BRUSSELS (Reuters) - An independent Catalonia would have to apply to join the European Union, the president of the executive European Commission said on Thursday, adding that such a policy would apply to any new state. Catalonia s parliament has laid the ground for a referendum on independence from Madrid on Oct. 1, although Spain s Constitutional Court has suspended the vote. Judges are now considering whether the legislation contravenes Spain s constitution.  If there were to be a  yes  vote in favor of Catalan independence, then we will respect that opinion. But Catalonia will not be able to be an EU member state on the day after such a vote,  Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said on YouTube and broadcast by Euronews. Echoing a stance made by his predecessor, Jose Manuel Barroso, Juncker said any newly independent state must follow the same EU membership procedures as all aspirants, citing Scotland and, in jest, his home country, Luxembourg.  If northern Luxembourg were to cede from the south, the same rules would apply,  Juncker said.  The EU s accession negotiations are an arduous process that involve complying with all EU standards and rules and winning the consent of all EU governments. This means that Spain would be able to block Catalonia s EU accession if it wished. Croatia was the last country to join the EU, in 2013 after first applying for membership in 2003.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ में शामिल होने के लिए स्वतंत्र कैटेलोनिया को आवेदन करने की आवश्यकता होगीः जंकर


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Thursday he had accepted the White House’s invitation to review intelligence information, although he does not know if that information is the same as reviewed by the committee’s Republican chairman, Devin Nunes. Representative Adam Schiff said the White House’s handling of the materials raises “profound questions,” noting that White House staff has no reason to pass information to a congressional committee chairman rather than just delivering it to President Donald Trump directly.

Summary: शिफ ने खुफिया जानकारी की समीक्षा के लिए व्हाइट हाउस के निमंत्रण को स्वीकार किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In an era of shrinking government contributions to development financing and “exploding” loan demand in poor countries, World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim is looking to the private sector for help. And he said U.S. President Donald Trump likes the idea. Kim told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that he is looking to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars now parked in low-yield government bonds for development finance, earning higher returns for investors. The World Bank would pave the way to reduce risk. “Speaking with President Trump directly, I told him about the need to make this shift, to work more effectively with the private sector. He was very enthusiastic about that,” Kim said.     “I’d love to see President Trump champion this approach to development finance.” The potential new business model is part of Kim’s pitch to promote the multilateral lender’s role as a facilitator in developing new markets - and attract political support and new capital along the way. Trump’s initial budget plan in March floated a $650 million funding cut multilateral development banks over three years. However, it is Congress, not the White House, that ultimately decides spending levels. “What I’m trying to convince everyone of is, if we get this right, we can actually spur global growth, create markets for American products, create opportunities for American companies,” Kim said of his pitch to Congress, the White House and other stakeholders. The new business model would aim to use the World Bank Group’s technical expertise and guarantees to prepare and “de-risk” projects and markets to make them “bankable” for risk-averse investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, Kim said. Work by the lender’s International Finance Corp arm in Zambia last year to set up auctions for private firms to build solar generating plants provides a model for his proposed approach. The bank estimates that some two-thirds of current manual labor jobs in developing countries will be eliminated by automation in future years so Kim said massive investments are needed now to help develop new jobs.   “Our job should be to use our money to prepare the country to bring in lots more money that’s ready to go but is not moving because of the perception of risk or because the projects are not,” Kim said. Kim said he is encouraged by his engagement so far with the Trump administration, including interest from Ivanka Trump in the bank’s work on women’s issues. “We’re interacting with them quite a lot and they’re asking us very specific questions about how we think about solving certain problems,” he said.

Summary: विश्व बैंक के किम का कहना है कि ट्रम्प को ऋणदाता की निजी पूंजी योजनाएँ पसंद हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three Democratic lawmakers want the U.S. communications watchdog to investigate whether the Russian government-funded radio station and news site Sputnik violated government regulations by broadcasting programs aimed at influencing U.S. policies and elections. Sputnik radio began airing in the Washington area in late June at a sensitive time for relations between the United States and Russia with a special counsel and Congress looking into U.S. intelligence agency allegations that Moscow tried to swing the 2016 presidential election in Republican Donald Trump’s favor. Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in the election. The Federal Communications Commission has jurisdiction over broadcast radio and TV stations that use the public airwaves, but not over websites.    “In Washington, D.C., listeners need only tune their radios to 105.5 FM to hear the Russian government’s effort to influence U.S. policy,” the three lawmakers said in a statement. Representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representatives Anna Eshoo and Mike Doyle asked FCC chairman Ajit Pai to investigate. “This means the Kremlin’s propaganda messages are being broadcast over a license granted by the FCC,” the U.S. House of Representative members said. A spokesman for Pai declined to comment. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said: “These are important questions. They deserve answers.” Sputnik did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment. Reuters reported in April a Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the election and undermine American voters’ faith in their electoral system, citing three current and four former U.S. officials. Russia dismissed the report as false. Reuters reported that in March 2016 the Kremlin instructed state-backed media outlets, including international platforms Russia Today, now known as RT, and the Sputnik news agency, to start producing positive reports on Trump’s quest for the U.S. presidency, the officials said. Sputnik in April rejected the assertions by the U.S. officials that it participated in a Kremlin campaign as an “absolute pack of lies.” RT said in an online story last week that the Justice Department had demanded that the company providing production and operations services for RT America register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Last week, Yahoo News reported the FBI has questioned a former White House correspondent for Sputnik news agency as part of a probe to determine if the company is acting as an arm of the Russian government, which could violate FARA. Sputnik told Yahoo News that “any assertion that Sputnik is anything but a credible news outlet is false.”

Summary: सांसद चाहते हैं कि वॉचडॉग अमेरिका में रूसी रेडियो के 'प्रचार' की जांच करे।


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump finds the sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore “troubling” and thinks he should leave the race if they are true, the White House said on Thursday, as party leaders in Alabama stood by their nominee. Trump’s position did not go as far as other Republican leaders in Washington who have said they believe the women accusing the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice and have demanded Moore withdraw from the race before the Dec. 12 vote. “The president believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a news briefing. “The president said in his statement earlier this week that if the allegations are true, then Roy Moore should step aside. He still firmly believes that,” she said. Asked if the president’s endorsement of Moore still stands, Sanders said Trump thinks Alabama voters should decide the winner of the race. Trump supported the Republican National Committee’s decision to withdraw resources from the contest, Sanders added. In the past week, multiple women have accused Moore of sexual improprieties or unwanted romantic advances they said occurred decades ago. Some of the women were teenagers at the time, and he was in his 30s. Moore, 70, has denied any wrongdoing. The married Christian conservative has said he is the victim of a witch hunt and has refused to drop out of the race. The allegations are “not only untrue but they have no evidence to support them,” Moore told a news conference on Thursday after about 20 supporters, including religious leaders, said they still backed his candidacy. In a tweet, he accused U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others of trying “to steal this election from the people of Alabama.” The Alabama Republican Party on Thursday said its 21-member steering committee would continue to support Moore. “He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise,” state party Chairwoman Terry Lathan said in a statement.  Reuters was unable to independently verify the allegations by the women. Before the allegations surfaced, Moore was heavily favored to defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the special election next month. Moore scored a decisive Republican primary victory in September over Luther Strange, who was appointed to fill the vacant seat after Jeff Sessions became U.S. attorney general earlier this year. Trump backed Strange in the primary but threw his support to Moore after Strange’s defeat. A poll released on Wednesday by the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm showed Jones surging to a 12-point lead since the accusations became public. A Democratic win in Alabama would be a blow to Trump’s agenda and shift the political outlook for next year’s congressional elections, giving Democrats a stronger shot at recapturing control of the Senate. Republicans currently hold 52 seats in the 100-member upper chamber.

