WASHINGTON: House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday he had “no decisions about what exactly he will do” after a Republican plan to end the US debt-ceiling showdown was rejected by the White House.
House Republican leaders unveiled an 11th-hour plan even as bipartisan negotiations appeared to be progressing in the Senate, throwing into disarray the efforts to end a two-week-old government shutdown and extend US borrowing authority into next year.
Lawmakers emerged from a two-hour Republican caucus meeting to say the chamber would vote on the measure Tuesday, but Boehner was less sanguine.
“There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. There have been no decisions about what exactly we will do,” a stone-faced Boehner told reporters after emerging from a two-hour meeting with his caucus.
“We’re going to continue to work with our members on both sides of the aisle to try to make sure that there’s no issue of default and to get our government re-open.” Many federal agencies have been shuttered for two weeks since Congress failed to agree a budget for the new fiscal year, and the US Treasury has warned it could hit its debt ceiling any time from Thursday.
With that crucial deadline looming, the impasse that appeared surmountable on Monday was suddenly a very steep road, with the White House and Democrats blasting the House plan as unworkable and extreme.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has held days of face-to-face negotiations with his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell, declared the House measure dead in the water.
“Let’s be clear: the House legislation will not pass the Senate,” Reid said.
“I know I speak for many of us who have been working in good faith when I say that we felt blindsided by the news from the House,” Reid said.
“Extremist Republicans in the House of Representatives are attempting to torpedo the Senate’s bipartisan progress.” Like the Senate proposal being worked through, the House Republican plan would fund government through January 15 while extending the debt ceiling to February 7.
But it also includes provisions aimed at chipping away at President Barack Obama’s health care law, including one delaying for two years a medical device tax that helps fund the reforms.
And it would remove a president’s long-held authority to use “extraordinary measures” that extend the time that Treasury can keep paying the nation’s bills after the US bumps up against its borrowing limit.
“A deal on a date should be a deal on a date, not a deal on a date that the president can move up or back at his discretion,” congressman Darrell Issa said.
Some Republicans emerged form their caucus meeting — where lawmakers sang the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace” before discussing the plan — optimistic that the House measure could pass both chambers, but a few moderates were not so sure.
Congressman Charlie Dent said he would vote for the House bill, but “I don’t know if the votes are there to pass this.”
US debt-ceiling talks in limbo as House plan stalls
US debt-ceiling talks in limbo as House plan stalls
India hosts global leaders, tech moguls at AI Impact Summit
- 20 heads of state scheduled to attend event which runs until Feb. 20
- Summit expected to speed up adoption of AI in India’s governance, expert says
NEW DELHI: A global artificial intelligence summit opened in New Delhi on Monday, with representatives of more than 60 countries scheduled to discuss the use and regulation of AI with the industry’s leaders and investors.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 is hosted by the Indian government’s IndiaAI Mission — an initiative worth in excess of $1 billion and launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in 2024 to develop the AI ecosystem in the country.
After five days of sessions and an accompanying exhibition of 300 companies at Bharat Mandapam — the venue of the 2023 G20 summit — participating leaders are expected to sign a declaration which, according to the organizer, will outline a “shared road map for global AI governance and collaboration.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will attend the summit on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, said on X it was a “matter of great pride for us that people from around the world are coming to India” for the event, which is evidence that the country is “rapidly advancing in the fields of science and technology and is making a significant contribution to global development.”
Among the 20 heads of state that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has announced as scheduled to attend are Macron, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, and Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince.
Also expected are tech moguls such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google’s chief Sundar Pichai.
The summit will give India, the world’s most populous country, a platform to try to steer cooperation and AI regulation between the West and the Global South, and to present to the global audience its own technological development.
“India is leveraging its position as a bridge between emerging and developed economies to bring together not just country leaders and technologists, but also delegates, policy analysts, media, and others … to explore the facets of AI, multilateral collaborations, and the direction that large-scale development of AI should take,” said Anwesha Sen, assistant program manager for technology and policy at Takshashila Institution.
“India is trying to do three things through the AI Impact Summit. One, India is advocating for sovereign AI and the development of inclusive, population-scale solutions. Two, establishing international collaborations that prioritize AI diffusion in sectors like healthcare and agriculture. And three, showcasing how Indian startups and organizations are using frameworks such as that of digital public infrastructure as a model to bridge the two.”
It is the fourth such gathering dedicated to the development of AI. The first one was held in the UK in 2023, a year after the debut of ChatGPT; the 2024 meeting in South Korea; and last year’s event took place in France.
The summit is likely to help the Indian government in speeding up the adoption of AI, according to Nikhil Pahwa, digital rights activist and founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal, who likened it to the Digital India initiative launched in 2015 to provide digital government services.
“A summit like this, with this much bandwidth allocated to it by the government, even if the agenda is flat, ends up making AI a priority focus for ministries and state governments,” Pahwa told Arab News.
“It encourages diffusion of AI execution-specific thinking and ends up increasing adoption of AI in governance and by both central and state-level ministries. That reduces time for adoption of AI.
“We saw this play out with the government’s Digital India focus: it increased digitization and the adoption of digital technology. The agenda and India’s role in AI globally is less important than speeding up adoption.”
