WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump named fast-food executive Andy Puzder to head the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday, drawing criticism from labor advocates worried about his opposition to a higher minimum wage and government regulation of the workplace.  Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants Inc, which operates the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast-food chains, has frequently argued in the media that higher minimum wages would hurt workers by forcing restaurants to close.  He has bashed a new Labor Department rule aimed at extending overtime pay to more than 4 million U.S. workers and has praised the benefits of automation in the fast-food industry.  Fast-food workers, who are largely not unionized, are engaged in a multi-year campaign known as the “Fight for $15,” which is supported by labor unions, to raise minimum wages to $15 an hour. They have had state-wide successes in New York and California and in cities and municipalities such as Seattle. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. Workers in states that have higher minimum wages are entitled to the higher rate, the Labor Department says. Trump, in a statement released by his transition team, praised Puzder for a “record fighting for workers” and said he would ensure occupational safety standards. “He will save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages,” Trump said. In the same statement, Puzder, 66, said he agreed with Trump that “the right government policies can result in more jobs and better wages for the American worker.” The Labor Department regulates wages, safety and discrimination in the workplace. Republican Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in last month’s election by carrying swing states - and some traditionally Democratic states - in the U.S. Rust Belt after promising to create jobs and to review or cancel trade deals that he said were bad for workers.  National labor leaders had urged their rank-and-file members to back Clinton, saying Trump’s appointments and policies would not align with his promises to workers. Labor leaders have been girding for Trump to appoint pro-business regulators at the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board, and to roll back key regulatory initiatives of the Obama administration such as the Labor Department rule granting overtime pay to more than 4 million salaried workers, both unionized and not unionized. “He was talking a good game when he was running for president, as far as helping workers and leveling the playing field for them, but with the nominations he’s made it’s just the opposite,” said Lee Saunders, president of the public employees union AFSCME. Shake-ups are expected under Trump at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, which enforces federal anti-discrimination laws. Trump will have an early opportunity to shape the EEOC when he replaces its general counsel, Obama appointee David Lopez, who is leaving the agency this month, and a vacancy on the commission.  Trump will also be able to fill two current vacancies on the five-member NLRB early in his term, likely tipping the agency to a more business-friendly posture. Although just 11.1 percent of U.S. workers were represented by a union in 2015 - down from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year government statistics were kept - labor unions are a powerful force in Democratic politics. But union members’ support for Clinton at the election was lower than it had been for President Barack Obama four years ago. About 51 percent of voters from union households backed Clinton, with 42 percent supporting Trump, a CNN exit poll showed. Democrat Obama won 58 percent of the same voters in his 2012 re-election win against Republican Mitt Romney. Business groups welcomed the appointment of Puzder. Robert Cresanti, president of the International Franchise Association, an industry group, praised him as an “exceptional choice” who would bring “business experience and policy acumen on so many issues impacting employers and employees.” Democrats were critical.     “In Andrew Puzder, Trump found a labor secretary that would help him roll back the minimum wage, end the overtime rule that will raise wages for millions, weaken safeguards for workers, and to wipe out unions,” said American Bridge, a liberal advocacy group. Trump’s decision to pick Puzder comes as he engaged in a Twitter dispute with the head of a local United Steelworkers union in Indiana. United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones, who represents workers at United Technologies Corp’s Carrier plant in Indianapolis, criticized Trump for inflating the number of jobs that would be saved by his intervention in the company’s decision to move some production to Mexico.  Trump responded on Twitter that Jones had done a “terrible job representing workers.” Jones said after speaking to the company that 800 jobs would remain in Indianapolis, of which 730 will be union jobs and 70 management positions. Trump said last week that a deal by Indiana to give the company $7 million in tax breaks would keep 1,100 jobs in the region.  “Our people, at that point in time, got their hopes back up that they might have a job,” Jones told CNBC on Thursday. “All he had to do is come back and say I was misled by (United Technologies),” Jones said about Trump. “Instead of doing that he goes on the attack on me?”

Summary: ट्रम्प ने श्रम विभाग के लिए उच्च न्यूनतम मजदूरी के विरोधी को चुना


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday signed a $1.2 trillion spending bill approved by Congress, averting a government shutdown that would have begun at midnight. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, speaking to reporters at a regular media briefing, confirmed the president had signed the bill.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने खर्च विधेयक पर हस्ताक्षर किए, सरकारी शटडाउन को टाला जा सकता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has pushed back the release of a new executive order to replace its directive suspending travel to the United States by citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries, a White House official said on Wednesday. The order is now expected to be issued “sometime next week,” the official said. President Donald Trump said last week he expected to release the new order this week. Trump said the new directive will address legal concerns raised in Washington state, San Francisco and elsewhere about the original order, which was issued on Jan. 27. The order, which was quickly implemented, caused chaos at airports around the world as visa holders heading to the United States were pulled off planes or turned around upon arrival at U.S. airports.  Americans were deeply divided over the order, which was condemned by prominent U.S. companies and allies before being temporarily blocked by federal courts. Trump criticized the court’s action in a series of tweets, including one that read: “The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!”

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने संशोधित आव्रजन आदेश को अगले सप्ताह तक टालाः अधिकारी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and aides to his successor, Condoleezza Rice, both received classified information a handful of times via personal email accounts, the top Democrat on a congressional oversight panel said on Thursday. The findings come after nearly a year of controversy over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s decision to set up a private email server for her work as secretary of state. Democratic lawmakers and staff on Clinton’s presidential campaign seized on the report as vindicating some of their defenses of the controversial arrangement. Representative Elijah Cummings said the disclosures about Powell’s and Rice’s aides’ emails were made by the State Department’s inspector general, who is reviewing the email practices of the last five secretaries of state. That office told the State Department on Wednesday that it found 12 emails containing classified information sent to Rice’s aides or Powell, according to Cummings, who is the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee. In a statement, Powell said the two emails he received were not judged to contain confidential information at the time they were sent to him by American ambassadors. “I wish they would release them,” Powell told NBC News, “so that a normal, air-breathing mammal would look at them and say, ‘What’s the issue?’” A representative for Rice, who, as with Powell, served under Republican President George W. Bush, said the 10 emails sent to her aides did not contain intelligence information.  More than 1,500 of Clinton’s emails, which are being made public on a federal judge’s order, have been found to include classified information so far, according to the State Department. Clinton both sent and received information the State Department now deems to be classified, including the privately shared thoughts of foreign leaders, as well as highly classified U.S. intelligence agency secrets. It became public last March that Clinton set up a private email server in her New York home for her work as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state between 2009 and 2013. Accusations that she exposed government secrets to hackers and tried to side-step record keeping laws have since dogged her campaign, and the arrangement is being examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Clinton’s campaign staff suggested the findings announced on Thursday helped vindicate her claim that she did nothing wrong or unusual and repeated their accusation that the State Department is overclassifying her emails, an idea the department has dismissed. “Hillary Clinton agrees with her predecessor that his emails, like hers, are being inappropriately subjected to over-classification,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said in a statement, calling for their unredacted release. J. William Leonard, who oversaw the government’s classification regime as the Information Security Oversight Office director until 2008, said so-called “spillage” of classified information into unsecured email systems was common. “That’s why from the get-go it was exceedingly poor judgment to set up a private email account because of this very real fact,” Leonard said in an interview, referring to Clinton’s arrangement. The government forbids sending classified information via email, but the .gov email system, which Clinton circumvented, is monitored and protected on the assumption that classified information spills into it. Powell has said the State Department was technologically backward when he joined in 2001 and that he had to fight to get an Internet-connected computer installed in his office, from which he continued to use his personal email account. Georgia Godfrey, Rice’s chief of staff at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said Rice did not use email while at the State Department, and that the 10 emails to her staff were reports on “diplomatic conversations.” Government regulations require that information shared in confidence by foreign government officials should be treated as classified.

Summary: राइस के सहायकों, पॉवेल को व्यक्तिगत ईमेल खातों पर वर्गीकृत जानकारी मिली


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces are about to launch an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, the military said on Wednesday.  Your security forces are now coming to liberate you,  said leaflets dropped by the Iraqi air force on the western border region of al-Qaim and Rawa, according to a statement from the Joint Operations Command in Baghdad.  The militant group also holds parts of the Syrian side of the border, but the area under their control is shrinking as they retreat in the face of two sets of hostile forces - a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition and Syrian government troops with foreign Shi ite militias backed by Iran and Russia. Islamic State s self-declared cross-border caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, in a grueling battle which lasted nine months.  The militants  Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, fell to U.S.-backed forces last week. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared the caliphate from Mosul in mid-2014, released an audio recording on Sept. 28 that indicated he was alive, after several reports he had been killed. He urged his followers to keep up the fight despite setbacks.  God is with us in this last assault on Daesh members,  said the leaflets dropped by the Iraqi forces on the border area with Syria, referring to Islamic State.   Tell those among your children and relatives who took up a weapon against the state to throw it aside immediately, and to go to any house on top of which a white flag have been raised when the liberation forces enter al-Qaim.

