The Jim Bakker Show

Cyber attack hits 1,200 InterContinental hotels in United States

By Alastair Sharp

TORONTO (Reuters) – Global hotel chain InterContinental Hotels Group Plc <IHG.L> said 1,200 of its franchised hotels in the United States, including Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, were victims of a three-month cyber attack that sought to steal customer payment card data.

The company declined to say how many payment cards were stolen in the attack, the latest in a hacking spree on prominent hospitality companies including Hyatt Hotels Corp <H.N>, Hilton, and Starwood Hotels, now owned by Marriott International Inc <MAR.O>.

The breach lasted from September 29 to December 29, InterContinental spokesman Neil Hirsch said on Wednesday. He declined to say if losses were covered by insurance or what financial impact the hacking might have on the hotels that were compromised, which also included Hotel Indigo, Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites properties.

The malware searched for track data stored on magnetic stripes, which includes name, card number, expiration date and internal verification code, the company said.

Hotel operators have become popular targets because they are easier to breach than other businesses that store credit card numbers as they have limited knowledge in defending themselves against hackers, said Itay Glick, chief executive of Israeli cyber-security company Votiro. “They don’t have massive data centers like banks which have very secure systems to protect themselves,” said Glick.

InterContinental declined to say how many franchised properties it has in the United States, which is part of its business unit in the Americas with 3,633 such properties.

In February, InterContinental said it had been victim of a cyber attack, but at that time said that only 12 of its 286 managed properties in the Americas were infected with malware.

Iran foreign minister says US must meet own obligations for nuclear deal

FILE PHOTO: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks to the media in Tbilisi, Georgia, April 18, 2017. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday the United States should meet its own obligations agreed in a landmark nuclear deal in 2015 rather than making accusations against the Islamic Republic.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday accused Iran of “alarming ongoing provocations” to destabilise countries in the Middle East as the Trump administration launched a review of its policy towards Tehran that will include the 2015 nuclear deal. [nL1N1HR14B]

In a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, Tillerson said on Tuesday that Iran remained compliant with the nuclear accord, but there were concerns about its role as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In the first reaction to Tillerson’s remarks from a senior Iranian official, Zarif tweeted that the United States should “fulfill its own commitments”.

Under the nuclear deal, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days on Iran’s compliance under the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was the first such notification under U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his tweet, Zarif also addressed Tillerson’s terrorism charge: “Worn-out US accusations can’t mask its admission of Iran’s compliance w/ JCPOA.”

Iran helped to create and continues to fund Hezbollah, the Lebanese military and political organization which the United States has listed as a terrorist organization.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are currently fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s forces. Iran has also sent military advisers and fighters to neighbouring Iraq, where they are taking part in the Baghdad government’s operations against Islamic State.

Iranian hardliners have regularly criticized Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani for their role in negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal, which they see as capitulation to Western powers.

During his presidential campaign, Trump called the nuclear agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated”, raising questions over whether he would rip it up once he took office.

The historic deal between Iran and six major powers restricts Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international oil and financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The Trump administration’s inter-agency review of policy towards Iran will examine whether the lifting of sanctions against Tehran is in the U.S. national security interests.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; editing by John Stonestreet and Gareth Jones)

Asylum seekers crossing into Canada increase with warmer weather

A family that says they are from Colombia walks down Roxham Road toward the U.S.-Canada border leading into Hemmingford, Quebec, Canada March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi

(Reuters) – Canadian authorities caught 887 asylum seekers crossing unlawfully into Canada from the United States in March, nearly triple the number in January, according to numbers released by the government Wednesday.

This brings the total number of asylum seekers caught walking across the border to 1,860 so far this year. The new statistics suggest those numbers could rise further as the weather warms.

Canada is on track to see the highest number of asylum claims in six years, given the pace of claims filed so far, as increasing numbers of people cross into Canada to make refugee claims in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s election and his crackdown on refugees and illegal immigrants.

Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, Canada is required to turn asylum seekers away if they try to file refugee claims at land border crossings. But if people cross the border in between formal crossings, they are taken into custody and questioned by both police and border authorities, then allowed to file claims and stay in Canada while they await the outcome.

