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Netanyahu's graft trial delayed amid Trump support and Gaza crisis
Netanyahu's lawyers had asked the court to excuse him from testifying over the next two weeks so he could focus on security issues following a ceasefire with Iran and amid ongoing fighting in Gaza where Israeli hostages are held read more
An Israeli court on Sunday postponed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's testimony in his corruption trial after he requested a delay with the suppport of US President Donald Trump, in a ruling published by the premier's party.
'Following the explanations given… we partially accept the request and cancel at this stage Mr Netanyahu's hearings scheduled' for this week, the Jerusalem district court said in its ruling, published online by the Likud party.
Netanyahu's lawyers had asked the court to excuse him from testifying over the next two weeks so he could focus on security issues following a ceasefire with Iran and amid ongoing fighting in Gaza where Israeli hostages are held.
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They had submitted Netanyahu's schedule to the court to demonstrate 'the national need for the prime minister to devote all his time and energy to the political, national and security issues at hand'.
The court initially rejected the lawyers' request but said in its ruling on Sunday that it had changed its judgement after hearing arguments from the prime minister, the head of military intelligence and the chief of the Mossad spy agency.
Trump on Wednesday described the case against Netanyahu as a 'witch hunt', saying the trial 'should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero'.
He added in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that the United States was 'not going to stand' for the continued prosecution, prompting Netanyahu to thank him in a message on X.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid on Thursday criticised Trump, saying he 'should not interfere in a judicial trial in an independent country'.
Netanyahu has thanked Trump for his support in Israel's brief war against Iran, which ended with a ceasefire on June 24.
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and his supporters have described the long-running trial as politically motivated.
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In a first case, he and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours.
In two other cases, Netanyahu is accused of attempting to negotiate more favourable coverage from two Israeli media outlets.
During his current term, which started in late 2022, Netanyahu's government has proposed a series of far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say were designed to weaken the courts.
Netanyahu has requested multiple postponements in the trial since it began in May 2020.
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First Post
31 minutes ago
- First Post
Khamenei holds the Iran key as Trump pushes for new nuclear deal
Senior Iranian officials are prepared to enter talks with the Trump administration over a civilian nuclear deal, but the final decision rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei read more Despite public denials, senior Iranian officials are quietly signaling their willingness to resume nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration. However, as with all critical decisions in the Islamic Republic, the ultimate authority rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . A source familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post that Iran's leadership has indicated a readiness to talk, but they are still awaiting a green light from Khamenei. It remains unclear whether Khamenei is deliberately holding back his approval or if communication difficulties are contributing to the delay. Some reports suggest that Khamenei has retreated to a secure underground location — an apparent wartime measure—that has hampered contact with top officials. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Khamenei previously blocked key talks Journalist Barak Ravid recently reported that Khamenei previously blocked attempts by Iran's foreign minister to engage with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance. That obstruction, during the recent conflict, was a decisive factor in US President Donald Trump 's choice to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. A deal is still on the table Despite the tensions and military strikes between Iran, Israel, and the US, efforts to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table are ongoing. Trump administration officials have floated a range of proposals — some highly ambitious — including potentially allowing Iran to access up to $30 billion for a civilian nuclear energy program. The proposals are contingent on a firm, non-negotiable condition: zero uranium enrichment by Iran. The US insists that any civilian nuclear programme must be powered by imported, not domestically enriched, uranium. This idea mirrors the model followed by the United Arab Emirates. Secret White House meetings and regional involvement Much of the recent