US DEBT CEILING BILL PASSES HOUSE WITH BROAD BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed legislation negotiated by US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to suspend the debt ceiling and set federal spending limits, as a broad bipartisan coalition lined up to cast a critical vote to pull the nation back from the brink of economic catastrophe.

The Bill would defer the federal debt limit for two years — allowing the government to borrow unlimited sums as necessary to pay its obligations — while imposing two years of spending caps and a string of policy changes that Republicans demanded in exchange for allowing the country to avoid a disastrous default. The 314-to-117 vote came days before the nation was set to exhaust its borrowing limit, and days after a marathon set of talks between White House negotiators and top House Republicans yielded a breakthrough agreement. With both far-right and hard-left lawmakers in revolt over the deal, it fell to a bipartisan coalition powered by Democrats to push the Bill over the finish line, throwing their support behind the compromise in an effort to break the fiscal stalemate that had gripped Washington for weeks. On the final vote, 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats backed the measure, while 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats opposed it.

US SET TO OPEN NORTHERNMOST DIPLOMATIC POST IN NORWAY: BLINKEN

Oslo : The US will open its northernmost diplomatic station in the Norwegian Arctic town of Tromsoe, secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Thursday, at a time when cooperation among Arctic nations has been hit by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The region is becoming strategically important as a shrinking ice cap opens up new sea lanes and attracts other nations seeking its largely untapped natural resources.

“To deepen our own engagement in the high north, I am announcing the US will be opening an American presence post in Tromsoe,” Blinken told reporters after a two-day meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Oslo. “For us, the presence post in Tromsoe is really an ability to have a diplomatic footprint above the Arctic Circle,” he said. The post would open “later this year” and would be staffed with one US diplomat, the US embassy in Oslo said, noting that the US had an office in Tromsoe until 1994. Blinken’s announcement comes three weeks after Norway took over from Russia the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, a forum created in 1996 to discuss issues affecting the polar region.

US ACCESSED THOUSANDS OF IPHONES IN SPY PLOT: RUSSIA

Moscow : Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had uncovered a US National Security Agency (NSA) plot using previously unknown malware to access specially made so-called backdoor vulnerabilities in Apple phones. The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said several thousand Apple phones had been infected, including those of domestic Russian subscribers. Neither Apple nor the NSA immediately responded to emailed requests for comment.

The Russian spy agency also said telephones belonging to foreign diplomats based in Russia and the former Soviet Union, including those from Israel, Syria, China and Nato members, had been targeted. “The FSB has uncovered an intelligence action of the American special services using Apple mobile devices,” the FSB said in a statement.

The FSB said the plot showed “close cooperation” between Apple and the NSA, the US agency responsible for US cryptographic and communications intelligence and security. Both the Kremlin and Russia's foreign ministry pointed to the significance of the matter. “The hidden data collection was carried out through software vulnerabilities in US-made mobile phones,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “The US intelligence services have been using IT corporations for decades in order to collect largescale data of Internet users without their knowledge,” theministry said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said all officials in the administration knew that gadgets such as iPhones were “absolutely transparent”. “Using them for official purposes is unacceptable and prohibited,” Peskov said, adding that officials were free to use iPhones for private, non-official communication.

PUTIN OVERSHADOWS BRICS TALKS IN SA

A meeting of foreign ministers from the Brics countries in South Africa on Thursday was overshadowed by questions about whether Russian President Putin would be arrested if he attended a summit of the five-nation bloc in August. South Africa’s foreign minister Naledi Pandor said it was mulling legal options if Putin, the subject of a war crimes arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), did attend the planned Johannesburg summit. As a member of the ICC, South Africa would theoretically be required to arrest Putin if he attended.

PAKISTAN POSTS RECORD INFLATION FOR SECOND CONSECUTIVE MONTH

Pakistan’s annual inflation rate rose to 37.97% in May, the statistics bureau said on Thursday, setting a national record for the second month in a row, adding to its problems of a balance of payment crisis and the risk of a sovereign default.

Already in April, the bureau said Pakistan’s CPI at 36.5% was the highest recorded, as well as the highest in South Asia, ahead of Sri Lanka, which posted annual inflation of 25.2% in May.

Pakistan’s month-on-month rise in May was 1.58%, the bureau said in a statement, adding vegetables, pulses, wheat, wheat flour, rice, eggs and chicken in food items and fuel and gas prices caused the increase.

