Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Tales from the Trail:
Nobel award to Obama required lengthy U.S. Constitution check
When President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last October it caught most by surprise and sent his lawyers scurrying to quietly make sure that the president could receive the prestigious award without running afoul with the U.S. Constitution or federal law.
A provision in the Constitution, known as the Emoluments Clause, bars the receipt of any present, emolument, office or title of any kind from a "King, Prince or foreign State". When the Nobel prize was established more than a century ago, Alfred Nobel's will specified that the recipient of the peace award was to be chosen by a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian parliament known as the Storting.
However, Justice Department lawyers told the White House in a 13-page legal memorandum -- sent to the White House counsel last December and released late Thursday -- that the U.S. Constitution and federal law did not bar Obama from receiving the prize.
The memo went through various legal arguments, such as whether congressional approval was needed -- no was the answer -- and the level of involvement by the Norwegian government in the selection process. The lawyers determined that the Storting had "no meaningful role" in selecting the prize recipients or funding the $1.4 million award.
‘Dinnergate’ perks up German campaign
The German election campaign has so far lacked the riveting debates and explosive issues to which voters were treated in previous battles for power, perhaps because Chancellor Angela Merkel and her rival, Vice-Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier, have worked together in the same “grand coalition” government for the past four years and neither party seems especially eager to rock the boat.
Filling the void have been several somewhat bizarre little scandals that each side has tried to use to tarnish the other, taking pot shots without resorting to full firepower. They are, after all, partners in power.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan’s chief justice reinstated
Two years after Iftikhar Chaudhry was first sacked by then President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan government officials said he would be reinstated as Chief Justice after a nationwide protest led by Pakistan's lawyers.
It's been a rollercoaster ride. After he was removed by Musharraf, Chaudhry was reinstated only to be sacked again and placed under house arrest along with many other lawyers when the former general declared emergency rule in November 2007. At the time, Pakistani lawyer/politician Aitzaz Ahsan wrote in an editorial in the New York Times that the leaders of the lawyers movement "will neither be silent nor still". But he also fretted that the lawyers' movement would be ignored by the United States and overlooked by the forthcoming election.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan’s “long march” in the streets and on the Internet
Pakistani authorities banned public protests and detained hundreds of lawyers and opposition workers nationwide to prevent them from launching Thursday's planned "long march" towards the capital Islamabad to force President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate a former Supreme Court judge.
Many went into hiding according to these reports, vowing to press on with the cross-country motor convoy that will set off from cities in Baluchistan and Sind and then Puinjab on Friday before culminating outside the parliament building in the capital.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan: has it reached the edge of the precipice?
Maybe this always happens at times of national upheaval. But there is a surprising disconnect between the immediacy of the crisis facing Pakistan as expressed by Pakistani bloggers and the more slow-moving debate taking place in the outside world over the right strategy to adopt towards both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Reading Pakistani blogs since confrontation between the country's two main political parties exploded and comparing them to international commentaries is a bit like watching men shout that their house is on fire, and then panning over to the fire station where the folks in charge are debating which type of water hose works best.
