Reformist Pezeshkian Wins Iran’s Presidential Runoff Election, Besting Hard-Liner Jalili

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election Saturday, besting hard-liner Saeed Jalili by promising to reach out to the West and ease enforcement on the country’s mandatory headscarf law after years of sanctions and protests squeezing the Islamic Republic.

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Pezeshkian promised no radical changes to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in his campaign and long has held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the final arbiter of all matters of state in the country. But even Pezeshkian’s modest aims will be challenged by an Iranian government still largely held by hard-liners, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and Western fears over Tehran enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.

A vote count offered by authorities put Pezeshkian as the winner with 16.3 million votes to Jalili’s 13.5 million in Friday’s election. Overall, Iran’s Interior Ministry said 30 million people voted in an election held without internationally recognized monitors.

Supporters of Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker, entered the streets of Tehran and other cities before dawn to celebrate as his lead grew over Jalili, a hard-line former nuclear negotiator.

“Dear people of Iran, the elections are over and this is just the beginning of our cooperation,” Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X, still banned in Iran. “The difficult path ahead will not be smooth except with your companionship, empathy and trust. I extend my hand to you and I swear on my honor that I will not leave you alone on this path. Do not leave me alone.”

Pezeshkian’s win still sees Iran at a delicate moment, with tensions high in the Mideast over the Israel-Hamas war, Iran’s advancing nuclear program, and a looming election in the United States that could put any chance of a detente between Tehran and Washington at risk. Pezeshkian’s victory also wasn’t a rout of Jalili, meaning he’ll have to carefully navigate Iran’s internal politics as the doctor has never held a sensitive, high-level security post.

The first round of voting June 28 saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian officials have long pointed to turnout as a sign of support for the country’s Shiite theocracy, which has been under strain after years of sanctions crushing Iran’s economy, mass demonstrations and intense crackdowns on all dissent.

Government officials up to Khameni, the supreme leader, predicted higher turnout as voting got underway, with state television airing images of modest lines at some polling centers. However, online videos purported to show some polls empty while a survey of several dozen sites in Tehran saw light traffic and a heavy security presence on the streets.

Authorities put turnout in Friday’s vote at 49.6%, still historically low for an Iranian presidential election. They counted 607,575 voided votes — which often are a sign of protest by those who feel obligated to cast a ballot but reject both candidates.

“I don’t expect anything from him — I am happy that the vote put the brake on hard-liners,” said bank employee Fatemeh Babaei, who voted for Pezeshkian. “I hope Pezeshkian can return administration to a way in which all people can feel there is a tomorrow.”

Taher Khalili, a Kurdish-origin Iranian who runs a small tailor shop in Tehran, offered another reason to be hopeful while handing out candy to passersby.

“In the end, someone from my hometown and the west of Iran came to power,” Khalili said. “I hope he will make economy better for small businesses.”

Pezeshkian, who speaks Azeri, Farsi and Kurdish, campaigned on outreach to Iran’s many ethnicities. He represents the first president from western Iran in decades — something people hope will aid the county as those in the western part are considered more tolerant because of the ethnic and religious diversity in their area.

The election came amid heightened regional tensions. In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups armed by Tehran — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.

Iran is also enriching uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so. And while Khamenei remains the final decision-maker on matters of state, whichever man ends up winning the presidency could bend the country’s foreign policy toward either confrontation or collaboration with the West.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, which has reached a detente with Iran, sent his congratulations to Pezeshkian that stressed his “keenness to develop and deepen the relations that bring our two countries and peoples together.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has relied on Iranian-made drones in his war on Ukraine, similarly congratulated Pezeshkian.

There was no immediate response from the U.S.

The campaign also repeatedly touched on what would happen if former President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, won the November election. Iran has held indirect talks with President Joe Biden’s administration, though there’s been no clear movement back toward constraining Tehran’s nuclear program for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Though identifying with reformists and relative moderates within Iran’s theocracy during the campaign, Pezeshkian at the same time honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, on one occasion wearing its uniform to parliament. He repeatedly criticized the United States and praised the Guard for shooting down an American drone in 2019, saying it “delivered a strong punch in the mouth of the Americans and proved to them that our country will not surrender.”

