Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - Voice of America
Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - July 24, 2024
This is B.O.A. News. I'm Tommy McNeil. You as Vice President Kamala Harris drew contrast between her and former President Donald Trump Tuesday and her first rally as presidential candidate. Before I was elected Vice President, before I was elected United States Senator, I was elected Attorney General of the State of California and I was a courtroom prosecutor before them and in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Harris painted Trump as someone found guilty of fraud, liable for sexual abuse and someone who conjures chaos fear and hate from an event hole in suburban Milwaukee, a city in the swing state of Wisconsin. The top two U.S. Democratic congressional leaders Tuesday endorsed Vice President Harris to be their party's presidential nominee. Vice President Harris will soon be our nominee and will be elected President in November. We are brimming with excitement, enthusiasm, unity, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and also House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries ended days of questions over whether they would join the growing number of Democrats and supporting Harris's bid for the party nomination. For the November 5th election, President Biden dropped his bid for re-election on Sunday amid worries that he no longer had the physical or mental stamina to wage what is expected to be a grueling race against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The U.S. Treasury Department is ordering the nation's banking industry to start disclosing its holdings of Russian assets with the goal of eventually seizing those billions of dollars in assets and selling them to aid the devastated Ukrainian economy. The disclosure is required under new law passed by Congress. Earlier this year, known as repo act, which gives the U.S. government the authority to seize Russian state assets, this is really news. The death toll from two landslides in southern Ethiopia has jumped to 229 and could rise further as a search for survivors and casualties continued into a second day. Following heavy rain, a landslide buried people in southern Ethiopia Sunday night, then a second one engulfed others who had gathered to help Monday morning. Put it shared by the local administration. Showed people digging up bodies with shovels and bare hands. Prime Minister Abiyama said that he was deeply saddened by the terrible loss of life and that federal officials had been deployed to reduce the impact of the disaster. Kenya's anti-government protesters were met by counter-demonstrators in the capital on Tuesday and the latest unrest since demonstrations erupted over proposed tax hikes last month, Reuters correspondent David Doyle. Pro-government protesters clashed with anti-government rivals on Tuesday morning, before being dispersed by police who fired tear gas. One anti-government protesters said they were being unfail targeted. Protesters erupted in June against proposed tax hikes. They have since grown into a wider movement against President William Ruto's government. More than 50 people have been killed after marches that were initially peaceful, turned violent. An explosion at a Jose Cuervo tequila plant in central Mexico killed at least five company workers for his evacuation of tourists from the area in the spirits hometown of tequila. The head of the state's emergency services said on Tuesday, Victor Hugo Rolden, the chief of emergency services and fire fighters in Jalisco state, told Reuters the blast occurred in a 500,000 liter tank at the plant and the resulting fire was put out by company personnel at least two other tanks at the facility operated by the world's largest tequila maker, also collapsed. The statement the company confirmed the death toll from the accident. Taiwan has shuttered offices schools and tourist sites across the island ahead of a powerful typhoon due to make landfall later Wednesday. Typhoon gave me already worse in seasonal rains in the Philippines where at least 12 people have died. Typhoon had winds of 100 miles per hour Wednesday morning. Heavy rain was falling in much of Taiwan. It did not make landfall in the Philippines, but enhanced its seasonal monsoon rains. I'm Tommy McNeil, V.O.E. News. (Music) U.S. President Joe Biden returns to the White House. On social media, the president says he'll deliver a prime time address on what lies ahead and how he will finish the job for the American people. Vice President Harris makes her first stump speech as a presidential candidate. "I am told as of this morning that we have earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic Party." And Mattel has introduced its first ever blind Barbie doll. "I didn't see myself represented as a young blind girl growing up in the world. All I wanted was a role model that looks like me, and finally we have one." Today's Wednesday, July 24th, and this is V.O.A.'s International Edition. (Music) I'm Alexis Strope. And I'm Scott Walterman. Now testing negative for COVID-19, U.S. President Joe Biden returned to the White House on Tuesday and will speak to the nation on Wednesday to tales on that now from Associated Press correspondent, Sucker McGonney. President Biden says he will address the nation about his decision to end his re-election bid. It'll be a prime time address from the Oval Office by a president who had not been seen publicly and nearly a week. He'd been at his Delaware Beach House recovering from COVID-19. The president says on social media he'll discuss what lies ahead and how he will finish the job for the American people. But on Capitol Hill, if Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to run the country. House Speaker Mike Johnson and many Republicans are urging the president to step down. The White House calls that ridiculous. And number four, House Democrat Ted Liu used a football analogy to explain why. "Like a quarterback takes a team that's like four years ago not doing well and then now takes them to having winning victory and says, you know, I'm going to retire next year." Doesn't mean that quarterback can't play this year. "Sucker McGonney, Washington." Voters in the United States are facing a new presidential campaign with incumbent Joe Biden dropping out and vice president Kamala Harris likely to be the Democratic party's nominee to face Donald Trump in November. