powerful to account as we examine the u.s. is role in the world on al-jazeera. presumptive u.s. democratic party presidential candidate joe biden makes an historic choice in picking senator harris to be his running mate for this year's presidential election we have full analysis and reaction. she's a big tax raiser she's a big. slasher of military and she's got a lot of difficult things that she's going to have to explain. but i wonder in jordan this is not is iraq live from doha also coming up a week after the beirut explosion people more with

a mix of grief and rage as more evidence emerges that the government ignored warnings. russia says it's won the race for corona virus vaccine but there are serious concerns about the speed of its development. welcome to others or if it just joining us the presumptive u.s. democratic presidential nominee joe biden has chosen senator kemel harris as his running mate for november's presidential election in a tweet confirming his pick biden praised senator house's record on social justice i have the great honor to announce that i picked a harris fearless fighter for the little guy and one of the country's finest public servants as my running mate and this is what comes. out tweeted joe biden can unify the american people because he spent his life fighting for us and as president he will build an america that lives up to our ideals i'm honored to join him as our

party's nominee for vice president and do what it takes to make him our commander in chief in a moment we'll speak to al jazeera as hard as you're castro she's in maryland just outside washington d.c. and rob reynolds is live for us in los angeles and campbell house is home state of california 1st though this report from alan fischer. has been the favorite to feel the democrats the piece look for some time here. she brings a high national profile as a former presidential candidate a senator from california. and family connections to biden she was close friends with his late son both because this is my belief child of a mother from india and father from jamaica she takes 2 important boxes as a woman of color. such as dynamic or and really good at messaging right she's really good at talking about looking at subjects and making it very clear to the audience into the american people former attorney general of

california she's used her skills as a prosecutor in senate hearings to pick apart arguments put forward by the counted ministration but that all title has also brought criticism during her tenure as attorney general there are a lot of questions raised about her willingness to intervene in a variety of types of cases including police excessive use of force i would geisha as well as areas around drug policy that could really become a problem. in the 1st democratic presidential candidate debate she had a tense exchange when she said joe biden's past few on desegregating schools was hurtful but in modern u.s. politics it all seems a long time ago smart and charismatic she's been the front runner for a reason and 55 more than 20 years younger than the candidate she's seen as the next generation of democratic leaders alan fischer al-jazeera washington. where

president trump was quick to take aim at kemah harris saying he's surprised that joe biden were true self. she was right number one draft pick and we'll see how she works out she did very very poorly in the. primaries as you know he was expected to do well and she was headed up but right around 2 percent. spent a lot of money he had a lot of things happening and so i was a little surprised that he picked her. castro joins us live now from there wouldn't be an historic moment in u.s. politics but it didn't take long for trump the trump come pain to respond what will they been say. that's right almost immediately we saw president trump tweeting an attack ad against harris in which it labeled her as a leftist radical leftist and president shopping his press conference later accused

her of being the most liberal person in the senate now the irony here is that actually when it come alive harris was running for president herself among the field of those democrats the worry was that she was not liberal enough that she was turning off the progresses in the democratic party that's going back to her record as a prosecutor there she was attacked for having prosecuted relatively minor crimes like marijuana and truancy and so now the irony of being labeled as a leftist by group by republicans and by president trump some are say may actually help harris attract more of those progressive voters now the senator herself has been silent on this besides that tweet that you read earlier which was confirming her selection as joe biden's running mate she has not sought to defend herself yet against these attacks from president trump however she will be appearing in a joint campaign event with joe biden tomorrow and one of the reasons that he

selected her and as he said in his introduction of her in his tweet is that she is a fearless fighter so expect much hitting and hitting back coming from both sides heidi it's only oldest on the elections are in november always starting to see any strategy emerge here i mean by perhaps being seen as transformational wanting to energize young voters and women. that's right and you know joe biden if you believe the polling right now has a sizable advantage over president trump mainly because of voter disenchantment disapproval over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and of the protests for police for the end of police brutality toward black americans now what democrats are seeing is to keep that momentum going behind joe biden and many would say that selecting kamel harris as his running mate was a safe bet because she does check so many boxes as being a woman of color and who also like i was saying earlier among democrats at least

