WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has charged a former Senegalese foreign minister and a former top Hong Kong government official with links to a Chinese energy conglomerate with bribing high-level officials in Chad and Uganda in exchange for contracts for the mainland company. Chi Ping Patrick Ho, 68, of Hong Kong, and Cheikh Gadio, 61, were charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, international money laundering and conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement on Monday.  It said Gadio, a former foreign minister of Senegal, was arrested in New York on Friday. It added that Ho, a former Hong Kong home affairs secretary who heads a non-governmental organization based in Hong Kong and Virginia, was arrested on Saturday.  Wiring almost a million dollars through New York s banking system in furtherance of their corrupt schemes, the defendants allegedly sought to generate business through bribes paid to the president of Chad and the Ugandan foreign minister,  Joon Kim, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was quoted as saying in the statement. No one could be reached at the embassies of Chad and Uganda in Washington late on Monday. The missions did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment. In a statement, the U.S. Justice Department said the case against Ho involved two bribery schemes to pay high-level officials of Chad and Uganda in exchange for business advantages for a Shanghai-headquartered, multibillion-dollar energy firm. This energy company funded a non-government organization (NGO) based in Hong Kong and Virginia that Ho heads, the statement said, without naming the Shanghai company or the NGO.  Ho is the secretary general of the Hong Kong-based China Energy Fund Committee, a mainland-backed think-tank that describes itself as a charitable, non-government organization.  China Energy Fund Committee is fully funded by CEFC China Energy, a Shanghai-based private conglomerate, according to the think tank s website. The organization did not respond to an email requesting comment. CEFC China Energy said in a statement posted on its website late on Tuesday that:  As a non-governmental, non-profit organization, the fund is not involved in the commercial activities of CEFC China Energy.  CEFC does not have any investment in Uganda, the company said in the statement, and its investment in Chad had been acquired via a stake bought from Taiwan s state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp and it had not dealt directly with the Chad government.  The company will continue monitoring this matter and will take necessary measures based on developments,  it said. CEFC has been a key player in Chinese President Xi Jinping s Belt and Road initiative, which aims to bolster China s global leadership ambitions by building infrastructure and trade links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing Tuesday that he was not aware of the specific details of the case.  I want to emphasize that the Chinese government consistently requires Chinese companies abroad to operate lawfully and abide by local laws and regulations.   Idriss Deby has been Chad s president since 1990. Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa served as the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014 and 2015. Ho s attorney, Ed Kim, of Krieger Kim & Lewin LLP, declined to comment to Reuters. Bob Baum of Federal Defenders, who represented Gadio for the bail argument, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ho was ordered detained after appearing in court on Monday, the Justice Department statement said. It said Gadio appeared before a judge on Saturday and is being held until he can meet the conditions of a $1 million bond, according to court records. The Justice Department said a $2 million bribe was paid to Chad s president, who then provided the company with an opportunity to obtain oil rights in Chad without international competition. The department said in the statement that Gadio was the go-between and was paid $400,000 by Ho via wire transfers through New York. The Justice Department accused Ho of being involved with bribes and promises of future benefits to Uganda s foreign minister in exchange for help in obtaining business advantages for the Chinese company.

Summary: अमेरिका ने चीन की ऊर्जा कंपनी के लिए अफ्रीकी अधिकारियों को रिश्वत देने के लिए दो लोगों पर आरोप लगाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States is “very protective” of the Baltics in the face of a Russian naval exercise with China in the Baltic Sea and said the United States and its allies would be able to handle any threat. “We are very protective of that region,” Trump said at a joint news conference with visiting Finland President Sauli Niinisto. “That’s all I can say. We are very, very protective. We have great friends there.” A Russian naval exercise with China in the Baltic Sea has rattled tensions in the region and Trump has sought to reassure NATO allies there, sending Vice President Mike Pence on a recent trip. Niinisto said he recently played host to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland and that Putin offered assurances that the Russia-China naval exercise should not be seen as a threat. Niinisto said the United States, Finland and Sweden have also conducted training exercises in the Baltic region. “We have to be very careful that this huge training, huge military trafficking ... does not cause any accidents or problems because we know from accidents might grow whatever,” he said. “That is why I think it’s important that we continue to work with NATO to enhance ... dialogue between Russia and NATO.” On a visit to Brussels in May, Trump’s allegiance to NATO was thrown into doubt when he opted not to mention the U.S. commitment to the NATO treaty’s Article 5, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all. He later cleared up the confusion, saying he was committed to NATO’s common defense. Trump entered office hoping for better U.S. relations with Russia but his effort has failed thus far to bear fruit amid continuing questions surrounding Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election, something both Moscow and Trump deny. He signed legislation early this month imposing a new round of U.S. sanctions against Moscow.Trump called the Baltics “a very important part of the world.” “These are all threats we will be able to handle if we have to. Hopefully we won’t have to handle them but if we do we’ll be able to handle them,” he said.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने कहा कि अमेरिका बाल्टिक क्षेत्र के लिए 'बहुत सुरक्षात्मक' है


ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish security forces killed five Kurdish militants in the southwestern province of Mugla on Thursday, broadcaster NTV said, marking a rare clash in an Aegean coastal region popular with foreign tourists. Security forces carried out an operation against a group of seven militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Mugla s Koycegiz district, NTV said. Two of the militants were still being sought, it said. On Wednesday, security forces captured four Kurdish militants and three others helping them near Mugla s Seydikemer district, NTV said. Mugla is the site of major tourist destinations, including Bodrum and Marmaris on Turkey s southwest coast. Nearly all of the fighting with the PKK happens in the mainly Kurdish southeast on the opposite side of the country. On Wednesday Mugla hosted the highest profile case related to last year s abortive putsch, in which the court found 42 former soldiers guilty of trying to kill President Tayyip Erdogan. It was not immediately clear if the militants  presence in Mugla was related to that case.  The autonomy-seeking PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.

Summary: तुर्की के सुरक्षा बलों ने दक्षिण-पश्चिमी तुर्की में पांच कुर्द आतंकवादियों को मार गिरायाः एनटीवी


ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Wednesday that Italy was a model for Europe on how to reduce migrant arrivals, a day after U.N. agencies said its policies had trapped tens of thousands of people in dire conditions in Libya.  Italy is proud to be a good example on the issue of migrants,  Gentiloni told parliament before attending a meeting of European Union leaders where immigration policy will be discussed in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.  We have reduced the number of people dying at sea and the number of irregular-migrant arrivals,  he said. Sea arrivals to Italy and deaths recorded in the Central Mediterranean are down by a quarter so far this year. On Wednesday, EU border agency Frontex said September arrivals dropped by two thirds versus a year earlier. After more than 600,000 arrivals from North Africa   mostly Libya   in less than four years, Italy trained and equipped the Libyan coast guard, and an Italian navy ship is in Tripoli s port to repair vessels used to turn back migrant boats.     With a national election due in the spring, Rome has promised tens of millions of euros to Tripoli and to local authorities to help them shut down people smuggling. The European Union has left Italy largely on its own to deal with Libya, where there are hundreds of armed militias and two rival governments vying for power six years after the ouster of  Muammar Gaddafi. More than 20,000 migrants have been trapped in farms, houses and warehouses around Sabratha, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates, in a situation of  human suffering and abuse on a shocking scale,  spokesman Andrej Mahecic said on Tuesday.   Amongst the refugees and migrants who suffered abuse at the hands of smugglers, there are pregnant women and new born babies,  Mahecic said.  While Gentiloni said there must be an increase in resources  for the migrants in Libyan camps, he added that Italy s success in reducing migrant arrivals was  very positive . The United Nations, on the other hand, is calling for Europe to create safe and legal pathways to Europe for refugees and migrants so that they will not try to reach Europe by making the dangerous journey through Libya.

Summary: प्रधानमंत्री ने इटली की प्रवासी नीति की प्रशंसा की क्योंकि संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने मानवीय संकट का हवाला दिया


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State has claimed suicide attacks that killed at least 50 people and injured more than 80 in a southern Iraqi city on Thursday. A statement on the Amaq news agency, which supports the hardline Sunni Muslim group, said the attacks carried out by the its suicide fighters targeted a restaurant and a checkpoint, killing  dozens of Shi ites .

Summary: इस्लामिक स्टेट ने दक्षिणी इराक में आत्मघाती हमलों की जिम्मेदारी लीः अमाक


ADEN (Reuters) - Yemen s national airline said on Sunday it still lacks the security permits needed to resume commercial flights, a day after the transport minister said some flights would be allowed as a nationwide blockade is eased. The Saudi-led military coalition fighting against Yemen s Houthi movement said last week that it had closed all air, land and sea ports in Yemen to stem the alleged flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran. The move came after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired towards Riyadh, which it blamed on Tehran.     Transport Minister Mourad al-Halimi had said Yemenia flights to the pro-Saudi government-held cities of Aden and Seiyun would resume on Sunday, but the national carrier said in a statement that it  didn t acquire the necessary permits  to fly. The United Nations had warned the total blockade could cause famine in the impoverished country where war has killed at least 10,000 people in the last 2-1/2 years and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) expressed more concerns on Sunday. It urged in a statement that humanitarian aid be allowed to enter the country immediately, as Yemen has registered one of the highest rates in postpartum deaths. The government-held southern Yemeni port of Aden was reopened on Wednesday, but ports in Houthi-held areas are still shut. The coalition reopened the al Wadea border crossing linking Saudi Arabia with territory in eastern Yemen on Thursday.

