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Israeli strikes kill 82 in Gaza, including 38 waiting for aid: Officials
AP Tel Aviv
Airstrikes and shootings killed 82 Palestinians in Gaza overnight, including 38 while attempting to get much-needed humanitarian aid, hospitals and the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
Israel's military did not have immediate comment on the strikes Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Five people were killed around sites associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly created, secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip's population, while 33 others were killed waiting for aid trucks in other locations across the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, Hamas and Israel staked out their positions on Wednesday ahead of expected talks on a Washington-backed ceasefire proposal, with the militant group suggesting it was open to an agreement while the Israeli prime minister vowed there will be no Hamas in postwar Gaza.
Both stopped short of accepting the ceasefire proposal announced by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Hamas insisted on its longstanding position that any deal bring an end to the war in Gaza.
Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen.
The US leader has been increasing pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas to broker a ceasefire, and hostage agreement and bring about an end to the war.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Mint
30 minutes ago
- Mint
Wall Street worries as crisis-level deficits become the government's default mode
U.S. budget deficits were already approaching $2 trillion when Republican lawmakers set out to extend and expand tax cuts this year. Interest rates were high and the bond market was jumpy, producing worrying spikes in borrowing costs. Republicans forged ahead anyway, defying warnings from Wall Street to Washington that they were pushing the country further down a dangerous fiscal path. On Thursday, the House voted in favor of the sprawling tax-and-spending bill that was passed on Tuesday by the Senate. The resulting legislation headed for President Trump's desk adds $3.4 trillion to federal deficits through 2034 compared with a scenario in which Congress did nothing, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The extent of the projected shortfall increased as the measure worked its way across Capitol Hill, as the Senate made some business tax breaks permanent. Economists, investors and politicians have often warned that the U.S.'s growing debt burden would punish future generations. The market has been willing to tolerate spikes in borrowing during crises such as a war or Covid, seeing it as a logical, and temporary, response to a sharp growth slowdown. What stands out now to those sounding the alarm the loudest is that America is bingeing on debt when there's no such emergency requiring it. The deficit as a share of the economy is already around the levels reached in the era of the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic. Many investors are concluding that financial profligacy isn't a bug, but rather a feature of U.S. policymaking. 'The government is like a teenager with a credit card that has no limits until it has to be paid," said Bill Gross, founder of Pimco. ''Payment due' comes not with default but with a weak dollar and higher interest rates." Trump and his GOP backers in Congress dismiss those bleak projections and, armed with their own budget math, paint a very different fiscal reality. They say tax cuts will accelerate growth and, along with new tariffs and heavy cuts to social programs such as Medicaid, will actually put the nation on sounder financial footing. The long-term verdict might be rendered in U.S. bond markets. The U.S. borrows money by issuing Treasurys, and an oversupply of those bonds would drive up yields, which rise when prices fall. Because interest rates on other debt are linked to Treasury yields, that would also lift costs on mortgages, car loans and corporate bonds. The market has been calm lately. But it has sent warning flares about the fiscal trajectory, most recently in May when yields on 30-year bonds climbed close to a two-decade high. Some investors, meanwhile, are concerned that massive debt projections are weighing on the dollar, which just posted its biggest first-half decline since 1973. The deficit, or annual gap between government revenue and spending, was $1.8 trillion, or around 6% of gross domestic product, last fiscal year. Moody's estimates it will reach nearly 9% of GDP by 2035, pushing publicly held federal debt—or the sum of all the annual shortfalls—from a little under 100% of GDP now to more than 130%. That compares to the previous record of 106% in 1946. Ken Rogoff, a Harvard University professor and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, said the U.S. is leaving itself little room to go on a borrowing binge when it really needs to. 'We typically look to borrow 20% or 30% of GDP in these big crises," he said. 'It's not clear markets will tolerate that." Even if Congress wasn't adding new tax cuts this year, federal debt would grow from around $29 trillion to $50 trillion in 2034, according to the CBO. The bill's advance, though hardly unexpected on Wall Street, has dimmed budget hawks' already modest hopes that lawmakers would make deficit reduction more of a priority. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater, warns that staying on the current path will ultimately lead to some mix of a bond-market slide, a severe economic contraction or an inflation-fueling intervention by the Federal Reserve. The GOP bill 'reflects a political system that favors indulging voters over prudence," he said. Trump says skyrocketing growth will avert any downsides. 'For all cost cutting Republicans, of which I am one, REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected," he wrote in a social-media post shortly before senators began voting on the bill earlier this week. 'Don't go too crazy! We will make it all up, times 10, with GROWTH, more than ever before." Members of Congress during the House vote on Thursday. The U.S. government borrows money to pay for the shortfall between what it collects in taxes and what it spends on programs, such as defense and Social Security, by issuing Treasury securities that mature over varying periods of time. Buyers of this debt range from foreign banks to hedge funds to everyday investors. In principle, Treasurys are subject to the forces of supply and demand, like any other item. If the government issues more Treasurys than investors want or need, it will need to win them over with higher interest rates. If investors are worried about that happening in the future, they will likely sell bonds now, causing an immediate jump in yields. Treasurys, though, have long been viewed as the ultimate safe investment, especially in rocky economic times, because they are backed by the world's richest country and are effectively guaranteed to be repaid at maturity. That has historically kept America's borrowing rates in check, even as the volume of debt grew. Yet deficit worries still go back a long way, in government and on Wall Street. Peter Peterson, the late co-founder of the Blackstone Group who also served as President Richard Nixon's secretary of commerce, became concerned when planning for a talk on President Ronald Reagan's budget in 1981. Its big increase in defense spending and substantial tax cuts didn't make sense to him, and he was especially worried about the looming costs of Social Security and other entitlement programs. 