President Donald Trump adopted a grim tone in remarks to Republicans who formally backed his bid for a second term on Monday, warning without evidence that he could face a “rigged election” in November.

Trump repeated his claim that voting by mail, a longstanding feature of American elections that is expected to be far more common during the coronavirus pandemic, could lead to an increase in fraud. Independent election security experts say voter fraud is quite rare in the United States.

Trump spoke in an unscheduled appearance on the first day of the sharply scaled-back Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, after he received enough votes to formally win the nomination to take on his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the Nov. 3 election.

“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” Trump said. “We’re going to win this election.”

Party members are meeting amid a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 176,000 Americans, erased millions of jobs and eroded the president’s standing among voters.

As he has done repeatedly, Trump described states’ responses to infections of Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, in starkly partisan terms, casting lockdowns and other steps recommended by public health officials as attempts to influence voting in November.

“What they’re doing is using Covid to steal an election,” Trump said. “They’re using Covid to defraud the American people – all of our people – of a fair and free election.”

The in-person proceedings, a far smaller meeting than originally planned, still marked a contrast with Democrats, who opted for an almost entirely virtual format instead of gathering in the election battleground state of Wisconsin. That change was intended to reduce the risk of the virus being spread at the political event.

“We did this out of respect for your state,” said Trump, targeting his message at the people of North Carolina, which is expected to be competitive in the November election.

Trump earlier this year moved the convention to Florida, his newly adopted home state, to avoid restrictions on gatherings in North Carolina due to the coronavirus, then abandoned that plan when infection rates soared in Florida.

Donald Trump says 2020 Presidential election ‘most important in the history of the US’ during GOP convention

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Republicans said their convention would offer a more hopeful message, with an emphasis on “law and order,” gun rights, tax cuts and the “forgotten” men and women of America.

The party opted not to vote on a traditional platform document detailing its policy goals, instead saying that it supports what Trump is doing. Trump’s campaign released a series of bullet-point goals, including a promise to “create 10 million new jobs in 10 months.”

In another contrast with the Democratic event, which featured all three living former Democratic presidents, and prior nominees, the Republican event will not include speeches from that party’s past living president or candidates.

Neither former President George W. Bush nor 2012 Republican presidential nominee Senator Mitt Romney, who voted to convict Trump at the president’s impeachment trial, plan to speak. Also absent from the schedule are several Republicans facing close elections in November, including Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Break with Tradition

With the pandemic not yet under control, good news has been in short supply for Trump. His performance as president was sharply criticized by Biden and former President Barack Obama at the Democratic convention.

Biden’s campaign said Trump would attempt to change the subject, delivering “more desperate, wild-eyed lies and toxic division, in vain attempts to distract from his mismanagement,” according to spokesman Andrew Bates.

“What they won’t hear is what American families have urgently needed and been forced to go without for over seven consecutive months: any coherent strategy for defeating the pandemic.”

The president, a former reality television star, plans to hold several live events with in-person audiences, in contrast to Democrats, who showed pre-taped segments or delivered speeches in mostly empty venues.

Trump’s planned daily speeches are a break with the tradition of the nominee keeping a low profile before an acceptance speech on the convention’s final night.

Overnight, demonstrators and law enforcement clashed for a third straight night near the Charlotte Convention Center with police using pepper spray on the crowd. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a statement that officers arrested five people late on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Trump’s wife, Melania, will give a speech from the White House, while Pence follows on Wednesday from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry historic site.

Trump will accept his party’s nomination on Thursday night before a crowd on the White House South Lawn. Democrats have criticized the move as a partisan use of public property.

“Trump has four days to make two cases: One is ‘we know what we are doing and have done a great job, obviously interrupted by the virus,'” said Constantin Querard, president of Grassroots Partners, an Arizona-based conservative political consultancy.

“And then you have to knock the Democratic ticket for being as far-left as they are,” he said.

Source: REUTERS

President Donald Trump will seek to revive his re-election hopes this week at the Republican Party’s largely online convention, battered by the coronavirus pandemic, economic troubles, racial unrest and polls pointing to an uphill fight.

Trump and his top aides strived over the weekend to put an optimistic spin on the convention as he prepares to head Monday to North Carolina to formally launch the four-day event.

“I think we’re going to see something that is going to be very uplifting and positive, that’s what I’d like it to be,” the president told Fox News.

He sought to draw a sharp contrast to the just-ended Democratic convention, which he has called the “darkest, angriest and gloomiest” in history.

