Tag Archives: Politics

Iran reformists to back Rouhani re-election, though some voters grow cool

FILE PHOTO: Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi (L) meets with pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi in Tehran October 12, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran’s main pro-reform opposition leaders plan to speak out from their confinement under house arrest this month to publicly back President Hassan Rouhani for re-election, aides say, helping win over voters disillusioned with the slow pace of change.

Rouhani was elected in a landslide in 2013 on promises to ease Iran’s international isolation and open up society. He is standing for a second term against five other candidates, mostly prominent hardliners, on May 19, with a run-off a week later if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes cast in the first round.

In his first term, Rouhani expended his political capital pushing through a landmark agreement with global powers to limit Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions.

But even his supporters acknowledge he has made comparatively little progress on his domestic agenda, after promising that Iranians should enjoy the same rights as other people around the world.

Some reformist critics say he neglected the cause of curbing the powers of the security forces and rolling back restrictions that govern how Iranians dress, behave, speak and assemble.

Nevertheless, Iran’s two leading champions of the reform movement, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi, will urge voters to back him, a spokesman said.

“The two leaders, like in previous elections, will support the candidate backed by the pro-reform faction,” said Ardeshir Amir-Arjomand, the Paris-based spokesman for the two men.

Another source close to the opposition leaders said “Mousavi and Karoubi will announce their support for Rouhani a few days before the May 19 vote.”

Rouhani has already won the backing of former President Mohammad Khatami, considered the spiritual leader of the reformists, who declared his support on his website on Tuesday. Iranian newspapers and broadcasters are banned from publishing the former president’s image or mentioning his name.

Many reformist voters will look for guidance to Mousavi and Karoubi, who both stood for president in 2009 when opposition to the disputed victory of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led to Iran’s biggest mass demonstrations since its 1979 revolution.

Both men have been held under house arrest for six years, although neither has been convicted of a crime. Their pronouncements from their confinement are eagerly followed by reformists online.

Maryam Zare, a 19-year-old in Tehran who would be voting for president for the first time, said she would vote only if she heard a call to do so from Karoubi and Mousavi.

“I will vote for whoever they support,” she said.

Others said they would back Rouhani, but only reluctantly.

“He is part of the establishment. We have to vote for the lesser of evils,” said music teacher Morad Behmanesh in the central city of Yazd. “What happened to Rouhani’s promises of releasing the two opposition leaders from house arrest?”

PRIORITIES

Under Iran’s governing system, the elected president’s powers are limited, circumscribed by the authority of the supreme leader, a position held since 1989 by hardline cleric Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

During Rouhani’s first term, the president won Khamenei’s cautious backing for his nuclear deal. But persuading the leader to accept social change may be a more difficult task.

Some of Rouhani’s allies say he will now be able to make more progress on his domestic agenda if he wins a clear, fresh mandate for another four-year term, which would prove to the hardliners that the public wants change.

“Iranians want to be free and live freely. They are not against the Islamic Republic. People will continue to fight for their rights,” a senior official in Rouhani’s government said on condition of anonymity.

But international rights groups and activists in Iran say there were few, if any, moves to bring about greater political and social freedoms during Rouhani’s first term. Dozens of activists, journalists, bloggers and artists were jailed on political grounds.

Rouhani often suggests that he has no control over such arrests, carried out by the mostly hardline judiciary and the Revolutionary Guards, a powerful military force.

“I have lost my hope over Rouhani’s ability to reform the country. His main focus has been economy, not improving civil rights,” said Reza, 28, a reformist who was jailed briefly after the 2009 election and asked that his surname not be published for security reasons.

The president has had some success on promises to loosen Internet restrictions, but access to social media remains officially blocked, although Rouhani, Khamenei and other officials have their own Twitter accounts.

Human Rights Watch said last year that Rouhani had failed to deliver on his promise of greater respect for civil and political rights. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in 2015 said that more journalists were in jail in Iran than any country other than China and Egypt.

The total number of political prisoners held in Iranian jails has not been disclosed. About a dozen people who also hold other nationalities have been jailed for what rights groups consider political offences.

“Whoever wins Iran’s presidential election should prioritize improving the country’s dismal human rights situation,” said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch.

“Iran has maintained the highest per capita execution rate in the world for years … it put 530 people to death last year, many for drug offences and a number of them minors.”

Rouhani benefits because reformist voters have no other choice on the ballot, where candidates are vetted by a hardline body.

