Tag: Barack Obama

WASHINGTON (TIP): President Barack Obama is warning that the United States may levy sanctions on individuals and entities involved in stoking violence and instability in South Sudan.Obama signed an executive order on Thursday clearing the way for possible visa bans and asset freezes.

Officials said the move reflected White House frustration with the lack of progress in ending the violent clashes in South Sudan that broke out more than three months ago. “Those who threaten the peace, security or stability of South Sudan, obstruct the peace process, target UN peacekeepers or are responsible for human rights abuses and atrocities will not have a friend in the United States and run the risk of sanctions,” the White House said in a statement.

While no individuals or entities were actually sanctioned Thursday, the executive order is necessary for the US to take that step. Officials said the European Union, Britain, Norway and the United Nations Security Council are also in the process of considering similar actions. The massive violence in South Sudan erupted in December after a dispute among the country’s presidential guards.

That dispute soon pitted backers of South Sudan’s president against the former vice president, who now commands the loyalty of a large number of rebel troops who control significant parts of the country.The politically fueled ethnic violence has continued despite a Jan. 23 cease-fire agreement.The White House called on both sides to end to the violence, saying there is “no room for excuses or delay.”

WASHINGTON (TIP): In a new embarrassment for the US Secret Service, three agents were sent home from Amsterdam for drunkenness, after one was found passed out in a hotel hallway. The agents were in The Netherlands ahead of US President Barack Obama’s trip there this week as part of the elite unit tasked with protecting the president in the event of an attack.

Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary confirmed to AFP Wednesday that “three employees were sent home for disciplinary reasons,” without giving any further details. The story was first reported in the Washington Post newspaper, which said the agents have been placed on administrative leave, citing three unnamed people familiar with the case. The incident comes two years after a scandal involving Secret Service agents and prostitutes in the Colombian Caribbean resort of Cartagena.

Then, a dozen agents and officers drank heavily and brought prostitutes to their hotel before the president’s arrival for an economic summit. Their activities came to light when one of the call girls had an argument in a hotel hallway after an agent refused to pay her. Colombia reported the incident to the US embassy in Bogota. In the new case, the alleged behavior would violate Secret Service rules adopted after the Cartagena scandal, the Post reported.

Obama’s visit to the Netherlands started with a brief stop at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, before he attended a nuclear security summit in The Hague and met fellow G7 leaders for talks on the Ukraine crisis. Obama flew to Brussels on Tuesday for his first ever visit to the European Union’s headquarters, and he is also due to visit Rome and the Vatican before heading to Saudi Arabia. The Post said the three people sent home were members of the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team. That unit goes into action if the president or his motorcade comes under attack -they aim to fight off any assailants and draw fire while the president’s protective detail removes him from the area.

The Post said hotel staff alerted the US embassy in the Netherlands after finding the unconscious agent Sunday morning, the day before Obama arrived in the country. The embassy then alerted Secret Service managers on the presidential trip, which included the agency’s director, Julia Pierson. Under the new post-Colombia rules, staff on an official trip are banned from drinking alcohol in the 10 hours leading up to an assignment. CAT members would have been called to duty sometime Sunday for a classified briefing ahead of the president’s arrival on Monday so drinking late into the night Saturday evening and Sunday morning would have violated that rule. Two former agency employees with experience on foreign assignments described the counter-assault team as one of the most elite units in the agency, responsible for the president’s life.

CAT staff are required to be highly skilled shooters and extremely physically fit, with a demanding training regimen, the ex-employees told the Post. White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters traveling with Obama on Air Force One from Brussels to Rome, said the president had been briefed on the incident. “Generally, the president believes – as he has said in the past – that everybody representing the United States of America overseas needs to hold himself or herself to the highest standards,” Carney said. Obama supports Pierson’s “zerotolerance approach on these matters,” the spokesman added. In the Colombia incident, 10 agents were removed from their jobs. Several investigations were launched, and the new rules were designed to prevent a repeat of such activity.

NEW YORK (TIP):
More than 6 million people have signed up for Obamacare, as a crush of people raced to get health insurance before the March 31 deadline. President Obama announced the milestone Thursday, March 27, in a call with enrollment counselors and outreach volunteers, who are undertaking an intense marketing drive in the final days of open enrollment. There were more than 1.5 million visits to HealthCare.gov and more than 430,000 calls to the call centers on Wednesday.

