Obama ignored legal advice on Libya war

Barack Obama overruled the advice of administration lawyers in deciding the US could continue participatingin the Libya conflict without congressional approval.






The White House insists the president did not need congressional approval to authorise US support for Nato's mission, because the military campaign is limited in scope.



Critics argue the action violates a Vietnam War-era law limiting military action without congressional approval to 60 days.



 Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and acting head of the justice department's Office of Legal Counsel Caroline Krass had advised Obama that the US involvement in the Libya air campaign constituted "hostilities".


But the US president opted to follow the advice of White House counsel Robert Bauer and state department legal adviser Harold Koh, who argued the US involvement fell short of "hostilities.



US presidents can override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel, but it is very rare for that to happen, analysts say.


The War Powers Resolution of 1973 states Congress must authorise participation in hostilities longer than 60 days, although the president can seek a 30-day extension.

Read More

Greeks protest, almost half oppose austerity

Thousands of Greeks marched on parliament on Saturday in a show of unabated public anger after Prime Minister George Papandreou vowed to push on with an austerity campaign that a poll showed half the country opposed.

In a move meant to stifle dissent in his Socialist Party, Papandreou on Friday dismissed Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, architect of a new five-year austerity programme that has sparked weeks of protests.

The reshuffle coincided with a pledge by France and Germany to continue funding Athens, a move that may have bought Greece and its fellow euro zone members time to prevent a messy default, even if doubts over its longer-term solvency persist.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund have made the reforms a condition for a new bailout package worth an estimated 120 billion euros ($170 billion) that Greece, shut out of markets, will need to fund itself through 2014.

Around 5,000 protesters from the Communist group PAME marched into Athens' central Syntagma square -- where demonstrations turned violent earlier this week -- chanting "the measures are killing us!"

French activists also performed with a three-metre puppet depicting a bloodied figure of Lady Justice to rhythmic drumming, in a gesture of solidarity with Greek protesters who have camped in the square for three weeks.

"What has changed with the reshuffle? Nothing," said Costas, a 22-year-old student who has been camping on the square since the beginning of the month. "We are not planning to leave unless they take back the measures."

An opinion poll taken before the reshuffle showed 47.5 percent of respondents wanted parliament to reject the reform package and for Greece to hold early elections.

Just over a third -- 34.8 percent -- wanted it to be approved so Athens could secure the second bailout.

Constantinos Routzounis, head of pollsters Kapa Research, said Greeks were not against austerity in itself but thought the reforms were unfairly aimed at the poor while wealthy tax evaders and corrupt politicians got off lightly.

"People don't want Greece to exit the euro zone. They do want fiscal consolidation measures -- but more just ones," he told personally.

Greece's biggest union GSEE, representing around 2 million workers in the private sector, called for a 48-hour strike when parliament votes on what has been dubbed the mid-term plan. The government hopes that will happen by end-June.

Read More

Zawahri appointed al Qaeda leader: report

EDITOR'S NOTE: REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY CONTENT THE VIDEO FROM WHICH THIS STILL IMAGE WAS TAKEN. Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri speaks from an unknown location, in this still image taken from video uploaded on a social media website June 8, 2011. REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV

Osama bin Laden's long-time lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, is now the leader of al Qaeda.

The Egyptian-born Zawahri vowed earlier this month to press ahead with al Qaeda's campaign against the United States and its allies, in what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death in a US commando raid in Pakistan in May.



Zawahri, whose whereabouts are unknown, had been seen as bin Laden's most likely successor.

Read More

UN summit sets plan to stop HIV child infections

World leaders at a U.N. AIDS summit launched a plan on Thursday to try to eliminate by 2015 most new HIV infections among children, who inherit the condition from already infected mothers.
The campaign was launched as the leaders also agreed on a target of reaching 15 million people with HIV treatment, more than double the number who currently get it, also by 2015.
Both goals were announced just weeks after groundbreaking new data showed that early treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS, can cut its transmission to a sexual partner by 96 percent.
In 2009, some 370,000 children were born with HIV, or one nearly every minute -- the vast majority of them in 22 countries, almost all in Africa. But providing HIV-positive pregnant women with treatment can reduce the risk of a child being born with the virus to less than 5 percent.
The UNAIDS organization and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which are jointly managing the campaign launched on Thursday, said it would aim to reduce the number of child infections by 90 percent by 2015.
"We believe that by 2015 children everywhere can be born free of HIV and that their mothers can remain healthy," UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe told the launch event, describing the plan as realistic and achievable.
UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Paul De Lay told Reuters the plan was based on providing pregnant women with more information and on more effective use of anti-AIDS drugs.
"BEGINNING OF THE END"
UNAIDS officials said funding from all sources for prevention of mother-child transmission of HIV was currently running at some $500 million a year. They said a total of $2.5 billion more would be needed by 2015 to achieve the campaign's target of eliminating mother-to-child HIV infections.
"Developed countries already do this," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the meeting. "But we cannot rest until this is true for our whole world."
U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby said the United States was contributing an extra $75 million to the campaign. Several private companies and foundations also announced contributions.
Achieving the goal could be "the beginning of the end of the story, because that opens the prospect for an AIDS-free generation," Michel Kazatchkine, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, a declaration agreed by the 140-nation U.N. summit commits governments to "the target of working toward 15 million people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment by 2015."
The declaration is expected to be adopted on Friday at the end of the three-day summit, which was held close to the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS.
Some 6.6 million were receiving antiretroviral treatment in low- and middle-income countries at the end of 2010, according to U.N. figures.
Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) called the pledge a "critical step," but said governments needed to take "immediate concrete action" to make the target a reality.
"There are 9 million people waiting for HIV treatment today," Tido von Schoen-Angerer of MSF said in a statement. "This whole AIDS summit will have been a farce if we don't see real plans to ramp up treatment so we can get ahead of the wave of new infections."

Read More