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns looks at how some voters are reacting to the change. In Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, voter Eric Boylan says Democrats had little choice but to push Biden out. "I think he was a very good leader. But I do kind of also agree that his time is common. It's time to step aside and let somebody, you know, somebody rise up within those ranks, voter Christine Stoles says if Biden is unfit to be a candidate, he should step down as president." "He should have dropped out a long time ago. He never showed he should leave the White House. He's not mentally stable enough to run this country." Making Vice President Kamala Harris the nominee improves the party's chances against Republican candidate Donald Trump, says voter Daniel Brennan. "Terris Bowles well against Trump. So I think she has a real shot at winning. And I think he's doing the right thing right now despite some people being so nervous and against the disasters." On a visit to Washington, Pennsylvania voter Bill Mills says Harris shares responsibility for Biden's economic failures. "We're noticing an increase in the price of groceries and fuel in the price of living. And our lives are worse now. And Vice President Harris is riding on those coattails. So it's going to be very hard to shake that opinion when we have all witnessed an economic downturn in all of our lives." In Michigan, voter Jason Potts says the switch gives the Democratic party a chance to connect with younger voters. "I always thought we were just biding time until someone a little more tenacious comes along. And we'll see if that's Kamala. She's got more fire definitely." As Vice President Harris worked on controlling illegal immigration, Florida voter Christopher Rand Gill says her failure at the border makes her unqualified to be president. "Kamala's garbage. She's worse than Joe. Are they on the same page? They about the same. They about the same. But I don't think anybody's going to vote for Kamala. No one wants to back her. She had one job. That was handling the border." In Washington, voter Alicia Jefferson hopes people do not see the vice president only as a woman of color but look to her accomplishments. "And I hope they can look past anything else and look at that. But the world we live in it that some people will and some won't. And I hope it's not enough. People that stand away or use that as an obstacle for her to get in office." New Yorker Andrew Varshovsky says it will be tough for anyone to beat Trump. "Even if I were to stay in the race or whoever we have right now as a Democrat, it's right now it's Trump's race to lose. So as a Democrat, I think it's going to be hard for us to win this race no matter what happens now." Harris appears to have enough commitments from party delegates to be the nominee. But it will take next month's Democratic National Convention in Chicago to make her the party's official candidate to challenge Trump. Scott Stern's VOA News. Vice President Kamala Harris assailed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday at her first campaign rally since replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate. "Before I was elected Vice President, before I was elected United States Senator, I was elected Attorney General of the State of California, and I was a courtroom prosecutor before them. And in those roles, I 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." A Reuters Ipsos opinion poll shows Harris taking a marginal lead over Republican Trump, so let's dig into this a bit. Joining us now is Cliff Young, Ipsos president of polling and societal trends. So it seems like the Democrats have been completely re-energized by making this switch, looking at the latest data, money, enthusiasm, volunteers. Is that what you guys are seeing? Yeah, so we're seeing that across the board. We just received a poll out of the field a couple of hours ago. And you can see it really in the numbers. The Kamala has been helped both in terms of the horse race poll. She's ahead of Trump, as well as in terms of favorability scores, which have jumped six points. So across the board, a lot of energy mobilization of the Democratic base. Really, money is the lifeblood, right? It seems that that has also been re-energized of giving. Yes, if anything, it's a leading indicator of this energy. It kind of predates the bulls, right? And that's a good way to gauge whether the base is healthy or not in respect to the principal or the candidate specifically. So yes, money is a very important indicator and very important, obviously, for campaigns in the modern era. What are some of the other things that we should be looking at in terms of polling data that impacts positively or negatively either campaign at this point? Yeah, right. Right this second we're in the eye of the storm, so we obviously have to be careful with the polls. But we typically look at favorability scores. Is there improvement there? Is there improvement in terms of neighbor? It becomes better known to the population. And obviously, and obviously, the most important are the horse race numbers. Does that translate into a more sort of efficacious performance for him, or for Harris, in terms of voting? If you're the campaign, how do you capitalize on this surge? This is the moment where messages are the most sticky. This is when individuals' voters are most predisposed to listen. In a relative sense, they're more optimistic towards a candidate. In this case, Kamala Harris. And this is where you really have to push out and get forward your message. Who is she? What's her biography? She's all about, and you have to do that before your adversary does. You have to define who she is before the Republicans do. And you have this moment in time, this sort of halo effect that makes such efforts most sticky. I read a poll recently that estimates that there is 9% undecided in likely voters. Do you think the number is that big? I think it's probably around 10%. I think that's about