Summary: ट्रम्प का कहना है कि यदि आरोप सही हैं तो अमेरिकी सीनेट के उम्मीदवार मूर को दौड़ छोड़ देनी चाहिए


ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey would not succumb to  blackmail  by the United States in the trial of a Turkish bank executive being charged with evading U.S. sanctions on Iran. Already strained ties between NATO allies Ankara and Washington have deteriorated as Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors, detailed in court a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions. Erdogan said Turkey s dealings were in line with the decisions of the United Nations, adding that they were not against Ankara s alliance with Washington.  What have we done, for example? We bought natural gas from a country we have an agreement with so our citizens wouldn t be cold in the winter. Like other countries, only the UN s decisions bind us, and Turkey followed them to the dot,  he told members of his ruling AK Party in the eastern province of Mus. Over three days of testimony, 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. Ankara has cast the testimony as an attempt to undermine Turkey and its economy, and has previously said it was a  clear plot  by the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who it alleges engineered last year s coup attempt.  This case is nothing more than the 17-25 December plot being carried across the ocean. Excuse us, but we will not succumb to this blackmail,  Erdogan said, referring to 2013 leaks about alleged government corruption which were blamed on his opponents. Although he has not yet responded to the courtroom claims, Erdogan has dismissed the case as a politically motivated attempt to bring down the Turkish government, led by Gulen. 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 के एर्दोगन ने कहा कि अदालत के मामले में अमेरिका के 'ब्लैकमेल' के आगे नहीं झुकेंगे


(In this Jan. 30 story, corrects spelling of Sergey Brin in paragraph 24) By Roberta Rampton and Julia Edwards Ainsley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump fired top federal government lawyer Sally Yates on Monday after she took the extraordinarily rare step of defying the White House and refused to defend new travel restrictions targeting seven Muslim-majority nations. It was another dramatic twist in the unusually raucous roll-out of Trump’s directive that put a 120-day hold on allowing refugees into the country, an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria and a 90-day bar on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The Friday night ban prompted protests and chaos at airports on the weekend as customs officials struggled to put the order into practise, and the fallout spread to U.S. markets on Monday,  where stocks suffered their biggest drop of 2017 and companies affected by the change spoke out against it. Yates said late on Monday that the Justice Department would not defend the order against court challenges, saying that she did not believe it would be “consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.” Hours later, she was fired. The White House said Yates “has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States” and portrayed her actions as political. Trump has argued tougher vetting of immigrants is needed to protect America from terror attacks but critics complain that his order unfairly singles out Muslims and defiles America’s historic reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants. Yates, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, was days away from being replaced by Trump’s pick for the top spot at the Justice Department, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, who is awaiting Senate confirmation. “Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration,” the White House said in a statement. The White House said that Dana Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was sworn in at 9 p.m. ET and would be acting U.S. attorney general until Sessions is approved. Boente said in an interview with the Washington Post that he would enforce the immigration order. There have been only a handful of instances in U.S. history of top Justice Department officials publicly breaking with the White House. The most famous example was in 1973, when then-Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than obey President Richard Nixon’s order to fire a special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. The incident, which became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” was a public relations disaster and is seen as a turning point in Nixon’s administration. The drama at the Justice Department is another sign of how hastily Trump’s immigration order was developed and how little it was reviewed by the agencies now grappling to implement it. The White House said key government officials were briefed before Trump signed the order on Friday, but there was little coordination or consultation, resulting in confusion. Most State Department officials found out about it from media reports. Officials from the State Department circulated a draft memo of dissent on Monday, saying Trump’s move would hurt America’s image abroad and inflame anti-American sentiment.  White House spokesman Sean Spicer dismissed the memo. “These career bureaucrats have a problem with it? I think that they should either get with the program or they can go,” he told reporters at his daily briefing. An internal Department of Homeland Security document seen by Reuters showed 348 visa holders were kept from boarding U.S.-bound flights this week, and more than 200 people came to the United States but were denied entry. More than 735 people were pulled aside for questioning by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at airports, including 394 green card holders, who are legal permanent residents of the United States, the document said.  Trump’s administration is granting waivers from the refugee ban to allow 872 people into the country this week - refugees that had already been cleared for resettlement in the United States and were in transit when the order came out. Tens of thousands of people protested Trump’s order in major American cities and at airports on the weekend. Obama took the rare step of weighing in, saying through a spokesman that he was heartened by the political activism on the issue. Employees of Alphabet Inc’s Google in San Francisco, Mountain View, Seattle and other cities held protests. Backed by a sign that said “We are a nation of immigrants,” Sergey Brin, president of Alphabet, said he was outraged by the order. “The U.S. had the courage to take me and my family in as refugees,” he said in a YouTube video of his remarks. Federal judges blocked deportation of those detained under the order through the weekend, and more lawsuits were filed on Monday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s biggest Muslim advocacy group, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of more than 20 people. Washington state filed a lawsuit, arguing that Trump’s order violates the equal protection clause and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Several other Democratic state attorneys general have said they are considering legal action.  “It is an insult and a danger to all of the people of the state of Washington, of all faiths,” Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, told reporters. Amazon.com Inc and Expedia Inc, both of which are based in Washington state’s Seattle area, are supporting the state’s suit. Amazon scrapped a business trip for a senior company lawyer who was born in Libya but has UK citizenship, according to a declaration filed in support of the lawsuit. Forty-nine of its employees were born in one of the banned countries, and seven new hires may need to be placed in offices outside the United States, it said. A declaration from Expedia said the order could impact the travel itineraries of at least 1,000 customers, costing it refunds as well as expenses to monitor how the order is applied and who exactly is affected.     The U.S. technology industry, a major employer of foreign workers, has been the most vocal corporate opponent to Trump’s order. A group of top companies plans to meet on Tuesday to discuss how best to support legal challenges. [L1N1FL04H]

Summary: बर्खास्तः ट्रंप ने आव्रजन आदेश की अवहेलना करने वाले शीर्ष वकील को हटाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai for another five-year term on the telecommunications regulatory panel where he faces decisions over dismantling Obama-era internet protections and a major television station merger. Pai won confirmation by 52-41 over objections from Democrats, who criticized him for moving to deregulate U.S. telecommunications rules. Republicans praised him for taking steps to boost rural internet service. The former Justice Department, FCC and Capitol Hill staffer has been moving swiftly to undo many of the regulations adopted by the FCC during the Obama administration since assuming the chairmanship and vowed in December to take a “weed whacker” to unneeded rules. Pai pledged in a statement on Monday to continue to focus “on bridging the digital divide, promoting innovation, protecting consumers and public safety, and making the FCC more open and transparent.” He joined the FCC as a commissioner in March 2012 and was elevated to chairman by President Donald Trump in January. In April, Pai proposed overturning the 2015 net neutrality rules, with a final vote expected later this year. Pai “has established a clear record of favoring big corporations at the expense of consumers, innovators, and small businesses,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said. The rules, which the FCC put in place under Democratic President Barack Obama, prohibit broadband providers from giving or selling access to a speedier internet - essentially a “fast lane.” Senator John Thune, a Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, praised Pai’s proposal to withdraw the Obama internet rules and “rebalance its regulatory posture.” The rules reclassified internet service providers much like utilities. They were favored by web companies like Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc and others, which said they would guarantee equal access to the internet. Internet providers such as AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Comcast Corp argue the net neutrality rules make investment in additional capacity less likely and could lead to rate regulation. In April, the FCC voted 2-1 for Pai’s proposal to reverse a 2016 decision that limits the number of television stations some broadcasters can buy.  That cleared the way for Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Monday criticized Pai for “working for the most powerful communications corporations” and making it easier for the Sinclair deal to proceed.

Summary: सीनेट ने एफसीसी अध्यक्ष के नए पांच साल के कार्यकाल की पुष्टि की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate advanced the nomination of former Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) Chief Executive Rex Tillerson on Monday to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, moving closer to filling a key seat on the Republican’s national security team despite partisan rancor over Trump’s immigration order. The vote was 56 to 43 to move toward a final confirmation vote after up to 30 hours’ debate, putting a final vote very early on Wednesday, if senators do not agree to change the time. The vote broke largely along party lines. Every Republican favored advancing the nomination and all but four members of the Democratic caucus voted against it. The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, and several other members of the party tried, but failed, to delay considering Tillerson because of Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries and temporarily halting the entry of refugees. They said they wanted to question Tillerson more closely on his views on Muslim immigration. During his confirmation hearing, the former oil executive said he did not support a “blanket-type rejection” of any group of people. Democrats said that statement seemed to contradict Trump’s order. Trump and his supporters, including many Republicans, said his order is necessary to keep Americans safe and is not intended to ban Muslims, despite addressing only Muslim-majority nations whose citizens have not been involved in attacks on the United States. They said it was important to fill important slots on Trump’s national security team quickly. “As we proceed in ensuring the new administration has the leaders it needs to implement our nation’s foreign policy going forward, I have great confidence Rex Tillerson will serve the United States well,” Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेट ने विदेश मंत्री के रूप में टिलरसन का नामांकन आगे बढ़ाया


KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Tuesday it had expelled a Belarussian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move linked to allegations from Belarus that the Ukrainian defense ministry had set up a spy ring in Minsk. Belarus s KGB state security service said on Monday it had arrested a Ukrainian journalist and declared a Ukrainian diplomat persona non grata due to their alleged involvement in espionage.  The Ukrainian foreign ministry has also made the decision to declare a Belarussian diplomat persona non grata and he has already left the country,  Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa said by telephone. Betsa said the diplomat was a first secretary in the embassy in Kiev but declined to name him or her. The Ukrainian defense ministry has denied the KGB s allegations. Minsk-based Ukrainian journalist Pavlo Sharoyko was arrested in October and has since been charged with being an undercover intelligence officer by the KGB. Reuters has not been able to reach him for comment.    The case puts further pressure on relations between Minsk and Kiev that were tested earlier this year when Belarus hosted large-scale joint military exercises with Russia. September s Zapad-2017 ( West-2017 ) war games unnerved Ukraine and NATO member states on Europe s eastern flank, which feared the exercises could be a rehearsal or cover for a real offensive.

