Word: agreements
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...bipartisan agreement may have resuscitated legislation that would extend federal student aid to some illegal aliens, according to media reports. “On immigration, there’s been an agreement between [President-elect Barack] Obama and [Senator John] McCain to move forward on that,” Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said in an interview with the Gannett News Service last weekend. Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, has pushed the Senate to enact comprehensive immigration reform in recent years. Last June, amid a fevered debate and nation-wide protests, the Senate failed to pass a massive immigration...
...riveting episode of political theater, Iraqi legislators dealt a blow to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday when the stony-faced Speaker of the National Assembly postponed a crucial vote on the Status of Forces Agreement with Washington that would send home American troops...
...Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) has deeply divided Iraq's political factions. Proponents of the pact, led by Maliki's Shi'ite bloc and its Kurdish allies, emphasize that it reflects the fact that the Iraqi government has forced Washington to accept hard deadlines for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and to make other concessions. Nationalist opponents led by firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr reject the agreement in principle, because it gives an Iraqi stamp of approval to the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which is currently authorized by the U.N. Security Council. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc, meanwhile, does...
...Maliki and his allies have the numbers to push SOFA through the parliament, but without overwhelming Sunni approval, the agreement would be tainted by its lack of national consensus. And so, the frenetic horse-trading over the security agreement has become a game of brinkmanship. On Wednesday, the prime minister personally lobbied recalcitrant parliamentarians at the nearby Rasheed Hotel, in exchanges that degenerated into fiery rows, according to a Maliki aide who was present...
...National Assembly rejects the agreement or fails to vote on it, the Iraqis would have to ask the U.N to extend its mandate. Such a request would have to be lodged with the Security Council before Dec. 15, according to Ali al-Adeeb, a parliamentary member of Maliki's Dawa Party. That's an option Maliki has all but ruled out, and is strenuously working to avoid, but the clock is ticking. "The government wasted a lot of time, hundreds of days on this agreement, and left us with less than two weeks to debate it," said al-Karboole...