Republicans, facing polls that give Democrat Joe Biden an eight to 10-point lead, were also hoping for a boost from a planned Trump announcement Sunday on an advance in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 175,000 lives across the country.

– Provocative lineup –

The coming convention appears to be a highly Trump-centric affair — with the president appearing, unusually, on each of the four days — and with some speakers seen as intentionally provocative.

The scheduled includes a Missouri couple who pointed guns at anti-racist protesters marching past their mansion in June — an image that quickly went viral.

And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to deliver a speech Tuesday in support of Trump during an official visit to Israel.

Such a directly political intervention by the nation’s top diplomat while abroad would be highly unusual.

Moreover, the president plans to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday from the lawn of the White House, shrugging off criticism over the use of the presidential residence for campaign purposes.

– Dealing with the virus –

Charlotte, North Carolina is where the party originally planned to hold its convention before the pandemic intervened, forcing first a shift to Florida and then a quick reimagining of the event as mostly virtual.

A few hundred Republican supporters are slated to gather in Charlotte to hear Trump speak on Monday, but Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel insisted that the gathering was being handled safely.

“We tested everybody before they came to Charlotte. We have been testing people on-site,” she told NBC.

Convention speakers includes former ambassador Nikki Haley and Donald Trump Jr. on Monday; First Lady Melania Trump and Pompeo on Tuesday; and Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday.

While Democrats heard from all living former Democratic presidents as well as former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, former Republican president George W. Bush is not expected to appear. Bush has been a critic of Trump’s.

– Help from ‘The Apprentice’ –

The event comes only four days after the Democrats — in a history-making all-virtual convention of their own — formally crowned former vice president Biden as the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump, whose rise from New York real estate mogul to political prominence was boosted by his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” has turned to two of the program’s producers to help with convention planning, according to reports.

The Republicans’ effort is expected to incorporate more live broadcasting — an approach holding both opportunity and risk — than the Democratic event.

Republicans are expanding also the nightly program from the two hours presented by Democrats to two and a half hours, with TV networks committed to broadcast the final hour.

Trump is expected to try to impart the best possible spin on his efforts to battle the coronavirus, but polls show most Americans trust Biden far more than him to deal with it.

The president faced further criticism over the weekend from someone uncomfortably close: his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, heard on secretly recorded tapes provided to the Washington Post describing him as cruel, a liar and a man of “no principles.”

Jason Miller, Trump’s senior campaign advisor, responded angrily on NBC, saying, “It’s shameful that the Washington Post came and ran the story yesterday, literally the day after the funeral services for (the president’s brother) Robert Trump.”

Miller joined other Republican aides in dismissing the Democrats’ convention, calling it a “massive grievance-fest” from a party with no “vision for the future.”

The candidates are scheduled to hold three debates, the first on September 29, before Americans cast their ballots on November 3.

Source: AFP

US Senator Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president on Wednesday, imploring the country to elect Joe Biden president and accusing Donald Trump of failed leadership that had cost lives and livelihoods.

The first Black woman and Asian-American on a major US presidential ticket, Harris summarized her life story as emblematic of the American dream on the third day of the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump’s failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods,” Harris said.

Former US President Barack Obama told the convention Trump’s failures as his successor had led to 170,000 people dead from the coronavirus, millions of lost jobs and America’s reputation badly diminished in the world.

The evening featured a crush of women headliners, moderators and speakers, with Harris pressing the case against Trump, speaking directly to millions of women, young Americans and voters of color, constituencies Democrats need if Biden is to defeat the Republican Trump.

“The constant chaos leaves us adrift, the incompetence makes us feel afraid, the callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot. And here’s the thing: we can do better and deserve so much more,” she said.

“Right now, we have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons. Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose,” she said, speaking from an austere hotel ballroom in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden ahead in polls

Biden leads Trump in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, bolstered by a big lead among women voters. Throughout the convention, Democrats have appealed directly to those women voters, highlighting Biden’s co-sponsorship of the landmark Violence Against Woman Act of 1994 and his proposals to bolster childcare and protect family healthcare provisions.

Obama, whose vice president was Biden from 2009-2017, said he had hoped that Trump would take the job seriously, come to feel the weight of the office, and discover a reverence for American democracy.

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe,” Obama said in unusually blunt criticism from an ex-president.

“Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before,” Obama said.

The choice of a running mate has added significance for Biden, 77, who would be the oldest person to become president if he is elected. His age has led to speculation he will serve only one term, making Harris a potential top contender for the nomination in 2024.

