.S. presidential elections, California votes to pass controversial bill that will affect gig workers, Egyptian court orders the release of over 600 political prisoners and detainees. The U.S. election results have descended into chaos as neither candidate has yet won the necessary electoral college votes to become president. Earlier on Wednesday, Democratic candidate Joe Biden had carved out a minor advantage which could propel him to victory. In order to win the presidency, a candidate needs 270 votes in the electoral college. As of the time of shooting this show, which is 9 a.m. U.S. time on Thursday, Joe Biden had 253 electoral votes versus 213 for Donald Trump. It all boils down to the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina. Biden is ahead in Arizona and Nevada and is closely trailing Trump in Pennsylvania and Georgia. If he wins any of those two states, any two states for that matter, he will become the president. On Wednesday, Biden successfully flipped the states of Michigan and Wisconsin, which brought him close to victory. Meanwhile, on Tuesday night, Trump made an announcement claiming both victory and alleging fraud, saying that he would approach the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, he termed the counting process very strange, presumably referring to the mail-in ballots. His team has challenged results in Wisconsin, and supporters of Trump have gathered at various points in the country. In some places, they demanded the counting stop, whereas in some other places, they demanded the counting continue. However, Democratic hopes for retaking the Senate may be dashed. Republicans had a 53 to 47 majority in the current Senate. The Democrats needed to make gains in four more seats to retake the Senate, or at least in three more seats if Biden were to win. But they're only expected to make an overall gain of one. Two seats in Georgia may prove to be crucial, but the chances for the Democrats remain slim. The Democrats may also end up with only a slim majority in the House of Representatives as opposed to the 33 seat advantage they had earlier. The final results in this case are not expected until a few days. unrest was reported in some cities amidst the uncertainty. Police in Portland declared riots on Wednesday night following the arrest of 11 people in the seizing of fireworks, hammers and a rifle after demonstrations. Earlier in the day, we talked to Claudia de la Cruz of the People's Forum and the popular education project in the United States on the implications of these elections. Here's what she had to say. Over the past two days, especially what we're seeing right now, what exactly does it show about the nature of US institutions? Because of course it's an election, millions of people voted. It's a democracy and now we're all, it's boiled down to a few thousand votes here and there and there's utter confusion. It's a bourgeois democracy. It's a crippled democracy and it's really a disgrace and it's such a dangerous disgrace what's happening in the United States right now. I mean, the institution itself is not ready for millions and millions of people to vote and actually count those votes in time for folks to know who the president is. That's disgraceful. I mean, if this was to be happening in any other part of the world, the United States would be calling for folks to go observe the election somewhere else, right? And so unfortunately, it talks a lot about what's been happening for decades. The conversation around voter suppression is something that a lot of states, particularly in the South, have been bringing up for many years. And it has its roots in slavery, in the institution of slavery. And so we are coming to terms with the strong legacy of slavery in the United States, where you are able to see the many ways in which this country has placed barriers for people to exercise popular democracy. It's crazy and it's appalling to see that the Democrats are also utilizing what they have been also a part of. I mean, they've also been part of voter suppression for many years. And the idea that Trump is the one person that is actually becoming an obstacle for folks to exercise democracy is just false. And I think it's important for us to understand that. I mean, it would be important also to understand that Biden is over here saying and his campaign is saying, well, this is the largest number of votes that any Democrat has received in the history. Well, there's a history to that as well. It's not that he's gained those numbers because he has an actual plan to save the working class, which is the majority of the people in the United States. I mean, if they wanted really to have that type of wave that they talked about, they would have chosen Bernie in April, because it's promises. There's no plan. And this is what has been happening with the Democratic Party for many, many years. And so when Biden speaks about this overwhelming number of votes, it's not a vote for Biden. These are both against Trump. There's a large anti-Trump coalition that goes from very left progressive, liberal center. He cannot assume that this is only based on the persona of Biden or Harris or even the Democratic