Refugee advocates have argued that were it not for the Safe Third Country Agreement, people would file claims at border crossings instead.

The people caught crossing unlawfully comprise a fifth of everyone who has filed asylum claims in Canada so far this year but they loom large in Canadian politics, with the federal government taking fire for its wait-and-see approach. Nearly half of the people surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released in March wanted to deport people illegally crossing into Canada from its southern neighbor.

“The majority of irregular migrants are holders of visas for the United States,” according to a statement released Wednesday from the office of Canada’s Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale.

“Canadian authorities are managing the increase in asylum seekers in a sound and measured way. … To be clear – trying to slip across the border in an irregular manner is not a ‘free’ ticket to Canada.”

Almost three-quarters of the asylum seekers caught crossing so far this year were taken into custody in Quebec, the government data showed. Roxham Road, which straddles Champlain, New York and Hemmingford, Quebec, has become such a common spot that photographers cluster there and would-be refugees refer to it by name.

Most of the others were taken into custody in Manitoba and British Columbia – 331 and 201, respectively.

Police said Wednesday they have charged 43-year-old Michelle Omoruyi with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling. Police allege they found Omoruyi driving nine west African asylum seekers across the U.S. border into the prairie province of Saskatchewan Friday night. The nine asylum seekers have filed refugee claims and are not in custody.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; editing by Diane Craft)

U.S. troops still battling Islamic State near site of Afghan bomb strike

A member of Afghanistan's Special Forces unit jumps from a wall during patrol in Pandola village near the site of a U.S. bombing in the Achin district of Nangarhar, eastern Afghanistan, April 14, 2017. REUTERS/Parwiz

By Josh Smith and Ahmad Sultan

KABUL/ABDUL KHIL, Afghanistan (Reuters) – U.S. troops are still battling suspected Islamic State fighters near the site where a massive bomb was dropped in eastern Afghanistan last week, a U.S. military official said on Wednesday.

Nicknamed “the mother of all bombs”, the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb was dropped last Thursday from an American MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, bordering Pakistan.

Since then questions have surrounded the decision to use the weapon, which is one of the largest conventional bombs ever used in combat by the U.S. military.

Afghan estimates of heavy militant losses and no civilian casualties have been impossible to verify in the remote region, with access to the area where the bomb fell still blocked.

The strike drew condemnation from some prominent figures, including former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan.

After arriving at the site the day after the strike, U.S. troops fighting alongside Afghan forces have since left, but continue to conduct operations in the broader area, said U.S. military spokesman Captain William Salvin.

“Access has been restricted but that’s because it’s a combat zone,” he told Reuters. “We are in contact with the enemy.”

Echoing initial estimates, Salvin said the U.S. military has “high confidence” that no civilians were harmed.

Some Afghan officials have complained of a lack of information about the effects of the bomb.

“We were and we are kept in the dark and still we haven’t been able to go to the site,” said one senior Afghan security official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“We are confused ourselves and we wonder what MOAB could have caused.”

“FIGHTING FOR GOD”

In meetings of the Afghan security council, some ministers told President Ashraf Ghani they feared the lack of information from the U.S. side could be exploited by Islamic State, which has continued radio broadcasts claiming none of its fighters were killed.

“We haven’t suffered any casualties from this bomb,” said one recent Islamic State broadcast. “We are fighting for the sake of God, who is much stronger than this bomb.”

Salvin would not comment on claims by Afghan defense officials that nearly 100 Islamic State fighters died in the strike.

The attack was aimed at destroying an “extensive” complex of fortified tunnels and mines and not any particularly large concentration of fighters, he said.

“Our assessments are ongoing,” Salvin said, noting that the strike appeared to have collapsed many tunnels, destroyed mines, and “reduced” several nearby structures.

U.S. troops have continued to use explosives to collapse other tunnel entrances not destroyed by the bomb, he said.

For at least a month before the strike, the U.S. military had broadcast radio messages warning of coming operations by American and Afghan troops in southern Nangarhar, and leaflets were dropped on areas affected by the operation, Salvin said.