many see her as a moderate certainly not as the far left liberal that president trump would like voters to believe heidi thank you let's cross over now to rob reynolds who joins us live from kemah has his home state california in los angeles rob so presumably this doesn't come as a surprise to many people in california where you are because the person often picked as a v.p. you were telling us earlier makes a good geographic balance but now the other important factors for biden are of course race gender and age. exactly aaron and of course there's no question but that california being heavily democratic state is almost certainly going to fall into the democratic column in the voting in november in the presidential election but harris has these boxes ticked as you and heidi were discussing she is a woman she is a woman of color these are her strengths i think these are also her weaknesses

because there is. a strain of. massaging he in this country of anti feminism just look at how president trump was able to. use that to his advantage against hillary clinton so ask hillary clinton if it's easy for a woman to get elected the fact that she is black is could also be another. vantage point or or point of attack if you will by the trump campaign with certain voters because there are certain a certain segment of american society that is that is racist so. these are opposing sort of the sort of powers and values that the senator from california has i would also mention that california is important in this context aaron because

it is while it is a democratic state it's also a wealthy state and traditionally democrats like president barack obama have gone to california for tickets to los angeles and to silicon valley hollywood silicon valley to get money it's sometimes referred to as california the a.t.m. the automatic tale teller machine of the democratic party so a camel harris being well known in california politics and certainly having lots of contacts in this state among big donors is in a good position to funnel a lot of dollars into the biden campaign which of course is very important in american presidential politics you've got to have money to win all right tom robbins there live for us from los angeles rob thank you for that let's bring in glenda kashif co-founder and c.e.o. of high heights for america and joins us live now from new york city via skype great to have you with us what kind of moment is this the biden and the countryman

biden often talks about himself as being this bridge and how much is he showing that he also i guess wants to be transformational embracing the younger generation who want to see something different perhaps. yeah i mean he said little that when he said he was going to choose a woman and so we've spent the last couple of months into painting who that could be you know the list. had an extensive list of qualified women but frankly had a list of qualified black women he even signaled a couple weeks ago that you know there were 4 black women. on that list and that is leaks and balance for black women's political leadership you know we are 48 years since shirley chisholm entered her name into nomination from the floor of the 1972 convention here we move that we're moving into the democratic convention next week where camila harris in the legacy of shirley chisholm will have her name internet and will accept the nomination as vice president making history and so i think

today we posit that you know as a black woman in america i am excited about the announcement today and i think americans should be excited about the announcement today and i certainly believe that vice president biden his campaign are excited and as you see the a through z. as i'm starting to swell around the candidacy that includes calmly harris as a running mate how much recent events the killing of george floyd the black lives not a movement had on this decision by joe biden to pick kamel house because many observers talk about this this racial reckoning that's sweeping across america right now. yeah it definitely played a role in creating the environment for up black women vice president but at the end of the day i think he would have still had a list of more than one black woman who again qualified and comes from

a variety of lived experiences but in the day we are living in some of the most racially divisive and. politically toxic times we did a poll. commissioned a poll by brilliant corners that stated that voters in 7 swing states are looking for candidates that are from the next generation of leaders that they are unifiers that they're looking to make history and calmly harris checks every single one of those box for voters and that just black voters and black women voters but the data points to that. voters are not only excited about call of qualified qualification but in this moment as you mentioned diversity was important in that this ticket could not just be 2 white men that if you were actually going to create the asm not only among black women but having a candidate create the it was the as among a cross-section of voters young voters in millenniums as well as women from across

social economic backgrounds and race has been scrutinized on crime what about her record then on criminal justice i mean she's sort of the state prosecutor and attorney general how is that then like it's play into what she brings to biden as the v.p. and also the democrat party as a whole. i mean i think at the end of the day her her or her complete record is one that i think is an asset to the ticket as a running mate and will be an asset as a governing mate you know informed voters should be asking tough questions to for those candidates who are vying for our votes and particularly the cut it votes. voter so i certainly believe that vice president we will be asking questions about his vision for the country his record as well as his vice president and so she you know what i know about senator harris is that she has a well rounded of the issues that center black women and that she's going to be

open to that dialogue in so she'll be i believe stumping virtually having these conversations with voters across the country then let me just a final thought for you in terms of previous women v.p. picks i mean look there was geraldine ferraro back in 84 sarah palin in 2008 why do you think it's taken so long to get to this point in america and what does that say about the treatment of women in u.s. politics. and in the day women are continuing to broaden our our political leadership i will speak particularly to black women so last week was the 55th anniversary of the out voting rights act and next week will be commemorating the 100th year of the 1900 the mint black women have always put more into this democracy than we have gotten back in so when 2020 we are demanding our seats demanding our return on our voting investment and that is in the form of policies that directly impact black women and we're cleaning seats from the v.p.

