In the race for the White House, Donald Trump continues to dominate the political discourse and to keep open the option of a third-party candidacy, telling reporters recently, “We’re going to make a decision very soon, and I think a lot of people are going to be very happy.” With five months to go until the Iowa caucuses, the political landscape remains unsettled, and many of the traditional rules of American politics don’t seem to apply. Bobby Jindal, one of the 17 major declared Republican hopefuls, has called it “the summer of silliness.”

The latest poll, conducted by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics Aug. 23 through 26, shows Trump surging ahead in Iowa, with 23 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers naming him as their first choice for president. Ben Carson came in second, with 18 percent, followed by Ted Cruz and Scott Walker, with 8 percent each, and Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, with 6 percent each. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is in the lead, with 37 percent, but Bernie Sanders is shrinking her lead, with 30 percent of the vote. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

During Al Jazeera America’s Sunday night segment The Week Ahead, Del Walters spoke to Clarissa Martinez de Castro, the deputy vice president of the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza, and Brendan Bordelon, a political reporter at The National Review.

When it comes to potential presidential nominees, Martinez said, “It’s too early for any reading of the tea leaves right now about who’s going to be the nominee for either party. But one fact is that this kind of fueling of rhetoric that only seeks to advance fear and anxiety is damaging to the American community. We’re starting to see evidence of that, particularly in a backlash against Latinos in this country, 75 percent of whom are United States citizens.”

She said that Trump is gaining in the polls by riling up the people who are fearful and anxious and that the subject matter is deeper than immigration. She added that anytime there has been change in our country, there has been “backlash on different groups of people.”

Bordelon also said that it’s too early and incredibly hard to predict who the nominees will be. “I think the Republican establishment in Washington doesn’t know what to do and they’re not happy about [Trump’s surge in the polls], but it’s a mistake to go after Trump too hard because the more they do, the more upset they appear and the more his base rallies behind him.”

As for the Democratic side, Bordelon said it’s déjà vu in Iowa, likening Sanders’ surge to Barack Obama’s there in 2012. “But this time, I really don’t think Bernie Sanders is a Barack Obama. He really has none of the charismatic appeal, even though he seems like an honest person” — a perception that he said Clinton has struggled with her entire career. Bordelon said it will be much more of an uphill climb for Sanders than it was for Obama in 2008.

Martinez said the three leading Democratic candidates — Clinton, Sanders and Martin O’Malley — were well received at a recent conference hosted by her organization in Kansas City, Missouri.

“Definitely, Clinton has a great deal of name recognition, and President [Bill] Clinton was very popular with the Latino community, so she has that going for her,” she said, adding that Clinton and O’Malley have been strong in their proposed solutions for the U.S. immigration problem and that their reform plans align with what Latinos believe is needed. Martinez said Sanders was well received on the topic of economic issues.

Martinez said that in every presidential election and many state elections, “Latino voters feel like they have to brace for impact, particularly during the primary period.” She said voters are not only listening to Trump’s incendiary rhetoric but also paying attention to which candidates follow his lead and which ones denounce him and said that will be more important come nomination time.

“In both parties, there’s a deep-seated discontent with the establishment, with the people in Washington, with the big donors and the big money,” said Bordelon. “Just like Hillary Clinton epitomizes that on the left, Jeb Bush epitomizes that on the right. People are very frustrated with Washington, and they see Donald Trump as someone who’s never held elected office, who doesn’t need any political donations, and I think the anti-establishment push cuts primarily against Jeb Bush.”

