Tag Archives: Politics

Trump, Republicans face tricky task of averting U.S. government shutdown

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump's overview of the budget priorities for Fiscal Year 2018 are displayed at the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) on its release by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Washington, U.S. on March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Richard Cowan and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a U.S. government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding.

With Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, keeping the federal government operating is a basic test of their ability to govern, but their task could become even more complicated if they insist on using the spending legislation to bring about contentious policy changes.

Not only must Republicans overcome intraparty ideological divisions that stopped major healthcare legislation last month, but they will have to win over some opposition Democrats with provisions that could be distasteful to conservatives.

With the Senate reconvening on Monday and the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a two-week recess, lawmakers will have only four days to pass a spending package to keep the government open beyond April 28, when funding expires for numerous federal programs.

“I think we want to keep the government open,” Trump said on Thursday, adding he thinks Congress can pass the funding legislation and perhaps also a revamped healthcare bill.

Democratic support depends on what provisions Republicans demand in the bill. Democrats have signaled they would not cooperate if it contains money for one of Trump’s top priorities, a southwestern border wall intended to combat illegal immigration, or if it ends federal subsidies to help low-income people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which Republicans want to repeal.

Democrats also want federal funds maintained for Planned Parenthood, which many Republicans oppose because the women’s healthcare provider performs abortions. Another obstacle would be if Trump demands large defense spending increases coupled with deep cuts to domestic programs Democrats want to protect.

BALANCING ACT

Late on Thursday, leading House Democrats were voicing skepticism a deal could be reached by the deadline. In a telephone call for House Democrats, Representative Nita Lowey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said: “I don’t see how we can meet that deadline” and avoid having to pass a short-term extension, according to an aide on the call.

The second-ranking House Democrat, Representative Steny Hoyer, told his fellow Democrats that they should only support such a short-term measure if a deal on long-term bill is reached and only finishing touches remained, the aide said.

Republican leaders face a familiar balancing act: satisfying the party’s most conservative members while not alienating its moderates.

Rules in the 100-seat Senate mean Trump’s party also would need the support of at least eight Democrats even if the Republicans remain unified, giving the opposition party leverage. House Republican leaders would need some Democratic votes if the most conservative lawmakers object to the bill, as they did to the healthcare plan championed by Speaker Paul Ryan.

With congressional elections looming next year, Republicans acknowledge the stakes are high.

“Even our most recalcitrant members understand that if you shut down the government while you’re running it and you control the House and the Senate, you can’t blame anybody but yourself,” said Representative Tom Cole, a senior House Appropriations Committee Republican.

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said the Trump administration was willing to talk to Democrats about funding for Obamacare subsidies in exchange for their agreement to include some Trump priorities such as the wall, the defense hike and more money for immigration enforcement.

“It is ripe for some type of negotiated agreement that gives the president some of his priorities and Democrats some of their priorities. So we think we’ve opened the door for that,” Mulvaney said.

Democrats reacted negatively.

“Everything had been moving smoothly until the administration moved in with a heavy hand. Not only are Democrats opposed to the wall, there is significant Republican opposition as well,” said Matt House, a spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

FURLOUGH ‘LADY LIBERTY?’

The government was last forced to close in October 2013, when Republican Senator Ted Cruz and some of the most conservative House Republicans engineered a 17-day shutdown in an unsuccessful quest to kill Democratic former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

“These kind of bills can’t pass without a reasonable number of the party of the minority in the Senate, and we are optimistic we will be able to work all that out,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the start of the spring recess.

A deal is needed because Congress was unable to approve funding for the entire 2017 fiscal year that ends in September and has relied on stop-gap spending legislation.

Congress has passed no major legislation since Trump took office in January, and he has ambitious hopes for major tax-cut legislation, infrastructure spending and other bills.

With the difficulty passing a bill with so many divisive elements, lawmakers next week might need to buy time by passing a short-term bill lasting possibly one to three weeks, maintaining current spending levels.

“That would be a setback: not catastrophic, but not a good thing, and a sign that you can’t govern,” Cole said.

A federal closure would shutter National Park Service destinations like the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Government medical research would be suspended. Thousands of federal workers would be furloughed with thousands more working without pay until the shutdown ends, including homeland security personnel. Some veterans benefits could be suspended.

