Page 87 - United States

Trump pauses all US foreign aid for 90 days; orders review; NGOs decry move

Donald Trump's directive, which halts all non-military foreign assistance for 90 days pending a review, has sparked widespread concern among humanitarian organisations

Trump should rethink revoking ex-officials' security details: Tom Cotton

President Donald Trump should rethink his decision to remove security details from three former senior national security officials, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday. That protection is not just for them, but also the public, said Sen. Tom Cotton, a Trump loyalist who nonetheless is pushing back against the president's targeting of those he perceived as adversaries. Cotton said a president needs to keep qualified individuals interested in serving the White House and that may sometimes require enhanced security for officials. The Arkansas senator said he would encourage Trump to revisit the decision for those people former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, a former senior policy adviser to Pompeo. All were involved in planning and discussions of the deadly drone strike on Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. The threat to anyone involved in President Trump's strike on Qasem Soleimani is .

CIA suspects Covid originated from a lab but lacks confidence in finding

The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment released Saturday that points the finger at China even while acknowledging that the spy agency has low confidence in its own conclusion. The finding is not the result of any new intelligence, and the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. It was declassified and released Saturday on the orders of President Donald Trump's pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director. The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency's assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory. Earlier reports on the origins of COVID-19 have split over whether the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, ...

US mission in India 'reviewing' foreign aid after Trump's executive order

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly ordered an immediate halt to work on virtually all existing foreign aid programmes pending a review

Trump believes US will get Greenland after Danish PM denied it earlier

Insisting that Greenland needs to be part of the US, President Donald Trump has said that it would be an "unfriendly act" on the part of Denmark if they did not let this happen. Greenland, which is under the control of Denmark, is the world's largest island. I think we're going to have it (Greenland). I think the people want to be with us. As you know, there's 55,000 people there. They want to be with us, Trump told reporters on Saturday. Trump's comments come after reports that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen insisted Greenland was not for sale in a fiery phone call with the US president last week. I don't really know what claim Denmark has to but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn't allow that to happen because it's for protection of the free world. It's not for us. It's for the free world right now, Trump said in response to a question. Trump said that the people of Greenland don't like the way they've been treated by Denmark. You have Russian ships; you ha

We join them in recognising enduring significance: US wishes India on R-Day

US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a statement, said the India-US relationship continues to reach new heights and will be the defining relationship of the 21st century

US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine, says President Zelenskyy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday the US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after newly sworn in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would pause foreign aid grants for 90 days. Zelenskyy did not clarify whether humanitarian aid had been paused. Ukraine relies on the US for 40% of its military needs. I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God, he said at a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu. The two leaders met in Kyiv on Saturday to discuss the energy needs of Moldova's Russian-occupied Transnistria region, which saw its natural gas supplies halted on Jan 1 due to Ukraine's decision to stop Russian gas transit. Ukraine has said it can offer coal to the Transnistrian authorities to make up for the shortfall. The future of US aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office. The American leader has repeatedly said he wouldn't have allowed Russia's invasion of Ukraine t

State Department halts new funding for nearly all US aid programmes

The State Department has frozen new funding for almost all US foreign assistance, making exceptions to allow humanitarian food programmes and military aid to Israel and Egypt to continue. The sweeping order threatened a quick halt to countless projects globally aiding health, education, development, job training and other efforts by the United States, the largest provide of foreign aid. It appears to begin enforcement of a pledge to eliminate aid programs that President Donald Trump judges not to be in US interests. The order sent in a cable to US embassies worldwide and obtained by The Associated Press prohibits new government spending, which appears to limit programs to running only as long as they have cash on hand. Some leading aid organizations on Friday were interpreting the directive as an immediate stop-work order for US-funded aid work globally, a senior aid organization official said. Many would likely cease operations immediately so as not to incur more costs, the ...

India sees 2nd-highest mobile downloads of GenAI apps in 2024, shows data

The country saw downloads of GenAI apps hit 177 million in CY24, accounting for 11.8 per cent share of total global downloads at 1,490 million

Essar Group to invest $650 mn more in US steel plant: Prashant Ruia

Company to focus on energy, metals and mining, infrastructure and technology in India, he says

US business activity at 9-month low in January; hiring accelerates

S&P Global said on Friday that its flash US Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, declined to 52.4 this month

US will let sanctioned Russian oil tankers offload by Feb 27: Oil Secy

India became the top buyer of Russian sea-borne oil sold at a discount after Western nations imposed sanctions on Moscow

Trump signs executive order to declassify JFK, RFK, MLK assassination files

Donald Trump's executive order directs the director of national intelligence and the attorney general, once confirmed, to devise a plan within 15 days to release the remaining JFK files

WHO chief plans cost cuts, revised priorities after US exit, document shows

The United States is by far the WHO's biggest financial backer, contributing around 18% of its overall funding. WHO's most recent two-year budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8 billion

Putin ready to speak to Trump, wants to start nuclear cuts talks: Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also made clear he wants to restart nuclear arms cuts talks as soon as possible

US lawmaker condemns policy for 'ageing out' children of H-1B visa holders

A powerful US lawmaker has criticised the policy affecting children of H-1B visa holders who "age out" their immigration status upon turning 21. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China. Children of H-1B visa holders who turn 21 before their parent secures a Green Card can lose their dependent status and age out of the ability to obtain a permanent resident card. A Green Card allows a non-US citizen to live and work permanently in America. The extensive Green Card backlogs for high-skilled workers mean that H-1B visa holders must wait decades and even centuries before a Green Card is available to them, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, senior Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, said during a Congressional hearing on restoring ..

US lawmakers introduce bill to repeal China's preferential trade status

China is the US's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade hitting a record $690.6 billion in 2022

Indian man gets 30-month prison term in US for customs duty evasion

An Indian man who ran jewellery companies in New York has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for evading customs duty for importing jewellery worth more than USD 13.5 million and for illegally processing over USD 10.3 million through an unlicensed money transmitting business, a US attorney said. Acting US Attorney Vikas Khanna said Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah (4O) of Mumbai and Jersey City, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before US District Judge Esther Salas to a two-count information, charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and operating and aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business. In addition to the prison term, the judge ordered restitution in the amount of USD 742,500 for the wire fraud scheme and forfeiture of USD 11,126,982.33 for the wire fraud and unlicensed money transmitting schemes. Additionally, the court imposed a two-year term of supervised release. According to court documents, from around December 2019

On immigration, India has good reason to help shore up Donald Trump's wall

US leaders might be surprised at how unbothered most Indians or even Indian Americans are likely to be about the proposed repatriations

Trump signs executive order on developing AI 'free from ideological bias'

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order on artificial intelligence that will revoke past government policies his order says act as barriers to American AI innovation." To maintain global leadership in AI technology, "we must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas, the order says. The new order doesn't name which existing policies are hindering AI development but calls for the development of an AI action plan within 180 days. Just hours after returning to the White House on Monday, Trump repealed former President Joe Biden's guardrails for fast-developing AI technology, a sweeping executive order signed in 2023. Until Thursday, it wasn't clear if Trump planned to replace Biden's signature AI policy with his own order. Trump had also signed executive orders on AI in his previous term, which are still on the books. Much of Biden's 2023 order set in motion a sprint across government agencies to study's AI impact on everything f