WASHINGTON: After 18 months of arduous negotiations and a marathon night of debate, the US Senate on Sunday passed Joe Biden’s ambitious climate, tax and health care plan — a significant victory for the president ahead of crucial midterm elections.
Voting as a unified bloc and with the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats approved the $430 billion spending plan, which will go to the House of Representatives next week, where it is expected to pass before being signed into law by Biden.
The plan, crafted in sensitive talks with members on the right wing of his Democratic Party, would include the biggest US investment ever on climate — $370 billion aimed at effecting a 40 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
That would give Biden a clear victory on one of his top agenda items and go some way toward restoring US leadership in meeting the global climate challenge.
Biden hailed the passage of the bill, highlighting the work that went into it — and acknowledging that not everyone is happy with the final result.
“It required many compromises. Doing important things almost always does. The House should pass this as soon as possible and I look forward to signing it into law,” the president said in a statement.
The bill — officially known as the “Inflation Reduction Act” — passed the Senate with no Republicans voting in favor.
Conservative lawmakers have criticized the bill as wasteful spending, with top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of voting to “double down on their economic disaster.”
The bill would provide Americans with a tax credit of up to $7,500 when purchasing an electric car, plus a 30 percent discount when they install solar panels on their roofs.
It would also provide millions to help protect and conserve forests — which have been increasingly ravaged in recent years by wildfires during record heat waves that scientists say are linked to global warming.
Billions of dollars in tax credits would also go to some of the country’s worst-polluting industries to help their transition to greener methods — a measure bitterly opposed by some liberal Democrats who have, however, accepted this as a least-bad alternative after months of frustration.
Biden, who came to office with promises of sweeping reforms, has seen his hopes dashed, then revived, then dashed again.
Democrats’ narrow edge in the Senate has given a virtual veto to moderates like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who earlier had used that power to block Biden’s much more expansive Build Back Better plan.
But in late July, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer managed to engineer a compromise with the West Virginian, whose state’s economy depends heavily on coal mining.
“This bill is gonna change America for decades,” Schumer said after its passage, while Manchin tweeted that it “will lower the inflation taxes that have been so hurtful for West Virginian and American families.”
Senators finally opened debate on the text on Saturday, with final passage not until Sunday afternoon.
Late Saturday, they began working through a marathon procedure known as a “vote-a-rama,” in which members can propose dozens of amendments and demand a vote on each one.
That allowed both Republicans, who view Biden’s plan as too costly, and liberal Democrats, who say it does not reach far enough, to make their opposition clear.
Influential progressive Senator Bernie Sanders used that platform through the evening to propose several amendments aimed at strengthening social planks in the legislation, which were considerably weakened during the months of negotiation.
The bill would provide $64 billion for health care initiatives and ensure a lowering of some drug costs — which can be 10 times more expensive in the United States than in some other rich countries.
But progressive Democrats long ago had to give up their ambitions for free preschool and community colleges and expanded health care for the elderly.
“Millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack the dentures, hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve,” Sanders said from the Senate floor. “This bill, as currently written, does nothing to address it.”
But fellow Democrats, eager to pass the legislation ahead of November midterms when control of Congress is at stake, have rejected any change in the text.
To help offset the plan’s massive spending, it would reduce the US deficit through a new 15-percent minimum tax on companies with profits of $1 billion or more — a move targeting some that now pay far less.
That measure could generate more than $258 billion in tax receipts for the government over the next 10 years, by some estimates.
US Senate adopts sweeping climate and health plan, in major victory for Biden
https://arab.news/ypg72
US Senate adopts sweeping climate and health plan, in major victory for Biden
- The bill — officially known as the “Inflation Reduction Act” — passed the Senate with no Republicans voting in favor
Afghan data breach unmasked UK spies, special forces: reports
A UK official had accidentally leaked a document containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans
LONDON: The details of more than 100 Britons, including spies and special forces personnel, were included in a massive data breach involving thousands of Afghans, UK media reported on Thursday.
The information was included in the mistakenly released spreadsheet, British newspapers reported, citing unnamed defense sources.
The leak was only revealed to the public earlier this week after a news blackout imposed by the previous Conservative government was finally lifted.
“It’s longstanding policy of successive governments to not comment on Special Forces,” a ministry of defense spokesperson said in a statement.
“We take the security of our personnel very seriously and personnel, particularly those in sensitive positions, always have appropriate measures in place to protect their security.”
But reports in the British media, including the Guardian newspaper and the BBC, said members of Britain’s intelligence service and special forces were among those listed on the spreadsheet.
Britain’s government disclosed on Tuesday that a UK official had accidentally leaked a document containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked to be relocated to the UK.
It happened in February 2022, just six months after Taliban fighters seized Kabul, Labour’s Defense Secretary John Healey told parliament.
The breach and the resettlement plan to protect those involved from potential repercussions only came to light after a court-issued super-gag was lifted.
The nearly two-year-long court ban secured by the previous Conservative government prevented any media reporting of the leak.