Biden named Harris, 55, as his running mate last week to face incumbents Trump, 74, and Vice President Mike Pence, 61.

Former first lady and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump, told the convention she constantly hears from voters who regret backing Trump or not voting at all.

“This can’t be another woulda coulda shoulda election.” Clinton said. “No matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.”

Clinton, who won the popular vote against Trump but lost in the Electoral College, said Biden needs to win overwhelmingly, warning he could win the popular vote but still lose the White House.

“Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose,” Clinton said. “Take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming so Trump can’t sneak or steal his way to victory.”

Democrats have been alarmed by Trump’s frequent criticism of mail-in voting, and by cost-cutting changes at the US Postal Service instituted by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump supporter, that could delay mail during the election crunch. DeJoy said recently he would delay those changes until after the election.

Democrats also broadcast videos highlighting Trump’s crackdown on immigration, opposition to gun restrictions and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

‘Disrespect’ for facts, for women

Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the US House of Representatives, told the convention she had seen firsthand Trump’s “disrespect for facts, for working families, and for women in particular – disrespect written into his policies toward our health and our rights, not just his conduct. But we know what he doesn’t: that when women succeed, America succeeds.”

US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who ran against Biden in the 2020 primary, spoke to the convention from a childcare center in Massachusetts and cited Biden’s proposal to make childcare more affordable as a vital part of his agenda to help working Americans.

“It’s time to recognize that childcare is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation — it’s infrastructure for families,” she said. “Joe and Kamala will make high-quality childcare affordable for every family, make preschool universal, and raise the wages for every childcare worker.”

In her speech later, Harris will have an opportunity to outline her background as a child of immigrants from India and Jamaica who as a district attorney, state attorney general, US senator from California and now vice-presidential candidate shattered gender and racial barriers.

She gained prominence in the Senate for her exacting interrogations of Trump nominees, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General Bill Barr.

The Republican National Convention, also largely virtual, takes place next week.

Source: REUTERS

A new opinion poll shows that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has a nine percentage-point lead over President Donald Trump nationally with less than three months before the 2020 election.

The NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, released on Sunday, found that 50 percent of registered voters favored Biden while just 41 percent said they would support the Republican incumbent.

Forty-nine percent of participants said the former US vice president was better suited to handle the current health crisis sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, while just 33 percent said the same of Trump.

The survey also showed that Biden leads Trump by 24 percentage points on handling race relations.

The new poll was carried out days after Biden selected Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) to be his running mate.

Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, was the wire-to-wire frontrunner for Biden’s No. 2 job.

Thirty-nine percent of voters expressed a positive view about the California senator, while 35 percent said the opposite. Feelings about Harris also created sharp division along party lines, with 71 percent of Biden-backing voters saying they held a positive view of her and just four percent of Trump’s supporters saying the same.

The NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll was conducted from August 9 to 12 among a population of 900 registered voters. The survey has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

The opinion poll, published just a day ahead of the start of the Democratic National Convention, comes as national and states polls have continued to show Biden with substantial advantages over Trump in his bid for the White House.

A CNBC poll released last week found the former US vice president leading the incumbent in five of six battleground states, including Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The decline in national support for Trump can be explained by the president’s chaotic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken a heavy toll on American lives and economy.

The United States remains the worst-hit country by the pandemic, with over 5.5 million infections and more than 170,000 deaths.

Trump and his administration have been under fire for an untimely relaxing of lockdown measures as well as a blatant disregard for personal protection equipment since the flu-like pathogen erupted in the US early in January.        

Moreover, police violence and racial injustice protests that followed the brutal murder of unarmed African American George Floyd in police custody have dealt a heavy blow to the president’s approval rating.

The 46-year-old died after a white officer knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground for nine minutes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.

His death unleashed protests against police brutality and for racial justice in the US and many world countries, with protesters saying they were hopeful that Floyd’s death would mark a turning point in race relations and police reform the US.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump is reportedly eying a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, ahead of the US presidential election.

Citing of four unnamed people, NBC News reported Sunday that Trump told aides he would want to have a meeting with the Russian leader before the November race.

The Republican president could potentially meet Putin next month in New York.

The report came after Trump said he will “probably” not take part in the summit that the Russian president has called after the UN Security Council rejected Washington’s resolution to extend an arms embargo on Iran.