Summary: मिन्स्क जासूसी विवाद पर यूक्रेन ने बेलारूस के राजनयिक को निष्कासित किया


DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - China will work with Southeast Asian countries to safeguard peace in the South China Sea, President Xi Jinping said on Saturday in a meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who pledged to handle issues with Beijing in those waters bilaterally. China claims almost the entire strategic waterway through which about $3 trillion worth of goods pass every year, building and militariszing artificial islands. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have conflicting claims there.  China will continue to work with ASEAN countries to safeguard peace, stability and prosperity of the South China Sea region,  China s official Xinhua news agency cited Xi as saying to Duterte. The two met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Vietnamese resort city of Danang. The Philippines will, according to a consensus reached by both sides, work through bilateral channels to appropriately handle maritime issues, Xinhua cited Duterte as saying. It did not elaborate. Duterte said earlier in the week that he planned to ask China to make clear its intentions in the South China Sea. Since coming to office 16 months ago, the firebrand leader has been conciliatory to Beijing, despite a ruling by an international arbitration court favoring the Philippines in its territorial dispute with China. In the past, Duterte has repeatedly said he will raise the sea dispute at the proper time and avoided the issue when Manila hosted two regional meetings this year. The United States has criticized China s construction of islands and its build-up of military facilities in the sea, and is concerned they could be used to restrict free nautical movement. U.S. Navy ships have also carried out freedom of navigation patrols in the area, angering China, which says the territorial issues should be handled directly between countries in the region.

Summary: शी ने दुतेर्ते से कहा कि चीन दक्षिण चीन सागर में शांति की रक्षा के लिए काम करेगा


WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet dissidents and President Raul Castro in Cuba next month, the White House said on Thursday, announcing a historic trip that will be another major step toward ending decades of animosity between former Cold War foes. In the first visit by a U.S. president to the Caribbean nation since 1928, Obama will meet entrepreneurs and people from different walks of life during the trip on March 21 and 22, but he is unlikely to see Fidel Castro, the former president and revolutionary leader, U.S. officials said. The White House hopes Obama’s trip will help accelerate change on the Communist-run island and cement progress made under his watch, but Republicans at home complained that it would give legitimacy to Cuba’s oppressive government. “Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people,” Obama wrote on Twitter. After decades of hostility following Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the two countries agreed in 2014 to move to reopen ties, but the U.S. embargo on Cuba remains and Washington frequently criticizes Havana’s human rights record.     The opening to Cuba was a diplomatic feat that is likely to form part of Obama’s foreign policy legacy along with the nuclear deal he struck with another long-time U.S. foe, Iran. Officials decided that traveling to Cuba now rather than at the end of Obama’s term would give them more leverage to make progress on expanding Internet access and opening up business opportunities for Cubans and Americans. Obama regularly meets with civil society groups when he travels abroad, and officials said this trip would be no different. “He’ll be meeting with dissidents, with members of civil society, including those who certainly oppose the Cuban government’s policies,” Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told reporters.     Josefina Vidal, the director of U.S. affairs for the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said the Cuban government is willing to talk with the United States about its concerns. “Cuba is open to speak to the U.S. government about any topic, including human rights,” Vidal told reporters. She said the Cuban government wants Guantanamo Bay returned to Cuba and the embargo lifted before relations can be normalized. Cuban dissidents gave a cautious welcome to the trip. “He should take advantage of this opportunity to send a loud, clear message,” prominent opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez wrote on her website. “The material and moral poverty that surrounds us is not the responsibility of the United States.” The United States has upheld a strict economic embargo on Cuba for more than 50 years, providing the Cuban government with a strong propaganda tool against Washington. Obama’s visit is likely to spark debate in the campaign for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election, particularly in the swing voting state of Florida, where many anti-Castro Cuban-Americans live. Two Republican candidates, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are conservative sons of Cuban immigrants and foreign policy hawks.         Rubio urged Obama to reconsider his trip, citing political arrests in the past year. “You will send the message to the oppressed Cuban people that you stand with their oppressors,” he said in a letter on Thursday.         First lady Michelle Obama will accompany her husband on the trip to Cuba and also to Argentina. Obama’s Havana visit carries huge symbolic value as his administration takes steps to expand commerce with Cuba, only 90 miles (145 km) from Florida. The last sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba was Calvin Coolidge. Tourism has surged recently. Airbnb, an online home-rental site, says U.S. rentals of homes in Cuba are booming. The countries have agreed to restore airline flights, and companies ranging from tractor manufacturers to telecommunications firms are assessing the market.      Cuba and Major League Baseball are discussing holding an exhibition game between the Cuban national team and Tampa Bay Rays in Havana on March 22, raising the possibility that Obama could throw the ceremonial first pitch. Obama still seeks to pressure U.S. lawmakers to remove the decades-old embargo on Cuba but Republicans control Congress and are unlikely to act soon. A persistent congressional critic of the thaw in relations with Cuba, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said the trip would be a reward that the Cuban government did not deserve. “Pitiful that Obama rewards Castros with visit to Cuba while conditions for the Cuban people are getting worse,” said      Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from south Florida. Rhodes said he expected Cuban officials would bring up the status of the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay during the trip, but the administration opposes returning the area to the Communist government.  The White House did not provide details about which groups Obama would seek to meet, and said the United States would like to see more freedom of assembly and speech in Cuba. Cuba says it has no political prisoners but the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a dissident group, counts about 80 political prisoners in detention.  Fifty-three were released around the time of the 2014 agreement to normalize relations with the United States, but others were arrested last year, the group said.

Summary: क्यूबा की ऐतिहासिक यात्रा पर ओबामा राउल कास्त्रो और असंतुष्टों से मिलेंगे


GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a “kind of propaganda or advertisement” in his election race, a senior North Korean official said on Monday. Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with Reuters in New York last week, said he is willing to talk to the North Korean leader to try to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program, proposing a major shift in U.S. policy toward the isolated nation. “It is up to the decision of my Supreme Leader whether he decides to meet or not, but I think his (Trump’s) idea or talk is nonsense,” So Se Pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told Reuters on return from Pyongyang after attending the first ruling party congress in 36 years. “It’s for utilization of the presidential election, that’s all. A kind of a propaganda or advertisement,” he said. “This is useless, just a gesture for the presidential election.” “There is no meaning, no sincerity,” So added. As a candidate, U.S. President Barack Obama made unfulfilled campaign promises to meet the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), he said. North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range rocket in February, triggering tougher international sanctions and the adoption of a more hardline position by South Korean President Park Geun-hye. So, who is also North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament, reiterated that his country was prepared to return to stalled six-party talks on its nuclear program. China and Russia backed the idea, but the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan reject it, he said. “As a responsible nuclear state ... we will never use them first,” So said. “If the United States use their nuclear weapons first, then we have to use also that one.”  “If the United States gives up their hostile policies and changes their attitude, then we also (can) have relations as a normal country,” So said. “To South Korea, we proposed high-level military talks but South Korea refused now.” South Korea dismissed on Monday a North Korean proposal for military talks as “a bogus peace offensive” and said it was formally rejecting the overture because it lacked a plan to end the North’s nuclear program. So said that North Korea would not share nuclear technology with other countries. “As a responsible nuclear state, we keep and observe the obligations of non-proliferation of nuclear technology”.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया के राजदूत ने नेता से मिलने के लिए ट्रंप के प्रस्ताव को खारिज किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday left the door open to a possible delay in when Republican’s tax cut plan would lower rates for corporations, following a media report that Senate Republican’s version of the overhaul would push it to 2019. Asked if Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives  would consider such a phase-in, Ryan told Fox News Radio that the House corporate rate cut was immediate and permanent, but that both chambers would work out the difference between their bills. “This is a long process,” he said, adding that he could not speak to details in the Senate plan.