Ukrainians are voting in parliamentary elections eight months after protests sparked an uprising across the country. Discontent began after President Viktor Yanukovich rejected a trade deal with the European Union. The move was widely seen as a shift away from Europe and a move toward deeper ties with Moscow. Eventually, it led to Yanukovich’s ouster.
Now the crisis has moved far beyond the question of who should be Ukraine’s next leader. Tensions were exacerbated after Russia annexed Crimea, creating the biggest conflict between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. The United States says it wants Russia to stop its military support for Russian separatists in Ukraine. Moscow wants Washington to cut off economic and military aid to Kiev.
During Al Jazeera America's Sunday night segment "The Week Ahead," Thomas Drayton spoke to Amy Knight, a widely published Russia expert, and to Nicolai Petro, professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island.
“The most pressing thing is this election was whether or not the government was going to continue to support the Minsk Peace Initiative,” Petro said, referring to a peace agreement signed last month by the Ukrainian and Russian governments and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. “That’s a little bit less certain now that Poroshenko’s party came out as the leading party, but it’s not clear what kind of coalition they will be joining to gain a majority.”  
“It’s probably bad news for the Kremlin,” said Knight. “There’s going to be more support for a stronger line taken against Moscow.”
Knight added that despite Ukraine’s economic problems, it’s important that a democratic process took place.
Given that Moscow has cut off most of the country’s gas supply, Ukraine faces another potential economic crisis as winter approaches. Russia says it acted because Ukraine failed to pay its energy debt. As a result, Kiev tried to buy Russian natural gas from European countries, but that prompted Russia to reduce its sales to those nations.
Petro went on to explain that there are now three main camps in Ukraine’s parliament that will have to determine which path the country should take. He says there’s a radical nationalist group of about 13 percent that includes the Freedom Party; a nationalist pragmatic group of about 40 percent with the largest party being the Popular Front; and a more pragmatic but nationalist bloc, led by President Petro Poroshenko and his party.
Knight says corruption is the biggest issue facing the new parliament.  
About 3 million people in the Luhansk and Donetsk region did not vote in the elections. The separatists plan to hold their own elections next month.
“We will have to see how these elections will be interpreted,” said Petro. “It is important for the peace process to continue to have some sort of popular mandate for the rebel-held areas, so that the people who claim to speak for the rebels can then engage in continued direct negotiations with the elected representatives of the Kiev government.”

The conventions are done and the nominations accepted. Now the real race for the White House begins. Americans will watch the upcoming debates closely, when both presidential and vice-presidential candidates face each other and the nation in a bid to win votes in November.The overwhelming majority of Americans say their biggest concern this election season is the state of the economy. But other concerns include women's issues, security, and health care.
Kathleen Gallagher is an architect living in the northeastern US state of Pennsylvania. She says she affiliates herself with libertarians and independents, but tends to vote Democratic. She says women's health issues are important for her, but her top concern this election is the economy and the creation of jobs. She herself is debating whether to apply to a graduate programme or enter the shrinking job market.
Scarce jobs
"My field has evaporated," she says. "I'm renegotiating my career. It was never hard to find a job. Now there are simply not enough jobs to go around for the demand of employment." While she does not expect the economy to blossom over the next four years, she hopes it will at least turn around.
Gallagher explains that Obama's presidency did not meet her expectations. "I feel like he's backed down on some issues," she says. "He extended Bush-era tax cuts. And his health care bill was not representative of Democrats, but rather conciliatory to Republicans."

Kareem had planned to boycott the vote, but will cast a ballot as a "rescue plan" to ensure that an extremist candidate is not voted into power. Moussa said he believes the Muslim Brotherhood are "snakes" and would tailor the constitution to suit their own purposes.
But Mohamed El Gohary, a banker who has lived in London for more than 15 years, disagreed. Originally from Port Said, El Gohary has spent most of his life in Europe and the Gulf. He is still deciding whether to vote for Aboul Fotouh or Mohammed Moursi of the Brotherhood-linked Freedom and Justice Party. 
He said that the Muslim Brotherhood did not initially field a candidate, so as not to scare the other parties, and it turned out to be a strategic error on their part.

"A big bang approach to changing the system is not the best of things," says El Gohary. "They want to continue with a semi-parliamentary system and only submitted a candidate when they thought someone was trying to undermine parliament."  

He added that living in the UK or Europe gives one "the best of both worlds", given that one can keep an Egyptian identity while being exposed to other ideas.

Sense of euphoria
Nancy Elshami also lives in the West. She was born and raised in the United States and is an economic researcher in New York City. Her family travels to Egypt every year.

Elshami voted for Aboul Fotouh, even though she prefers Sabahi more as a candidate. "I don't think Sabahi has a good chance of winning," she said. "It's more of a strategic vote for me."
Live Box 20111120475439857Elshami will travel to Cairo this week to help with Aboul Fotouh's campaign.

"Aboul Fotouh's affiliation with political Islam makes him a more familiar candidate," says Elshami. "The fact that he has a female leftist as his campaign manager speaks volumes to me about the direction of his presidential programme."