More than 61 million Iranians over the age of 18 were eligible to vote, with about 18 million of them between 18 and 30. Voting was to end at 6 p.m. but was extended until midnight to boost participation.

The late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a May helicopter crash, was seen as a protégé of Khamenei and a potential successor as supreme leader.

Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

source https://time.com/6995438/iran-presidential-runoff-election-reformist-masoud-pezeshkian-wins/

Why Pakistan-Afghanistan Tensions Are Soaring

Tensions between neighbors Pakistan and Afghanistan are running high as the Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said this week that his country plans to continue launching cross-border attacks as part of a new military operation to curb terrorism. The comments mark a notable shift for Pakistani officials who, until now, had only admitted to one such cross-border strike in March. 

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“We won’t serve them with cake and pastries. If attacked, we’ll attack back,” Asif told the BBC.

Pakistan has experienced a surge in violence since the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, unilaterally ended a ceasefire with Islamabad in November 2022. Last year alone, more than 700 attacks killed nearly 1,000 people.

The Pakistani government accuses the Afghan Taliban of providing a safe haven to the TTP. In recent years, Islamabad has made various attempts to contain the TTP, including talks, erecting a border fence between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and applying pressure on the Afghan government to stop assisting the militant group. This included the expulsion of over 500,000 Afghan refugees last October, with a second phase to expel another 800,000 commencing earlier this month.

Yet experts tell TIME that Pakistan has little power to stem the violence that overwhelmingly afflicts its two border regions with Afghanistan. That’s because Islamabad can no longer leverage the wartime support it offered the Taliban during the U.S. war in Afghanistan to help rein in the TTP. “Pakistan finds itself in a predicament largely of its own making—the Taliban leadership that it supported throughout much of the 20-year insurgency in Afghanistan is now sheltering militant groups targeting Islamabad,” says Joshua White, a professor in international affairs at Johns Hopkins University.

Read More: Why Pakistan Fails to Stop Jihadi Attacks

What’s driving tensions between the former allies?

While relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fraught in recent years, two underlying tension points—the border and cross-border violence—have been longstanding.

“No Afghan government, including the current Taliban regime, has recognized the [official] border since Pakistan’s independence,” says Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center. “And each side has long accused the other of sheltering terrorists that carry out attacks in the other country.”

The colonial-era Durand Line, which stretches over 1,640 miles, officially separates Pakistan from Afghanistan. Afghanistan has never recognized the border but the Taliban has come out more strongly on the issue, and numerous skirmishes have erupted between Taliban fighters and Pakistani soldiers putting up border fencing, leading to the closures of border crossings. “Border tensions have sharpened because the Taliban have been especially aggressive in asserting their position,” Kugelman says.

The border cuts through tribal areas dominated by the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the border regions of both countries. Pakistan has vowed to complete the barbed-wire fencing along the internationally recognized border, which the Taliban says separates families.

With the war in Afghanistan no longer at play, the Taliban does not need to depend on Pakistan for sanctuaries and other wartime support. Instead, it seeks more legitimacy back at home, where many Afghans have long distrusted the Pakistani government. “By lashing out at Pakistan, the Taliban hopes to buy some goodwill from the Afghan public,” Kugelman says.

Will tensions ease soon?

Despite the tensions, the two countries are engaged in regular diplomacy. During recent talks hosted by the U.N. in Doha, Pakistan’s special envoy to Afghanistan met with the Taliban, while Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, has said that his office plans to visit to Kabul in the coming months. “Make no mistake, Afghanistan has not been ignored by this government,” Dar said.

Read More: Afghanistan, One Year On From U.S. Withdrawal

But border tensions are “too contentious and complex to resolve anytime soon,” Kugelman says. Tensions may soar further if Pakistan’s new military operation leads to more frequent and sustained force at the disputed border.

Pakistan government sources who spoke to the BBC have suggested that the country’s new military operation directly stems from pressure from China. Many Chinese nationals are working on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects in Pakistan as part of the Belt and Road initiative. In March, five Chinese engineers in the northwest of the country were killed when a suicide bomber, who Pakistan alleged was an Afghan national, rammed a vehicle into their convoy.

