Former US president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were welcomed to the stage with rapturous applause at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday. Barack Obama told the crowd that Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, is “someone who sees you and hears you and will get up every single day and fight for you”.

Barack Obama told fellow Democrats in Chicago on Tuesday that “the torch has been passed” to Harris and that the United States was ready for her to become president.

Former president Obama, who was greeted with rapturous applause and cheers at the packed arena hosting the party’s nominating convention, said Harris would fight for Americans and called her November election opponent Donald Trump “dangerous”.

“Kamala Harris is ready for the job. This is a person who has spent her life fighting for people who need a voice,” he said.

Obama called Harris “someone who sees you and hears you and will get up every single day and fight for you”.

“Yes she can,” Obama said of Harris, prompting the boisterous crowd to repeatedly chant the phrase, recalling Obama’s own “Yes we can” campaign slogan.

Before his stardust performance, his wife and former US first lady Michelle Obama told convention attendees “something magically wonderful is in the air”.

“It’s the contagious power of hope,” she said, calling Harris “my girl” and saying that hope – another rallying cry of her husband’s successful 2008 campaign – “is making a comeback”.

The Obamas’ turn amped up the already buoyant mood in Chicago where President Joe Biden delivered his own emotional speech late Monday less than a month after ending his re-election bid.

“In 2012 I got to vote for [Barack Obama], and everyone was pushing Michelle Obama to run for president, but now we have Kamala. So I just think that this is, in a sense, them passing on the torch,” said attendee Tomara Hall, 35, from California.

Source: AFP

Vice-President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden have appeared at an event together for the first time since the president ended his run for a second term and Ms Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee.

The event, held just outside Washington DC, came as Donald Trump spoke at a news conference in New Jersey – his second campaign event in the past two days.

The Democratic event on Thursday celebrated the Biden administration’s newly announced deal to cut the cost of 10 common prescription drugs for millions of Americans.

It also offered a glimpse of the pair’s dynamic, weeks into a realignment of the party ticket.

The White House said some 2,300 people attended Thursday’s rally in Upper Marlboro, Maryland – a Democratic stronghold.

“I have an incredible partner in the progress we made,” the president said. “She going to make one hell of a president.”

But more than the policy announcement, Mr Biden boosted his vice-president. He brought the crowd to their feet multiple times.

The warm feelings were mutual.

“There’s a lot of love in this room for our president,” Ms Harris said. “Few leaders in our nation have done more, on so many issues, including to expand access to affordable healthcare, than Joe Biden.”

Thousands stood in line in the summer heat for the chance to see Mr Biden and Ms Harris speak. Social media video showed hundreds still in line as the venue reached capacity.

It’s the latest in a series of events Ms Harris has hosted that have drawn large crowds of supporters, marking a noticeable shift in energy in the presidential race.

Ms Harris, however, has largely avoided media questions and has yet to sit down for an interview since becoming her party’s candidate.

Her supporters’ enthusiasm is showing up in polling data, too. A recent survey from the Cook Political Report suggests Ms Harris is erasing former President Donald Trump’s polling leads in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Vivian Strong waited three hours to get into Thursday’s event. She hoped to be part of a historic moment, she told the BBC.

“I feel a sense of urgency to actually ensure she gets elected,” she said. “I would hate to have another administration of the other guy.”

Before the president and vice-president took the stage, some supporters led the crowd in chants from Howard University – the historically black university Ms Harris attended in Washington DC.

Many supporters of the vice-president donned pink and green, the colours of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA) to which Ms Harris belonged.

Linda Jones, a Howard alumna and a member of AKA, said their shared identity excites her. But she was also eager to see Mr Biden speak.

“I’m happy for President Biden to get something accomplished that he’s worked so hard for,” Ms Jones told the BBC, referring to the prescription drug deal.

“He’s such a good man and I felt very bad he was leaving with a cloud, so now I feel [this policy] is one more boost for him.”

Source: BBC

Thailand’s parliament has picked Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire tycoon and former leader Thaksin, as prime minister.

At 37, she will be the country’s youngest PM and the second woman in the post, after her aunt Yingluck.

Her selection comes just two days after former PM Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by a constitutional court. Both are from the Pheu Thai Party, which came second at the 2023 election but formed a ruling coalition.