'To put the matter bluntly, Social Security is heading for a crash," he wrote in a 1982 essay so long that the New York Review of Books split it into two parts. That same year, Salomon Brothers chief economist Henry Kaufman, known as Dr. Doom for his pessimistic forecasts, warned that proposed tax cuts and the resulting deficits would effectively block recovery from an ongoing recession. Worries about the deficit flared up regularly in the decades that followed—taking a break in the 1990s when the Clinton administration briefly engineered a surplus. But the concerns were little more than minor impediments to a long bull market in bonds that dragged Treasury yields steadily lower. Rogoff, the Harvard professor, who with Carmen Reinhart wrote the 2009 book 'This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly," has long argued that high levels of debt can weigh on growth. A 2012 paper he wrote with Reinhart and her husband, Vincent Reinhart, found that for advanced economies since 1800, debt levels above 90% of GDP corresponded to significantly lower levels of growth. The U.S. shot past that 90% threshold when the government spent massively in its efforts to bolster the economy during the pandemic. The overall level of America's GDP is significantly higher than what forecasters on the eve of the pandemic expected it would be in 2025, but Rogoff still thinks that at some level deficits matter. 'The appetite for U.S. debt may be very large, but it's clearly not infinite," he said. The Department of Treasury building in Washington. Nearly a third of publicly held U.S. debt is owned by foreigners, including foreign central banks. If they start worrying more about America's large debt load, they could become less willing holders. A wholesale dumping of U.S. debt by foreigners—a doomsday scenario—is extremely unlikely, according to Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economist who was a Fed governor from 2012 to 2014. 'But I wouldn't be surprised if, over the next couple of years, as their portfolios roll off and they have to reinvest, they start shifting that reinvestment more towards, say, Europe or German bonds," he said. Stein also worries that as the supply of Treasurys increases, hedge funds will become even bigger players in the market for U.S. debt. That could raise the odds of market disruptions, because fast-money traders occasionally run into problems that force them to sell. A mix of factors has created the current fiscal imbalance, including recessions, an aging population and rising federal assistance to households. Those spending policies were largely championed by Democrats. Republicans, meanwhile, have led the charge in cutting taxes. This year's budget negotiations revealed fissures among Republicans, with some expressing more concern about deficits than others. With the 2017 tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, many in the party argued that an extension shouldn't count as a deficit increase because it was merely a continuation of current policy. Others, though, opposed that approach, citing concerns about national debt. House conservatives, led by Reps. Jodey Arrington (R., Texas) and Lloyd Smucker (R., Pa.), along with others such as Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), forced the House's budget framework to link tax cuts and spending cuts, with no more than a $2.5 trillion gap between them. By that approach, if the House could find $2 trillion in spending cuts, it could have $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. If it could only find $1.5 trillion, the tax cuts would have to shrink, too. 'We can't continue to have quote, a free lunch, by just saying that every single tax cut pays for itself," Roy said in an April interview. The House, on May 22, passed a version of the tax bill that adhered to those demands. CBO estimated that it would cost $2.4 trillion over a decade. In June, 38 Republicans led by Smucker signed a letter saying they wouldn't support legislation coming back from the Senate that violated their framework. Doing so, they wrote, 'would invite higher borrowing costs and undermine the economic growth that Americans need." 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Hans India
34 minutes ago
- Hans India
We'll cross the bridge when we get there
Washington: India is engaging with American lawmakers over concerns surrounding a new Russia sanctions bill introduced in the US Congress, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday. The bill, backed by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, seeks to impose 500 per cent tariffs on countries-- including India and China-- that continue to trade with Moscow even after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. When asked about potential implications of the bill, Jaishankar said, India will "cross that bridge when we come to it." "Regarding Senator Lindsey Graham's bill, any development which is happening in the US Congress is of interest to us if it impacts our interest or could impact our interest," the minister said in a press conference in Washington. "Our concerns and our interests on energy, security have been made conversant to him (Lindsey Graham). So, we'll then have to cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it," he added. Graham, who is sponsoring a tough new sanctions bill on Russia, said the legislation aims to pressure countries like India and China into buying Russian oil and other goods to weaken Moscow's war economy and push Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table on Ukraine and give Trump "a tool" to bring that about. Amid Western sanctions, countries like India and China have continued buying discounted Russian oil, making them targets of the proposed legislation. India, the world's third-largest oil-importing and consuming nation, traditionally sourced its oil from the Middle East. However, it began importing a large volume of oil from Russia soon after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This was primarily because Russian oil was available at a significant discount to other international benchmarks due to Western sanctions and some European countries shunning purchases.