Summary: रेयान ने बाद में कॉर्पोरेट कर दरों में कटौती के लिए दरवाजे खोलेः फॉक्स न्यूज


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is preparing a $29 billion disaster aid request to send to the U.S. Congress after hurricanes hit Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, a White House official said on Tuesday. The request is expected to come on Wednesday. It will combine nearly $13 billion in new relief for hurricane victims with $16 billion for the government-backed flood insurance program, the White House official told Reuters. The White House wants Congress to forgive $16 billion of the debt that the National Flood Insurance Program, which insures about 5 million homes and businesses, has racked up. The request comes as the program is close to running out of money, congressional aides said. The program had racked up nearly $25 billion in debt before this season s major hurricanes. The Trump administration is also proposing more than a dozen reforms including new means testing and an extreme-loss repetition provision, aides said. Some homes insured under the program have gotten payments repeatedly from the program after multiple storms. The flood insurance money is aimed primarily for areas impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck Texas and Florida, aides said. Congressional aides say the National Flood Insurance Program is expected to run out of money the week of Oct. 23. The $12.77 billion in hurricane aid is expected to last through the end of the calendar year, administration officials said. They said earlier this week the government had about $10 billion on hand for disaster relief. The Trump administration is also seeking $576.5 million for wildfire suppression funding. Aides said the administration will acknowledge the need for a long-term fire borrowing fix and forestry management reforms, congressional aides said.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस तूफान राहत के लिए $29 बिलियन का अनुरोध करेगा


(Reuters) - The Minnesota Senate will furlough its workers and suspend operations as soon as Dec. 1 due to an ongoing funding dispute with Governor Mark Dayton, the chamber’s Republican leader announced on Wednesday.   Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said his chamber will run out of money by next month unless the state courts restore funding for the legislature that was vetoed by Dayton. He added that the Senate plans to seek certain funds from the Legislative Coordinating Committee which would keep the chamber operating through Jan. 12. “We don’t take the suspension of operations of the Minnesota Senate lightly – this is not a game – but we really have no other choice today,” Gazelka said in a statement. The chamber’s workforce includes dozens of lawyers, analysts, researchers and assistants who work with committees and on legislation. The Democratic governor’s office blamed Gazelka for the impending shutdown. “Despite sitting on nearly $45 million in available state funding for his operations, he and other legislative leaders are choosing to lay off their own employees, rather than admit that they have misled the courts, the press, and the public about their true financial situation,” said Matt Swenson, the governor’s assistant chief of staff.   Dayton in May vetoed funding for the Republican-controlled legislature from the state’s new two-year budget in an effort to pressure lawmakers to revise tax measures that he said will harm the state’s financial stability. The move touched off a legal battle with lawmakers, who claimed the elimination of nearly $130 million in funding was unconstitutional. While a Ramsey County District Court judge sided with the legislature in July, the state Supreme Court on Sept. 8 determined that the governor’s action was constitutional. However, the high court raised concerns over the ability of the legislature to survive without funding and ordered the two sides into mediation, which ended in an impasse. Gazelka said it was imperative for the court to step in again.  “The people of Minnesota will no longer have a voice in the legislative branch after the first of the year, not to mention the pain inflicted on our employees,” he said. In a September court filing, the House of Representatives said it anticipated running out of money on Feb. 1.

Summary: मिनेसोटा सीनेट वित्तपोषण विवाद के कारण 1 दिसंबर को संचालन रोक सकती है


HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - Republican state senators in Pennsylvania failed to muster enough votes on Wednesday to oust Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who is facing criminal charges for allegedly leaking secret grand jury material. All but one of the Senate’s 30 Republicans voted to remove Kane, a Democrat, from office because her law license has been suspended, falling four votes short of the two-thirds majority required. The chamber’s 18 Democrats, as well as one Republican, opposed the move. “It is simply not appropriate to take this action,” said Senator Judy Schwank, a Democrat who served on the committee that examined Kane’s removal. “It is an outrage against voters’ right to choose their elected officials.” Kane has been in legal hot water ever since her indictment last summer for allegedly passing grand jury information to a reporter as part of a personal feud. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court suspended her law license last fall. Wednesday’s debate in the Senate focused on whether Kane could continue to function as attorney general without a license to practice law. Unlike impeachment, which targets officeholders who have committed crimes and requires action by both legislative chambers, removal is aimed at incompetent but law-abiding officials and requires only Senate action. The process had not been used since 1891. “When you have a suspended law license, you cannot do anything!” said Senator John Gordner, the Republican who chaired the removal committee, during Wednesday’s three-hour debate. But others, notably Democratic former Governor Edward Rendell, who served eight years as district attorney of Philadelphia, previously testified at hearings that a license was not essential. Rendell said that in a large district attorney office, the job is mainly about making managerial decisions, not practicing law. Kane has claimed her indictment was brought in response to her efforts to release thousands of explicit or offensive e-mails circulated by former prosecutors in her office, including those who prosecuted Penn State sexual predator Jerry Sandusky, and two members of the state Supreme Court, among others. “Today is a good day for all those who share my desire to restore confidence in our judges and prosecutors and integrity to our system of justice,” Kane said in a statement after the vote. She could still face removal efforts. The state House of Representatives voted separately on Wednesday to begin an impeachment inquiry, while Senate Republicans used a procedural maneuver that allows them to call for another removal vote if circumstances change.

Summary: संकट में फंसे पेनसिल्वेनिया के अटॉर्नी जनरल सीनेट द्वारा हटाए जाने के मतदान में बच गए


WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - Police in North Carolina sought leads on Monday about a fire they believe was deliberately set at a local Republican headquarters over the weekend and a graffiti message warning the political party to “leave town or else.” Investigators are treating the incident as arson. The fire caused heavy damage to the Orange County Republican Party’s office in Hillsborough, North Carolina, about 40 miles (65 km) from the state capital of Raleigh.  “This is political terrorism,” said Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party.  Both Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton condemned the attack. North Carolina is considered a battleground state that could play a pivotal role in the Nov. 8 presidential contest. “We are taking this incident very seriously and have significant resources at the local, state and federal level committed to this investigation,” Hillsborough Police Chief Duane Hampton said in a statement on Monday, asking anyone with information to come forward. Hillsborough police said a bottle containing flammable material ignited after being thrown through a front window of the headquarters between midnight and about 9 a.m. on Sunday, when a nearby business owner reported the crime. “Someone has firebombed through the window (of) the Republican party up here beside me and sprayed all over the side of my building, ‘Nazi Republicans leave town or else,’” the caller told a 911 operator in a call released on Monday. A swastika also was spray-painted on the neighboring building, police said. They said no one was in the party office at the time, but the substance burned furniture and charred campaign signs. White House spokesman Josh Earnest praised the efforts of self-described Democrats who raised about $13,000 in an online GoFundMe campaign to help Republicans reopen the office. “That’s consistent with the values that we lift up in this country,” he said at a news briefing. “There is no justification for the use of violence to advance a political agenda.” In a tweet on Sunday, Clinton said she was grateful no one was hurt in the attack, which she called “horrific and unacceptable.” Trump blamed his Democratic opponent’s supporters for the crime. “Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning,” he said on Twitter. Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in Orange County, according to elections board data.  Republicans said the incident took them by surprise but left them undeterred as they started clean-up efforts at their strip-mall headquarters and worked in a bus being used as a temporary mobile office.  “We’re not going to be intimated; we’re not going to be cowed,” Woodhouse said.  On Monday, the Arizona Republican Party headquarters in Phoenix was evacuated for about two hours after a bomb threat was left by phone. Police said nothing was found during a search of the premises.  Party officials said the call was received from an adult male at about 3:15 p.m. local time saying there was a bomb in the building and for occupants to get out.

Summary: उत्तरी कैरोलिना पुलिस रिपब्लिकन कार्यालय में आगजनी, भित्तिचित्रों की धमकी की जांच कर रही है


MADRID (Reuters) - Emergency services have attended to 38 people injured in police charges as officers stormed voting stations to stop a banned referendum on independence from Spain in the northeastern region of Catalonia, the Catalan emergency services said on Sunday. Most of those people sustained slight injuries and three suffered more serious injuries, the Catalan services said on Twitter.