Summary: सीरिया सीमा के पास इस्लामिक स्टेट पर अंतिम हमले के लिए इराक तैयार


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the news media and dismissed leaks from the White House as “fake news” on Sunday, following reports his son-in-law tried to set up a secret channel of communications with Moscow before Trump took office. Shortly after Trump’s remarks on Twitter, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly made the rounds of Sunday television news shows to praise any so-called back channel communications, especially with Russia, as “a good thing.” The Republican president returned to the White House after a nine-day trip to the Middle East and Europe that ended on Saturday to face more questions about alleged communications between Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington. “It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media,” Trump wrote in a series of Twitter posts on Sunday. In a statement later on Sunday night, carried by the New York Times, Trump praised Kushner and the work he has done in the White House. “Jared is doing a great job for the country,” he said. “I have total confidence in him. He is respected by virtually everyone and is working on programs that will save our country billions of dollars. In addition to that, and perhaps more importantly, he is a very good person.” The White House faces mounting questions about potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign, which are also the subject of criminal and congressional investigations. Trump officials were preparing to establish a “war room” to address an issue that has begun to dominate his young presidency. Aides said Trump was expected to meet with lawyers as early as Sunday, the New York Times reported. Two Republican U.S. senators played down the Kushner reports on Sunday, while the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, took a darker view of such contacts with representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “My dashboard warning light was clearly on and I think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community - very concerned about the nature of these approaches to the Russians,” Clapper told NBC’s “Meet The Press.” Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, had contacts with Moscow in December about opening a secret back channel of communications, according to news reports published while Trump was away on his trip. The 36-year-old Kushner, a real estate developer with no previous government experience, had at least three previously undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, seven current and former U.S. officials told Reuters. “Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names,” Trump wrote, “it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!” Contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials during the campaign coincided with what U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was a Kremlin effort through computer hacking, fake news and propaganda to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House. White House officials defended the concept of secret communications channels without commenting specifically on the Kushner case. National security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters on Saturday that so-called back-channeling was not unusual. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, carried the same message on Sunday. “It’s both normal, in my opinion, and acceptable,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” program. “Any way that you can communicate with people, particularly organizations that are maybe not particularly friendly to us, is a good thing.”  Kelly told “Fox News Sunday” there was nothing wrong with the Trump transition team trying to build relationships with the Russians as they prepared to take over the White House. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said such secret channels may be used in situations including peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan or for the release of American hostages. “But for people associated with the campaign after that campaign has ended and where the Russians during that campaign were helping you, to try to establish a back channel and hide it from your own government, that’s a serious allegation,” he said. Schiff was particularly concerned about a Washington Post  report that the back channel would have been conducted at a Russian diplomatic facility to avoid monitoring in U.S. communications systems. “You have to ask, well, who are they hiding the conversation from?” he said on ABC. Schiff said he expected Kushner, who serves as an unpaid adviser to Trump, to appear before his committee and suggested his security clearance be reviewed. Kushner initially had come to the attention of FBI investigators last year as they began scrutinizing former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s connections with Russian officials, the two sources told Reuters.   Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN he doubted the Kushner reports were accurate. Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, noted that Kushner has been willing to answer questions. “They reached out to us yesterday to make sure that we knew that was the case and I’m sure he’s willing to do so,” Corker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  Though he had not seen evidence of collusion when he stepped down on Jan. 20, Clapper said all the signs made an FBI investigation not only appropriate but necessary. “Russia, at least for my money, is our primary adversary,” he told NBC. “They are not our friends. They are in to do us in.”

Summary: कुशनर की रिपोर्ट के बाद ट्रम्प ने 'फेक न्यूज' पर हमला किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he does not see a role for the United States in Libya apart from defeating Islamic State militants. “I do not see a role in Libya. I think the United States has right now enough roles. We’re in a role everywhere. So I do not see that,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.  “I do see a role in getting rid of ISIS, we’re very effective in that regard ... I see that as a primary role and that’s what we’re going to do, whether it’s in Iraq, or Libya or anywhere else,” Trump said, using an acronym commonly used to refer to the Islamic State.

Summary: ट्रंप का कहना है कि लीबिया में अमेरिका की एकमात्र भूमिका इस्लामिक स्टेट को हराना है


ADEN (Reuters) - The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthi movement in Yemen has allowed work to resume at the southern port of Aden, two days after ordering a nationwide stoppage, an official there said on Wednesday.  The coalition said on Monday it would close all air, land and sea ports in Yemen to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran.  We were officially notified by the coalition this afternoon that the closure will be lifted and work will resume as normal,  the official, who declined to be named, said. He did not give any reasons, though Aden is largely controlled by the coalition.

Summary: सऊदी गठबंधन ने यमन के अदन बंदरगाह को फिर से खोलने की अनुमति दी


KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump s plans to step up air strikes on Islamist militants in Afghanistan risk increasing civilian casualties and stirring resentment, despite an initial welcome by Afghan officials and international allies. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has avoided vocal criticisms of errant air strikes, but in previous years they sparked intense friction and soured ties between his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, and the international coalition in Afghanistan. With the U.S. set to resume a more active role in the war, many analysts expect a rise in the U.N.-documented first-half figure of 232 civilian casualties from international and Afghan air operations, a spike of 43 percent from a year earlier.   The issue about air strikes is part of a broader package of concerns,  said one Western official.  I don t hear Western diplomats saying,  How many bombs should we drop?  I hear them saying,  Why are we bombing? What are we doing here, in general?  During the 16 years since a U.S.-led campaign toppled the Taliban from power in 2001, resentment has repeatedly been fueled by coalition missteps that undermined hard-won progress on the political or military fronts.  The exact contours of Trump s plan remain uncertain, but officials of several coalition nations told Reuters they feared more civilians could be harmed, despite avoiding the subject in public remarks. Additional airstrikes can be a double-edged sword for leaders looking to stem Taliban offensives, said Christopher Kolenda, a former U.S. Army officer who served in Afghanistan and worked on American military strategies for the conflict.  Better air support for Afghan forces on the ground will limit gains Taliban can make, and that s helpful in negotiations,  he said.  The downside is if this creates a rise in civilian casualties, then you run a high risk of creating a cascade of negative perceptions among Afghans.  There is no question Ghani cares deeply about protecting Afghan civilians, Kolenda added, but domestic political challenges and future elections make it inevitable that he will have to address any rise in civilian casualties. By the government s count, civilian casualties have dropped in recent years, a spokesman for Ghani said.  The Afghan government and its international partners  main aim is to provide a secure environment for its people,  Shah Hussain Murtazawi told Reuters, adding that Afghan forces coordinate with foreign troops to protect non-combatants.  Even as overall civilian casualties by pro-government forces dropped this year, casualties from aerial operations spiked 43 percent in the year s first half, the United Nations says. In the first six months, the U.N. recorded 29 civilian deaths and 85 injuries from Afghan air force strikes, and 54 deaths and 31 injuries in strikes by international warplanes. The prospects of more air strikes provoked mixed feelings in areas hardest hit, where many leaders fear attacks by Taliban or Islamic State, but also worry about the threat to residents.  Air strikes will not bring long-term security,  said Abdul Jabbar Qahraman, a lawmaker from the restive southern province of Helmand.  They can defeat enemies when Afghan forces are under a huge attack, but they can also promote hatred between locals and government.  In the eastern province of Nangarhar, where Islamic State made its greatest gains before being targeted by joint Afghan-U.S. offensives, the governor s spokesman, Attaullah Khogyani, agreed.  Air strikes are important and helpful in many situations, but if they cause civilian casualties repeatedly that may hurt government legitimacy.  U.S. Air Force aircraft dropped 503 weapons in August, in the most monthly air strikes since August 2012. American warplanes are also more likely to launch air strikes this year, with the Air Force dropping weapons during one of roughly every four close air support sorties, up from one in every eight last year, and one in every 14 in 2015. International advisers have also pushed the Afghan Air Force to take a greater role in the air war, boosting the number of civilians killed or injured by Afghan bombs and rockets. Pressure will probably grow for Ghani to ensure the Afghan forces take measures to protect civilians, Kolenda added.  Civilian casualties is one of many problems that is damaging the legitimacy of the government,  he said.

Summary: अफगान नागरिक हताहत होने का खतरा आतंकवादियों पर अमेरिकी हमलों के लिए समर्थन को कम कर सकता है


HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnamese police on Friday arrested a former top Communist Party official suspected of misconduct while he was chairman of the main state energy firm, the first former politburo member to face prosecution in decades. Police issued arrest and prosecution orders for Dinh La Thang, 56, for suspected  violation of state regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences , the Ministry of Public Security said on its website.     Thang is the most senior official so far caught up in a widespread crackdown on fraud in the energy and banking sectors, which has gathered pace since the security establishment gained greater influence in the party last year. Police are investigating two cases related to Thang s tenure as chairman of state oil and gas firm PetroVietnam that involved a loss of investment in local Ocean Bank and suspected wrongdoing at a PetroVietnam subsidiary, PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corp (PVC) (PVX.HN), police said. Thang was not available for comment. The corruption crackdown made global headlines in August when Germany accused Vietnam of kidnapping Trinh Xuan Thanh, a former chairman of PVC, in Berlin after he applied for asylum there. The party has said it aimed to let Thanh go on trial next month. Government critics have voiced suspicions that the corruption crackdown is politically motivated, at least in part, and aimed against those close to former prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who lost out in an internal power struggle in 2016.  This development represents a major event in Vietnamese politics and reflects a concerted effort by those in the commanding heights of the party to rein in and prosecute instances of large scale corruption and serious cases of malfeasance among high ranking party and state officials,  said Vietnam expert Jonathan London of Leiden University. Thang was dismissed from the politburo after the Communist Party found him responsible for financial losses at PetroVietnam. It also stripped him of his role as party head of Ho Chi Minh City to penalise him further.  Prosecuting a former politburo member in the one-party state is not unprecedented. In 1979, a former politburo official, Hoang Van Hoan, was handed a death sentence in absentia after he had fled the country. On Friday, police also issued an arrest order for Nguyen Quoc Khanh, a former chairman of PetroVietnam. In September, another former PetroVietnam chairman was sentenced to death for embezzlement among other crimes. Khanh was also temporarily dismissed from his current role at the trade ministry on Friday, the ministry said in a statement.

