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The House of Representatives extended the deadline of the probe committee formed to investigate charges against former Finance Minister Janardan Sharma by seven days.

Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota tabled a proposal to extend the deadline by seven days as per the demand of the committee in the Parliament on Thursday. The proposal was endorsed by the Parliament.

The 10-day deadline ends today.

The House of Representatives formed the committee on July 6 to investigate the issue that Sharma invited two unauthorized persons to tweak the tax rates a day before he presented the budget in the Parliament.

The committee, which was given 10 days’ time to carry out an investigation and submit the report, started its work on July 12.

The committee questioned Sharma on Thursday.

Sharma said that he answered all the questions asked by the committee. The committee will make the final decision, he said.

The committee has already grilled 10 officials of the Finance Ministry involved in formulating the budget.

The parliamentary special committee formed to investigate the issue about allowing the unauthorized persons to enter the Finance Ministry while making the budget, recorded the statement of former Finance Minister Janardan Sharma on Thursday.

The parliamentary special probe committee questioned former minister Sharma at its office this morning.

Talking to journalists after recording the statement, Sharma said the he answered all the questions asked by the committee.

Likewise, probe committee secretary Surendra Aryal said that Sharma repeated the same thing he had said in the Parliament earlier.

Sharma said that no one had entered the Ministry without the permission of the authorized persons.

Aryal said that the committee has not been able to get the CCTV footage of the two unauthorized persons entering the Ministry on the eve of the budget presentation.

He further said that the hard disk of the CCTV has been sent to the forensic lab of the Nepal Police to retrieve the missing CCTV footage.

Aryal was of the opinion that they will move ahead on the basis of the report of Nepal Police.

Former Minister Sharma is accused of inviting two outsiders in this chamber to tweak tax rates a day before he presented the budget in the Parliament.

The committee has already questioned 10 officials of the ministry involved in making the budget.

The deadline of the committee is expiring today. The committee has urged Speaker Agni Sapkota to extend the time.

US President Joe Biden plans to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, by the end of the month at a moment of simmering tensions between the countries over Taiwan and trade, Reuters reported.

"I think I'll be talking to President Xi within the next 10 days," Biden told reporters as he returned from a climate-related trip to Massachusetts.

The long-discussed call between the two leaders, their first in four months, would come at a crucial moment given tensions over the status of Taiwan, and as the Biden administration weighs cutting import duties on goods from China to help reduce inflation pressures on American consumers.

The United States calls China its main strategic rival and says high-level engagement is important to keeping the difficult relationship stable and preventing it from veering inadvertently into conflict. Last month, Washington pushed NATO to adopt a strategic document calling China a security challenge.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Biden appeared to cast doubt on a trip reportedly planned by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan next month.

"I think that the military thinks it's not a good idea right now, but I don't know what the status of it is," Biden said.

Beijing said on Tuesday that it would respond with "forceful measures" should Pelosi visit the Chinese-claimed island, and that such a visit would "seriously undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Pelosi's office declined to comment on whether the visit is moving forward, citing security concerns. The State Department has called the trip "hypothetical." Plans for the trip were reported by the Financial Times, which also said the White House had expressed concerns, according to Reuters.

China considers the democratically-governed island its own territory, and the issue is a constant irritant in ties between Beijing and Washington.

Biden's administration has repeatedly spoken of its "rock-solid" commitment to the island's security.

US military vessels were conducting transits through the Taiwan Strait as recently as Tuesday, angering Beijing, which sent fighters across the strait's median line this month following a visit to Taipei by US Senator Rick Scott.

On trade, the Biden administration has been at odds with China over fulfilling its commitments to existing agreements.

But rising inflation has prompted a look at possible tariff relief, including on the 'Section 301' tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump, covering some $370 billion in Chinese imports.

People familiar with the tariff deliberations have told Reuters that Biden also is weighing whether to pair a removal of some tariffs with a new investigation into China's industrial subsidies and efforts to dominate key sectors, such as semiconductors. Such a probe could lead to more tariffs, Reuters reported.

There is no intelligence that Vladimir Putin is unstable or in bad health, the director of the CIA has said, BBC reported.

There has been increasing unconfirmed media speculation that Mr Putin, who turns 70 this year, may be suffering from ill health, possibly cancer.

But William Burns said there was no evidence to suggest this, joking that he appeared "too healthy". 

His comments came as the US announced it would provide Ukraine with more long-range weapons, according to BBC.

Earlier Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia's military focus in Ukraine was no longer "only" the east and implied Moscow's strategy had changed after the West supplied Ukraine with such weapons.