DEMOCRATS POISED TO CONTROL U.S. SENATE AFTER GEORGIA WINS

Democrats were closing in on US Senate control on Wednesday, with one Democratic candidate in Georgia's twin runoff projected to win over his Republican opponent, and the other Democrat declaring victory as tallies showed him with a narrow lead, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

The stakes are enormous for US President-elect Joe Biden's legislative agenda: If both Democrats win, the Senate will be split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.

Democrat Raphael Warnock was projected by multiple US media outlets to have won his race against the incumbent Republican senator, Kelly Loeffler. Warnock, a 51-year-old newcomer to politics who is a pastor for the Atlanta church where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr preached, had a 1-percentage-point lead with almost all ballots counted. Warnock would be the first black person to represent the southern state in the US Senate.

"Tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible," he told his supporters in an online speech shortly before US news organizations called the race for him.

The other Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, thanked Georgians for electing him in a video posted on social media, even as US media had not yet called the race. Tallies showed him with a lead of just over 16,000 votes over Republican incumbent David Perdue.

Should Ossoff's lead hold, the 33-year-old former head of a documentary film company and former political staffer would become the youngest member of the Senate.

WEEKLY FEATURE : JOSE MARI CHAN AND THE CHRISTMAS ANTHEM