Summary: यमनी एयरलाइन ने कहा कि नाकाबंदी के बाद वाणिज्यिक उड़ानें फिर से शुरू नहीं की गईं


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained 165 people over suspected links to Islamic State in Ankara and have arrest warrants for a total of 245 suspects in the capital and surrounding province, state-run Anadolu news agency said on Thursday. It said 1,500 police officers took part in the operation across Ankara province, raiding 250 addresses. No further details were immediately available. Private broadcaster CNNTurk said police in the northwestern city of Bursa also detained 27 suspects including some Syrian nationals over alleged links to Islamic State. They confiscated documents and materials linked to the organization during raids at the addresses of some suspects, it said.

Summary: तुर्की ने अंकारा में इस्लामिक स्टेट के 160 से अधिक संदिग्धों को हिरासत में लिया


BEIJING (Reuters) - China s foreign minister on Thursday said that ties with Japan should not take two steps back for every step forward, after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a rare appearance at an anniversary event for the normalization of diplomatic relations. Speaking on the eve of the 45th anniversary of the resumption of ties between Beijing and Tokyo, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Japan s ambassador to China, Yutaka Yokoi, that he hoped for greater improvement in relations.  We hope that the Japanese government can pursue a more positive policy towards China... and not take one step back for each step forward, even two steps back for each step forward,  Wang said, according to a statement released on the ministry website on Friday. Relations have been complicated for decades by the legacy of Japan s wartime aggression, as well as by a festering territorial dispute in the East China Sea. Abe on Thursday evening made an appearance at a Chinese embassy event in Tokyo that jointly celebrated the anniversary as well as China s Oct 1 National Day. Wang called the appearance  good news  and added:  We hope for more good news in China-Japan relations and not for bad news to follow shortly after good news.  Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Abe also exchanged congratulatory messages on Friday, in which Li said that the two countries should  properly manage and control their contradictions and differences , China s official Xinhua news agency reported.  Japan s cabinet on Thursday announced Oct. 22 as the date of a snap election where Abe, a conservative who returned to power in 2012, hopes a recent boost in voter support will help his Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition maintain a simple majority. It now holds a two-thirds  super  majority.

Summary: चीन ने कहा, एक कदम आगे बढ़ना और दो कदम पीछे हटना जापान के संबंधों के लिए अच्छा नहीं


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Democratic state senators in California on Thursday unveiled a series of bills designed to freeze in place Obama administration-era environmental regulations in the event the Trump administration moves to weaken them. The bills, collectively known as the “Preserve California” package, aim to make existing federal clean air, water, and endangered species laws enforceable under state law and protect federal lands in the state from being sold to oil companies.  “The goals and objectives of these measures... is to do everything within our power to make sure the federal government doesn’t encroach on our far-reaching progressive policies,” California Senate Leader Kevin de Leon said during a press conference in Sacramento on Thursday. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bills. If the bills become law, they could set the stage for legal battles between the left-leaning state and the conservative Trump administration, which have already clashed over President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration. After the presidential election, California Democrats hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who served in the Obama administration, to help in any legal battles with the Trump administration. De Leon said that while the state is not looking to go to court against the administration over the proposed policies, it will deploy Holder as needed.  “The less that we use Eric Holder, the better,” de Leon said. “The more we use Eric Holder, that means bad things are happening towards California.”  One of the bills released on Thursday is designed to prevent federal lands in the state from being opened up to development and would give the state the right to halt the sales of federal land.  “There are prominent members of Congress and prominent members of the Trump administration who are on the record supporting a large-scale sell off of our federal lands,” said Senator Ben Allen, the bill’s author.  “Either opening them up to mineral and oil and gas exploitation or direct sales to corporations who want to use those lands for commercial gain,” he said. Another bill would shield whistleblowers in federal agencies who are also licensed to practice in California from losing their professional certification under state law.  It would also direct state environmental and public health agencies to protect any data under state law, even if parties in Washington D.C. order their censorship or destruction, according to Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, the bill’s author.

Summary: कैलिफोर्निया के सांसदों ने ट्रम्प को विफल करने के प्रयास में पर्यावरण विधेयक जारी किए


PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron assured Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday of France’s commitment to the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Macron’s office said. Macron told Rouhani that the U.S. decision not to certify the agreement would not end it and that France and its European partners would keep carrying out their commitments in regard to the deal, a statement said. Macron also spelled out in a phone conversation the conditions Iran must comply with, including strict respect of the deal.

Summary: मैक्रों ने ईरान के रूहानी को परमाणु समझौते के लिए फ्रांस की प्रतिबद्धता का आश्वासन दिया


BENGALURU (Reuters) - A multi-storey building collapsed in the south Indian city of Bengaluru on Monday, killing at least five people and injuring several, officials said. The accident occurred in a densely populated residential area in the south-east of the city after the suspected explosion of a cooking gas cylinder, they said.  Rescue operations were under way, according to media reports.  Five people have died and five have been rescued,  Bengaluru Development and Town Planning Minister K.J. George said on TV from the accident site.  The building is more than 20 years old. At around 6 a.m., there was a loud noise, either due to gas cylinder explosion or building collapse,  said Karnataka state home minister Ramalinga Reddy.

Summary: बेंगलुरु में इमारत गिरने से कम से कम पांच लोगों की मौत


ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan s spokesman said on Wednesday the U.S. judge hearing the trial of an executive at Turkey s state-owned Halkbank had taken part in events organized by a cleric Ankara blames for last year s failed military coup.  The issue has gone beyond a legal case, it has become a political case,  spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in reference to the New York trial of a deputy general manager at the bank, who is charged with helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions.  The executive has pleaded not guilty and Halkbank says it has abided by Turkish and international law.  Erdogan s government has portrayed the case as a  plot against Turkey  by the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who it alleges engineered last year s coup attempt.   It is known that the judge has participated in events upon Gulen s invitation,  Kalin told a news conference, without giving details. Turkish newspapers have said Judge Richard Berman attended a legal symposium in Istanbul in 2014 organized by Gulen supporters. Berman could not be reached for comment. At the first hearing in the case he said he was one of five U.S. legal experts who spoke at the symposium and moderated a panel discussion on independent and effective judiciary. In response to previous criticism from Turkey, the United States has said its judicial processes are independent.  Already strained ties between NATO allies Ankara and Washington have deteriorated further over the court case, in which Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, has detailed a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions. Zarrab has implicated top Turkish politicians, including Erdogan. Zarrab said on Thursday that when Erdogan was prime minister he had authorized a transaction to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. Although he has not yet responded to the courtroom claims, Erdogan has dismissed the case as a politically motivated attempt, led by Gulen, to bring down the Turkish government.  We will continue watching it within the framework of the law, but the public is seeing how this is trying to be used as an instrument of blackmail,  Kalin said.  We have not done anything in violation of international laws, we carried out our activities transparently,  Kalin said. Turkey has repeatedly requested Gulen s extradition, but U.S. officials have said the courts require sufficient evidence before they can extradite the elderly cleric, who has denied any involvement in the coup. Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

Summary: तुर्की ने प्रतिबंधों के मामले में अमेरिकी न्यायाधीश को वांछित मौलवी से जोड़ा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States needs more submarines but he wants to buy them at a lower cost, resuming his push to get defense contractors to cut the prices they charge the Pentagon. “We’re lacking submarines and we’re going to build new submarines but the price is too high so I’m cutting the prices way down,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News to be broadcast later on Thursday. Two U.S.-based companies, General Dynamics Corp’s Electric Boat division and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding, build the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines. Neither General Dynamics nor Huntington Ingalls immediately responded to a request for comment. “We are working hard to drive down cost and are seeing the fruits of that labor,” a senior U.S. Navy official said in response to the Trump comments. “We have the most advanced submarines in the world - the more we buy, the more we will bring down the price,” the official said. Trump, who took office on Friday, has vowed to build up the military, which he says has become dangerously depleted. Since winning the November election, he has pressured U.S. defense contractors to reduce the cost of the products they sell to the Pentagon. In December, Trump received a pledge from the chief executive of Lockheed Martin to cut the cost of the F-35 fighter jet after Trump complained in a tweet about the plane’s price tag and said he would ask Boeing to offer a cheaper alternative.

Summary: ट्रंप नौसेना की पनडुब्बियों की कीमत में कटौती करना चाहते हैंः फॉक्स न्यूज साक्षात्कार


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of U.S. senators from both parties on Wednesday turned up the heat on Wells Fargo Inc. over its latest scandal, in which hundreds of thousands of car-loan borrowers were charged each month without their knowledge for collision insurance, which many of them did not need. The Republican chairs of the committee and the subcommittee that would head any congressional investigations into insurance sales, Senators John Thune and Jerry Moran, along with those panels’ senior Democrats, Senators Bill Nelson and Richard Blumenthal, wrote to Wells CEO Timothy Sloan with questions about the scandal as basic as how many customers were affected. They also requested copies of the bank’s internal report that first identified the problem. The group sent similar questions to Barry Karfunkel, CEO of National General Holdings Corporation, which provided the insurance. Last week Moran said he was seeking additional information from Wells about reports the bank charged 800,000 borrowers for insurance without their knowledge or consent, but did not give specifics. Many borrowers already had cheaper insurance with other companies. The letter asks Sloan when the bank, which paid $190 million in fines and penalties last year over creating phantom bank accounts, first learned about the insurance sales practices and also what steps it is taking to prevent a recurrence and to refund the erroneous charges to customers. The letters do not mention possible hearings or subpoenas, but the senators have the authority launch an investigation using both if they are not satisfied with responses to their letters. Wells and National have until Aug. 23 to answer the questions. The Wells letter shows senators are concerned with reports that thousands of borrowers fell into delinquency because they could not afford the premiums on top of their monthly payments and the possibility bank management pushed employees to sign customers up for insurance with incentives or special benefits.  Incentives are at the heart of last year’s scandal, where employees said they created accounts in customers’ names or pushed account holders to buy additional products they did not need in order to meet high sales targets. The senators are also seeking information about possible commissions paid or revenues shared between Wells and National. Wells spokeswoman Jennifer Dunn said the bank is committed to addressing the lawmakers’ concerns.  “Customer harm is not acceptable at Wells Fargo,” she said. “We are committed to fixing these mistakes and earning back trust.”