Those who’ve started the application by next Monday but are unable to finish because of technical issues will receive more time to complete the process, officials have said. Reaching 6 million is a symbolic victory for the Obama administration following the botched launch in October. It is short of the initial goal of 7 million, which was based on a projection by the Congressional Budget Office and adopted by the administration. But it shows considerable gains from the first month when just 106,000 people had signed up.

Last month, the CBO revised its projection down to 6 million because of the rocky initial rollout. Things were looking pretty grim when Obamacare launched on October 1. The exchange websites didn’t work, and internal notes showed that only 6 people signed up initially. The Obama administration had to bring in a SWAT team of tech experts to overhaul the federal exchange site.

What a difference six months makes. More than 5 million Americans have selected policies on the state and federal exchanges, with the final push coming before open enrollment closes March 31. Sign-ups are nearing the Congressional Budget Office projection that 6 million people would enroll for 2014.

WASHINGTON (TIP): President Barack Obama told Ukraine’s Prime Minister on March 12 that the United States would stand by his country’s defense of its sovereignty, conferring symbolic legitimacy on the Kiev government in a direct rebuke to Russia. Obama also said after meeting interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk that he hoped US diplomacy with Moscow over the next few days could cause a “rethinking” of plans for a secession referendum in Crimea on March 10.

Obama said that Russia had infringed international law with its incursion into Ukraine and warned that if President Vladimir Putin did not change course, he would face “costs” from the United States and the international community, which has already threatened economic sanctions. Obama told Yatsenyuk in the Oval Office — in a visit intended to confer symbolic legitimacy on the Kiev government — that he had been impressed by the courage of the people of Ukraine during the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych and the political turmoil that followed.

“We have been very clear that we consider the Russian incursion into Crimea… to be a violation of international law,” Obama said. “We have been very firm in saying that we will stand with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in ensuring that territorial integrity and sovereignty is maintained,” Obama said. Yatsenyuk told reporters in the Oval Office that Ukraine would “never surrender” in its fight for territorial integrity, but also that it wanted to be a good partner to Russia.

Obama added that the United States would not recognize the results of the referendum in Crimea on joining Russia. He said the vote was a “patchedtogether” exercise but hinted that he hoped talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov later this week in London could change the situation. “My hope is that as a consequence of diplomatic efforts over the next several days that there will be a rethinking of the process that has been put forward.”

WASHINGTON (TIP): India’s new ambassador to the United States, Dr S Jaishankar, presented his credentials to President Obama at the White House on Monday in a formal ceremony at which the American President essayed an anodyne ”the U.S and India could accomplish a lot together,” at a time New Delhi has largely fallen off Washington’s radar, in part because of India’s pre-occupation with the general elections.

The credentialing process is a mostly ceremonial and familial occasion, but everyone watches for little signs that indicate the health of bilateral ties. From all accounts, Jaishankar, an old U.S hand, four generations of whose family has engaged Washington, got a warm welcome, with President Obama genially connecting with each member of the family and wishing them a good time in the US.

Six other foreign envoys, including Pakistan’s new ambassador to Washington Jalil Abbas Jilani, who has also served in New Delhi, also presented their credentials. The Indian ambassador was accompanied by his wife Kyoko, and the children — daughter Medha, an executive with Reliance Entertainment, son Dhruva, a Senior Fellow with the German Marshall Fund, and his wife Cassandra, a PhD scholar at Brandeis Univeristy, and Arjun, 14.

”As you know, I presented my credentials to President Obama and he seems to have checked out the credentials and found it OK,” the ambassador joked to guests from the state department, Congress, and media he had invited for lunch at his home following the ceremony. ”He allowed us to have a nice photograph and we had great conversation and he mentioned that his administration looks forward to working with me.” ”This is really what makes for our relationship, and as I am formally signing on today.

I thought the best thing to do would be to really call all the people I hope to work with for the rest of my tenure, and say, ‘I am counting on you to get my job done,” he added. On a more serious level, the ambassador’s energies in Washington, at a time when India is busy navelgazing due to elections at home, will be directed at averting punitive US trade sanctions that could welcome the new government in New Delhi.

A powerful trade lobby in Washington led primarily by big pharma, is striving to designate India as a ”priority foreign country” under the Special 301review aimed at punishing India for inadequate intellectual property rights. The two sides are also still struggling with resolving the nitty-gritty details of the Devyani Khobragade case, while larger geo-political issues have taken a backseat. India has been conspicuously out of the loop on the Ukraine crisis, with the leadership in New Delhi not among those President Obama has phoned for discussions — a list that includes all other major powers.

