Ny Safidinao

April 30, 2007 issue - The Supreme Court's decision to uphold a federal ban on "partial birth" abortion last week set off skirmishes on three battlefields: in politics, doctor's offices and the high court itself. With Samuel Alito now in Sandra Day O'Connor's old seat, conservatives finally had five votes to restrict abortion. Justice Anthony Kennedy—often derided by conservatives as a closet liberal—wrote the vigorous majority opinion upholding the law. Kennedy has expressed nuanced views on abortion in the past, upholding Roe but disagreeing with a ruling that struck down a Nebraska "partial birth" ban. In last week's opinion he didn't reject the landmark abortion-rights decision, but his language pleased pro-lifers. "Kennedy is very much speaking in the code language of the anti-abortion activists," says David Garrow, a legal historian at the University of Cambridge. The justice used "kill" or "killing" 11 tim...

WASHINGTON - An increase in the minimum wage is again being delayed because it's attached to the Iraq war spending bill that President Bush plans to veto. It's been ten years since the last federal minimum-wage increase, and boosting it from five-15 to seven-25 per hour over the next two years was a key element of the Democrats' midterm election platform. Republicans say Democrats could have had a minimum-wage bill passed and signed by now if they hadn't added it to the Iraq war bill. But a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute says, "That's just a temporary detour." Alan Viard says Democrats will find a way to quickly move the minimum-wage legislation back to the White House. Currently, a person working 40 hours per week at the current minimum wage makes about ten-thousand-700 dollars a year. An increase to seven-25 would boost that to just over fifteen-thousand a year. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not...

Antananarivo - The island of Madagascar off the African coast will adopt English as its third official language alongside French and Malagasy following a referendum to change the country's constitution, reports said Monday. Four days after the public referendum, the Interior Ministry published the preliminary official results on Sunday. Some 43.75 per cent of the around 7.35 million Malagasy eligible to vote cast their votes at 17,546 polling stations. Some 75,3 per cent voted for the changes pushed by President Marc Ravalomanana, who was re-elected in December 2006. According to the president's Madagascar Action Plan, which is intended to "speed up progress in the country," the main aim of the new constitution is the decentralization of the administration and the transfer of responsibilities to local offices. The currently existing six provinces are due to be abolished and replaced by the country's 22 regions. Copyright © 2007 Respective Author Posted : Mon, 09 A...

Wout Kusters, director of a manufacturing plant in the Dutch lowlands, knows something the U.S. Congress needs to know. So does Gervais Pruvost, a laborer in a small cement plant in northern France . So does just about every German homeowner. When you're trying to slow down global warming, beware of unintended consequences. As U.S. lawmakers work on the details of their greenhouse-gas legislation, they are looking carefully at Europe's experience. Five Senate proposals all use the same basic approach, known as "cap and trade," that Europe has used for the past two years. But what the snappy name "cap and trade" means is that the market will put a price on something that's always been free: the right of a factory to emit carbon gases. That could affect the cost of everything from window panes to airline tickets to electricity. Europe has already hit a few bumps with its program. There's the Dutch silicon carbide maker that calls itself the greenest su...

DAVENPORT, Iowa - Democrat Barack Obama ( news , bio , voting record ) raked in $25 million for his presidential bid in the first three months of 2007, placing him on a par with front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and dashing her image as the party's inevitable nominee. The donations came from an eye-popping 100,000 donors, the campaign said in a statement Wednesday. The figure was the latest evidence that Obama, a political newcomer who has served just two years in the Senate, has emerged as the most powerful new force in presidential politics this year. It also reinforced his status as a significant threat to Clinton, who'd hoped her own $26 million first quarter fundraising total would begin to squeeze her rivals out of contention. The campaign reported that the figure included at least $23.5 million that he can spend on the highly competitive primary race. The Clinton campaign has yet to disclose how much they can use for the primary verses money that is designated for the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has raised a record $26 million since announcing her presidential candidacy in what is shaping up as the most expensive race in history, her campaign said on Sunday as it sought to steal a jump on rivals. Clinton, who entered the race in January, also transferred $10 million left over from her Senate re-election run. That made for a total $36 million in receipts for the three months to March 31, her staff said. That would be a record for the first-quarter of a non-election year. The deadline to report quarterly campaign-finance figures to the Federal Election Commission is April 15, and candidates are jockeying to cast their fund-raising clout in the best light as an early test of their campaign's success. Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, said the preliminary figure far exceeded a goal $15 million in the January-March period. "We are overwhelmed by the tremendous enthusiasm and historic...