Back at the embassies, a sense of euphoria spreads through the lines as voters near the polling stations. After completing the identification process, each voter signs their name, chooses a candidate, and casts a vote by dropping it in the ballot box.

It is a small step to influence an uncertain political future.

Sudanese expatriate Abdel Aal Hammour recently sat down with some friends over a water pipe in a Doha cafe, but his thoughts were far away. He has lived in Qatar for 10 years, but, like many foreign workers, he remains closely connected to events back home.

For most of this year, Hammour, a 38-year-old quality control officer for Qatar Airways, has been following the aftermath of a January 9 referendum in which the newly named South Sudan voted to separate from the Northern Republic of Sudan and form its own country. The decision, taking effect on Saturday, will leave what was once Africa's largest nation split in two.
The separation follows a 2005 peace deal that ended some 27 years of civil war between the north and south that killed an estimated 1.5 million Sudanese soldiers and civilians. Even so, many Sudanese are concerned the division may have the same polarising effect on the population.
"Sudan is very unique. It is a mixture, like a beautiful painting with dozens of [colors].  We are Arabs and Africans.  Our land is made up of desert and green," said Hammour, a native of North Sudan who finds the decision unfortunate. 
"The Sudanese people have great sorrow because of this separation.  It’s as if a part of them has been taken away." The Sudanese Embassy in Doha estimates there are around 35,000 Sudanese expatriates living in Qatar. Like Hammour and his friends, the majority of Sudanese living in Doha, and across the Gulf region, are from the north. For the most part, Northern Sudanese share the same language and religion as other people in the Arab world.

Confessional divide
Yet expatriates from South Sudan, which is made up predominately of Christians and people practicing tribal religions, have a very different stance on Saturday's separation.
"At last we are free," said Agoyom Akomjo Musellam, senior legal counselor for Qatar Telecommunications in Doha and a native of South Sudan who left in 1995 and has since lived in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar.

"We are free from the bondage of successive political regimes, including the government of Sudan, the Turkish and Egyptian regimes and the British," he added.
The opinions of all Sudanese are hardly so equally divided along geographic, or ethno-religious lines, explained Santos Oryem, a 25-year Doha resident and employee at Qatar Petroleum. He said that he has many friends from the north and south.
"This is the nature of the Sudanese people," said Oryem. "The division is only a political one."
Another Southerner, Veronica Oryem, a lawyer in Doha who was born in Khartoum,viewed the impending division in practical terms: "Southerners were not getting equal opportunities, but we are still one people. I hope visa issues can be resolved between the two countries so the northerners can visit us in the south."
Yet she is one of many Sudanese who have welcomed the separation.
"This should have happened a long time ago," she said.

Celebrations
Veronica's family, as well as southerner Agoyom Musellam, have traveled to Juba, the capital of the new 10-state Republic of South Sudan, to attend festivities to celebrate the formation of the 196th nation in the world and 193rd country inducted into the United Nations.  Veronica's father is arranging a large feast for family and friends.
 
"This is an occasion you cannot stay away from," said Santos Oryem. 
Back in Doha, however, the mostly north Sudanese expatriate crowd has little to look forward to on Saturday.
"We are just waiting for the event, but do not have any specific plans," said Abdul Rahman Bashir Al Tahir, chairman of the Sudanese Community in Doha. He added that some Sudanese may choose to watch the events on television, but he knew of no scheduled gatherings.
Some Sudanese working in Doha, such as businessman Omer Ibrahim Hassan, think that the separation may lead to further conflict in their battle-scarred homeland. Hassan, who moved to Doha from Khartoum only a year ago, admits that southerners were treated like "second-class citizens by the north" and should be able to "taste a bit of independence".
Still, he said if South Sudan ever chooses to return to an alliance with the north, he would welcome the reunification.
"The whole place is my country," he said.  
As a range of Sudanese expatriates said, the "whole place" will now become two countries which both face a multitude of challenges. Disputes over oil revenue, land rights and minority issues continue to simmer below the surface of any tenuous agreements.
Despite the underlying issues, however, South Sudan's secession and independence are set for Saturday and history is set to witness, yet again, the emergence of a brand new nation.