Time would stand still in the U.S. Capitol with nobody on duty to wind the 200-year-old “Ohio Clock” just outside the Senate chamber.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Will Dunham)

Trump to order U.S. Treasury to delve into taxes, post-crisis reforms

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a joint news conference in Washington, U.S., April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will order the Treasury on Friday to find and reduce tax burdens and review post-financial crisis reforms that banks and insurance companies have said hinder their ability to do business.

A White House official said on Thursday that Trump will issue an executive order directing the Treasury on the tax issues. He will also issue two memoranda asking for reviews of two parts of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law – the Orderly Liquidation Authority that sets out how big banks can wind down during a crisis and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which is made up of the country’s top regulators.

The orders, which Trump will sign at the Treasury Department, next door to the White House, comes as the president works toward making good on a major campaign promise to lower taxes.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will review significant tax regulations issued in 2016 to determine if any impose an undue financial burden on American taxpayers, add undue complexity or exceed statutory authority, the official’s statement said.

Mnuchin said earlier on Thursday that Treasury is working on tax reform “day and night” and will soon create a sweeping overhaul.

Congress recently failed in efforts to make good another Trump campaign promise to reform healthcare.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said this week that the country’s first tax overhaul in decades may not be done until well into 2017. The review that Trump is ordering gives the administration a way to approach the issue independent of Congress.

The liquidation authority and the FSOC were both created as part of the Dodd-Frank law intended to prevent a repeat of the 2007-09 financial crisis, when the U.S. government injected billions of dollars in aid into failing banks to keep them from destroying the country’s economy.

In February Trump ordered a review of the law, saying he wanted to cut out much of it, and Mnuchin has said he would like to look into how the council, which he chairs, works.

House Republicans are also working to loosen Dodd-Frank regulations. Banks say the regulations have hurt their liquidity and created burdensome processes.

Trump will order an assessment of how the FSOC designates a financial institution as “systemically important,” which triggers requirements to hold more capital in case it comes into crisis.

Republican lawmakers say the FSOC uses a flawed process lacking transparency to designate non-bank institutions. Only two insurers, American International Group Inc and Prudential Financial Inc, currently carry the label, and a judge last year struck down the council’s designation of MetLife Inc.

Mnuchin will have 180 days to report to Trump on the liquidation authority, a tool for federal banking regulators to use if they need to step in during a financial emergency and help a failing bank unwind. The report will offer views on using bankruptcy as an alternative, the impact of failing companies on financial stability, and whether the authority could drive up taxpayer costs or encourage excessive risk-taking.

(Writing by Eric Beech and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Leslie Adler)

Ann Coulter rejects Berkeley’s bid to reschedule speech

FILE PHOTO: Commentator Ann Coulter speaks to the Conservative Political Action conference (CPAC) in Washington, February 12, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Dan Whitcomb and Mark Hosenball

(Reuters) – Conservative commentator Ann Coulter said on Thursday she could not speak at the University of California, Berkeley, on a new date chosen by the university and intended to show up for the original event, which was canceled over security fears.

Officials at U.C. Berkeley, who abruptly canceled her planned April 27 speech on Wednesday citing security concerns, reversed course on Thursday and rescheduled the event for May 2.

U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said in a statement the university had canceled the April 27 event based on specific threats “that could pose a grave danger to the speaker.”Dirks said the university, in its commitment to free speech, had found an “appropriate, protectable” venue where Coulter’s speech could go forward in a safe environment on May 2.

However Coulter, who had vowed after the cancellation to show up for her April 27 speech anyway, said she and her security detail could not arrange to be on campus on May 2 ” … and there will be no students there that week!”

“So I’m planning on speaking on the 27th as scheduled. Maybe they will arrest me,” she said in an email to Reuters.

The university’s academic calendar shows that May 1-5 is a “reading/ review/ recitation period” before final exams.

Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney representing two groups organizing Coulter’s speech, also sent a letter to the university on Thursday demanding she be allowed to speak on the original date.

One of the country’s best-known conservative pundits, Coulter had been scheduled to speak to a college Republican club about her 2015 book, “¡Adios, America!: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.”