Reformist voters will have to judge him in the context of what is possible under the system, said Saeed Leylaz, a prominent economist imprisoned under Ahmadinejad for criticising economic policy, who is now close to Rouhani’s government.

“Rouhani’s failure to fully deliver his promises on social reforms will impact the vote … but Iranians are well aware of his limitations and his achievements.”

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Peter Graff)

Iranians must give Rouhani second term to make good on nuclear deal: Vice President

FILE PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inspects the honour guard during a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia March 27, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Alissa de Carbonnel

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s president must get a second term to secure the economic benefits that he promised would result from a diplomatic thaw with the West, Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar said ahead of a May 19 election.

Hassan Rouhani’s hardline challengers for the presidency, some of whom are close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, say he traded away too much in a 2015 deal with world powers that limited Iran’s nuclear work but failed to deliver sufficient rewards.

In a rare interview with a trio of foreign reporters at an EU-Iran business forum on Sunday, Ebtekar, one of Iran’s 12 vice presidents, said voters should not give up on Rouhani.

“He needs more time … He has to be given a chance to be able to continue his program,” said Ebtekar, one of Iran’s most prominent women politicians.

“Rouhani has done a lot to overcome some of the hurdles that the investors find when they are coming,” she said in a nod to concerns over red tape and opaque rules voiced by foreign companies that Iran hopes to attract.

As a young woman, Ebtekar was the face of the radical students who occupied the U.S. Embassy and held its staff hostage for 444 days at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Known as “Mary”, she spoke in calm, fluent English to the world’s media, putting the hostage-takers’ side of the incident that remains a painful memory for the United States and is one of the reasons Washington considers the Islamic Republic a pariah state.

At 56, she is now firmly in the reformist camp, endorsing Rouhani’s vision of a freer society and diplomatic detente after the lifting of sanctions under the deal he engineered.

If hardliners describe the nuclear deal as a limited engagement with the West on a single issue, Ebtekar sees it as the beginning of a new era of international engagement to realize what she says are the hopes of Iran’s younger generation to end its long isolation.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

“There is a lot being done which is creating a lot of hope and optimism but at the same time the expectations for the nuclear deal are still very high,” said Ebtekar, her smiling face framed by a traditional black chador over a turquoise scarf.

With unilateral U.S. sanctions still in place, Ebtekar said voters understood that it was not Rouhani’s fault that the nuclear deal had yet to improve their daily lives.

“They understand that mostly the problem is coming from outside. Our government has done its share … now it is up to our partners in the deal to do their share as well.

“This opening up will create a better atmosphere, and I hope that they will – particularly countries like the United States – will stand up to their commitments,” Ebtekar said.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s scepticism over Rouhani’s detente policy is echoed by his strongest challenger, Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric seen as a possible future supreme leader, who says Iran has no need of foreign help.

Ebtekar, however, said the election is Rouhani’s to lose, pointing to parliamentary polls in which the conservatives lost ground. The alliance of moderates and reformists that helped carry him to power in 2013, she said, “gives him a very strong position.”

Ebtekar rejected the view of Western and Gulf Arab states that Iran is an aggressor in the Middle East, saying it has peaceful intentions but also had the right to defend itself from foreign threats.

Iran’s backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah and alleged support for Yemen’s Houthi fighters has put it at odds with the United States and regional rival Saudi Arabia.

“We are looking forward to play our role to promote peace and also security in the region,” Ebtekar said.

“But it’s natural for the people living in this region to defend themselves, it’s very natural for Lebanon to defend itself, Syria, the Palestinians. So defense is another issue.”

(Additional reporting Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Trump pledges fealty to NRA gun lobby

NRA Executive Director Chris Cox (L) and Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre (R) welcome U.S. President Donald Trump (C) onstage to deliver remarks at the National Rifle Association (NRA) Leadership Forum at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Steve Holland

ATLANTA (Reuters) – President Donald Trump pledged to uphold Americans’ right to possess guns on Friday in a speech that he used to revisit some 2016 election campaign themes from his vow to build a border wall to dismissing a Democratic senator as “Pocahontas.”

Trump pledged his allegiance to the powerful National Rifle Association, the country’s leading gun-rights advocacy group, at a convention attended by thousands. Elected in part on a law-and-order platform, Trump was the first sitting president to address the NRA since fellow Republican Ronald Reagan in 1983.