WASHINGTON (TIP): US First Lady Michelle Obama has felicitated Indian acid attack victim Laxmi after she won the International Women of Courage Award for successfully leading the campaign against acid attacks on women in India.

Michelle Obama and the large crowd at the US State Department auditorium was moved and touched when Laxmi, a standard-bearer of the movement to end acid attacks, recited a poem recounting her experience on the occasion on march 4. “You haven’t thrown acid on my face; you threw it on my dreams.

You didn’t have love in your heart; you had acid in it,” Laxmi recited soon after receiving the prestigious award along with several other women from different parts of the world including Afghanistan and Fiji. The original poem was in Hindi. Laxmi was 16 when an acquaintance threw acid on her face while she waited at a bus stop in New Delhi’s busy Khan Market in 2005, disfiguring her permanently.

Her attacker, a friend’s 32-year-old brother, threw the acid to destroy Laxmi’s face after she refused to respond to his romantic advances. Recognition for her effort through this award, is a great encouragement and motivation for the girls and women of India, many of whom still are not able to speak out against the atrocities inflicted upon them, Laxmi said soon after receiving the award. “After this award, girls of India would think, if Laxmi can do this, I can also raise my voice against injustice,” Laxmi told in an interview.

Last year, Nirbhaya, the courageous 23-year-old girl whose brutal gang rape and murder on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 triggered widespread protests, was honoured with the award. Ruing that acid is still being sold without following the recent Supreme Court order in this regard; Laxmi demanded the creation of a high level committee at the national level to prevent acid attacks against women.

“Victims of acid attacks not only be given compensation, but also the entire medical expense be meted by the government. The victim should be given a government job and given justice through fast track courts,” Laxmi said and urged the political parties to incorporate this in their election manifesto for the forthcoming elections. “There was never any love in your eyes. They burn me with caustic glance. I am sad that your corrosive name will always be the part of my identity that I carry with this face. Time will not come to my rescue.

Every Thursday will remind me of you,” Laxmi said reciting her poem with the First Lady and other top US officials on the dais. “When we see these women raise their voices and move their feet and empower others to create change, we need to realize that each of us has that same power and that same obligation,” the First Lady said in her speech. “And as I learned about this year?s honorees and I thought about how we could support their work, I realized that for most of these women, there is a common foundation for their efforts. It’s a foundation of education,” she said.

Observing that she always walks away feeling inspired by these women, determined to reflect their courage in her own life, Obama said she is not alone in that feeling because every day with every life they touch and every spirit they raise, these women are creating ripples that stretch across the globe. “Last year on this stage, we honoured the memory of a tremendous young Indian woman known simply as Nirbhaya. This tragedy sparked outrage and inspired people all over the world to come together to say no more looking the other way when genderbased violence happens, no more stigma against victim or survivors,” said Deputy Secretary of State, Heather A Higginbottom.

“That is also the message of Laxmi from India. Acid attacks are committed almost exclusively on women, particularly on young women,” she said. “Many of the victims feel they have no choice but to withdraw from society or even commit suicide, and they’re more common than you might realise, in part because it’s such an easy weapon to get your hands on. Until recently, anyone could walk into a store and buy a litre of acid as cheaply and as easily as a bottle of window cleaner,” she said.

“But after her attack, Laxmi became a tireless campaigner against acid attacks. Thanks to her hard work and tremendous diligence, Laxmi was successful in petitioning the Supreme Court to order the Indian government to regulate the sale of acid and to make prosecutions of acid attacks easier to pursue. And she continues to push for progress still today,” she said. “For fearless advocacy on behalf of victims of acid attacks and for bringing hope to survivors of gender-based violence and disfigurement, we name Laxmi a Woman of Courage,” Higginbottom said.

WASHINGTON (TIP): President Barack Obama proposed a budget on Tuesday for the coming fiscal year that has less to do with managing US finances than with stemming his party’s losses in congressional elections.

The mildly expansionary $3.9-trillion plan has little chance of passing Congress but Obama will use it as a platform to underline his populist voter-friendly narrative ahead of the polls in November.

Obama’s Democrats have almost no chance of winning back the House of Representatives and are in grave peril of losing the Senate — a scenario that would guarantee a miserable last two years in office for the president. A Washington Post/ABC News poll on Tuesday revealed the challenge, showing that of 34 states with Senate races, 50 percent of voters favor Republicans and 42 percent favor Democrats.