Summary: रिपब्लिकन, डेमोक्रेटिक सीनेटरों ने वेल्स ऑटो स्कैंडल में जवाब मांगा


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, pledged on Friday to overhaul the world body and warned U.S. allies that if they do not support Washington, then she is “taking names” and will respond. Haley made brief remarks to reporters as she arrived at the world body’s headquarters in New York to present her credentials to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “Our goal with the administration is to show value at the U.N. and the way that we’ll show value is to show our strength, show our voice, have the backs of our allies and make sure that our allies have our back as well,” Haley said. “For those that don’t have our back, we’re taking names, we will make points to respond to that accordingly,” added Republican President Donald Trump’s U.N. envoy.  Haley, who was South Carolina’s Republican governor when Trump picked her for the post, has little foreign policy and no U.S. federal government experience. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre and British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said they looked forward to working with Haley. The United States, Britain and France, along with Russia and China, are permanent veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council.  After her meeting with Guterres, a U.S. official said they had “a good and productive conversation about ways they can work together to reform the U.N.” Haley told reporters, “Everything that’s working, we’re going to make it better, everything that’s not working we’re going to try and fix, and anything that seems to be obsolete and not necessary we’re going to do away with.”  According to a draft executive order published by The Daily Beast, Trump wants a committee - including his secretary of state, attorney general and director of national intelligence -to carry out a one-year review of U.S. funding to international organizations with the aim of almost halving voluntary funding. A senior U.S. administration official said on Friday that no such executive order was “expected at this time.” The United States is the largest contributor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of the $5.4 billion core U.N. budget and 28 percent of the $7.9 billion U.N. peacekeeping budget. These are assessed contributions - agreed by the U.N. General Assembly - and not voluntary payments.  U.N. agencies, such as the U.N. Development Programme, the children’s agency UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the U.N. Population Fund, are funded voluntarily. Last year, Trump took to Twitter to disparage the 193-member world body after the United States abstained in a Dec. 23 U.N. Security Council vote, allowing the adoption of a resolution demanding an end to settlement building by U.S. ally Israel. Trump, who had called on President Barack Obama’s administration to veto the resolution, warned that “things will be different” at the United Nations after he took office on Jan. 20.

Summary: अमेरिका के नए संयुक्त राष्ट्र दूत ने सहयोगियों को चेतावनी दीः हमारा समर्थन करें या हम नाम लेंगे


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s Social Democrats (SPD) voted on Thursday to hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives on forming a government after their leader made an impassioned plea for a free hand to work for a social  United States of Europe . The vote clears the way for talks that could resolve the impasse into which Europe s economic powerhouse was plunged after Merkel and the SPD shed support in a September election, greatly complicating the parliamentary arithmetic. Martin Schulz urged reluctant center-left SPD members to be open to Merkel s overtures to renew the coalition that has governed for the past four years, saying the party had a responsibility to revive social democracy in Germany. A new  grand coalition  with the reluctant SPD is Merkel s best hope of extending her 12 years in power after talks with two smaller parties failed, giving the smaller SPD greater leverage in any negotiations.  The question isn t grand coalition or no grand coalition,  he said in a speech to his party s biennial congress,  Nor minority government or fresh elections. No - it s about how we exercise our responsibility, including to the next generation.  Schulz said the party would only recover if it could offer a clear vision of a Germany and a Europe that worked for their citizens, calling for deeper European integration and a  United States of Europe  by 2025.  Europe does not always work for its people, rather too often for the big companies,  he said, outlining a populist vision that goes well beyond Merkel s own openness to limited structural reforms and bureaucratic streamlining. Talks between the two parties are expected to begin in earnest in the new year. A special congress will have to be convened at which party members will vote on whether to support a final agreement, which could fall short of a formal coalition, and could include tolerating a minority government. Stephan Weil, the influential premier of the state of Lower Saxony, said the SPD would want to see its policies reflected in return for supporting any government.  I think the majority of the delegates see themselves as a European party and they expect that Germany becomes a driving force in Europe again,  he said of Schulz s proposals regarding the European Union. Schulz s proposals were received more cautiously by Merkel.  The (EU s) ability to act should be at the forefront now,  she said at a Berlin press conference.  So I will concentrate on more cooperation in defense by 2025 and on other issues,  including employment and innovation. Outside the congress hall, SPD youth activists, many of whom want the party to chart a distinctive course after spending eight of the past 12 years in centrist coalitions, handed out red cards reading  No Grand Coalition .  Merkel leads this country without direction,  said one speaker addressing the conference.  She has no plan for Europe, she leads the country from week to week. We need a strong social democracy in this country.  Schulz, who initially said his party should go into opposition after being punished for participating in the previous grand coalition under Merkel, apologized for his party s disastrous electoral result. Schulz attacked European moves to support big banks while doing little to counter high youth unemployment.  When states can t balance their budgets they face draconian sanctions from Brussels. If we can mobilize billions for bank rescues but have to fight for paltry sums to support jobs for young people, then this is definitely not my Europe.  He struck a tone that was more critical of big companies than French President Emmanuel Macron, who is pushing for deeper euro zone integration and pro-business reforms under a euro zone finance minister.  He took aim at U.S. technology firms Apple, Facebook and Google, saying a strong Europe was needed to make them stick to the rules and protect the rights of workers in a changing economy.  We don t want an app-directed service society but we want digitalization to lead to more individual freedom,  he said to applause, calling for steps to protect the digital economy s self-employed from becoming  self-exploiters . On the issue of immigration, one of the main reasons for the collapse of Merkel s first attempt at a coalition, the SPD opposes a conservative plan to extend a ban on the right to family reunions for some accepted asylum seekers.  There can be no upper limit to the right to protection from war and persecution,  Schulz told delegates, rejecting conservative demands for a ceiling of 200,000 immigrants a year.

Summary: यूरोप में भावुक भाषण के बाद जर्मन एस. पी. डी. ने मर्केल के साथ वार्ता का समर्थन किया


JUBA (Reuters) - Six aid workers kidnapped by rebels in South Sudan earlier this week have been released, according to the United Nations and a spokesman for the rebels.  The aid workers are from the French organization Solidarites International and had been kidnapped on Sunday while traveling on a road near the city of Raja, in the west of the country.   All of them were released and they have landed safely in Wau,  another city in the west of the country, a United Nations official in Juba who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters. He said one of those who had been held by the rebels was a foreigner.  Rebel spokesman Lam Paul Gabriel told Reuters that the six humanitarian aid workers had been freed:  All their belongings were given back to them including their vehicles.  It was not clear why the rebels had taken the aid workers and their vehicles into custody. Solidarites said in a statement on Monday that it had lost contact with three members of its team on Saturday. [L8N1OI50M] It gave no indication of their fate and it was not immediately clear why it gave a different number of those involved.  The spokesman for Solidarites in Paris did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement of the release of its staff. The army spokesman in Juba also did not respond to request for comment. South Sudan is one of the world s most dangerous countries for aid workers. Some 28 aid workers have been killed this year, with nine shot dead in November alone, according to the United Nations. The world s youngest nation is embroiled in a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced a third of the 12 million strong population to flee their homes.

Summary: दक्षिण सूडान में अपहृत सहायता कर्मियों को रिहा किया गयाः संयुक्त राष्ट्र, विद्रोही


PARIS (Reuters) - France s foreign minister criticized Iran s regional ambitions, saying Paris could not accept Tehran s military expansion to the Mediterranean, and accused Russia of failing to use its influence to push U.N.-led Syrian peace talks and curb violence. Speaking in an interview with France 2 television to be broadcast later on Tuesday as part of a documentary on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Jean-Yves Le Drian said it was time for Moscow and Tehran to work with the U.N. Security Council to end the six-year-old conflict in Syria.  The Iranian presence and the desire to make an axis from the Mediterranean to Tehran, (I say) no!  Le Drian said in the interview.  There is a Syria that needs to exist.  Many Arab leaders argue that by fighting Islamic State and supporting Assad militarily, Iran is projecting its power across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, creating an arc of regional influence stretching from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean.  Tensions between Iran and France have increased in recent weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron said that Tehran should be less aggressive in the region and clarify its ballistic missile program. Le Drian also denounced Tehran s  hegemonic temptations  during a visit to Saudi Arabia last month. Iran s foreign minister on Monday urged European countries not to be influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump s confrontational policy towards Tehran. Under Macron s instruction, Le Drian has sought not take sides in the Middle East and attempted to improve ties with Russia after the previous French administration s relationship with Moscow suffered especially over Syria, where Russia and Iran are staunch allies of Assad.  In Syria  Iran brings its militias, supports (heavily-armed Lebanese Shi ite group) Hezbollah,  Le Drian said.  Syria must become a sovereign state again and that means (a country) independent of the pressure and presence of other countries.  With Assad by his side Russian President Vladimir Putin flew into Syria on Monday and ordered  a significant part  of Moscow s military contingent there to start withdrawing. The two met last week in the Russian city of Sochi.  If you can summon Assad to Sochi, you can also tell him to stop (bombing) and allow aid to everyone,  he said referring to the besieged rebel-held region of Eastern Ghouta.  Paris has nuanced its approach to U.N.-led peace talks in Geneva, saying that Assad s departure from power should not be a pre-condition for negotiations. However, Le Drian made it clear that Russia was not doing enough.  The main actors in this affair are Russia and Iran. They need to use their weight to lead a political solution with the other members of the Security Council,  Le Drian said, repeating that Assad was not the solution.  He is barbaric, but he is there, so we have to a start the process that leads to a (new) constitution and elections under the U.N.  he said.  I struggle to imagine that populations who have suffered so much consider him part of the solution.