Berkeley is known as the birthplace of the student-led Free Speech Movement of the 1960s. As with other U.S. colleges and universities, it has tried to find a balance between ideological openness, student safety and student opposition to what some describe as “hate speech.”

Several conservative speakers have been met with disruptive, sometimes violent, protests when invited to speak at U.S. universities with liberal-leaning student bodies in recent months.

In canceling Coulter’s speech on Wednesday, UC Berkeley cited violence that broke out at the campus in February, hours before right-wing media personality Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak there.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who had taken office just days earlier, threatened to cut off funding to the school after the violence surrounding Yiannopoulos’ planned lecture and U.C. Berkeley’s decision to cancel it.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York, Mark Hosenball in Washington, D.C., and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Frances Kerry, Andrew Hay and Paul Tait)

Seeking to keep up pressure, Venezuela opposition plans more protests

Damage is seen at the entrance of a bakery after it was looted in Caracas, Venezuela April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Christian Veron

By Brian Ellsworth and Diego Oré

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition renewed nationwide protests on Thursday to pressure President Nicolas Maduro to hold elections and improve a collapsing economy, and vowed to keep up pressure by staging three more protests in the next four days.

Thursday’s crowds were smaller than the hundreds of thousands of people who flooded the streets of Caracas and provincial cities on Wednesday, the latest and largest in several weeks of protests against what Maduro’s opponents condemn as a lurch toward dictatorship.

But still, thousands of people waving Venezuelan flags and shouting “No more dictatorship” took to the streets in the capital and across the oil-rich nation.

The opposition’s leadership then called for further protests in communities across Venezuela on Friday, a white-clad “silent” march in Caracas on Saturday to commemorate the eight people killed during unrest this month, and a nationwide “sit-in” blocking Venezuela’s main roads on Monday.

That sets the stage for prolonged disruption in volatile Venezuela, where security forces have been blocking rallies this month and protests have dissolved into clashes with rock-throwing youth.

“Today the people of Venezuela showed they are committed to this cause,” said opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara during a news conference late on Thursday, urging people to stay on the streets.

Government officials dismiss the protests, characterized by street barricades and clashes with security forces, as violent and lawless efforts to overthrow Maduro’s leftist government with the backing of ideological adversaries in Washington.

The opposition counters that Maduro, deeply unpopular as Venezuelans grapple with triple-digit inflation and shortages of food and basic consumer goods, is seeking to stay in power indefinitely by barring opposition leaders from office and quashing independent state institutions.

“Protests will need to grow and persist over the coming weeks to force a political transition,” Eurasia analyst Risa Grais-Targow said in a note on Thursday.

“The opposition’s response to regional elections, which the National Electoral Council will probably call in the coming days, will be key to maintaining momentum in the streets.”

The current wave of marches, the most sustained protests against Maduro since 2014, has sparked regular melees. There were also late-night barricades and some looting in Caracas’ middle-class neighborhood of El Paraiso on Wednesday night.

Two students and a National Guard sergeant were killed in Wednesday’s demonstrations, bringing the death toll in demonstrations this month to eight. Rights group Penal Forum said more than 500 people were arrested in relation to Wednesday’s protest and 334 remained in detention.

CAPRILES IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

The renewed wave of protests was sparked by a Supreme Court move in March to assume the powers of the opposition-led Congress, a move that it largely reversed a few days later. They were further fueled when the government barred the opposition’s best-known leader, two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, from holding public office.

Maduro on Thursday night said Capriles wrongly accused authorities of killing university student Paolo Ramirez in the restive Tachira state near Colombia on Wednesday. Her boyfriend and mother have both said she was shot down by government supporters chasing her on motorbikes after a protest.

“Immediately the global media and those irresponsible people, including that trash called Capriles, came out to accuse the government, the revolution, the army, the National Guard,” Maduro said, wearing a white doctor’s gown during a televised address meant to showcase Venezuela’s health system, which is in fact crumbling.

“I’ve authorized a lawsuit, a complaint for the honor of these people who have been accused. If he has to go to jail, he should go and pay for this defamation, this slander, all the crimes he’s committed,” added Maduro.

Capriles responded on Twitter that Maduro, “like all dictators,” is a compulsive liar, and called on Venezuelans to keep up protests.