“As your president, I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” Trump told thousands of people attending the NRA’s annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Trump, whose candidacy last year was endorsed by the NRA, marks his first 100 days in office on Saturday with no major legislative achievements but with a long litany of actions to loosen federal regulations and review free trade agreements.

Stymied by his initial bid to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border when Congress balked at funding the initiative, Trump vowed he will sooner or later build the wall, which had been a signature campaign promise.

“We need a wall. We’ll build the wall. Don’t even think about it,” he said.

Politics and his unexpected election victory on Nov. 8 over Democrat Hillary Clinton also featured prominently in his remarks.

Speculating on who might run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Trump brought up the name of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and used a derogatory nickname he had adopted for her last year.

“It may be Pochahontas, and she is not big on the NRA,” Trump said of Warren, who had once said she had some Native American ancestry.

Pocahontas is a legendary Native American figure from the 1600s.

Trump later attended a fund-raiser for Republican candidate Karen Handel, who will face Democrat Jon Ossoff on June 20 to determine who will win a House of Representatives seat to replace Tom Price, who became Trump’s health and human services secretary.

Trump, at the NRA event, returned time and again to the theme of responsible gun ownership.

“You have a true friend and champion in the White House,” he said. “We want to assure you of the sacred right of self defense for all of our citizens.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Tom Brown)

Congress passes short-term bill to avert government shutdown

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) (R) attends a news conference on President Trump's first 100 days on Capitol Hill, next to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in Washington, U.S April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Friday passed stopgap legislation to avert a government shutdown at midnight and give lawmakers another week to reach a deal on federal spending through the end of the fiscal year, with contentious issues remaining to be resolved.

The Senate passed the measure by voice vote without opposition after the House earlier approved it by a tally of 382-30. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

The bill in the Republican-led Congress provides federal funding until May 5, allowing lawmakers to hammer out legislation over the next few days to keep the government funded for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Congress has been tied in knots over $1 trillion in spending priorities for months. Lawmakers were supposed to have taken care of the current fiscal year appropriations bills by last Oct. 1.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the stopgap bill “will carry us through next week so that a bipartisan agreement can be reached.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said there were still significant differences with Republicans over elements of the looming longer-term spending bill.

In the bigger spending bill to be negotiated in the coming days, it remained unclear whether Republicans would prevail in their effort to sharply boost defense spending without similar increases for other domestic programs. Trump has proposed a $30 billion spending hike for the Pentagon for the rest of this fiscal year.

House and Senate negotiators also have been struggling over funding to make a healthcare program for coal miners permanent and whether to plug a gap in Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, the government health insurance program for the poor.

‘IMPORTANT BUSINESS’

During debate in the House, lawmakers expressed frustration at the inability of Congress to take care of the basic functions of government in a timely manner.

“Let’s make sure these basics are done for the American people and then let’s get about the important business of changing their tax code and making sure they have the best healthcare in the world,” said Republican Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

“We are seven months into the fiscal year,” added Representative Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “Federal departments and agencies have been operating on outdated funding levels and policies for more than half of the year. This is unacceptable and it cannot continue.”

Lowey noted the legislation, known as a continuing resolution, was the third stopgap spending measure during the current fiscal year.

In addition to opposition from Democrats, there are deep divisions among Republicans over exactly how to change the tax code and overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

The action on the spending bill came a day after House Republican leaders again put on hold a possible vote on major healthcare legislation sought by Trump to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, after moderates in the party balked at provisions added to entice hard-line conservatives.

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 former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

Trump, a Republican, bowed to Democratic demands that the spending bill not include money to start building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border he said is needed to fight illegal immigration and stop drug smugglers.

The Trump administration also agreed to continue funding for a major component of Obamacare despite Republican vows to end the program.

Without the extension or a longer-term funding bill, federal agencies would have run out of money by midnight Friday, likely triggering abrupt layoffs of hundreds of thousands of federal government workers until funding resumes.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)

Berkeley largely quiet after Ann Coulter speech cancelation

A man looks on as opposing factions gather over the cancelation of conservative commentator Ann Coulter's speech at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, U.S., April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

By Ann Saphir

BERKELEY, Calif. (Reuters) – Police at the University of California at Berkeley braced for civil unrest on Thursday in the aftermath of a canceled speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter, but the campus remained tranquil through the day while hundreds of her supporters rallied nearby.

