Page 38 - Us Government

US contemplates more Iran sanctions; Israel war cabinet to meet again

An Israeli government source said the war cabinet session scheduled for Tuesday had been put off until Wednesday, without elaborating

US mulling options 'both inside and outside the UN' to monitor N Korea

The United States and its allies are discussing options both inside and outside the UN system to create a new mechanism for monitoring North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme, the American ambassador to the United Nations said on Wednesday. Russia last month vetoed a UN resolution in a move that effectively abolished monitoring by UN experts of Security Council sanctions against North Korea, which prompted Western accusations that Moscow was acting to shield its arms purchases from North Korea to fuel its war in Ukraine. I look forward to engaging with both the Republic of Korea and Japan, but like-minded (countries) as well, on trying to develop options both inside the UN as well as outside the UN. The point here is that we cannot allow the work that the panel of experts were doing to lapse, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a news conference in Seoul, using the formal name for South Korea. Thomas-Greenfield didn't provide specific details about US discussions with

Bob Graham, two-term former US senator and Florida governor, dies at 87

Former US Sen. and two-term Florida Gov. Bob Graham, who gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks and as an early critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 87. Graham's family announced the death on Tuesday in a statement posted on X by his daughter Gwen Graham. We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, dedicated public servant, and even more importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, the family said. Graham, who served three terms in the Senate, made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasising his opposition to the Iraq invasion. But his bid was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003, and he was never able to gain enough traction with voters to catch up, bowing out that October. He didn't seek reelection in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martinez. Graham was a man of many quirks. He perfected the

US court rejects request by tribes to block $10 bn project in Arizona

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a request by Native American tribes and environmentalists to stop work on a USD 10 billion transmission line being built through a remote southeastern Arizona valley that will carry wind-generated electricity from New Mexico to customers as far away as California. The project approved in 2015 following a lengthy review has been touted as the biggest US electricity infrastructure undertaking since the Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s. Two tribes joined with archaeologists and environmentalists in filing a lawsuit in January, accusing the US Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management of refusing for nearly 15 years to recognise overwhelming evidence of the cultural significance of the remote San Pedro Valley to Native American tribes including the Tohono O'odham, Hopi, Zuni and San Carlos Apache Tribe. The suit was filed after Pattern Energy received approval to transmit electricity generated by its SunZia wind farm in central New Mexico .

India's growth dependent on global interdependence: Ex-US trade official

: The current China situation presents an opportunity to be an alternative or additional node in global supply chains, a former US trade official said Tuesday and asserted that India's economic prosperity will be driven by its global interdependence in increasing trade and investments into and from India, helping drive job creation, GDP growth and prosperity. The former official said as India becomes the third largest economy in nominal GDP and as the Indian middle class grows to become larger and with higher incomes, it will emerge as a significant market for US and global businesses. India's productive capacity will similarly find enhanced ways to serve global demand as we already see in technology, he said. India is a beneficiary of globalisation. Its economic prosperity will be driven by its global interdependence, in increasing trade and investments into and from India, helping drive job creation, GDP growth and prosperity. Today the global supply chain situation works in ...

Parts of Central US hit by storms, tornadoes strike in Kansas, Iowa

Strong storms caused damage in parts of the middle U.S. Tuesday and spawned tornadoes in Kansas and Iowa, including one that left two people hurt. An EF-1 tornado touched down shortly after 6 a.m. near the northeastern Kansas town of Richland, the National Weather Service said. The twister reached speeds of up to 100 mph (161 kph) and was on the ground for about 20 minutes, the service said. Two people were injured when their RV flipped over during the tornado. Details about the injuries were not immediately available. Buildings and trees also were damaged in the neighbouring town of Overbrook. In central Iowa, a barn was demolished and other buildings were damaged after a tornado touched down in a rural area of Dallas County. The weather service also reported ping pong ball-sized hail in Bloomfield, just north of the Missouri line. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The weather service said the central U.S. was under threat of severe weather through Tuesday. Thunderstorm

