World

CHICAGO — Barack Obama told fellow Democrats in Chicago Tuesday that "the torch has been passed" to Kamala 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 Vice President Harris would fight for Americans, and called her November poll rival 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 goers "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."

His 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 reelection bid.

"They shared with us how they felt, and we were able to resonate with them," said Mae Beale who wore a hat in the colors of Maryland, her home state.

"They were so real... I could identify with everything they were saying."

In deeply personal remarks shifting the focus onto Harris's qualities, her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, told the convention "she is ready."

"She brings both joy and toughness to this task," he said to cheers.

"At this moment in our nation's history, she is exactly the right president."

With the party united and Harris polling strongly, Democrats are making clear they believe they can defeat Trump.

The Republican nominee had seemed set to regain power in November's election until Biden upended the race by dropping out and endorsing his vice president.

Comparisons are already being made by Democratic faithful to Obama's historic 2008 campaign, where a tidal wave of enthusiasm carried him to the White House.

Bullish delegates symbolically nominated Harris as their candidate in a boisterous roll call, following a paper exercise to confirm her as their standard bearer earlier this month.

"Thank you... see you in two days, Chicago," she said to delegates via video link from her event in Milwaukee.

Harris, who was received rapturously in America's third largest city at her debut appearance before Biden spoke, traveled to Milwaukee Tuesday for an event at the basketball arena where Trump attended the Republican National Convention just a month ago.

The choice of the 18,000-seat arena will rile Trump, who has been rattled that 59-year-old Harris, unlike Biden, is able to draw the kinds of crowds the Republican has long attracted to his events.

Addressing both crowds simultaneously highlighted that she had filled the DNC and RNC venues.

'Outstanding president' 

Trying to pry media attention away from the Democratic convention, Trump is holding events all week and on Tuesday spoke about what he says is Harris's "anti-police" stance.

At an event in Howell, in the battleground state of Michigan, he attacked what he called "the Kamala crime wave."

"You can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread -- you get shot," he said flanked by police officers and their cars, falsely claiming there has been a 43 percent increase in violent crime.

While allies have pleaded publicly for Trump to focus on policies and stop his barrage of personal insults against Harris, he has not stopped.

On Monday the DNC floor belonged to Biden, who delivered a swan song after being forced to abandon his reelection bid amid deep concerns that at 81 he is too old and frail to defeat Trump.

Biden has recast what might have been a humiliating moment into a narrative of sacrifice, passing on the torch to his younger protege.

"It's been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more," he said, wiping away a tear amid thunderous applause before embracing Harris on stage.

Obama called Biden an "outstanding president" who had "defended democracy at a moment of great danger."

CHICAGO — Barack Obama hailed Kamala Harris as the future of the Democratic Party on Tuesday as she was formally crowned its presidential nominee after a roller-coaster ride in US campaign politics.

Former president Obama, still hugely popular and an influential figure in the party, told delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that Harris is the right person to lead the country into an "ambitious future".

Obama's comments drew a line under President Joe Biden's tenure following his stunning departure from his party's ticket last month.

"It's good to be home in Chicago," Obama posted on X ahead of his marquee appearance at the home of the Chicago Bulls basketball team to drum up excitement for Harris's campaign to deny Donald Trump a second term in the White House.

"Looking forward to being at the Democratic Convention, and joining so many inspiring people to share what's at stake in this election."

Convention delegate Ted Hiserodt, 56, said he was "very excited – [Obama] is one of the greatest orators of my lifetime".

"He's just very good at getting the energy level high and firing up the volunteers," he told AFP.

Hiserodt and roughly 4,700 fellow delegates anointed Harris their candidate for the November 5 poll in a ceremonial vote, repeating an online count undertaken in early August devoid of customary pomp and celebration.

One by one, members of 57 delegations will announce their picks for the party's ticket in what organisers promise "will be a celebration", including of the accomplishments of the last four years.

In an emotional speech late Monday, Biden chronicled the highlights of his time in the White House, heaping praise on Harris in an appearance designed to show unity.