Summary: वियतनाम पुलिस ने कदाचार के आरोप में पूर्व पोलित ब्यूरो सदस्य को गिरफ्तार किया


(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: The Trump-backed Republican plan to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system clears its first hurdle but chances for passage in Congress look uncertain amid opposition by Democrats, conservatives and industry groups. Trump has launched a charm offensive of the type not seen before in his brief and chaotic tenure, forcefully rallying behind legislation to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law while trying to placate the bill’s opponents. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says he is not convinced carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change and wants Congress to weigh in on whether it is a harmful pollutant that should be regulated.     Trump’s plan to boost military spending comes amid mounting evidence that potential enemies have new weapons that are able to destroy much of the United States’ expensive fleet of aircraft carriers. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will host a 68-nation meeting in Washington this month to discuss the next moves by the coalition fighting Islamic State militants, a Trump administration official says. Several states say they will move forward with legal challenges to a revised executive order signed by Trump that temporarily bars the admission of refugees and some travelers from a group of Muslim-majority countries. The Department of Justice is deploying 50 judges to immigration detention facilities across the United States, according to two sources and a letter seen by Reuters and sent to judges. Trump meets with community bankers and promises them he will to strip away some Dodd-Frank financial regulations and ensure they can continue giving small businesses access to capital. Reports that Jon Huntsman will be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia stir anxiety in Moscow, with one politician calling him a hawk and pro-Kremlin media recalling what they said was his worrying history of hostile rhetoric. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approves Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, an outspoken bankruptcy lawyer aligned with the Israeli right. CNN reports that the U.S. Senate intelligence committee wants Michael Flynn, forced out as Trump’s national security adviser, and other former Trump aides to testify in its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. EX-SPY A former U.S. spy, newly pardoned by Italy in connection with the CIA kidnap of a terrorism suspect in Milan, credits the Trump administration with saving her from an Italian jail.

Summary: 9 मार्च को रात 9.49 बजे ई. एस. टी./10 10149 जी. एम. टी. पर ट्रम्प का राष्ट्रपति पद


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Israel on Monday on a flight from Saudi Arabia and will meet separately with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to revive peace talks. Air Force One landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport after what is believed to be the first direct flight to Israel from Riyadh, where Trump spent two days. His nine-day trip through the Middle East and Europe, his first foreign tour since taking office in January, ends on Saturday after visits to the Vatican Brussels and Sicily.

Summary: अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति ट्रम्प रियाद से उड़ान में इज़राइल पहुंचे


UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has given China a draft resolution for tougher U.N. sanctions on North Korea and is hoping for a quick vote on it by the U.N. Security Council, a Western diplomat said on Tuesday. A senior official of the Trump administration confirmed efforts were under way to negotiate a new U.N. resolution, but added that there had been no agreement.  We re trying to get another one,  said the official, who did not want to be identified.  They re not there yet.  Details of the draft given to China last week were not immediately available, but the United States is keen to step up global sanctions to pressure North Korea to give up a weapons program aimed developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. Among the steps it wants is a tightening of restrictions on North Korea s supply of refined petroleum, which is capped by previous U.N. sanctions at 2 million barrels a year. China, which supplies most of North Korea s oil, has backed successive rounds of U.N. sanctions but has resisted past U.S. calls to cut off supplies to its neighbor. Its embassy in Washington and Foreign Ministry in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States has also called on the U.N. Security Council to blacklist 10 ships for circumventing sanctions on North Korea, documents seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed. The documents said vessels had been conducting ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or transporting North Korean coal in violation of existing U.N. sanctions. Earlier on Tuesday, China responded to the announcement of a new U.S. national security strategy this week that branded Beijing a competitor seeking to challenge U.S. power by saying that cooperation between it and Washington would lead to a win-win outcome for both sides, but confrontation would bring mutual losses.

Summary: अमेरिका ने उत्तर कोरिया पर सख्त प्रतिबंधों के लिए चीन को मसौदा प्रस्ताव दिया-सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government’s costs could increase by $2.3 billion in 2018 if Congress and President Donald Trump decide not to fund Obamacare-related payments to health insurers, according to a study released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The payments amount to about $7 billion in fiscal year 2017 and help cover out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income Americans who purchase insurance on the individual insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.  Trump has threatened to withhold the payments to force Democrats to the negotiating table on a healthcare bill to replace Obamacare.  He has also said he will fund the subsidies if Democrats agree to funding for his proposed border wall with Mexico as part of efforts to pass a government funding bill this week and avert a shutdown. Democrats have rejected the conditional offer.  If no deal is made, parts of the federal government will shut down at 12:01 am on Saturday. The payments are the subject of a pending Republican lawsuit that was appealed by the Obama administration and put on hold when Trump took office.  The government could save $10 billion by revoking the payments, Kaiser said. But insurers that remain in the market would have to hike premiums nearly 20 percent to cover their losses, Kaiser found, so the government would have to spend $12.3 billion on tax credits to help pay for Americans’ premium costs - a net increase of 23 percent on federal spending on marketplace subsidies. The projection assumes that insurers remain in the marketplace next year. Health policy experts have said without the payments, many insurers could not afford to stay in the market and will likely exit, which would leave some U.S. counties without an insurer.  Aetna (AET.N), UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) and Humana (HUM.N) have already exited most state exchanges for 2017 and said they will do so next year as well.

Summary: ओबामाकेयर भुगतान के बिना सरकारी लागत 2 अरब 30 करोड़ डॉलर बढ़ सकती हैः अध्ययन


(Reuters) - The national campaign wing for U.S. Senate Republicans cut fund-raising ties on Friday with Roy Moore, the party’s nominee for a special Senate race in Alabama, a day after sexual misconduct allegations upended his front-runner bid for the seat. The move was the latest sign the Republican establishment, holding onto a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, was abandoning an insurgent candidacy heavily promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s former political strategist, Steve Bannon. Meanwhile, Democrats and progressive groups, emboldened by  Democratic election victories in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday, sought to capitalize on the accusations in support of the Democratic nominee, former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones. Moore, a controversial former judge and a staunch Christian conservative, was accused by a woman of initiating a sexual encounter in 1979 when she was 14 years old and he was a 32-year-old prosecutor, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Three other women said he pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18, though none accused him of sexual contact. The 70-year-old Moore again denied any wrongdoing on Friday during an appearance on conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s national radio show. “These allegations are completely false and misleading,” Moore said. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which helps elect Republicans to the Senate, filed paperwork with federal election officials on Friday severing its fund-raising relationship with Moore for the special election on Dec. 12. Numerous prominent Republicans have either called on Moore to drop out immediately, as Arizona Senator John McCain did on Thursday, or said he should do so if the allegations prove true, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Moore is unfit for office and should step aside,” former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Friday on Twitter. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who initially took the same stance as McConnell, tweeted on Friday that could “no longer endorse” Moore’s candidacy, after reading “the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign.” Senator Steve Daines of Montana likewise said he was pulling his endorsement. But several Alabama Republican officials did not waver in their support of Moore, who scored a decisive primary victory in September over Luther Strange, the incumbent appointed to fill the seat on an interim basis when Jeff Sessions was named U.S. attorney general.  The race had been seen as a long shot for Democrats in Alabama, which has not elected a Democratic senator in a quarter century. Jones was trailing by double digits in some opinion polls. Following publication of the Washington Post story, several Democratic senators, including liberal Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent email blasts to donors, soliciting more support for Jones’ campaign. The Democratic Party has been coordinating with Jones behind the scenes, wary of providing overt support such as television advertising in the deeply Republican state. Progressive groups MoveOn, Democracy for America and Indivisible expect the allegations against Moore to boost their grassroots efforts to engage Democratic voters in Alabama. “We were planning to go bigger already,” said Matt Blizek, a mobilization coordinator for MoveOn. “With the news and the fact that this is a close race, that’s only going to increase.” A win for Jones could transform the political picture in Washington, narrowing the Republican majority down to just one vote. Moore has come back from controversy before. He was twice forced out of his position as the state’s chief justice, once for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse and once for defying the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Democrats have highlighted his penchant for incendiary statements about Muslims and homosexuality. Zac McCrary, a veteran Democratic pollster based in Birmingham, Alabama, said he now sees Jones as the favorite. “Roy Moore had much less margin for error than a Republican does traditionally in Alabama,” McCrary said.  But Jonathan Gray, a Republican consultant in Alabama, said voters were already questioning the veracity of the Washington Post story, given its timing. The only development that could sink Moore’s candidacy is a write-in campaign from a Republican backed by the party, he said. Absent that, he said, all the analysis in the world will not change a simple fact: “Roy Moore wins December 12.”

