US govt shuts down over immigration impasse

Agencies

January 20, 2018

The United States government shut down on Saturday, after members of Congress failed to reach an agreement on the divisive issue of immigration and government spending.

In a late-night vote, opposition Democrats in the Senate joined to block a bill that would have kept the government running for another four weeks.

The shutdown comes exactly a year after Donald Trump took his oath as US president.

On social media, Trump lashed out at the opposition for the impasse, saying the Democrats "want a shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the tax cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy".

In a separate statement, the White House Press Secretary called Democrats "obstructionist losers, not legislators".

Just a few hours earlier, the president had praised the Senate's Democrat leader Charles Schumer for an "excellent preliminary meeting" to avert the shutdown.

Democrats had tried to get concessions from Republicans, particularly on the extension of the immigration programme protecting young immigrants from deportation, which is set to expire in March.

Saturday's shutdown is only the fourth government closure in 25 years.

Essential government offices and services including the military, the border patrol, air traffic controllers and the FBI, however, will remain in operation until there's an agreement.

"It's not as if the public is going to see a massive impact right away," Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from the capital Washington, DC, said.

"But it is politically damaging, and that is what we are seeing from the statement from the press secretary," Culhane said.

Culhane said that senators are still working on an alternative agreement. But even if a deal is reached, it would still need to pass in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Until then, the shutdown continues.

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Cut all ties with Israel and impose arms, trade embargo; history will record our action: Iran to Muslim countries

News Network

May 5,2024

Iran has urged Muslim countries to cut all relations with the Israeli regime as means of pressuring Tel Aviv to end its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks on Saturday, addressing the 15th Heads of State and Government Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Gambia’s capital Banjul.

“Beyond doubt, this time period will also pass by, despite all its hardships and adversities for the Palestinian nation,” he said.

“However, the manner and quality of the role that is played by us, Muslim states, in the face of this crisis will go down in history,” the top diplomat added.

“Undoubtedly, severance of diplomatic and economic ties and [imposition of] practical arms and trade embargo [on Israel] serves as an important means of cessation of its genocide in Gaza and atrocities in the West Bank and the Noble al-Quds.”

At least 34,654 people have died in Gaza since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the war in response to al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

Despite the unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction, the regime has so far fallen short of realizing its goals, including defeating Gaza’s resistance, causing forced displacement of the territory’s entire population to neighboring Egypt, and enabling the release of those who were taken captive during al-Aqsa Storm.

Amir-Abdollahian said Gaza’s developments proved that elimination of the Palestinian resistance “was nothing but an illusion.”

“Because the Israeli regime is not a legitimate government. It is only an occupying apartheid power,” he said, adding, “Passage of time is not going to lend legitimacy to an occupying power.”

The foreign minister asserted that realization of sustainable peace and security in the region was only possible through cessation of the regime’s occupation of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and manifestation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

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