Foreign News
US Senate Reaches Short-Term Deal On Debt Limit, Averting Economic Crisis
The US Senate has agreed to a short-term increase in government’s borrowing authority into December, averting a potential financial crisis.
The compromise between Republican and Democratic leaders would temporarily avert an unprecedented federal default that experts say would have devastated the economy.
With a 50-48 vote, senators agreed to increase the borrowing limit by $480bn, sufficient to prevent the US government from defaulting by keeping debt payments up until 3 December.
The bill will now go to the House for a vote and is expected to pass.
The deal has edged Washington back from a perilous standoff over lifting the nation’s borrowing cap, with Democratic senators accepting an offer from the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell. But the agreement does not do much to resolve larger disputes between the two parties.
McConnell made the offer a day earlier, just before Republicans were prepared to block longer-term legislation to suspend the debt limit and as Joe Biden and business leaders voiced their concerns that a default would disrupt government payments to millions of people and throw the country into recession.
Wall Street continued to rally on the news. The S&P 500 rose 1.5% by midday, and the Nasdaq composite, with a heavy weighting of technology stocks, rose 1.8%.
Earlier, the White House indicated the Biden administration was relieved if underwhelmed by the temporary fix. The principal deputy press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters on Air Force One en route to Chicago with the president it was “a positive step forward”.
She added: “It gives us some breathing room from the catastrophic default we were approaching because of Senator McConnell’s decision to play politics with our economy …this should have never been a political game from the start … addressing the debt limit shouldn’t be a partisan football. This is about paying the debt that both parties have already incurred.”
The agreement sets the stage for a sequel of sorts in December, when Congress will again face pressing deadlines to fund the government and raise the debt limit before heading home for the holidays.
Congress had just days to act before the 18 October deadline, when the treasury department had warned it would quickly run short of funds to handle the country’s already accrued debt load.
McConnell and Senate Republicans have insisted that Democrats will have to go it alone to raise the debt ceiling and allow the treasury to renew its borrowing so that the country can meet its financial obligations.
Further, McConnell has insisted that Democrats use the same cumbersome legislative process, called reconciliation, that they used to pass a $1.9tn Covid-19 relief bill and have been employing to try to pass Biden’s $3.5tn measure to boost safety net, health and environmental programs.
McConnell said in his offer on Wednesday that Republicans would still insist that Democrats use the reconciliation process for a long-term debt limit extension.
However, he said Republicans were willing to “assist in expediting” that process, and in the meantime Democrats may use the normal legislative process to pass a short-term debt limit extension with a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December.
While he continued to blame Democrats, his offer will also allow Republicans to avoid the condemnation they would have gotten from some quarters if a financial crisis were to occur.
At a White House event with top business leaders, Biden had shamed Republican senators for threatening to filibuster any suspension of the $28.4tn cap on the government’s borrowing authority.
“It’s not right and it’s dangerous,” Biden said of the resistance by Senate Republicans.
Before the White House meeting, the administration warned that if the borrowing limit wasn’t extended, it could set off an international financial crisis the United States might not be able to manage.
“A default would send shock waves through global financial markets and would likely cause credit markets worldwide to freeze up and stock markets to plunge,” the White House council of economic advisers said in a new report. “Employers around the world would likely have to begin laying off workers.”
The recession that could be triggered could be worse than the 2008 financial crisis because it would come as many nations are still struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic, the report said.
Once a routine matter, raising the debt limit has become politically treacherous over the past decade or more, used by Republicans, in particular, to rail against government spending and the rising debt load.
Foreign News
Kemi Badenoch Pledges To Ban Doctors’ Strikes If Conservative Party Takes Power In The UK
Leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has vowed that doctors’ strikes will be banned under a Conservative government.
The Tory party leader today announced she would amend the law to bar the protests as she insisted the British Medical Association (BMA) is ‘out of control’.