US house committee accuses China of fuelling fentanyl crisis in country

China is fuelling the fentanyl crisis in the US by directly subsidising the manufacturing of materials that are used by traffickers to make the drug outside the country, according to a report released Tuesday by a special House committee focused on countering the Chinese government. Committee investigators said they accessed a government website that revealed tax rebates for the production of specific fentanyl precursors as well as other synthetic drugs as long as those companies sell them outside of China. Through its actions, as our report has revealed, the Chinese Communist Party is telling us that it wants more fentanyl entering our country, said Rep Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the special House committee. It wants the chaos and devastation that has resulted from the epidemic. In November, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a resumption of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics with a focus on reducing the flow of precursor chemicals

After resolving WTO disputes, India opened up mkt for US: Biden admin

"Last June, India and the United States terminated six WTO disputes, and India agreed to remove retaliatory tariffs on several US products," US govt official said

Biden govt announces partnership with 50 nations to stifle future pandemics

The announcement comes as countries have struggled to meet a worldwide accord on responses to future pandemics. Four years after the coronavirus pandemic

Pro-Palestinian protestors block airports and highways in major US cities

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked roadways in Illinois, California, New York and the Pacific Northwest on Monday, temporarily shutting down travel into some of the nation's most heavily used airports, onto the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges and on a busy West Coast highway. In Chicago, protesters linked arms and blocked lanes of Interstate 190 leading into O'Hare International Airport around 7 am in a demonstration they said was part of a global economic blockade to free Palestine, according to Rifqa Falaneh, one of the organizers. Traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area was snarled for hours as demonstrators shut down all vehicle, pedestrian and bike traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge and chained themselves to 55-gallon drums filled with cement across Interstate 880 in Oakland. Protesters marching into Brooklyn blocked Manhattan-bound traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. In Eugene, Oregon, protesters blocked Interstate 5, shutting down traffic on the major highway for about 45 ...

Modernised Indian military has reduced its dependence on Russian arms: US

Observing that India has showcased itself as a global leader, the top intelligence official from the US Department of Defense has told the Congress that in 2023, India took steps to modernise its military to compete with China and reduce its dependency on Russian origin-equipment. During the past year, India has showcased itself as a global leader by hosting the Group of 20 economic summit and demonstrated a greater willingness to counter PRC (People's Republic of China) activity throughout the Indo-Pacific region, Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told members of the House Armed Services Committee the subcommittee on intelligence and special operations during a Congressional hearing on defence intelligence countering China. India, he said, has advanced partnerships in the Indo-Pacific with regional South China Sea claimants, such as the Philippines, through training and defence sales and deepened cooperation with the US, Australia, France and ...

US awards Samsung $6.4 bn in grants to boost Texas chip production

Analysts have estimated Samsung is likely to begin making 4-nanometer chips at its pilot production line and eventually expand to 2-nanometer chips

White House rejects House Republican effort to get Prez Biden to testify

The White House on Monday rejected a long-shot effort from House Republicans to get President Joe Biden to testify before lawmakers in the GOP's stalled impeachment inquiry. In a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, the White House dismissed the invitation sent to Biden last month, calling it a partisan charade in an impeachment probe that has unearthed no evidence implicating the president in any wrongdoing while in public office. House Republicans had been seeking information related to the Biden family's business dealings in what the GOP characterized as an alleged influence-peddling scheme. Your Committee's purported impeachment inquiry' has succeeded only in turning up abundant evidence that, in fact, the President has done nothing wrong, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, wrote in the letter sent to Comer on Monday. Sauber added, Your insistence on peddling these false and unsupported allegations despite ample evidence to the contrary makes

