President warns of ‘significant consequences’ if Congress fails to permit more borrowing and US defaults on debts Barack Obama has warned of “significant consequences” for the US economy if stalled financial negotiations lead to Congress failing to permit more government borrowing and America defaults on its debts. The president, in a rare hour-long news conference, called on Republicans to “take on their sacred cows” – including tax breaks for “millionaires and billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners” – in reaching a deal on Congress legislating an increase in government borrowing from the present $14.3tn (£8.9tn) limit, without which the US may be unable to meet its obligations within weeks. Negotiations have been deadlocked over the insistence of the Democratic leadership that budget cuts must be accompanied by tax increases in order to reduce the debt. Republican congressional leaders say that the party did not win control of the House of Representatives in last November’s midterm elections on a platform of scaling back government only to increase taxes. Obama has said that if agreement is not reached by early August, then the US risks default – a blow to international confidence in the American economy – and seeing its credit rating downgraded, which would make borrowing more expensive. “August 2 is a very important date, and there is no reason why we can’t get this done now,” he said. “This is not a technical problem anymore. This is a matter of Congress going ahead and biting the bullet and making tough decisions because we know what the decisions are.” Obama said more than $1tn in cuts have already been agreed but that other areas of the budget, including defence spending – considered untouchable by some Republicans – must be scrutinised. He said that retaining tax breaks for the wealthy will be at the expense of programmes for the less privileged. “We’ve got to make some tough choices here,” he said. The president called on Republicans to put aside soundbite politics and act in the interests of the country. “A lot of people say a lot of things to satisfy their base or to get on cable news,” he said. “Hopefully, leaders at a certain point rise to the occasion and do the right thing for the American people. That is what I expect to happen this time. Call me naive, but my expectation is leaders are going to lead.” The president criticised the Republicans’ tactic of stepping back from negotiations when things don’t go their way and then blaming him for lack of leadership, saying it “is just not on the level”. Obama defended himself against charges that he has failed to show leadership. “I’ve already shown I’m prepared to make decisions that are very tough and will give my base of voters further reason to give me a hard time,” he said. The president also criticised a largely symbolic vote in Congress against US involvement in Libya. “We have engaged in a limited operation to help a lot of people against one of the worst tyrants in the world,” he said. “We should be sending out a unified message to this guy that he should step down and give his people a fair chance to live their lives without fear. And this suddenly becomes the cause celebre for folks in Congress? Come on.” Obama repeated his defence of military action in Libya without congressional approval, saying once again that he does not believe the limited American involvement reaches the scale of conflict defined by the War Powers Resolution. Asked if that law is constitutional, he sidestepped the issue by saying that it was not relevant to the Libya intervention. “I don’t have to get to the question,” he said. The president also sidestepped a question about whether he supports the legalisation of same-sex marriage, after the New York state legislature voted to do so last week. Obama said the New York decision is a “good thing” because it was the result of the democratic process. “What I’ve seen happen over the last several years and what happened in New York last week, I think, was a good thing,” he said. “I think that’s how things should work.” But he declined to endorse same-sex marriages when asked if he “personally” is in favour of legalising them. “I’m not going to make news on that today. Good try though,” he said. US politics US Government borrowing Barack Obama US economy Republicans Economics United States Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Things got ugly in the streets of Athens today, as Greece’s parliament began voting on austerity measures—needed to keep the nation out of default—that looked increasingly likely to pass. Police firing tear gas fought what Reuters describes as “running battles” with protesters, who threw firebombs, rocks, and firecrackers,…
Continue reading …
Yingluck Shinawatra denies her brother, Thaksin, in exile to avoid corruption charges, is pulling the strings from Dubai Songwan Khomwang has never voted before, but it did not take the 19-year-old long to pick a candidate for next Sunday’s general election. “I would like a woman to lead the country,” she declared, as her choice roused a cheering crowd of thousands in a dusty field outside the north-eastern village of Tumbol Yarng. “I’ve seen too many men in power.” Yingluck Shinawatra could become Thailand’s first female prime minister. But that is not her sole attraction, conceded her admirer: “I hope if she gets in she will bring back Thaksin.” When the Puea Thai party unveiled the youngest sister of the exiled former Thai leader as its candidate, most people thought it would play into hands of the incumbent Democrats. Now the decision looks like a masterstroke, because Yingluck is putting a fresh, attractive, feminised face on her brother’s brand. “Thaksin thinks, Puea Thai acts,” is one party slogan, while the billionaire Thaksin described his sister as “not my nominee but my clone” – he later explained that he meant they shared the same ideas and attitudes. She is surrounded by his aides and advisers. But even living 3,000 miles away in Dubai, Thaksin – who won two landslide