Summary: कैटेलोनिया में पुलिस के आरोपों में अड़तीस घायल, आपातकालीन सेवाओं का कहना है


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former California Senator Ron Calderon pleaded guilty in a federal court on Tuesday to a single count of mail fraud, ending a public corruption case in which he admitted to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes, prosecutors said. Calderon, a Democrat from the Los Angeles suburb of Montebello, left office in 2014 after serving a dozen years in the state Senate and four years in the Assembly. Sentencing is set for Sept. 19. The 58-year-old former politician reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last week, several weeks before he was scheduled to go on trial on charges contained in a 24-count indictment. His mail fraud offense carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, but prosecutors agreed under the terms of Calderon’s plea deal to seek a sentence of no more than 70 months, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Once an influential figure in the California Legislature, Calderon was one of three Democrats in the state Senate  suspended over ethics charges in 2014, costing their party a cherished two-thirds Senate majority during an election year. According to his indictment, Calderon accepted $100,000 in bribes from the owner of a Long Beach hospital to preserve a loophole in the law that allowed companies controlled by the owner to charge more for hardware used in spinal surgeries. Calderon also was accused of taking bribes from undercover FBI agents posing as Hollywood movie executives in exchange for steering legislation in their favor.  His older brother, Tom Calderon, 62, a former member of the California state Assembly who became a political consultant, also was named in the indictment. He pleaded guilty last Monday to a federal money-laundering charge for allowing bribes earmarked for his brother to be funneled through his firm, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than a year in prison for the elder Calderon brother.

Summary: कैलिफोर्निया राज्य के पूर्व सीनेटर ने भ्रष्टाचार के आरोप को स्वीकार किया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Whether FBI Director James Comey broke the law may hinge on whether he had political motivations or was merely doing his job by reviving Democrat Hillary Clinton’s email controversy just days before the Nov. 8 presidential election. Richard Painter, a chief White House ethics lawyer to former Republican President George W. Bush, on Saturday accused Comey of violating the 1939 Hatch Act when the FBI chief wrote Congress on Friday that more of the candidate’s emails would be scrutinized.  On Sunday, U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote to Comey to accuse him of partisan actions that may have broken the law. The Hatch Act bars government employees from taking part in political activities that include soliciting or accepting donations from a political party and using official authority to interfere with the outcome of an election.  Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said, “I would be surprised if this complaint leads to anything significant, but I would also be surprised if Comey’s tenure as the FBI director will not be shortened.” “Even if he didn’t violate the letter of the Hatch Act, he certainly violated the spirit of the Hatch Act, which should have prompted him to think twice before issuing that letter. Especially because the letter didn’t say anything,” he said. Little is publicly known about the new email trove. Comey wrote Congress the FBI had yet to determine the significance. Painter filed his complaint with the independent Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and the Office of Government Ethics. A spokesman for the OSC, which has a specialized Hatch Act investigative unit, declined to comment. A Hatch Act investigation is an administrative, not a criminal, matter. Penalties may include removal from office, a demotion or temporary suspension, or a civil penalty no higher than $1,000. In cases of high-level officials, the disciplinary decisions on OSC actions are made by the president. On Monday, the White House said President Barack Obama believes Comey is a man of integrity and is not trying to influence the election by announcing the scrutiny of additional emails. Jan Witold Baran, a lawyer at Wiley Rein in Washington, suggested it would be hard to construe what appeared to be Comey’s engagement in normal government business as a violation of the Hatch Act.  But Kenneth Gross, former associate general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, said Comey’s letter fell outside the FBI director’s normal duties as there is no legal obligation to disclose details of an ongoing probe to Congress. Painter’s complaint said that barring extraordinary circumstances, a public communication about a pending FBI investigation involving a candidate for public office so close to an election likely violated the act. Comey said in an internal memo obtained by news media that even though it is not common to update Congress on the progress of investigations, he felt obligated because he had repeatedly said the probe was completed. The OSC Hatch Act unit, which usually experiences a surge in complaints during election years, has disciplined 84 employees the last five years, almost a three-fold increase over the previous five years, an OSC 2015 report to Congress said.  Hatch Act violations usually relate to inappropriate electioneering. For example, the 2015 report cited a complaint against a U.S. Agriculture Department official who allegedly asked two subordinate employees to donate to a political action committee supporting Obama’s 2012 re-election.  In a 2016 letter, the OSC found that Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro violated the act by advocating for and against presidential candidates during a media interview. Castro called it an “inadvertent error.”

Summary: एफ़. बी. आई. प्रमुख ने क्लिंटन के नए ईमेलों को उठाकर कानून तोड़ा या नहीं, इस पर हंगामा


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said on Tuesday it would rescind contracts held by several workers at a warehouse and distribution center in the central state of Guanajuato as part of a strategy to combat oil theft. A Pemex official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that four workers were let go for links to oil theft from the center in the city of Salamanca, where Pemex also has a refinery that can process 245,000 barrels per day of crude. In its statement, Pemex said it would file criminal complaints against the workers and investigate workers at others sites.   Without exception, any employee linked to crime will be removed immediately,  the company said. Mexico s government has estimated that oil theft by criminal groups costs Pemex at least $1 billion a year.

Summary: मेक्सिको के पेमेक्स ने तेल चोरी के लिए गोदाम के कर्मचारियों को नौकरी से निकाला


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The partisan divide over the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election deepened on Friday, when the committee’s top Democrat suggested  its Republican chairman canceled a public hearing after pressure from the White House. Panel chairman Devin Nunes said he had to cancel next Tuesday’s hearing with officials from former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration in order to have a classified briefing with the directors of the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. “The committee seeks additional information ... that can only be addressed in closed session,” Representative Nunes told reporters. FBI Director James Comey and NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers testified at a public hearing on Monday at which Comey confirmed for the first time that the FBI is investigating possible ties between Republican President Donald Trump’s campaign as Moscow sought to influence the 2016 election. Representative Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee’s top Democrat, said the cancellation was not in the public interest. “I think that there must have been a very strong pushback from the White House about the nature of Monday’s hearing. It’s hard for me to come to any other conclusion about why an agreed upon hearing would be suddenly canceled,” Schiff told a separate news conference.  The scheduled witnesses, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, were in office when the purported hacking and disinformation by Russia to influence the election took place. Russia has denied allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that it sought to influence the election, and Trump, a Republican, has said the controversy was cooked up by Democrats and fanned by hostile media. Nunes also said on Friday that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s lawyers told the committee that he is volunteering to be interviewed, and that the panel would work with his lawyers to decide whether the interview would be open or closed to the public. The New York Times reported last month Manafort was one of several Trump advisers whose contacts with Russian operatives were monitored by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence. Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman for several months last year, dismissed the report, the newspaper said. Many Democrats, including Schiff, have questioned whether a committee led by Nunes, a close Trump ally who served on the president’s transition team, can still be relied on to conduct a credible investigation. They have called for a special prosecutor or select committee. Nunes apologized to the intelligence panel on Thursday for announcing to the public and briefing Trump that U.S. intelligence may have swept up communications by Trump associates before telling the committee. Schiff said Democrats had no intention of giving up on the investigation. “From my point of view, that would be irresponsible of us. So, I think we’re going to do our best to investigate this regardless of the obstacles we’re encountering,” Schiff said. Trump, who in early March tweeted without giving evidence that Obama had wiretapped his campaign while the businessman competed against Democrat Hillary Clinton, said he was “somewhat vindicated” by Nunes’ statement about the surveillance.

Summary: रूस पर सत्र को लेकर सदन की खुफिया समिति के नेता विभाजित


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ten Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday they want Congress to vote on a formal authorization for the use of military force against al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Taliban. The group introduced an authorization, known as an AUMF, that would last three years and replace authorizations passed in 2001 and 2002 that have been used by both Republican and Democratic presidents for military action against the groups. Some members of Congress have contended for years that those measures, approved in 2001 to retaliate against al Qaeda for the Sept. 11 attacks and in 2002 to pave the way for the Iraq War, were outmoded. Those arguments intensified when President Donald Trump ordered air strikes against an airfield in Syria this month, although Republicans, who control Congress, and many Democrats said they did not feel that a single action like that required formal approval by Congress. But a small, mostly Democratic, group of lawmakers has argued for years that Congress should stop abdicating its responsibility to consider an AUMF that would govern U.S. military action, whether against Islamist militant groups or the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “As deployments to Iraq and Syria increase, and with complicating factors like the recent cruise missile strike against the Assad regime in response to the use of chemical weapons, Congress cannot stand on the sidelines any longer and must debate and vote on any new war,” said Representative Adam Schiff, who introduced the bill with nine co-sponsors. The measure would authorize Trump to deploy combat ground troops against the three groups anywhere in the world, but also includes a mechanism to allow a motion to repeal or modify the authorization. It also would put in place new requirements for administration reports to Congress and the public on how force was being used. Without Republican co-sponsors, the measure stands little chance of passage, but if it picks up support, it could help pave the way for future legislation.

