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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Iranian cyberattacks remain a threat despite ceasefire, warn US officials
In a public bulletin, the authorities warned that hacking groups affiliated with or supportive of Tehran may still seek to disrupt or disable critical infrastructure systems in the US AP Washington A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has not ended the threat of cyberattacks from hacking groups supportive of Tehran, the FBI and federal cybersecurity officials warned on Monday. In a public bulletin, the authorities warned that hacking groups affiliated with or supportive of Tehran may still seek to disrupt or disable critical infrastructure systems in the US such as utilities, transportation and economic hubs. Hackers may also target defence contractors or other American companies with ties to Israel, the agencies said. Despite a declared ceasefire and ongoing negotiations towards a permanent solution, Iranian-affiliated cyber actors and hacktivist groups may still conduct malicious cyber activity, the agencies warned. The warning of continued cyberthreats after a halt to conventional warfare reflects the often opaque nature of cyber conflict. Hacking groups may have only loose ties to a nation state, and may seek to retaliate as an alternative to traditional military action. The bulletin outlined recommendations, including the use of regular software updates and strong password management systems to shore up digital defences. Hackers backing Tehran have targeted US banks, defense contractors and energy companies following American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities -- but so far have not caused widespread disruptions. While it lacks the technical abilities of China or Russia, Iran has long used its more limited capabilities to steal secrets, score political points or frighten opponents. Analysts have tied some of these activities to groups working on behalf of Iran's military and intelligence agencies. But in other instances, the groups appear to act independently.
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Iran nuclear programme set back years with strikes: CIA chief to lawmakers
Ratcliffe also told lawmakers that the intelligence community assessed the vast majority of Iran's amassed enriched uranium likely remains buried under the rubble at Isfahan and Fordow AP Washington CIA Director John Ratcliffe told skeptical US lawmakers that American military strikes destroyed Iran's lone metal conversion facility and in the process delivered a monumental setback to Tehran's nuclear programme that would take years to overcome, a US official said on Sunday. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive intelligence, said Ratcliffe laid out the importance of the strikes on the metal conversion facility during a classified hearing for US lawmakers last week. Details about the private briefings surfaced as President Donald Trump and his administration keep pushing back on questions from Democratic lawmakers and others about how far Iran was set back by the strikes before last Tuesday's ceasefire with Israel took hold. It was obliterating like nobody's ever seen before, Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures". "And that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time. Ratcliffe also told lawmakers that the intelligence community assessed the vast majority of Iran's amassed enriched uranium likely remains buried under the rubble at Isfahan and Fordow, two of the three key nuclear facilities targeted by US strikes. But even if the uranium remains intact, the loss of its metal conversion facility effectively has taken away Tehran's ability to build a bomb for years to come, the official said. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation that the three Iranian sites with capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree". But, he added, some is still standing and that because capabilities remain, if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again". He said assessing the full damage comes down to Iran allowing in inspectors. "Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared, and there is nothing there," Grossi said. Trump has insisted from just hours after three key targets were struck by US bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk missiles that Iran's nuclear program was obliterated. His defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said they were destroyed". A preliminary report issued by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, said the strikes did significant damage to the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not totally destroy the facilities. As a result of Israeli and US strikes, Grossi said that it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it's not total damage". Israel claims it has set back Iran's nuclear program by many years". The metal conversion facility that Ratcliffe said was destroyed was located at the Isfahan nuclear facility. The process of transforming enriched uranium gas into dense metal, or metallisation, is a key step in building the explosive core of a bomb. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in comments at the NATO summit last week also suggested that it was likely the US strikes had destroyed the metal conversion facility. You can't do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility," Rubio said. "We can't even find where it is, where it used to be on the map. You can't even find where it used to be because the whole thing is just blackened out. It's gone. It's wiped out. The CIA director also stressed to lawmakers during the congressional briefing that Iran's air defence was shattered during the 12-day assault. As a result, any attempt by Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme could now easily be thwarted by Israeli strikes that Iran currently has little wherewithal to defend against, the official said. Ratcliffe's briefing to lawmakers on the US findings appeared to mesh with some of Israeli officials' battle damage assessments. Israeli officials have determined that Iran's ability to enrich uranium to a weapons-grade level was neutralised for a prolonged period, according to a senior Israeli military official who was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter. Tehran's nuclear programme was also significantly damaged by the strikes killing key scientists, damage to Iran's missile production industry and the battering of Iran's aerial defence system, according to the Israeli's assessment. Grossi, and some Democrats, note that Iran still has the know-how. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have, Grossi said, emphasising the need to come to a diplomatic deal on the country's nuclear programme. (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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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
What's inside Trump's 940-page tax, spending bill now before Senate
Trump told Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by July 4 AP Washington At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. Now it's up to Congress to decide whether President Donald Trump's signature's domestic policy package will become law. Trump told Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by July 4. Senators were working through the weekend to pass the bill and send it back to the House for a final vote. Democrats are united against it. Here's the latest on what's in the bill. There could be changes as lawmakers negotiate. Tax cuts are priority Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump's first term expire. The legislation contains roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts. The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill. It temporarily would add new tax breaks that Trump campaigned on: no taxes on tips, overtime pay or some automotive loans, along with a bigger $6,000 deduction in the Senate draft for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year. It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200 under the Senate proposal. Families at lower income levels would not see the full amount. A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It's a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years. There are scores of business-related tax cuts. The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, which would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House's version. Middle-income taxpayers would see a tax break of USD 500 to USD 1,500, the CBO said. Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump's border and national security agenda, including $46 billion for the US-Mexico border wall and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfil his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in US history. Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year. The homeland security secretary would have a new $10 billion fund for grants for states that help with federal immigration enforcement and deportation actions. The attorney general would have $3.5 billion for a similar fund, known as Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide, or BIDEN, referring to former Democratic president Joe Biden. To help pay for it all, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections. For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defence system. The Defence Department would have $1 billion for border security. How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programmes To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back some long-running government programmes: Medicaid, food stamps, green energy incentives and others. It's essentially unravelling the accomplishments of the past two Democratic presidents, Biden and Barack Obama. Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse. The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the programme's work requirements. There's also a proposed new USD 35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services. Some 80 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama's Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Programme. Most already work, according to analysts. What's the final cost? Altogether, keeping the existing tax breaks and adding the new ones is expected to cost USD 3.8 trillion over the decade, the CBO says in its analysis of the House bill. An analysis of the Senate draft is pending. The CBO estimates the House-passed package would add USD 2.4 trillion to the nation's deficits over the decade. Or not, depending on how one does the math. Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already current policy. Senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach. Under the Senate GOP view, the tax provisions cost USD 441 billion, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Democrats and others say this is magic math that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the Senate tally at USD 4.2 trillion over the decade.