Summary: फ्रांस के ले ड्रियन ने ईरान को भूमध्यसागरीय अक्ष के लिए 'नहीं' कहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday, in a procedural vote, cleared the way for confirming President Donald Trump’s nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next attorney general. By a vote of 52-47, the Republican-controlled Senate agreed to limit debate on Sessions. A final vote on confirming him to head the Justice Department, the nation’s top law enforcement job, is likely sometime this week. Sessions, as is the custom for senators voting on their own nominations, cast a vote of “present.”

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेट ने जेफ सेशंस को अटॉर्नी जनरल के रूप में पुष्टि की ओर बढ़ाया


BOSTON (Reuters) - Activist shareholders plan a record number of resolutions focused on climate change at U.S. company annual meetings in 2017, even as President-elect Donald Trump looks set to loosen environmental regulations. Based on filings so far, U.S. companies are on track to face roughly 200 resolutions on climate matters at their shareholder meetings next year, according to Rob Berridge, who follows the subject for Ceres, a sustainability advocacy group.  There were 174 such resolutions this year, Berridge said, compared with 167 in 2015 and 148 in 2014. Many have been directed at big oil and gas companies, though other sectors have also been targeted, including technology and retail. Activist shareholders broadly aim to curb companies’ carbon emissions and make energy usage more efficient, or at the very least, to draw the attention of companies and investors to climate change as an urgent problem.  They have had some limited success. Investors at Exxon Mobil Corp the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, passed a measure this year that could lead to an environmental activist joining its board. “Our position is that the risk of climate change is clear and warrants action,” said Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers. The rising number of shareholder votes reflects a growing concern among big investors about the environment, encouraged by steps by some boards to embrace reforms.  Deadlines are fast approaching to get resolutions on the ballot for shareholder meetings to be held in the spring. The election victory of Trump, who is set to take over as U.S. president on Jan. 20, only seems to have added impetus.  On the campaign trail, Trump dismissed human-caused climate change as a “hoax” and pledged to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. He also threatened to withdraw the United States from the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change, although he appeared to step back from that position on Tuesday. He vowed instead to revive the U.S. coal industry, encourage oil drilling and to scale back regulation of the energy sector.  “Despite what the administration may or may not do, I really believe that corporations understand the risks posed by climate change,” said Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, a  California nonprofit campaign group. It sponsored 18 climate-related shareholder resolutions in 2016 and expects to file a bigger number next year. One resolution for 2017 calls on Anadarko Petroleum Corp to report on how it would address the risk of so-called stranded assets, such as high-cost deepwater project investments, that might be caused by a drop in demand for oil and gas. The idea won support from 42 percent of shares voted at the company’s 2016 meeting, up from 29 percent in 2015. Anadarko’s board last year called the idea “unnecessary and unproductive.” Spokesman John Christiansen said it is reviewing the proposal. To be sure, among S&P 500 companies, investor support for climate resolutions has been relatively weak, holding steady around 22 percent since 2014, according to research firm Fund Votes.  But activists often won more backing for ideas such as urging companies to report on their strategy for dealing with climate change, according to the Sustainable Investments Institute, a research firm specializing in shareholder votes, supported by universities, pension funds and other institutional investors.  Anne Simpson, director of sustainability for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), which manages about $300 billion, said it plans to file or back resolutions at U.S. oil and gas companies for 2017, though she declined to discuss specifics.  Last year the boards of mining companies including Rio Tinto Plc and Glencore Plc endorsed resolutions Calpers submitted calling for reports on climate risk, and the measures passed by wide margins.  More companies will likely embrace shareholder proposals to head off disruption caused by climate change, Simpson said. “Economics is driving this, not politics,” she said.

Summary: अधिक कंपनी जलवायु मतदान आगे, क्योंकि ट्रम्प ऊर्जा नियमों को ढीला कर सकते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas beat out rivals in the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll as the first-choice pick for the U.S. presidency. A total of 2,659 attendees were surveyed, with Cruz snagging the first-place slot with 40 points, followed by rivals Marco Rubio with 30 points and Republican national front-runner Donald Trump with 15. The election will be held in November.  (Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Matthew Lewis) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन उम्मीदवार क्रूज़ ने 2016 सी. पी. ए. सी. स्ट्रॉ पोल जीता


JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) - Nigel Farage, a key figure in the successful campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, lent his support to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying Trump represented the same type of anti-establishment movement that he masterminded in his own country. Farage appeared with Trump before a cheering crowd of thousands at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi. Farage partly based his Brexit drive on opposition to mass immigration to Britain that he said was leading to rapid change in his country.  His appearance came as Trump sought to moderate his own hardline stance against illegal immigration. In remarks broadcast on Wednesday, Trump backed further away from his vow to deport millions of illegal immigrants, saying he would be willing to work with those who have abided by U.S. laws while living in the country. Trump summoned Farage on stage in the middle of his appearance, shook his hand and surrendered the microphone to him. Farage said he would not actually endorse Trump because he did not want to repeat what he called President Barack Obama’s meddling in British affairs when Obama urged Britons to vote to stay in the EU. “I cannot possibly tell you how you should vote in this election. But you know I get it, I get it. I’m hearing you. But I will say this, if I was an American citizen I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me,” Farage said. “In fact, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me,” he added. Trump has sought to align himself with the Brexit movement, noting he had said before the June 23 referendum that Britons should vote to leave. He visited one of his golf courses in Scotland the day after the vote and boasted that he had predicted the outcome and called it a sign his own campaign would be successful. Trump has since tumbled in national opinion polls and is fighting to remain competitive with Democratic rival Clinton with little more than two months to go until the Nov. 8 election. “November 8 is our chance to redeclare American independence,” Trump said, borrowing a phrase Farage used during the Brexit campaign. Farage drew parallels between the Brexit movement and the support Trump has received from many Americans who feel left behind by Washington. “They feel people aren’t standing up for them and they have in many cases given up on the whole electoral process and I think you have a fantastic opportunity here with this campaign,” he said. Trump’s comments on immigration came in the second part of an interview conducted on Tuesday with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity. They signaled a further softening in his immigration position as he tries to bolster support among moderate voters and minority groups. Trump, who defeated 16 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in part based on his opposition to illegal immigrants, said he would not permit American citizenship for the undocumented population and would expel lawbreakers. To qualify to remain in the United States, Trump said, illegal immigrants would have to pay back taxes. “No citizenship. Let me go a step further - they’ll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty, as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them,” Trump said. “But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me ... and they’ve said: ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump,’” Trump said. “It’s a very hard thing.” Trump said he would outline his position soon. “Well, I’m going to announce something over the next two weeks, but it’s going to be a very firm policy,” Trump told WPEC, a CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump’s new position seemed to resemble in some respects the failed 2007 reform push by former Republican President George W. Bush. That effort offered a way to bring millions “out of the shadows” without amnesty and would have required illegal immigrants to pay a fine and take other steps to gain legal status.

Summary: ब्रेक्सिट नेता निगेल फराज ने ट्रम्प की रैली को संबोधित किया, क्लिंटन की आलोचना की


BEIRUT (Reuters) - A member of the political party of Saad al-Hariri, who resigned from his post as Lebanon s prime minister on Nov. 4 from Saudi Arabia, denied Lebanese President Michel Aoun s claim on Wednesday that Riyadh was holding both Hariri and his family. Okab Sakr, a Shi ite politician close to Hariri and a member of parliament for his political party, told Reuters he had spoken to Hariri on Wednesday.

Summary: हरीरी की पार्टी में सांसदः हरीरी ने कहा कि सऊदी ने उन्हें और उनके परिवार को नहीं पकड़ा है


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s chief investment officer advised the pension fund on Monday to prepare for “greater uncertainty and volatility” until U.S. president-elect Donald Trump and Congress implement their policy plans. Ted Eliopoulos told a meeting of the fund’s investment board that Trump’s plans would likely be “positive for growth and corporate earnings,” but “the devil will be in the details, and we don’t know the details.”  Trump has indicated he would prioritize a broad mix of policies, including tax cuts, infrastructure spending, the repeal or lessening of Dodd-Frank financial regulation, and changes to global trade arrangements. Decisions made by the new administration and Congress will have “a significant impact on matters small and large” for CalPERS and for investors globally, Eliopoulos said during a live Webcast of the meeting, the board’s first since the U.S. presidential election last week.  But it is “much too early to talk with precision about these implications since we know very little,” Eliopoulos added.  “We do need to be prepared to address a much different policy environment, new economic and investment challenges and opportunities and be ready to adjust, act, and govern ourselves accordingly,” said Eliopoulos.  CalPERS is the nation’s largest public pension fund with approximately $300.7 billion of total fund market value.