Summary: डेमोक्रेट आतंकवाद विरोधी अभियानों के लिए कांग्रेस की मंजूरी चाहते हैं


GENEVA (Reuters) - Myanmar told the United Nations on Tuesday that it was finalizing terms for a joint working group with Bangladesh that will launch the process of safe and voluntary return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees within about two months. Htin Lynn, Myanmar s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told a special session of the Human Rights Council that his government was ready to work with all international partners to ensure the  voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable repatriation  and resettlement of the displaced - whom he did not refer to as Rohingya.   There will be no camps,  he added.

Summary: म्यांमार का कहना है कि वह रोहिंग्या शरणार्थियों की वापसी सुनिश्चित करने के लिए काम कर रहा है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said on Friday that the campaign was “confident” the FBI would again recommend against pressing charges against the former secretary of state relating to her use of a private email server once it wraps up the latest leg of its investigation. “The (FBI) Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining,” campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement after the FBI said it was examining new emails for whether they contained classified information. “We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July,” he said.

Summary: क्लिंटन अभियान का कहना है कि ईमेल जांच में एफ. बी. आई. का 'आश्वस्त' निष्कर्ष नहीं बदलेगा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dozen Democratic U.S. senators on Thursday denounced a Trump administration plan to revamp a government program on countering violent extremism, saying narrowing its focus solely to Islamic threats could jeopardize security and may be illegal. Restructuring the program to omit white supremacists and other non-Islamist groups “would severely damage our credibility with foreign allies and partners as an honest broker in the fight against violent extremism, and prove divisive in communities across our country,” Senators Cory Booker, Brian Schatz and 10 others wrote in a letter addressed to cabinet secretaries. Reuters reported last week that Republican President Donald Trump’s administration wants to rename the “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, program introduced by the previous Democratic administration of Barack Obama to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.” The potential name change reflects a broader goal of Trump’s to exclude groups in the program’s purview such as white supremacist, whose followers have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States, five sources familiar with the matter said. CVE aimed to address the causes of why some people are drawn to violence or extremism by providing grants and other resources to community groups to develop prevention efforts, including using social media. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order temporarily blocking travel to the United States by people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, prompting a global outcry and charges from his critics that he was advancing a white nationalist agenda. Trump has rejected characterizations of the order as a “Muslim ban” and said it is necessary to protect national security. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials who work on CVE met on Tuesday to continue discussions about the proposed changes, according to two sources who have worked closely with DHS on the program. Refocusing CVE efforts largely on Islam would “alienate Muslim organizations and individuals in the United States”, the senators wrote to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Wade Warren, acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “It will also put U.S. service members, diplomats, development practitioners, and citizens traveling the world at significant risk, and will increase the likelihood of more attacks,” the letter said, and could “violate constitutional protections and the rights of American citizens.” At least three community organizations have already declined funding collectively totaling nearly $1.4 million awarded under the auspices of the CVE task force, citing concerns about the Trump administration’s posture toward Muslims and the possible changes to the program.  White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to comment on the reported changes last week, but said during a briefing that the program was initially intended to focus on “rooting out radical Islamic terrorism.” Several former DHS officials told Reuters the CVE program was not conceived with that goal, although it has been criticized by even some supporters as tacitly too focused on Muslims or largely ineffective.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेटरों ने इस्लाम पर चरमपंथ विरोधी कार्यक्रम पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने की ट्रम्प की योजना की निंदा की


WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Wednesday named South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a former critic with little foreign policy experience, as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at a time of uncertainty over America’s international role under his presidency. Haley, one of two women chosen so far for a job in Trump’s Cabinet, is “a proven dealmaker, and we look to be making plenty of deals. She will be a great leader representing us on the world stage,” the Republican president-elect said in a statement. Trump on Wednesday also picked wealthy Republican donor and school choice advocate Betsy DeVos to lead the Education Department. Haley, the 44-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants, represents what some Republicans hope could be the new face of their party: a younger, more diverse generation of leaders.      Haley took Trump strongly to task during the presidential campaign over his harsh rhetoric about illegal immigration and for not speaking forcefully enough against white supremacists. Trump has chosen mostly male conservatives so far for senior positions as he shapes his administration following his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election. Trump takes over from Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20.  Also on Wednesday, a spokesman for former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Trump had not offered the retired neurosurgeon the post of housing and urban development secretary, disputing a Wall Street Journal report, which the newspaper later corrected. “Trump did not make an offer,” Carson spokesman Armstrong Williams told Reuters. “He asked him to consider HUD. Nothing has been offered and no decision has been made.” Carson told Fox News on Wednesday night: “We are considering which is the way that I can be most effective. So that information should come out in the next few days. We will make a public announcement.”   The Wall Street Journal, citing two people familiar with the deliberations, also reported that Trump was expected to pick billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as commerce secretary. In a video message released ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Trump said he hoped it would be a time for Americans “to begin to heal our divisions” following a “long and bruising political campaign.” “Emotions are raw and tensions just don’t heal overnight,” Trump said. “Now begins a great national campaign to rebuild our country and to restore the full promise of America for all of our people.” The choice of Haley may be aimed at countering criticism of Trump’s divisive comments about immigrants and minorities, as well as accusations of sexism during his election campaign. Haley led a successful effort last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston. The flag was carried by pro-slavery Confederate forces during the Civil War and is viewed by many as a racist emblem.  Haley said she had accepted Trump’s offer and would remain governor pending her confirmation to the Cabinet-level post by the U.S. Senate. “When the president believes you have a major contribution to make to the welfare of our nation, and to our nation’s standing in the world, that is a calling that is important to heed,” she said in a statement. Haley’s job may include reassuring allies worried about some of Trump’s campaign promises, including building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to curb illegal immigration and reviewing trade agreements, and his suggestion that he would push NATO partners to pay more for their own defense. He has antagonized China, another major power at the United Nations, with his talk on trade and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.      The New York real estate magnate, who has never held public office, gave few clues about his world view during an extensive interview with The New York Times on Tuesday.     Asked what he sees as America’s role in the world, Trump replied: “That’s such a big question.” When pressed further, he described the Iraq war as a mistake, urged better relations with Russia and called for an end to “that craziness that’s going on in Syria.” The United States, which along with Russia is one of the five permanent veto powers on the 15-member U.N. Security Council, is also the largest funder of the United Nations, paying more than a quarter of its $8 billion peace-keeping budget and 22 percent of the regular budget.   Trump picked conservatives to lead his national security and law enforcement teams last week, suggesting he plans to make good on his campaign promises to take a hard line on Islamist militancy and curbing illegal immigration But a relative moderate, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is among the candidates under consideration to head the State Department. Haley would succeed Obama’s U.N. envoy, Samantha Power, a foreign policy expert before she took the job. In contrast, Haley, a state lawmaker before becoming governor, has little experience in international relations. She was a robust critic of Trump during the early stages of the Republican presidential nominating race, including condemning him for not disavowing the support of the Ku Klux Klan and one of the white supremacist group’s former leaders, David Duke. In a rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union address in January, Haley called for tolerance on immigration and civility in politics, in what some saw as a rebuke of Trump.  “During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices,” she said. “We must resist that temptation.” She supported Trump rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both U.S. senators, in the Republican race before saying last month she would vote for Trump despite reservations about his character. Haley also criticized Trump last winter for not releasing his tax returns, prompting him to hit back on Twitter: “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed of Nikki Haley!” DeVos, Trump’s education pick, is a billionaire former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, who has long pushed for a larger role for private education. Trump said she would “break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back.” Her appointment is also subject to Senate confirmation.     As chair of the American Federation for Children advocacy group, DeVos has advocated for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools. The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, condemned DeVos’ nomination. “She has consistently pushed a corporate agenda to privatize, de-professionalize and impose cookie-cutter solutions to public education,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia.