In addition, parliament was not briefed and there was no public knowledge of the resettlement plan and the costs involved.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that Tory ministers have “serious questions to answer” over the secret resettlement plan while parliamentary Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said that the affair raised “significant constitutional issues.”
Some 900 Afghans and 3,600 family members have since been brought to Britain or are in transit under the program known as the Afghan Response Route, at a cost of around £400 million ($535 million), Healey said.
Applications from 600 more people have also been accepted, bringing the estimated total cost of the scheme to £850 million.
They are among some 36,000 Afghans who have been accepted by Britain under different schemes since the August 2021 fall of Kabul.
Trump will visit Scotland, where his family has golf courses, and will talk trade with Starmer
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will head to Scotland next week, visiting areas where his family owns two golf courses and is opening a third, and will meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss trade ahead of an official state visit to Britain in September.
Trump’s trip from July 25-29 will see him visit Turnberry, home to a historic golf course and hotel he bought in 2014, and Aberdeen, where one Trump golf course has operated since 2012 and a new one is set to open in August, the White House said Thursday.
During the trip, Trump plans to meet with Starmer to “refine” a previously announced trade deal, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Trump himself had previously said he’d be discussing trade with Starmer and said those talks would take place at “probably one of my properties” in Aberdeen, but the White House hadn’t previously announced the trip.
The White House hasn’t commented on whether the Republican president plans to golf while in Scotland, though he played his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018, ahead of traveling to Helsinki, Finland, for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president’s son’s Eric and Donald Jr. are now running the family business, The Trump Organization, while their father is in the White House.
During her briefing with reporters, Leavitt also said Trump and first lady Melania Trump will travel to the United Kingdom from Sept. 17-19 and meet with King Charles.
That trip had already been confirmed by Buckingham Palace and will mark Trump’s second state visit to the United Kingdom after he first had one in 2019. No US president had previously been invited for a second state visit.
“He is honored and looking forward to meeting with his majesty, the king at Windsor Castle,” Leavitt said.
Trump’s first golf course near Aberdeen, International Golf Links Scotland, is set to host an event on the European tour, the Scottish Championship, from Aug. 7-10. It will be the first time the course has staged a European tour event, though it held a tournament on the seniors’ tour in 2023 and 2024 and will do so again this year, the week before the Scottish Championship.
Located on the Ayrshire coast, around 200 miles southwest of Aberdeen, Trump Turnberry is one of 10 courses on the rotation to host the British Open — the oldest of the four major championships in men’s golf — but hasn’t staged that event since 2009, before Trump bought the resort.
Ukraine offers its front line as test bed for foreign weapons
- Moroz said there has been strong interest in the scheme, but did not name any companies
- Ukraine is betting on a budding defense industry, fueled in part by foreign investment
WIESBADEN, Germany, : Ukraine will let foreign arms companies test out their latest weapons on the front line of its war against Russia’s invasion, Kyiv’s state-backed arms investment and procurement group Brave1 said on Thursday.
Under the “Test in Ukraine” scheme, companies would send their products to Ukraine, give some online training on how to use them, then wait for Ukrainian forces to try them out and send back reports, the group said in a statement.
“It gives us understanding of what technologies are available. It gives companies understanding of what is really working on the front line,” Artem Moroz, Brave1’s head of investor relations, told Reuters at a defense conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Moroz said there has been strong interest in the scheme, but did not name any companies that have signed on to use it and declined to go into more detail on how it would operate or what, if any, costs would be involved.
More than three years after their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are pressing a grinding offensive across the sprawling, more than 1,000-km (620-mile) front line and intensifying air strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine is betting on a budding defense industry, fueled in part by foreign investment, to fend off Russia’s bigger and better-armed war machine.
Brave1 — set up by the government in 2023 with an online hub where Ukrainian defense companies can seek investment, and also where Ukrainian military units can order up arms — had drawn up a list of the military technologies it wanted to test, Moroz added.
“We have a list of priorities. One of the top of those would be air defense, like new air defense capabilities, drone interceptors, AI-guided systems, all the solutions against gliding bombs,” he said.
Unmanned systems in the water and electronic profile systems on the ground are also on Ukraine’s list of priorities, as are advanced fire control systems or AI guidance to make howitzers more accurate.
French army leaves Senegal, ending military presence in west Africa
- France returned Camp Geille on Thursday, its largest base in the west African country, and its airfield at Dakar airport
- Senegalese chief of staff said handover marked “an important turning point” in the two countries’ military partnership
DAKAR: France on Thursday formally handed back its last two military bases in Senegal, leaving Paris with no permanent army camps in either west or central Africa.
Ending the French army’s 65 years in independent Senegal, the pull-out comes after similar withdrawals across the continent, with former colonies increasingly turning their backs on their former ruler.
The move comes as the Sahel region faces a growing jihadist conflict across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger that is threatening the wider west African region.
A recent string of attacks this month in Mali included an assault on a town on the border with Senegal.