election victories but was ousted in a 2006 coup – remains a bitterly divisive figure in Thailand. His supporters paint him as a champion of the rural underclass, who was toppled for challenging the elite establishment; his opponents says he was corrupt and authoritarian. He was convicted on corruption charges in absentia after he fled the country. “I feel Yingluck basically follows in the footsteps of Thaksin, maybe because of her team,” said rice farmer Thaitun Piwon as he watched the rally in Tumbol Yarng. “[But] I think because she is a woman she will listen to all sides.” The 44-year-old political newcomer has zoomed ahead in the polls while the Democrats have stalled. Sidestepping demands for a debate with the incumbent, Abhisit Vejjajiva – where her inexperience might have become more evident – Yingluck has sprinted through her tightly managed campaign with a permanent, dazzling smile on her lips, a relentlessly positive message and a string of ambitious spending pledges to improve rural life. On Tuesday she zipped through eight speeches in three provinces in the north-east, a party stronghold. Crowds, tens of thousands strong, thrust red roses towards the stage, waved placards and cheered as she ran through a string of popular themes, such as soaring food prices – and her brother. Her very inexperience is touted as an asset: “I believe at this time people don’t want me to be acting as a politician. I can use my experience from management,” the businesswoman said. She insisted that Thaksin would not pull the strings if she became prime minister: “Of course I have leadership and management and will make decisions. [But] why do we have to reject good ideas from him? It doesn’t mean we have to rely on him … the role he will play will be supporter.” Thaksin’s critics say he is running the party from exile and is plotting his return; he has said he would like to return for his daughter’s wedding this year. Yingluck refused to rule out an amnesty, repeatedly touted by Puea Thai colleagues. “Our priorities are, first, to solve the economic problems and, second, reconciliation to make Thailand united as one,” she said. “Reconciliation means we need to discuss it with every party involved … If a committee decides to do that, my brother would be just one [person involved], the same as everyone else. We don’t have any policy specially for my brother.” Even if Puea Thai tops the poll, it may not become the government: without an outright majority, it will have to scramble to form a coalition with minor parties. Opponents have already floated perjury claims against Yingluck – which she denies – in relation to the seizure of Thaksin’s assets. And others believe the military may step in again; Thailand has seen more than a dozen coups in eight decades. Earlier this month, the army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha urged voters to back “good people” who “know what is right and wrong”, warning: “If you allow the election [outcome] to be the same as before, you will not get anything new and will not see any improvement.” Puea Thai is understood to have approached the military to discuss a possible deal. “I don’t think we will have this kind of problem [a coup] occur,” Yingluck said. Analysts fear that the election is more likely to lead to fresh conflict than the reconciliation Yingluck promises. More than 90 people died in clashes last year when the military broke up anti-government protests by Thaksin-aligned redshirts. Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra Dubai Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The death toll from last night’s Taliban assault on a Kabul hotel now stands at 19, including all eight attackers, the AP reports. The 11 civilians killed include three police officers and a judge; 18 others were wounded. Afghan police are searching the hotel for other victims or security threats,…
Continue reading …
Fighting between police and protesters is worst since Mubarak’s fall as new leaders accused of same slow tactics on reform The fiercest street fighting seen in central Cairo since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has left more than 1,000 people injured, as popular dissatisfaction with the military-led transitional government boiled over into violence. In what analysts have labelled a “critical turning point” in Egypt’s ongoing revolution, several thousand people clashed with heavily armed riot police in and around Tahrir Square on Tuesday night, leading to dozens of arrests. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces blamed “sedition” for the unrest and vowed to hunt down those responsible. Throughout Tuesday night and yesterday morning protesters chanted demands for the resignation of Egypt’s de facto leader, Field Marshall Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, as security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds. The demonstrations follow five months of accumulated frustration among many sections of the Egyptian public over the slow pace of reform since an 18-day uprising toppled Mubarak and ushered in a military junta, which has promised to hand over power to a democratically elected civilian government later this year. There has been particular anger over the perceived lack of accountability for stalwarts of the old regime. Although some former government ministers have been found guilty of corruption, the trials of the former justice minister Habib al-Adly and Mubarak himself – the two men many hold responsible for the killing of unarmed demonstrators by police – are yet to take place, while police officers accused of unlawful killing continue in their posts and families of the victims report being bribed or threatened to drop their legal cases. “These clashes are the result of Egypt’s new regime trying to reproduce the authoritarian policies and brutal, unaccountable security apparatus that were the tools of dictatorship for the old regime, and they are a critical turning point for the revolution,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst at the al-Ahram Centre. “We are seeing the same tactics – tear gas, bullets, state violence – that Mubarak used, and more importantly we are hearing the same discourse from Egypt’s interim rulers. ‘This is a plot to destabilise the country, there are shadowy groups trying to sow discord,’ claim the cabinet and the army generals, but where is this plot and who is writing it? In fact the only ‘plot’ is the anger of the people against a political elite that has initiated no real change, and a government that marginalises the poorest in Egyptian society and has little credibility in the eyes of the masses.” The Guardian has spoken to residents in the downtown area who claim that central security forces (CSF) asked them to come and help defend the interior ministry from “criminal thugs” who were allegedly smashing up shops and cars in the area. “We stood with the police for some time and threw rocks at the civilians on the other side,” said one man who preferred not to be named. “We genuinely thought the CSF needed our help – they told us that if the thugs saw ordinary people standing side by side with the police, they would be scared off and calm would be restored. But the CSF then made the situation much worse by deliberately firing into the crowds, which brought lots of peaceful protesters on to the scene and it turned into a big battle. I don’t know why the CSF did that but it felt like they wanted to make trouble.” Demonstrators claim that far from being criminals, the civilians on the street were families of those killed during January’s uprising. For the past few months the terms “thugs”, “criminals” and “counter-revolutionaries” have been regularly deployed by the authorities to describe anyone deemed to be provoking instability in the post-Mubarak era. The events of the past 48 hours are likely to increase the pressure on the interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf. “Sharaf is honest and gentle but has offered nothing substantive in terms of change; he’s been reduced to a mouthpiece of the military and he must resign,” said Abdel Fattah. “People are realising that despite the rhetoric, no reform is going to be initiated by the political elite. It has to come from the street and I think the next major demonstration in Tahrir which is planned for 8
Continue reading …
Efforts to protect New Mexico site stepped up as lab officials give assurances that dangerous materials can resist blaze Los Alamos residents evacuated over wildfire – in pictures A wildfire has advanced on the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste as authorities step up efforts to protect the site and monitor the air for radiation. Officials at the premier US nuclear-weapons lab – the desert birthplace of the atomic bomb – gave assurances that dangerous materials were safely stored and capable of withstanding flames from the 95 sq mile fire, which at one point was as close as 50 feet (15 metres) to the grounds. A small patch of land at the laboratory caught fire on Monday before firefighters quickly put it out. Teams were on alert to pounce on any new blazes and spent the day removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab’s perimeter. “We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we got,” New Mexico Democratic senator Tom Udall said. The fire has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Los Alamos , which has a population of 11,000, and has cast giant plumes of smoke over the region and raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 drums of plutonium-contaminated waste. “The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they’ll burst. That would put this toxic material into the plume. It’s a concern for everybody,” said Joni Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, an anti-nuclear group. Arends’s organisation also worried that the fire could stir up nuclear-contaminated soil on lab property where experiments were conducted years ago. Burrowing animals have brought that contamination to the surface, she said. Lab officials said there was very little risk of the fire reaching the drums of low-level nuclear waste, since the flames would have to jump through canyons first. Officials also stood ready to coat the drums with fire-resistant foam if the blaze got too close. Lab spokeswoman Lisa Rosendorf said the drums contain Cold War-era waste that the lab sends away in weekly shipments for storage. She said the drums were on a paved area with few trees nearby. As of midday on Tuesday, the flames were about two miles from the material. “These drums are designed to a safety standard that would withstand a wildland fire worse than this one,” Rosendorf said. Los Alamos employs about 15,000 people on a 36 sq mile site, and includes about 2,000 buildings. It plays a vital role in the US’s nuclear project. The lab was created during the second world war as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It produced the weapons that were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the decades since, the lab has evolved into a major scientific and nuclear research facility. It works on extending the life of aging nuclear bombs, tests warheads, produces triggers for nuclear weapons and operates supercomputers and particle accelerators. The lab also conducts research on such things as climate change and the development of a scanner for airports to detect explosive liquids. The lab’s supercomputer was used in designing an HIV vaccine. Lab officials gave assurances that buildings housing key research and scientific facilities were safe because they have been fireproofed. Trees and brush were thinned over the past several years, and key buildings were surrounded with gravel to keep flames at bay. The lab has been shut down because of the fire. Wildfires Nuclear weapons New Mexico Nuclear waste Natural disasters and extreme weather United States guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