Summary: रिपब्लिकन प्रतिष्ठान ने यौन आरोपों के बाद अलबामा के उम्मीदवार को जमानत दी


(Reuters) - A member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has resigned over its plan to sing at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, and more than 22,000 people have signed a petition opposing the choir’s participation. Jan Chamberlin resigned after five years with the choir, which originates from Utah, over the Jan. 20 ceremony, saying it “will appear that (the) Choir is endorsing tyranny and fascism by singing for this man.” With three weeks to go before Trump is sworn in, teen classical singer Jackie Evancho is the only celebrity to have unequivocally embraced her role in an inauguration ceremony marked by soul-searching by larger invited groups, and fan backlash. The 1960s pop group, The Beach Boys, is considering an invitation to perform but has yet to make a final decision, a spokesman for the band said on Friday. “I simply cannot continue with the recent turn of events. I could never look myself in the face again,” Chamberlin wrote in a resignation letter that she posted on Facebook on Thursday. A separate petition on change.org started by Randall Thacker, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had gathered more than 22,000 signatures on Friday. The petition says the participation of the Tabernacle Choir in Trump’s inauguration does not reflect the Church’s values and would harm its worldwide image. The Church says taking part in the inauguration is voluntary, and notes that the Tabernacle Choir, which hails from Salt Lake City, Utah, has sung at such celebrations for five previous Republican presidents. Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said on Friday public response to the inauguration plans “has been mixed, with people expressing both opposition and support. The Choir’s participation... is not an implied support of party affiliations or politics. It is a demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power.”  Some dancers in the Radio City Rockettes were also unhappy at performing. “We do a lot of events, but there have been no events that could cause trauma. And doing this would cause trauma for some people,” one Rockettes dancer said this week, speaking anonymously with Marie Claire magazine. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli suffered a fan backlash on social media after reports that he was planning to sing for Trump. Bocelli and country singer Garth Brooks both backed out of performing at the inauguration. Organizers have denied they are struggling to recruit big names for the ceremony. “This is not Woodstock,” Trump aide Boris Epshteyn told CNN this week. “It’s not about celebrities. As Donald Trump tweeted himself, it’s about the people.”

Summary: मॉर्मन टेबरनेकल कॉयर के सदस्य ने ट्रम्प के लिए गाने के बजाय इस्तीफा दे दिया


CARACAS (Reuters) - The candidate for Venezuela s ruling Socialist Party, Omar Prieto, won the governorship of western Zulia state with 57 percent of the ballots in a rerun of an October vote, election authorities said on Sunday. Turnout for nationwide mayoral elections, also being held on Sunday, was 47 percent, the national election board said. Three major opposition parties were boycotting the polls, alleging the election authorities were biased towards the socialists.

Summary: वेनेजुएला के समाजवादियों ने जूलिया राज्य के राज्यपाल का पद जीता


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma hosted Zimbabwe s former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa in Pretoria on Wednesday, eNCA television footage showed. The ruling ZANU-PF party nominated Mnangagwa to fill the vacancy left by Robert Mugabe, who resigned as president on Tuesday, ending nearly four decades in power. Mnangagwa has said he fled Zimbabwe for his own safety, and he is expected to return to Harare on Wednesday.

Summary: दक्षिण अफ्रीका के जुमा ने प्रिटोरिया में जिम्बाब्वे के मनांगाग्वा से मुलाकात की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to name a Washington-based academic and former White House official, Victor Cha, as the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea, an administration official said on Tuesday. Cha is a former director for Asian affairs on the White House National Security Council and served as deputy head of the U.S. delegation in multilateral talks with North Korea over its nuclear program during the administration of President George W. Bush. An administration official said he expected the appointment, which will be subject to a Senate confirmation hearing, to be announced “soon,” and added that it had “been in the works for a long time.” The move came as President Donald Trump faced perhaps his biggest foreign policy challenge over North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States. Cha, a Korean American, will replace Mark Lippert, a political appointee who served in Seoul during the Obama administration. Cha did not respond to a request for comment.   He is currently the Korea Chair at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of Asian studies at Georgetown University’s Department of Government and School of Foreign Service. In a op-ed published in the Washington Post in July, Cha called for a new approach to diplomacy towards North Korea, arguing that China must be a central part of future negotiations  and should pay for Pyongyang to halt and roll back its nuclear and missile programs.  South Korea is a long-time U.S. treaty ally.

Summary: बुश के पूर्व कर्मचारी चा को सियोल का राजदूत बनाने की योजना बना रहे हैं ट्रम्प


TOKYO (Reuters) - As Japan looks for a quick, resolute response to North Korea s growing missile threat, some defense policy makers in Tokyo say it may be time to reconsider non-nuclear pledges and invite U.S. nuclear weapons on to its soil. Japan, the only country to suffer nuclear attack, upholds three non-nuclear principles that commit it not to possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons on to its territory that were adopted five decades ago.  Perhaps it s time for our three principles to become two,  a senior defense policy maker told Reuters, suggesting nuclear weapons be allowed into Japan. He asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. North Korea, pursuing its weapons programs in defiance of international condemnation, fired an intermediate ballistic missile over Japan last week, prompting authorities to sound sirens and advise residents to take cover. On Sunday, North Korea tested a nuclear device that had a  yield estimated at ten times that of the atom bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945. Inviting U.S. nuclear weapons would be an attempt by Japan jolt China, North Korea s sole major ally, to do more to rein in its neighbor by showing there are consequences to North Korean provocations that threaten its neighbors and destabilize the region, the policy maker said.  A simple way to do this could be for a nuclear-armed U.S. submarine to operate from one of the U.S. Navy bases in Japan, he said, a move bound to infuriate China. Former Japanese defense minister Shigeru Ishiba stoked controversy on Wednesday by questioning whether Japan can expect protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella while maintaining its non-nuclear principles.  Is it right that we don t discuss this?  Ishiba asked in a television interview. In his election campaign last year, Donald Trump chided Japan and South Korea for not contributing enough to their defenses. On Tuesday, the president said he was ready to sell Seoul billions of dollars in weapons and scrap a limit on the size of warheads the Washington would supply.  We don t have any plan to begin discussing the three non-nuclear principles,  Japan Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters when asked to respond to Ishiba s comment.     Yet, the growing North Korean threat could stifle some of the opposition, experts say.  Just by raising this issue of nuclear principles, Japan will push the United States and China to act, and it is something that Beijing is not going to like,  said Takashi Kawakami, a security expert at Japan s Takushoku University.  It s the medicine that China needs to make it act against North Korea.  Allowing the U.S. military to deploy nuclear weapons on Japanese territory would pose a grave political risk for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, particularly amid an influence-peddling scandal that has hit his popularity ratings. Any move toward relaxing the non-nuclear principles, however, is unlikely to lead to a home-made atomic bomb, despite Japan s technical abilities, say experts.  Tokyo has the civilian nuclear program, fissile materials and the weaponization technology necessary. It could probably develop a small arsenal of nuclear devices within a year if there was motivation to do so,  said Emily Chorley, a nuclear weapons expert at IHS Janes. But doing so would force Japan to renege on its non-proliferation commitments and could severely damage Washington s alliances and position of strength in Asia.  This would signal that the Japanese no longer have confidence in U.S. extended deterrence,  said a former senior U.S. military commander who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media.  That would essentially mean that they no longer have confidence in the alliance.

Summary: जापान में परमाणु हथियारों को अनुमति देने से उत्तर कोरिया के खतरे को कम किया जा सकता हैः कुछ नीति निर्माता


MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte s critics and allies in the Senate vowed on Wednesday to block a lower house move to slash the annual budget of a public-funded human rights agency opposed to his bloody war on drugs to just $20. The house, dominated by Duterte s supporters, voted on Tuesday to allocate a 2018 budget of just 1,000 pesos ($20) to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which has investigated hundreds of killings during the president s ferocious anti-narcotics crackdown. Vice President Leni Robredo, who was not Duterte s running mate and has locked horns with him numerous times, said the lawmakers  move effectively abolishes the CHR, a constitutional body. Duterte s signature campaign has left thousands of mostly urban poor Filipinos dead. Critics say the lawmakers are trying to retaliate against the CHR for pursuing allegations of executions by police during sting operations, which police deny.  The CHR is among the domestic and foreign rights groups that Duterte frequently admonishes, accusing them of lecturing him and disregarding Filipinos who are victims of crimes stemming from drug addiction. The upper house minority bloc, composed of six staunch critics of the president, will seek to restore the 678 million peso budget the government and a Senate sub-committee had proposed for the CHR. Senator Risa Hontiveros described the plan to cut the budget to almost nil as  a shameless rejection of the country s international and national commitments to champion human rights . Several allies of Duterte in the 24-seat chamber said they would scrutinize the house move and try to ensure the commission had a budget that would allow it to work properly. Senator Richard Gordon said the CHR had a job to do and should not be restricted.   That is their role - to expose possible abuses,  he said. Another legislator, JV Ejercito said senators would not make the CHR impotent.  The CHR is in the thick of things and very relevant nowadays and probably even next year and the years to follow because of what s happening,  he said in a statement. Duterte once threatened to abolish the CHR after its chief, Chito Gascon, sought to investigate alleged abuses by police anti-drugs units. Duterte on Tuesday appeared to distance himself from the lawmakers proposing the meager budget. He said CHR was constitutionally created and should probe whatever it wants, adding he was  not here to destroy institutions .  He had it coming. He opens his mouth in a most inappropriate way. He knows nothing,  Duterte said, referring to Gascon.  The congressmen are really angry. I have nothing against him. Give them a budget for all I care, whatever he likes to investigate.

