Kamala Harris lashes out at Trump as Democrats unite

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US former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a bandage on his ear after he was injured during an assassination attempt, speaks onstage during the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 18, 2024. (AFP)
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., Monday, July 22, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 23 July 2024
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Kamala Harris lashes out at Trump as Democrats unite

  • "Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type”

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Kamala Harris launched her election campaign Monday with a blistering personal attack on Donald Trump and vowed to win in November despite the “rollercoaster” of President Joe Biden’s shock exit.
As she closed in on the Democratic party’s nomination with the support of a slew of heavyweights and massive voter donations, Harris lashed out at Trump in her first speech to campaign workers since Biden’s announcement Sunday.
Biden, 81, meanwhile made his first public remarks for nearly a week as he recovers from a bout of Covid.
He called in to the campaign meeting to say that dropping out — after mounting party and voter concerns over his health and mental acuity — had been the “right thing to do” and he praised Harris as “the best.”
“We are going to win in November,” a smiling Harris told campaign workers in her fiery speech at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
She said she had gone to the Wilmington office to address them personally after the “rollercoaster” of the last few days.
Turning her fire on Trump, Harris referred to her past role as California’s chief prosecutor, saying she “took on perpetrators of all kinds.”
“Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said to applause.
Harris also pledged to focus on the politically explosive issue of abortion, after Trump praised the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the long-held federal right to the procedure.

Biden dropped out on Sunday and endorsed Harris after three weeks of intensifying pressure, triggered by a disastrous debate performance against Trump.
Aiming to become the first woman president in US history, the 59-year-old Harris won the backing of a seemingly unassailable number of Democrats.
Notably among them was powerful former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said she endorsed Harris “with immense pride and limitless optimism.”
The major AFL-CIO union federation also gave its formal endorsement on Monday.
Donors have rallied behind Harris, pouring a record $81 million into her campaign in the 24 hours after Biden stood aside.
The campaign claimed the haul was the largest one-day sum in presidential history — and that, among the 888,000 grassroots donors, some 60 percent were making their first 2024 contribution.
In his comments, Biden pledged to keep working on key topics, including ending the war in Gaza.
Addressing Harris, he added: “I’m watching you kid. I love you.”
An aide to Harris later said she would meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week during his Washington visit — separate from Biden’s own planned sit-down.
Harris will not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress, the aide said, due to a previously scheduled event.
In a strikingly symbolic moment on Monday morning, Harris hosted a ceremony for college athletes at the White House while Biden remained stuck in isolation with Covid at his Delaware beach house.
Biden’s symptoms “have almost resolved completely,” his doctor said Monday, though the White House has not yet announced any events on his schedule this week.

Biden’s stunning withdrawal has completely upended the 2024 race, transforming a long slog between two unpopular elderly men into one of the most compelling races in modern US history.
The move has jolted a demoralized party that Harris could now unify, and could give America its first female president.
It has also hit Republicans hard, with former president Trump, 78 — now the oldest presidential nominee in US history — having to completely retool a strategy that had been built around attacking Biden over his age and physical frailty.
Harris’s entry not only flips the age issue, but puts Trump — a convicted felon also found liable of sexual assault — up against a woman and former prosecutor.
And Trump has seemingly found it hard to move on from Biden.
He launched a series of invective-filled social media posts after Biden quit, mocking the president’s age and saying he and Harris posed a “threat to democracy.”
Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance echoed that line of attack at a rally in Ohio Monday, telling supporters that Harris had the momentum because “elite Democrats got in a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard.”
“That is not how it works. That is a threat to democracy,” he said.