One leaflet seen by Reuters in a village near the strike shows a picture of a drone with an Afghan army emblem and reads: “We ask residents to leave as soon as possible to save their lives.”

Several villages near the blast site have been largely abandoned for months as fighting increased between Islamic State and the U.S.-backed Afghan forces, locals said.

“There were daily bombings and fighting,” said Khan Afzal, a local policeman on a recent patrol in the village of Abdul Khil, less than a mile from the strike.

“Afghan forces used to fire artillery, bombs were dropped by foreign aircraft, and even Daesh fired rockets at us and at the villagers,” he added, using an Arabic term for Islamic State.

Residents in Achin district say that they knew of no civilians still living voluntarily in the areas near the Islamic State stronghold, but it is still not clear if other non-combatants may have been involved.

“The people who’d normally be talking have fled, and there have been very few reports from inside Islamic State territory,” said Kate Clark, a senior researcher for the Afghan Analysts Network. “The jury’s still out on many things with this strike.”

Some local residents suggested there may have been prisoners held in the tunnel complex, she added, but the area has been something of an information black hole since Islamic State militants were first confirmed there in 2015.

The Afghan offshoot of the Middle East-based, extremist militant movement is small – presumed to number a few hundred fighters – and is battling foreign and government troops as well as rival insurgent groups, most notably the dominant Taliban.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Gareth Jones and Mike Collett-White)

U.S. justices lean toward church in key religious rights case

The Supreme Court is seen ahead of the Senate voting to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch as an Associate Justice in Washington, DC, U.S. April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared poised to expand religious rights and potentially narrow the separation of church and state after liberal and conservative justices alike signaled support for a church denied Missouri taxpayer funds for a playground project.

A ruling in favor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Missouri in the case, one of the most important of the court’s current term, could pave the way for more public money to go to religious entities.

Justices across the nine-member court’s ideological spectrum indicated that Trinity Lutheran should be allowed to apply for the Missouri grant program that helps nonprofit groups buy rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires. The church runs a preschool and daycare center.

“It does seem as though this is a clear burden on a constitutional right,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said during a one-hour argument, referring to Missouri’s prohibition.

A ruling is due by the end of June. It is unclear how far the justices will go in setting a precedent that would give states more leeway to fund religious entities directly.

The dispute pits two provisions of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment against each other: the guarantee of the free exercise of religion and the Establishment Clause, which requires the separation of church and state.

A broad ruling favoring the church could bolster religious conservatives who favor weakening the wall between church and state, including using taxpayer money to pay for children to attend private religious schools rather than public schools. President Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is a prominent supporter of such “school choice” plans.

Trinity Lutheran, whose legal effort was spearheaded by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative Christian activist group, could be headed for a lopsided win, with liberals Kagan and Stephen Breyer joining conservative justices in signaling support.

Missouri’s constitution bars “any church, sect or denomination of religion” from receiving state money, language that goes further than the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state.

Breyer questioned whether denying churches access to the playground grant money would be akin to refusing to provide police or fire services.

“What’s the difference?” Breyer said.

FEDERAL GRANTS

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito said several federal grant programs are open to religious entities, including one that provides money to enhance security at buildings where there is a risk of terrorist attack.

Synagogues, mosques and religious schools have received funding under that program, according to a brief filed by a Jewish group supporting the church’s position.

Alito asked Missouri’s lawyer, James Layton, if religious entities would be barred from applying if Missouri had a similar program. Layton said they would be prohibited.

Trinity Lutheran argued that Missouri’s policy violates its right to exercise religion as well as the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law. Missouri has said there is nothing unconstitutional about its grant program, noting that Trinity Lutheran remains free to practice any aspect of its faith however it wishes despite being denied state funds.

The court’s newest justice, Trump’s conservative appointee Neil Gorsuch, is known for an expansive view of religious rights. Gorsuch asked Layton why it is acceptable for Missouri to ban religious entities in some instances, such as with the playground program, but not in others, including safety and health services.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the most outspoken in backing Missouri’s ban, noting the difficulty states could face determining whether funds going to a religious entity are being used for a secular purposes.