"It's been the honour of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more," said the 81-year-old after a rapturous standing ovation.

"I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you. For 50 years, like many of you, I gave my heart and soul to our nation," he said before embracing Harris on stage.

Biden also said it was "not true" that he was angry at people who said he should step aside -- amid reports that he was frustrated with Obama for not being more vocal in his support.

Biden was, however, effectively the warm-up act for Harris, who will give her keynote speech on Thursday in a slot that just a few weeks ago would have been his.

Harris paid tribute to Biden in a surprise appearance at the opening of the convention, saying she was "forever grateful" to her boss and mentor.

'Going to do this' 

Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, said Biden "brought back decency" to the White House.

"Donald Trump fell asleep at his trial. And when he woke up, he made his own kind of history. The first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions," she said to chants of "lock him up" reverberating around the arena.

The Republican former president will hold an election campaign rally on Tuesday in Michigan, a must-win swing state.

Harris will, meanwhile, be campaigning in Milwaukee, which hosted the Republican National Convention last month.

Harris has managed to turn the White House race on its head since Biden stepped aside, reaching out to young, female and Black voters who had switched off from a battle between two elderly men.

Trump, meanwhile, has been left reeling by what he calls a "coup" by Democrats to replace Biden.

He has struggled to recalibrate his campaign to deal with Harris, falling back instead on personal insults and rambling speeches despite appeals from top Republicans to focus.

Protesters took to the streets of Chicago on Tuesday after a handful of pro-Palestinian demonstrators briefly breached an outer perimeter fence on Monday at the convention venue.

Despite the noisy demonstrators, morale was high among the thousands of party faithful on day one of the convention.

Franklin Delano Williams, 78, who was attending his 12th convention, said there was "no question" Obama's appearance at the convention would boost Harris's chances.

"You've seen these rallies, right? The crowds? We are turning out. We're going to do this," Williams said.

GENEVA — The mpox outbreak is not another Covid-19, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, because much is already known about the virus and the means to control it.

While more research is needed on the Clade 1b strain which triggered the UN agency into declaring an international health emergency, the spread of mpox can be reined in, the WHO's European director Hans Kluge said.

"Mpox is not the new Covid," he said.

"We know how to control mpox. And, in the European region, the steps needed to eliminate its transmission altogether," he told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link.

In July 2022, the WHO declared an emergency over the international outbreak of the less severe Clade 2b strain of mpox, which mostly affected men who have sex with men. The alarm was lifted in May 2023.

"We controlled mpox in Europe thanks to the direct engagement with the most affected communities," said Kluge.

Robust surveillance, investigating case contacts, behaviour changes in the affected communities and vaccination all contributed to controlling the outbreak, he said.

Transmission routes 

Kluge said the risk to the general population was low.

"Are we going to go in lockdown in the WHO European region, (as if) it's another Covid-19? The answer is clearly: 'no'," he said.

Clade 1b is spreading mainly through sexual transmission among adults. 

Kluge said it was also possible that someone in the acute phase of mpox infection, especially with blisters in the mouth, may transmit the virus to close contacts by droplets, in circumstances such as in the home or in hospitals.

"The modes of transmission are still a bit unclear. More research is required," he said.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the agency was not recommending the use of masks.

"We are not recommending mass vaccination. We are recommending to use vaccines in outbreak settings for the groups who are most at risk," he added.

The WHO declared an international health emergency on August 14, concerned by the rise in cases of Clade 1b in the DR Congo and its spread to nearby countries.

Clade 1 split 

There are two subtypes of mpox: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.

Clade 1b is a new offshoot of Clade 1, which is now called Clade 1a.

The Clade 1b outbreak in northeastern DRC was first detected in September last year and is spreading rapidly.

Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe's emergency operations programme area manager, explained that the split of Clade 1 into 1a and 1b reflects "change in the evolution of the virus."

Clade 1a traditionally has outbreaks resulting from infections from sick animals, with some limited follow-on transmission between humans at the household level, or within communities.