France returned Camp Geille, its largest base in the west African country, and its airfield at Dakar airport, in a ceremony attended by top French and Senegalese officials.
They included Senegalese chief of staff General Mbaye Cisse and General Pascal Ianni, the head of the French forces in Africa.
Cisse said the handover marked “an important turning point in the rich and long military journey of our two countries.”
He said the “new objectives” were aimed at “giving new content to the security partnership.”
Senegalese troops were working “to consolidate the numerous skills gained it its quest for strategic autonomy,” he added.
The general ended his speech with a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the French author of “The Little Prince,” who spent several months in Dakar: “For each ending there is always a new departure.”
Ianni said Paris was “reinventing partnerships in a dynamic Africa.”
“We have to do things differently, and we don’t need permanent bases to do so,” he said.
The French general however insisted that the pull-out “takes nothing away from the sacrifices made yesterday by our brothers-in-arms in Africa for our respective interests.”
Around 350 French soldiers, primarily tasked with conducting joint operations with the Senegalese army, are now leaving, marking the end of a three-month departure process that began in March.
After storming to victory in 2024 elections promising radical change, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye demanded France withdraw troops from the country by 2025.
Unlike the leaders of other former colonies such as junta-run Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, however, Faye has insisted that Senegal will keep working with Paris.
Reinventing partnerships
Senegal was one of France’s first colonies in Africa.
After gaining independence in 1960, Senegal became one of France’s staunchest African allies, playing host to French troops throughout its modern history.
Faye’s predecessor, Macky Sall, continued that tradition.
However Faye, who ran on a ticket promising a clean break with the Sall era, has said that Senegal will treat France like any other foreign partner.
Pledging to make his country more self-sufficient, the president gave a deadline of the end of 2025 for all foreign armies to withdraw.
“Senegal is an independent country, it is a sovereign country, and sovereignty does not accept the presence of military bases in a sovereign country,” Faye said at the end of 2024.
He maintained nonetheless that France remained “an important partner for Senegal.”
Faye has also urged Paris to apologize for colonial atrocities, including the massacre on December 1, 1944, of dozens of African soldiers who had fought for France in World War II.
A lawmaker from the president’s ruling Pastef party, Guy Marius Sagna, hailed Thursday’s “end to the presence of the French occupying army.”
“Bravo to President Diomaye Faye!... Bravo to the patriots! Decolonization continues,” he told the press.
French former empire
With governments across Africa increasingly questioning the presence of French soldiers, Paris has closed or reduced numbers at bases across its former empire.
In February, Paris handed back its sole remaining base in Ivory Coast, ending decades of French presence at the site.
The month before, France turned over the Kossei base in Chad, its last military foothold in the unrest-hit Sahel region.
Coups in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali between 2020 and 2023 have swept military strongmen to power.
All have cut ties with France and turned to Russia instead for help in fighting the Sahel’s decade-long jihadist insurgency.
The Central African Republic, also a former French colony to which the Kremlin has sent mercenaries, has likewise demanded a French pull-out.
Meanwhile, the army has turned its base in Gabon into a camp shared with the central African nation focused on training.
Only the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti will play host to a permanent French army base following Thursday’s withdrawal.
France intends to make its base in Djibouti, home to some 1,500 people, its military headquarters for Africa.
Tourist magnet Barcelona to cut cruise ship capacity
- Spain’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise traffic
- Cruise passenger numbers grew by 20 percent between 2018 and 2024
BARCELONA: Barcelona unveiled on Thursday a plan to reduce the number of cruise passengers arriving at its port, part of a wider trend to combat overtourism in Europe’s most popular destinations.
The city of Barcelona and the port authority signed an agreement to reduce the number of cruise ship terminals from seven to five by 2030, cutting traveler capacity from 37,000 to 31,000.
Spain’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise traffic, having received 3.65 million such passengers in 2024, according to Barcelona’s Tourism Observatory.
Cruise passenger numbers grew by 20 percent between 2018 and 2024, Barcelona’s Socialist mayor Jaume Collboni said in a statement.
“For the first time in history, limits are being set on the growth of cruise ships in the city,” Collboni added.
The demolition of three existing cruise terminals and the construction of a new one will cost 185 million euros ($215 million), adding to previous investments since a first protocol was signed in 2018.
Tourism has helped drive the dynamic Spanish economy, making it the world’s second most-visited country with a record 94 million foreign visitors last year.
But the boom has fueled anger about unaffordable housing and concern that mass visitor numbers are changing the fabric of neighborhoods, sparking protests in tourism hotspots.
With its Mediterranean beaches and world-famous cultural landmarks such as the Sagrada Familia basilica, Barcelona is on the front line of mass tourism, receiving millions of visitors every year.
It announced last year a plan to scrap around 10,000 tourist rental apartments by 2028 in an attempt to ease local discontent.
Elsewhere in Europe, the popular Italian city of Venice introduced a charge for day visitors last year, while Greece is implementing a tax on cruise ships docking at its islands.