At the same time, Beijing has ample leverage over the Taliban due to China’s capacity to invest in sanction-hit Afghanistan. “If Beijing, dangling that incentive of investment assistance, is able to convince the Taliban to curb militancy, both domestically focused in Afghanistan and cross-border in Pakistan, that would help both China and Pakistan,” Kugelman says.

source https://time.com/6995069/pakistan-afghanistan-relations-taliban/

How Labour’s Stance on Gaza Played Out in the U.K. Election

Britain’s Labour Party achieved a decisive victory in the country’s July 4 election. But there were some contests, even in some of the party’s strongholds, that ended up being too close for comfort. And in a handful of constituencies, Labour lost out to independent candidates—including the party’s former leader. 

The culprit wasn’t another party, but rather, an issue: Gaza. Although Israel’s ongoing war in the besieged coastal enclave barely featured in the wider election campaign, it emerged as a key issue in a number of traditionally safe Labour seats, where independent candidates made their support for Palestinians a central feature of their campaign. In the end, five succeeded in unseating their Labour rivals, some of whom had been tipped to become ministers in the next government.

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Read More: Labour Delivered a Decisive Victory in Britain. Now Comes the Hard Part

“This was a grassroots, community, constituency-run campaign, which is an indication to those that have been in power for so long that you cannot forget the people that you serve,” independent Shockat Adam, who defeated senior Labour lawmaker Jon Ashworth in Leicester South by less than 1,000 votes, told constituents following his victory. He ended his speech by raising a Palestinian keffiyeh and declaring, “This is for the people of Gaza.”

Independent candidates winning seats is extremely rare in British politics—so much so, in fact, that none were elected during the last election in 2019. While these incoming lawmakers will technically be unaffiliated with any party, or each other, collectively they will number more than smaller parties such as the anti-immigration Reform U.K. and the Green Party. Of them, four—Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, and Iqbal Hussain Mohamed—are first-time parliamentarians. Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was suspended from the party after he appeared to deflect responsibility for his handling of antisemitism allegations within it, ran and was re-elected as an independent in his Islington North seat, which he has held since 1983.

In his acceptance speech early Friday morning, Corbyn attributed his victory in part to his stance on Gaza, noting that his constituents are “looking for a government that on the world stage will search for peace, not war, and not allow the terrible conditions to go on that are happening in Gaza at the present time.”

One of the most salient criticisms that many young voters and British Muslims in particular have had of Labour Party leader and soon-to-be Prime Minister Keir Starmer was his perceived equivocation on the ongoing war in the Middle East. Starmer came under intense criticism when, in the days following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, he suggested in an interview that Israel had the right to cut off basic necessities such as power and water from Gaza, which is home to some 2 million people. Starmer subsequently tried to walk back the comments, which triggered a slew of resignations, but the damage had already been done. Efforts to appease voters concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, such as calling for a ceasefire and pushing the Conservative-led government to publish its legal advice on whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza constituted a violation of international law, failed to move the needle.

In the end, it could have been worse for Labour. The party very nearly lost some of its most prominent lawmakers to independent candidates, among them the party’s shadow health minister Wes Streeting, who won re-election by just 528 votes. Jess Philips, a former Labour shadow minister who quit her role in November in order to vote in favor of a Gaza ceasefire motion (which her party opposed at the time), secured her seat by just 693 votes. During her acceptance speech, supporters of her rival heckled her with boos and jeers such as “shame on you” and “free, free Palestine,” despite the fact that Philips helped to bring the first orphan from Gaza to the U.K. for medical treatment. In her acceptance speech, she described the contest as “the worst election I have ever stood in.”

But it wasn’t just independent candidates who siphoned votes off of Labour over the party’s Gaza stance. The Green Party, which quadrupled its presence in Parliament from one to four, also attracted voters disaffected by the main parties’ Gaza stances. In addition to calling for a “full bilateral cease-fire,” the party advocates the U.K. suspending its arms exports to Israel. 

Read More: Israel Has Been Accused of War Crimes in Gaza. Could Its Allies Be Next?

The Labour Party had no say over Britain’s foreign policy in opposition. In government, how Labour chooses to handle this issue will likely be closely watched. While the size of the party’s majority will likely insulate it from major challenges, Labour could nonetheless face pressure from smaller parties to take a more critical stance towards Israel.

