Washington: Democrat Joe Biden urged Muslim Americans on Monday to join him in the fight to defeat President Donald Trump as he addressed an online summit hosted by the advocacy organisation Emgage Action to mobilise Muslim voters ahead of the presidential election.

I want to earn your vote not just because he’s not worthy of being president, the presumptive presidential nominee told participants.

I want to work in partnership with you, make sure your voices are included in the decision-making process as we work to rebuild our nation.

Biden also reiterated a pledge to overturn a Trump administration ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries, calling it vile.

Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, said by email that the organisation was seeking to maximise Muslim American turnout in key battleground states.

In Michigan alone one of the states where the organisation has chapters and where Trump won in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes he said he believed there are more than 150,000 registered Muslim voters.

Several prominent Muslim American elected officials endorsed Biden for president in a letter organised by Emgage Action ahead of the summit.

Among those who signed the letter are Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Indiana Rep. Andre Carson, all Democrats.

Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, served as a high-profile surrogate for Bernie Sanders before he exited the presidential race in April making her support for Biden potentially helpful as the former vice president seeks to mobilise Muslim voters this fall.

Muslim American voices matter to our communities, to our country, Biden said.

But we all know that your voice hasn’t always gotten recognised or represented.

Emgage Action has titled the event Million Muslim Votes, underscoring its emphasis on boosting Muslim turnout in November.

Joe Biden’s presence serves not only to galvanise Muslim Americans to cast their ballots, but to usher in an era of engaging with Muslim American communities under a Biden administration, Alzayat said by email before the summit.

The pro-Biden letter from Muslim American elected officials decried a number of Trump’s domestic and international policies, including his administration’s travel ban and his pullout from the Iran nuclear deal.

A Biden administration will move the nation forward on many of the issues we care about, the letter said, citing racial justice, affordable health care, climate change and immigration.

The Muslim American officials also praised Biden’s agenda for their communities.

Among other goals, Biden has vowed to rescind the travel ban affecting Muslims on Day One if he’s elected.

In his address, he pledged to include Muslim American voices in his administration, if elected, and to speak out against human rights abuses against Muslim minorities around the world.

I’ll continue to champion the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to have a state of their own as I have for decades, each of them a state of their own, he said.

Other states and local-level Muslim American officials signing onto the pro-Biden letter hail from several states, including Michigan.

Dubai: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has been admitted to a hospital in the capital, Riyadh, for medical tests due to inflammation of the gallbladder, the kingdom’s Royal Court said Monday in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The statement said the 84-year-old monarch is being tested at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital. The brief statement did not provide further details.

King Salman has been in power since January 2015. He is considered the last Saudi monarch of his generation of brothers who have held power since the death of their father and founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz.

King Salman has empowered his 34-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as his successor. The crown prince’s assertive and bold style of leadership, as well as his consolidation of power and sidelining of potential rivals, has been controversial.

With the support of his father, Prince Mohammed has transformed the kingdom in recent years, opening it up to tourists and eroding decades of ultraconservative restrictions on entertainment and women’s rights as he tries to diversify the Saudi economy away from reliance on oil exports.

The prince has also detained dozens of activists and critics, overseen a devastating war in Yemen and rounded up top members of the royal family in his quest for power.

The Saudi king has not been seen in public in recent months due to social distancing guidelines and concerns over the spread of the coronavirus inside the kingdom, which has one of the largest outbreaks in the Middle East.

He has been shown, however, in state-run media images attending virtual meetings with his Cabinet and held calls with world leaders.

King Salman, who oversees Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, was crown prince under King Abdullah and served as defense minister. For more than 50 years prior to that, he was governor of Riyadh, overseeing its evolution from a barren city to a teeming capital.

On Sunday, Kuwait’s 91-year-old ruler underwent a successful surgery that required the oil-rich nation’s crown prince to be temporarily empowered to serve in his place, its state-run news agency reported.

Kuwait has yet to elaborate what required Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah to seek a previously unannounced medical treatment beginning Saturday. His sudden surgery could inspire a renewed power struggle within Kuwait’s ruling family.

Tehran: Iran executed a man convicted of providing information to the United States and Israel about a prominent Revolutionary Guard general later killed by a U.S. drone strike, state TV reported on Monday.

The report said the death sentence was carried out against Mahmoud Mousavi Majd, without elaborating.

The country’s judiciary had said in June that Majd was linked to the CIA and the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and alleged that Majd shared security information on the Guard and its expeditionary unit, called the Quds, or Jerusalem Force, which Qassem Soleimani commanded.

Soleimani was killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad in January.

The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and five others.

Iran later retaliated for Soleimani’s killing with a ballistic missile strike targeting US forces in Iraq. That same night, the Guard accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in Tehran, killing 176 people

Tokyo: A United Arab Emirates spacecraft began its journey to Mars with a blast off in Japan on Monday in what is the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission.

The launch of the spacecraft named Amal, or Hope, marks the start of the seven-month journey to the red planet.