That push increasingly mirrors protests in 2014 in which Maduro’s critics barricaded streets and battled police for close to three months. That effort ultimately faded amid protester fatigue and a heavy state crackdown.

But the sharp deterioration of the economy, which has put many foods and medicines out of the reach of the average citizen, and a more organized and united opposition coalition have injected fresh energy into the current protests.

“This is the moment,” said Raquel Belfort, a 42-year-old protester in wealthier eastern Caracas on Thursday, sporting a hat in the yellow, blue and red colors of the Venezuelan flag.

“People are sick of this…. we’ve touched rock bottom. I think if we take to the streets every day we’ll end this government.”

Maduro critics increasingly doubt that the ruling Socialist Party, which was soundly defeated in 2015 legislative elections, will allow for free and fair elections. The ballot for state governors has been delayed since last year and elections authorities have not announced when it will be held.

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Andreina Aponte, Alexandra Ulmer, Girish Gupta, and Christian Veron in Caracas, Maria Ramirez in Puerto Ordaz, Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal, and Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Frances Kerry and Lisa Shumaker)

Turkey’s election board rejects appeals to annul referendum

Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s electoral authority on Wednesday rejected appeals to annul a referendum granting President Tayyip Erdogan wide new powers, but the main opposition CHP party said it would maintain its legal challenge to the result.

Sunday’s referendum narrowly backed the largest overhaul of Turkey’s political system since the founding of the republic nearly a century ago, giving Erdogan sweeping authority over the NATO member-state.

But the tight result of a highly charged campaign laid bare divisions, while European observers and the head of Turkey’s bar associations union said a decision to count unstamped votes broke electoral law.

The High Electoral Board said it had assessed appeals from the CHP and two other parties at a seven-hour meeting, and rejected them by 10 to one.

In response, CHP Deputy Chairman Bulent Tezcan said his party was considering taking its appeal to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights.

“This is a serious legitimacy crisis. We will employ all legal ways available,” Tezcan said.

Separately, Istanbul police detained 19 suspects on charges of attempted provocation for organizing protests against the referendum, Dogan News Agency reported.

A defiant Erdogan has dismissed the complaints, saying the vote had finally put an end to debate over the powerful presidency he has long sought.

On Wednesday, the ruling AK Party set out plans for Erdogan to gradually resume leadership of the party, a step toward implementing the changes approved in Sunday’s plebiscite.

Turkey’s president has been required to remain above party politics, but that condition was removed in one of the referendum’s 18 amendments.

Prime Minister and AKP leader Binali Yildirim said Erdogan could rejoin the party he founded in 2001 once official results – expected before the end of the month – were announced.

But he said the AKP would not hold a party congress until 2018, indicating Erdogan would not officially become its leader until then, despite widespread expectations that it would happen almost immediately.

“UNFAIR REFERENDUM”

The pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, which had appealed along with the CHP for the referendum to be annulled, said the late decision by the electoral board to allow unstamped ballots meant it was impossible to determine how many invalid or fake votes may have been counted.

HDP deputy chairman Mithat Sancar said the vote was also undermined by the fact that the campaign was held under emergency rule while the party’s co-leaders were under arrest, that its candidates for polling station monitors had been rejected, and the “Yes” campaign had benefited from state resources.

“This referendum will forever remain controversial,” he told reporters. “You cannot build a change in the political system on such a controversial and unfair referendum.”

Metin Feyzioglu, head of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, said the decision to count unstamped ballots, without keeping any record of them, removed the main safeguard against voting fraud.

“What makes any country a democracy is the security of the ballot boxes,” Feyzioglu told Reuters. ” … If your ballots are unsafe, that means that regime is not a democracy.”

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a critical report by European observers on the referendum contained several mistakes, which he believed were deliberate.

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe said Sunday’s referendum had been an uneven contest.

“The OSCE’s report has no reliability as their observations lack objectivity and are extremely partial,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara.

(Additional reporting by Yesim Dikmen; Writing by Daren Butler and Dominic Evans; Editing by David Dolan and Kevin Liffey)

Turkey says European rights court has no jurisdiction over referendum

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his deputies Bulent Arinc (not pictured) and Bekir Bozdag (R), speaks during a news conference at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul in this June 3, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Stringer/Files

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s justice minister said on Thursday that any opposition challenge to a referendum that expanded President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers would be rejected by the constitutional court, and Europe’s human rights court had no jurisdiction on the matter.

