Trump's flagship tax bill passes US Congress
Trump close to victory on flagship tax bill
The text, headlined by a $4.5 trillion renewal of the president's first-term tax cuts, was approved by the House of Representatives along party lines, delivering Trump the biggest legislative win of his second term.
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Express Tribune
18 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
Afghan refugees stuck in Pakistan
Kimia, 25, an Afghan journalist and artist, speaks with Reuters at a guest house where she is living, in Islamabad. Photo: REUTERS Listen to article In a cramped guesthouse in Islamabad, 25-year-old Kimia spends her days sketching women — dancing, playing, resisting — in a notebook that holds what's left of her hopes. A visual artist and women's rights advocate, she fled Afghanistan in 2024 after being accepted on to a German humanitarian admission program aimed at Afghans considered at risk under the Taliban. A year later, Kimia is stuck in limbo. Thousands of kilometres away in Germany, an election in February where migration dominated public debate and a change of government in May resulted in the gradual suspension of the programme. Now the new centre-right coalition intends to close it. The situation echoes that of nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared to settle in the United States, but who then found themselves in limbo in January after US President Donald Trump took office and suspended refugee programmes. Kimia's interview at the German embassy which she hoped would result in a flight to the country and the right to live there, was abruptly cancelled in April. Meanwhile, Germany pays for her room, meals and medical care in Islamabad. "All my life comes down to this interview," she told Reuters. She gave only her artist name for fear of reprisal. "We just want to find a place that is calm and safe," she said of herself and the other women at the guesthouse. The admission programme began in October 2022, intending to bring up to 1,000 Afghans per month to Germany who were deemed at risk because of their work in human rights, justice, politics or education, or due to their gender, religion or sexual orientation. However, fewer than 1,600 arrived in over two years due to holdups and the cancellation of flights. Today, around 2,400 Afghans are waiting to travel to Germany, the German foreign ministry said. Whether they will is unclear. NGOs say 17,000 more are in the early stages of selection and application under the now dormant scheme. The foreign ministry said entry to Germany through the program was suspended pending a government review, and the government will continue to care for and house those already in the program.
Express Tribune
38 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
Hamas seeks ceasefire guarantees
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an overnight Israeli air strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, July 2, 2025. — Reuters Hamas is seeking guarantees that a new US ceasefire proposal for Gaza would lead to the war's end, a source close to the militant group said on Thursday, as medics said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed scores more people. Israeli officials said prospects for reaching a ceasefire deal and hostage deal appeared high, nearly 21 months since the war between Israel and Hamas began. Efforts for a Gaza truce have gathered steam after the US secured a ceasefire to end a 12-day aerial conflict between Israel and Iran, but on the ground in Gaza intensified Israeli strikes continued unabated, killing at least 59 people on Thursday, according to health authorities in the territory. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war. Hamas is seeking clear guarantees that the ceasefire will eventually lead to the war's end, the source close to the group said. Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Ending the war has been the main sticking point in repeated rounds of failed negotiations. Egyptian security sources said Egyptian and Qatari mediators were working to secure US and international guarantees that talks on ending the war would continue as a way of convincing Hamas to accept the two-month truce proposal. A separate source familiar with the matter said that Israel was expecting Hamas' response by Friday and that if it was positive, an Israeli delegation would join indirect talks to cement the deal. The proposal includes the staggered release of 10 living Israeli hostages and the return of the bodies of 18 more in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, sources say. Of the 50 remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 are believed to still be alive. A senior Israeli official close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said preparations were in place to approve a ceasefire deal even as the premier heads to Washington to meet Trump on Monday. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, who sits on Netanyahu's security cabinet, told news website Ynet that there was "definitely readiness to advance a deal." In Gaza, however, there was little sign of relief. According to medics at Nasser hospital, at least 20 people were killed by Israeli fire en route to an aid distribution site. Further north, at least 17 people were killed in an Israeli strike at a school in Gaza City, according to medics. "Suddenly, we found the tent collapsing over us and a fire burning. We don't know what happened," one witness, Wafaa Al-Arqan, who was among the people sheltering there, told Reuters. "What can we do? Is it fair that all these children burned?"
Express Tribune
42 minutes ago
- Express Tribune
Putin tells Trump he won't back down from goals in Ukraine
According to the Financial Times, Trump and Zelenskiy are expected to discuss the recent halt in key US weapons deliveries to Kyiv. PHOTO:FILE Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump in a phone call on Thursday that Moscow wants a negotiated end to the Ukraine war but will not step back from its original goals, a Kremlin aide said. In a wide-ranging conversation that also covered Iran and the Middle East, Trump "again raised the issue of an early end to military action" in Ukraine, the aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters. "Vladimir Putin, for his part, noted that we continue to seek a political and negotiated solution to the conflict," Ushakov said. Putin briefed Trump on the implementation of agreements reached between Russia and Ukraine last month to exchange prisoners-of-war and dead soldiers, Ushakov said, and told him that Moscow was ready to continue negotiations with Kyiv. "Our president also said that Russia will achieve the goals it has set: that is, the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, to the current acute confrontation, and Russia will not back down from these goals," he added. There was nothing in the Kremlin readout to suggest that Putin had made any shift in Moscow's position during the conversation with Trump, who took office with a promise to end the war swiftly but has voiced frequent frustration with the lack of progress between the two sides. The phrase "root causes" is shorthand for the Kremlin's argument that it was compelled to go to war in Ukraine to prevent the country from joining NATO and being used by the Western alliance as a launch pad to attack Russia. Ukraine and its European allies say that is a specious pretext for what they call an imperial-style war, but Trump in previous public comments has shown sympathy with Moscow's refusal to accept NATO membership for Ukraine. Putin and Trump did not talk about the US decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine, Ushakov said. On Iran, he said, "the Russian side emphasised the importance of resolving all disputes, disagreements and conflict situations exclusively by political and diplomatic means". Trump last month sent US military bombers to strike three Iranian nuclear sites, in a move condemned by Moscow as unprovoked and illegal.