diplomacy has been conducted in secret. A critical meeting occurred last Friday between US envoy Steve Witkoff and officials from Gulf states at the White House, just one day before the US military launched strikes against Iran. During this meeting, terms for a revamped Iranian nuclear program were laid out, including a $20–30 billion investment, primarily expected to come from US-aligned Gulf partners, not American taxpayers. One floated idea involves Gulf states funding the replacement of Iran's Fordow nuclear facility — recently bombed by the US — with a new non-enrichment energy site. Whether Iran would have access to or control over the facility remains unclear. Sanctions relief and access to frozen funds Another incentive under discussion is the removal of select economic sanctions and the unlocking of $6 billion in Iranian assets currently frozen in foreign bank accounts. These financial carrots are part of a broader strategy to draw Iran back into a compliance framework without direct concessions from Washington DC. Still, reports quoting senior Trump administration officials said these proposals are preliminary and subject to change. The US is not offering unilateral benefits but is open to facilitating peace and long-term stability. Trump's public indifference belies behind-the-scenes diplomacy In public statements, President Trump has struck a dismissive tone, stating he doesn't care whether a new deal is signed or not. However, CNN cited sources to say that the administration sees real value in locking down a longer-term nuclear agreement to reinforce the recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel. Witkoff has echoed similar views in his interviews. He said the US is pursuing a 'comprehensive peace agreement' and sees signs that Iran is open to one. He said multiple intermediaries — especially Qatar — are actively facilitating discussions. Road to a new agreement remains uncertain While a sixth round of negotiations had been scheduled before Israel's strikes disrupted talks, no formal date has been set to resume them. President Trump claimed that US-Iran talks might take place next week, though Iranian officials have not confirmed this and sources say the logistics are still being finalised. Before the recent military escalation, five rounds of preliminary talks had already been held. A proposal from the US was on the table and Iran was expected to respond in Oman — plans which were derailed by the Israeli assault. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Potential turning point or point of no return? The Trump administration hopes that the recent show of military force will pressure Iran into abandoning its pursuit of nuclear capabilities. However, some experts warn the opposite outcome is just as plausible: that Iran may now double down on its nuclear ambitions out of self-preservation. In a troubling sign, the Iranian parliament has recently voted to end cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog agency — a move widely interpreted as a signal of Tehran's intent to further conceal its nuclear activities. Direct talks are still uncertain US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reinforced that any future agreement depends on Iran's willingness to engage in direct negotiations. Still, back-channel communication continues, with Qatar playing a central role in conveying messages and helping maintain the fragile ceasefire. The coming days may determine whether this fragile diplomatic moment yields a new nuclear agreement — or slides into deeper mistrust and confrontation.
Mint
37 minutes ago
- Mint
As US trade deal nears, India reviews timing, scope of digital economy policy
New Delhi: As India and the US move closer to finalising a bilateral trade pact ahead of the 9 July tariff deadline, New Delhi is reassessing the timing and contours of pending policy measures that are sensitive to the interests of American tech giants. These include the proposed Digital Competition Bill, a comprehensive e-commerce framework, and new income attribution rules for non-resident enterprises, according to three people familiar with the matter. The recalibrations are being weighed to ensure the policy measures align with the broader objectives of the India-US trade deal and reflect India's commitment to a trust-based regulatory framework and investment requirements, one of them said. 'Policy measures which are on the drawing board can also be a bargaining chip in bilateral treaty negotiations," said the second person quoted above. Both of them spoke on condition of anonymity. The ministry of finance, the departments for promotion of industry and internal trade and commerce, and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) did not reply to queries emailed on Friday. India has offered several concessions to US exporters of goods and services in the previous two Union budgets, including customs duty reductions and scrapping of the equalisation levy on digital services rendered to Indian businesses by non-resident entities such as tech giants Google and Meta. New Delhi is looking to finalise a bilateral agreement with Washington before the US's 9 July reciprocal