The main opposition CHP party said on Wednesday it was considering taking its appeal for the referendum to be annulled to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights after the country’s electoral authority rejected challenges by the CHP and two other parties.

“If the opposition takes the appeal to the Constitutional Court, the court has no other option than to reject it,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told television news channel A Haber.

“It can also apply to the ECHR, but it cannot achieve a result there either, because the agreements Turkey signed do not give parties the right to apply.”

Bozdag also reiterated government criticism of a report by European election observers who said the referendum, carried out under emergency law, took place on an “unlevel playing field”.

The observers said a last-minute decision by election authorities to allow unstamped ballots to be counted “undermined an important safeguard and contradicted the law which explicitly states that such ballots should be considered invalid”.

Bozdag said the report lacked fairness and objectivity. “Those who prepared this report are partial,” he said.

Sunday’s referendum narrowly backed the largest overhaul of Turkey’s political system since the founding of the republic nearly a century ago, giving Erdogan sweeping authority over the NATO member-state.

But the tight result of a highly charged campaign laid bare divisions and triggered challenges from the opposition over its legitimacy.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Trevelyan)

U.S. House panel to begin hearings on tax reform next week

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady (R-TX) speaks about a Republican healthcare amendment during a press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The tax-writing committee of the U.S. House of Representatives will begin holding hearings on a Republican tax reform proposal next week, the panel’s chairman said on Tuesday, even as the timeline for overhauling the tax code slips toward late 2017.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told Fox News he would soon announce a hearing schedule to examine his House tax reform blueprint with its proposal to tax imports, a plan that appears to have lost ground as the White House works to unveil its own approach.

The investment consulting firm Veda Partners advised clients on Tuesday to expect an April 27 hearing on the import tax proposal known as the border adjustment tax, or BAT.

Brady’s committee could not confirm the date or topic, but he told Fox News the committee “will soon be announcing congressional hearings on our blueprint starting next week.”

He also acknowledged that the tax reform timeline could slip as House Republicans try to reach agreement to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, following their failed attempt to pass healthcare legislation in March.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said this week that tax reform may not get done before an August deadline.

“We probably ought not be focused on the month but the year that it happens, which is this year,” Brady said. “If it moves a little past August and still lands in this year, it’s going to be an incredible achievement.”

Much of the debate has focused on the House Republican BAT proposal, which would impose a 20 percent tax on imports, while exempting exports from taxation. The proposal is opposed by import-dependent industries and Republicans who worry it could lead to higher consumer prices.

Tax experts say the proposal’s future depends on whether the White House backs it. President Donald Trump, who dislikes the term “border adjustment,” said on Tuesday his tax reform plan would create “a level playing field” for U.S. industry – a phrase widely viewed as referring to some kind of border tax.

Brady identified the critical elements of legislation as significant rate reduction, full and immediate expensing for capital investments and a simplified tax code.

He cautioned against straightforward rate reductions of the kind that some in Congress have begun to consider.

“A rate cut alone would have worked in the 1980s. It doesn’t in 2017 if we’re going to be competitive,” Brady said.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Chris Reese and Peter Cooney)

China’s Xi restructures military, consolidates control

Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he reviews the army, at the beginning of the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced a military restructure of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to transform it into a leaner fighting force with improved joint operations capability, state media said.

Centered around a new, condensed structure of 84 military units, the reshuffle builds on Xi’s years-long efforts to modernize the PLA with greater emphasis on new capabilities including cyberspace, electronic and information warfare.

As chair of the Central Military Commission, Xi is also commander-in-chief of China’s armed forces.

“This has profound and significant meaning in building a world-class military,” Xi told commanders of the new units at the PLA headquarters in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency report late on Tuesday.

All 84 new units are at the combined-corps level, which means commanders will hold the rank of major-general or rear-admiral, the official China Daily reported Wednesday, adding that unit members would likely be regrouped from existing forces given the Chinese military was still engaged in cutting its troops by 300,000, one of the wide-ranging military reforms introduced by Xi in late 2015.