The launch, initially planned for July 15, had been delayed for five days due to bad weather.

The probe will study the upper atmosphere and monitor climate change while circling Mars for at least two years.

The craft is expected to reach Mars in February 2021, the year the UAE celebrates 50 years since its formation.

Saudi Arabia said Monday that this year’s hajj will not be cancelled, but that due to the coronavirus only “very limited numbers” of people will be allowed to perform the major Muslim pilgrimage.

The kingdom said that only people of various nationalities already residing in the country would be allowed to perform the hajj. The government did not specify how many people would be permitted to take part.

The annual pilgrimage, which is set to begin this year at the end of July, traditionally draws around 2 million Muslims from around the world for five intense days of worship and rituals in Makkah.

Saudi Arabia has never canceled the hajj in the nearly 90 years since the nation’s establishment. It halted the minor umrah pilgrimage, which can be performed year-round, in February, as the coronavirus began spreading across the region. 

The Drug Controller General of India or DCGI had recently approved Remdesivir for “restricted emergency use” on severely ill hospitalised coronavirus patients.

Domestic-manufactured Remde Sivir will now be more widely available.

Remdesivir, the antiviral drug for COVID-19 treatment, will be available in the market by end of this month.

The Drug Controller General of India or DCGI had recently approved Remdesivir for “restricted emergency use” on severely ill hospitalised coronavirus patients.

Domestic-manufactured Remdesivir will now be more widely available.

Remdesivir, an investigational anti-viral therapy developed by Gilead, received Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat COVID-19. However, multiple additional clinical trials are still on for more data on the safety and efficacy of the drug as a treatment for the virus.

The centre had recently allowed the use of Remdesivir and off-label application of tocilizumab and convalescent plasma in moderate cases of COVID-19.

The health ministry had said Remdesivir was included as an “investigational therapy” only for the purpose of restricted emergency use, which means it is subject to conditions.

In the US, Remdesivir continues to be used only under emergency use authorization. Gilead Sciences had on May 29 applied to the Indian Drug Regulatory Agency for permission to import and market remdesivir.

Permission under emergency use authorization was granted on June 1 in the interest of patient safety and obtaining further data, said the ministry.

Six Indian companies have sought permission to manufacture and market the drug in India. Five of these have entered into an agreement with Gilead Sciences.

US President Donald Trump will deliver his acceptance speech on August 27 in Jacksonville.

FLORIDA: US President Donald Trump will accept the Republican presidential nomination this year in Jacksonville, Florida.

“We are thrilled to celebrate this momentous occasion in the great city of Jacksonville.

“Not only does Florida hold a special place in President Trump’s heart as his home state, but it is crucial in the path to victory in 2020. We look forward to bringing this great celebration and economic boon to the Sunshine State in just a few short months,” McDaniel added.

Trump will deliver his acceptance speech on August 27 in Jacksonville.

Interestingly, August 27 is the 60th anniversary of the brutal beating of black activists protesting segregation. The day came to be known as “Ax Handle Saturday” as nearly 200 white people had attacked the black protesters with axe handles and baseball bats, said the Florida Historial Society.

“This is Trump country here. This is the single best city in America, in which to host the Republican National Convention, and for several reasons. It’s a battleground county in a battleground state, in a city where you have unified Republican governance,” Duval County Republican Chairman Dean Black was quoted as saying. 

A video showing the Indian Charge de Affaires in Pakistan being chased by men, allegedly ISI agents, on bikes has surfaced.

NEW DELHI: Days after India expelled two officials of the Pakistan High Commission over charges of espionage, a video showing the Indian Charge de Affaires in Pakistan being chased by men, allegedly ISI agents, on bikes has surfaced.

The video, which is doing the rounds on social media, shows the car of Indian Charge de Affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia being tailed by men wearing helmets on a bike on May 31. The men in bike chasing Ahluwalia are alleged to be agents of Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence.

Later, a government source said follow-up action would be taken as per established rules. “The matter of harassment of Indian personnel and obstruction in discharge of their normal functioning is being taken up through established diplomatic channel,” the source said.

This latest video assumes significance as two officials of Pakistan High Commission — Tahir Hussain and Abid Khan — were apprehended by the Delhi Police and Military Intelligence in a joint operation at Karol Bagh on charges of espionage on Sunday.

The country has already lifted many of its virus restrictions and could remove most of those that remain, including limiting crowd sizes, next week.

WELLINGTON: New Zealand is on the verge of eradicating the virus from its shores after it notched a 13th straight day with no reported new infections.

Only a single person in the nation of 5 million people is known to still have the virus, and that person is not hospitalized.

However, it remains likely that the country will import new cases once it reopens its borders, and officials say their aim remains to stamp out new infections as they arise.

The country has already lifted many of its virus restrictions and could remove most of those that remain, including limiting crowd sizes, next week.

Just over 1,500 people have contracted the virus during the outbreak, including 22 who died.