Summary: ट्रम्प द्वारा योजनाओं को लागू करने तक कैल्पर्स प्रमुख को अस्थिरता दिखाई देती है


(Reuters) - United Nations aid agencies said this week they are ramping up operations in southeast Bangladesh where more than 420,000 Rohingya Muslims have sought refuge from violence in neighboring Myanmar. The refugees have come by land, river and sea, trekking for days in monsoon weather to find sanctuary in Bangladesh, where nearly 200,000 Rohingya were already living in camps. A Reuters graphic shows how the influx of refugees accelerated in the three weeks after the violence began on Aug 25 when Rohingya militants attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp, killing about 12 people. Myanmar s military responded with a fierce counter-offensive that triggered the exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh, putting a huge strain on humanitarian agencies in the Cox s Bazar area. See the interactive graphic here: tmsnrt.rs/2xTId74 The U.N. rights agency has branded the actions by Myanmar s security forces a  textbook example of ethnic cleansing.  Myanmar rejects the charge, saying its forces are tackling Rohingya insurgents who it accuses of setting fire to villages and attacking civilians.

Summary: रोहिंग्या शरणार्थियों की आमद की कल्पना करना


NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s Supreme Court on Friday nullified President Uhuru Kenyatta s election win, citing irregularities, and ordered a new poll within 60 days, an unprecedented move in Africa where governments often hold sway over judges. The ruling, broadcast to a stunned nation on television, sets up a new race between Kenyatta, 55, and veteran opponent Raila Odinga, 72.  Kenyatta called for calm and respect for the ruling and said he would run again in a televised speech. But he later struck a more combative note, criticizing the court for ignoring the will of the people and dismissing the chief justice s colleagues as  wakora  (crooks). In Odinga s western heartland, cheering supporters paraded through the streets chanting and waving tree branches.  Kenya, a U.S. ally in the fight against Islamists and a trade gateway to East Africa, has a history of disputed votes. A row over a 2007 poll, which Odinga challenged after being declared loser, was followed by weeks of ethnic bloodshed that killed more than 1,200 people. Kenya s economy, the biggest in the region, slid into recession and neighboring economies wobbled. Chief Justice David Maraga announced the Supreme Court s verdict that was backed by four of the six judges, saying the declaration of Kenyatta s victory was  invalid, null and void . Details of the ruling will be released within 21 days. In the court room, a grinning Odinga pumped his fist in the air. Outside, shares plummeted on the Nairobi bourse amid the uncertainty, while Kenyatta s supporters grumbled. But the mood on the streets of the capital was jubilant rather than angry.  Judges said they found no misconduct by Kenyatta but said the election board  failed, neglected or refused to conduct the presidential election in a manner consistent with the dictates of the constitution.  Kenya s judiciary went through sweeping changes after the 2007 election violence in a bid to restore confidence the legal system. Friday s ruling is likely to galvanize pro-democracy campaigners across Africa, where many complain their judiciaries simply rubber stamp presidential rule.   This is a monumental and unprecedented decision, very remarkable and courageous that will be watched carefully with keen interest across the continent,  said Comfort Ero, the head of the Africa program for the Crisis Group think-tank. Kenyatta struck a conciliatory note in his televised address.  The court has made its decision. We respect it. We don t agree with it. And again, I say peace ... peace, peace, peace,  he told the nation.  That is the nature of democracy.  But later he criticized the court, telling a rally at a Nairobi market:  Earlier, I was the president-elect. (Chief Justice) Maraga and his people those wakora (crooks) have said  let that election get lost  ... Let Maraga know he is dealing with the incumbent president.  He spoke in kiswahili. Official results had given Kenyatta 54.3 percent of the vote, compared to Odinga s 44.7 percent, a lead of 1.4 million votes. Kenyatta s ruling party also swept the legislature. Those results triggered angry protests and at least 28 people died in the police clamp-down that followed.   For the first time in history of African democratization a ruling has been made by a court nullifying irregular elections for the president,  Odinga said outside the court.  Later, he called for the commission to resign and face criminal prosecution.  International observers, including former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, had said they saw no manipulation of voting and tallying at polling stations. But the election board was slow posting forms showing polling station results online.  Thousands were missing when official results were declared, so opponents could not check totals. Court experts said some documents lacked official stamps or had figures that did not match official tallies.  The chairman of the election board said there would be personnel changes, but it was not clear if that would be enough for the opposition. Sweeping out the whole board would complicate efforts to hold a new poll within two months. In a nation of more than 40 ethnic groups, tribal loyalties often trump policy at election time. Kenyatta s Kikuyu is the biggest of Kenya s tribes but still a minority. Odinga is a Luo. Odinga s strongholds include his ethnic heartland in the west; the coast, where many of the nation s Muslims live; and the urban slums. Residents of all three areas feel neglected by central government.  Kenyatta, whose Kikuyu tribe has produced three out of Kenya s four presidents, has his main support base in the central region. Kenyatta and Odinga are both scions of political families. Kenyatta s father, Jomo Kenyatta, was the nation s founding president and had a long-running rivalry with Odinga s father. Oginga Odinga was originally Kenyatta s deputy but eventually left the government to unsuccessfully contest the presidency. Raila Odinga has contested the last three elections and lost each time. After each one, he claimed the votes were marred by rigging. In 2013, the Supreme Court dismissed his petition. This time, his team focused on proving the process for tallying and transmitting results was flawed, rather than proving how much of the vote was rigged. Residents in the western city of Kisumu, where Odinga has strong backing, cheered and motorcycle drivers hooted their horns.  Today is a special today and I will celebrate until I am worn out,  said 32-year-old Kevin Ouma. In the eastern Rift Valley town of Kinangop, a stronghold for the ruling party, small groups gathered and complained.  Over 8 million people supported the election of Uhuru Kenyatta but the Supreme Court has ignored this in the ruling which is very shameful,  said Matheri Wa Hungu. Kenyan shares, which rallied after Kenyatta was declared winner, tumbled by 3.5 percent on Friday and prompted the authorities to suspend trading for half an hour. The shilling KES= fell by 0.4 percent and Kenya's dollar bonds fell. But although analysts said there was likely to be short-term volatility, the ruling could be a long-term win for Kenya.   The population s lack of faith in the system is one of the reasons why politics often descends into violence,  said Emma Gordon, a senior analyst at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft .  While this decision cements the view that the (election board) was biased, it demonstrates that independent checks and balances do exist.   For a graphic on Kenya's presidential election, click: here

Summary: केन्या की अदालत ने राष्ट्रपति चुनाव रद्द किए, केन्याटा ने शांति बनाए रखने का आह्वान किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. spies learned last summer that Russian officials discussed influencing Donald Trump through his advisers Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing three current and former U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. Russian intelligence and political officials appeared confident that Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, and Flynn, who was fired as White House national security adviser in February over his conversations with Russia’s ambassador, could be used to help shape Trump’s opinions on Russia, the Times reported.

Summary: रूसियों ने सलाहकारों के माध्यम से ट्रम्प को प्रभावित करने की बात कीः न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स


WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand Green Party leader James Shaw said on Saturday he would be willing to work with Labour Party to form a government with the populist New Zealand First Party as counting showed the ruling National Party on track to secure the most votes but fall short of an outright majority.   Shaw said his message for New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters was that now was the time to put differences aside and work with Labour to overthrow the incumbent Nationals.     His comments came after 93.7 percent of the results counted showed Labour on 35.7 percent of the vote and center-right National on 46.2 percent. Those results suggested either major party would need New Zealand First to form the next government. The Greens have a working agreement with Labour. The final tally of all votes would not be released until Oct. 7.

Summary: न्यूजीलैंड ग्रीन पार्टी के नेता का कहना है कि वे लेबर और न्यूजीलैंड फर्स्ट के साथ गठबंधन करना चाहते हैं


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Pyongyang does not plan to hold any talks with Washington about its nuclear program, a senior North Korean diplomat said on Friday, declaring that possessing nuclear weapons was a matter of life and death for North Korea, the RIA news agency reported. Tension has soared on the peninsula following a series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump, in a speech last month at the United Nations, threatened to  totally destroy  North Korea if necessary to defend itself and allies and called the North s leader a  rocket man  on a suicide mission. Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North American department of North Korea s foreign ministry, told a non-proliferation conference in Moscow Washington would  have to put up  with North Korea s nuclear status, RIA reported.  This is a matter of life and death for us. The current situation deepens our understanding that we need nuclear weapons to repel a potential attack.   We will respond to fire with fire.  Pyongyang would regard any attempts to strangle the country via U.N. Security Council sanctions as an attempt  to declare war . Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing the same conference earlier on Friday, urged world powers to get behind a joint Russian-Chinese roadmap for settling the crisis over North Korea s weapons program.  We are convinced that its implementation will promote the lessening of military activity and tension on the Korean peninsula and the forming in Northeastern Asia of a system of equal and indivisible security,  he said.  The plan proposes a moratorium on North Korea s missile and nuclear weapons tests, while South Korea and the United States suspend holding military exercises.  The main task at the current stage is to prevent a military conflict which will inevitably lead to a large-scale humanitarian, economic and ecological catastrophe,  Lavrov said.  All the sides involved should exercise restraint.

