Democrats converge on Philadelphia
BIG MOMENT: Clinton will take her place as the first female presidential nominee of a major party
LIMA: Imprisoned former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori has requested a pardon from current President Ollanta Humala, whose term in office is coming to an end.
The request from Fujimori, 77, will be reviewed under applicable law, the Peruvian Ministry of Justice said on Saturday on Twitter.
Fujimori has been in prison in Lima for 10 years serving a 25-year sentence for serious human rights violations among other things during his term in office from 1990-2000. — dpa PHILADELPHIA: US Democrats converge on the City of Brotherly Love to elevate Hillary Clinton this coming week as the first female presidential nominee of a major party who will battle Republican Donald Trump in 2016’s presidential election.
The Democratic National Convention gavels in on Monday in Philadelphia with the party more unified than the Republicans, whose fissures were laid bare this week as they confirmed brash billionaire Trump as their flagbearer.
But frustrations are nevertheless swirling as delegates bicker over the Democratic nominating process and new hiccups over Clinton camp emails.
Clinton is perhaps the most predictable person to launch a campaign in decades, so she will need to cast herself as the race’s energetic optimist who can push the country forward.
“Next week in Philadelphia we will offer a very different vision for our country,” she pledged. “One that is about building bridges, not walls, embracing the diversity that makes our country great.”
Her quest received a boost on Saturday when she introduced Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, a savvy Spanish-speaking US senator with a bright smile but “a backbone of steel,” according to Clinton.
Kaine “is everything Donald Trump and (Republican running mate) Mike Pence are not,” she said.
The 58-year-old Kaine, from a crucial battleground state, delivered a rousing speech in Miami, Florida, laying out sharp contrasts between Clinton and the Republican nominee.
“She doesn’t insult people, she listens to them,” he told the Miami crowd. “She doesn’t trash our allies, she respects them. And she’ll always have our backs.”
The convention gavels in at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Monday in Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center, with First Lady Michelle Obama and Clinton’s former rival in the primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders, scheduled as the headliners.
Former president Bill Clinton is the star on Tuesday, while President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden take the stage on Wednesday.
There is considerably more firepower than at the Republican confab in Cleveland, where the former Bush presidents steered clear, as did former Republican presidential nominees John McCain (2008) and Mitt Romney (2012).
Even as the party basked in the seeming lovefest at the first ClintonKaine rally, a whiff of scandal likely to rattle party unity emerged.
A cache of leaked emails from Democratic Party leaders’ accounts includes at least two messages suggesting an insider effort to hobble the upstart Sanders campaign — including by seeking to present him as an atheist to undermine him in religious states. Trump pounced on the leaks. “Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his to heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileakes (sic), really vicious.
“RIGGED,” the bombastic real estate developer tweeted Saturday.
Sanders campaign manager Weaver demanded answers.
“Someone does have to be held accountable,” Weaver told ABC News. The Democratic Party seemed to have “its fingers on the scale” for Clinton, Weaver added.
Complicating matters, Sanders delegates fumed when their efforts to end the party’s use of superdelegates mostly failed during a series of rules committee votes on Saturday, according to The Washington Post. Jeff