The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Mongolian president wins second term amid focus on mining curbs
- Gay marriage gets big boost in two U.S. Supreme Court rulings
- Texas governor mounts new bid for abortion restrictions
| Mongolian president wins second term amid focus on mining curbs Posted: 26 Jun 2013 08:33 PM PDT ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - Mongolia's incumbent president, Tsakhia Elbegdorj, who wants more controls on foreign mining investments, has emerged as the winner of Wednesday's polls with a narrow majority of votes cast, the country's election commission said on Thursday. Elbegdorj, 50, who has served as president since 2009, was the overwhelming favourite in the contest, played out amid worries about Mongolia's faltering economy as well as the growing role of foreign mining firms.
The commission said Elbegdorj got 50.23 percent of the votes, beating a former wrestling champion, Bat-Erdene Badmaanyambuu of the Mongolian People's Party, and health minister Udval Natsag, of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party. The lower-than-expected margin of victory could be traced to low turnout, said Julian Dierkes, an expert in Mongolian politics at the University of British Columbia, adding that participation was 10 percent lower than the last election. "The consensus was that Elbegdorj was winning and I suspect that a lot of potential voters thought he was winning anyway, and didn't vote," said Dierkes, who is in Ulan Bator to monitor the election. Elbegdorj's narrow victory, even if it is not contested by the opposition, is not expected to allay the concerns of foreign investors worried about growing government interference in the country's booming mining sector. The win preserves the dominance of the Mongolian Democratic Party, which won the most seats, though not an absolute majority, in last year's parliamentary vote, and heads a coalition government keen to regulate foreign investments. Elbegdorj is a free-market advocate, but his government has increasingly adopted a more "resource nationalist" approach, with laws to give the country a bigger stake in "strategic assets", such as mines. It also aims to rework a landmark 2009 investment pact to develop the massive Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine. The vote took place amid rising concern over Mongolia's resource-dependent economy, with falling commodity prices and weakening demand from China expected to erode growth and undermine spending plans. The economy grew 12 percent last year and 17 percent in 2011, as mining investment poured in and mineral exports to China surged. But growth could slow to 5.5 percent in 2013, the Mongolian Investment Banking Group said this week, if the Oyu Tolgoi project is not launched on schedule. Mongolia is in dispute with Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto over how it will repatriate profits from Oyu Tolgoi, whose launch has been delayed twice this month. A controversial new mining bill championed by Elbegdorj will also be high on the agenda. "The biggest implication is continuity -- his campaign was that he had done well for four years and wanted a chance to do more," said Dierkes. "But mining and resources is on the top of everyone's agenda and here he will keep going." (Reporting by Max Duncan, Terrence Edwards and David Stanway; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Gay marriage gets big boost in two U.S. Supreme Court rulings Posted: 26 Jun 2013 07:50 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for gay rights on Wednesday by forcing the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal and paving the way for it in California, the most populous state.
As expected, however, the court fell short of a broader ruling endorsing a fundamental right for gay people to marry, meaning that there will be no impact in the more than 30 states that do not recognize gay marriage. The two cases, both decided on 5-4 votes, concerned the constitutionality of a key part of a federal law, the 1996 Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), that denied benefits to same-sex married couples, and a voter-approved California state law enacted in 2008, called Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage. The court struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which limited the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal benefits, as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. The ruling was a victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which had decided two years ago it would no longer defend the law in court. Obama applauded the DOMA ruling and directed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all relevant federal laws to ensure that it is implemented. Justice Anthony Kennedy, 76, appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988, was the key vote and wrote the DOMA opinion, the third major gay rights ruling he has authored since 1996. In a separate opinion, the court ducked a decision on Proposition 8 by finding that supporters of the California law did not have standing to appeal a federal district court ruling that struck it down. By doing so, the justices let stand the lower-court ruling that had found the ban unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Proposition 8 opinion, ruling along procedural lines in a way that said nothing about how the court would rule on the merits. The court was unusually split, with liberals and conservatives in both the majority and the dissent. By ruling this way on Proposition 8, the court effectively let states set their own policy on gay marriage. This means a debate is set to continue in various states via ballot initiatives, legislative action and litigation potentially costing millions of dollars on both sides of an issue that stirs cultural, religious and political passions in the United States as elsewhere. The rulings come amid rapid progress for advocates of gay marriage in recent months and years. Opinion polls show a steady increase in U.S. public support for gay marriage. 'SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS' Gay marriage advocates celebrated outside the courthouse. A big cheer went up as word arrived DOMA had been struck down. "DOMA is dead!" the crowd chanted, as couples hugged and cried. Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo, a gay couple from Burbank, California, who were two of the four plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case, were both outside the courthouse. "We are gay. We are American. And we will not be treated like second-class citizens," Katami said. He turned to Zarrillo, voice cracking and said: "I finally get to look at the man I love and say, 'Will you marry me?'" Before Wednesday, 12 of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia recognized gay marriage. Three of those dozen - Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island - legalized gay marriage this year. California would become the 13th state to allow it. About a third of the U.S. population now lives in areas where gay marriage is legal, if California is included. "We are a people who declared that we are all created equal, and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama, the first sitting president to endorse gay marriage, said in a written statement. While the ruling on DOMA was clearcut, questions remained about the meaning of the Proposition 8 ruling for California. Proposition 8 supporters vowed to seek continued enforcement of the ban until litigation is resolved. But California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, said the justices' ruling "applies statewide" and all county officials must comply with it. "We are now faced with this unusual situation where we have some uncertainty," said Andrew Pugno, one of the Proposition 8 proponents' lawyers. He expressed satisfaction that the Supreme Court had "nullified" a San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that, if left intact, could have had set a precedent for other Western states in its jurisdiction. FEDERAL BENEFITS By striking down Section 3 of DOMA, the court cleared the way for legally married couples to claim more than 1,100 federal benefits, rights and burdens linked to marriage status. Kennedy wrote for the majority that the federal law, as passed by Congress, violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity," Kennedy wrote. The law imposed "a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states," he said. Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia both wrote dissenting opinions in the DOMA case. Roberts went out of his way to state that the court was not making any big pronouncements about gay marriage. The court, he said, did not have before it the question of whether states "may continue to utilize the traditional definition of marriage." Scalia accused the majority of ignoring procedural obstacles about whether the court should have heard the case in order to reach its desired result. "This is jaw-dropping," he said of Kennedy's analysis. As a result of the DOMA ruling, Edith Windsor of New York, who was married to a woman and sued the government to get the federal estate tax deduction available to heterosexuals when their spouses die, will be able to claim a $363,000 tax refund. The ruling was a win also for more than 200 businesses, including Goldman Sachs Group, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc, that signed on to a brief urging the court to strike down DOMA. Thomson Reuters Corp, owner of the Reuters news agency, was another signatory. "Today's decisions help define who we are as a people, whether or not we are part of the group directly affected," said Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive. CHANGING LANDSCAPE Numerous public figures including former President Bill Clinton, who in 1996 signed the DOMA law, and prominent groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics have come out this year in support of same-sex marriage and gay civil rights. Individual members of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - also voiced new support for gay marriage this year. Even with recent developments, there is still significant opposition among Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who had ordered the House to intervene in the DOMA case in Defence of the law. Boehner said in a statement he was "obviously disappointed in the ruling" and predicted that a "robust national debate over marriage" would continue. While more developments lie ahead, the legal fight over gay marriage already constitutes one of the most concentrated civil rights sagas in U.S. history. Just 20 years ago, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that its state constitution could allow gay marriage, prompting a nationwide backlash and spurring Congress and a majority of states, including Hawaii, to pass laws defining marriage as between only a man and woman. In 2003, when the top court of Massachusetts established a right to same-sex marriage under its constitution, the action triggered another backlash as states then adopted constitutional amendments against such unions. Five years later, the tide began to reverse, and states slowly began joining Massachusetts in permitting gays to marry. The cases are United States v. Windsor, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-307 and Hollingsworth v. Perry, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-144. (Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York and Daniel Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller and Will Dunham)
Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Texas governor mounts new bid for abortion restrictions Posted: 26 Jun 2013 07:44 PM PDT AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry on Wednesday launched another battle to pass sweeping abortion restrictions after a marathon speech by a Democrat lawmaker briefly halted a bill critics say could shut most abortion clinics in one of the nation's biggest states.
Democratic Senator Wendy Davis, once a teenage mother who went on to earn a Harvard Law degree, was propelled on to the national political stage when she spoke for more than 10 hours to block a measure that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. It proved a short-lived victory for women's groups and abortion rights advocates fighting to stop abortion restrictions across several states. Perry called for another special legislative session to reconsider the proposal on July 1. "Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn," Perry said in a statement. "We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do." Davis' filibuster of the Republican supermajority in the Texas legislature was streamed live on some national media websites. Republicans managed to stop her about two hours before the midnight end to the special legislative session, citing parliamentary procedures, but they were unable to complete voting on the abortion bill before the deadline. Davis said on Wednesday that a second attempt at a filibuster is unlikely because Republicans are sure to call the bill to a vote with more time to spare. "If they are smarter about their time management going into this next called session, it's likely we won't have an opportunity to do this again," Davis told CNN's Anderson Cooper. But even if the bill passes, Davis said her resistance to government interfering in private health decisions will have a lasting impact. "This will linger," she said. Analysts say Perry was bound to call lawmakers back for another special session to pass the abortion bill as he is confident it will eventually pass. "An abortion bill passed both houses. The votes are there. There's no question the votes are there," Texas Republican political strategist Matt Mackowiak he said. The abortion restrictions passed the House earlier in the week and a version of the proposal that did not include the ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy passed the Senate. BATTLE ACROSS NATION If the measure ultimately passes, Texas would become the 13th state to impose a ban on abortions after 20 weeks and by far the most populous. In addition, the legislation would set strict health standards for abortion clinics and restrict the use of drugs to end pregnancy. Republican backers said the regulation of abortion clinics would protect women's health and that the ban on late-term abortions would protect foetuses, based on disputed research that suggests foetuses feel pain by 20 weeks of development. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, but conservative states have enacted laws in recent years that seek to place restrictions on the procedure, especially on abortions performed late in pregnancy. Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization. The measure is extremely unlikely to become law because Democrats control the U.S. Senate and the White House. The debate rages across the nation. Twelve states have passed 20-week bans, including two states where the bans take effect later this year, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Courts have blocked the bans in three of the 12 states - Arizona, Georgia and Idaho. North Dakota's only abortion clinic filed a federal challenge on Tuesday to a new state law, the most restrictive in the country, that would ban procedures to end pregnancy once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks. A Philadelphia jury last month convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell of murdering three babies during abortions at a clinic in a high-profile case that focused national attention on late-term abortions. In Texas, Davis whittled away chunks of time by reading testimony and messages from women and others decrying the legislation, reciting previously suggested changes to the bill and tapping into her own past as a single mother at 19. She said the bill would have choked off her own access to a local Planned Parenthood clinic. "I was a poor, uninsured woman, whose only care was provided through that facility. It was my medical home," said Davis, 50, several hours into her marathon speech. (Additional reporting by Eric Johnson; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Stacey Joyce) Copyright © 2013 Reuters |
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