seat to local elections in a way that we can help build a country that we can believe in him move it to higher heights and that's the work of higher heights we are building a national movement of black women parties and their political power from the voting booth to elected office so what you've seen is recent gains among women but particularly black women we have a record number of black women running for congress in 2020 and we have a record number of black women who are nominees to congress in 2020 and so we are set to see a record breaking year for black women's political leadership and when you have diverse decision making tables they make better decisions and i believe that come with harris the women that are running across this country that they will be great governing partners for all americans putting forth policies that create economically thriving educated healthy and safe communities going to call great to get your thoughts thank you very much indeed for talking to al jazeera thank you thank you. let's move on now to some other news has been a week since

a huge blast in beirut killed more than 200 people and destroyed much of an already suffering city on tuesday the community united in their grief to honor the lives lost a service was held a day after lebanon's government resigned under pressure from the public has more from beirut. a moment of silence for the dead the wounded and the missing church bells rang alongside the muslim call to prayer for a few moments at least this deeply divided and broken nation came together. the. lebanon remembered a moment that changed the lives of so many people it's been a week since the explosion of beirut port destroyed lives and homes just meters

from the blast site people gathered to demand justice and accountability so all those in power knew about the explosives that reports on the risk to launch the people the should be an international investigation because we don't trust the lebanese investigations lebanese authorities including the president knew there was a large stockpile of ammonium nitrate at the port. at the 10 firefighters who died in the blast were not aware of the risks when they were sent to put out the fire of unknown origin we're up against a competence we're all up against corruption we're up against all that system that got us where we are today and it's the whole system that is wrong so was this and that is flawed we want bury our dead before we bury their corruption before we bury them the blast deep in then already dire economic crisis which pushed half of lebanon's 5000000 people into poverty aid agencies are distributing food and medicine filling the void left by a government that has long failed to provide basic services. the state is close to

bankruptcy this is all that it got from the doctor and the hospital no one suffered . that's why. i lost my job. and i lost my home and i lost my car. was private hospitals were owed billions of dollars by successive governments which left the public sector ill equipped and underfunded i just want to say to the international community if you want if you can help these situations that really. were substituting. for the country and the government's role towards its people it will be very interesting step the government has now resigned though it will remain as a caretaker ministration until a new cabinet is formed these people want what they call an independent salvation government but there are others who still support the sectarian system that they believe protects that they want a national unity government that will bring back the same political elite. that is

what people fighting for a new country fear they have the will but not the tools to bring change. french president. is leading an international initiative to solve the crisis he says lebanon needs fundamental change and a new political order he didn't elaborate. beirut greece's call for an emergency e.u. summit on its growing dispute with turkey about oil and gas drilling rights that's off to ankara began exploration on monday in the area of the eastern mediterranean sea claimed by both countries and the government released photos research ship is seen as scolded by 5 turkish warships written able vessels are shadowing the flotilla further but greasers the survey is illegal and a threat to regional peace and security. turkey's proved once again that it's statements about readiness for dialogue were insincere and misleading that it abhors the modern perceptions that govern states in the 21st century that it lives

and acts in the 19th century that it implements a gunner policy there will be no tolerance of turkey's attempts we address everyone we make clear that greece will defend its sovereignty and sovereign rights we call on turkey to leave the greek continental shelf immediately. yes at this point no one can say turkey has not shown good will we have shown it but there is a country with ill intentions on the other side so whoever is looking for someone to blame can blame greece now there's a new twist in a scandal that's rocked latin america allegations have been made that implicate former mexican president and recap pena nieto to order brecht's the construction firm that's admitted to paying bribes in 12 countries including mexico john holdren joins us live now from mexico city john so tell us a bit more about these accusations. well they came out a little bit earlier on today when the country's attorney general put a video on social media and he said that emilio lu sawyer who is the ex head of

