Biden selects California Sen. Kamala Harris as running mate

California Senator Kamala Harris endorses Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as she speaks to supporters during a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan, on March 9, 2020. (AFP)
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Updated 12 August 2020
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Biden selects California Sen. Kamala Harris as running mate

  • Joe Biden: I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate
  • Trump’s uneven handling of crises has given Biden an opening, and he enters the fall campaign in strong position against the president

WILMINGTON, Delaware: Joe Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump.
“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted. In a text message to supporters, Biden said, “Together, with you, we’re going to beat Trump”
In choosing Harris, Biden is embracing a former rival from the Democratic primary who is familiar with the unique rigor of a national campaign. Harris, a 55-year-old first-term senator, is also one of the party’s most prominent figures and quickly became a top contender for the No. 2 spot after her own White House campaign ended.

Harris joins Biden in the 2020 race at a moment of unprecedented national crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people in the US, far more than the toll experienced in other countries. Business closures and disruptions resulting from the pandemic have caused an economic collapse. Unrest, meanwhile, has emerged across the country as Americans protest racism and police brutality.
Trump’s uneven handling of the crises has given Biden an opening, and he enters the fall campaign in strong position against the president. In adding Harris to the ticket, he can point to her relatively centrist record on issues such as health care and her background in law enforcement in the nation’s largest state.
Harris’ record as California attorney general and district attorney in San Francisco was heavily scrutinized during the Democratic primary and turned off some liberals and younger Black voters who saw her as out of step on issues of systemic racism in the legal system and police brutality. She tried to strike a balance on these issues, declaring herself a “progressive prosecutor” who backs law enforcement reforms.
Biden, who spent eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president, has spent months weighing who would fill that same role in his White House. He pledged in March to select a woman as his vice president, easing frustration among Democrats that the presidential race would center on two white men in their 70s.
Biden’s search was expansive, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive, Florida Rep. Val Demings, whose impeachment prosecution of Trump won plaudits, California Rep. Karen Bass, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, whose passionate response to unrest in her city garnered national attention.
A woman has never served as president or vice president in the United States. Two women have been nominated as running mates on major party tickets: Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008. Their party lost in the general election.
The vice presidential pick carries increased significance this year. If elected, Biden would be 78 when he’s inaugurated in January, the oldest man to ever assume the presidency. He’s spoken of himself as a transitional figure and hasn’t fully committed to seeking a second term in 2024. If he declines to do so, his running mate would likely become a front-runner for the nomination that year.
Born in Oakland to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, Harris won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney. In the role, she created a reentry program for low-level drug offenders and cracked down on student truancy.
She was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, the first woman and Black person to hold the job, and focused on issues including the foreclosure crisis. She declined to defend the state’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage and was later overturned by the US Supreme Court.
As her national profile grew, Harris built a reputation around her work as a prosecutor. After being elected to the Senate in 2016, she quickly gained attention for her assertive questioning of Trump administration officials during congressional hearings. In one memorable moment last year, Harris tripped up Attorney General William Barr when she repeatedly pressed him on whether Trump or other White House officials pressured him to investigate certain people.
Harris launched her presidential campaign in early 2019 with the slogan “Kamala Harris For the People,” a reference to her courtroom work. She was one of the highest-profile contenders in a crowded Democratic primary and attracted 20,000 people to her first campaign rally in Oakland.
But the early promise of her campaign eventually faded. Her law enforcement background prompted skepticism from some progressives, and she struggled to land on a consistent message that resonated with voters. Facing fundraising problems, Harris abruptly withdrew from the race in December 2019, two months before the first votes of the primary were cast.
One of Harris’ standout moments of her presidential campaign came at the expense of Biden. During a debate, Harris said Biden made “very hurtful” comments about his past work with segregationist senators and slammed his opposition to busing as schools began to integrate in the 1970s.
“There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. “And that little girl was me.”
Shaken by the attack, Biden called her comments “a mischaracterization of my position.”
The exchange resurfaced recently one of Biden’s closest friends and a co-chair of his vice presidential vetting committee, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, still harbors concerns about the debate and that Harris hadn’t expressed regret. The comments attributed to Dodd and first reported by Politico drew condemnation, especially from influential Democratic women who said Harris was being held to a standard that wouldn’t apply to a man running for president.
Some Biden confidants said Harris’ campaign attack did irritate the former vice president, who had a friendly relationship with her. Harris was also close with Biden’s late son, Beau, who served as Delaware attorney general while she held the same post in California.
But Biden and Harris have since returned to a warm relationship.
“Joe has empathy, he has a proven track record of leadership and more than ever before we need a president of the United States who understands who the people are, sees them where they are, and has a genuine desire to help and knows how to fight to get us where we need to be,” Harris said at an event for Biden earlier this summer.
At the same event, she bluntly attacked Trump, labeling him a “drug pusher” for his promotion of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, which has not been proved to be an effective treatment and may even be more harmful. After Trump tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests about the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody, Harris said his remarks “yet again show what racism looks like.”
Harris has taken a tougher stand on policing since Floyd’s killing. She co-sponsored legislation in June that would ban police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, set a national use-of-force standard and create a national police misconduct registry, among other things. It would also reform the qualified immunity system that shields officers from liability.
The list included practices Harris did not vocally fight to reform while leading California’s Department of Justice. Although she required DOJ officers to wear body cameras, she did not support legislation mandating it statewide. And while she now wants independent investigations of police shootings, she didn’t support a 2015 California bill that would have required her office to take on such cases.
“We made progress, but clearly we are not at the place yet as a country where we need to be and California is no exception,” she told The Associated Press recently. But the national focus on racial injustice now shows “there’s no reason that we have to continue to wait.”