“The goal of a summit would be for the two leaders to announce progress towards a new nuclear arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia,” NBC News said in its report.

“He wants it to show his deal-maker abilities,” said one of the people interviewed. “It’s just a big stage.”

US coronavirus hotspots had disproportionately high numbers of cases among communities of color, says the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Trump is facing Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Apart from a weak performance to address the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump is under pressure over a series of other domestic issues, including the economy.

On the world stage, the US faced an embarrassment at the Security Council Friday after even its allies — Germany, France, and Britain —  refused to throw their support behind Trump.

Source: Presstv

Former US Vice President Joe Biden has selected Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, elevating a charismatic blue-state senator, former prosecutor and onetime 2020 primary rival who has built a reputation as an unyielding antagonist of the Trump administration.

Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, was the wire-to-wire frontrunner for Biden’s No. 2 job. Her experience as a battle-tested presidential contender, her efforts leading major law enforcement offices and her political track record of three election wins in California helped her overcome a crowded list of contenders.

Source: Politico

France, Italy and Germany are “ready to consider” sanctions on foreign powers violating an arms embargo in Libya, a joint statement by their leaders said Saturday.

The statement did not directly name any foreign actors funneling arms to Libya but multiple powers have been sending fighters and weapons, fuelling a bloody proxy war that reflects wider geopolitical rifts and divisions in the Middle East and within NATO.

While forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar are backed by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, the UN-recognised unity government is fighting back with Turkey’s support.

“We … urge all foreign actors to end their increasing interference and to fully respect the arms embargo established by the United Nations Security Council,” the statement said.

“We are ready to consider the possible use of sanctions should breaches to the embargo at sea, on land or in the air continue.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said they therefore “look forward to the proposals the EU High Representative/Vice President will make to this end.”

Voicing “grave concerns” over the escalating military tensions in Libya, they urged “all Libyan parties and their foreign supporters for an immediate cessation of fighting and for a stop of the ongoing military build-up throughout the country.”

In Brussels for a crunch EU summit on hammering out a huge recovery rund for the bloc, the three European leaders had met on the sidelines of the meeting to discuss the deteriorating situation in Libya.

Since 2015, a power struggle has pitted the UN-recognised, Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) against forces loyal to Haftar, who is based in eastern Benghazi.

Ankara’s military support for the GNA has tipped the balance and allowed its forces in June to repel Haftar’s 14-month advance on Tripoli and launch a counteroffensive.

This week, Egypt racheted up tensions, with its president warning his country “will not stand idle in the face of any moves that pose a direct threat to the national security not only of Egypt but also that of Libya”.

Libya has been mired in chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

Source: AFP

President Donald Trump shook up his campaign staff amid sinking poll numbers less than four months before the election, replacing campaign manager Brad Parscale with veteran GOP operative Bill Stepien.

“I am pleased to announce that Bill Stepien has been promoted to the role of Trump Campaign Manager,” Trump said Wednesday on Facebook. “Brad Parscale, who has been with me for a very long time and has led our tremendous digital and data strategies, will remain in that role, while being a Senior Advisor to the campaign.”

Trump and Parscale’s relationship had been increasingly strained, with the president annoyed by the publicity Parscale had garnered in the role. But the final straw appeared to be a Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally last month that drew an unexpectedly low crowd of about 6,200 people after Parscale had bragged that more than a million people had requested tickets. The president was furious.

The shakeup injected familiar turmoil to Trump’s 2020 campaign, which had so far largely avoided the regular staff churn that dominated the president’s 2016 campaign and his White House. It comes as Trump has been struggling in his reelection campaign against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, with the nation facing health and economic crises during a pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans.

The staff change was not expected to alter the day-to-day running of the campaign. News of the shuffle was delivered to Parscale on Wednesday afternoon by White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Parscale, a political novice, ran Trump’s digital advertising in 2016 and was credited with helping bring about his surprise victory that year. Stepien has been in politics for years, working for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and serving as Trump’s national field director in 2016.

Parscale had been increasingly sidelined in the weeks since the Tulsa rally and as the president’s public and private poll numbers have taken a hit amid the pandemic. Speculation had been rampant about who might be promoted to lead the operation, with names like former Trump strategist Steve Bannon floated.

Parscale is a close ally of Kushner, who wields ultimate control over the campaign. A Florida resident, he had not been a regular presence of late in the campaign’s Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, sparking some resentments among staffers.