mit's can stay or company but before then he was really involved with ex president enrique pena nieto election campaign in 2012 when he was voted into power now it's going to thirty's have been after for quite some time and they managed to get him he's been extradited from spain where he's on the run and what he has said according to the its own attorney general is that he's fingered ex president. and his finance minister luis feed the guy and he said that they instructed him to pay more than $4000000.00 worth of bribe from this from a construction company a brazilian construction company called order bresh a bit more of them in a 2nd to pay compelling consultants in the 2012 election race in enrique pena nieto his campaign he's also alleged that enrica pinion heir to invigorate i directed him to pay bribes to lawmakers to congress people to get votes for reforms

that ex-president make opinion it was trying to push through in 20132014 so it sounds big and it is for a couple of reasons the 1st one is the auto pressure this brazilian construction company has really become synonymous with with corruption across latin america x. presidents have fallen in peru in brazil different government and public officials in various countries have been convicted in relation to corruption embezzlement scandals involving this company but in mexico up to this point not have been convicted no one has been put in jail and convicted as a result of this so people are thinking that this might be the start of that process and john how common are moves against a former president in mexico. yeah they're not common a total we've done

a little bit of the sort of history and the bureau of producer public pet is and we think that it was an 18 a for that the last mets connex president faced a serious corruption charge that looked like it was going to stick and then was later dropped so obviously that's quite a way to go and as another barrier barometer in 1917 so more than 100 years ago since then there's been a munity from prosecution for presidents during their term and that exists as well in other countries for things done in the term that exists in other countries as well but in mexico it was incredibly widespread basically covering everything except for treason so that gives a sense here that miss can president have for a long time been regarded as relatively untouchable now that hasn't happened in this case yet either president enrique peña nieto hasn't been formally charged with anything in fact the attorney general has said that he's going to get once investigators have vetted the information from mr le soir he will cool on penya

nieto and luis be the finance minister to give their statements so we're a long way off yet from any sort of charge or an ex-president being in prison at the moment but what it does mean is that things are moving a little bit further than perhaps they have done in the past we can't yet see where this is going to end now i think what a lot of people are going to be asking in mexico right now is what's the motivation behind this is it purely the judicial branch just doing their job following through on the president's campaign message we're going to wipe out corruption and we're going to bring justice whoever it is in mexico or is this just more political maneuvering trying to deal with your enemies your opponents once you or the person in power now in the past in mexico that hasn't touched x. presidents but it has touched some powerful figures it's not unusual in the country for people once they get in power to start going after their enemies and having a little bit of a clean up of the opposition as this goes forward and as this process takes shape i

think that's going to be carefully scrutinized by a lot of people in the country all right the gentleman there live for us in mexico city john thank you. now i just want months of restrictions the number of coronavirus cases in colombia has passed 400000 the outbreak there has killed more than 13000 people intensive care units nearly 90 percent full in the capital bogota latin america is the current epicenter of the pandemic new zealand has delayed the dissolution of its parliament ahead of elections the government's trying to trace the source and extent of a new outbreak in auckland its 1st 4 cases of community transmission in more than 100 days the city of new zealand's largest has been ordered into lockdown and the rest of the country has been put back into a higher alert level now well our primary focus of course is on the response in these immediate stages over the next few days we do need to ensure that we giving ourselves as much flexibility as possible to deal with what we luna over the next