Some in the pro-Coulter crowd engaged in a brief shouting match with counter-demonstrators who confronted them on the edge of a Berkeley city park several blocks from campus late in the afternoon, but police managed to keep the two sides apart.

Coulter, one of America’s best-known and most provocative pundits on the political right, said on Wednesday that she no longer intended to defy university officials by speaking on campus without their permission.

She left open the possibility of paying a visit to supporters at the school, long a bastion of liberal student activism and the Free Speech Movement protests of the 1960s. But as of late Thursday, Coulter was nowhere to be seen.

Still, a crowd of at least 300 people, some carrying American flags, some wearing helmets or baseball caps emblazoned with President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” staged a peaceful rally at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park in downtown Berkeley.

Tensions mounted as the rally ended and a group of at least 100 anti-Trump demonstrators emerged to confront a roughly equal number of pro-Trump, pro-Coulter protesters in front of Berkeley High School, adjacent to the park.

A line of a few dozen riot police quickly moved into the middle of the street to form a human barrier between the opposing groups, as the two sides shouted at each other.

Earlier, city police officers reported two arrests – one for a weapons violation and another for drug possession.

Several blocks away on campus, several dozen UC Berkeley police and other local law enforcement officers stood by in Sproul Plaza, lined with orange barricades in anticipation of demonstrations that had yet to materialize by late afternoon.

Campus and local authorities said they were taking the potential for lawlessness seriously following several episodes of politically fueled disturbances.

In February, protesters opposed to an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, then a senior editor for the conservative Breitbart News website, set fires, broke windows and clashed with police on campus, prompting cancellation of his speech.

And in March and again in April, opposing groups from the far-right and far-left skirmished violently near campus.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks cited all three incidents in explaining why the school balked at Coulter’s original plans to speak on campus on Thursday.

University officials said organizers erred by inviting Coulter without notifying campus officials in advance, as is required of all student groups, and by failing to submit to a “security assessment” to determine a suitable venue for the event. UC Berkeley officials denied that Coulter was unwelcome because of her politics.

After initially barring a Coulter speech for Thursday, university officials proposed moving the event to next Tuesday. Coulter said she could not make it then and accused the school of trying to limit her audience by choosing a date that fell in a study week ahead of final exams.

Coulter then insisted she would go through with her speech on Thursday, despite university objections. But she changed her mind after student organizers withdrew their invitation, though they vowed to press ahead with a lawsuit filed on Tuesday accusing UC Berkeley of suppressing freedom of speech.

(Additional reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco, Mark Hosenball in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Bill Rigby)

Exclusive: ‘If there’s a shutdown, there’s a shutdown,’ Trump says

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) stands in the Oval Office with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus following an interview with Reuters at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Stephen J. Adler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump downplayed the severity of a potential government shutdown on Thursday, just two days shy of a deadline for Congress to reach a spending deal to avert temporary layoffs of federal workers.

“We’ll see what happens. If there’s a shutdown, there’s a shutdown,” Trump told Reuters in an interview, adding that Democrats would be to blame if the federal government was left unfunded.

Congress has until 12:01 a.m. ET on Saturday to pass a bill to fund the government or face a shutdown, which would temporarily lay off hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday to fund government operations at current levels for one more week, giving them time to finish negotiations with Democrats on the plan for the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Trump said a shutdown would be a “very negative thing” but that his administration was prepared if it was necessary.

In a wide-ranging interview, he defended the one-page tax plan he unveiled on Wednesday from criticism that it would increase the U.S. deficit, saying better trade deals and economic growth would offset the costs.

“We will do trade deals that are going to make up for a tremendous amount of the deficit. We are going to be doing trade deals that are going to be much better trade deals,” Trump said.

Trump also said it would be unfair to offer a debt bailout to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, because it was unfair to people in U.S. states.

As part of the budget negotiations, Democrats have called for financial support to prop up Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program covering health insurance for the poor, but many Republicans are opposed to the idea.

“I don’t think that’s fair to the people of Iowa, and I don’t think it’s fair to the people of Wisconsin and Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania that we should be bailing out Puerto Rico for billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said. ” No I don’t think that’s fair.”

(Writing by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Kieran Murray, Toni Reinhold)

U.S. Republican leaders hunt for votes for healthcare bill

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks about healthcare at his weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S, April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House Republicans were making headway in efforts to build support for a reworked plan to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, but have not decided when to vote, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday.