Summary: फिलीपींस के राष्ट्रपति के सीनेट के दुश्मन, सहयोगियों ने अधिकार निकाय के लिए बजट में कटौती को रोकने का संकल्प लिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut’s governor signed on Wednesday legislation to close a $220 million budget gap by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, as the state battles a fiscal crisis set to worsen next year with a projected budget deficit of nearly $1 billion. The bill, which received bi-partisan support, comes on top of a series of budget cuts during the current fiscal year after revenue projections failed to meet projections, a fact officials blamed partly on weak capital gains tax receipts. The administration of Governor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has been fighting fires around the budget for most of the year. Indications are that the fiscal situation will worsen before it gets better. One report predicted the deficit could be as high as $900 million in the next fiscal year. Last month, Connecticut canceled pay increases for almost 2,000 managers at state agencies. The raises, which had been postponed twice, are now frozen indefinitely. Officials have said there will be reductions in staff numbers in the months ahead. The amount Connecticut pays to borrow has risen in relation to other municipal bond market borrowers, a sign investors see greater risk. Connecticut now pays 0.58 of a percentage point more than top-rated muni bond issuers to borrow for 10 years, up from 0.3 of a percentage point last year. Connecticut has a high investment grade rating at the major ratings agencies, although Moody’s (Aa3) and Standard & Poor’s (AA) have a negative outlook on the state. Fitch rates Connecticut AA with a stable outlook.

Summary: कनेक्टिकट के गवर्नर ने 22 करोड़ डॉलर के बजट अंतर को समाप्त करने के लिए विधेयक पर हस्ताक्षर किए


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday that  currency policy was not an issue that should be discussed between leaders of countries as doing so would make it a political issue. Abe made the remark in parliament when asked by a lawmaker if he would discuss currencies in a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump next week. “I’ll explain (our policy) if asked,” Abe said.

Summary: जापान के प्रधानमंत्री ने कहा कि नेताओं को विदेशी मुद्रा नीति पर चर्चा नहीं करनी चाहिए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congressional Budget Office said on Monday it will not be able to provide specific estimates of the impact on insurance coverage or premiums in a preliminary assessment of a Republican healthcare bill it plans to release by early next week. “CBO will provide as much qualitative information as possible about the effects of the legislation, however CBO will not be able to provide point estimates of the effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums for at least several weeks,” the non-partisan agency said in a statement about the Graham-Cassidy healthcare proposal.

Summary: सी. बी. ओ. का कहना है कि वह अगले सप्ताह रिपब्लिकन स्वास्थ्य सेवा विधेयक के बीमा प्रभाव को निर्दिष्ट नहीं करेगा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has long questioned President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship, on Friday said he believes the president was born in the United States. “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump said at a campaign event.

Summary: ट्रंप ने स्वीकार किया कि ओबामा का जन्म अमेरिका में हुआ था


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. senators called on Congress on Tuesday to take back its authority to determine whether the country goes to war, saying recent U.S. strikes in Syria were not covered by existing authorizations for the use of military force. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has begun considering legislation that would cover military action in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and Yemen against the Islamic State, al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups. “I have always believed that it’s important for Congress to exercise its constitutional role to authorize the use of force,” the committee’s chairman, Republican Senator Bob Corker, told a hearing on Tuesday. As President Donald Trump has ordered stepped-up military activity in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, members of Congress also want Trump to present a strategy for defeating Islamic State and other militant groups. “It’s difficult for us to carry out our responsibility unless we know what the commander in chief needs,” Senator Ben Cardin, the committee’s top Democrat, said.  The Trump administration, like former President Barack Obama’s, has been using a 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al Qaeda passed after the Sept. 11 attacks as the legal basis for a wide range of military action since. Although there is bipartisan support for Congress to debate and vote on a new AUMF introduced by Republican Senator Jeff Flake and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, the measure faces stiff opposition.  Lawmakers have introduced war authorizations repeatedly in the past several years. But they have failed to advance amid sharp divisions in Congress over whether, or how, to limit commanders’ use of military resources. Many war-weary members of Congress also do not want to vote for anything that might become a foreign military quagmire consuming taxpayer dollars or leading to widespread U.S. casualties. Trump has ordered stepped-up military operations against Islamic State and delegated more authority to his generals. U.S.-led forces said on Tuesday they had shot down an armed “pro-Syrian regime” drone near the border between Iraq and Syria. A U.S. warplane shot down a Syrian army jet over Syria on Sunday. Democratic Senator Tom Udall voted for the 2001 authorization while he was a member of the House of Representatives. “I would have never imagined that vote supporting U.S. troops in Syria in 2017 and engagements with the Assad regime,” he said.

Summary: सीनेटर चाहते हैं कि कांग्रेस सीरिया में सैन्य कार्रवाई को मंजूरी दे


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Soon after the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2014, Russian oil tsar Igor Sechin told a Reuters reporter he would miss three things: exploring U.S. culture, the chance to show his children American landscapes, and riding motor-bikes with Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson. Tillerson is now front-runner to be Secretary of State in the cabinet of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, and Russian officials are relishing the prospect of having someone with long-standing ties to Russia as the chief U.S. diplomat. Those same ties — Tillerson has met Russian President Vladimir Putin several times and even received a medal from him — are causing disquiet among some policymakers in Washington, who see the relationships as a potential liability. Few people in Moscow expect that the bitter rifts with Washington, over Syria, Ukraine, and NATO’s presence in eastern Europe, will be healed overnight with Tillerson at the State Department. But his emergence as front-runner for the job was seen in Moscow as confirmation the Trump administration would put aside old enmity and do deals with the Kremlin. Trump is expected to name Tillerson, a 64-year-old Texan, as Secretary of State, a source familiar with the situation said on Saturday. Tillerson would join other figures with Russia ties already in the Trump cabinet.    “The choice of Tillerson is a sensation,” said Alexei Pushkov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker in the upper house of the Russian parliament. “This is a businessmen, by definition a pragmatist, who also has lots of experience working with Russia.” “Judging by the appointments to the key posts in the administration, Trump wants to see a decisive and strong America, but does not see reasons for conflicts with Russia,” Pushkov wrote on Twitter. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cautious on Tillerson’s cabinet prospects, saying the appointment had not been confirmed. But he praised his personal qualities. “As part of his duties as head of one of the biggest oil companies, he had contacts with our representatives,” Peskov, said on a conference call with reporters. “He carries out his duties in a highly professional way.” Asked about how close Tillerson is to Putin, Peskov said: “They had working meetings. Indeed, the president received Mr. Tillerson several times.” Though he and Putin know each other, the most important relationship Tillerson forged in Russia is with Sechin, one of Putin’s closest lieutenants. Tillerson started coming into regular contact with Russian officials when, in January 1998, he was made vice president of an Exxon unit involved in exploration projects in Russia and the former Soviet Union. The flagship project was the Sakhalin 1 offshore project in the Pacific Ocean. Exxon was the operator and Rosneft, the Russian state oil giant headed by Sechin, was a major shareholder. “He knows this whole sphere excellently,” said an oil executive close to Rosneft and Exxon, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He was involved in the negotiations and the implementation of Sakhalin 1.. From the start. And he knows the peculiarities of the Russian mind-set very well.”   In 2012, Rosneft and Exxon deepened their cooperation, signing an agreement on joint development of oil fields in Western Siberia. Putin, Tillerson and Sechin came together for the signing ceremony. Later the same year Zeljko Runje, who until then had been vice president of Exxon’s Russian operations, moved to Rosneft to take up the post of vice president and member of the management board. Their next big joint project was launched in June 2013, when they set up a joint venture to explore for oil in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic, and in the Black Sea. Sechin and Tillerson both attended the signing ceremony. In the same month, Putin awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship, a Russian state honor. The citation said it was for his “significant contribution to strengthening cooperation in the energy sector.”  Then the Ukraine conflict intervened in 2014, testing Tillerson’s relations with his Russian partners. After Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, the United States started several rounds of sanctions.  Tillerson, like other U.S. energy CEOs under pressure from the White House, stayed away from an annual investors’ meeting with Putin in St Petersburg in June. He sent a senior Exxon executive in his place. By August 2014, Exxon was poised to start drilling on the Kara Sea’s Universitetskaya exploratory well but an imminent fresh round of sanctions could have halted work. According to two offshore drilling sources familiar with the Kara Sea project, Tillerson and his team went into crisis mode. They managed to sign the contract to supply a drilling rig just before one round of sanctions was imposed, giving them some legal breathing space. The Exxon managers then pushed through the drilling program in two months before a further round of sanctions eventually knocked it off course, the sources said. They found large reserves of crude. An Exxon representative was not immediately available for comment. Soon after, obstacles arising from the sanctions forced Exxon to suspend its cooperation with Rosneft in the Kara Sea. The project has since been idling. But Exxon’s Russian partners remember its effort to get the well drilled. “I think his appointment is favorable for Russia,” one of the two sources said about Tillerson being lined up for Secretary of State.