72 hours callum and dissolving doesn't mean that if we needed to convene power meant for any reason we wouldn't be able to do sorry we've before decided it would be prudent to defer the dissolution of parliament by at least a few days to preserve all options for if if needed reconvening comment or if you needed for that this is of the date of the general election well just and also announce that only start and essential deliveries will be allowed into aged care facilities as of wednesday a retirement village in the south island city of christchurch went into lockdown after residents showed flu like symptoms the facility told families that residents were affected swabs to test for covert 19 have been sent of oratory britain and france are working on a new plan to stop growing numbers of boats carrying refugees and migrants across the english channel britain's immigration minister made the announcement as he held

talks in paris hundreds of people including unaccompanied children have been intercepted during the past week. now some major u.s. companies are pledging to hire tens of thousands of workers from low income and minority communities in new york city they say the initiative to be implemented over the next decade is in response to black lives matter protests but activists have accused some of the companies involved of being major drivers of racial inequality jabbered times reports. corporate america's response to the u.s. is black lives matter protests has been striking with companies like mcdonald's quick to pledge their support but twitter users and civil rights groups pointed out that mcdonald's has long fought against increasing the minimum wage for workers and was resistant to calls for protections for its employees during the pandemic activists argued it was mcdonald's that was perpetuating racist economic inequality and which police brutality is a symptom now in the business community's latest response to the protests 27

c.e.o.'s have formed the new drug council which aims to hire 100000 people from low income and black latino and asian communities by 2030 the firms involved include i.b.m. financial service company accenture wells fargo amazon google goldman sachs private equity firm blackrock and j.p. morgan chase the important part of the rises 30 c.e.o.'s coming together to try to tackle one of society's big problem which is getting inner city school education largely minority that these kids through school and with a high paying job the small print is vague it's not clear what of any new drugs are actually being promised but many of the companies involved with the council house long been accused of being directly responsible for racial and economic inequality in the u.s. when jamie diamond of chase took a knee outside of a bank branch and solidarity with black lives matter it was noted that his bank targeted black customers with subprime loans which led to the 2008 financial crash

and the chase along with other world street firms and funneled millions of dollars to the new york police department to purchase high tech equipment with no oversight high tech equipment that black lives matter activists say is used to target black communities longtime observers of the civil rights struggles the echoes of corporate america's response to the racial uprisings of the sixty's training programs and apprenticeships for black youth were set up with the choice remains the terrorists. for corporations has always been how do we control that how do we maintain you know conditions such that we're able to operate without the aspirations and struggles black communities interfering with our plans those are the options that are available for black youth prison or the corporate world and not much else in between civil rights groups have long been clear about the intersection of racial and economic inequality was really a t.v.

series and not be sorry. state. was just a few short of economic yes but once again we're seeing those you openly stand in the way of that redistribution of economic power claiming to be constructive agents of change she never turns the outer 0. tough a quick check of the headlines on al-jazeera presumptive u.s. democratic party presidential candidate joe biden has picked someone to come along harris to be his running mate front of embers presidential election the choice makes how nice the 1st one of color to be on a major party ticket president trump was quick to take aim at kemah harris she was my number one draft pick and we'll see how she works out she did very very poorly in the. primaries as you know he was expected to do well and she

was she ended up the red around 2 percent. and spent a lot of money he had a lot of things happening and so i was a little surprised that he picked. it's exactly one week since a massive explosion devastated lebanon's capitol earlier crowds gathered down near beirut support the site of the blast to hold a vigil. there was a moment of silence for the more than $200.00 killed and the names each read out loud people also walked through some of beirut's worst hit neighborhoods marching towards parliament the blast injured thousands of people in the hundreds. greece has called for an emergency e.u. summit on its growing dispute with turkey a or oil and gas drilling rights to ankara began exploration on monday in an area of the eastern mediterranean sea claimed by both countries greece says the survey

is illegal and a threat to regional peace and security. mexico's attorney general's investigating allegations that former president and the weekend in the eto partially funded his 2012 election campaign with bribes from a brazilian construction company the former head of mexico state run oil company accused pena nieto of ordering him to pay the bribes to his campaign staff the explosive allegations are the latest twist in a scandal that is shaken latin america despite months of restrictions the number of coronavirus cases in colombia has passed 400000 down the outbreak there has killed more than 13000 people intensive care units on nearly 90 percent full in the capital bogota well those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera the inside story stay tuned thanks for watching live from.

conference defeats groups in the south response to continue fighting in the south of legion the pledge follows the killing of friends 8 but has been the jack but his friends capable of the fronting the finances and how big a threat they pose to feast in west africa this is inside story. hello welcome to the program. about a. struggle to cope with the years of attacks by armed groups that have killed thousands and forced many will.