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Business Standard
6 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Louisiana becomes latest US state to redefine natural gas as green energy
Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry, a major booster of the state's petrochemical industry, says the new law 'sets the tone for the future' and will help the state 'pursue energy independence and dominance' AP Washington Louisiana is the latest state to redefine natural gas as green energy under a new law the Republican governor signed this week, even though it's a fossil fuel that emits planet-warming greenhouse gases. Three other states led by Republicans Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee have passed similar legislation. In some Democratic-led states, there have been efforts to phase out natural gas. New York and California cities like San Francisco and Berkeley have moved to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings, though some of these policies have been successfully challenged in court. President Donald Trump has signed a spate of executive orders promoting oil, gas and coal, which all warm the planet when burned to produce electricity. The European Union previously designated natural gas and nuclear as sustainable, a move that Greenpeace and the Austrian government are suing over. Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry, a major booster of the state's petrochemical industry, says the new law "sets the tone for the future" and will help the state "pursue energy independence and dominance." Environmental groups say these new laws are part of a broader push by petrochemical industry-backed groups to rebrand fossil fuel as climate friendly and head off efforts to shift electric grids to renewables, such as solar and wind. It's "pure Orwellian greenwashing," said Tim Donaghy, research director of Greenpeace USA. Globally, the term green energy is used to refer to energy derived from natural sources that do not pollute solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal energy. Louisiana's law could enable funds slated for state clean energy initiatives to be used to support natural gas. Natural gas has been the top source of electricity generation in the United States for about a decade, since surpassing coal. Coal and natural gas both produce carbon dioxide that warms the planet when burned, but coal produces over twice as much. Switching from coal to natural gas lowers carbon dioxide emissions, but it can increase emissions of methane. The primary component of natural gas, methane is an extraordinarily powerful greenhouse gas, more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide and responsible for about 30 per cent of today's global warming. Besides coal, everything else is better than gas for the planet, said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist. Building new gas plants locks in fossil fuel emissions for decades, he added. Redefining natural gas Louisiana's law orders state agencies and utilities regulators to "prioritise" natural gas, along with nuclear power, on the grounds that it will improve the affordability and reliability of the state's electricity. The law's author, Republican Rep. Jacob Landry, runs an oil and gas industry consulting firm. "I don't think it's anything crippling to wind or solar, but you got to realise the wind don't blow all the time and the sun don't shine every day," Landry said. The legislation "is saying we need to prioritise what keeps the grid energised," he added. Landry told The Associated Press that he used a model bill by the American Legislative Exchange Council as a template. ALEC is a conservative think tank with ties to the oil and gas industry's billionaire Koch family. ALEC helped shape Ohio's 2023 law to legally redefine natural gas as a source of green energy, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute and first reported by the Washington Post. ALEC spokesperson Lars Dalseide said that just because an Ohio lawmaker left the 2022 ALEC convention with what he described as a model for legislation to define natural gas as clean energy does not mean the group shaped Ohio law. Dalseide said the convention is "a place where legislators from across the country gather to exchange ideas." Ohio's legislation was also heavily influenced by an advocacy group led by Republican megadonor Tom Rastin, a now retired gas industry executive. According to Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, these laws are part of a long-running disinformation campaign by the gas industry to cast their product as clean to protect their businesses and prevent a shift to renewable energy sources that will address the climate crisis. "The goal is to elbow out competition from renewables from wind and solar, and in some cases preempt localities' ability to choose to pursue 100 per cent truly clean energy," Anderson said, adding that ALEC's legislation makes natural gas "eligible for state and local clean energy standards and funding." Questions over grid reliability Gov Landry and other proponents of the new law said they want to make sure that residents and businesses have a reliable electric grid. Nearly 80 per cent of Louisiana's grid is already powered by natural gas. Landry said that businesses will come to Louisiana if they know they can count on the state's electric grid. He highlighted Meta's plan to build a massive AI data centre powered by three natural gas plants. Louisiana's law orders utilities providers to prioritise nuclear energy as well. Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases while producing electricity. However, critics say it is more expensive than solar and wind and the US does not have a sufficient long-term solution for storing the waste. Consumer advocates say states do not need to embrace natural gas at the expense of wind, solar and other technologies to have a reliable grid. Legally mandating that utilities prioritise natural gas is "blind to innovation, market evolution, and the practical demands of modern electric systems," Jeffrey Clark, president of the Advanced Power Alliance, a renewable energy advocacy group, wrote in a statement opposing Louisiana's law. (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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Business Standard
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Trump admin to provide $30 mn to Israeli group distributing food in Gaza
The request is the first known US government funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's aid distribution efforts amid the Israel-Hamas war AP Washington The Trump administration is providing $30 million to an Israeli-backed group distributing food in Gaza, a US official said Tuesday. The request is the first known US government funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's aid distribution efforts amid the Israel-Hamas war. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue involving a controversial aid programme, confirmed that the US authorised the funding. The Associated Press reported Saturday that the American-led group had asked the Trump administration for the initial funding so it can continue its aid operation, which has been criticised by the UN, humanitarian groups and others.