Summary: रूस एक्सॉन बॉस को एक पुराने दोस्त के रूप में देखता है, जो विदेश मंत्री बनने की संभावना रखता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is still reviewing the Obama-era program that protects immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert told reporters on Thursday. A senior administration official said earlier on Thursday that President Donald Trump was expected to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or “Dreamers,” program. Trump’s decision could be announced as early as Friday but could also come next week, the official said.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस अभी भी अप्रवासी बच्चों के लिए डी. ए. सी. ए. कार्यक्रम की समीक्षा कर रहा हैः सलाहकार


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz lashed out at rival candidate Donald Trump on the day of Indiana’s primary on Tuesday, calling him a pathological liar, narcissist and bully after the front-runner linked Cruz’s father to John F. Kennedy’s assassin. “I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies,” Cruz told reporters in a scathing indictment. “He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And...his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.” In a television appearance earlier, Trump linked Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, to Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, citing a report by National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid known for celebrity gossip and alien sightings. “You know, his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody brings it up,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”  Republicans in Indiana might give New York billionaire Trump an almost unstoppable advantage in his turbulent journey toward the party’s presidential nomination.  The real estate mogul holds a double-digit polling lead in the Midwestern state over Cruz, a U.S. Senator of Texas.    Cruz denounced the Enquirer and its chief executive, David Pecker, who has endorsed Trump, for claiming his father, a Cuban immigrant to the United States, was pictured handing out pro-Fidel Castro literature with Oswald in New Orleans in 1963. “Yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his back yard,” Cruz said in a sarcastic retort. Cruz also unleashed fury over Trump’s earlier comment about his wife, Heidi. “Donald has a real problem with women. Donald is terrified by strong women - he lashes out at them,” Cruz said.  “The man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him,” Cruz said.

Summary: क्रूज ने ली हार्वे ओसवाल्ड की टिप्पणी पर ट्रंप पर साधा निशाना


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has named a former diplomat as the head of its intelligence agency, state-owned newspaper The Herald said on Saturday. Isaac Moyo, who was serving as an ambassador to neighboring South Africa and Lesotho, replaces retired army general Happyton Bonyongwe, the paper quoted chief secretary to the president, Misheck Sibanda, as saying. No one was immediately available to comment in President Emmerson Mnangagwa s office. The Herald is a mouthpiece for the government. Moyo takes over a domestic spy network, the Central Intelligence Organisation, that permeates every institution and section of society and has been used by former President Robert Mugabe to stay in power. He has served as a member of the African Union s Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA),  intelligence provider to the union s 55 states. Mnangagwa, who was sworn in two weeks ago in the wake of the de facto military coup that ended Mugabe s 37-year rule, has been ringing in changes in his administration including appointing leading military officials to top posts in his cabinet.

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे ने राजनयिक इसाक मोयो को शीर्ष जासूस के रूप में नामित किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ben Carson, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead U.S. housing policy, won approval on Tuesday from the Senate committee reviewing the qualifications of the retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate. The endorsement by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, by a voice vote shown on its website, cleared the way for a full Senate vote on Carson’s appointment as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Carson, 65, had promised senators on the committee during a confirmation hearing that he would monitor any potential conflicts of interest between his agency and properties controlled by real estate mogul Trump. He also told lawmakers during a hearing on Jan. 12 that he was fit to lead HUD, an agency that offers housing to the poor, even though he has sometimes criticized its work.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेट पैनल ने कार्सन को आवास सचिव पद के लिए मंजूरी दी


JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Anguished mourners lined the streets of the southern Mexican city devastated by the most powerful earthquake to strike the country in 85 years, coffins raised on their shoulders as they advanced slowly to a crowded cemetery on Saturday. More than half of the 65 known victims of Thursday night s 8.1 magnitude quake died in Juchitan, a picturesque, historic city near the coast where more than 5,000 homes were destroyed and many more left without running water or electricity. In the Eighth Section neighborhood, a working-class area where nearly every home was damaged, a loud drum and horn band played traditional music before the funeral of one of the 37 dead so far recovered from the wreckage of the somber city.  The piercing blasts of the burly horn section at times were drowned out by the plaintive wailing of mourners for Maximo Zuniga, a little boy whose distraught relatives said was fond of his spiky black hair and bright red tennis shoes. The three-year-old boy was asleep when the force of the quake brought his brick bedroom walls crumbling down on top of him, his mother and an older brother. The boy died shortly after he was pulled from the rubble; the other two survived.  I could barely see a little bit of his hair peeking out and his forehead,  said neighbor Alejandro Sanchez, who was the first to come to the stricken family s aid.  There was a heavy wooden beam on top of all three of them and lots of dirt,  he added, as the dead boy s uncle sobbed uncontrollably nearby. The long, juddering tremor was felt some 500 miles (800 km) away in Mexico City and as far south as Honduras, but unlike the 8.0 magnitude quake in 1985 that killed thousands in the capital, outlying areas of Mexico were left relatively unscathed. By contrast, much of the hot, muggy city of 100,000 near the Pacific coast looked as though it had been turned upside down. Piles of rubble lay scattered across town, chunks of roofs littering the ground, and more than 300 locals were receiving care for injuries in area hospitals.    Many residents refused to stay indoors for fear that badly damaged structures might yet come tumbling down. Neighbors of the Zuniga family handed out red tulips and others set off fireworks. Then the assembled crowd of about 200 mourners set out for the local cemetery, four men carrying the boy s small white coffin draped in thin sheets of bright blue paper as the band led the procession. Snaking through narrow streets, the colorful flower-bearing train of people in T-shirts and caps had to step over piles of debris and masonry from collapsed walls as neighbors turned out to line the route, bowing their heads as the coffin passed. In the midst of a frantic search for a missing police officer, President Enrique Pena Nieto made a brief appearance on Friday afternoon in Juchitan s devastated downtown. Pledging help to rebuild and attempting to soothe raw nerves, Pena Nieto declared three days of national mourning. But his words were cold comfort for Alma Alverez, Maximo s 48-year-old grandmother, who crossed her arms as men shoveled dirt over the small coffin.  Pena Nieto was able to make it here in his helicopter super fast. That s how help should be arriving, right? Exactly how he got here. But it hasn t,  Alvarez said, reflecting a belief that Mexico s south has long been ignored by the richer north. Two other funerals of quake victims were underway in the same cemetery as Fernando Lopez, a cousin of Maximo, stood near the back, his head bandaged from cuts suffered protecting his grandmother from falling tiles when the disaster struck.  This is what you re going to see the next few days,  he said, pointing to the other funeral services taking place.  The whole town will be here in the cemetery or in the hospital. We ll tidy up what we can clean, but we won t be celebrating anything on September 15th,  said Lopez, referring to the start of Mexico s independence day festivities.  We don t have anything to celebrate.  Juchitan s mayor, Gloria Sanchez, agreed.  A great sadness overwhelms us,  she said.  The situation in Juchitan is critical, unlike anything we ve ever seen before.

Summary: मेक्सिको में भीषण भूकंप के बाद मृतकों के कब्रिस्तान में अंतिम संस्कार के लिए भीड़


WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson proposed new dates on Tuesday for a NATO meeting, the State Department said, after he initially decided to skip the talks and rebuffed the alliance’s efforts to reschedule them. Tillerson’s decision to miss his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers, set for April 5-6 in Brussels, unsettled European allies who worried it reopened questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s commitment to the alliance. Reuters exclusively reported on Monday that Tillerson would stay in the United States to attend Trump’s expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida. U.S. officials also said Tillerson would visit Russia later in April. The alliance had offered to change the meeting dates so Tillerson could attend both it and the Xi talks but the U.S. State Department rebuffed the idea, a former U.S. official and a former NATO diplomat, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the department put forward new dates for a meeting when Tillerson could come, noting that such a decision would have to be made by consensus among the 28 NATO members. “We are certainly appreciative of the effort to accommodate Secretary Tillerson,” Toner told reporters. “We have offered alternative dates that the secretary could attend.” He also sought to allay European concerns by saying that “the United States remains 100 percent committed to NATO.” It was not yet clear if the NATO meeting would be rescheduled to accommodate Tillerson. During his election campaign and on the eve of taking office in January, Trump called the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation “obsolete,” although he has since said he strongly supports the alliance. “No matter how you spin it, this is unfortunate symbolism,” said one senior European diplomat of Tillerson’s plan to skip the April 5-6 NATO Brussels meeting, saying it undid the work of Trump’s vice president and defense minister, who visited NATO headquarters in February to provide reassurances after Trump’s criticism of the alliance. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was in Washington on Tuesday. Posing for photographs with Defense Secretary James Mattis, he declined to answer a reporter’s questions on what signal it sent that Tillerson did not plan to attend the meeting, according to a reporter who attended the session.     Some allies, particularly in the former Soviet bloc, are acutely sensitive to any sign of waning U.S. interest in their defense as they deal with a more assertive Russia. Concerns that Trump is too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the West has sought to isolate for annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, made Tillerson’s expected visit to Brussels all the more pressing, European allies said.  Tillerson worked with Russia’s government for years as a top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned sanctions against Moscow that he said could harm U.S. businesses. “We needed to hear his vision for the alliance,” said a diplomat due to attend the April ministerial meeting. NATO’s quarterly meetings are closed-door sessions over about two days in which governments discuss security strategies and approve top secret documents designed to guide the nuclear-armed alliance in areas ranging from training in Afghanistan to defenses against Iranian missiles. Given the U.S. role as the de facto head of the alliance, it is rare for the country’s top diplomat to miss a NATO meeting. The last time was during the Iraq war in 2003, when Colin Powell was forced to cancel at the last moment. Trump himself is expected in Brussels for a NATO summit in May, although the date is still under discussion. NATO has proposed holding that meeting on May 25, a NATO diplomat said. Several diplomats said they were unhappy that Tillerson had not offered to hold a NATO meeting in Washington later this week, given that most alliance foreign ministers and Stoltenberg will be there for a meeting of an international coalition against the Islamic State militant group. A State Department spokeswoman said on Monday night that all NATO members except Croatia would be at those talks. On Tuesday, Toner said Croatia would in fact attend, saying the department had made “a late night gaffe” and adding, “in no way do we want to diminish Croatia’s valuable role within the alliance.”

Summary: अमेरिका ने रास्ता बदला और नाटो वार्ता के लिए नई तारीखों की पेशकश की


WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The final opinion poll before New Zealand s election on Saturday showed the ruling National Party s lead over the opposition Labour Party had slipped to 8.5 points, meaning minor parties could well decide who forms the next government.  The Newshub-Reid survey released on Thursday showed support for Prime Minister Bill English s National Party had edged down 1.5 points to 45.8 percent, but support for Labour also fell, dropping 0.5 points to 37.3 percent. The National Party has governed for the past nine years, and its re-election would hearten investors who favour continuity and like National s vow to keep the small trading economy open to foreign investment. Regardless of the polls, which have shown sharp divergences, the nationalist New Zealand First Party could well emerge as the kingmaker in the next parliament. Minor parties often have an outsize role in New Zealand s proportional representation system, in which a party, or combination of parties, needs 61 of Parliament s 120 members - usually about 48 percent of the vote - to form a government. The Newshub-Reid survey showed support for New Zealand First hitting 7.1 percent, as did support for the Green Party, which is a likely coalition partner for Labour. The tight race, with Labour and the Green Party virtually neck-and-neck with National, meant the government might not be known for weeks.  Despite all of the volatility, despite all the twists and turns of the campaign, it has come back to that simple fact ... New Zealand First appears to be that crucial kingmaker,  said Bryce Edwards, analyst at Wellington-based Critical Politics.   Outspoken New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has said he will not confirm which bloc of parties he ll support until October 12 when the results become official.  The election was so hotly-contested that the deciding votes might be those of overseas New Zealanders, whose ballots would not be released until Oct. 7.  These votes, as well as those from New Zealanders who voted outside of their home area, accounted for around 12 percent of total ballots cast in the 2014 election, according to the Election Commission. Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday that citizens living in Australia, home to New Zealand s largest diaspora, were  very important  to the election.  Most New Zealanders maintain a strong interest in the direction of the country, particularly when it comes to things like how we re grappling with international issues, trade issues, environmental issues - so please have your say,  Ardern told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The New Zealand dollar - the word s 11th most traded currency in 2016 - briefly firmed to $0.7324 from $0.7312 after Thursday s opinion poll, but quickly gave up most of those gains and sank to $0.7305.

Summary: न्यूजीलैंड के वोटों से पहले अंतिम सर्वेक्षण से पता चलता है कि सत्तारूढ़ नेशनल्स बढ़त बनाए हुए है


SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea s leader Kim Jong Un vowed to develop more nuclear weapons on Tuesday while personally decorating scientists and officials who contributed to the development of Pyongyang s most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-15. Hwasong-15, which was test-launched on Nov. 29, has been largely perceived by analysts and government officials to have a range that can reach all of the mainland United States.  However, experts believe North Korea still has some technical points it needs to improve before fully completing its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the entirety of the United States. Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday the scientists and workers would continue manufacturing  more latest weapons and equipment  to  bolster up the nuclear force in quality and quantity , the North s central news agency reported on Wednesday. The North Korean leader was speaking at the close of a rare two-day munitions conference to celebrate the Hwasong-15. Kim also said North Korea should develop and manufacture more diverse weapons. Kim personally awarded medals to  those in the field of defense science who most faithfully and perfectly carried out the Party s plan for building strategic nuclear force, successfully test-fired ICBM Hwasong-15 and thus demonstrated the dignity and might of our powerful state all over the world once again,  KCNA said without naming the recipients. They were given several medals, including the Order of Kim Il Sung and Order of Kim Jong Il, the highest orders of the DPRK, an acronym for North Korea s official name, the Democratic People s Republic of Korea. In addition to the medals, KCNA said the scientists and officials were given watches engraved with the names of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader s  grandfather and father.  He solemnly declared that the development of new strategic weapon systems including A-bomb, H-bomb and ICBM Hwasong-15 with indigenous efforts and technology and the realization of the great cause of completing the state nuclear force serve as a great historic victory of our Party and people of the country,  North Korea s state media added citing Kim. The isolated state has previously said it has succeeded in developing atom bombs and hydrogen bombs as it carried out six nuclear tests from 2006, with the latest in September this year, although no outside entity has been able to confirm the North s announcements.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया के किम जोंग उन ने रॉकेट वैज्ञानिकों को सम्मानित किया, और अधिक हथियारों का वादा किया


LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Sunday a man arrested after a car collided with pedestrians in London, injuring 11, had been released under investigation while enquires continued. A 47-year-old was arrested at the scene near London s Natural History Museum on Saturday on suspicion of dangerous driving. He was treated in hospital before being taken to a north London police station, the Metropolitan Police said.  This morning he was released under investigation while enquiries continue,  the police said. People released under investigation are not required to attend again at a police station but can be contacted, and in some incidences arrested again, after further police enquiries. A vehicle mounted the pavement and collided with  pedestrians in one of the capital s busiest tourist areas on Saturday afternoon, but police doused concerns it was a terrorist attack.  Because of where this collision occurred and the number of pedestrians involved, I fully appreciate the concern and alarm this incident caused,  DC Darren Case from the Roads and Transport Policing Command said on Sunday.   Enquiries have established that this incident is not terrorist related ...Thankfully there are no serious injuries with the majority now discharged from hospital.

Summary: पुलिस ने लंदन संग्रहालय दुर्घटना चालक को रिहा कर दिया क्योंकि पूछताछ जारी है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Monday brought to an end President Barack Obama’s bid to overturn a ruling that threatens to gut his signature healthcare law by putting the case on hold until after President-elect Donald Trump, who aims to repeal Obamacare, takes office. The Obama administration had appealed a judge’s May ruling favoring the challenge filed by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives against a key part of the 2010 law. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed to a request by the Republicans to delay its consideration of the government’s appeal until after Trump takes office on Jan. 20. The Obama administration opposed the move. If the law is repealed by Congress, the case would be moot. The court’s decision to put the case on hold will not have an immediate effect on the law, as the lower court ruling was put on hold pending the appeal. The court said both sides should provide an update on the status of the case by Feb. 21. The challenge targeted government reimbursements to insurance companies to compensate them for reductions that the law required them to make to customers’ out-of-pocket medical payments. Trump has said he favors repealing and replacing Obamacare but would consider retaining certain elements.  The law has enabled millions of previously uninsured Americans to obtain health insurance, but Republicans condemn Obamacare as a government overreach and have mounted a series of legal challenges. The Obama administration appealed U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer’s ruling that the government cannot spend billions of dollars in federal funds without congressional approval to provide subsidies under the healthcare law to private insurers to help people afford medical coverage. The House Republicans argued that the administration violated the U.S. Constitution because it is the legislative branch, not the executive branch, that authorizes government spending. The Obama administration has interpreted the provision as a type of federal spending that does not need to be explicitly authorized by Congress. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 and 2015 issued major rulings authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts that preserved Obamacare and rejected conservative challenges.

