Blog

After a whirlwind month in American politics, new Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is set to formally reintroduce herself in a highly anticipated speech on the final day of the convention in Chicago. US Vice President Harris, 59, is the first Black woman and South Asian woman to ever be a party's presidential nominee. After a busy week in Chicago where several former presidents and current President Biden endorsed her, her speech tonight will be a key test of her campaign. In her speech Reuters says Harris plans to tell the story of who she is - the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother - and of her plans to help the middle class with cuts in prices on groceries and housing and in taxes and to advance personal freedoms including abortion rights, aides and advisers sa...

The oil tanker Sounion risks becoming an environmental hazard. Photo: Vessel Finder By Jana Choukeir and Renee Maltezou, Reuters A Greek-flagged oil tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude that was evacuated by its crew after being attacked in the Red Sea now poses an environmental hazard, the EU's Red Sea naval mission "Aspides" said on Friday. Houthis, who control Yemen's most populous regions, said that they attacked the Sounion oil tanker in the Red Sea, as the Iran-aligned group has been attacking ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Sounion "belongs to a company that have ties with the Israeli enemy and violated the ban decision of entry to the ports of occupied Palestine," the Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised ...

Molten lava flows out from a fissure on the Reykjanes peninsula north of the evacuated town of Grindavik, western Iceland, on 16 March 2024. Photo: AFP A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Friday, the meteorological office said, spraying red-hot lava and smoke in its sixth outbreak since December. "An eruption has begun. Work is under way to find out the location of the recordings," the meteorological office said in a statement without providing further detail. Livestreams from the area showed glowing hot lava shooting up from the ground. Studies had shown magma accumulating underground, prompting warnings of new volcanic activity in the area located just south of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. The most recent eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, home to some 30,000 people or nea...

By Andrew Osborn, Reuters Nick Paton Walsh. Photo: PAUL ZIMMERMAN / AFP Russia's FSB security service said on Thursday it had opened a criminal case against a journalist working for CNN who it said had illegally crossed the Russian border to film a report inside the Kursk region after a Ukrainian cross-border incursion. The FSB named the journalist as Nick Paton Walsh, a British citizen who works as CNN's chief international security correspondent. Moscow had banned him from entering Russian territory as part of its standoff with the West. The FSB said it had opened similar criminal cases against two Ukrainian journalists, Diana Butsko and Olesya Borovik. The security service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a statement that international arrest warrants for the thr...

By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt, Reuters Vice President Kamala Harris will make the most important speech of her political life on Friday when she accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president a month after the party forced President Joe Biden to exit the race. Harris' own presidential ambitions were always clear, but had been undermined by her own shaky 2020 campaign and bumpy vice presidential term. Since being thrust to the top of the ticket, she has tightened the race against Republican Donald Trump. Her forceful stump speeches have been met by a surge in enthusiasm from voters. If Harris wins on 5 November, she will be the first Black, South Asian woman elected president. Photo: Brett Johnsen/NurPhoto/AFP In her speech Harris, 59, plans to talk about her life a...