“How do you separate out its secular function from its religious function?” Sotomayor asked.

Three-quarters of the U.S. states have provisions similar to Missouri’s barring funding for religious entities.

Missouri’s Republican governor, Eric Greitens, last Thursday reversed the state policy that had banned religious entities from applying for the grant money, saying it was wrong for “government bureaucrats” to deny grants to “people of faith who wanted to do things like make community playgrounds for kids.”

Missouri and the church both urged the justices to decide the case anyway because of the important issues at play and because the governor’s action was not irreversible. The issue was discussed only briefly during Wednesday’s argument, suggesting the justices are eager to decide the case on the merits.

A Trinity Lutheran victory could help religious organizations nationwide win public dollars for certain purposes, such as health and safety. It also could buttress the case for using publicly funded vouchers to send children to religious schools.

A challenge to a 2015 court decision invalidating a Colorado voucher program is pending before the justices, awaiting the Trinity Lutheran case’s outcome.

Trinity Lutheran sued Missouri in federal court in 2012. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015 upheld a trial court’s dismissal of the suit, and the church appealed to the Supreme Court.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. weekly jobless claims up; continuing claims hit 17-year low

A job seeker (L) talks with a corporate recruiter (R) as he peruses the man's resume at a Hire Our Heroes job fair targeting unemployed military veterans and sponsored by the Cable Show, a cable television industry trade show in Washington, June 11, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New applications for U.S. jobless benefits rose slightly more than expected last week, but the number of Americans on unemployment rolls dropped to a 17-year low, pointing to a tightening labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 244,000 for the week ended April 15, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The increase followed three straight weeks of declines.

Claims have now been below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market, for 111 straight weeks. That is the longest such stretch since 1970, when the labor market was smaller. The labor market is close to full employment, with the unemployment rate at a near 10-year low of 4.5 percent.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless benefits rising to 242,000 last week.

The rise in applications likely is linked to volatility around this time of the year due to the different timings of spring and Easter holidays, which often throws off the model the government uses to smooth the data of seasonal fluctuations.

The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 4,250 to 243,000 last week.

The claims data covered the survey week for April nonfarm payrolls. Claims declined 17,000 between the March and April survey periods suggesting that job growth likely picked up this month. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 98,000 jobs in March, the fewest since May 2016.

An acceleration in employment growth would confirm that March’s moderation was weather-driven and underscore the economy’s strong fundamentals despite indications that growth slowed to below a 1.0 percent annualized rate in the first quarter.

Thursday’s claims report also showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid decreased 49,000 to 1.98 million in the week ended April 8. That was the lowest reading since April 2000.

The four-week moving average of the so-called continuing claims fell 2,000 to 2.02 million, the lowest reading since June 2000.

North Korea warns of ‘super-mighty preemptive strike’ as U.S. plans next move

A missile is fired from a naval vessel during the test-firing of a new type of anti-ship cruise missile to be equipped at Korean People's Army naval units. REUTERS/KCNA

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean state media warned the United States of a “super-mighty preemptive strike” after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States was looking at ways to bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear programme.

U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from sole major ally China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, did not mince its words.

“In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes,” it said.

Reclusive North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and has shown no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after putting on a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.

“We’re reviewing all the status of North Korea, both in terms of state sponsorship of terrorism as well as the other ways in which we can bring pressure on the regime in Pyongyang to re-engage with us, but re-engage with us on a different footing than past talks have been held,” Tillerson told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, on a tour of Asian allies, has said repeatedly an “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said during a visit to London the military option must be part of the pressure brought to bear.

“Allowing this dictator to have that kind of power is not something that civilised nations can allow to happen,” he said in reference to Kim.

Ryan said he was encouraged by the results of efforts to work with China to reduce tension, but that it was unacceptable North Korea might be able to strike allies with nuclear weapons.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

‘MAX THUNDER’

South Korea’s acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, at a meeting with top officials on Thursday, repeatedly called for the military and security ministries to maintain vigilance.