Summary: ट्रंप ने विदेश नीति की नौसिखिया हेली को संयुक्त राष्ट्र में राजदूत के रूप में नामित किया है।


(Reuters) - U.S. Senator Rand Paul’s return to Washington may be delayed after he suffered five broken ribs during an assault at his Kentucky home, media reported on Sunday, citing a senior adviser to the Republican lawmaker. Paul’s neighbor, Rene Boucher, has been charged with one count of fourth-degree assault causing minor injury in connection with the incident on Friday, according to authorities. Boucher, 59, was released on bond.   “Senator Paul has five rib fractures including three displaced fractures. This type of injury is caused by high velocity severe force,” Doug Stafford, a senior adviser to Paul, said in a statement, according to multiple media reports.  “It is not clear exactly how soon he will return to work, as the pain is considerable as is the difficulty in getting around, including flying,” the reports quoted Stafford as saying. He added that the senator’s type of injury could lead to life-threatening injuries. Paul, 54, also has lung contusions, Stafford said in the statement, according to the reports. The Bowling Green Daily News, citing an arrest warrant, said Paul told police his neighbor came on to his property in a gated community just east of Bowling Green and tackled him from behind. Paul had injuries to the face and trouble breathing because of a rib injury, the newspaper said. It was not clear what motivated the altercation and Paul did not go to the hospital, police said. Paul was mowing his lawn at the time of the attack, television station WAVE-TV in Kentucky reported. “Kelley and I appreciate the overwhelming support after Friday’s unfortunate event. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers,” Paul said on Twitter on Sunday morning, referring to his wife. A man who answered Boucher’s phone on Sunday, when a Reuters reporter asked to speak with him, said: “I’m sorry. I can’t talk.” Kentucky State Police said on Saturday that Paul and Boucher were acquaintances. The suspect is a retired physician, the Bowling Green Daily News said.  The New York Daily News reported that a Facebook page for Boucher contained numerous postings critical of Republican President Donald Trump. Paul, an ophthalmologist, ran for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out of the race in February 2016.

Summary: सीनेटर पॉल को हमले के बाद पांच पसलियां टूटीः रिपोर्ट


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House officials believe Chief of Staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, raising concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on the phone, Politico reported on Thursday. The suspected breach could have happened as long ago as December, Politico reported, citing three U.S. government officials. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, joined the Trump administration in January as secretary of Homeland Security. He became White House chief of staff in July. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Politico reported that the suspected breach was discovered after Kelly turned his phone over to White House tech support this summer complaining that it was not working or properly updating software. It was unclear what, if any, data may have been accessed,  Politico reported. Politico reported that a White House official said that Kelly had not used the personal phone often since joining the administration, instead relying on his government-issued phone for most communications.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस के चीफ ऑफ स्टाफ के निजी सेलफोन से समझौता किया गयाः पोलिटिको


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party’s two-year run in the majority of the U.S. Senate is at serious risk and may well end on Nov. 8, senior congressional aides said on Wednesday, blaming Donald Trump as a drag on down-ballot Republican candidates. With 13 days to go before elections, several Senate aides from both parties privately warned of trouble for Republicans. “Things are not good ... the Senate is gone,” said one Republican aide who asked not to be identified in order to candidly discuss the turbulent outlook for the 2016 campaign. Citing opinion polling, the aide said Republicans could lose Senate seats in six battleground states: Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Missouri. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday and conducted from Oct. 20 to Oct. 24 found that 41 percent of Republicans now expect Clinton to win the election, versus 40 percent for Trump. That is a sharp decline in confidence from last month, when 58 percent of Republicans said they thought their party’s nominee would win, versus 23 percent for Clinton. Republicans now hold 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats. Democrats must snatch four seats to win a majority, provided their presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, beats Trump. That would make Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, the tie-breaking Senate vote since the vice president votes in order to break a tie. On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report predicted  Democrats would gain five to seven seats. Such a result would leave them short of the 60 votes needed to easily get things done in the Senate, but it would provide a majority. A less pessimistic Senate Republican aide said Senate control still “could go either way” but sketched out problems. In Pennsylvania, the aide said, Senator Pat Toomey has to “fight off dead weight at the top of the ticket,” referring to Trump. In Missouri, he said, Democrat Jason Kander, who is trying to unseat Senator Roy Blunt, is “a great candidate.”  Nationally, “the reason we don’t hold the Senate, if we don’t, is because of Donald Trump,” the aide said. Of course, this has been a volatile and unpredictable year, and there is still time for trends to reverse. Democrats stressed they are not breaking out the champagne. According to RealClear Politics, Toomey leads by 1.8 percentage points in Pennsylvania while Blunt is up by a point in strongly Republican Missouri and Senator Richard Burr has a 2.8-point lead in North Carolina over his Democratic challenger. Still, a senior Senate Democratic aide said, “We have a lot more paths to a majority than they do.” Republicans entered the 2016 Senate races at a disadvantage, having to defend 24 seats to only 10 for Democrats. Democratic President Barack Obama, who is still relatively popular, won at least one of his two White House races in most of the states where Republicans currently are struggling, such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Clinton leads Trump by about 5 points in some national polls. Studies show a pattern of voting in recent decades in which the outcome of Senate races has had a significant correlation to who wins the White House. Polling in the hardest-fought states points to extremely close races with Republican incumbents’ backs against the wall. In New Hampshire, Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte is in a tough race with her Democratic challenger, Governor Maggie Hassan. University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala said Republican senators in that state and Pennsylvania face the “one-two punch” of independent voters potentially being turned off by Trump and an electorate that leans Democratic in presidential election years like 2016. “Given the overall environment, it tilts to Hassan,” Scala said.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन अमेरिकी सीनेट में बहुमत खोने के कगार पर हो सकते हैंः सहयोगी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that he and U.S. President Donald Trump would discuss trade and economic issues at a working lunch and he was “optimistic” there would be good results from the dialogue. Abe said he was “fully aware” of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade accord. But he said Japan and the United States had agreed on a new framework for economic dialogue. “I am quite optimistic that ... good results will be seen from the dialogue,” he said, adding that Japan was looking for a fair, common set of rules for trade in the region.

Summary: आबे ट्रम्प के साथ व्यापार वार्ता के सकारात्मक परिणाम के बारे में 'आशावादी' हैं


ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev threatened on Wednesday to sack his cabinet if they failed to make large state companies bring back cash held abroad. Nazarbayev, who wields sweeping powers in the oil-rich nation, also poured scorn on executives in private sector companies who, he suggested, were enjoying lavish lifestyles while keeping funds in foreign accounts.  Enough of toying around, look at them, carried away with their games, keeping their money abroad, buying yachts and mansions in multiple countries,  he said at a meeting with central government and regional officials.   It is safer to keep money here, at home, we will ensure it is safe.  Nazarbayev ordered Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev to investigate why state-controlled companies had tripled their foreign cash holdings to $6 billion in the first half of 2017. He did not cite a source for that figure.  If you fail to do this, I warn you in front of the whole Kazakhstan, I will use other ways to return that money to Kazakhstan, but you will not be here any more,  he told his cabinet. Nazarbayev said he also expected private sector companies to move cash back, citing Tengizchevroil, a joint venture led by Chevron, and state firm KazMunayGaz, as examples of groups keeping funds in foreign accounts.  Tengizchevroil $4.5 billion, National Company KazMunayGaz - $3 billion, KazMunaiGas Exploration and Production - $2 billion.  Again, he did not give a source for those figures.     Tengizchevroil said it would comment later this week and KazMunayGaz could not immediately be reached for comment.  Why are you doing this? You keep your money there while profiting from Kazakhstan s resources. Why is this money not being put to work in Kazakhstan?  Nazarbayev said. Citing central bank data, he said some companies had also abused liberal foreign exchange regulations to delay the transfer to Kazakhstan of $7.7 billion in export revenue.

Summary: कज़ाख नेता ने कैबिनेट से कहाः सरकारी कंपनियों से नकदी घर ले जाएँ वरना आपको नौकरी से निकाल दिया जाएगा


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has asked China to cut off oil supply to North Korea, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Wednesday, warning that  if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.   We have never sought war with North Korea, and still today we do not seek it. If war does come, it will be because of continued acts of aggression like we witnessed yesterday,  Haley told the U.N. Security Council, referring to Pyongyang s ballistic missile launch on Tuesday.

