Aurelia Butler

The committee’s action, on a rare Saturday session, sets rules for debating the four bills covering fiscal 2024 funding for the departments of Defense, Agriculture, State and Homeland Security. It was unclear whether enough Republicans will vote on the House floor for the rules, which must be established before the House can proceed to the funding bills themselves.Infighting between far right and moderate House Republicans has so far stymied attempts to advance most legislation that would keep the government running when the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1. Their party holds a narrow 221-212 majority in the House and can afford very few defections. A short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, will almost certainly be needed to avert many federal agencies from suspending operations when existing monies expire in a week. A group of far-right Republicans has fought against this, seeing it as endorsing government spending they consider too high.”To talk about a CR (continuing resolution) is too premature,” Republican Representative Andy Ogles told reporters outside a House Rules Committee meeting on Friday ahead of the vote. “We have a task at hand which is to pass 12 appropriations bills and that’s what we need to focus on.”Instead, House Republicans have prepared the four separate, full-year spending bills that are certain to be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate. So far, the House has passed only one of 12 appropriations bills for the fiscal year, which the Senate has not planned to take up.”The goal is to try to move as many (bills) as possible to show the good faith effort on both sides” of the Republican caucus, Representative Marc Molinaro, a moderate freshman Republican, told reporters on Friday.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said the House may begin advancing the four bills on Tuesday as he seeks leverage in negotiations with the Senate. He is hoping the bills will give him enough room to advance a short-term spending bill to keep the government running through Oct. 31, though a handful of Republicans have said they oppose a short-term funding bill.The vote by the Rules Committee comes two days after five Republicans joined with Democrats to block a procedural vote on the defense spending bill. It was the third time the party had failed to advance that legislation, which has broad support from Republicans.If Congress cannot agree on a spending plan, government activities will be shuttered or limited.Former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, has publicly supported a shutdown. During Trump’s four-year presidency, the government closed three times.A shutdown is not completely inevitable. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, scheduled a procedural vote for Tuesday evening to begin advancing a stopgap funding bill. If that passes, McCarthy would decide on bringing it up for a vote in the House, risking the wrath of his conservative flank. That could potentially spark a move to remove McCarthy from his speakership, leading to further chaos in the House. More

The IMF in December approved a $3 billion Extended Fund Facility loan for Egypt, which has been under acute financial pressure since long-standing problems were exposed by economic fallout from the war in Ukraine.Disbursements under the 46-month program are subject to eight reviews, the first of which, originally scheduled to take place in March, has yet to happen amid reports the IMF was unhappy with Egypt’s progress in fulfilling the terms of the agreement.”Both the International Monetary Fund and the Egyptian state agreed to merge the first and second reviews at the same time, which is expected to be determined before the end of 2023,” Egypt’s finance ministry said in a detailed budget explanation carried by its website‮ ‬and reported by local media on Saturday.It added that negotiations with the IMF were proceeding “fruitfully and positively” in accordance with the terms of the program concluded with the Fund.Egypt vowed to adopt a flexible exchange rate when it reached the loan agreement with the IMF late last year, but the official rate has remained almost unchanged for nearly six months at about 30.93 to the dollar. The pound is traded at about 39 to the dollar on the black market.In June, Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared to rule out a further devaluation anytime soon, saying such a move could harm national security and hurt Egyptian citizens. More

“We know things are going to start getting better. Inflation is coming down. We think interest rates are going to start coming down probably middle of next year,” Trudeau told the New York Times in an interview just before returning to Canada after attending the United Nations General Assembly.Trudeau’s popularity as measured by opinion polls has dropped as Canadians deal with a cost-of-living crisis, sparked by the central bank’s record pace of interest rate increases to tame inflation.While the inflation has eased from its peak, the August CPI rose to 4% coming in above the central bank’s 2% target, and the Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said that rates may not be high enough.A majority of economists, 24 of 34, polled between Aug. 24-30 expect the BoC to keep its policy rate at the current level of 5% or higher until at least the end of March 2024. The median shows 50 basis points worth of cuts by the end of June next year, in line with expectations for the U.S. Federal Reserve.Trudeau has waded into a sensitive monetary policy debate and past comments on interest rates by his government and other provincial politicians have raised questions about the independence of the central bank.Earlier in the month, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the BoC’s independence after her comments that the central bank’s decision to hold the interest rate steady “is welcome relief for Canadians” raised concerns to the contrary.The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on Saturday on Trudeau’s remark.The Conservative Party Leader, Pierre Poilievre, has blamed the Trudeau government’s massive spending during the pandemic for the inflation and the affordability crisis.”People are mad at governments because things aren’t going all that well and people are worried. So, yeah, it’s a tough time,” Trudeau told the paper. More

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India will defer an import licence requirement for laptops and tablets, two government officials said, a policy U-turn after industry and the U.S. government complained about the move, which could hit Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung (KS:005930) and others.The plan will be delayed by a year, after which the government will consider whether to implement a licensing regime or not, one of the officials told Reuters, requesting anonymity.The licensing regime, announced abruptly on Aug. 3, aimed to “ensure trusted hardware and systems” enter India, reduce dependence on imports, boost local manufacturing and in part address the country’s trade imbalance with China.But following industry objections, the initial plan was quickly delayed by about three months. Last month U.S. trade chief Katherine Tai raised concerns with India over the move, which would also affect companies such as Dell (NYSE:DELL) and HP (NYSE:HPQ).India’s electronics ministry is now proposing a simpler import registration process that is due to start in November, said the officials, who have direct knowledge of the discussions. A representative for India’s IT ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The new ‘imports management system’ will need companies to obtain ‘registration certificates’ for imports of laptops, tablets and personal computers, instead of licences proposed earlier by the Aug.3 order, one of the officials said. The ministry conveyed the proposal to industry officials in a meeting on Friday, they added.India’s electronics imports, including laptops, tablets and personal computers, stood at $19.7 billion in the April to June period, up 6.25% year-on-year. More