US Senate Republicans failed Wednesday 2 February in their bid to repeal the healthcare act that was passed in March 2010, as expected, but before the vote the lawmakers passed an amendment to reduce the healthcare plan’s paperwork for companies. The law, a key part of President Obama’s reforms, will provide coverage to 30 million uninsured people in the US, but it still faces hurdles. Two of four state judges who have ruled on it have said it is unconstitutional and the US Department of Justice has said it will fight these rulings, taking it to the Supreme Court if necessary. Iowa is taking its own approach to fighting the bill, with the state lower house passing legislation Wednesday to allow people to opt out of the federal system.
Links to other sites: BBC, Des Moines Register, NPR, Washington Post
By 246-1 the French Senate voted 14 September to ban the use in public of veils which cover the entire face. The National Assembly had previously passed the law, which must now be vetted by the Constitutional Council before it becomes law in six months’ time. Offenders face a €150 fine.
France has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, but opponents to the bill say that it affects only an estimated 2,000 Muslim women, and that the government is pandering to the far-right vote.
Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, BBC
The US Senate passed the final of three hurdles for new health care legislation, and has scheduled a Christmas Eve day vote to pass its version of a bill. The 24 December vote requires a simple majority and is expected to pass. The next critical stage: negotiations with the House of Representatives in January, but if both houses of Congress have passed bills, President Barack Obama is much closer to seeing one of his key campaign promises fulfilled.
The US House of Representatives passed its version of a US health care reform Saturday 7 November and less than a day later President Barack Obama in a speech at the White House turned up pressure on the US Senate to quickly approve its own version of the bill. The House bill would cost $1.1 trillion and provide health care benefits to some 36 million Americans who are currently uninsured. If the Senate passes its bill, the two houses of Congress will then negotiate a final version of the bill, which will become law. The vote in the House was close and mostly along party lines: 220-215, with only one Republican voting yes. The Senate fight is expected to be even tougher, with two bills merged into one and the overall cost not yet clear.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, New York Times, NPR
The number of questions is growing about former US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s orders to the CIA to hide some of their activities from Congress. By law, congressional subcommittees must be informed of covert activities but CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to the Senate and House intelligence committees that he had been directed by Cheney to withhold information. Diane Feinstein, who chairs the Senate committee, confirmed Sunday 12 July on Fox News that Panetta had testified, CNN reports in its latest update on the unfolding story, which was broken late last week by the New York Times. Cheney has not been available for comment. Bloomberg
The Guantanamo Bay prison on the island of Cuba has been centre-stage this week in the US, with President Barack Obama and former Vice-President Dick Cheney appearing in what NPR describes as “dramatic, back-to-back televised speeches” on the future of Guantanamo and the release earlier in 2009 of classified documents on the use of torture.
Obama announced in January he wanted to close the prison facility on the island of Cuba, but Senate Democrats voted Tuesday 19 May to withold funding for the closure, asking the White House to provide a more detailed plan. Republicans have criticized Obama’s announcement to close the prison by January 2010, saying they want to know what will be done with the remaining 240 inmates at the facility. Twelve US states to date have passed laws banning inmates on their soil. CNN, Reuters and a series of commentaries on Obama’s plan for closing the prison, from the New York Times
In another development, Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian held at Guantanamo since 2004 in connection with the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, will be tried in a US federal court in New York. He becomes the first detainee from the prison camp to be accorded a civilian trial. BBC, The Standard (Kenya)
The White House has convinced the US Senate to tone down the language of its version of the $900 billion US economic stimulus package following angry outcries from other governments that the “buy America” language would hamper efforts to recover from the global economic crisis and flies in the face of trade agreements. IHT/New York Times