But with Clade 1B, "we have not isolated or detected zoonotic transmission of Clade 1b," said Smallwood.

"So it seems to be a strain of the virus that's circulating exclusively within the human population."

Experts are trying to work out if there is a difference in disease severity between Clades 1a and 1b.

Vaccines 

The available vaccines were originally developed for smallpox, and are effective against other viruses in the wider orthopoxvirus family, such as mpox. 

Two mpox vaccines have been used in recent years -- MVA-BN, produced by Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic, and Japan's LC16.

There is also ACAM2000, a second-generation smallpox jab approved in the United States.

Whether a person vaccinated post-exposure to mpox goes on to develop the disease depends on the early administration of the vaccine, said Smallwood.

Vaccines can also be used preventatively in people likely to be exposed to the virus.

Jasarevic said results from effectiveness studies indicated that a good level of protection was provided against mpox following vaccination.

However, it takes several weeks to develop immunity after being vaccinated.

TOKYO — The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant said Monday it will send a probe inside a battered reactor this week for a trial removal of radioactive debris.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) aims to retrieve a tiny sample of the estimated 880 tons of radioactive debris that is believed to sit inside reactors at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant.

The sample will be studied for clues about the condition of the inside of the reactors and their hazardous contents, a crucial step towards decommissioning the plant.

"We will proceed carefully by putting safety as our highest priority," a Tepco official told a news conference Monday.

The debris has radiation levels so high that Tepco has had to develop specialised robots that can withstand them to function inside.

Removing it has long been dubbed the most daunting challenge in the decades-long project to decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Three of Fukushima's six reactors were operating when the tsunami hit on March 11, 2011, knocking down cooling systems and sending them into meltdown in what became the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

In three units of the Fukushima plant, fuel and other material melted and then solidified into highly radioactive "fuel debris".

Tepco deployed in February two mini-drones and a "snake-shaped robot" into one of the three nuclear reactors, as part of the preparations for the removal task.

The latest probe, equipped with a robotic arm, is expected to take about a week to reach radioactive debris inside the reactor and should emerge again with the sample next month.

Japan began almost a year ago to release wastewater from the stricken plant into the Pacific Ocean.

The step has sparked a diplomatic row with China and Russia, both of which banned seafood imports, although Japan insists the discharge is safe, a view backed by the UN atomic agency.

MOSCOW — More than 40 Russian firefighters have been injured tackling a fire at an oil facility that has raged for two days after it was hit by a Ukrainian drone.

Authorities in the city of Proletarsk, in the southern Rostov region, which borders Ukraine, introduced a state of emergency Monday and called in extra medics to help treat the injured.

"At the moment, 41 firefighters have been seen to at the central district hospital," Rostov governor Vasily Golubev said in a post on Telegram.

"Eighteen of them were required to be hospitalised, including five who are now in intensive care," he added.

Russia said Kyiv struck a fuel storage warehouse in the city of 20,000 people on Sunday morning. 

"Firefighting units continue to extinguish the fire," Golubev said on Monday afternoon, almost 36 hours after the attack.

"Given the difficulty of the fire in the Proletarsk district, a high alert regime has been turned into a state of emergency," he said earlier Monday, adding that the "forces and means" to put out the fire had been increased.

Russian state media quoted a statement of the local city administration that said there was no threat of the fire spreading to residential areas and called on people "not to give in to panic". 

Videos on social media showed a huge cloud of smoke billowing into the air at night. 

Proletarsk lies some 200 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. 

Kyiv, which on August 6 launched a surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region, has been hitting Russia's oil infrastructure for over a year. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the strikes "fair" retaliation for Moscow's attacks on his country.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on Sunday for a two-day state visit, Russian news agencies reported.

Russian television broadcast images of the Russian president’s plane as it arrived in Baku in the evening.

His visit to the Caucasus country, a close partner of both Moscow and Turkey but also a major energy supplier to Western countries, comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented Ukrainian military offensive on Russian soil.