Indian Express
43 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Nuclear Iran is best bet for peace
The proliferation of nuclear arms is a net loss for global peace and security. It raises the risks of accidental war, empowers authoritarian regimes and undermines decades of nonproliferation efforts. From both a moral and strategic standpoint, it is better for Iran not to get the bomb. But what if it does? This is not a prediction nor a policy endorsement. It is a hypothesis grounded in the counterintuitive logic of deterrence theory and shaped by the failures of decades-long Western policy that have prioritised sanctions, limited engagement, covert sabotage and containment over comprehensive security guarantees to the Islamic Republic. In entertaining this possibility, I want to raise the uncomfortable but necessary question: Might Iran's acquisition of a nuclear deterrent actually lead to more stability in the Middle East? At the heart of this question lies a paradox as old as the nuclear age. Scholars and strategists alike — from Kenneth Waltz to Bernard Brodie — have pointed out that the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons creates powerful incentives for restraint. States that possess nuclear weapons are often more cautious, not less. Deterrence, for all its risks, has worked. The Cold War did not turn hot, despite multiple crises. India and Pakistan, bitter adversaries with a history of war, have avoided full-scale conflict since both became nuclear powers. And North Korea, for all its volatility, has managed to deter external intervention while pursuing strategic bargains with the outside world. Iran today is boxed in strategically — militarily inferior to Israel, diplomatically isolated from the West, and economically devastated by a combination of chronic internal mismanagement and severe international sanctions. Its regional ambitions are checked not only by rival Sunni states like Saudi Arabia (as in Yemen) but also by an emboldened Israel (since October 7, 2023) that now conducts military strikes and assassination campaigns on Iranian targets with near impunity. The result is a hyper-militarised deterrence environment, but one that is asymmetrical and unstable. Israel enjoys nuclear superiority; Iran relies on proxies and grey-zone tactics to exert influence and respond to threats. This imbalance has produced endless escalation cycles — from Syria to Gaza to the Persian Gulf — where miscalculations could spiral into full-blown war. The recent 12-day war between Iran and Israel is the perfect case in point. A nuclear Iran would alter this dynamic. First, it would constrain Israel's freedom of military action. The assumption that Israeli or US strikes will go unpunished — or that Iran will absorb blows without escalating — would no longer hold. A credible Iranian deterrent would inject caution into Israeli planning, especially in moments of political recklessness or brinkmanship. It would make the cost of war explicit. And history suggests that when adversaries both possess nuclear weapons, they become more risk-averse, not less. Second, a nuclear weapon could moderate Iran's behaviour. This may sound counterintuitive, but again, history offers precedent. Once a state has secured a nuclear deterrent, its need to rely on destabilising asymmetric tactics — proxies, insurgencies, covert operations — tends to decrease. Nuclear security allows for strategic maturity. India after 1998, China after 1964, and even the Soviet Union in the late Cold War period — all became more status quo-oriented and less revisionist after going nuclear. Possession of the bomb doesn't make a state benevolent, but it does force it to act like a state: Accountable, strategic, and aware of its own vulnerability. Would Iran follow this pattern? It's impossible to say. The regime is ideologically driven and repressive. But it is also calculating. Its leaders have repeatedly shown a capacity for pragmatism when the survival of the regime is at stake, as evidenced by the ceasefire that ended the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, the nuclear deal in 2015, and the most recent ceasefire with Israel. A nuclear deterrent might compel the Islamic Republic to moderate from within, as ideological paranoia gives way to pragmatic coexistence. The Middle East is already a nuclearised environment. Israel has the bomb. The US has military assets in the region capable of delivering nuclear strikes. Iran operates under constant existential threat. The question is not whether a nuclear Middle East is ideal — it is not — but whether it would be more stable if Iran, too, had the kind of deterrent that forces enemies to think twice before acting. This hypothesis is not an argument for acquiescence. The goal should still be diplomatic engagement, arms control, and regional dialogue. But if those efforts fail — and they are failing — then we should at least ask: Would a nuclear Iran be less dangerous than a cornered, insecure, and conventionally belligerent one? A nuclear Iran may well freeze the battlefield rather than ignite it, and that may be the best peace the region can hope for. The writer is associate professor of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University, and the author of several books on Iran's political development and US-Iran relations