tariffs deadline. The US wants India to significantly reduce duties on American agricultural goods, dairy products, and shrimp, and remove non-tariff barriers restricting US dairy exports. Washington, too, is under pressure to ensure the India-US trade deal passes before the deadline. A 26% reciprocal tariff on Indian exports into the US, which includes the 10% universal baseline tariff that now applies to Indian exports, along with tariffs on imports from other countries, could push up retail price inflation in the US. Concerns over the impact of reciprocal tariffs on inflation are already top on the mind of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has refused to buckle under pressure from President Trump to cut the benchmark lending rate. President Trump is pitching for rate cuts which could help lower the government's interest payments and the budget deficit. India's cautious approach Among the measures being reviewed is India's proposed Digital Competition Bill which seeks to introduce an ex-ante or forward-looking approach to regulating the digital economy. This will mandate influential tech firms to follow a code of conduct. The draft Bill, as it is framed now, will affect digital economy firms' ability to show targeted advertisements and the way people use Google services like maps, Mint reported on 24 April and 7 June, respectively, last year. The government is also reviewing the proposed profit attribution rules to be rolled out by the Income Tax department. These are meant to levy tax on non-resident companies which have a 'significant economic presence' in India, defined on the basis of transaction value and user base. But India's double tax avoidance deal with the US makes it difficult to tax these entities, as only those defined as having a 'permanent establishment' here under the treaty can be taxed. India abolished other efforts to tax tech giants catering to Indian customers remotely by removing the equalisation levy (6% on digital advertisements and 2% on e-commerce) over the last few months to ease trade tensions with the US and to remain aligned with OECD's framework to check tax base erosion, said Amit Maheshwari, tax partner at AKM Global, a tax and consulting firm. 'However, it still has domestic rules like the Significant Economic Presence (SEP) concept and draft profit attribution rules under Section 9 of the Income Tax Act and Rule 10. For now, the profit attribution rules have not been made effective, and US-based companies can still claim tax treaty benefits in case of a SEP existing in India unless they have a permanent establishment here," said Maheshwari. On Saturday, Canada rescinded a 3% digital services tax on big tech companies that was to take effect on 30 June. This was in response to Trump's announcement on Friday that he was cutting off trade talks with Canada for going ahead with this tax. E-commerce and FDI India's proposed comprehensive e-commerce policy, which has drawn strong interest from global entities such as Amazon and Walmart, is another measure under review as the countries reassess priorities in the wake of an eventful regime change in the US. 'This may not be the right time to push ahead with the e-commerce policy discussion, given the shifting global geopolitical scenario," a senior government official said. India is also considering a tweak to its foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in retail to allow foreign investment in building inventory, which is currently permitted only for domestic players. The idea is to enable US-based retailers to invest in warehousing infrastructure. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 took into account some of the concerns of digital economy firms. 'It is true that a lot of discussions have been happening on issues like the Digital Competition Bill and the e-commerce policy. Some of these developments may also come up during bilateral discussions with the relevant foreign governments," said Amol Kulkarni, director of research at CUTS International, a non-profit, non-governmental organization working on public interest issues. The timing and form of these policy developments can offer India leverage in these discussions, Kulkarni said. "It is for the government to strike a fine balance in these talks taking into consideration the need for policy certainty and predictability and the gains that could come to the overall economy from specific policies," said Kulkarni. 'For instance, the regulation of cross border data flow had been subject to intense negotiation and the final framing under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 was quite accommodating, however, the requirements under the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules 2025 introduce some ambiguities, which could have been avoided, in the interest of policy certainty and predictability," said Kulkarni. After signing a major tariff deal with China, President Trump has hinted at a 'big trade deal' with India too. Whether India's moves so far, including removal of the equalisation levy and pause on contentious digital rules, are enough to soften the US stance remains to be seen, said Maheshwari.
