 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the major news developments from around the world. Our headlines. The United States presidential elections begin. Organizations condemn the night raids and arrests of Palestinian activists, protests held in Kashmir against environmental land law. Social justice groups mobilise for peace in Colombia. In our first story, the US presidential elections are being held today that's the 3rd of November. Around 97.6 million ballots have already been submitted through in-person, early voting and by mail. This accounts for nearly two-thirds of the entire vote cast during the 2016 elections. While Democratic candidate Joe Biden is leading nationally, the peculiar electoral system college of the United States means that the contest could be much closer. Voters do not directly elect the president, they instead elect delegates to an electoral college. The electoral college will elect the president on December 14. Each state contributes delegate to the electoral college, more or less on the basis of its population. The electoral college has 538 members and a candidate requires 270 votes to be elected president. However, the system works in such a way that states with a lesser population and smaller states often have an advantage when compared to the larger ones. The electoral college has been one of the most controversial aspects of the presidential election. In 2000, a close contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush resulted in the latter's victory, even though Gore won the national popular vote by a margin of over half a million. This happened simply because Bush won a major swing state Florida with 25 delegates by around 500 votes. The problem cropped up again in 2016 when Donald Trump won the electoral college vote despite losing to his closest adversary Hillary Clinton by a margin of 2.8 million. Political observers in the US are expecting a similar situation might occur in the upcoming election. The states that do not show such consistency in terms of results are called swing states. Right now, 12 states have consistently swung between the parties with winning candidates, securing margins as small as 500 votes. Of these, a handful such as Ohio and Florida have shown extremely close contests with preferences swinging back and forth. Voter intimidation has been reported along polling stations with sightings of armed men shouting for more years, senior polling stations making it clear they support Trump. In anticipation of possible unrest following the polls, buildings in downtown New York City and Beverly Hills have boarded up. Civil Society groups plan demonstrations across the country in over 170 locations on election night. Dozens of organizations have come together in a campaign called Protect the Results on the night to the election day, that's November 3rd in our 4th. The campaign comes in light of the possibility of a contested election result as incumbent President Donald Trump has repeatedly hinted that he will contest the result if he looks like it's losing. Over the past several months, Republican Party and President Trump have made unsubstantiated claims of postal ballot being susceptible to voter fraud. Political analysts expect that at the event of a defeat, Trump may use such claims to challenge the results and could create a constitutional crisis. In our next story on Monday, several Palestinian women's rights activists and leftist leaders as well as some former political prisoners were arrested by Israeli forces from various parts of the occupied West Bank in late night raids. Women organizations in the Arab Maghreb region and Palestinian leftist organizations have strongly condemned the raid in the abduction of Palestinian leaders. Among the prominent leaders arrested is the President of the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees, Kitam Safin, who was arrested from her home in the town of Betunia, west of Ramallah. She also serves as a member of the General Secretariat of the General Union of Palestinian Women. Another leader identified was the student leader Shatah Al-Tawil, who was abducted from her home in the city of Albiray. Two long-time leftist activists, 55-year-old former political prisoner and trade union activist Mohamed Jababre, and 60-year-old leftist leader Jamal Barham were also abducted by Israeli forces on Monday night. Israeli soldiers stormed their houses and ransacked their belongings, causing damage to personal property. Several other prominent community leaders and activists were also detained in simultaneous raids. A large number of organizations have signed a statement condemning the raids and arrests. The statement extends solidarity to those abducted on Monday along with other Palestinian political prisoners and administrative detainees who are incarcerated in Israeli prisons and detention centers without charge or trial. As per the signatory organizations, extrajudicial abductions carried out during night raids by the State of Israel are a clear and deliberate violation of the rights of Palestinian activists. The organizations call for launching a regional and international solidarity campaign to demand the release of Safin and all the other Palestinian prisoners who are being imprisoned illegally by the State of Israel. The statement stressed that these illegal and arbitrary arrests and detentions by the Israeli occupation forces are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They demanded that the international community force Israel to end its illegal policy of administrative detention. Next story on Monday, members of a civil society forum held a protest inside Srinagar's press colony condemning the central government's decision in New Delhi to amend land laws of Jammu and Kashmir. As per the amendments, outsiders are now allowed to purchase land in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir Valley, which local sphere will pave the way for demographic change. However, the protesters were immediately detained by the Jammu and Kashmir police. According to members of the Jammu and Kashmir civil society forum, the state since the unilateral nullification of article 370 on August 5th last year, which led to the demotion of the state into union territory and the removal of autonomy, has been put on sale. Narendra Modi government at the center continues to impose harsh laws which are unacceptable to people of the region, the activists said. Protesters before they were taken away by the government forces claimed that these laws not only threatened Kashmir, but also the identity of and will dispossess dogras of Jammu and Buddhists of Ladakh as well. Earlier on Saturday, the state observed a complete strike after the separatist group All Party Hurriath Conference gave a call for a strike for the first time since August 2019. And finally, in Colombia mobilizations to demand an end to escalating violence against social movements and political activists have intensified. Social movements have converged in the Cauca department as part of a humanitarian caravan. Meanwhile, ex-combatants of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia, that is the FARC, which are today part of the common Alternative Revolutionary Force party, have been mobilizing in different parts of the country. Their key demand is that the government of President Ivan Duque take measures to address the violence. In the face of the increase in massacres and systematic assassination of human rights and land defenders, those who are mobilizing are demanding that the government monitor and guarantee the safety and protection of the life and integrity of its citizens. Over 500 people from more than 30 Afro-descendant Indigenous human rights, peasant and social organizations from the Cauca department on October 29th began a humanitarian caravan for life and defensive territory in the Canondil-Mekai, an area made up of the municipalities of Algeria, El-Tambo and Lopez-Del-Mekai. The objective of the caravan is to draw the national government's attention to the humanitarian crisis faced by these communities in the territory. 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.