Texas abortion: US appeals court reinstates near total ban - BBC News

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A US appeals court has temporarily reinstated Texas's near total ban on abortions.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that an injunction imposed against the law be lifted.

On Wednesday, a lower court had temporarily blocked the bill for the "offensive deprivation" of the constitutional right to an abortion.

The restrictive law bans all abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy.

It gives any individual the right to sue anyone involved with providing or facilitating an abortion after foetal cardiac activity is detected, and makes no exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

On Wednesday District Judge Robert Pitman granted a request by the Biden administration to prevent enforcement of the law while its legality was being challenged. He held that women had been "unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution".

However, Texas officials immediately appealed against the ruling, which the New Orleans-based, conservative-leaning Fifth Circuit court has agreed to set aside. It ordered the justice department to respond to its ruling by Tuesday.

In a statement following the latest ruling, Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, called on the Supreme Court to "step in and stop this madness".

"Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear, and this cruel law is falling hardest on those who already face discriminatory obstacles in health care, especially Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour, undocumented immigrants, young people, those struggling to make ends meet, and those in rural areas," she said.

"The courts have an obligation to block laws that violate fundamental rights."

Meanwhile, Attorney General Ken Paxton said the court's decision was "great news" and added that he would "continue to fight to keep Texas free from federal overreach".

The dispute over the law could ultimately end up before the US Supreme Court, which in September declined to hear an emergency case filed in a last-minute bid to prevent the ban passing into law.

Several clinics in Texas had resumed providing abortions to patients who were beyond the six-week limit following Wednesday's order.

They may now face some legal risk, as the law includes a provision that says clinics and doctors may still be liable for abortions carried out while an emergency injunction is in place, legal experts say.

However, it is unclear whether such a provision can be enforced, with Judge Pittman saying in his ruling that it is "of questionable legality".

Some women have reportedly been travelling to other states where the procedure is legal.

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2021-10-09 06:38:07Z
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Dozens dead in bomb attack on mosque in Afghanistan - BBC News - BBC News

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2021-10-08 21:17:44Z
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Afghanistan: At least 46 killed in suicide bombing at Kunduz mosque - Sky News

At least 46 people have been killed and more than 140 wounded after a suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Afghanistan's northeastern Kunduz province, a state-run news agency has reported.

Photos from the scene show bodies and bloodstains surrounded by rubble inside the mosque.

Rescuers could be seen carrying bodies wrapped in blankets from the building.

Image: Blood stains the compound outside the mosque. Pic: AP

The bomb went off during the weekly Friday prayer service at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque while the venue was packed with worshippers.

Islamic State said it carried out the attack in a message on encrypted messaging app Telegram.

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The Bakhtar News Agency, which is run by the ministry of information, reported that 46 people were killed in the blast and 143 wounded.

"This afternoon, an explosion took place in a mosque of our Shiite compatriots...as a result of which a number of our compatriots were martyred and wounded," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter.

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He said Taliban special forces had arrived at the scene and were investigating.

The deputy police chief for Kunduz province, Dost Mohammad Obaida, said the "majority of them (the victims) have been killed".

He said the attack was likely carried out by a suicide bomber who had mingled among worshippers inside the mosque.

Hussaindad Rezayee, a local resident, rushed to the mosque as soon as he heard the explosion.

"I was busy at home doing construction work, and when the prayers started, the explosion happened," he told the Associated Press. "I came to look for my relatives, the mosque was full."

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2021-10-08 15:51:32Z
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South China Sea: US submarine collides with unknown object - BBC News

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A US nuclear submarine hit an "unknown object" while submerged in waters in the Asia-Pacific region, injuring a number of sailors, US officials say.

It was not clear what caused the incident on Saturday, they said. The submarine remained "fully operational".

Unnamed officials told US media the collision happened in international waters in the South China Sea, and that 11 sailors had been injured.

The incident happened amid rising tensions in the region.

The US Navy said the extent of the damage was still being assessed and that the submarine's nuclear propulsion plant and spaces had not been affected.

The statement did not give details about where the incident took place or the number of people hurt, saying only that the injuries were not "life threatening".