Obama, however, sought to stay positive and reiterated the vision that saw him reelected in 2012, telling supporters in a speech at a Washington elementary school, that the budget was about “choices” and “values”. “As a country, we have to make a decision, if we are going to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, or create jobs, grow our economy, and expand opportunity for every American,” he said.

Senior White House officials admit the budget document is largely aspirational, given that the president’s top priorities are routinely blocked by Republicans in Congress. Broad spending levels have also already been set by a two year budget agreement reached by top Democratic and Republican negotiators in Congress in December. But Obama used the budget to showcase ideas he thinks will give him, and his beleaguered supporters in Congress, the edge, despite his 41 percent approval rating which is heavily attributed to an unpopular health care law.

The president’s budget director Sylvia Matthews Burwell, hailed the document as a “fiscal road map for accelerating economic growth, expanding opportunity and ensuring fiscal responsibility.” “It includes fully paid for investments in infrastructure, job training, preschool and pro-work tax cuts,” she said. “At the same time it reduces deficits and strengthens our long-term fiscal outlook through additional health care reforms, tax reform and by fixing our broken immigration system.”

Obama proposed an extra $56-billion in spending above agreed budget levels, to be financed by closing tax loopholes which benefit the rich and in mandatory spending reform. The budget foresees the American economy growing by 3.1 percent this year and by 3.4 per cent the next, with inflation remaining under control, rising to only 2.0 per cent in 2015. It also predicts growing revenue, so that the government can reach a primary surplus — spending excluding debt service — by 2018. It suggests the country’s budget deficit, which boomed after the 2008 crisis, can be brought down to $564-billion, or 3.1 per cent of GDP, in the fiscal year beginning October 1, and to 2.2 per cent by 2020.

While the absolute level of US debt — now $17.3 trillion — will continue to grow, its ratio to the overall size of the economy will fall, from nearly 75 perc ent this year to 69 per cent by 2024. The White House said the budget would expand the Earned Income Tax credit, which would cut taxes for 13.5 million working Americans and expand tax cuts to finance child care and college education. And the plan would close a loophole that allows wealthy people to treat investment income as capital gains, and thus avoid the 40 per cent top federal tax rate on this income.

Obama is also pinning his hopes for November’s poll, in which a third of the Senate and all of the House of Representatives is up for grabs, on a rise to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. The proposal is popular with voters but opposed by Republicans, who say it would squeeze small businesses and cost jobs. The spending blueprint effectively rescinds an offer from Obama to Republicans to recalculate inflation in a way that would gradually reduce benefits to senior citizens from social programs.

The offer — known as chained CPI — was included in the budget last year as Obama held out hope of concluding a “grand bargain” on taxes, spending and the deficit with Republicans on Capitol Hill. But negotiations have collapsed, and senior Obama aides say they have omitted the concession. In effect, the move means that there is now little chance of a lasting fiscal agreement between Obama and his Republican foes for the rest of his presidency, which ends in January 2017.

WASHINGTON (TIP): Bipartisan Senate opposition blocked swift confirmation on Wednesday for President Barack Obama’s choice to head the US justice department’s civil rights division, the emotional residue of the long-ago murder of a policeman and the legal representation his killer received.

The vote against advancing Debo Adegbile toward confirmation was 47- 52, short of the majority needed under new procedures Democrats put in place earlier this year to overcome Republican stalling tactics. In this case, all 44 voting Republicans and eight Democrats lined up to block confirmation, leaving the nomination is grave jeopardy. Obama swiftly condemned the vote.

In a statement, he called it a “travesty based on wildly unfair character attacks.” Administration officials declined to say if they would seek a second vote in the hopes they could change the minds of a few Democrats. The vote was a victory for Republicans and the National Fraternal Order of Police, who said Adegbile’s connection with the legal case of Mumia Abu-Jamal disqualified him from holding high public office.

Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Officer Daniel Faulkner. Prosecutors agreed to a life term after a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing, citing flawed jury instructions. Abu-Jamal, a one-time radio journalist and former Black Panther, garnered worldwide support for his claims that he was the victim of a racist justice system. Shortly before the vote, Sen.

Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, read from a letter written by Maureen Faulkner, the widow of the policeman. “Today, as my husband lies 33 years in his grave, his killer has become a wealthy celebrity,” she wrote. “Old wounds have once again been ripped open, and additional insult is brought upon our law enforcement community in this country by President Obama’s nomination of Debo Adegbile.” Supporters also noted that Adegbile was working at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund at the time it intervened in the case — years after Abu-Jamal had been convicted, but that he had not made the decision to join the effort on his behalf.