Ms Paetongtarn faces the difficult task of reviving Thailand’s stalled economy and avoiding the military coups and court interventions which have deposed four previous administrations led by her family.

Ms Paetongtarn, who received 319 endorsement and 145 against votes on Friday, is the fourth member of the Shinawatra clan to become prime minister in the past two decades.

The other three, including her father Thaksin and aunt Yingluck, were deposed by military coups or constitutional court rulings.

The same court dismissed Mr Thavisin on Wednesday for appointing to his cabinet a former lawyer who was once jailed.

After being put forward as the PM candidate, Ms Paetongtarn told reporters at Pheu Thai’s headquarters on Thursday that she admired Mr Srettha’s work and thought his dismissal was unfortunate.

Educated at elite schools in Thailand and at university in the UK, she spent some years working at the Shinawatra family’s Rende hotel group, where her husband serves as deputy chief investment officer.

She joined Pheu Thai in 2021 and was appointed party leader in October 2023.

Ms Paetongtarn’s appointment brings fresh energy to Thailand’s top leadership. Members of Pheu Thai may also be holding out hope that she can help revive the party’s political fortunes.

Mr Thaksin first became prime minister in 2001, but his second term in office ended abruptly after his government was deposed by a military coup in 2006. He returned to Thailand after 15 years in exile last October, hours before Mr Srettha was voted prime minister.

He was allowed to return as part of a grand bargain with his old conservative enemies, who are now in coalition with Pheu Thai.

In June, he was charged with insulting the monarchy. He is the most high-profile figure to face charges under Thailand’s notorious lese majeste law, which has been used against political dissidents.

Wednesday’s ruling to dismiss Mr Srettha is also being widely interpreted as a warning to Mr Thaksin, who still dominates Pheu Thai, to rein in his ambitions.

Ms Yingluck won a landslide in the 2011 election, but she too was later disqualified by the courts, and her government ousted by a second coup. She is now living in exile.

Source: BBC

Donald Trump’s campaign has said some of its internal communications have been hacked and suggested it was targeted by Iranian operatives.

US news website Politico reported on Saturday that it had been emailed campaign documents including internal research carried out on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance.

“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election,” a campaign spokesman told the BBC.

Politico said it had confirmed the authenticity of the documents. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.

The campaign did not give any further details or any evidence linking the document leak to Iranian hackers or the Iranian government.

Its statement came one day after Microsoft released a report indicating that Iranian hackers targeted the campaign of an unnamed US presidential candidate in June.

Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) said that the campaign was sent a spear phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.

“Over the past several months, we have seen the emergence of significant influence activity by Iranian actors,” the MTAC report said.

Trump campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung said the June hacking attempt mentioned in the MTAC report “coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee”.

“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr Cheung said.

Politico said that in late July it began receiving emails from a person who identified themselves only as “Robert” using an AOL email account.

The news outlet said the Vance file was 271 pages long and based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements. The email account also sent part of a research document about Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was also a vice presidential contender, it said.

Presidential campaigns routinely research potential vice-presidential nominees in order to ferret out any potentially embarrassing revelations. Politico reported that some of Mr Vance’s previous – and well-known – criticisms of Trump were labelled in the document as “potential vulnerabilities”.

The Microsoft report noted: “Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles.”

Microsoft had released a similar report during the 2020 election saying Iranian hackers had targeted presidential campaigns.

US security sources have also warned of an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, unconnected to last month’s attempted shooting in Pennsylvania. And on Tuesday, the US justice department charged a Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran with plotting to assassinate US officials, potentially including the former president.

The BBC has contacted Iranian officials for comment.

Source: BBC

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice-presidential running mate on Tuesday, according to US media.

Walz, a former US Army National Guard veteran and teacher, brings a blend of progressive policy achievements and Midwestern appeal to the Harris-Walz ticket, as they prepare to challenge Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance in the upcoming election.

Vice President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate on Tuesday, choosing an affable longtime politician who Democrats hope can keep newfound party unity alive in a campaign barreling toward Election Day.

Harris said in a post on social media that Walz has “delivered for working families.” The two will appear together in Philadelphia at an evening rally.

Donald Trump has questioned Kamala Harris’ racial identity during a heated exchange at a convention for black journalists.