The defence ministry said U.S. and South Korean air forces were conducting an annual training exercise, codenamed Max Thunder, until April 28. North Korea routinely labels such exercises preparations for invasion.

“We are conducting a practical and more intensive exercise than ever,” South Korean pilot Colonel Lee Bum-chul told reporters. “Through this exercise, I am sure we can deter war and remove our enemy’s intention to provoke us.”

South Korean presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night in a debate over the planned deployment in South Korea of a U.S.-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which has angered China.

Frontrunner Moon Jae-in was criticized for leaving his options open before the May 9 election.

On Monday, Hwang and Pence reaffirmed their plans to go ahead with the THAAD, but the decision will be up to the next South Korean president. For its part, China says the system’s powerful radar is a threat to its security.

The North has said it has developed a missile that can strike the mainland United States, but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturising a nuclear warhead.

RUSSIA, U.S. AT ODDS

The United States and Russia clashed at the United Nations on Wednesday over a U.S.-drafted Security Council statement to condemn North Korea’s latest failed ballistic missile test.

Diplomats said China had agreed to the statement.

Such statements by the 15-member council have to be agreed by consensus.

Previous statements denouncing missile launches “welcomed efforts by council members, as well as other states, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue”. The latest draft statement dropped “through dialogue” and Russia requested it be included again.

“When we requested to restore the agreed language that was of political importance and expressed commitment to continue to work on the draft … the U.S. delegation without providing any explanations cancelled the work on the draft,” the Russian U.N. mission said in a statement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China believed in the Security Council maintaining unity.

“Speaking with one voice is extremely important to the Security Council appropriately responding to the relevant issue on the peninsula,” he told reporters.

There has been some confusion over the whereabouts of a U.S. aircraft carrier group after Trump said last week he had sent an “armada” as a warning to North Korea, even as the ships were still far from Korean waters.

The U.S. military’s Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia. It was now heading for the Western Pacific as ordered, it said.

China’s influential Global Times newspaper, which is published by the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official paper, wondered whether the misdirection was deliberate.

“The truth seems to be that the U.S. military and president jointly created fake news and it is without doubt a rare scandal in U.S. history, which will be bound to cripple Trump’s and U.S. dignity,” it said.

(This articled has been refiled with military clarification of pilot’s rank, paragraph 14)

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in WASHINGTON, William James in LONDON, Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Idrees Ali in RIYADH, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Kim Do-gyun in GUNSAN, South Korea; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

U.S. top court to hear key religious rights case involving Missouri church

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear a closely watched dispute over supplying taxpayer money to religious entities in which a church accuses Missouri of violating its religious rights by denying it state funds for a playground project.

The case, which examines the limits of religious freedom under the U.S. Constitution, is one of the most important before the court in its current term. It also marks the biggest test to date for the court’s newest justice, President Donald Trump’s appointee Neil Gorsuch.

The court’s conservative majority may be sympathetic to the church’s views. But there are questions over whether the nine justices will end up deciding the merits of the case after Missouri’s Republican governor, Eric Greitens, last Thursday reversed the state policy that banned religious entities from applying for the funds.

Even though Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Missouri could now actually apply for money from the grant program that helps nonprofit groups buy rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires, its lawyers and state officials asked the justices to decide the case anyway.

Trinity Lutheran runs a preschool and daycare center.

Missouri’s constitution bars “any church, sect or denomination of religion” from receiving state money, language that goes further than the Constitution’s First Amendment separation of church and state requirement.

Trinity Lutheran’s legal effort is being spearheaded by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative Christian legal activist group, which contends that Missouri’s policy violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of free exercise of religion and equal protection under the law.

In court papers, the state said the ban did not impose a burden on the church’s exercise of religion.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the advocacy group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which backed the state’s ban, asked the justices to drop the case, saying it is now moot following Greitens’ policy reversal.

A victory at the Supreme Court for Trinity Lutheran could help religious organizations nationwide win public dollars for certain purposes, such as health and safety. It also could buttress the case for using taxpayer money for vouchers to help pay for children to attend religious schools rather than public schools in “school choice” programs advocated by conservatives.

