The name on all Washington’s lips Monday will be Solicitor General Elena Kagan, with US President Barack Obama rumoured to be ready to nominate her as the next Supreme Court justice. Justice John Paul Stevens’s retirement leaves open a slot. Kagan would be the third woman out of nine justices. There would be other “firsts”: the first time there is no Protestant on the court, the only sitting justice who has never worked as a judge and at age 50, Kagan would be the youngest justice.
While Kagan may not have strong backing from Republicans, she doesn’t appear to have strong opponents, for now, and her stint as dean of the Harvard Law School boosted her reputation. Her nomination would need to be approved by the Senate.
US President Barack Obama is widely expected to announce Tuesday 1 December that the US will send up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He phoned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday and met at the White House with top military and diplomatic officials to brief them and order them to implement a new strategy, the White House announced, without confirming the actual number of troops. He then spent much of Monday discussing US strategy with Afghanistan allies, including Australia, Canada and the UK, in what White House spokesperson Robin Gibbs called “an international effort.” Obama will give a speech at the West Point military academy Tuesday explaining why the US is involved in Afghanistan and announcing details of the new strategy. The head of the US military programme in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has requested 40,000 troops.
Links to other sites: CNN, New York Times, NPR, Times, UK
Japan has pledged $5 billion in additional assistance to Afghanistan’s government just days before US President Obama arrives in Tokyo for an official visit on Friday, 13 November. The increase in aid will go towards building schools, demining, training policement, and rehabilitating Taliban fighters. Obama is to announce a new strategy for the US presence in Afghanistan after he has finished with consultations, perhaps before the end of the week.
The US has said it will expect Afghan President Hamid Karzai to meet clear measures to reduce the corruption that is seen to plague his administration. Western countries have increasingly seen corruption and a lack of transparency as undermining the the government’s legitimacy, putting a brake on development and giving the Taliban a political opening among the population. AFP, Bloomberg, New York Times
Update 17:00 Reports from Kabul say that the Electoral Complaints Commission has finalized its tally and, discarding fraudulent ballots, the new total vote for Afghan President Hamid Karzai gives him 48 percent, less than the 50 percent necessary to avoid a run-off. The new results have been communicated to the Independent Election Commission, which has not yet decided whether to accept them. Nor is it clear what the reaction will be in the president’s office. AP, New York Times
Pressure is mounting on Karzai to accept a run-off election between him and the runner-up in last August’s elections, or to agree to some sort of power-sharing deal. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has been holding talks with both sides, and John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was also in Kabul this past weekend, 17 and 18 October. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has been witholding the results of its investigation into massive electoral fraud, which may rob Karzai of his first-round victory. Karzai won with 54 percent of the vote.
A run-off election must be held within two weeks by law, but winter is closing in quickly in Afghanistan and would greatly hamper the logistics of a new election. The US administration is debating whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan to fight an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency. On Sunday, 18 October, a top aide to US President Obama said that the Afghan government needed to be “a credible partner” for the US to be able to deal with it. CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters
Keep those hands on the wheel
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A man who ran off the road in Obfelden, canton Zurich, has had his lower-court sentence confirmed by Switzerland’s high court 7 October. The man was texting on his cell phone when he ran off the road and crashed through a wooden fence. The man accepted the CHF1,000 fine but not the suspended fine of 75 days at CHF 150 per day and argued that since no one was hurt, he did not commit a serious traffic violation. The judges disagreed, saying that the moment he took his full attention off the road he was risking the lives of other road users.
“Distracted driving” in the US – texting and using a cellphone at the wheel – is estimated to cause 636,000 crashes, 2,600 deaths, 342,000 injuries, and costs that total $43 billion every year, according to the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.
US President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce Tuesday 19 May stricter federal mileage standards that will require a 30 percent reduction in auto emissions by 2016. “The national policy will mimic California’s” standards, which carmakers have been fighting in the courts reports the Los Angeles Times.
The new rules are the result of an agreement reached by the federal government, California and the auto industry. California is currently scheduled to implement its standards this year, which has prompted car industry lawsuits, but under the agreement it will delay until 2012 while the new federal standard would apply countrywide by 2016. In exchange for the delay in California, carmakers have agreed to drop their suits, says the newspaper. Reuters and background, Detroit News
US President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office are now up, and the world has a great deal to say about how he has done. Here are some of the reactions in major media:
- BBC‘s Washington team, assessment
- Financial Times, investment editor
- Fox news report on Obama speech
- Globe & Mail, Canada, report on Obama 100 days speech
- Guardian, UK, collection of articles
- Huffington Post (multiple voices)
- International Herald Tribune/NY Times, collection of articles
- Los Angeles Times, California
- Xinhua news, China, collection of articles