Those reforms include establishing a joint operational command structure by 2020 and rejigging existing military regions, as well as streamlining troop numbers particularly in non-combat facing roles.

The previous seven military area commands were regrouped into five, and the four military departments – staff, politics, logistics and armaments – were reorganized into 15 agencies last year. The 84 units will come under the 15 agencies.

Retired PLA Major-General Xu Guangyu, a senior researcher at the Beijing-based China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, said the restructure represented the second major phase of Xi’s reforms.

“Since military reforms started it has been one step at a time,” Xu told Reuters. “The high-level framework is now in place, now this is the second phase targeting the entire mid-ranking levels of the military.”

Beijing has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware as it grows increasingly assertive about its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and as it seeks to expand its military prowess overseas.

Chinese media reports have speculated that the country’s second aircraft carrier – and its first built at home – will be launched on Sunday, the navy’s founding anniversary.

Xi has also made rooting out deeply entrenched corruption in the military a top priority. Dozens of senior officers have been investigated and jailed.

(Reporting by Philip Wen; Editing by Michael Perry)

Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails begin hunger strike

A Palestinian protester hurls back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during clashes following a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta

GAZA/RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on Monday in response to a call by prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, widely seen as a possible future Palestinian president.

Palestinians termed the open-ended strike a protest against poor conditions and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that has been applied against thousands since the 1980s.

Israel said the move by the prisoners, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israel, was politically motivated.

The protest was led by Barghouti, 58, a leader of the mainstream Fatah movement of the Palestine Liberation Organization, serving five life terms after being convicted of murder in the killing of Israelis in a 2000-2005 uprising.

The strike, if sustained, could present a challenge to Israel and raise tensions between the two sides as the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip approaches in June.

Israeli troops and settlers pulled out of the Gaza Strip, now run by Hamas Islamists, in 2005, but peace talks on the creation of a Palestinian state collapsed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2014.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times on Monday, Barghouti said a strike was the only way to gain concessions after other options had failed.

“Through our hunger strike, we seek an end to these abuses … Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and medical negligence. Some have been killed while in detention,” he wrote.

Israeli and Palestinian media reports said Barghouti had been moved from the prison where he was being held in central Israel to another in the north and was isolated from other prisoners. The Prisons Service did not initially comment on his status.

FIELD HOSPITAL

Israel denies Palestinian inmates are mistreated, and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the Barghouti-led protest was “prompted by internal Palestinian politics and therefore includes unreasonable demands”.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “The Palestinian prisoners are not political prisoners. They are convicted terrorists and murderers. They were brought to justice and are treated properly under international law.”

Palestinian officials said some 1,500 inmates affiliated with all political factions including rival Fatah and Hamas were taking part in the protest. An Israel Prisons Service spokesman said some 1,100 inmates at eight jails had joined the strike.

Almost 6,500 Palestinians are being held in 22 Israeli prisons, said Qadoura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club that advocates on behalf of the inmates.

The Prisoners’ Club said a main demand was for Israel to halt detention without trial for some 500 Palestinians currently being held, and for an end to solitary confinement.

The strikers also want better medical treatment and that disabled inmates or those suffering chronic illness be freed, access to more television channels and more phone contact with relatives and more family visits.

The strike prompted a large rally in Gaza and a protest broke out near the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem where Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli forces.

Palestinians consider brethren held in Israeli jails as national heroes. Long-term mass hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners are rare, but in past cases of individual inmates who stopped eating for weeks, detention terms were shortened or not renewed after they were hospitalized in critical condition.

Erdan said a field hospital would be erected next to one prison – an apparent move to pre-empt transfers to civilian medical facilities, which could draw wider media attention.

Abbas, 82, said in a statement that efforts would continue to secure prisoners’ freedom. He condemned what he called Israel’s intransigence in the face of “fair” prisoner demands.

(Writing by Nidal Almughrabi; Editing by Ori Lewis, Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams)

Opponents seek to annul Turkish vote as Erdogan’s new powers become reality

Anti-government demonstrators light flares during a protest in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, Turkey, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan

By Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s main opposition began a battle on Tuesday to annul a referendum handing President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, while the bar association and an international monitor said an illegal move by electoral authorities may have swung the vote.

