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Congress faces agenda filled with front-burner issues BY ROSALIND S. HELDERMAN Washington Post Service
The U.S. Congress returns to Washington this week to confront some of the most substantive and politically nettlesome issues lawmakers will face between now and the November election. Unless Congress acts, the interest rate on federally subsidized student loans will jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, raising the cost of college for millions of students. On the same day, without congressional intervention, a shortterm measure funding the nation’s highway and bridge-building program will also expire, forcing construction workers off the job. Lawmakers will have two short weeks to set aside partisan rhetoric and maneuvers on both issues and find compromises — or face consequences of their inaction that could affect both parties with a major election just four months away. And in the midst of those two debates will come a highly anticipated ruling from the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Whatever the court decides, the ruling probably will spike the partisan tensions and consume Capitol Hill’s attention for days, making deals on other issues even more difficult to achieve. Trying to get ahead of the ticking clock, a conference committee of senators and House members has been negotiating for weeks to come up with a compromise over a $109 billion two-year highway funding bill. The talks continued last week, even as the House was out of town on a one-week recess. With the House’s return Monday, negotiations will restart in earnest. The tone of the discussions has so far fluctuated between conciliatory and confrontational. A key sticking point that remains is whether the bill will include language included in House measures to lure conservative votes that would require the White House to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in Nebraska. The negotiations appeared to take a turn for the worse last week, as Senate Democrats rallied with union workers in front of earthmovers just outside the Capitol and lead negotiator Barbara Boxer declared that House Republicans were “standing in the way of • TURN TO CONGRESS, 2A
INTERNATIONAL EDITION
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2012
109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
Egypt military softens tone as vote count favors Islamist BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
New York Times Service
CAIRO — Faced with the popular election of the first Islamist head of state in the Arab world, Egypt’s ruling generals sought on Monday to soften the appearance of their supreme authority as they entered a period of negotiations with the prospective president over the balance of executive, legislative and military power. In a two-hour news conference, members of the ruling military council made no reference to the election results, which by early morning showed that Mohamed
Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood had defeated Ahmed Shafik, a former Air Force general and Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, in the runoff to choose Egypt’s first democratically elected president. The ballots were counted in front of television cameras and party observers in polling places around the country to prevent fraud, and independent observers concluded that Morsi had won by a margin of about four percentage points, or about a million votes. The election officials will not formally confirm the results until later in the week, however, and
Ahmed Sarhan, a spokesman for Shafik, insisted on Monday that the general was the true winner and the Brotherhood had “terrorized” voters. He offered no evidence, and both the state-run and unofficial media reported that Morsi had a decisive lead in the vote count. The ruling generals had stunned Egyptians on the eve of the vote by dissolving the Brotherhood-dominated Parliament and claiming all legislative power for themselves in an apparent attempt to foreclose the possibility that Islamists could con-
trol both the presidency and the legislature. Though they acted under the veneer of a court ruling rushed out last week by a panel of Mubarak-appointed judges, the power grab erased their promise to turn over all power to elected civilians by the end of this month, and both liberals and Islamists denounced the move as a military coup. The court ruling dispirited Brotherhood supporters, energized Shafik’s backers, and led many Egyptians to expect that • TURN TO EGYPT, 2A
In Greece, Samaras moves to form pro-bailout government BY HOWARD SCHNEIDER
Washington Post Service
ATHENS — The winner of the Greek elections moved on Monday to build a governing coalition for this fractured state, as rising Spanish interest rates offered a stark reminder that the worst may still not be over for the eurozone. Antonis Samaras, whose New Democracy party garnered about 30 percent of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary ballot, was urged by President Karolos Papoulias to form a government quickly to respond to the country’s economic crisis and start to repair frayed relations with international bailout lenders. “The country cannot stay not even one hour without a government,” Papoulias said after presenting Samaras with a mandate that will give him several days to form a new coalition. Samaras was given a similar mandate after a May 6 vote, but the outcome of that election was so divided neither he or other top finishers were able to form a government. Final results in this round of voting gave Samaras’ party 129 seats in the Greece’s 300-person assembly. A possible alliance with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement would be enough to form a majority, and talks were expected to proceed Monday afternoon. The two parties are rivals, but both have endorsed the bailout package that is keeping Greece afloat, with hundreds of billions of dollars in international loans given in return for a strict set of budget cuts and other economic steps. The second-place Syriza party, which opposes the bailout terms and had threatened to tear up the agreement and possibly lead Greece away from the eurozone, has said it will not join the government. A decision by Greece to leave the currency union could set off
Top, leader of the New Democracy party, Antonis Samaras, right, welcomes Democratic Left party leader Fotis Kouvelis prior to their meeting at the Greek Parliament. At left, Samaras meets with Evangelos Venizelos, leader of Pasok.
PHOTOS BY FRANKLIN REYES/AP
dangerous ripple effects with investors suspecting that other struggling European countries, such as Italy and Spain, also might
not be able to meet their obliga- the disbanding of the currency tions. The result could have been union and economic chaos. a series of domino-like exits from the eurozone, ultimately causing • TURN TO GREECE, 2A
Much tension but little progress made at Iranian nuclear talks of the U.N. Security Council — as described Monday’s talks as “inwell as Germany. tense and tough.” In an afternoon MOSCOW — A tense first day Catherine Ashton, the European session, Iranian negotiators picked of talks between Iran and six world Union’s top foreign policy official, apart the proposed benefits that powers broke no new ground Mon- who is the lead negotiator with Iran, the council first offered last month, day evening, holding out little hope that the negotiations would defuse the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran has said it will stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity in return for a weighty political message: an acknowledgment from the international community that it has the right to enrich uranium. It is also hoping for the rollback of tough sanctions by the European Union and United States due to come into effect in the coming weeks, action that will further isolate Tehran from world oil and banking markets. But it received no such assurances from the six world powers, which include the United States, NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE FILE Russia, China, France and Britain — the five permanent members Workers at the Iranian nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz. BY ELLEN BARRY
New York Times Service
BASEBALL’S ROGER CLEMENS ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES, 3A
HAMAS FACTIONS’ REVERSAL OF ROLES ROOTED IN ARAB SPRING, 6A
G20 MEETS IN A MEXICO THAT IS OUTPACING BRAZIL, BUSINESS FRONT
including parts for old U.S. civilian aircraft and fuel for an Iranian nuclear reactor, with the promise of more sanctions relief in return for specific Iranian actions to come into compliance over time. “They responded to our package of proposals from Baghdad, but, in doing so, brought up lots of questions and well-known positions, including past grievances,” said Ashton’s spokesman, Michael Mann. He said the two sides had “agreed to reflect overnight” and meet one more time Tuesday before declaring the Moscow talks finished. The talks appeared rocky early in the day, when an Iranian diplomat described the atmosphere as “not positive” and said the Iranian side might even conclude Monday, a day earlier than expected. Throughout the day, diplomats were unusually tight-lipped about the process, further heightening the tense mood. But the Iranian assessment brightened by evening, when Ali Bagh-
SPAIN, ITALY ADVANCE TO EURO QUARTERFINALS, SPORTS FRONT
eri, deputy chief of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the discussion had been “very serious and constructive.” A breakdown in the talks would increase the risk of a new war in the Middle East, after months of tension over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Iran is in violation of Security Council resolutions demanding that it suspend enrichment and has failed to ease concerns that its nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb, a charge Iran denies. “We all have to remember what we are doing here,” said a Western official shortly before the talks began, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks. “The international community’s concern is to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. That is what it is fundamentally about.” • TURN TO IRAN, 2A
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