Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are proposing legislation that would block a Dubai-owned company from taking over operations at several US ports, brushing aside a veto threat from President George W. Bush.
"We want to make sure that the security of our ports are in America's hands," said Representative Jerry Lewis, whose House Appropriations Committee was to approve the measure yesterday.
The move marks the latest step in a Republican revolt in Congress unlike any other in Bush's five years in office. The president has yet to veto any legislation, and GOP leaders have been careful to avoid sending him anything he wouldn't sign.
PHOTO: AP
But now, six months before an election, they have decided to challenge him. All 435 House seats are up for election in November, and Republican Bush's extremely low popularity in the polls has some people saying the party could lose its majority in the House.
"We're not going to let the Democrats get to the right of us on national security," Republican Representative Peter King, the House Homeland Security Committee chairman, said recently.
The legislation is expected to reach the House floor next week as part of a US$91 billion measure for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and aid for Gulf States recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
Republican House leaders informed the White House staff of their intention on Tuesday at a House leadership meeting that was also attended by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman. He did not respond when House Republicans detailed the legislation, according to meeting participants.
Efforts by the Bush administration to quell the controversy have failed on Capitol Hill, and voters are largely opposed to the DP World plan.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
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PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
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