But two officials quoted by the Associated Press said two of the 11 sailors that were hurt had injuries that were classified as "moderate". All of them were treated on board the submarine.

Those officials said the incident took place while the submarine was conducting routine operations and that the Navy did not make the news public before Thursday in order to maintain operational security.

According to AP, the officials said the object the USS Connecticut collided with was not another submarine. One of the officials quoted by the agency said it could have been a sunken vessel or container, or other uncharted object.

Alexander Neill, a Singapore-based defence and security expert, told the BBC the number of injuries caused by the collision suggested the submarine probably "hit something big" and was "going really fast".

The incident, he said, was "uncommon but not unheard of" and had exposed how busy the area was with military activities.

"The South China Sea has been increasingly saturated with naval vessels from a number of different countries. While there's been a lot of show of force by surface vessels you don't see the level of activity under the surface," Mr Neill said.

In comments reported by Chinese state-run daily Global Times, a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs said China was "seriously concerned" about the incident, calling on the US to provide further details, including the purpose of the mission.

The submarine was later reported to be heading towards the US territory of Guam.

USNI News, a site specialised in the US Navy, said the last known incident where a submerged US submarine struck another underwater object was in 2005, when the USS San Francisco hit an underwater mountain at full speed near Guam. One sailor died in the incident.

Why is the South China Sea so contentious?

The USS Connecticut was operating in one of the most contested regions in the world. China claims most of the South China Sea, but surrounding countries and the US disagree.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have all been disputing China's claim to almost all of the Sea for decades but tension steadily increased in recent years.

The US has backed many of these countries in this territorial dispute.

The incident comes just weeks after the US, UK and Australia agreed a historic security pact in the Asia-Pacific, in what's seen as an effort to counter China.

Meanwhile, the US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, told the BBC he was "deeply concerned" about actions that undermine peace across the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan and China.

He was speaking after China sent a record number of military jets into Taiwan's air defence zone for the fourth day running.

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2021-10-08 10:01:45Z
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Ireland signs up to global corporate tax deal - Financial Times

Ireland has finally abandoned its cherished 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate and signed up to a minimum 15 per cent global rate that will cost the country about €2bn in lost revenues.

Paschal Donohoe, finance minister, told the Financial Times big businesses could rest assured no more changes would follow the “very, very significant” shift from what had been a cornerstone of Irish policy for more than two decades.

The new tax rate will affect 1,556 companies in Ireland employing 500,000 people, among them US tech giants such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. Ireland now joins 140 countries in agreeing to the effective levy of 15 per cent on major multinationals ahead of a meeting of the OECD on Friday.

The deal came after Dublin persuaded the OECD to ditch a commitment to a global rate of “at least 15 per cent”.

For smaller, domestic companies with a turnover of less than €750m, Donohoe secured approval from other nations to keep the 12.5 per cent rate — a concession he admitted he had “many” times been unsure he could clinch.

“I believe that change will be right for Ireland and I believe it is also right for Ireland to be playing a positive role in implementing what I believe will be an important agreement,” he said in an interview, adding the deal provided “certainty and stability”.

Asked if the new rate would remain forever, he said: “I can’t see in my lifetime this kind of circumstances developing again . . . 15 will mean 15.”

The meeting in Paris on Friday was expected to agree the framework deal but many details would not be hammered out until early next year, he said — not least how much tax companies will pay in the countries where they operate but are not necessarily located, the so-called Pillar One.

EU members Estonia and Hungary are among lingering holdouts. The EU needs unanimous support from its 27 member states for the agreement.

US President Joe Biden and Janet Yellen, Treasury secretary, are on board but face the challenge of getting the deal through the US Congress since Biden has only a tiny majority in the Senate.

“We’re all depending on each other to be able to implement this collectively and comprehensively,” Donohoe said.

But he added: “I have enough confidence now that this is going to happen globally for me to believe that it’s appropriate that Ireland go into it now.”

High-tech companies have accounted for the bulk of Ireland’s €5bn to €7bn a year foreign direct investment over the past five years.

