The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- U.S. lawmakers could ease 'coup' ban on aid to Egypt
- Egyptian policeman killed in militant attack in Sinai
- Ireland votes to allow limited abortion rights for first time
| U.S. lawmakers could ease 'coup' ban on aid to Egypt Posted: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers will begin to vote as soon as next week on legislation that could continue aid to Egypt even if the Obama administration determines that the ouster of elected President Mohamed Mursi was a military coup, lawmakers and aides said on Thursday. The United States sends $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid to Egypt each year, but the military coup label would cut off the flow under a U.S. law dating to the 1980s. As a result, the White House and State Department have so far refused to characterize Mursi's ouster as a coup, with administration officials often resorting to verbal gymnastics to avoid using the word. Republican U.S. Representative Kay Granger, chairwoman of the House of Representatives subcommittee in charge of the aid, said her panel could consider allowing more flexibility, such as language that would allow the aid to continue if doing so were deemed to be in the U.S. national security interest. Granger said she is not considering changing the coup language but that it was possible for Congress to change it to make it more flexible. "There is not a waiver (provision) in the coup legislation," Granger told Reuters in an interview. "That could be changed, however, if the Congress says we are going to allow a waiver." The law as currently written bans the administration from waiving the restriction, even if the administration judges it to be important for national security. PAKISTAN AID PRECEDENT? Congress approved President George W. Bush's request to allow aid to Pakistan's government after the September 11, 2001, attacks, despite the ouster of its government in a coup. Lawmakers said a similar bill was one possibility for Egypt. They said another possibility would be rewriting the law on foreign aid to allow waivers for national security reasons more routinely. The House subcommittee is due to begin considering the fiscal 2014 aid to Egypt this month, possibly as soon as next week. The Senate subcommittee also expects to vote on its version of the legislation this month, likely during the week of July 23, aides said. After the state and foreign operations subcommittees of the House and Senate appropriations committees debate and vote on their versions of the bill, the measures will be voted on by the full committees before being sent for a vote by the full House and Senate. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate panel, has said he considers Mursi's ouster a coup, although the ultimate determination is up to the administration. A spokesman said the Senate panel is not now considering a provision in its legislation to waive the coup requirement. However, Senator John Boozman, a Republican subcommittee member, said he was open to the possibility of a waiver, depending on the situation in Egypt. "With the situation as it is now, I would certainly be open to having that discussion," he told Reuters. "And right now my tendency would be to vote for the waiver and, again, we'll just have to wait and see what happens." President Barack Obama asked Congress to appropriate $1.55 billion in aid for Egypt for fiscal 2014, including $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic assistance. Committee members and aides from both panels said it was too soon to comment on whether they would approve that level of aid, because the situation in Egypt is changing so rapidly. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Mohammad Zargham) |
| Egyptian policeman killed in militant attack in Sinai Posted: CAIRO (Reuters) - One Egyptian policeman was killed and another was badly wounded on Friday by militants who fired rocket-propelled grenades at security checkpoints in the lawless Sinai peninsula, near the border with Israel, security sources said. Hardline Islamist groups based in North Sinai have intensified their attacks on police checkpoints over the past two years, exploiting the security and political vacuum following the 2011 uprising that ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak. The violence has spiked since last week's overthrow of elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi by the army and the militants have attacked security checkpoints almost every day. Friday's deadly attack took place in the peninsula's northern city of Al-Arish, the sources said. Earlier on Friday, a police station and two army checkpoints in the city also came under attack by militants firing rocket-propelled grenades, according to the security sources. No one was wounded in those attacks. On July 10, two Egyptians were killed and six were wounded in a militant attack on security checkpoints in the remote village of Sadr El-Heytan, in the centre of Sinai. (Reporting by Yusri Mohamed; Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Mohammad Zargham) |
| Ireland votes to allow limited abortion rights for first time Posted: DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's parliament voted on Friday to allow abortion under certain conditions for the first time, following months of polarising debate in the Catholic country including letters to the premier written in blood. Prime Minister Enda Kenny has provoked protest from both sides of the debate by pushing through a compromise that will allow abortion, but only when a woman's life is in danger. His governing party has faced down more rebels over the issue than it did over its harsh austerity measures. After a marathon debate that ran past midnight for the second night in row, lawmakers passed the bill by 127-31. The vote was greeted with applause. "It is the very, very bare minimum of a bill, but at the same time it feels like the end of an era," said Eleanor White, 21, one of a handful of pro-abortion rights activists gathered outside parliament, who were outnumbered by opponents of the bill. "We are getting to the end of the role the Catholic Church has had in Ireland," she said. Anti-abortion activists nearby prayed and cheered deputies who opposed the bill as they left the parliament building. "This is a terrible crime on the heart and soul of this nation," said Rita Daly, a 56-year-old civil servant, holding a picture of an aborted foetus. "This is the intentional killing of our children, our flesh and blood." Abortion rights opponents were particularly upset by the bill's inclusion of the risk of suicide as a possible threat to the mother's life. The two-decade debate over how Ireland should deal with a Supreme Court ruling that abortion be permitted when a woman's life is in danger was reopened last year after the death of a woman who was denied an abortion of her dying foetus. The Supreme Court ruling in 1992 resulted from a challenge by a 14-year-old rape victim to a constitutional amendment nine years earlier that aimed to ban abortion in all instances. DIVISIONS IN RULING PARTY In a sign of how contentious the abortion issue is, five of 76 members of parliament from Kenny's conservative Fine Gael party voted against the bill. The five have been expelled from its parliamentary grouping. Midway through his five-year term, Kenny has lost more Fine Gael deputies to the abortion debate than to economic austerity measures, even as his coalition made deep cuts under an 85 billion euro ($109 billion) EU/IMF bailout. He lost one party deputy over austerity. The refusal to vote for the bill by longtime Kenny ally Lucinda Creighton, once tipped as a possible leader of the party, ends her role as Europe minister. "When it comes to something that is essentially a matter of life and death, I think it is not really possible to compromise," Creighton said in televised comments. In the weeks before the vote, Kenny said he had been sent plastic foetuses and letters written in blood, and his private residence was picketed by protesters wearing skeleton masks. He has also faced a concerted campaign by Ireland's once- powerful Roman Catholic Church, which urged parishioners to pressure their local members of parliament to vote against the bill. Some church leaders said that lawmakers' support of abortion could be grounds for excommunication. Rocked by a series of child abuse scandals, the Church has seen its public influence wane since the 1980s, and a younger, secular generation wants to end the practice of Irish women travelling to nearby Britain to terminate their pregnancies. Supporters of more liberal abortion laws in Ireland had mixed feelings about the bill's passage. "Under the current law, I face life in prison. Under the new law, I face 14 years," said Suzanne Lee, a 23-year-old student who said she took an abortion pill last year. (Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Peter Cooney) |
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