15, February 2018
US Senate unveils immigration plan, defying Trump 0
A bipartisan group of US senators in Congress have unveiled a compromise plan to protect so-called “Dreamers” and boost border security, defying President Donald Trump’s demand to embrace his more hardline plan.
The potential breakthrough, reached Wednesday after hours of closed-door deliberations, would protect from deportation 1.8 million immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.
Congress is struggling to act after Trump ordered the March 5 termination of DACA, an Obama-era program that gives young immigrants temporary legal status. Congress has tried and failed to overhaul immigration policy over the past decade.
While several Republicans are co-sponsoring the new bipartisan measure, it was not clear whether there would be enough support from Democrats to pass it in the Senate. Even if the bipartisan immigration plan passes the Senate, it faces an uncertain fate in the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a larger majority.
The bipartisan measure, which has eight Republican and eight Democratic sponsors, emerged from a centrist group nicknamed the “Common Sense Coalition.”
“Our legislation underscores the broad, bipartisan commitment to creating a path to citizenship for Dreamers, who were brought to this country illegally through no decision of their own, while strengthening border security to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants,” Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said in a statement announcing the measure.
The bipartisan effort would only make limited changes to family reunification, and would leave the diversity lottery visa untouched, because it is too “politically toxic,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the lawmakers who crafted the bipartisan plan.
But supporting the immigration deal would put members of Trump’s own party at odds with the president, who urged senators to oppose any plans that were different from his own.
In the midst of the showdown, Democrats stressed Trump would be to blame for any failure to reach a deal.
Americans “know this president not only created the problem, but seems to be against every solution that might pass because it isn’t 100 percent of what he wants,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York state.
“If, at the end of the week, we are unable to find a bill that can pass… the responsibility will fall entirely on the president’s shoulders and those in this body who went along with him.”
Source: Presstv
15, February 2018
South Africa parliament elects Ramaphosa as new president 0
South African lawmakers formally named wealthy former businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as new president Thursday after scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma resigned under intense pressure from his own party.
Ramaphosa, the only candidate, was approved without a vote by the parliament in Cape Town, chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told assembled lawmakers to loud cheers.
Zuma announced his resignation late Wednesday, and aimed barbs at the African National Congress (ANC) party for vowing to oust him via a no-confidence vote in parliament.
In a 30-minute televised address, Zuma said he had “come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect”.
“I have only asked my party to articulate my transgressions and the reason for its immediate instruction that I vacate office,” he said.
Zuma, 75, had been embroiled in a divisive power struggle with Ramaphosa, the deputy president.
Ramaphosa won control of the ANC when he was elected as its head in December.
Benchmark South African stocks scored their biggest gains since June 2016 after news that a pro-business reformist would be taking the helm.
The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index rose as much as 2.7 percent, while the rand reached its strongest level since February 2015, gaining 0.5 percent at 11.6570 to the dollar in early trade.
Zuma said in a TV interview earlier Wednesday that he had received “very unfair” treatment from the party he joined in 1959 and in which he had fought for decades against apartheid white-minority rule.
He said he was angered over “the manner in which the decision is being implemented… I don’t agree, as there is no evidence of if I have done anything wrong.”
‘We are not celebrating’
The party’s national executive committee had ordered Zuma’s recall from office on Tuesday, after a 13-hour meeting at a hotel outside Pretoria, but he at first refused.
ANC officials then said that if Zuma did not resign, the party’s lawmakers in the Cape Town parliament would vote him out on Thursday.
But, after the resignation, party deputy secretary general Jesse Duarte cautioned: “We are not celebrating.”
“We have had to recall a cadre of the movement that has served this organisation for over 60 years, it’s not a small matter.”
Zuma, who had no formal education, was jailed on Robben Island for 10 years alongside Nelson Mandela under apartheid and rose through the ranks of the ANC to take power in 2009.
But his rule was dominated by graft scandals, economic slowdown and falling popularity for the celebrated liberation party.
In a day of high drama, police early Wednesday raided the Johannesburg home of the Gupta business family, which is accused of overseeing a web of corruption in Zuma’s government.
Police said three unidentified people had been arrested in investigations into “Vrede Farm” — allegations that millions of dollars of public money meant for poor dairy farmers was siphoned off by the Guptas.
Local media reported that Zuma had been pushing for a resignation deal that included his legal fees to fight multiple criminal charges — but he denied the allegations in his resignation speech.
One case against him relates to 783 payments he allegedly received linked to an arms deal before he came to power.
Other graft allegations have centered on the three Gupta brothers, who are accused of unfairly obtaining lucrative government contracts and even hand-picking Zuma’s ministerial appointments.
The political standoff in recent weeks plunged South Africa — the continent’s most developed economy — into confusion over who was running the country, with last Thursday’s annual State of the Nation address cancelled at the last-minute.
Instead, Ramaphosa is to deliver the State of the Nation on Friday.
Decline of Mandela’s party
Zuma, a Zulu traditionalist with four wives and a proud singing voice, had been scheduled to stand down next year after serving the maximum two terms.
In local polls in 2016, the ANC recorded its worst electoral result since coming to power in 1994 with Mandela at the helm as white-minority rule fell.
Ramaphosa, 65, must revive the economy and crack down on what he has admitted is rampant government corruption if he is to boost the party’s tarnished reputation before a tricky general election next year.
He is a former trade unionist and Mandela ally who led talks to end apartheid in the early 1990s and then became a hugely wealthy businessman before returning to politics.
Zuma’s hold over the ANC was broken in December when his chosen successor — his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — narrowly lost to Ramaphosa in a vote for the new party leader.
South Africa’s new president vows to tackle corruption
Ramaphosa, on Thursday, used his first speech in office to vow to fight government corruption, in a direct reference to accusations leveled against his predecessor Jacob Zuma.
“Issues to do with corruption, issues of how we can straighten out our state-owned enterprises and how we deal with ‘state capture’ are issues that are on our radar screen,” he told lawmakers in parliament.
“Those are issues we are going to be addressing and tomorrow we will also have an opportunity to outline some of the steps we are going to be taking,” said Ramaphosa, who got a standing ovation at the end of the speech.
“State capture” refers to alleged corruption of state institutions and state-owned businesses by private individuals seeking illegal profits.
(Source: AFP)