Washington Financial News

By Steven Scheer

grown by an above-trend 3%—about the same as in boomy 2005. Adding to the impression of befuddlement, most analysts were caught out on December 13th by a doveish turn by the Federal Reserve, which sent them scrambling to rewrite their outlooks for the new year. It is not just forecasters who have had a bad year.

Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up the fight against Hamas militants, but a United Nations humanitarian team leader said Palestinian civilians in Gaza who honor Israeli evacuation orders cannot be guaranteed they will be safe. Netanyahu, who visited Israeli troops in northern Gaza on Monday, told lawmakers from his Likud Party that the war was far from over and dismissed what he cast as media speculation his government might call a halt to the fighting.

ICIMOD) report, released earlier this year, warns that glaciers in Hindu Kush Himalayas are melting at unprecedented rates. They could lose up to 75% of their volume by the end of the century, leading to flooding and water shortages for the nearly 2 billion people who live downstream of the rivers. Such warnings mean that international monitoring of glaciers will be a crucial bulwark for safeguarding the region's future. But, last week, GoI rejected a parliamentary panel's recommendation for a data-sharing agreement on Himalayan glaciers with countries of the region, including not-best-of-pals China.

MV Chem Pluto, off the coast of India in Arabian Sea, Iran's foreign ministry rejected "worthless" Washington's accusations. "We declare these claims as completely rejected and worthless," said foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani when asked about the US accusations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Denmark's Maersk is preparing to resume shipping operations in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the company said on Sunday, citing the deployment of a U.S.-led military operation designed to ensure the safety of commerce in the area.

Donald Trump asked an appeals court in Washington on Saturday night to toss a federal indictment accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that he was immune to the charges because they arose from actions he had taken while he was in the White House. The weekend filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was the latest salvo in a long-running and crucial battle between Trump and the special counsel, Jack Smith, over whether the former president enjoys immunity to the election interference charges.

President Joe Biden signed a new executive order aimed at targeting financial facilitators of the Russian defense industry

The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of prices fell last month, another sign that inflation is easing and that consumers should expect to see lower interest rates in 2024

A congressional oversight committee has launched an investigation into the V-22 Osprey program following a deadly crash in Japan, which killed eight Air Force special operations service members

The Biden administration released its highly anticipated proposal for doling out billions of dollars in tax credits to hydrogen producers Friday, in a massive effort to build out an industry that some hope can be a cleaner alternative to fossil fuel power

A Nevada tribe is gearing up for a different kind of fight against the U.S. government as it tries to build more public support for protecting Native American sacred sites

GSP) are expected to figure in the meeting of India-US Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in January here, an official said. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai will be here for a meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal. «Both sides will discuss ways to increase trade and investments between the two countries during the two-day meeting from January 13, 2024.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has branded Iran «a thoroughly malign influence in the region and in the world» in an interview published Sunday in which he also pledged stepped-up deterrence towards Tehran. The former British prime minister's warning echoes accusations by the United States Friday that Iran is involved in attacks on commercial ships by Yemen's Huthi rebels, providing drones, missiles and tactical intelligence.

Gaza officials said Saturday, and Israel announced the death of five soldiers after the UN failed to call for a ceasefire. Eleven weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli forces pressed on with their offensive, a day after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution for more aid to flow into the besieged Gaza Strip.

New Delhi: States with relatively high revenue deficits such as Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh must take a leaf out of their healthy counterparts' book, Krishnamurthy V Subramanian has told ET, adding that the fiscal position in those states is a matter of concern even as the overall situation seems to have improved from the peak of the pandemic. Likening their fiscal situation to «aamdani atthanni kharcha rupaiya» (spend twice than you earn), Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said «there is no option for these states but to implement some necessary, though not popular, decisions to tighten their fiscal belts by reducing unproductive expenditures.» The fiscal situation of these states is like a leaky boat that can have only one outcome — «sink», he added. «These states should look to learn from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which together accounted for more than 40% of the combined capital outlay undertaken by all states during the last five years,» Subramanian said in an interview over phone and email from Washington. «The states can also look to emulate Gujarat's Atmanirbhar Gujarat Policy for assistance to mega industries in sectors such as green energy ecosystem, mobility, capital equipment, metal and minerals, and gems and jewellery,» he added. Subramanian, who had earlier served as India's Chief Economic Advisor, further said the states with large revenue deficits will find it tough to get out of debt as these are also the states where the growth rate of state GDP is not so high. Conceptually, a revenue deficit implies that the revenue receipts of a state are not sufficient to meet its revenue expenditure,

After days of wrangling to avert a threatened U.S. veto, the Security Council on Friday passed a resolution urging steps to allow «safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access» to Gaza and «conditions for a sustainable cessation» of fighting.

UN chief said the way Israel was conducting its military operation was creating "massive obstacles" to aid distribution inside the battered enclave. It has passed a resolution urging steps to allow “safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access" to Gaza.

US Commerce Department will begin gathering information on Chinese production of legacy semiconductors chips that aren't cutting-edge but are still vital to the global economy as it looks to track how deeply reliant US companies have become on the technology from China. In January, the agency's Bureau of Industry and Security will survey more than 100 companies in autos, aerospace, defense and other sectors to understand how they procure and use legacy chips, according to a Commerce official.

Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order threatening penalties for financial institutions that help Russia circumvent sanctions, the White House said in a statement, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Moscow. The order also gives Washington the ability to broaden import bans of certain Russian goods, such as seafood and diamonds, the White House said.