Rather than parting ways completely, Parscale was retained in part because of the difficulty the campaign would have faced in rebuilding its digital advertising operation so close to the Nov. 3 general election. While the Republican National Committee owned most of the campaign’s data, voter modeling and outreach tools, Parscale ran most of the microtargeted online advertising that Trump aides believed were key in 2016.

Parscale’s digital advertising firm was among the campaign’s most significant vendors, and some in Trump’s orbit have alleged that the former campaign manager was profiting off the president’s reelection. Parscale has repeatedly denied the claims.

Trump has been pressed by allies in recent months to expand his political circle and more forcefully define his run against Biden. Last month, Trump announced a promotion for Stepien and returned former communications chief Jason Miller to his campaign, taking away some of Parscale’s clout and influence.

Biden also shuffled his campaign team, albeit much earlier in the cycle, amid a disastrous stretch in his primary run. For Biden, the moves marked genuine shakeups that expanded and changed how his campaign operated.

Biden elevated Anita Dunn, effectively displacing his first campaign manager, Greg Schultz, after a fourth-place Iowa finish and as he was already headed for a second embarrassing finish in New Hampshire. Dunn had joined Biden at the outset of his campaign after having served President Barack Obama as a top communications adviser.

With Dunn’s urging, Biden hired his current campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, in March after Dunn and others helped resurrect Biden in Nevada and South Carolina and put him on the path to the nomination. Schultz is now at the Democratic National Committee, helping lead the joint battleground strategy among the national party, the Biden campaign and state parties.

Source: AP

US President Donald Trump will host an outdoor campaign rally in New Hampshire, his team said Sunday, following a flopped rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma against the backdrop of COVID-19.

The “Make America Great Again” rally will take place on July 11 in Portsmouth, his campaign said in a statement.

“All attendees will be provided a face mask that they are strongly encouraged to wear,” the rally announcement said.

The billionaire Republican, who is seeking reelection on November 3, had made his grand return to the campaign trail on June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

But images showed the stadium was filled to less than a third of its capacity, despite the president’s campaign boasting of huge interest ahead of time and more than a million ticket requests.

Pictures of Trump’s return to the White House in the middle of the night, with a worn-out air and his tie undone, cemented the image of a failed comeback.

With just four months left before election day, Trump — criticized for his response both to the coronavirus pandemic and to anti-racism protests — has been lagging for weeks in the polls behind his presumptive Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

While there have been calls for caution in interpreting the poll results, observers have noted that Biden’s lead over Trump is far greater than the one held by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at the same point in 2016.

Source: AFP

The UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a halt to conflicts to facilitate the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, after more than three months of painstaking negotiations, diplomats said.

The resolution, drafted by France and Tunisia, calls for “an immediate cessation of hostilities in all situations” on the Security Council’s agenda.

It is the Security Council’s first statement on the pandemic and its first real action since the outbreak started.

Tunisia’s ambassador to the UN, Kais Kabtani, hailed it as a “historic achievement” but experts questioned whether the text would have any impact and say the paralysis undermined the Council’s credibility.

Repeatedly blocked by China and the United States, which opposed a reference in the text to the World Health Organization (WHO), the resolution aims to support an appeal in March by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a global ceasefire.

It “calls upon all parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days, in order to enable the safe, unhindered and sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

Fighting against jidhadist insurgent groups is excluded.

The new text makes no reference to WHO, which the US has criticized for its management of the crisis. Washington opposed any mention of WHO back in May.

The body’s paralysis for more than three months has been widely criticized, including by some members who have described their “shame” over its inaction.

During the negotiations, the United States and China, the two largest financial contributors to the UN, had both threatened to veto resolutions.

According to diplomats, Indonesia, a non-permanent member of the Security Council, helped broker a compromise that saw a reference to a General Assembly commitment to supporting the World Health Organization added to the preamble.

The vague reference was deemed satisfactory to China, which wanted to emphasize the importance of WHO, and the US, which broke away from the UN body over its handling of the pandemic.

On Thursday, Guterres welcomed the fact that his ceasefire request was supported by nearly 180 countries and more than 20 armed groups, but he acknowledged that it had not been followed up with concrete action.

“It seems unlikely that the ceasefire call will actually have much impact in many war zones,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think-tank.

“The Council missed the opportunity to boost the Secretary-General’s Global Ceasefire in April or May, when a resolution could have made a significant difference.

“This feels like a belated face-saving device following months of difficult diplomacy,” he added.

A second meeting on the pandemic is scheduled for Thursday.

Source: AFP