Karen Frawley, president of the Irish Tax Institute, said Ireland “didn’t want to be in a position where its reputation was very damaged — not signing up would have made us seem to be almost like a tax haven”.

Despite factoring the prospect of a 15 per cent rate into his budget sums since 2019, Donohoe admitted that “at may points I have thought that it is very possible that the entire process itself wouldn’t conclude or Ireland would not be able to get assurances for the changes we needed”.

Dublin worked on the basis that both scenarios — a deal, or no deal — could translate into a loss of revenue. Nevertheless, “it has been evident to me that this moment would be coming”, Donohoe said.

An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll found 59 per cent of respondents opposed increasing the corporate tax rate but Mark Redmond, chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland, “warmly welcomed” the announcement.

“The revised agreement ensures essential predictability, stability and certainty for multinational employers,” he said. US FDI in Ireland accounts for about a fifth of private sector jobs.

The new global tax rate is expected to take effect from 2023 and the government estimates it will cost Ireland up to €2bn in coming years.

Donohoe said the estimate of the loss was based on companies paying a smaller share of their overall taxes in Ireland, offset by a higher rate.

In the absence of further detail at this stage “we believe there will be a net overall loss of €2bn in the medium term,” he later told a news conference.

Donohoe added it was important to be inside the deal because otherwise other countries would have collected the difference between the 12.5 per cent and 15 per cent rates.

Some also suggested the move could be positive, not negative, for Irish government coffers.

“Under the proposals, these large corporates would have been paying this additional tax anyway, irrespective of whether Ireland signed up to the deal, as the tax would be collected by other countries. At 15 per cent, Ireland still remains a very attractive location for foreign direct investment,” said Tom Woods, head of tax at KPMG. “The changes should also yield additional gains to the exchequer,” he said in a statement.

Feargal O’Rourke, managing partner at PwC, said the deal could in fact end up being positive for Ireland. The country stands to lose about €2.5bn under Pillar One. “If we increase our rate to 15 per cent on those big global companies affected by the OECD deal, we could gain about €2bn,” he said.

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2021-10-07 17:03:49Z
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US senators agree to extend debt ceiling to avoid default - BBC News

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Senators in the United States have agreed to extend the country's debt ceiling, less than two weeks before it was due to be reached.

A debt ceiling is a limit on how much the government can borrow.

There were fears that the US would default on its national debt, with catastrophic financial implications.

But Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer said Congress had reached a deal to extend the debt ceiling until early December.

Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said: "Republican and Democratic members and staff negotiated through the night in good faith."

The temporary debt compromise will need to be passed by both chambers of Congress.

• Is the US about to overshoot its debt limit?

The agreement comes less than two weeks before 18 October, the day the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned was the deadline to prevent the first ever US default.

The US debt currently stands at around $28tn (£21tn).

Congress will still have to address this issue near the new December deadline to avert a default.

Failure by the US to repay its bill would severely hurt the country's credit rating, plunge the global financial system into turmoil, and possibly lead to a self-inflicted recession.

Lawmakers also kicked another can down the road last week when they passed a separate short-term bill to keep the government funded until December, avoiding a shutdown.

• Can the US avoid another government shutdown?

Both together create the potential for a logjam of legislation and a new round of headaches right around the holidays.

What is the debt ceiling?

The US government spends more money than it collects in taxes, so it borrows to make up for the shortfall.

Borrowing is done via the US Treasury, through the issuing of bonds. US government bonds are seen as among the world's safest and most reliable investments.

In 1939, Congress established an aggregate limit or "ceiling" on how much debt the government can accumulate.

The ceiling has been lifted on more than 100 occasions to allow the government to borrow more. Congress often acts on it in a bipartisan manner and it is rarely the subject of a political standoff.

But some Republicans have voiced frustration around new spending proposals that Democrats are trying to push through without Republican support.

Democrats have pointed out that raising the debt ceiling is about paying off existing obligations rather than paying for new ones, and that President Joe Biden's policies have only contributed to 3% of existing debts.

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2021-10-07 16:36:23Z
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Texas abortion law temporarily blocked by judge - BBC News - BBC News

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2021-10-07 09:50:48Z
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