Trump falsely claimed the vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee had only emphasised her Asian-American heritage until recently when, he claimed, “she became a black person”.

“I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black,” he said at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday.

“So I don’t know – Is she Indian? Or is she black?”

Ms Harris said Trump’s remarks were “the same old show” of “divisiveness… and disrespect”.

“The American people deserve better,” she told a meeting of the historically black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho in Houston. “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us – they are an essential source of our strength.”

Ms Harris is the first black and Asian-American vice-president, with Indian and Jamaican-born parents. She attended Howard University, a historically black university, and joined the predominantly black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

She became a member of Congressional Black Caucus after entering the Senate in 2017.

Trump’s claims prompted a heated exchange with ABC News’ correspondent Rachel Scott, one of the moderators of the Chicago event.

“I respect either one,” the Republican said in reference to Harris’ racial identity. “But she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a black person.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said no-one “has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify. That is no-one’s right.”

“Who appointed Donald Trump the arbiter of Blackness?” asked Representative Ritchie Torres of New York. He described Trump as a “relic of a racist past”.

The Republican nominee and former president has a history of attacking his opponents on the basis of race.

He falsely accused Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, of not being born in the US.

Trump attacked the former UN ambassador and his Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley by falsely claiming she could not be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born.

Ms Harris has faced a series of attacks since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. Republicans have criticised the decision, saying she was chosen only because of her race.

Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, called her a “DEI vice-president” – a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.

On Wednesday, Scott pushed Trump to clarify whether he believed Ms Harris was a “DEI hire”. He replied: “I really don’t know, could be.”

Ms Harris has described growing up engaged with her Indian heritage and often visited the country. Her mother also immersed her two daughters in the black culture of Oakland, California – where she was raised, she said.

Trump also attacked Ms Harris’ credentials during the discussion, saying she had failed her bar exam early in her legal career. His comments were met with murmurs from the crowd.

“I’m just giving you the facts. She didn’t pass her bar exam and she didn’t think she would pass it and she didn’t think she was going to ever pass it and I don’t know what happened. Maybe she passed it,” he said.

Ms Harris graduated from the University of California Hastings College of Law in 1989. The New York Times reported that she failed her first attempt and passed at the second. The state bar of California says fewer than half of those who sit the test pass on the first attempt.

The Chicago discussion began with a contentious back and forth between Scott and the former president. Trump accused the journalist of giving a “very rude introduction” when she began the conversation asking about his past criticism of black people.

She cited Trump calling black journalists’ questions ”stupid and racist” and that he had ”dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar a Lago resort”.

“I love the black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the black population of this country,” he responded.

The former president criticised the conversation hours later on his social media platform. “The questions were rude and nasty, often in the form of a statement, but we CRUSHED IT!” he said.

Source: BBC

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian takes the oath of office before Parliament , with dignitaries from more than 80 countries attending the inauguration ceremony.

Before the Holy Quran, Pezeshkian swore to safeguard the official religion of the country, Islam, and the Islamic Republic and the Constitution.

“As president, in the presence of the Holy Quran and before the Iranian nation, I swear to Almighty God that I will safeguard the official religion, the system of the Islamic Republic, and the Constitution of the country,” he stated.

“I will dedicate all my abilities and qualifications to fulfill the responsibilities entrusted to me, and I will devote myself to serving the people and elevating the nation, promoting religion and ethics, supporting righteousness, and expanding justice,” Pezeshkian added.

Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei conducted the swearing-in ceremony.

Pezeshkian formally started his four-year term on Sunday when Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei endorsed him as president following his victory in the July 5 runoff election.

Pezeshkian takes over from his predecessor, the late President Ebrahim Raisi, whose death in a May helicopter crash sparked the early election.

The inauguration ceremony is attended by senior Iranian politicians, military officials, and members of Parliament as well as dignitaries from 88 countries.

Around 600 journalists from Iran and abroad are covering the event.

As stipulated in Article 121 of the Iranian Constitution, the presidential oath must be administered in Parliament, where the president takes the oath of office in the presence of legislators and members of the Constitutional Council alongside the Judiciary chief.

After the inauguration, the president is required by law to submit the final list of his cabinet to Parliament for approval within two weeks.

Source: Presstv