Summary: परमाणु हथियार होना उत्तर कोरिया के लिए 'जीवन और मृत्यु का विषय': एजेंसी


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Nazareth, the Israeli Arab city where Jesus is thought to have been raised, has canceled some Christmas celebrations in protest at U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital, an official said. Trump announced the move last week, reversing decades of U.S. policy and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, jeopardizing Middle East peace efforts and upsetting the Arab world and Western allies alike. Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel with a Muslim and Christian population of 76,000, is one of the Holy Land s focal points of Christmas festivities.  We have decided to cancel the traditional Christmas singing and dancing because we are in a time of dispute, because of what Trump has said about Jerusalem,  city spokesman Salem Sharara said. Nazareth is traditionally thought to be where Jesus grew up. The imposing Basilica of the Annunciation in central Nazareth is built on a site which many Christian faithful believe was the childhood home of Jesus  mother, Mary.  Sharara said the town s market stalls and the traditional Christmas church services would be held as they are every year. Within an hour of the announcement, the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem, Jesus s traditional birthplace, and Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank briefly switched off their Christmas lights in protest.  There was no word from the Bethlehem municipality whether it was also weighing a cutback on its celebrations at a crucial time of year for the town s tourist trade.

Summary: जेरूसलम पर ट्रम्प के कदम के विरोध में नाज़रेथ ने क्रिसमस समारोह में कटौती की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is leaning toward nominating Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell to be the next head of the U.S. central bank, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. The sources cautioned that while Powell had emerged as the leading candidate from a short list of five, Trump had not made a final decision and could always change his mind. “I will be announcing it sometime next week,” Trump said in a video statement on Instagram. “It will be a person who hopefully will do a fantastic job. I have someone very specific in mind and I think everyone will be very impressed.”  Trump has said he has been considering Powell, as well as Stanford University economist John Taylor, for the post. He also has said he has not ruled out renominating current Fed Chair Janet Yellen, whose term expires in February.     He is expected to announce his pick, which would need to win Senate approval, before he departs on a trip to Asia on Nov. 3. The term of current Fed chair Janet Yellen ends in February 2018, though her term as a Federal Reserve Board governor does not expire until 2024. Trump had been working from a short list of five candidates that included his top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh. A senior administration official said on Wednesday that Trump was unlikely to nominate Cohn given the importance of his role in helping to lead efforts to enact tax reform legislation currently being debated in Congress.   Trump has also privately voiced a desire to put his own stamp on the central bank, which has dimmed the prospect of him giving a new term to Yellen, another source said. In an interview with Fox Business Network last Friday, Trump indicated he could nominate both Powell and Taylor for top jobs at the central bank. A vice chair post is currently open.

Summary: राष्ट्रपति ट्रम्प अगले फेड अध्यक्ष के रूप में पॉवेल की ओर झुक रहे हैंः सूत्र


MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Two staff members of a Kenyan university were killed south of Mombasa on Tuesday when gunmen fired on vehicles carrying them and students to their campus, the area police chief said.  The identity of the gunmen was unclear. Police in the coastal county of Kwale, where the Technical University of Mombasa (TUM) has a campus, said they could be robbers or militants. Security is poor in the area and the convoy had a police escort. Somali Islamist militants al Shabaab frequently carry out attacks along the Kenyan coast and have been recruiting new members there. In 2015, al Shabaab gunmen killed 148 students at a university in Kenya s Garissa town near the Kenya-Somali border, an attack that provoked shock and outrage in Kenya and abroad.  Two staff members of the university were killed Tuesday s attack, and a driver and two policemen were wounded, area police chief Joseph Chebusit told Reuters.   A bus carrying students of TUM was ferrying them from their hostels to the campus in Ukunda for classes and was being escorted by a van that had some staff of the college and two escort police officers,  the policeman said.   Armed men numbering about 10 emerged from the bushes and started firing at the van in front. As a result two ladies who are staff of TUM were killed in the van. The driver of the van and two police officers were injured,  he said.    We have information that the attackers had other accomplices along the road who were monitoring the movement of the two vehicles and communicating with them to enable the attack,  he added.   For now we are treating it as a crime like any other as we continue with investigations but that does not mean we are ruling out al Shabaab.  A witness who did not want to be named told Reuters she and several other students had fled their vehicle when gunmen opened fire on them and had seen several students covered in blood.  But Chebusit said no students were injured.

Summary: केन्या में विश्वविद्यालय के काफिले पर बंदूकधारियों के हमले में दो की मौत


TARTU, Estonia (Reuters) - A group of NATO allies are considering a more muscular response to state-sponsored computer hackers that could involve using cyber attacks to bring down enemy networks, officials said. The United States, Britain, Germany, Norway, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands are drawing up cyber warfare principles to guide their militaries on what justifies deploying cyber attack weapons more broadly, aiming for agreement by early 2019. The doctrine could shift NATO s approach from being defensive to confronting hackers that officials say Russia, China and North Korea use to try to undermine Western governments and steal technology.  There s a change in the (NATO) mindset to accept that computers, just like aircraft and ships, have an offensive capability,  said U.S. Navy Commander Michael Widmann at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, a research center affiliated to NATO that is coordinating doctrine writing.  Washington already has cyber weapons, such as computer code to take down websites or shut down IT systems, and in 2011 declared that it would respond to hostile cyber acts. The United States, and possibly Israel, are widely believed to have been behind  Stuxnet , a computer virus that destroyed nuclear centrifuges in Iran in 2010. Neither has confirmed it. Some NATO allies believe shutting down an enemy power plant through a cyber attack could be more effective than air strikes.  I need to do a certain mission and I have an air asset, I also have a cyber asset. What fits best for the me to get the effect I want?  Widmann said. The 29-nation NATO alliance recognized cyber as a domain of warfare, along with land, air and sea, in 2014, but has not outlined in detail what that entails. In Europe, the issue of deploying malware is sensitive because democratic governments do not want to be seen to be using the same tactics as an authoritarian regime. Commanders and experts have focused on defending their networks and blocking attempts at malicious manipulation of data. Senior Baltic and British security officials say they have intelligence showing persistent Russian cyber hacks to try to bring down European energy and telecommunications networks, coupled with Internet disinformation campaigns. They believe Russia is trying to break Western unity over economic sanctions imposed over Moscow s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.  They (Russia) are seeking to attack the cohesion of NATO,  said a senior British security official, who said the balance between war and peace was becoming blurred in the virtual world.  It looks quite strategic.  Moscow has repeatedly denied any such cyber attacks. The United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and France have  cyber commands    special headquarters to combat cyber espionage and hacks of critical infrastructure.  Estonia, which was hit by one of the world s first large-scale cyber attacks a decade ago, aims to open a cyber command next year and make it fully operational by 2020, with offensive cyber weapons.   You cannot only defend in cyberspace,  said Erki Kodar, Estonia s undersecretary for legal and administrative affairs who oversees cyber policy at the defense ministry. Across the globe this year computer hackers have disrupted multinational firms, ports and public services on an unprecedented scale, raising awareness of the issue.  NATO held its biggest ever cyber exercise this week at a military base in southern Estonia, testing 25 NATO allies against a fictional state-sponsored hacker group seeking to infiltrate NATO air defense and communication networks.  The fictional scenarios are based on real threats,  said Estonian army Lieutenant-Colonel Anders Kuusk, who ran the exercise.  NATO s commanders will not develop cyber weapons but allied defense ministers agreed last month that NATO commanders can request nations to allow them use of their weapons if requested.

Summary: नाटो साइबर युद्ध नियमों के साथ 'आक्रामक रक्षा' पर विचार कर रहा है


LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) - A former Kentucky lawmaker received a seven-year prison sentence on Thursday for bribing an inspector to overlook violations at his coal mining companies, his attorney said. Former state Representative W. Keith Hall, 56, who was convicted in federal court in June 2015 of paying $46,000 over a five-year period to former mining inspector Kelly Shortridge, was also fined $25,000, said his attorney, Brent Caldwell.  Prosecutors said at Hall’s trial in Lexington that most of the funds were funneled from Hall’s companies to a shell company the two men created in the name of Shortridge’s wife. Shortridge reached a plea agreement and testified against Hall. He is slated to start his 24-month sentence next week. According to court documents, sentencing guidelines for Hall called for more than eight years in prison. His attorneys argued a sentence closer to the minimum 6-1/2 years was more appropriate. Caldwell said on Thursday an appeal was still possible, adding his client disagreed with the verdict. Hall, a Democrat, served 14 years in the Kentucky General Assembly before losing a primary election in May 2014. His indictment came five months later. His companies listed in the indictment included Beech Creek Coal Co, LLC & HEI Services LLC.