Three-quarters of the U.S. states have provisions similar to Missouri’s barring funding for religious entities.

Trinity Lutheran sued in federal court in 2012. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015 upheld a trial court’s dismissal of the suit, and the church appealed to the Supreme Court.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; additional reporting by Andrew Chung; editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. House panel to begin hearings on tax reform next week

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady (R-TX) speaks about a Republican healthcare amendment during a press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The tax-writing committee of the U.S. House of Representatives will begin holding hearings on a Republican tax reform proposal next week, the panel’s chairman said on Tuesday, even as the timeline for overhauling the tax code slips toward late 2017.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told Fox News he would soon announce a hearing schedule to examine his House tax reform blueprint with its proposal to tax imports, a plan that appears to have lost ground as the White House works to unveil its own approach.

The investment consulting firm Veda Partners advised clients on Tuesday to expect an April 27 hearing on the import tax proposal known as the border adjustment tax, or BAT.

Brady’s committee could not confirm the date or topic, but he told Fox News the committee “will soon be announcing congressional hearings on our blueprint starting next week.”

He also acknowledged that the tax reform timeline could slip as House Republicans try to reach agreement to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, following their failed attempt to pass healthcare legislation in March.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said this week that tax reform may not get done before an August deadline.

“We probably ought not be focused on the month but the year that it happens, which is this year,” Brady said. “If it moves a little past August and still lands in this year, it’s going to be an incredible achievement.”

Much of the debate has focused on the House Republican BAT proposal, which would impose a 20 percent tax on imports, while exempting exports from taxation. The proposal is opposed by import-dependent industries and Republicans who worry it could lead to higher consumer prices.

Tax experts say the proposal’s future depends on whether the White House backs it. President Donald Trump, who dislikes the term “border adjustment,” said on Tuesday his tax reform plan would create “a level playing field” for U.S. industry – a phrase widely viewed as referring to some kind of border tax.

Brady identified the critical elements of legislation as significant rate reduction, full and immediate expensing for capital investments and a simplified tax code.

He cautioned against straightforward rate reductions of the kind that some in Congress have begun to consider.

“A rate cut alone would have worked in the 1980s. It doesn’t in 2017 if we’re going to be competitive,” Brady said.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Chris Reese and Peter Cooney)

U.S. says Iran complies with nuke deal but orders review on lifting sanctions

A staff member removes the Iranian flag from the stage after a group picture with foreign ministers and representatives of the U.S., Iran, China, Russia, Britain, Germany, France and the European Union during the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, July 2015. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Tuesday it was launching an inter-agency review of whether the lifting of sanctions against Iran was in the United States’ national security interests, while acknowledging that Tehran was complying with a deal to rein in its nuclear program.

In a letter to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Iran remained compliant with the 2015 deal, but said there were concerns about its role as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Under the deal, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days on Iran’s compliance under the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It is the first such notification under U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The U.S. Department of State certified to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan today that Iran is compliant through April 18 with its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” Tillerson said in a statement.

“President Donald J. Trump has directed a National Security Council-led interagency review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that will evaluate whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran pursuant to the JCPOA is vital to the national security interests of the United States,” Tillerson added.

He did not say how long the review would take but said in the letter to Ryan that the administration looked forward to working with Congress on the issue.

During his presidential campaign, Trump called the agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated,” raising questions over whether he would rip up the agreement once he took office.

The historic deal between Iran and six major powers restricts Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international oil and financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Iran denies ever having considered developing atomic weapons although nuclear experts have warned that any U.S. violation of the nuclear deal would allow Iran also to pull back from its commitments to curb nuclear development.

Those commitments include reducing the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds, capping its level of uranium enrichment well below the level needed for bomb-grade material, reducing its enriched uranium stockpile from around 10,000 kg to 300 kg for 15 years, and submitting to international inspections to verify its compliance.

Last month Trump’s Defense Secretary James Mattis said Iran continued to behave as an exporter of terrorism and still sponsors militant activity.

The United States has long accused Iran of being the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism, saying Tehran supported conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and backed groups such as Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based ally.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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