WASHINGTON (TIP): US President Barack Obama warned Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni against enacting anti-gay legislation Sunday, calling it a “step backward” that would complicate ties with Kampala. Obama, who was in California for a holiday weekend of golf, issued a strong statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” in the Ugandan leader’s apparent plans to move forward with the bill. “We believe that people everywhere should be treated equally, with dignity and respect, and that they should have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential, no matter who they are or whom they love,” Obama said in a statement.

“That is why I am so deeply disappointed that Uganda will shortly enact legislation that would criminalize homosexuality,” he added. “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, once law, will be more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda. It will be a step backward for all Ugandans and reflect poorly on Uganda’s commitment to protecting the human rights of its people.” The anti-gay legislation cruised through parliament in December after its architects dropped an extremely controversial death penalty clause. The measure, which has been greeted with international condemnation, would criminalize the promotion or recognition of homosexual relations. Obama suggested that the Ugandan president — a key regional ally for both the United States and the European Union — risks damaging his country’s ties with Washington if he signs the bill into law.

“As we have conveyed to President Museveni, enacting this legislation will complicate our valued relationship with Uganda,” Obama said. Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice wrote in a series of tweets that enacting the law “will put many at risk and stain Uganda’s reputation.” Rice added that she had urged Museveni to not sign the bill. Former president Bill Clinton, who has worked on health initiatives in the country through his Clinton Foundation, said he was “strongly opposed to its move to criminalize homosexuality.” “It is a setback for personal freedom and equal rights and a rebuke to Uganda’s own commitment to protecting the human rights of its people,” Clinton added.

“I want to salute and encourage the brave Ugandans committed to the fundamental dignity of all people and urge the government to reverse this decision.” Museveni, a devout evangelical Christian, has expressed the view that gays are “sick” and “abnormal.” He suggested in a letter to parliament that homosexuality was caused by a genetic flaw, or a need to make money. Nevertheless, he refused to sign the antigay legislation last month. “He does not approve of homosexuality but he believes that these people have a right to exist,” presidential spokesman Tamale Mirudi told AFP at the time, explaining why the bill had been rejected. Homophobia is widespread in Uganda. Gay men and women face frequent harassment and threats of violence, and rights activists have reported cases of lesbians being subjected to “corrective” rapes.

TOLUCA, Mexico: US President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Wednesday that news of a truce between Ukraine’s government and opposition would be welcome if it leads to dialogue.

The two leaders “strongly condemned” the violence in Ukraine during a North American summit in Toluca, Mexico, according to the White House. “The leaders noted reports of a truce between the government and the opposition which, if implemented, would be a welcome step forward in pursuing that meaningful dialogue,” a statement added.

“They agreed they will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure that actions mirror words,” it said in a readout of the leaders’ 30-minute meeting. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych announced the start of direct talks with the opposition after receiving three top anti-government lawmakers in a presidential office less than a block from the site of the unrest.

The embattled leader was under mounting pressures after clashes between police and anti-government protesters left at least 26 people dead in Kiev on Tuesday. The White House warned that it was considering possible sanctions against those behind the unrest. The 28-nation European Union will hold emergency talks Thursday to mull sanctions in the wake of clashes between police and anti-government protesters in Kiev that left at least 26 people dead.

The White House said Obama and Harper “both resolved to work closely with European allies on options for additional measures, including measures to hold those responsible for violence accountable.” Obama and Harper said the Ukrainian military should show restraint and refrain from getting involved in issues that should be resolved by civilians.

FRESNO (TIP): President Barack Obama has signed separate measures lifting the federal debt limit and restoring full cost of living benefits for military retirees. Obama signed the bills into law Saturday, February 15 during a weekend golf vacation in Southern California.

The debt limit measure frees the government to borrow the money it needs to pay bills, such as Social Security benefits. Earlier, the GOP-controlled House backed away from a battle over the government’s debt cap and passed a measure extending Treasury’s borrowing authority with overwhelming support from President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies.

The 221-201 vote came hours after Speaker John Boehner announced that his fractured party would relent and not seek to add other items to the mustpass legislation. Twenty-eight Republicans voted yes. The bill permits Treasury to borrow normally for another 13 months and diffuses the chance of a debt crisis well past the November elections. Just Monday, February 10, Republicans had suggested pairing the debt measure with legislation to roll back a recent cut in the inflation adjustment of pension benefits for working age military retirees.