Summary: केंटकी राज्य के पूर्व विधायक को रिश्वत के लिए सात साल की सजा सुनाई गई


WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed admitting a maximum of 45,000 refugees next year, the lowest cap in decades, which officials said was necessary to ensure U.S. security, although Democrats and humanitarian groups blasted the decision as an abandonment of American moral authority. That figure is the lowest cap since the modern U.S. refugee admissions system was established in 1980, and the administration s decision was harshly criticized by refugee advocates who say it ignores growing humanitarian crises around the world. The report also projects slashing funding to the refugee resettlement program by 25 percent.  The security and safety of the American people is our chief concern,  a U.S. official said in a call with reporters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.  We have every plan to process as many refugees as we can under this ceiling.    A second U.S. official said the administration is considering a  wide range of potential measures and enhancements  to refugee vetting, in accordance with a January executive order from President Donald Trump, though the official gave no further details. The lower refugee cap is a continuation of Trump s hardline stance on immigration. He made the issue a focus during the presidential campaign, advocating for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally, and saying that Syrian refugees fleeing their country s civil war present a security threat to the United States. The proposed refugee limit represents a cut of more than half from the refugee ceiling set last year by former President Barack Obama, and is much lower than the 75,000 limit suggested by refugee advocates this year. It is also lower than the 50,000 cap Trump set in an executive order shortly after he took office in January. The administration proposed taking in a maximum of 19,000 refugees from Africa, 5,000 from East Asia, 2,000 from Europe and Central Asia, 1,500 from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 17,500 from the Middle East and South Asia. Many national security experts argue that refugees do not present a danger to the United States because they are already among the most highly vetted immigrants to gain admittance to the United States, going through a grueling process that takes 18 to 24 months on average. Democratic Representatives John Conyers and Zoe Lofgren said the administration s decision  is an abdication of our moral authority, and an abandonment of the very values that make America great.  Republican Representative Raul Labrador, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee s immigration subcommittee, said in a statement the lower cap sets a  more manageable level  for refugee admissions. The Wednesday report said that at the end of 2016, the estimated refugee population worldwide reached 22.5 million, an increase of 1.1 million in just one year. (For report, click: tmsnrt.rs/2yHEKpk) Administration officials said one reason for the lower cap is that Department of Homeland Security staff are being re-directed to deal with a growing backlog of cases of people already in the United States and seeking asylum for fear of persecution. The State Department report said there are now nearly 300,000 asylum applications pending with DHS. Refugees, as opposed to asylees, apply to come to the United States while they are still overseas. DHS officials who specialize in processing refugees abroad are being re-assigned to handle asylum cases in the United States, a change from previous practice. Officials warned that the final number of refugees allowed to come into the United States next year will depend on DHS   interviewing capacity.   But this number was reached after taking a look at these requirements, and we believe that we can get into the ballpark of this number, of this ceiling,  one U.S. official said. There are at least 58,000 refugees who were ready for travel under the 2017 fiscal year quota and weren t able to come to the United States because of Trump s lower 2017 cap, said Jen Smyers, of the refugee resettlement agency Church World Service. Of those, around 22,000 already had guarantees from agencies that handle refugee resettlement in the United States, she said. Immigration law requires the administration to submit the refugee report to Congress before the start of each fiscal year, and then consult with top members of relevant committees prior to the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. Congressional officials received the administration s report in hard-copy form on Wednesday less than three hours before a scheduled consultation between cabinet officials and top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, one Congressional aide said. The late delivery of the report makes the consultation close to meaningless, aides complained. In 2016, the Obama administration released its own refugee report on Sept. 15.  If we have not received the report in advance, there is pretty much nothing to consult on,  said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Refugee advocacy groups said that while previous consultations had been close to the deadline set for announcing the cap, it was unusual for the report to be sent to Congress on the same day as the consultation meeting.

Summary: ट्रम्प प्रशासन ने शरणार्थियों की संख्या घटाकर 45,000 करने का प्रस्ताव रखा


MAINZ, Germany (Reuters) - Germany s Sept. 24 national election has shown the country is divided by new, less visible  walls , President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Tuesday, the anniversary of German reunification. Speaking 27 years after East and West Germany were reunited following the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, Steinmeier said the election, which saw the far-right enter parliament, had exposed  large and small cracks  in society and he called on democratic lawmakers to work together to fight any return to nationalism.  On September 24th, it became clear that other walls have arisen, less visible, without barbed wire and death-strips, but walls that stand in the way of our common sense of  us ,  Steinmeier said in a speech in the western city of Mainz. Chancellor Angela Merkel won a fourth term in office in the election, but the vote brought a far-right party into parliament for the first time in more than half a century. A fractured vote means she will have to govern with a far less stable coalition. Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, said the reunification anniversary was  a day of joy . Reunified Germany carried a responsibility to uphold freedom at home and abroad, she said.  We know we cannot disconnect from what s going on in the world. Rather, we must take care that globalization is constructed humanely,  she added at celebrations in Mainz. But Steinmeier, a center-left Social Democrat who was foreign minister before taking up the largely ceremonial presidency role in March, said that Germany now has  walls between our living environments . He said these had sprung up  between city and country, online and offline, poor and rich, old and young - walls, from behind which people hardly understand anything of each other.  A poll on Monday showed nearly two-thirds of Germans still see divisions between those in the former communist East and the West, a sort of  Berlin Wall in the head . In Germany s new parliament, comprising six party groups compared to four previously,  political culture will change , Steinmeier said. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has vowed to  hunt  the new government, whatever its make-up. The president urged lawmakers to show that  democrats have better solutions than those who abuse democracy , and to never allow a return to nationalism. He said Germany needed a sense of  homeland  with a common, democratic, way forward. A leading member of the AfD, Alexander Gauland, provoked outrage last month for saying that Germans should no longer be reproached with their Nazi past and should take pride in what their soldiers achieved during World War One and Two.  Steinmeier said Germany needed an honest discussion about immigration - the issue that fueled the rise of the AfD after Merkel s 2015 decision to leave German borders open to around 1 million refugees, mostly fleeing war in the Middle East. He called for discussion about how much migration Germany wants, and needs, adding that this could mean new guidelines.  In my view, this means not simply wishing away migration but ... defining legal admission to Germany, which regulates and controls migration by our stipulations,  he said.

Summary: नई 'दीवारें' अब जर्मनी को विभाजित करती हैंः राष्ट्रपति


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy dismissed two senior officers on Monday after a series of collisions involving Seventh Fleet warships in Asia, citing a loss of confidence in their ability to command.   Rear Admiral Charles Williams, commander of Task Force 70, and Captain Jeffrey Bennett, commander of Destroyer Squadron 15, were fired by Seventh Fleet commander Vice Admiral Phil Sawyer, the Navy said. In August, Sawyer replaced fleet commander Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, who was fired after the accidents.  Both reliefs were due to a loss of confidence in their ability to command,  the Navy statement said. The shakeup in the Seventh Fleet command followed a pre-dawn collision between guided-missile destroyer USS McCain and a merchant vessel east of Singapore and Malaysia on Aug. 21, which killed 10 sailors and was the fourth major incident in the U.S. Pacific Fleet this year. In June, another destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, collided with a Philippine cargo ship, killing seven U.S. sailors. Several other officers have also been relieved, with administrative action taken against other members of the ship s watch teams.

Summary: एशिया सागर दुर्घटनाओं के बाद अमेरिकी नौसेना ने दो कमांडरों को बर्खास्त किया


DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - The leader of a Pakistani militant group whose suicide bombings killed more than 250 people died on Thursday of injuries from a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militants said. Omar Khalid Khorasani s death comes ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson s visit and is likely to help ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and hide over the border in Afghanistan. Khorasani s Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban, is one of dozens of armed Islamist factions - including al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban - operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But JuA has been particularly deadly in Pakistan, claiming responsibility for eight major attacks in two years. Among them was last year s Easter Sunday bombing in a park that killed at least 70 people, including 29 children, in the eastern city of Lahore. The group also said it carried out a suicide attack at a hospital that killed at least 74 people in the southwestern city of Quetta, a bombing also claimed by Islamic State, with which JuA also has been affiliated. Rumours had flown for two days that Khorasani had been wounded in U.S. drone strikes along the Afghan-Pakistani border, and on Thursday his group confirmed he had died.  Our leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, was wounded in one of the recent drone strikes in Afghanistan. He was wounded badly, and today he was martyred,  JuA spokesman Asad Mansur said by telephone. The announcement came a week after Pakistan s army rescued a kidnapped American couple and their three children from the Haqqani network, an Afghan Taliban faction that Washington has long accused Islamabad of failing to target. The killing of Khorasani is likely to add to the recently improved mood between Washington and Islamabad, said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and prominent political analyst.  He was a very powerful leader and he had done great harm to Pakistan,  Masood said of Khorasani.  I think Pakistan has been looking forward to this, and I think the Americans targeting him has been very helpful in that sense.  Khorasani had a background that reads like a history of Pakistani militancy. Born Abdul Wali in a village called Lakaro in the northwestern Mohmand tribal region, Khorasani started out as an anti-India jihadist fighting in Kashmir, according to a long-time friend who spoke last year to Reuters on condition of anonymity. He later joined the Pakistani Taliban in 2007 to fight the government to establish strict sharia Islamic law. In 2014, Khorasani left the Pakistani Taliban after a leadership quarrel to form Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. JuA gained attention in September 2014 when it announced it was supporting Islamic State and rejecting the main Pakistani Taliban leadership. By March 2015, however, the group was again swearing loyalty to the main Pakistani Taliban umbrella leadership. Still, JuA never specifically disavowed Islamic State either, and several attacks inside Pakistan have been claimed by both groups. The United States last year designated JuA as a terrorist group. Khorasani had previously been seriously wounded in a NATO air strike in eastern Afghanistan in 2015 but later recovered.