Party and machinery. Like, it's beyond that. And so it's unfortunate to see what's happening in the streets right now. In New York yesterday, there were folks that are coming out demanding that all votes be counted. There were protests also in Detroit. Some of the Trump supporters took over one of the locations where folks were counting the votes. And so that's really disheartening, but it's not surprising. I mean, the four years of presidency of Trump have unleashed white supremacist groups that are not going to go home if Biden wins. So we're still going to have chaos in the street. We're still going to have major challenges as social movements, because the campaign, Biden's campaign has been good at, which has happened also historically, is co-opting and absorbing a lot of the unrest, the righteous discontent of people, and placing them into this anti-Trump campaign that is focused on getting Trump out, which we all want Trump out. And yet we also want systemic change. And we know it's a mess. I was referring earlier as a uno game, right? Take two, draw four, reverse. That's what we've been dealing with for the last two days. And most likely we won't stop this charade in this game till tomorrow, because there's still states that are counting votes. And Biden can't claim victory and neither can Trump. And this is just a disgrace and a dangerous disgrace at that here in the United States. Continuing with the US elections, a lot of statewide laws were also in the ballot on November 3. Proposition 22 was passed in California, and it's a significant step in deciding the future of the state's gig economy as well as the country's. The proposition was initiated by app-based rideshare corporates, and it seems to have passed with 58.4% votes in its favor. Now, the measure will allow rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft to deem their drivers as independent contractors and not as employees. This goes against a state Supreme Court judgment and an existing state legislation. Labor groups have condemned the disinformation campaign for which the corporate spent over $204 million. According to opinion polls, a significant proportion of those who voted in favor of the proposition believe that it will lead to a hike in the wages for workers. Unions fear that Uber's announcement that it wishes to use the proposition 22 as a model for other states and federal legislation is going to set a dangerous precedent. In voting to support Uber and Lyft, Californians rejected the principles outlined in a 2018 state Supreme Court ruling and enshrined in a 2019 state law. This said that workers who perform tasks within a company's regular business must be treated as employees. Under proposition 22, gig workers are exempted from these rules and can continue to work independently. The passage of proposition 22 is set back to years-long efforts to regulate tech giants such as Uber. Uber's stock price climbed more than 14% on Wednesday and Lyft was up by more than 11% in the close of trading. In our next story on Wednesday, and what's being seen as a major unexpected setback to the regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah LCC, a court in Cairo ordered the release of over 600 political prisoners and other detainees. The prisoners include journalists, lawyers, bloggers, human rights activists, and political leaders. The criminal court in Cairo has ordered the release of detainees being held in Riman under 19 different cases. As per claims by family members and lawyers, over 300 detainees were released on Tuesday with more expected to be released in the coming days. One of the detainees lawyers Khalid Ali said that the court had not specified the parole conditions under which the detainees are to be released. The decision of the court is not final as the state security prosecutor has the right to appeal within the next 48 hours. Tuesday's court order is significant in the light of the large number of political prisoners being held by the Egyptian authorities under various faults of frivolous charges with the intent to crush dissent and silence all opposition. Human rights organizations have for long condemned the LCC government for holding over 60,000 political prisoners, making Egypt one of the biggest jailers in the world. Tuesday's release order also includes around 300 political detainees linked to the massive anti-corruption protests of September 2019. Revelations by former government insider turned whistleblower Mohammad Ali, who now lives in exile, had triggered protests across the country against the LCC regime. Over 4,000 protesters were detained at the time, a majority of them ordinary Egyptians with no political affiliation. A substantial number of the arrested protesters were under the age of 18. Human rights groups and activists worldwide have time and again expressed grave concern about the condition of the political prisoners in Egyptian prisons and detention centers. In particular, they have raised various news reports coming out of the country dealing with the deaths of hundreds of prisoners in custody due to medical negligence and substandard living conditions. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.