Putin is due to hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on bilateral relations and “international and regional problems”, the Kremlin said.

The two leaders are dining Sunday evening at the Azerbaijani president’s official residence, local official news agency Asertac said.

On Monday, Aliyev and Putin will sign joint documents and make statements to the press, said Russian agency Ria Novosti.

Putin will also lay a wreath on the tomb of Heydar Aliyev, father of the current leader, who was president from 1993 to 2003.

Earlier, the Kremlin said they would also discuss “the question of settling [the conflict] between Azerbaijan and Armenia”.

Azerbaijan reconquered the mountainous enclave in September 2023 from the Armenian separatists who had held it for three decades.

Armenia accused Russia of inadequate support in its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since then, Armenia has sought to deepen its ties with Western countries, especially the United States, much to the annoyance of Moscow, which considers both former Soviet republics to be in its sphere of influence.

Azerbaijan is a major producer of natural gas, to whom many European countries turned to make up for the sharp reduction in Russian deliveries after the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022.

It is also hosting the COP29 climate conference in November.

Putin’s last visit to Azerbaijan was in September 2018.

Putin has been under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) since March 2023 for the “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia, an accusation the Kremlin denies.

While the threat of arrest has limited Putin’s travels abroad, Azerbaijan is not a signatory to the Rome Statute treaty that established the ICC.

WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris will be crowned by jubilant Democrats in Chicago this week as the party's standard-bearer against Donald Trump after one of the most head-spinning turnarounds in US political history.

The 59-year-old vice president and her running mate Tim Walz will be the stars of the Democratic National Convention -- with President Joe Biden reduced to a warm-up act after his shock withdrawal from the White House race.

It will be a critical opportunity for Harris, the first Black and South Asian woman to head a major US party ticket, to show Americans her credentials for the Oval Office and ride a wave of excitement into what remains a tight election.

In a remarkable show of unity in front of thousands of delegates, Harris will be backed by three presidents -- 81-year-old Biden plus former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton -- along with former nominee Hillary Clinton.

But there will also be heavy security in Chicago amid plans for mass protests against the Biden-Harris administration's continued support for Israel's devastating war in Gaza.

Just a few weeks ago, the prospect of Harris leading Democrats into the four-day meeting would have seemed far-fetched, but the US political landscape has been completely upended since then.

Instead of the convention being a grim, Biden-led slog towards near-certain defeat after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the party has dared to hope again.

'All about excitement' 

Harris has wiped out Trump's lead in the polls, drawn huge crowds in a blitz of battleground states and raised record funds -- all while bringing what she calls a "joyful" message to the Democratic campaign.

Her televised speech on the final night of the convention on Thursday will now be a chance to define herself to voters and sell her story as America's first Black woman vice president.

"It is all about excitement, that she is the new generation," Casey Burgat of George Washington University told AFP.

 "This is about introducing herself as the nominee, what she stands for."

Harris, who won the nomination in a virtual roll call ahead of the convention but will formally accept it this week, will also finally be setting out her policies, having kept things vague until now.

She is expected to focus on cutting high prices that have hit Americans hard -- and which ate away at Biden's popularity -- and to hammer Trump on the issue of abortion. 

The Republican former president has been floundering since Harris took over, branding her remarkable rise as a "coup" against Biden and resorting to attacks on her race.

A month ago it was Trump making a triumphant appearance at his party's convention after surviving an assassination attempt, but now the tables are turned as the 78-year-old struggles to deal with a younger candidate. 

'Woman of colour' 

Everything has changed for Biden too, as he prepares to give a valedictory address as a lame-duck president on Monday instead of being the headliner.

Afterwards, he is expected to immediately depart for a holiday in California.

The Democrats have not unveiled their full lineup yet, but US media reported that Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, is also expected to speak on Monday while Obama will address the convention on Tuesday.

Bill Clinton will be the warm-up act on Wednesday for Minnesota Governor Walz.