“We recognize that this is the most complex and challenging of issues,” David Lammy, who is poised to become the next government’s chief diplomat, told journalists in the days running up to the vote. “We have been calling for a ceasefire now for all of this year. We have maintained our belief that it’s important that the hostages are released, that aid must get into Gaza, and our belief in the international rules-based order and international humanitarian law. That is our approach.”

source https://time.com/6995244/labour-gaza-uk-election-independent/

World Swimming Federation Confirms U.S. Federal Investigation Into Chinese Swimmers’ Doping Tests

The international swimming federation says its executive director has been ordered to testify as a witness in a U.S. criminal investigation into the case of 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance in 2021 yet were allowed to continue competing.

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The news comes just three weeks before the Paris Olympics where 11 of the Chinese swimmers who tested positive for the banned heart medication three years ago are set to compete.

A House Committee on China asked the Justice Department and the FBI on May 21 to investigate the case under a federal law that allows investigations into suspected doping conspiracies even if they occurred outside the U.S.

Swimming’s world governing body, World Aquatics, told The Associated Press on Thursday that its top administrator, Brent Nowicki, was subpoenaed to testify in the investigation.

“World Aquatics can confirm that its executive director, Brent Nowicki, was served with a witness subpoena by the United States government,” World Aquatics said in a statement to The Associated Press. “He is working to schedule a meeting with the government, which, in all likelihood will obviate the need for testimony before a Grand Jury.”

World Aquatics declined to answer questions about where and when Nowicki was served his subpoena and didn’t say which office was handling the investigation. The FBI didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

The swimmers in question were allowed to compete at the previous Olympics in Tokyo despite testing positive for a banned heart medication just months before those games. Chinese officials blamed food contamination and the World Anti-Doping Agency accepted that explanation and has since defended its handling of the case.

The positive tests were not publicly known until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD first reported on the case earlier this year

source https://time.com/6995141/world-swimming-federation-us-federal-investigation-chinese-swimmers-doping-tests/

Millions Swelter Under Dangerous Fourth of July Heat Wave

Around 134 million people in the U.S. are under alerts as an “extremely dangerous and record-breaking” heat wave broils much of the country, according to the National Weather Service.

Regions that may see temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) or much higher into the triple digits (well above 37 degrees Celsius) include nearly all of the West Coast, the southern Plains, most of the lower Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley and parts of Florida, said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service.

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The Pacific Northwest will see the mercury rising later in the weekend. Arizona will continue to sizzle as firefighters battle a wildfire near Phoenix, where some contend with burns from blazing hot asphalt, concrete or other surfaces. And more humid regions will see a muggy weekend.

“If it’s both humid and hot, you can’t really rely on sweat to cool you down to a safe level,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California, Los Angeles.

It’s a dangerous weather pattern hitting as fires burn in northern California, and just in time for a holiday weekend. When people are celebrating, “it’s very easy to get sidetracked,” staying out for longer and forgetting to stay hydrated, said Chris Stachelski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “And then all of a sudden you’re putting yourself more at risk.”

Human-caused climate change is making heat waves longer and more intense. More research will be needed to link an individual event like this one directly to climate change, but given the overall trajectory, Swain wasn’t surprised by the forecast this weekend. Even so, “the pace of record breaking heat extremes and precipitation extremes is becoming a little bit overwhelming,” he said.

This heat wave’s expected duration, breadth and high overnight temperatures compound the risks to people’s health. “I think this heat wave may end up being more consequential, more dangerous, and more record breaking in many cases than the heat waves that produce those slightly higher temperatures,” Swain said.

Stachelski added that even after the highest temperatures have passed, heat can still be dangerous, especially to the most vulnerable — the young, old and those without access to air conditioning.

Experts urge people to drink plenty of water and find air conditioning. Big Sur State Parks used Sabrina Carpenter lyrics to urge hikers to “please, please, please” avoid caffeine and alcohol, wear sun protection and know trails ahead of time.

The extended high temperatures that cook the West Coast will also dry out vegetation and set the stage to make the remaining months of the fire season more severe, Swain said.

