Egyptian President Approves Constitution Challenged by Opposition
The controversial draft constitution approved in a referendum by an overwhelming majority of Egyptian voters came into force after being approved by President Mohamed Morsi.
The Executive Order was signed shortly after the Supreme Election Commission (SEC) announced the official results of the plebiscite, Presidential Spokesperson Yasser Ali said on Wednesday.
In a separate announcement, official sources said that the president would speak on Saturday before the Shoura Council, the upper house in Parliament, which held its first session on Wednesday, after Morsi appointed 90 of its 270 members last week.
On Tuesday, the SEC published the official results of the constitutional consult, held on December 15 and 22, when the draft constitution was approved by nearly 64 percent of voters.
The approval of the Constitution, however, will not end the protests by the opponents to the president and the Magna Carta, who are grouped in the National Salvation Front, whose maximum leaders said they would continue their demonstration for its annulment.
In the next two months after the approval of the Constitution, elections will be held to set up the People’s Assembly, the lower house in Parliament, which was dissolved in June by the Supreme Military Council that ruled the country after the resignation of then President Hosni Mubarak, who is in prison.
Russian Senate Approves Response to Magnitsky Act
The Russian Federation’s Council (Senate) gave its unanimous approval today to a law that corresponds to the Magnitsky Act from the US Congress prohibiting the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens.
The initiative, called “Dmitri Yakovlev,” in memory of the Russian two-year-old child that died a few months after being adopted by a US couple, was voted into law by the 143 senators participating in the discussion.
The Senate is the last legislative authority that must approve the law, and for it to enter into force, President Vladimir Puttin will need to sign it.
It is believed that he will sign it before the end of the current year, in order for it to come into force starting January 1, 2013.
The Russian regulation includes a similar measure to the Magnitsky Act, banning US citizens involved in human rights violations against Russian citizens abroad from obtaining visas.
It also establishes the freezing of assets of those US citizens and includes proposed implementation against other states that violate the human rights of Russian citizens.
Besides prohibiting adoptions by US citizens, another amendment to the same bill proposes to ban activity of non-governmental organizations within the territory of the Russian Federation when they are devoted to internal Russian policy and are financed from the United States.
If the regulation is approved by Putin, the bilateral agreement about adoptions will immediately expire on January 1, 2013, said the President of the Senatorial Commission for Constitutional Issues Andrei Klishas.
According to Russian authorities, the law elaborated by the parliament that corresponds to the Magnitsky Act does not contradict the UN Convention on Children’s Rights, which was ratified by Russia.
Foreign Ministry Plenipotentiary Representative for Human Rights and Democracy Issues Kontantin Dolgov recalled that the United States is one of the three UN member countries that have not ratified the aforementioned convention.
Obama Suspends Christmas Vacations as Fiscal Cliff Looms
U.S. President Barack Obama suspended his Christmas vacations in Hawaii and returned to Washington on Wednesday in an attempt to underline the White House interest to solve the fiscal cliff problem to the public opinion.
A brief communiqué of the Oval Office confirmed the democrat leader kissed goodbye his relatives in Honolulu to resume the debates on the possible financial irregularity, which would affect the U.S. society starting January 2013.
The term “fiscal cliff” was coined by head of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke during a statement at the Congress in February, when he warned about a series of laws on tax privileges that will end on December 31.
The two main legislations that will prevail are the Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, inked in 2001 and renewed in 2003 during the George W. Bush administration, and the Budget Control Act in 2011, certified during the Obama administration.
The effects of these changes will be noticeable for the population in the milk prices and in the massive subsidy cuts for unemployed people, but mainly in a tax increase for nearly two thirds of taxpayers.
During the last negotiations, republicans rejected a proposal issued by the leader based on a tax increase on annual incomes of $400,000 or higher, while opposition leader John Boehner asked to increase the rooftop up to one million USD:
Within an eventual fiscal crisis everything becomes a profit to the White House and the Democratic Party: higher taxes, less money for the Pentagon and putting the opposition party on the spot, affirmed republican lawmaker representing Wyoming John Barrasso.
Barrasso predicted the country will not be able to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff from January 1, a situation that represents 500 billion USD in cuts of social and defense expenses.
A poll revealed on Wednesday Americans feel pessimistic about the possibility that President Barack Obama and the Congress reach an agreement on the fiscal cliff before 2012 ends.
According to the poll conducted by Gallup, 50 percent of those surveyed considers an agreement will be reached by the parties, while just a week ago, 57 percent of them thought negotiations would be successful.
The poll unveils that 48 percent of those surveyed doubts the problem can be solved in the last five days of 2012, while 54 percent describes as positive the role played by Obama during the negotiations.