Ryan spoke as Republican leaders scoured the U.S. Capitol in search of centrist Republican backing for the amended measure after it gained the approval on Wednesday of a group of hard-right Republican conservatives who had helped to sink the original version last month.

“We’re making very good progress,” Ryan told reporters at a news conference, saying the changes endorsed by conservative Freedom Caucus Republicans on Wednesday would also appeal to moderate Republicans.

The House could vote as early as this week on the legislation, aides said, meaning it could pass the House in time for President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office on Saturday.

It remained unclear whether the amended bill could attract the 216 votes needed to pass the House, given the united Democratic opposition. Its future is further clouded in the Senate.

“We’re going to go when we have the votes,” Ryan said.

Republicans in Congress have made repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, a central campaign promise for seven years. Republican President Donald Trump made it a top campaign promise.

But House Republicans are not keen to repeat last month’s debacle, when their leaders acquiesced to Trump’s demand for a floor vote on the bill, only to unceremoniously yank the measure after determining it could not pass.

The Republican healthcare bill would replace Obamacare’s income-based tax credit with an age-based credit, roll back an expansion of the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and repeal most Obamacare taxes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had estimated 24 million fewer people would have insurance under the original version.

The new amendment that has won over a number of conservatives, drafted by Representative Tom MacArthur, would allow states to seek federal waivers to opt out of some of the law’s provisions. That includes the highly popular provision mandating that insurers charge those with pre-existing conditions the same as healthy consumers, and that insurers cover so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity care.

Some centrists say the changes do not address their worries that the bill would hurt poor Americans in the Medicaid program. Others, including Republican Representative Dan Donovan of New York, said the loosening of protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions was a major problem.

“It’s going to cost people with pre-existing conditions even more money to have coverage … It’s something that we shouldn’t be doing,” Donovan said on CNN.

House Democrats on Thursday threatened to oppose a short-term government funding bill if the Republicans try to bring the healthcare bill to the floor this week.

Ryan brushed off this threat, even though Republicans are expected to need some Democratic votes to pass the funding bill.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters that Trump was making Republicans “walk the plank” on a healthcare bill that was “wildly unpopular.”

Ryan dismissed the idea that some Republican lawmakers’ House seats were at risk if they vote for the healthcare bill. “I think people’s seats are at risk if we don’t do what we said we would do” and repeal Obamacare, he said.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Amanda Becker and Will Dunham; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Berkeley braces for unrest despite Ann Coulter cancelation

Ann Coulter speaks to the Conservative Political Action conference in Washington. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

BERKELEY, Calif. (Reuters) – Police at the University of California at Berkeley braced for potential clashes between militant left-wing and right-wing activists on Thursday, despite conservative commentator Ann Coulter dropping plans to address students at the campus.

Coulter, one of America’s best-known and most provocative pundits on the political right, said on Wednesday that she no longer intended to defy university officials by addressing UC Berkeley students on campus this week.

But Coulter left open the possibility of paying a visit to her supporters at the school, long a bastion of liberal student activism and a center of the Free Speech Movement protests of the 1960s.

UC Berkeley officials said classes would be held as scheduled.

But campus police Captain Alex Yao told a news conference late on Wednesday that his department would maintain “a highly visible presence” on Thursday, pointing to continued threats of violent protests.

“Many of the individuals and organizations which planned to protest Ann Coulter’s appearance or support it still intend to come to campus,” university spokesman Dan Mogul of told Reuters.

Indeed, social media feeds of militant left-wing and right-wing activists remained abuzz with vows to proceed with demonstrations and counter-demonstrations over the Coulter-Berkeley controversy.

In February, protesters opposed to an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, then a senior editor for the conservative Breitbart news website, set fires, broke windows and clashed with police on campus, prompting cancellation of his speech.

And in March and again in April, opposing groups from the far-right and far-left skirmished violently near campus.

All three incidents were cited on Wednesday in an open letter from UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks explaining the school’s position.

University officials said the Berkeley College Republicans erred by inviting Coulter without notifying campus officials in advance, as is required of all student groups, and by failing to submit to a “security assessment” to determine a suitable time and place for the event.

UC Berkeley officials denied that Coulter was unwelcome because of her politics.

After initially barring her from speaking on campus on Thursday, university officials proposed moving her appearance to next Tuesday. Coulter said she could not make it then and accused the school of trying to limit her audience by choosing a date that fell in a study week ahead of final exams.