Summary: अमेरिकी ड्रोन हमले में आतंकवादी मारा गया जिसके समूह ने पाकिस्तान में 250 लोगों को मार डाला


GENEVA (Reuters) - Nearly 340,000 Rohingya children are living in squalid conditions in Bangladesh camps where they lack enough food, clean water and health care, the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. Up to 12,000 more children join them every week, fleeing violence or hunger in Myanmar, often still traumatized by atrocities they witnessed, it said in a report  Outcast and Desperate . In all, almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have left northern Rakhine state since Aug. 25 when the U.N. says the Myanmar army began a campaign of  ethnic cleansing  following insurgent attacks.  This isn t going to be a short-term, it isn t going to end anytime soon,  Simon Ingram, the report s author and a UNICEF official, told a news briefing.  So it is absolutely critical that the borders remain open and that protection for children is given and equally that children born in Bangladesh have their birth registered.  Most Rohingya are stateless in Myanmar and many fled without papers, he said, adding of the newborns in Bangladesh:  Without an identity they have no chance of ever assimilating into any society effectively.    Safe drinking water and toilets are in  desperately short supply  in the chaotic, teeming camps and settlements, Ingram said after spending two weeks in Cox s Bazar, Bangladesh.  In a sense it s no surprise that they must truly see this place as a hell on earth,  he said.  One in five Rohingya children under the age of five is estimated to be acutely malnourished, requiring medical attention, he said.   There is a very, very severe risk of outbreaks of water-borne diseases, diarrhea and quite conceivably cholera in the longer-term,  he added. UNICEF is providing clean water and toilets, and has helped vaccinate children against measles and cholera, which can be deadly, he said.  The agency is seeking $76 million under a $434 million U.N. appeal for Rohingya refugees for six months, but is only 7 percent funded, he said, speaking ahead of a pledging conference in Geneva on Monday. U.N. agencies are still demanding access to northern Rakhine, where an unknown number of Rohingya remain despite U.N. reports that many villages and food stocks have been burned.  We repeat the call for the need for protection of all children in Rakhine state, this is an absolute fundamental requirement. The atrocities against children and civilians must end,  Ingram said.  We just must keep putting it on the record, we cannot keep silent.

Summary: बांग्लादेश में रोहिंग्या शरणार्थी बच्चों की हालत गंभीरः यूनिसेफ


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Labor Secretary nominee R. Alexander Acosta told a Senate committee on Wednesday he would abide by President Donald Trump’s directive to review a pending “fiduciary rule” for retirement investment advisers, indicating he believed it goes too far. Acosta told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that the fiduciary rule, slated to take effect on April 10 but which the department has proposed delaying, goes “far beyond” regulating the conduct of investment advisers. The Trump administration directed the department last month to review whether the Obama-era rule, which requires brokers offering retirement investment advice to put their clients’ interest first, was burdensome and out of step with current White House policies. Acosta likewise expressed reservations about another Obama administration rule issued last year that more than doubled the salary ceiling under which employees would be eligible for overtime pay, from $23,660 to $47,476 a year. Acosta said he had “serious questions as to whether the secretary of labor had the power to enact this in the first place.” A federal judge in November blocked the rule, which extended mandatory overtime pay to more than 4 million salaried workers. The Trump administration must decide whether to defend the rule, and Acosta’s statements indicated that, if confirmed, he may decline to do so. However, Acosta told senators he was sensitive to the fact that overtime rules have not been updated in more than a decade. During the three-hour hearing, Acosta said that while he felt both Republicans and Democrats had the shared goal of protecting the interests of U.S. workers, they may disagree about the best courses of action. Ultimately, Acosta told the panel, Cabinet secretaries are selected by Trump and tasked with deploying his administration’s vision. “We work for the president, he is our boss, and so all Cabinet officials ... will ultimately follow his direction unless we feel that we can’t and if we can’t, we resign,” Acosta said. Acosta, a former member of the National Labor Relations Board and dean of the Florida International University College of Law in Miami, was nominated to be labor secretary in February, one day after Trump’s original choice, Andrew Puzder, withdrew.  Acosta has had a decades-long career in public service and has been through multiple Senate vettings for previous appointments, making it is unlikely his nomination will be derailed. If he clears the panel, Acosta will come up for a confirmation vote before the full Senate.

Summary: ट्रंप श्रम विभाग के उम्मीदवार ने ओबामा काल के प्रमुख नियमों पर उठाए सवाल


(Reuters) - Britain holds a referendum on membership of the European Union on June 23. Following are details of how the referendum will work on the night. Sources: Electoral Commission, Reuters reporting. Voters will be given one piece of paper with the question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” They will be asked to put a cross beside either: “Remain a member of the European Union “Leave the European Union” All those who are entitled to vote in a UK parliamentary general election can vote in the referendum, including British, Irish and qualifying Commonwealth citizens over the age of 18 who are resident in the UK. UK nationals resident overseas who have appeared on a parliamentary election register in the past 15 years will also have the right to vote, as do Irish citizens who were born in Northern Ireland and registered to vote in Northern Ireland in the last 15 years. In addition, Peers and citizens of Gibraltar who were able to vote at a European Parliamentary election can vote. The deadline for registering to vote is midnight on June 7. Polling stations open at 0700 BST on June 23 and close at 2200 local time.  There are currently no plans by broadcasters for an exit poll as the margin of error is deemed to be too large. Votes will be counted by hand and the count will begin as soon as polls close (apart from in Gibraltar when counting will begin at 2300 local time, or 2200 UK time). Each of 382 local counting areas will count the number of ballot papers and announce local turnout figures in each of the areas. Then each counting area will count the votes and announce local totals for each of the 382 areas. These will be collated into regional totals, and then a final, national, result. A final result will be announced in Manchester by Jenny Watson, who is the Chief Counting Officer. Reuters will provide full coverage of the results.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः ब्रिटेन का यूरोपीय संघ जनमत संग्रह रात में कैसे काम करेगा?


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is bringing together drone makers, wireless companies and venture capitalists on Thursday to look at ways government can help speed new technologies to the marketplace. President Donald Trump will meet with the chief executives of General Electric Co, Honeywell International Inc and AT&T Inc AT&T Inc, major drone industry firms and venture capitalists in the latest effort by the White House to focus on innovative technologies as a way of spurring job growth. Michael Kratsios, the White House’s deputy chief technology officer, told reporters the goal of the sessions is to find ways the United States “can maintain its leadership creating and fostering entirely new technologies that will drive our economic growth.” The chief executives of several unmanned aerial system, or drone, companies including Kespry Inc, AirMap, Airspace Inc, Measure UAS Inc, Trumbull Unmanned, and PrecisionHawk Inc are attending the White House sessions. Senior executives at Xcel Energy Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and CenturyLink Inc are also taking part as are venture capital firms including AOL co-founder Steve Case who heads Revolution LLC, 500 Startups, Cayuga Ventures, Epic Ventures and Lightspeed Ventures. The administration wants to promote the development and commercialization of emerging technologies and speed the development of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones and 5G wireless technology, Kratsios said. The Obama administration implemented rules that opened the skies to low-level small drones for education, research and routine commercial use. The Trump administration is considering whether to expand drone use for purposes such as deliveries where aircraft would fly beyond the sight of an operator. Security issues would need to be resolved. The FAA in March estimated that by 2021 the fleet of small hobbyist drones will more than triple and the commercial drone fleet will increase tenfold to about 442,000.  Last year, the FCC cleared the way for 5G, a lightning-fast next generation of wireless services. Testing is under way and deployment is expected around 2020. New 5G networks are expected to provide speeds at least 10 times and maybe 100 times faster than today’s 4G networks. The next generation of wireless signals needs to be much faster and far more responsive to allow advanced technologies such as virtual surgery or controlling machines remotely, regulators say. The networks could help wirelessly connect devices such as thermostats or washing machines to facilitate the internet of things.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस का लक्ष्य अमेरिकी ड्रोन, वायरलेस तकनीकों को गति देना है


TOKYO (Reuters) - Russia s military chief warned on Monday that military exercises by Japan, the United States and South Korea aimed at countering North Korea only raise hysteria and create more instability in the region. Russian Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces General Valery Gerasimov, issued his warning in Tokyo as the United States, Japan and South Korea began a two-day exercise to practice tracking missiles amid rising tension over North Korea s weapons programs.  Carrying out military training in regions surrounding North Korea will only heighten hysteria and make the situation unstable,  Gerasimov said at the beginning of a meeting with Japanese Minister of Defence Itsunori Onodera. This week s exercise by the United States and its two Asian allies, in which they will share information on tracking ballistic missiles, comes just days after large-scale drills by U.S. and South Korean forces that North Korea said made the outbreak of war  an established fact . North Korea says its weapons programs are necessary to counter U.S. aggression. On Nov. 29, North Korea test-fired its latest ballistic missile, which it said was its most advanced yet, capable of reaching the mainland United States. China has also repeatedly called for the United States and South Korea to stop their exercises, which North Korea sees as preparation for an invasion.     Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, asked in Beijing about the latest U.S., South Korean and Japanese drills, said the situation was in a vicious cycle that if followed to a conclusion would not be in anyone s interests.   All relevant parties should do is still to completely, precisely and fully implement the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions toward North Korea, and do more for regional peace and stability and to get all parties back to the negotiating table. Not the opposite, mutual provocation,  Lu said. Gerasimov s visit to Japan is the first by a senior Russian military official in seven years and follows the resumption of  two-plus-two  defense and foreign minister talks in March after Russia annexed Crimea. Relations between Russia and Japan have been hampered for decades over the ownership of four islands north of Japan s Hokkaido, captured by Soviet forces at the end of World War Two. Japan has declined to sign a formal peace treaty with Russia until the dispute is resolved. Gerasimov also met Katsutoshi Kawano, the chief of staff of Japan s Self Defence Forces. China s Defence Ministry said on Monday it had begun a planned joint simulated anti-missile drill with Russia in Beijing, which had  important meaning  for both countries in facing the threat from missiles. It said the exercise was not aimed at any third party. China and Russia both oppose the development of global anti-missile systems, the ministry added in a statement. China and Russia both oppose the deployment in South Korea of the advanced U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system. China in particular fears the system s powerful radar could look deep into its territory, threatening its security.  The United States and South Korea say the system is needed to defend against the threat of North Korean missiles. It is not clear if this week s exercise by U.S., South Korean and Japanese forces will involve the THAAD system.

Summary: रूस के सैन्य प्रमुख ने अमेरिका, जापान और दक्षिण कोरिया के अभ्यास की आलोचना की