Russia toughens sentence against French banker who left country

Updated 7 sec ago
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Russia toughens sentence against French banker who left country

Delpal was sentenced alongside his business partner, US investor Michael Calvey, both of whom vehemently denied the charges
The case shocked Russia’s business community and triggered an outflow of foreign capital from Russia

MOSCOW: A Moscow court has toughened an embezzlement conviction against a French banker who left the country years earlier, converting his initial suspended sentence to jail time, Russian state media reported Wednesday.
Philippe Delpal, a former senior executive at the Baring Vostok investment group, received a four-and-a-half year suspended sentence in 2021 for allegedly swindling funds from Vostochny Bank — partly owned at the time by a businessman linked to Vladimir Putin.
Delpal was sentenced alongside his business partner, US investor Michael Calvey, both of whom vehemently denied the charges.
The case shocked Russia’s business community and triggered an outflow of foreign capital from Russia.
The latest move, while likely to have little impact, comes as relations between Moscow and Paris plummet to new lows as the Kremlin shifts blame for the three-year Ukraine conflict from the United States to Europe.
Both Calvey and Delpal left Russia once the travel restrictions in their suspended sentences were lifted.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court on Wednesday replaced Delpal’s initial suspended sentence “with a real one” following a petition from Russia’s federal prison service, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.
Delpal, who spent six months in jail before he was put under house arrest, received the suspended sentence in 2021.
Five Russian associates who said they were innocent also received suspended sentences of between three-and-a-half years to five years.
A Moscow court later reduced Delpal’s sentence from four-and-a-half years to three-and-a-half-years.

UK teen who planned school massacre jailed for minimum 49 years

Updated 5 min 28 sec ago
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UK teen who planned school massacre jailed for minimum 49 years

  • “You wanted to be known posthumously as the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century,” judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said
  • The noisy struggle alerted neighbors, who called the police

LONDON: A UK teenager who killed three family members and planned to outdo notorious US massacres to become “the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century” was on Wednesday jailed for a minimum of 49 years.
Nicholas Prosper, 18 at the time of the killings, used a shotgun to kill his mother Juliana Falcon, 48, sister Giselle, 13, and brother Kyle, 16, who also received more than 100 knife wounds, at their home in Luton, southern England, in September 2024.
“Your ambition was notoriety. You wanted to be known posthumously as the world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century,” judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said on Wednesday as she sentenced the now 19-year-old Prosper.
Prosper told police upon his arrest of his “Friday the 13th” plan to kill four-year-old pupils and two teachers at a nearby primary school, and then himself.
He said his aim was to conduct an attack more deadly than the US Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech massacres, but the plan was interrupted when his mother woke up before he could kill his family in their sleep.
The noisy struggle alerted neighbors, who called the police.
“You explicitly sought to emulate and outdo Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old American who shot dead 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut in 2012,” the judge said.
“You aimed for 34 deaths, one more than the deadliest school shooting of recent times in the United States of America, at Virginia Tech in 2007,” she added.
Prosper, who experts said showed symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), was handed a life sentence, with a minimum term of 49 years. Taking into account the time already served, he will serve a minimum of 48 years and 177 days.