Summary: अमेरिकी अदालत ने ओबामाकेयर मामले को ट्रम्प के पदभार संभालने तक रोक दिया


LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal s interior minister resigned on Wednesday after wildfires killed more than a hundred people in the past four months, but the move did little to appease the opposition which called on Prime Minister Antonio Costa also to step down. Hundreds of fires have raged across northern and central Portugal since Sunday after the driest summer in nearly 90 years, killing at least 41 people and overwhelming firefighting and rescue services. In June, a forest fire killed 64 people. The government, which has enjoyed strong approval ratings due to an improving economy, faces a no-confidence vote next week over its slow response to the fires and a failure to prevent heavy loss of lives.  Although the motion is unlikely to pass, the Socialist government has been weakened by the public clamor over the fires and a further reshuffle may be on the cards, some analysts believe. Costa, who said he felt secure about confidence in his government, nonetheless accepted the resignation of Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa whose office is in charge of firefighting, and the police and civil protection services.  Although this tragedy resulted from many factors, I no longer have the political and personal conditions to remain in my position,  the minister said in her resignation statement. The Social Democrats, the main opposition, on Wednesday threw their support behind the no-confidence motion launched by a relatively small centre-right party CDS-PP. The two, however, do not have enough seats to bring down the government, whose left-wing allies closed ranks around it on Wednesday.  You would do a favour to the country by submitting your resignation,  Social Democrat bench leader Hugo Soares told Costa during a fierce debate in parliament.  In order to stay in power, you are telling Portuguese to go screw themselves.  But Left Bloc leader Catarina Martins called the no-confidence motion  a grotesque trick  and  exploitation of the country s vulnerability  after the tragedy. The minority government relies on support from Left Bloc and Communists in parliament. Both parties have blamed previous governments, especially the Social Democrat-CDS coalition which ruled in 2011-15 and imposed painful austerity measures, for bad forestry management and underfinancing of fire prevention.  Costa once again promised reforms to meet any new such challenges in the future and blamed severe drought for the fires and decades of neglect in management of forested areas. He was due on Wednesday to meet President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has also been critical of the state s response.  This year s fires have burnt a record 520,000 hectares of forest, 52 times the size of Lisbon proper and representing nearly 60 percent of the total area burnt in the entire European Union in 2017, data from the EU showed on Wednesday. Portugal represents just about 2.1 percent of Europe s total landmass.

Summary: जंगलों में लगी भीषण आग के चलते पुर्तगाल के मंत्री ने दिया इस्तीफा, प्रधानमंत्री दबाव में


LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Thursday that moves toward paying half a billion dollars to Iran for a debt owed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution had nothing to do with a bid to secure the release of a jailed Iranian-British aid worker. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained in April and sentenced to five years after an Iranian court convicted her of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. She denies the charges. Prime Minister Theresa May s government is under intense pressure to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe s release, in part because Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made remarks that Iran said justified her conviction. Britain has sought legal advice over whether it could transfer over 400 million pounds ($528 million) which it owes the Islamic Republic in capital and interest for a 1970s arms deal with the then-Shah of Iran, the Telegraph newspaper. Britain owes the money after the Shah paid up front for 1,750 Chieftain tanks and other vehicles, almost none of which were eventually delivered after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 toppled the U.S.-backed leader. British officials did not directly answer requests for comment on whether they were preparing to pay the money to Iran, but May s spokesman said the debt issue was not linked to the attempts to convince Tehran to release Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Talks to resolve the debt matter have been going on for years.  It is wrong to link a completely separate debt issue with any other aspect of our bilateral relationship with Iran,  a government spokesman said, adding that Iran s Defence Ministry remains subject to European Union sanctions.  The debt was paid to a bank account controlled by the High Court in 2002 but has not been released due to sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the spokesman said. Iran rejected media reports associating the debt Britain owed to Iran with the fate of Zaghari-Ratcliffe.  These are two separate matters ... Linking them is wrong. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been tried and sentenced to jail,  TV quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying. British officials told the Telegraph that work on how to pay the debt has intensified in recent months in a bid to improve relations with Iran. When asked about the reports, May s spokesman said the government saw no connection between the debt and the fate of Zaghari-Ratcliffe.  We are clear we don t see any link between these two issues,  the spokesman said.  The reports are speculation, not anything that I recognize.   The Thomson Reuters Foundation is a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters. It operates independently of Reuters News.

Summary: ब्रिटेन ने जेल में बंद सहायता कर्मचारी को मुक्त करने की बोली से जुड़े ईरान के 50 करोड़ डॉलर के ऋण से इनकार किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump intends to nominate a Raytheon Co (RTN.N) lobbyist, Mark Esper, for the position of secretary of the Army, the White House said on Wednesday. The position has been challenging for Trump to fill. Two previous nominees withdrew their names from consideration. Before Esper joined U.S. missile maker Raytheon in 2010 as vice president government relations he held posts at industry advocacy groups like the Aerospace Industries Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Esper graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel and is a veteran of the Gulf War, according to a Raytheon memo announcing his hiring.

Summary: सेना सचिव के लिए रेथियॉन लॉबिस्ट को नामित करेंगे ट्रंप


(Reuters) - They wore pantsuits to their polling places, emulating the preferred dress of their White House candidate. Some wept with emotion and others remembered their female ancestors as they cast their vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton. But rather than witness the shattering of the ultimate glass ceiling, women across America watched an historic breakthrough slip away as Clinton failed to become the first woman elected president of the United States. Republican Donald Trump, who had waged a heated campaign painting the former secretary of state as  “crooked” and threatening to put her in jail, swept to surprise victory on an anti-establishment platform. “I was looking forward to having a woman president. I really was. I can’t believe people voted for that terrible man,” said Mariana Mejia, 61, sitting at a subdued party at California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento. Some women defied their own political tradition to vote for the first woman presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party. Republican Cassandra Pye, a pioneering African-American political consultant who advised former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said she felt the pull of history as she cast her ballot for Clinton. “I feel like even though I vote in the booth alone, there are always people in there with me,” Pye said. “My ancestors, my mother, my aunties - there were a lot of people in the booth with me today.” A polarizing figure with a long history in the public eye, Clinton entered the White House as first lady in 1993, after her husband, Bill Clinton, defeated incumbent George H. W. Bush. Her ambition immediately clashed with the public’s image of a first lady, and Clinton won enemies as swiftly as she earned the adoration of many progressive women. When she lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008, Clinton conceded that “although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” referring to the number of votes she had won.  Women who had pinned their hopes on Clinton gave a nod to their political history on Tuesday, forming a long line to leave “I Voted Today” stickers on the gravestone of women’s suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony.  Others, dressed in white like the suffragettes who campaigned for a woman’s right to vote and wearing pantsuits like those favored by Clinton, posed for photos at state Capitol buildings and other iconic locations. Several bemoaned the fact that U.S. women won the right to vote in 1920 and nearly a century later the country has yet to elect a woman president.         “It’s been such a hard struggle for women, a very hard struggle,” said U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, who in 1992 made history along with Senator Dianne Feinstein as the first women elected from California to the U.S. Senate. “It’s a very emotional moment.” Trump, a wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV star, defied political correctness with comments that angered women, minorities and the disabled. He denied allegations by several women that he groped them after the emergence of a video where he boasted about making unwanted sexual advances on women.    At the Sacramento Democratic party gathering, some women lamented his victory and the long, difficult trek for women to win positions of power.  “I thought by the time I hit 61 it would be different for women and minorities,” said Chris Cage, 61, a former journalist and labor organizer. “I see a victory for Trump as a vote against both.”

Summary: क्लिंटन की आश्चर्यजनक हार के बाद सबसे ऊँची कांच की छत बरकरार है


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah s parliamentary bloc called on Saudi Arabia on Thursday to stop interfering in Lebanese affairs after Lebanon s prime minister quit in a weekend broadcast from the kingdom. Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah said the bloc supports the approach of Lebanon s president, who has refused to decide on whether to accept the shock resignation until Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri returns home.

Summary: हिज़्बुल्लाह ने सऊदी अरब से लेबनान में हस्तक्षेप बंद करने का आह्वान कियाः बयान


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday condemned President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba, saying the trip legitimizes the “tyrannical dictatorship” of Cuban President Raul Castro. Ryan made his remarks to reporters in Washington as Obama was wrapping up his historic visit to Havana - a trip that was marked by clashes between the American and Cuban leaders over human rights abuses.

Summary: हाउस स्पीकर रेयान ने ओबामा की क्यूबा यात्रा पर हमला किया


ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek police said on Saturday they arrested a man they believe was involved in mailing parcel and letter bombs to targets including ex-Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos and former German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. In March, police intercepted eight suspect packages at an Athens sorting office after the dispatch of booby-trapped parcels to the International Monetary Fund in Paris and the German Finance Ministry in Berlin. One parcel, mailed to Schaeuble, was intercepted by the ministry s mail department. A letter addressed to the IMF exploded, slightly hurting an administrative assistant.  The anti-terrorism service arrested a 29-year-old male following a warrant ... related to parcel bomb dispatches,  police said in a statement. Police searched the suspect s apartment in Athens and found two pistols, bullets, a timing device and explosive materials in travel bags, a police official said.  Police had spotted him in videos bringing parcels to the post office on five different occasions,  the official said, declining to be named. Papademos was injured in May when a booby-trapped package exploded in his car in central Athens, in the worst act of violence against Greek politicians country for several years. The suspect denies involvement in the attacks and in the militant group Conspiracy of Fire Cells, which claimed responsibility for the parcel sent to the German Finance Ministry, the police official told Reuters. Conspiracy of Fire Cells, one in a long line of violent anti-establishment groups in Greece, initially specialized in arson attacks but turned to bombings in May 2009.

Summary: ग्रीक पुलिस ने हाई-प्रोफाइल पार्सल बम हमलों के पीछे के संदिग्ध को गिरफ्तार किया