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Business Standard
an hour ago
- Business Standard
China shows tech resilience against Trump's export curbs over Rare earths
As Donald Trump brandishes US export controls on technology as a bargaining chip to wrest supplies of rare earth magnets from Beijing, China is showcasing what it can do without the most advanced American semiconductors. On a government-organized trip this month to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, two of China's richest provinces that spawned AI darling DeepSeek, authorities lined up a host of executives from technology companies to meet with journalists from Bloomberg News and other media outlets. The message was ultimately one of defiance: China's technology sector still aims at world dominance despite US curbs. Take Magiclab Robotics Technology Co., a firm in the eastern city of Suzhou founded barely more than a year ago. Its president, Wu Changzheng, said it had independently developed more than 90 per cent of the parts it uses to make humanoid robots. The rest consists of semiconductors and micro-controller units procured domestically and overseas, he said, adding that they don't use US chips. 'China doesn't have many weak links in this industry,' Wu said, as he demonstrated a human-sized robot destined for factory floors. He brushed off Trump's recent ban on US firms exporting semiconductor design software to China, saying his robots only require 'standard chips.' Other entrepreneurs emphasized self-reliance over the five-day trip with companies spanning bio-pharmaceuticals, humanoid robotics, AI and autos — all sectors pivotal to President Xi Jinping's manufacturing ambitions. Many in China's business sector have rallied around Xi's government in the face of Trump's tariffs and expanding US export curbs. Access to so many executives at once is typically difficult for foreign journalists in a country where media access is tightly regulated and company officials can be reluctant to speak freely for fear of reprisal. The trip exemplifies Beijing's desire to boost global investor confidence in its $19 trillion economy, which has been plagued by a property crash, deflation and now the US's highest tariffs in a century. Although DeepSeek's surprise AI breakthrough earlier this year proved China can innovate with a limited supply of chips, Beijing still faces difficulty catching the US while being denied access to Nvidia Corp.'s most advanced semiconductors. On the press tour, the Chinese government mostly presented firms that don't require top-tier chips such as AISpeech Co, which makes in-car AI-powered audio and video tools. For companies pioneering autonomous driving models or artificial general intelligence — systems that possess human-level cognitive abilities — accessing the latest chips is likely to be far more important. Tiptoeing around sensitive topics like state subsidies, eight tech executives who addressed reporters throughout the trip downplayed the impact of a yearslong US campaign to curtail China's technological ascent, emphasizing the country's increased self-reliance as government officials listened attentively on the sidelines. The executives spoke about how they are instead leveraging local advantages they consider disruption-proof, from a vast talent pool to supply chains walled off from the outside world. Yu Kai, AISpeech's co-founder and chief scientific officer, said the company has hired more than 700 people in research centers in Beijing and Suzhou, after starting off with fewer than 10 people developing an algorithm in Cambridge. It has set up a subsidiary in Shenzhen for its proximity to smart equipment manufacturing and also runs a unit in southern China to produce software for cars built by a local auto-making partner. Illustrating the deep concern in Beijing on US tech controls, Xi has restricted China's rare earth magnets in recent months in a bid to unwind some of Trump's recent export curbs. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last week that the US and China signed a document to codify trade terms reached last month in Geneva, including a commitment from Beijing to deliver rare earths used in everything from wind turbines to jet planes. China's economic stamina was a common theme of the trip that began in Nanjing, a city in Jiangsu where researchers publish three times more scientific papers than those in New York. Ferried by two buses, dozens of journalists went to Suzhou and neighboring Zhejiang province by high-speed train, as the focus of discussions shifted more to the development of green technologies. There's debate in China over how it matters to access state-of-the-art chipmaking machines, and Nvidia's most-advanced AI accelerators. Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei Technologies Co., recently said Chinese firms can adopt means such as chip stacking to get results similar to the most cutting-edge semiconductors. Beijing also blocks most AI services from US rivals, meaning domestic players don't have to compete against American leaders. China has to put on a display of 'confidence and window dressing' after years of tech curbs, according to Julian Mueller-Kaler, director of the Strategic Foresight Hub at the Stimson Center in Washington. High-end chips for AI data centers, for example, can be replaced with less capable models, at the expense of more energy usage, he said. 'The reason the Chinese didn't really retaliate that much after the chips restrictions a few years ago is Beijing actually likes them, to a certain degree,' he said. 'It forces Chinese companies to develop their own capabilities and reduce the reliance on American tech — a political goal Chinese decision-makers had for a long time but was hindered by economic realities.' Still, for all the savvy on display, few companies will emerge unscathed from deteriorating ties with the US. Some executives on the trip mentioned they were feeling the pain as Trump's America First policy seeks to limit US investment in China's high tech sectors. 'The impact on financing is significant,' said Zhang Jinhua, chairwoman of IASO Biotechnology Co., which makes a life-saving cancer treatment. 'I tell my team to stop asking when this winter ends. We must treat winter as the four seasons and adapt to prolonged uncertainty.'