Egypt courts Indian investors during foreign trade minister’s New Delhi visit

Egypt’s Foreign Trade Minister Hassan El-Khatib, C, participates in the India-Egypt Business Roundtable.
Updated 21 min 25 sec ago
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Egypt courts Indian investors during foreign trade minister’s New Delhi visit

  • Egypt aims to increase trade with India from $4.2bn to $12bn in 5 years
  • Cairo wants more Indian companies to enter the Suez Canal Economic Zone

NEW DELHI: Egypt is trying to attract more Indian companies, particularly in the sectors of renewable energy, chemicals and information technology, its embassy in India said on Wednesday, as Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Hassan El-Khatib is on a visit to New Delhi to forge more partnerships.

El-Khatib arrived in India on Sunday for a four-day visit during which he met Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.

He discussed with Goyal ways of “attracting more Indian investments to the Egyptian market in vital sectors such as new and renewable energy, chemicals, automobile manufacturing and its components, pharmaceutical products, textiles, communications and information technology,” the Egyptian Embassy said in a statement to Arab News.

“Both sides expressed their aspiration to increase the volume of trade exchange between the two countries in the next five years. It was agreed to work on raising the trade volume from $4.2 billion in 2024 to $12 billion.”

El-Khatib also attended the India-Egypt Business Roundtable held by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

“The discussion highlighted new opportunities emerging in trade and investments in Egypt, and the pivotal role of the Indian industry toward leveraging these opportunities. Emphasis was also made over the opportunities in the Suez Canal Economic Zone,” the CII said after the meeting.

The Egyptian minister said his government was prepared to provide Indian investors with “all forms of support and facilitation” in the special zone.

Established in 2015, the SCZone spans 461 sq. km and includes six ports and four industrial zones along the Suez Canal — one of the world’s most important maritime routes.

Talks on establishing a dedicated Indian industrial cluster in the special economic zone have been underway since 2023, when relations strengthened following Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s visit as chief guest of India’s Republic Day celebrations and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official trip to Cairo.

“Egypt is working to accelerate economic growth and views India as a major partner in this regard. India is one of the largest trading partners of Egypt in the world and over 50 Indian companies have invested nearly $3.15 billion in the Egyptian market,” Md. Muddassir Quamar, associate professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, told Arab News.

The first investment agreement by an Indian company with the SCZone was signed in February. Under the $5 million deal, India’s Volkov Infra will establish a plant producing silico manganese and ferrosilicon from quartz and manganese ore in the East Ismailia Industrial Zone, known as “Technology Valley,” Quamar said.

“These are encouraging signs and the two sides are likely to further strengthen trade, investment and economic relations given India is keen to capitalize on the growing economic opportunities in the Eastern Mediterranean region.”


Nightclub tragedy in North Macedonia hits a generation already doubting its future

Updated 58 min 46 sec ago
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Nightclub tragedy in North Macedonia hits a generation already doubting its future

  • Most of the victims — the 59 killed and dozens injured in a frantic escape — were in their late teens or early 20s
  • In a language school in Skopje, the nation’s capital, 14-year-old Mila Krstevska said she is shocked and disappointed

