Doctors from Germany are now treating Putin critic
PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Joe Biden quoted Seamus Heaney as he accepted the Democratic nomination for the White House with a vow to unite a divided America.
In a keynote address, he pledged to be a unifying “ally of the light” who would move a country in crisis past the chaos of the Trump era.
In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Mr Biden spoke of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life.
He quoted Heaney, the Irish Nobel Prize winning poet who died in 2013, near the close of his speech.
Mr Biden said: “The Irish poet Seamus Heaney once wrote: ‘History says; Don’t hope on this side of the grave; But then, once in a lifetime; The longed-for tidal wave; Of justice can rise up; And hope and history rhyme.’
“This is our moment to make hope and history rhyme.”
Virtually every sentence of Mr Biden’s 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast to Donald Trump.
“Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I’ll be an ally of the light, not the darkness,” Mr Biden said.
“Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.”
Mr Biden’s speech was delivered inside a largely empty arena in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, at the conclusion of a Democratic convention held virtually because of a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans.
The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Donald Trump in the November 3 poll.
Mr Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Biden’s mental capacity and calls him “Slow Joe”, but with America watching, he was firm and clear.
Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energise his sprawling coalition.
Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Mr Biden has “common decency”.
Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in US history, said Mr Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.
And Pete Buttigieg, a 38-yearold former mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Mr Biden came out in favour of same-sex marriage as vice president even before former president Barack Obama.
“Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans,” Mr Buttigieg said.
“It’s the struggle to call out what is good for every American.”
Above all, Mr Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice — and Mr Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.
Mr Biden’s positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by Mr Obama and others the night before.
The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Mr Trump is re-elected, while Mr Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans’ lives and livelihoods were at risk.
Mr Biden’s Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy.
Mr Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Mr Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominee’s approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition he is courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.
A CLOSE associate of Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny, who is in a coma in a Siberian hospital, said German doctors now have access to Mr Navalny as supporters push for him to be moved to a Berlin clinic.
“The German doctors who came on this flight from Nuremberg, who were refused to get access to this patient, finally just got access to him several minutes ago,” Leonid Volkov said during a news conference in Berlin.
Mr Navalny (44) fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk.
His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders or dissidents, but local doctors refused to authorise a transfer, saying the politician was too unstable to be transported.