India continues to be important strategic partner for US: Mathew Miller

The Biden administration asserted that India was an important strategic partner of the US and added that the status of the relationship is expected to remain unchanged. US State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller was responding to a question at a press conference on Monday on the US-India relationship in the context of some articles and opinion pieces critical of the Indian government published ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in India. To a question on alleged concerns about democratic backsliding in India and the recent statements by the State Department regarding the alleged crackdown on opposition, Miller said, India is the world's largest democracy. It is an important strategic partner of the United States and I expect that to remain true. US officials in the recent past have called India a "very important partner and that the relationship between the two countries continues to grow. However, after the historic Official State Visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Whi

Israel-Iran conflict: Missile attack adds to airline troubles in West Asia

Iran's attack on Israel by more than 300 missiles and drones, which were mostly shot down by Israel's US-backed missile defence system, caused chaos in the aviation industry

US prez polls: Deep divide apparent in Biden, Trump's tax policies

Tax Day reveals a major split in how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern: The presidential candidates have conflicting ideas about how much to reveal about their own finances and the best ways to boost the economy through tax policy. Biden, the sitting Democratic president, plans to release his income tax returns on Monday, the IRS filing deadline. And on Tuesday, he is scheduled to deliver a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, about why the wealthy should pay more in taxes to reduce the federal deficit and help fund programs for the poor and middle class. Biden is proud to say that he was largely without money for much of his decades-long career in public service, unlike Trump, who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his father and used his billionaire status to launch a TV show and later a presidential campaign. For 36 years, I was listed as the poorest man in Congress, Biden told donors in California in February. Not a joke. In 2015, Trump declared as part of his ..

Russia, China trade new copper disguised as scrap to skirt taxes, sanctions

Customs data on Chinese imports of copper wire rod is not publicly available

Trump's landmark hush money trial starts today with jury selection

In a singular moment for American history, the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump begins Monday with jury selection. It's the first criminal trial of a former commander in chief and the first of Trump's four indictments to go to trial. Because Trump is the presumptive nominee for this year's Republican ticket, the trial will also produce the head-spinning split-screen of a presidential candidate spending his days in court and, he has said, "campaigning during the night. And to some extent, it is a trial of the justice system itself as it grapples with a defendant who has used his enormous prominence to assail the judge, his daughter, the district attorney, some witnesses and the allegations all while blasting the legitimacy of a legal structure that he insists has been appropriated by his political opponents. Against that backdrop, scores of ordinary citizens are due to be called Monday into a cavernous room in a utilitarian courthouse to determine whether they can .

Biden to host Iraqi leader; US military presence in region under question

President Joe Biden is set to host Iraq's leader this week for talks that come as tensions across the Middle East have soared over the war in Gaza and Iran's unprecedented weekend attack on Israel in retaliation for an Israeli military strike against an Iranian facility in Syria. The sharp rise in security fears has raised further questions about the viability of the two-decade American military presence in Iraq, through which portions of Iran's Saturday drone and missile attack on Israel flew or were launched from. A U.S. Patriot battery in Irbil, Iraq, knocked down at least one Iranian ballistic missile, according to American officials. In addition, Iranian proxies have initiated attacks against U.S. interests throughout the region from inside Iraq, making Monday's meeting between Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani all the more critical. The talks will include a discussion of regional stability and future U.S. troop deployments but will also focus on economic, trade and

Rupee depreciates 6 paise to 83.44 against US dollar in early trade

The rupee declined 6 paise to 83.44 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday, tracking negative equity markets and withdrawal of foreign funds amid renewed concerns over geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Forex traders said a strong American currency in the overseas market and curde oil prices hovering above USD 90 per barrel also dented investor sentiments. At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 83.46 against the dollar and gained slightly to 83.44 in the initial trade, registering a fall of 6 paise over its previous close. On Friday, the rupee closed 7 paise lower at 83.38 against the US dollar. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.08 per cent lower at 105.75. The higher dollar index was attributed to diminishing expectations of an immediate rate cut by the US Federal Reserve. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, declined 0.31 per cent to USD 90.17 per barrel.