Inflation has been on an upward trend since early this year after the government took painful measures as part of fiscal adjustments demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unlock stalled funding.

The IMF demands include the withdrawal of subsidies, a hike in energy prices and new taxation to generate extra revenue in a supplementary budget.

NATO PRESSES TURKIYE TO ALLOW SWEDEN’S ENTRY

Oslo : Nato on Thursday ramped up pressure on member nation Turkiye to drop its objections to Sweden’s membership as the military organisation seeks to deal with the issue by the time US President Biden and his counterparts meet next month. The 31-member alliance is also looking at boosting Ukraine’s non-member status in Nato and preparing a framework for security commitments that it can offer once the war with Russia is over.

Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Nato wants to bring Sweden into the fold by the time allied leaders meet in Lithuania on July 11-12. The allies also hope to make progress on long-term funding and the security plan for Ukraine at the same event, Stoltenberg said. He said the allies continue to agree that Ukraine will become a Nato member one day but that in the meantime the alliance should provide it with security commitments and new funding. “Our focus today was on how we can bring Ukraine closer to Nato where it belongs,” he said.

Stoltenberg said that he would travel to Ankara “in the near future to continue to address how we can ensure the fastest possible accession of Sweden. ” A Nato diplomat said that Stoltenberg and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could meet this weekend.

U.S. AND TAIWAN INK TRADE DEAL AS CHINA ISSUES WARNING

The United States and Taiwan signed a trade deal Thursday aimed at deepening economic relations between both sides — in a move that has sparked a warning from Beijing.

The U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade looks to boost trade by streamlining customs checks, improving regulatory procedures, and establishing anticorruption measures between the U.S. and the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

While the U.S. and Taiwan do not have official diplomatic relations, they maintain unofficial ties through the de facto U.S. embassy on the island, the American Institute in Taiwan. The first agreement under the latest initiative was signed by representatives of the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, said the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) press office on Thursday.

But Beijing detests any hint of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and other governments.

“Relevant tasks are yet to be completed.... Taiwan will continue to move towards a comprehensive FTA (free trade agreement) with the United States to ensure Taiwan’s economic security,” he added.

China warned Washington earlier on Thursday against signing any pact “with connotations of sovereignty or of an official nature with China’s Taiwan region.”

The U.S. “must not send the wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces in the name of trade,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

AMID CRACKDOWN ON PTI LEADERS, IMRAN’S PARTY PREZ HELD FOR GRAFT

Lahore : The president of former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s party was arrested from outside his residence in Lahore on Thursday on charges of corruption.

Pervez Elahi, president of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf party, joins a long list of key PTI leaders arrested in the security swoop to halt turmoil that has threatened to worsen instability in a country reeling from a crippling financial crisis. “Pervez Elahi is wanted in several corruption cases,” Amir Mir, caretaker information minister in the province of Punjab, told Reuters. Elahi previously denied the accusations. “The inflation has skyrocketed to 38%, and their response is arresting former CM Punjab Parvez Elahi. Absolutely ridiculous,” the party tweeted along with a videoin which the 77-year-old was seen being dragged by securitymen from his residence.

Dozens of top and mid-tier leaders in the PTI have been arrested alongside hundreds of Khan supporters since the violent protests of May 9. Many have quit the party after being released while other leaders remain on the run to avoid arrest. Till now, over 100 PTI leaders have resigned.

Khan, 70, facing over 100 cases ranging from graft to terrorism, said he sympathises with everyone who were being forced to leave the party. Elahi's son Moonis said despite the “fascist act” his family will stay with Khan.

AHEAD OF POLLS, ZIMBABWE OKS BILL THAT OUTLAWS CRITICISM OF GOVT

Harare : Zimbabwe’s parliament has outlawed criticism of the government ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in August, with violations of a new law punishable by up to 20 years in jail. The Criminal Law Code Amendment Bill, widely known as the “Patriotic Bill”, contains a clause that criminalises “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe”.

Opposition activists said the law, passed late on Wednesday, was designed to punish citizens, civil society organisations and political adversaries of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

It has raised fears that the government could launch a crackdown on dissent ahead of the general election on Aug. 23, where President Emmerson Mnangagwa will be seeking a second term.