 


Bangladesh recalls five envoys in major diplomatic reshuffle

Updated 3 sec ago
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Bangladesh recalls five envoys in major diplomatic reshuffle

  • Political upheaval in the South Asian nation ushered in the interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus
  • The departure of Sheikh Hasina’s government has triggered a broad administrative overhaul
DHAKA: Bangladesh has recalled five envoys, including the ambassador to neighboring India, foreign ministry officials said on Thursday, in a major diplomatic reshuffle as the interim government clears out holdovers from the previous administration.
Political upheaval in the South Asian nation ushered in the interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus after weeks of violent protests forced the Aug. 5 resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who then fled to India.
The foreign ministry ordered envoys in Brussels, Canberra, Lisbon, New Delhi and the permanent mission to the United Nations in New York to immediately return to the capital, Dhaka, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“It’s possible the government doesn’t want them to continue, as they were appointed by Hasina’s administration,” said one government official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if more changes in the diplomatic corps follow.”
The departure of Hasina’s government has triggered a broad administrative overhaul, with hundreds of senior officials being re-assigned or transferred, and the contracts of some key ones terminated, forcing many of them to resign or retire early.
All the recalled diplomats are set to go on post-retirement leave in December, another foreign ministry official said.
“You are requested to leave your current posts and return to Dhaka without delay,” the ministry told the diplomats in its notice, seen by Reuters.
The step follows the recall from Britain of Saida Muna Tasneem, the high commissioner, or ambassador, who was similarly told to return.
A foreign ministry spokesperson made no comment on when the replacements might be announced.
More than 700 people died as a result of the student-led movement that ousted Hasina, straining ties with India. The neighbors have a 4,000-km (2500-mile) border and maritime boundaries in the Bay of Bengal.
Minority groups in Bangladesh have made accusations of attacks on Hindus after the political changes, though the government says the violence was motivated by politics, not religion.

Swedish teenagers charged over blasts near Israel’s Copenhagen embassy

Updated 3 min 54 sec ago
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Swedish teenagers charged over blasts near Israel’s Copenhagen embassy

  • The two teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were detained on Wednesday on a train at Copenhagen’s main railway station

COPENHAGEN: Two Swedish teenagers were charged in a Danish court on Thursday with possessing five hand grenades and detonating two of them on a rooftop near Israel’s embassy in Copenhagen, the prosecutor said in court.
No one was injured in the two explosions early on Wednesday, but the building near the embassy sustained some damage, investigators said.
The two teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were detained on Wednesday on a train at Copenhagen’s main railway station, and were questioned on Thursday in a Copenhagen city court. The court banned publication of their names.
A third man, aged 19, was detained elsewhere in the Danish capital and was released after questioning, Danish police said.
The police said they were investigating whether the embassy was the target of the explosions.
The blasts in the Danish capital followed a surge in tensions in the Middle East.
Israel, which has been fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip for nearly a year, has sent troops into southern Lebanon after months of cross-border exchanges of fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
This year at least 10 Swedes have been charged in Denmark with attempted murder or weapons possession, sparking criticism over the spread of organized crime.
Swedish authorities have previously said security police averted several planned attacks linked to Iranian security services using local criminal networks, a charge that Iran has said is “baseless.”


UK Labour MPs ‘scared’ to challenge Starmer on Gaza, Lebanon

Updated 42 min 30 sec ago
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UK Labour MPs ‘scared’ to challenge Starmer on Gaza, Lebanon

  • MP Zarah Sultana tells BBC ex-colleagues who disagree with PM risk losing their jobs
  • Labour leader has drawn criticism over failure to do more against Israel

LONDON: A former Labour MP has said colleagues are “scared for their jobs” over disagreeing with the party’s leader, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on Israel’s war in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon.

Starmer has called for immediate ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon, saying at the UN General Assembly last week that “escalation serves no one.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also announced a review into arms export licenses to Israel in July, amid fears that items sold to the country could be used to commit war crimes in Gaza. Thirty licenses were suspended in September. 

However, Starmer has found himself at odds with many in his party, with some believing that he has not done enough to facilitate an end to the fighting in the Middle East, or that he has been slow to act. Currently, 320 arms exports licenses from the UK to Israel remain valid.