right. Obviously, it's much more about getting your base out to vote than it is to convincing someone to vote for you. Ultimately, those undecideds, probably about half to more than half, won't even show up on election day. But there is still a thin margin on the margin individuals to convince. And obviously, the elections in the United States come down to the swing state. So any half percent point is important because those elections are so close, especially in a state like, let's say, Pennsylvania, right, where it was really tight last time, Georgia really tight, Arizona really tight, like very slim margins. You need that 10, 15, 20,000 voters, right? Yeah, it's essential. So the ability to mobilize your base, to energize your base is key. It's critical. But any underside that you can convince the comor over to your side is important as well and could be deciding the deciding factor in a state where 10, 20, 30,000 votes are all the matter. Thank you so much for the time and the insight. Well, thank you so much. Young President of polling and societal trends at Ipsos protesters are gathering in Washington in advance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. We need to stop this wall. I'm begging, baby. Help. We need the 120 officers out. Palestinian factions, including rivals Hamas and Fatah agreed to end their divisions and form an interim national unity government during negotiations in China that ended on Tuesday. China's foreign ministry says the Beijing declaration was signed at the closing ceremony of a reconciliation dialogue among 14 Palestinian factions held in China's capital from July 21st to the 23rd. The U.S. State Department is dismissing the agreement reached in Beijing. Here's State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. Hamas is a terrorist organization, something that we obviously made clear before October 7th. But when it comes to governance of Gaza at the end of the conflict, there can't be a role for a terrorist organization. Hamas has long been a terrorist organization. They have the blood of innocent civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, on their hands. And so when you look at the post-conflict governance of Gaza, we do see, as we made clear, we want to see the Palestinian Authority governing a unified Gaza in the West Bank. But no, we do not support a role for Hamas. And more trouble for the people in Gaza, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, there was a high risk of the polio virus spreading across the Gaza Strip and beyond its borders due to the dire health and sanitation situation. The virus is spread through a typical oral wave of transmission. In addition to that, as I said, the functionality of the health facilities, especially primary health care services that provide vaccination and other maternal child health services to the population in Gaza, is critical, is basically not functioning. Ayadil Safar-Bekov, team lead for the healthy emergencies at Hu in Gaza and the West Bank. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez resigned on Tuesday in the aftermath of his conviction on corruption charges, including bribery and acting as an agent for Egypt's government, bowing to pressure from fellow Democrats, he submitted a letter of resignation, which was read into the official record of the Senate. Without objection, the letter will be printed in the record and spread upon the journal. Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will appoint a replacement for Menendez, who has represented New Jersey in the Senate since 2006 and served as chairman of the Influential Foreign Relations Committee before giving up that post after being charged last year. We're following these other stories from around the world. Russia's lower house of parliament has passed legislation expanding the reach of a law declaring foreign-funded organizations undesirable. It adds the criterion to an existing law that an organization can be declared undesirable if foreign government bodies founded or participate in it. Three days before the start of the 2024 Olympics, France's interior minister says about 1,000 people suspected of possibly meddling for a foreign power have been blocked from attending the Olympics. About 1 million background checks have scrutinized Olympic volunteers, workers and others involved in the games, as well as those applying for passes to enter the most tightly controlled security zone in Paris. U.S. Secret Service Director, Kimberly Cheadle, resigned after the agency came under harsh scrutiny for its failure to stop the would-be assassin from wounding former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Here's Reuters correspondent Alex Cohen with more. It comes after a Cheadle faced bipartisan condemnation before the House of Representatives oversight committee on Monday, where she declined to answer questions from frustrated lawmakers about the security plan for the rally and how law enforcement responded to the suspicious behavior of the gunman. "I don't want to add to the director's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I will be joining the chairman in calling for the resignation of the director just because I think that this relationship is irretrievable at this point." President Joe Biden said in a statement that the independent review of July 13th would continue and that he would appoint a successor soon. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement, "While director Cheadle's resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward. A would-be assassin wounded Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13th, after firing shots from a nearby roof. The shooter was killed by police after he killed one person and injured two others in addition to Trump." Reuters correspondent Alex Cohen, new information on the assassination attempt. The head of the Pennsylvania State Police says two local police officers stationed in the complex of buildings where the gunman opened fire at Trump left their post to go search for the man before the shooting. Pennsylvania State Police Colonel Christopher Paris' testimony before congressional hearing on Tuesday raises questions about why the post was left unattended as the gunman climbed on a roof nearby. The revelation comes amid growing questions about a multitude of security failures that allowed the 20-year-old gunman to get onto the roof and fire eight shots. Two landslides in southern Ethiopia have killed at least 229 people, an official said on Tuesday, and the death toll could rise further. Reuters correspondent David Doyle has more. "The search is ongoing and that there were bodies yet to be recovered." Officials had reported on Monday that 50 people had died. That's after heavy rain overnight caused a first landslide and then a second buried people who had gathered to help. Women, children and local police were reported to be among the dead. That was Reuters correspondent David Doyle. VOA's International Edition continues. I'm Scott Walterman along with Alexis Strope. Sunday, July 21, just this past weekend, was the hottest day ever. According to preliminary data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has tracked global weather patterns since 1940. I didn't know where I think it's at. The global new temperature in Sunday was 17.09. Basically, we have just lived the world in recent history according to our data. Carl Bontempo, director of the Copernicus Service, said that it was possible Monday, Tuesday, or even Wednesday of this week could eclipse Sunday's record as heat waves continue to sizzle across the world. Last year saw four days in a row break the record from July 3 through July 6 as climate change, according to the weather service driven by the burning of fossil fuels, drove extreme heat across the northern hemisphere. Rights groups accuse French authorities of social cleansing ahead of the Paris Olympics by uprooting migrants, sex workers, and others around the Capitol, undermining promises of making these games the most inclusive ever. The government says it's simply trying to address a long-standing problem. Lisa Bryant has more from the French Capitol. An early morning evacuation of a migrant camp on the edge of Paris. Its residents are uncertain about what's next. Abdul I saw a migrant from Guinea says authorities told them to come here and they would find housing for them. With the Olympic Games, he says, we can't stay here. They're going to resettle us somewhere. These kinds of evictions are not new. Rights groups have criticized them before. But activists question the size and the timing of this latest campaign coming right before the Paris Olympics. How we describe all this because it's not only this week, it has started long before. It's called the we call it the social cleansing of Paris. So it's basically because of the Olympics, the will to empty the streets of all misery and poverty. Bursati's charity is part of an activist network called the other side of the medal. It claims hundreds of people have been relocated in the months before the games. Not just migrants, they say, but also Roma, sex workers, and others are under pressure. Some migrants have reportedly been sent to locations far from the Capitol, losing precarious jobs and access to social services. French authorities say migrants can choose where they want to go. Adley and Sabi is chief of staff at the Il de France prefecture around Paris. She says authorities have been doing these operations every week for years. They offer shelter in the Il de France region to people living in difficult and unsanitary conditions. She says authorities also send people regularly to other French regions because emergency shelters in Paris are saturated. So they propose to people who have just arrived without any attachments to Paris to try their luck elsewhere. The evacuations come amid rising anti-immigration sentiments in France, boosting the popularity of the far right National Rally Party. Paris's leftist city hall blames national authorities for not providing migrants with enough solutions. Paris Deputy Mayor Lamia Elaraj says it's been months since the city hall has asked the government to take control of the situation, which is under their exclusive competency. She says city authorities continue to offer migrants places for shelter and support, but the state needs to take its responsibilities. For now, these migrants will be offered a place to stay around Paris, but they could well be back on the streets when the games are over. Lisa Bryant, V.O.A. News, Paris. Several loggerhead sea turtles were released in Puerto Banis Beach in Marbellas, Spain on Tuesday, almost a year after the nest containing 69 eggs was discovered on a nearby beach. "We have released 10 turtles with GPS tracking, which they will carry for six months, and missing signals that will allow us to know where they are." Seville Aquarium biologist Juan Manuel Gavira hopes that they will travel hundreds of kilometers, but will remain in the Mediterranean. And finally... "Oh my gosh, Harvey, have you got a little cane?" Lucy Edwards is touching the first ever blind Barbie doll. "I'm so excited because I didn't see myself represented as a young blind girl growing up in the world. All I wanted was a role model that looked like me and finally we have one." Trimaker Mattel collaborated with several organizations dedicated to aiding the blind community to create the doll. They include the Royal National Institute of Blind People and the American Foundation for the Blind, the groups provided input on everything from the doll's outfit, the eye gaze, and the company's website, which was made accessible for the blind. "The blind community knows a lot about the sighted community, but the sighted community doesn't know a lot about the blind and low vision community, right?" The doll includes a cane with a tactile marshmallow tip, sunglasses, textured and vibrant fabrics for sensory engagement, practical clothing fastenings, and articulated elbow joints for realistic cane use. The new edition follows a series of inclusive dolls such as the hearing loss Barbie, Down syndrome Barbie, and Barbie in a wheelchair. This has been International Edition on The Voice of America. "On behalf of everyone at VOA, thank you so much for being with us." For pictures, stories, videos, and more, follow VOA News on your favorite social media platform and online at VOANews.com. In Washington, with Alexa Stroke, I'm Scott Walterman.