“Heat is an underrated killer,” Swain said, referring both in the short term to heat waves like this one and to the broader trends of global warming. “It’s one we’ve long underestimated. And I think we continue to do so at our peril.”

source https://time.com/6995132/millions-swelter-under-dangerous-fourth-of-july-heat-wave/

Defending Champion Miki Sudo Wins Women’s Division of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

Dental hygiene student Miki Sudo of Florida has won her 10th women’s title at the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest.

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On Thursday, Sudo consumed 51 hot dogs in 10 minutes and set a new world record for women.

The 38-year-old defending champion last year won after eating 39 1/2 hot dogs, while her personal best is 48 1/2, the women’s world record.

She defeated 14 competitors from around the world, including 28-year-old rival rival Mayoi Ebihara of Japan. Ebihara came in second after eating 37 hot dogs in 10 minutes. She was also the runner-up in 2023.

Competitors have come from over a dozen states and five continents, with prospects from Brazil, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Australia and the Czech Republic vying for the coveted title in men’s and women’s divisions and $10,000 prize money.

Thousands of fans flock each year to the event held outside the original Nathan’s location in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, a beachfront destination with amusement parks and a carnivalesque summer culture. ESPN broadcasts the contest live, kicking off with the women’s division at 11 a.m. ET, while the men’s will begin at approximately 12:20 p.m.

Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, who won 16 out of the previous 17 contests, did not attend the competition over a sponsorship tiff. Instead, he’ll compete against soldiers at a U.S. Army base in El Paso later in the day.

“There’s going to be a new champion,” Australian James Webb, who holds a world record for eating 70 doughnuts in eight minutes, said at a preview event in New York on Wednesday.

Last year Chestnut, of Indiana, chewed his way to the title by downing 62 dogs and buns in 10 minutes. The record, which he set in 2021, is 76.

Ahead of the event, ESPN said it would focus on two Americans with dedicated camera shots: Massachusetts high school teacher Geoffrey Esper in the men’s division, and Sudo in the women’s.

Esper came second last year with 49 dogs and buns, though his personal best is 51.

source https://time.com/6995129/miki-sudo-wins-womens-nathans-hot-dog-eating-contest/

‘I Screwed Up’: Biden Makes Candid Admission After First Presidential Debate

President Joe Biden, 81, has spoken out following his much-criticized performance during the first 2024 presidential debate on Thursday, June 27. In a radio interview with Civic Media’s The Earl Ingram Show, which aired in full on July 4 following the release of a snippet preview, the Democratic Party leader reflected on the debate.

“I had a bad night, and the fact of the matter is that, you know… I screwed up. I made a mistake,” he said. Pointing to his presidential tenure, Biden added: “That’s 90 minutes on stage. Look at what I’ve done in 3.5 years.”

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Biden has sparked concern after he was seen stumbling over his words and seemingly losing his train of thought during certain parts of the debate, which took place at CNN’s Atlanta studios and was co-moderated by journalists Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. At one notable point, after Biden finished answering a question about immigration and border security, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said of his opponent: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

President Biden says, "I had a bad night," when discussing his debate performance with @earl_show. Tune in tomorrow for the full interview. pic.twitter.com/UqIvVXKjmL

— Civic Media (@CivicMediaUS) July 3, 2024

Read More: Trump Claims People Said He ‘Had the Greatest Performance in History of Presidential Debates’

Following the debate, there have been loud calls for Biden to step aside. Some are vying for the President to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which is set to be held in Chicago from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22. Within the Democratic Party, some sitting members have also voiced their wish for the President to withdraw from the 2024 election before the all-important November vote. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has hit back at reports Biden is set to withdraw. “The President is clear-eyed and he is staying in the race,” she said, firmly. And Biden himself has made an effort to rally the public following his performance.

Read More: ‘I’m in This Race to the End’: Biden Digs His Heels as Calls to Drop Out Grow Louder

On Friday, June 28, the day after the debate, Biden showed his defiant stance during a campaign rally in North Carolina. Acknowledging concerns over his age and debate performance, yet insisting he is up for the job, Biden told a cheering crowd: “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

source https://time.com/6995116/biden-candid-interview-screwed-up-first-presidential-debate-response/