A defiant Erdogan, whose narrow victory exposed the nation’s deep divisions, has said Sunday’s vote ended all debate on the more powerful presidency he has long sought, and told European observers who criticized it: “talk to the hand”.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, whose job will cease to exist once the constitutional changes take full effect, said Erdogan would be invited to rejoin the ruling AK Party as soon as official results are announced, a sign the government has no intention of waiting to see the outcome of opposition appeals.

Under the outgoing constitution, the president had been required to remain impartial and renounce party political ties.

Few in Turkey expect legal challenges to the referendum to lead to a recount, let alone a re-run. But if unresolved, they will leave deep questions over the legitimacy of a vote which split the electorate down the middle, and whose polarising campaign drew criticism and concern from European allies.

Turkey’s bar association said a last-minute decision by the YSK electoral board to allow unstamped ballots in the referendum was clearly against the law, prevented proper records being kept, and may have impacted the results.

“With this illegal decision, ballot box councils (officials at polling stations) were misled into believing that the use of unstamped ballots was appropriate,” the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) said in a statement.

“Our regret is not over the outcome of the referendum, but because of the desire to overlook clear and harsh violations of the law that have the potential to impact the results,” it said.

The main opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP), which has said it will take its challenge to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary, said it would present a formal appeal to annul the vote to the YSK later on Tuesday.

CHP deputy chairman Bulent Tezcan said the number of missing votes was “unprecedented”, although the exact number of unstamped ballots was unknown.

YSK Chairman Sadi Guven said on Monday the last-minute decision to allow unstamped ballots was not unprecedented as the government had previously permitted such a move.

The head of the electoral board said it had received many complaints that polling stations didn’t have stamps and made the decision to accept the ballots after an appeal from a ruling AK Party official.

An Austrian member of the Council of Europe observer mission said up to 2.5 million votes could have been manipulated, almost double the margin of Erdogan’s victory, and that the YSK decision on unstamped ballots appeared illegal.

“These complaints are to be taken very seriously and they are, in any case, of such an extent that they would turn around the outcome of the vote,” Alev Korun told ORF radio.

The European Commission, which unlike U.S. President Donald Trump has declined to congratulate Erdogan on Sunday’s vote, called on Turkey to launch a transparent investigation into the alleged irregularities.

“There will be no call to Erdogan from the Commission, certainly not a congratulatory call,” a Western official with knowledge of EU policy told Reuters. “Turkey is sliding towards a semi-authoritarian system under one-man rule”.

“CONSIDERABLE COMPLAINTS”

Election authorities have said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic, a far narrower margin than Erdogan had been seeking.

Erdogan argues that concentration of power in the presidency is needed to prevent instability. Opponents accuse him of leading a drive toward one-man rule in Turkey, a NATO member that borders Iran, Iraq and Syria and whose stability is of vital importance to the United States and the European Union.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Yildirim said “rumors” of irregularities were a vain effort to cast doubt on the result.

“The people’s will has been reflected at the ballot box, and the debate is over,” he said. “Everyone should respect the outcome, especially the main opposition”.

The YSK said on its website on Sunday, as votes were still being cast, that it had received “considerable complaints” that voters had been given slips and envelopes without official stamps and that it would accept unstamped documents as long as they were not proven to be fraudulent.

The bar association, whose head Metin Feyzioglu is seen as a potential future leader of the opposition CHP, said it had also received phone calls from many provinces about unstamped ballots on Sunday and that its lawyers had advised that records of this should be closely kept once ballot boxes were opened.

But it said that had failed to happen, and that evidence of irregularities had therefore not been properly archived.

On its website, the YSK gave four examples of cases in previous decades where unstamped ballots had been accepted at individual ballot boxes. But those cases only affected several hundred votes and the decision was taken days after the vote and only once the possibility of fraud had been ruled out.

The YSK has also decided to annul elections in the past because of unstamped ballots. It canceled the results of local elections in two districts in southeastern Turkey in April 2014 and re-held them two months later.

And in Sunday’s referendum, the YSK’s overseas election branch had already rejected an appeal by a ruling AK Party official to have unstamped envelopes counted as valid.

YSK officials could not be reached for comment.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul, Shadia Nasralla in Vienna, Robine Emmott and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Anna Willard)