SKOPJE, North Macedonia: The deadly nightclub fire in North Macedonia at the weekend has struck the young of this country the most, with the emotional devastation it brought apparent everywhere, from classrooms to the streets.
Most of the victims — the 59 killed and dozens injured in a frantic escape — were in their late teens or early 20s, enjoying a night out with friends at Club Pulse in the eastern town of Kocani. There was live music, drinks and dancing until flames ripped through the packed club.
Now the nation’s youth, already doubtful about its future amid the young republic’s economic troubles, has been at the forefront of an outpouring of grief and anger. The disaster also exposed deep-seated frustrations among them.
In a language school in Skopje, the nation’s capital, 14-year-old Mila Krstevska said she is shocked and disappointed.
“I am very angry about everything that happened,” she told The Associated Press, her voice shaking. “It’s a sad thing to go to a disco to have fun and then turn to ashes.”
“I am disappointed in our country,” she added. “I love Macedonia but I would like to go abroad when I am older.”
North Macedonia’s unemployment rate is 12.8 percent, the second-highest in Europe, according to the International Monetary Fund. Almost one-fifth of those aged 15-24 are neither working nor in school or getting training, according to most-recent data from the International Labor Organization.
The country’s population shrank by nearly 10 percent over the past two decades, dropping below 2 million, according to census data. Most of those who leave are young people seeking better opportunities elsewhere.
For those left behind, Sunday’s fire is the first major tragedy for their generation, born after North Macedonia’s independence from war-torn former Yugoslavia. Candlelight vigils and demonstrations in the wake of the tragedy have been led by the young.
At one vigil this week in Kocani, a town of about 25,000 people, students dressed in black knelt silently, placing thin yellow candles in trays of sand, their flames flickering in the night.
Nearby, angry youths began chanting “Justice! Justice!” overturned a van as police stood by without stepping in, then used chairs and umbrella stands to trash a cafeteria run by one of the nightclub’s owners.
As the nation mourns, soccer games have been postponed, schools are holding vigils, television presenters are dressed in black on air. Flowers and candles are left in central locations of every town and city.
Skopje social worker and therapist Tanja Marcekic said the fire has profoundly impacted young people.
“There is a sense of revolt and great dissatisfaction. We all feel it,” she said.
But, she added, there could be a small silver lining. “I also see another side of young people — how they organize themselves, how they want to help and be active. Maybe that is the best way to improve their mental health.”
In Kocani, home to about 25,000 people, every family was touched by the disaster.
“I am a parent of two. I can’t even talk — sorry,” said Branko Bogatinov. His grown children, who now live in Germany, used to visit the nightclub when they were still in school.
“This could have happened to anyone,” he said.


German defense firm Hensoldt warns Europe still needs US

Updated 19 March 2025
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German defense firm Hensoldt warns Europe still needs US

  • “It will only be possible in the medium term for Germany and the EU to achieve autonomy in armaments without relying on American capabilities,” Doerre said
  • The firm, based in the southern state of Bavaria, provides radars used in Ukraine to defend against Russian airstrikes

FRANKFURT: German defense firm Hensoldt has warned it will take time before European militaries can operate without American support as the continent races to rearm amid worries about US commitment to its security.
“It will only be possible in the medium term for Germany and the EU to achieve autonomy in armaments without relying on American capabilities,” Oliver Doerre, CEO of the defense electronics maker, told journalists on Tuesday.
The firm, based in the southern state of Bavaria, provides radars used in Ukraine to defend against Russian airstrikes.
European nations have been unsettled by signs of US President Donald Trump’s uncertain commitment to the continent’s defense and NATO, and were also shocked after he made overtures to Russia on the Ukraine war.
Responding to the geopolitical turmoil, German lawmakers Tuesday approved a plan to dramatically ramp up defense spending pushed by leader-in-waiting Friedrich Merz while the EU is seeking to mobilize huge sums for the continent to rearm.
But Doerre cautioned that it was “essential to continue our trusted collaboration with the American industry, particularly with Lockheed Martin,” in the areas of naval command systems and radar technologies.
He called for defense firms, both in Germany and Europe, to focus more on greater cooperation and less on competing with one another, and for Europe to improve when it comes to procurement of military gear.
Doerre, who served in the Germany military for over 20 years, said there were still “significant deficits in terms of capabilities” in the Germany army, despite a 100-billion-euro special fund set up to boost the armed forces after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Germany needs an estimated 300 billion to 500 billion euros for investments in equipment, infrastructure and extra personnel, he said.
Doerre said that Hensoldt was “ready” to boost its operations in response to growing demand, noting the company had invested one billion euros in recent years to ramp up production, and had hired 1,000 people alone last year.