It comes following 11 strikes in the past 18 months, which Ms Badenoch said had resulted in patients dying.
Her comments were made on GB News amid the ongoing five-day series of strikes by resident doctors in support of a pay claim.
Urging Sir Keir Starmer to take similar action, Ms Badenoch said: ‘The BMA has become militant, these strikes are going too far, and it is time for action.
‘Doctors do incredibly important work. Medicine is a vocation – not just a job. That is why in government we offered a fair deal that supported doctors, but protected taxpayers too.
‘These strikes will have a significant economic effect, but they will also mean cancelled operations, worry for families of the sick, and suffering for those who are unwell. We know that previous strike action by doctors even led to some patients losing their lives.
‘That is why Conservatives are stepping in, and setting out common sense proposals to protect patients, and the public finances. And we are making an offer in the national interest – we will work with the Government to face down the BMA to help protect patients and the NHS.’
Police, the military, and prison officers are banned from taking strike action under the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act in the UK. The Conservatives would amend this to include doctors.
Foreign News
Saudi Arabia’s ‘Sleeping Prince’ Dies After 20 Years in Coma Following London Car Crash
A Saudi prince who spent more than two decades in a coma after a car crash in London has died at the age of 36.
Prince Al-Waleed bin Khalid Al-Saud suffered severe brain injuries and internal bleeding in the horrific accident when he was just 15 years old in 2005.
He was dubbed the ‘Sleeping Prince’ and was kept on a ventilator in hospital but never regained full consciousness.
Prince Al-Waleed was the eldest son of Prince Khaled bin Talal Al Saud, who announced his death in a heartbreaking post on X today.
He said: ‘O reassured soul, Return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing [to Him], And enter among My [righteous] servants, And enter My Paradise.
‘With hearts believing in Allah will and decree, and with deep sorrow and sadness, we mourn our beloved son: Prince Al-Waleed bin Khaled bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, may Allah have mercy on him, who passed away today.’
Prince Al-Waleed was studying at a military college in London when he was involved in the devastating car crash.
After the accident, he was hospitalised at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh where he remained in a coma.
Prince Al-Waleed’s father, who is the brother of business tycoon Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, never gave up hope his son would one day make a full recovery.
He remained involved in the prince’s care and opposed withdrawing life support.
Clips shared on social media in 2020 showed Prince Al-Waleed lifting his fingers as a woman greets him.
‘Hi, Didi hello, hello let me see, hi,’ she says as the prince wiggles his fingers in response.
She then asked if the prince could do ‘one more, one more, higher, higher’ and he could be seen lifting his whole hand off the bed momentarily.
However, despite the signs he could be recovering Prince Al-Waleed remained in a critical condition.
Funeral prayers for the prince will be held tomorrow at Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview released on Monday that Israel, which last month fought a 12-day war with Iran, had attempted to assassinate him.
“They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed,” Pezeshkian told US media figure Tucker Carlson in response to a question on whether he believed Israel had tried to kill him.
“It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting… they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting,” he said according to a translation of his remarks from Persian, in apparent reference to an alleged assassination attempt during the recent war.
On June 13, Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran, killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists.
The Israeli attacks took place days before Tehran and Washington were set to meet for a new round of nuclear talks which began on April 12.
More than 900 people were killed in Iran during the conflict, according to the judiciary.
The Israeli attacks drew waves of retaliatory drone and missile fire, killing 28 people in Israel, according to authorities.
The 12-day war between Iran and Israel saw it, along with the United States, launching strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.
During the interview with Carlson, Pezeshkian said his country has “no problem” restarting nuclear talks, provided that trust can be reestablished between the two countries.
“We see no problem in re-entering the negotiations,” the Iranian president said.
“There is a condition … for restarting the talks. How are we going to trust the United States again? We re-entered the negotiations, then how can we know for sure that in the middle of the talks the Israeli regime will not be given the permission again to attack us.”
VIDEO:
AFP
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