OVERVIEW: US mid-term elections at a glance

Washington - US President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party face a major challenge on November 2, when US voters select all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 37 members of the Senate.

The mid-term elections are traditionally seen as a referendum on the president's performance.

Obama's average approval rating has sunk to 46.4 per cent, not unusual for a president after his first two years, when his party typically suffers losses in the congressional elections.

This time, Democrats are widely expected to lose seats and perhaps their majority in the House of Representatives, if not the Senate. Opposition centre-right Republicans are tapping into anger over the stagnant economy, with unemployment stuck at 9.6 per cent and home foreclosures continuing at or near a record pace.

In addition, a growing, loosely organized conservative rebellion call itself the Tea Party movement has been collecting steam after unseating establishment Republican contenders in party primaries with criticism of big government, Obama's health reforms and economic stimulus packages, and the Washington establishment.

Republicans need 39 seats in the House to win back control of the lower chamber. And they could make considerable gains in the 100-seat Senate, where Republicans already hold 41 seats - enough to block legislation.

A key factor in mid-term elections is voter turnout, which tends to be lower for mid-terms than in years with presidential elections.

That gives fringe groups like the Tea Party movement more of an opportunity to energize their conservative voters to turn out to the polls and could enable them to punch above their weight. Analysts say that up to 33 Tea Party-linked Republicans could be elected to the House and another eight to the Senate, thanks in part to expected strong turnout.

In addition, 37 state governorships are up for grabs, with Republicans expected to make gains around the country.

This year's atmosphere is a far cry from the "Yes we can" mood that swept Obama into office in 2008, brought centre-left Democrats large Congressional majorities and packed the Washington Mall with more than 1 million people for his January 2009 inauguration.

Wyclef Jean: Young people must vote down hate in US politics

Los Angeles - Rapper Wyclef Jean may have failed in his Haiti presidential bid, but he's keeping up his political activities in the US where he launched a youth voting initiative Monday.

The founder of the seminal band The Fugees teamed up with Campaign Money Watch, a political advocacy group that is spending 750,000 dollars on a media campaign before mid-term elections on November 2.

The campaign aims to energize young people to vote.

Jean's new song Election Time is a centerpiece of the Democrat- leaning campaign, which had the tagline: "Make Your Voice Heard: If you don't you have cast a vote anyway. For the other side."

Jean announced the campaign, saying the extreme atmosphere of hate and aggression in the US mid-term campaigns seemed even worse than the chaos of Haitian politics.

"After a month of campaigning for president of Haiti and the first six months after the earthquake helping the country start rebuilding, I sat back and looked around," Jean said in a statement.

"What I saw and felt in the US, my second home country, with all the haters and money craziness in the campaigns, it almost puts the chaos of Haitian politics to shame, you know?

"It's about making your voice heard. That's what's important, and I know that better than ever, so I want to reach the young people to remind them."

 
Iraqi government should probe abuses, US says

 
Washington - Investigations into allegations that Iraqi security forces abused or committed crimes against civilians are the responsibility of the Iraqi government, not the United States, the US State Department said Monday.

"If there needs to be an accounting, first and foremost there needs to be an accounting by the Iraqi government itself, and how it has treated its own citizens," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said. "And that, too, is a conversation that we have had and will continue to have with the government of Iraq."

WikiLeaks, the self-described whistle-blower website, on Friday published nearly 400,000 classified US military documents. Some of them contained information suggesting US forces were aware of the abuse of Iraqi citizens at the hands of Iraqi security forces or police officers.

International demands have since grown for the United States to investigate the cases, but Crowley said the matter is the responsibility of the sovereign Iraqi government. He said US troops notified Iraqi authorities if they witnessed abuse or crimes.

"Our troops are well trained on human-rights issues, and where they have seen issues of concern or outright abuse by any country where we have a partnership, they are required to report that, and they did," he said.