French defence chiefs admit providing weapons for push on Tripoli in apparent defiance of UN mandate Nato was today urgently reviewing the conduct of its military campaign in Libya after France admitted arming rebel fighters in apparent defiance of the UN mandate. The revelation surprised officials in Nato’s headquarters in Brussels and raised awkward questions about whether the French had broken international law – UN resolution 1973 specifically allows Nato nations to protect civilians in Libya, but appears to stop short of permitting the provision of weapons. Nato has consistently said it would not provide arms to rebel commanders, saying it was beyond its remit. But that pledge came under scrutiny after military chiefs in Paris confirmed that French planes had dropped machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles to rebels in the western Nafusa mountains. A report in Le Figaro said the French had parachuted “large amounts” of munitions to help the rebel push on the capital Tripoli earlier this month. This was confirmed by the armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard. He said the French had initially provided humanitarian aid including water, food and medical supplies to civilians in the region who were under seige from regime forces. “There were humanitarian drops because the humanitarian situation was worsening and at one point it seemed the security situation was threatening civilians who could not defend themselves,” Burkhard told Reuters. “France therefore also sent equipment allowing them to defend themselves, comprising light weapons and munitions.” The munitions were “self-defence” assets, he said. It appears France did not inform any of its Nato allies about the weapons drop, or Nato headquarters, where officials were today desperately seeking clarification from Paris about exactly what it had done and why. Nato was also trying to establish what legal basis France had for taking this apparently unilateral action. Officials expressed surprise over what had happened and insisted its military approach had not changed. “Nato knows what its mission is and that the mandate allows certain things,” said a source. France’s admission highlights tensions within Nato over the conduct of the campaign, and will raise new questions over whether the coalition should be doing more to hasten Gaddafi’s downfall. Some countries are privately likely to welcome any sign of a more pro-active effort to end Gaddafi’s 41-year rule. The Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini has previously claimed that the UN resolution should not prohibit providing weapons to the rebels, saying this could be “morally justified.” In a further sign of growing frustration, the Dutch defence minister Hans Hillen today criticised the Nato campaign, saying those allies who had thought bombing would force Muammar Gaddafi to step down “naive”. He also insisted that Nato’s mission should be confined to its mandate to protect civilians. “If it changes into driving out a dictator, then the question is whether Nato should accept this as a new task. Libya is too big and all the military goals too big. The solution should be a political solution.” The Ministry of Defence said British forces had not supplied any weapons to to the rebels, though the foreign office admitted the UN resolution could be interpreted in different ways by different countries. “Our position is clear,” a spokesman said. “There is an arms embargo in Libya. At the same time, UN resolution 1973 allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populations from the threat of attack. We think that the UN resolution allows in certain limited circumstances defensive weapons to be provided. But the UK is not engaged in that. Other countries will interpret the resolution in their own way.” The rebels are known to have received some arms from Qatar. But speaking on Tuesday, after a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and rebel chief Mahmoud Jibril, National Transitional Council Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said it had not asked for any further military assistance. France Europe Libya Middle East Africa Arab and Middle East unrest Nato Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The fight against multiple sclerosis has found an unexpected ally—parasitic worms. Researchers in the United States and Denmark are looking into the eggs of pig whipworms, which can reduce the size of the MS brain lesions and the effects of the disease, while doctors in the UK are studying…
Continue reading …Bank of America has, as expected , reached an agreement for an $8.5 billion settlement with a group of disgruntled investors who lost truckloads of money buying mortgage-backed securities from Countrywide Financial, the bank announced today. It’s the largest payoff yet from a financial services firm, the Wall Street Journal…
Continue reading …
A new book claims that many of America’s top TV shows have followed a leftwing agenda. Could it be equally true in Britain? The news that a publishing division owned by Rupert Murdoch has released a book accusing American TV of liberal bias might sound deeply unsurprising. The belief that NBC, CBS and ABC promote values closer to Democrat beliefs than Republican views is long-established, hard to dispute by objective observation and has already resulted, under the US’s free-market TV system, in the rise of Murdoch’s Fox News as a deliberately conservative opposition. But Primetime Propaganda , by Ben Shapiro, merits more attention because it considers not the traditional ideological battleground of news and factual programming but fiction and comedy: M*A*S*H , Friends , Happy Days and so on. And, on this occasion, the allegation of deliberate leftist spin is not merely being asserted by a rightwing commentator but apparently accepted by the makers of the programmes. Shapiro talks to dozens of executives and show-runners who are quoted as cheerfully admitting to having been engaged in social engineering, justifying, for him, the subtitle: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your
Continue reading …