MP Zarah Sultana, who was suspended by the party earlier this year, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program: “Many (disagree with Starmer) because we’re seeing (the) deaths of 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza. We’re seeing death in Lebanon, and we know the UK government could take a different route where it prioritized lives, treated them all equally and ended all arms sales.

“I think it’s deeply concerning that people aren’t willing to be public about that because they’re scared for their jobs.”

One of the program’s hosts, Nick Robinson, told listeners that he had contacted six Labour MPs to ask them to comment on Sultana’s claims, but said: “None would come on the program as they said, and I quote one of the MPs we contacted, ‘it would cost us our jobs.’”

Sultana was one of seven Labour MPs suspended by the party in July after voting for a Scottish National Party motion to amend the King’s Speech, which is the UK government’s policy platform for the coming year. She currently sits as an independent MP in the House of Commons.


UN releases $5 million for flood victims in Nigeria

Updated 45 min 12 sec ago
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UN releases $5 million for flood victims in Nigeria

  • The flooding has affected more than 1.2 million people in at least 31 out of Nigeria’s 36 states
  • Several Nigerian states hit by flooding have seen rises in the cases of cholera

LAGOS: The United Nations Wednesday said it had released $5 million to help flood victims in Nigeria, where the rainy season has killed more than 300 people and caused widespread damage.
The money from its Central Emergency Relief Fund will help “scale up the flood response and address critical needs in three of the most flood affected states in Nigeria,” the UN said in a statement. They are Borno and Bauchi in the northeast, and Sokoto in the northwest.
The flooding has affected more than 1.2 million people in at least 31 out of Nigeria’s 36 states in the West African country, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Around 127,500 hectares of farmland has also been affected.
“Floods across Nigeria have created a crisis within a crisis,” said Mohamed Malick Fall, the UN coordinator in Nigeria.
“Millions of people were already facing critical levels of food insecurity before the floods because of economic hardships that have made it exceedingly difficult for the most vulnerable to feed themselves and their families.
“The floods have compounded people’s suffering.”
The latest emergency aid is in addition to the $6 million already released by the Nigerian Humanitarian Fund.
Several Nigerian states hit by flooding have seen rises in the cases of cholera.
Last month, severe flooding disaster killed at least 31 people and forced around 400,000 out of their homes in northeastern city of Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
In 2022, more than 500 people died and 1.4 million were displaced in the country’s worst floods in a decade.


More UK charter flights to evacuate nationals from Lebanon

Updated 03 October 2024
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More UK charter flights to evacuate nationals from Lebanon

  • More than 150 British nationals and their dependents were evacuated on Wednesday
  • Many commercial airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut

LONDON: Britain will charter more flights to help citizens and dependents leave Lebanon, the foreign office said on Thursday as Israel continued to strike Beirut overnight.
More than 150 British nationals and their dependents were evacuated from the Lebanese capital on a UK government chartered flight that arrived in Birmingham, central England, on Wednesday, the ministry said.
“A limited number” of flights will depart from Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport on Thursday, and “will continue for as long as the security situation allows,” it added.
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it was ready to support “hundreds” more to leave Lebanon in the coming days.
The statement came a day after Defense Secretary John Healey visited Cyprus, where 700 British troops and staff are stationed to prepare for the possible evacuations.
Many commercial airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut.
“Recent events have demonstrated the volatility of the situation in Lebanon,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Thursday, reiterating his message for nationals to “leave the country immediately.”
As of last week, there were around 5,000 British nationals, dual nationals and dependents in Lebanon, according to government estimates.
Israel has intensified its bombing of southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut, saying it aims to secure its northern border after nearly a year of hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The fighting has cost more than 1,000 lives in Lebanon so far.
The British government has confirmed that two of its fighter jets and a tanker were involved in responding to Iran’s firing of a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday, although they “did not engage any targets.”