Coulter then insisted publicly that she would go through with her speech on Thursday, over the university’s objections. But she said she changed her mind after student organizers withdrew their invitation, though they vowed to press ahead with a lawsuit filed on Tuesday accusing UC Berkeley of suppressing freedom of speech.

(Reporting by Lisa Fernandez in Berkeley; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Trump slams federal court ruling on funding for ‘sanctuary cities’

People participate in a protest against President Donald Trump's travel ban, in New York City, U.S. January 29, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday attacked a federal judge’s ruling that blocked his executive order seeking to withhold funds from “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants, vowing to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco was the latest blow to Trump’s efforts to toughen immigration enforcement. Federal courts have also blocked his two travel bans on citizens of mostly Muslim nations.

“First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities-both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!” Trump said in a tweet, referring to the San Francisco-based federal appeals court and its judicial district.

The Trump administration has targeted sanctuary cities, which generally offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to advance the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Critics say authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes, while supporters argue that enlisting police cooperation to round up immigrants for removal undermines trust in local police, particularly among Latinos.

Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the “sanctuary” movement.

In his ruling, Orrick said Trump’s Jan. 25 order targeted broad categories of federal funding for the sanctuary cities and that plaintiffs challenging it were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional.

An appeal is likely to be heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before it goes to the Supreme Court. Republicans view the appeals court as biased toward liberals, and Trump was quick to attack its reputation in his tweets.

It “has a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80%). They used to call this “judge shopping!” Messy system,” he wrote.

The appeals court raised Trump’s ire earlier this year when it upheld a Seattle judge’s decision to block the Republican president’s first travel ban on citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations.

In May, the court will hear an appeal of a Hawaii judge’s order blocking Trump’s revised travel ban, which placed restrictions on citizens from six mostly Muslim countries. A Maryland judge also blocked portions of the second ban.

Trump has issued sweeping condemnations of courts and judges when they have ruled against him or his administration.

In February, he called the federal judge in Seattle who ruled against his first travel ban a “so-called judge.” During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump accused an Indiana-born judge overseeing lawsuits against the defunct Trump University of bias based on his Mexican ancestry.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Paul Simao)

Erdogan says Turkey could reconsider its position on Europe

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends an interview with Reuters at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Samia Nakhoul, Nick Tattersall and Orhan Coskun

ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan told Reuters on Tuesday that Turkey would reconsider its position on joining the European Union if it was kept waiting much longer and if the current hostile mentality of some member states persists.

Erdogan said a decision on Tuesday by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a leading human rights body, to put Turkey on a watch list was “entirely political” and Ankara did not recognize the move.

He said he was ready to take the question of EU accession to a referendum and that Turkey could not wait indefinitely after 54 years at the door.

“In Europe, things have become very serious in terms of the extent of Islamophobia. The EU is closing its doors on Turkey and Turkey is not closing its doors on anybody,” Erdogan said in an interview at the presidential palace in Ankara.

“If they are not acting sincerely we have to find a way out. Why should we wait any longer? We are talking about 54 years,” he said.

“The UK asked her people and they voted for Brexit … They have peace of mind, they are walking towards a new future, and the same thing was conducted by Norway … and the same thing can be applied for Turkey too.”

It is a critical week for Turkish-EU relations. EU lawmakers will debate ties on Wednesday, while the bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss the issue on Friday and EU leaders are expected to exchange views at a meeting on Brexit on Saturday.

Erdogan said he would be closely watching.

“I am very curious as to how the EU is going to act vis-a-vis this last (PACE) resolution,” he said, criticizing EU member states that have called for an end to accession talks.

He said Turkey was still committed to negotiations.

“There is not a single thing that we are not ready to do, the minute they ask for it. Whatever they wish, we do. But still they are keeping us at the door,” he said.

Erdogan pointed to the French presidential election, in which far-right leader Marine Le Pen has threatened to take France out of the European Union, and said the bloc was “on the verge of dissolution, of breaking up.”

“One or two countries cannot keep the EU alive. You need a country like Turkey, a different country symbolizing a different faith, this would make them very strong,” he said.

“But the EU member states don’t seem to realize this fact. They are finding it very difficult to absorb a Muslim country like Turkey.”

(Reporting by Samia Nakhoul, Nick Tattersall and Orhan Coskun; Writing by Nick Tattersall and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Dominic Evans)