High turnout in Egypt, with new Islamist group taking 24%
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Russians appear to be falling out of love with former leader Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and turnout has been high, 62 percent, in Egyptian voting as parts of the country move into runoffs in a complex voting system.
Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has enjoyed almost unrivaled popularity for the past 10 years, but early election results appear to show a change of heart by voters, with the party’s majority in parliament disappearing.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, described by Business Week as “broad-based”, is expected to win the largest number of seats in the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s long reign of power ended early in 2011. But the conservative, Islamist Salafi Nour party, a newcomer, secured 24 percent of early results, surprising observers with its strong showing. The country now faces runoffs in several voting areas; results from the country’s complex voting system will not be known until January 2012.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Business Week, Guardian, Reuters
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A US congressional “super committee” of 12 is fighting its way through proposals to cut the nation’s budget by $1.3 trillion, but its negotiations appeared “near collapse” Friday, according to Reuters in an article that looks at the impact of the cuts on states. The states have been negotiating the cuts with the bipartisan committee, which has until next Wednesday 23 November to strike a deal that would reduce the nation’s debt, which reached $15 trillion last week. Failure to do so would result in budgets being reduced automatically, part of the deal that Congress and President Barack Obama reached last summer.
“Congress is already facing rock-bottom approval ratings after a year of down-to-the-wire budget battles, and failure to reach a deal would likely incite further disgust among voters as the 2012 election season heats up,” reports the National Post.
The BBC, in an unrelated story, offers a useful guide to what countries owe what money to other countries, based on BIS (Bank for International Settlements), IMF and World Bank data. It shows the US gross foreign debt, which is about $16.8 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2011 according to World Bank Quarterly External Debt Statistics.
Fying over Greenland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss voters overwhelmingly favour six weeks of vacation, the results of a poll carried out for Travail.Suisse in November show: 61 percent are in favour of the group’s initiative to add two weeks of annual vacation.
The union, which represents 170,000 Swiss employees, in 2009 presented the Swiss Chancellery with more than the 100,000 signatures needed for a popular initiative (started by citizens rather than politicians) to result in a referendum.
The federal government said in June that it is opposed to the text, arguing that there are alternatives, such as shorter hours and high wages, to reducing stress at work and improving the health of workers, one of Travail.Suisse’s rationales for the change. Bern also argues that if one worker is gone for too long it creates additional stress for other workers, who must pick up the work burden and share it.
Parliament has until 26 December 2011 to decide if it will support the initiative, which will then be taken to voters.
Switzerland votes on a number of popular referendums every year.
Vacations are generally, by law, four weeks in Switzerland, and they must be taken in the year in which they are earned. The employer has the right to reduce vacation time if a worker has been unable to work for at least a month in that year. Employers are required to allow people to take vacations when they like, as long as the company’s needs are met.
Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has pointed a finger at the United Nations, and in particular at Peter Galbraith, the then deputy head of the UN mission Afghanistan, as the source of “massive” election fraud in 2009. The disputed presidential elections, which Karzai won despite having a high number of votes for him rejected by Western officials, were the centre of international attention with heavy suspicions of fraud. Karzai also blamed the European Union for being behind the fraud, in remarks made Thursday 1 April.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, BBC
Jose Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed as president of Honduras in a coup 28 June, says he will not participate in a presidential election slated for 29 November and that he has asked his supporters to renounce it. His announcement came in a published letter explaining his case to US President Barack Obama. His decision is a blow to hopes for a negotiated settlement that arose when he and Roberto Micheletti, who pushed him from power, signed a US-brokered agreement in October that called for a unity government until the election. It also called for Congress to decide if Zelaya should be returned to power, but Congress has opted to hand that decision to the country’s highest court. The elections are causing problems for Honduran citizens outside the country, who are unsure where and how to vote: in Florida the Honduran consulate says citizens should vote there, but the Honduran government says the consulate no longer has the authority to authorize this.
The dispute is the latest in a series of diplomatic tussles involving Hondurans. The Honduran ambassador to the UN was expelled from the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva 14 September after the group’s president, Alex van Meeuwen of Belgium, decided that Delmer Urbizo, the Honduran ambassador, was not the legitimate representative of the government of Honduras. Van Meeuwen made his decision after various points of order called by a group of Latin American countries who questioned the Honduran’s credentials and the legitimacy of the government he represents. Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico argued that the UN General Assembly had called on organizations not to recognize the interim government of Honduras. But Urbizo has told GenevaLunch there is no Honduran government in exile under former President Zelaya, and therefore the Honduran people is being deprived of its legitimate right to be represented in international forums.
Links to other sites: CNN, Miami Herald
Ruth Dreifuss, former Swiss president, who grew up in the Secheron district in Geneva, attended a December 2008 presentation on the development of the international Geneva project, near the WTO.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The proposed extension to the World Trade Organization’s building at Centre William Rappard will be decided this Sunday 27 September by the city of Geneva’s voters. The vote is a strictly municipal affair, and the outcome is not binding on the canton, which has the final say on city planning decisions. But this vote is being seen as a test of the city’s commitment to the concept of Genève internationale, host to the European headquarters of the UN and to more than 30 specialized UN organizations, as well as to a large number of non-governemental organizations (NGOs).
A strong “no” vote by the citizens of Geneva would seriously weaken that commitment. Pierre Vanek, leader of the project’s opponents, points out in an interview published in Le Temps that the canton can ignore the result of a refusal, but “people wouldn’t understand why it was going against a popular vote.”
The cantonal authorities approved the building extension because the WTO urgently needs the extra space.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Federal Council Wednesday 19 August approved six of the 12 new double taxation agreements required by the OECD before the end of 2009 if Switzerland is to avoid being considered an “uncooperative” country by the group of 30 rich countries, in terms of tax assistance to other nations. Such countries make up the much publicized OECD gray list, versus a black list of tax havens.