The folksy Midwesterner has turned out to be a punchy crowd-pleaser who has led the Democrats' charge on branding Trump and his VP pick J.D. Vance as "weird".

While Harris can expect a further post-convention bump in the polls, the challenge then will be to keep up the momentum in the sprint to election day on November 5.

Polls show she remains vulnerable on key issues such as immigration and the economy.

But her dizzying rise so far shows that she could be the one to break some of the last glass ceilings in US politics.

Political scientist Regina Bateson of the University of Colorado Boulder said "people might have had doubts" about whether a major American party would coalesce around "someone who's a woman of colour."

"Actually, she rallied the party around her very quickly, and has been very successful."

CARACAS — Venezuela's opposition and regime supporters will vie for the streets of Caracas Saturday in competing demonstrations amid a political crisis sparked by a disputed election where both President Nicolas Maduro and his rivals have claimed victory.

"We have to remain firm and united," opposition leader Maria Corina Machado urged supporters in a post on social media platform X on Saturday.

She had called earlier for backers to take to the streets in hundreds of cities in Venezuela and abroad.

"They're trying to scare us, to divide us, to paralyze us, to demoralise us, but they can't because they are absolutely entrenched in their lies [and] violence," she said.

A heavy security presence was taking shape early Saturday. Access to Caracas's vast Petare neighborhood, a few miles from the opposition's announced gathering point, was being controlled by two National Guard armored vehicles backed by about 40 motorcycle-mounted troops.

Local media reported similar deployments in other key areas, where at least 25 people were killed during anti-Maduro protests a day after the July 28 vote that both Maduro and the opposition say they won.

At one of the first overseas demonstrations to get under way Saturday, more than 100 Venezuelans in Australia rallied in Sydney, waving national flags and balloons.

"This is a strong message to our people in Venezuela. We are with you, and we want the world to listen what we are saying," said protest organiser Rina Rivas.

Members of the Venezuelan community also rallied in Melbourne.

Machado, who had her presidential candidacy blocked by institutions loyal to Maduro, will be at the Caracas march despite having been largely in hiding since election day.

Maduro had called for Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who replaced her on the ballot, to be arrested. He accuses them of seeking to foment a "coup d'etat."

Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed Maduro the winner of a third six-year term until 2031, giving him 52 percent of votes cast on July 28 but without providing a detailed breakdown of the results.

The opposition says polling station-level results show Gonzalez Urrutia took more than two-thirds of the vote.

'Lies, repression, violence' 

Maduro's victory claim has been rejected by the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries.

Neighbors Colombia and Brazil on Thursday called for fresh elections in Venezuela, but Machado said this would show "a lack of respect" for the popular will already expressed on July 28.

On Friday, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, traditionally a leftist ally of Maduro, described the regime in Caracas as "very unpleasant" and insisted on the release of a detailed vote breakdown.

In a radio interview, Lula declined to label the Maduro government a dictatorship, but said it had an "authoritarian bias."

The Organisation of American States approved a resolution in Washington on Friday urging Caracas to "expeditiously publish the presidential election records, including the voting results at the level of each polling station."

And in a joint statement on Friday, the European Union and 22 countries called for an "impartial verification" of the election outcome.

Cyber 'attack' 

The CNE says it has been unable to release the results due to a "cyber terrorist attack" on its systems, though the Carter Center observer mission has said there was no evidence for such a claim.

The opposition says it has access to 80 per cent of paper ballots cast, which show that Gonzalez Urrutia won easily.

The ruling "Chavista" movement, named after Maduro's socialist predecessor Hugo Chavez, has also called demonstrations for Saturday in Caracas "in support of the victory" of the president in office since 2013.

Maduro has asked the Supreme Court, also said to be loyal to him, to "certify" the election result.

"Venezuela's conflicts... are resolved among Venezuelans, with their institutions, with their law, with their Constitution," he said on Thursday.

Maduro's previous reelection in 2018 was also rejected by many countries, including the United States, and European and Latin American countries.