Summary: अमेरिका ने चीन से उत्तर कोरिया को तेल की आपूर्ति बंद करने को कहा


DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged her conservatives on Saturday to forge a three-way alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens, her most explicit backing yet for the so-called  Jamaica  coalition. Merkel, who won a fourth term in the Sept. 24 election but bled support to the far-right, needs to form a coalition. The  Jamaica  alliance, named for the black, yellow and green party colors which match Jamaica s flag, is her most likely path to a parliamentary majority. Merkel also said a special party meeting should be held to let members of her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU)  discuss and vote on any coalition deal. She told the youth wing of her party in Dresden that members should concentrate on talks that lie ahead, first within the conservative bloc between the CDU and its CSU sister party from the state of Bavaria, and then with the FDP and Greens. Aside from internal differences in the conservative camp, especially on migrant policy, the three blocs that would form the Jamaica coalition are at odds on energy and climate policy, tax and Europe. Yet in a marked shift, Merkel made clear there were no other realistic options. She closed the door on another tie-up with the Social Democrats (SPD), her coalition partners for the past four years, who have announced their intention to go into opposition after slumping to their worst post-war result.  It is clear that the Social Democrats are not capable of being in government on the national level in the foreseeable future, so I advise us all to waste no time thinking about that any more,  said Merkel. If Merkel is unable to form a  Jamaica  coalition, the prospects of a minority government or even new elections loom, an unpalatable scenario for investors who are already spooked by months of uncertainty ahead. Merkel s first task in building a coalition comes on Sunday when she meets the CSU to agree common positions, most notably on migrant policy, before starting exploratory talks with other parties. The CSU, which has served as sister party to the CDU for decades, fears heavy losses in next year s Bavaria election and is digging its heels in over a demand for a cap on the number of refugees. Merkel says a cap would breach the constitution which guarantees asylum to politically persecuted people. Merkel, who left Germany s borders open to 1 million migrants in 2015, acknowledged her handling of that crisis had shaken the relationship between the CDU and CSU, and took responsibility for election losses because of her decision. Most of the migrants who arrived two years ago entered Germany through Bavaria. Merkel implored both parties to compromise, saying the parties  deal to live with their differences and fight the election together this year had meant they had won.  I will do everything I can to move this forward.. With good will, that is possible,  she said. The conservative youth wing on Friday agreed on a  Dresden declaration  calling for change after the heavy election losses. While it stopped short of the CSU s demand for an upper limit on migration, it rejected  uncontrolled  immigration. On euro zone reform, Merkel sounded skeptical on the idea of a finance minister for the currency zone.  A finance minister will only be appointed if a finance minister is necessary,  she said.  The FDP has said it could not agree to a euro zone budget that would help redress economic imbalances within the bloc.

Summary: मर्केल ने जर्मनी में तीन-तरफा 'जमैका' गठबंधन पर जोर दिया


(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump was poised on Tuesday to nominate Washington lawyer Marvin Kaplan to the National Labor Relations Board, nudging the agency toward a Republican majority that could overturn a series of decisions that have riled businesses. Late on Monday, the White House issued a statement saying Trump had selected Kaplan, a fellow Republican currently with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, to one of the board’s five seats. After Trump officially names him, he must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  The NLRB, which oversees union elections and disputes between workers, unions, and employers, has been controlled by Democrats for nearly a decade, and they currently have a 2-1 majority with two vacancies. The board, when fully stocked, includes three members from the president’s party and two from the opposing party. Under Trump, lawyers and business groups expect the board to roll back a series of policy changes adopted during the administration of former President Barack Obama.  Chief among those was a 2015 decision that expanded the circumstances in which a company is considered a “joint employer” liable for legal violations by contractors, staffing agencies, and franchisees.  The NLRB is also expected to revisit new rules designed to speed up the union election process that business groups say favor unions, and decisions allowing workers to use company email accounts to organize and to picket on employers’ private property. Kaplan, who did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, previously worked for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives crafting employment-related legislation, including a bill that would undo the new union election rules. Business groups including the National Restaurant Association and International Franchise Association praised the nomination, saying Kaplan and a second nominee who Trump is expected to name this week would bring more balance to the board.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने अमेरिकी श्रम बोर्ड के लिए रिपब्लिकन वकील कपलान को चुना


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller, like much of the Pentagon top brass, is pretty happy about President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to rebuild America’s military after years of congressionally imposed spending caps. But ask Neller about Trump’s main proposal to increase the number of Marine infantry battalions from 24 today to 36, and he pauses. “That’s a lot,” Neller told Reuters in an interview. Neller, like many of his Pentagon colleagues, thinks America’s military needs to shift quickly to prepare for more sophisticated adversaries than the insurgents the United States has been fighting in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. That will require more troops, including in the infantry. But Neller wants more cyber, intelligence and avionics specialists, as well as additional jets, amphibious ships and other weaponry that can better prepare the Marine Corps for a potential conflict with another country. Islamic extremists are certainly lethal, Neller says, but are not nearly as capable as even the Russia-backed separatists that Ukraine is fighting, whose arsenal includes drones, radar and accurate artillery, for example. “If you think the next war’s going to be like this (counter-insurgency battle), then OK fine. I don’t think it is. I don’t,” Neller said.  “It’s going to be much more difficult. It’s going to be much more complicated. It’s going to be much more sophisticated.” At the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, Neller said his wish-list for the Marine Corps included speeding up purchases of higher-end items, including Lockheed Martin Corp’s stealth supersonic F-35 aircraft and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) made by Oshkosh Corp. Trump’s campaign proposal for the Marine Corps was based on a Heritage Foundation study that determined that 36 active-duty battalions would be necessary to wage two wars at once. “Having this ability deters other competitors from trying to take advantage of the U.S. being ‘tied down’ in a conflict in one region,” wrote the Heritage Foundation’s Dakota Wood. To that end, Trump has also pledged to build an active Army of around 540,000, up from about 475,000 today and build a Navy approaching 350 surface ships and submarines, up from just over 290 ships today. He pledged to give the Air Force at least 1,200 fighter aircraft, about 100 more than today. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, speaking at the same defense forum, welcomed the possibility of more aircraft and, like Neller, expressed interest in accelerating the acquisition of F-35 aircraft. “Additional aircraft would certainly allow us to be able to do different jobs across the word simultaneously,” James said, also noting the need for a new bomber.  But James also spoke of other high-end capabilities, including in space, and warned about the need for Congress to fund nuclear modernization, which some estimates say will cost about $1 trillion over the next three decades. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said the U.S. arms industry is ready and capable of boosting production of new ships to meet Trump’s campaign pledge. Shifting the current target of 308 ships upwards would be “remarkably easy,” as long as there is funding to pay the bill. “If it’s resourced, it’s a matter of working closely with the industrial base, and they definitely are ready to do that,” he told Reuters, adding the only limiting factor would be hiring and training workers to build the new ships. Republicans, who will control both houses of Congress and the White House after Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, see good prospects for raising military spending levels and scrapping a 2010 law that imposed mandatory cost caps on defense spending. Still, it’s unclear how Trump will fund all of his planned programs, which beyond the military spending spree includes paying for a major U.S. domestic infrastructure program. For Neller and other Pentagon chiefs, investing to prepare for more advanced threats is a priority, regardless of whether Trump makes good on his pledges. “The only thing we’re not going to do is stay the same. We’re not. Can’t. I’d be derelict in my duties,” Neller said.

Summary: ट्रम्प के लिए शीर्ष अमेरिकी मरीन की इच्छा-सूची सैनिकों की बढ़ोतरी से परे है


(Reuters) - A tree trimming company has been handed the largest penalty imposed in a United States immigration case, totaling $95 million, after pleading guilty to employing illegal immigrants, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Immigration reform is a major political issue in the U.S., with  President Donald Trump saying he will crack down on illegal immigrants and build a wall between the United States and Mexico in order to reduce illegal border crossings.  Asplundh Tree Experts, Co., which trims trees and clears brush for power and gas lines across the country, hired employees who provided fake identification documents from 2010 to 2014, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia said.  The prosecutor said on Thursday that Asplundh’s management were “willfully blind”, while supervisors and general foremen hired illegal immigrants through word of mouth referrals.  “This decentralized model tacitly perpetuated fraudulent hiring practices that, in turn, maximized productivity and profit,” it said.  The company’s chairman and CEO Scott Asplundh said in a statement that it has taken steps to improve its hiring practices, including reviewing the identification of all employees.  “We accept responsibility for the charges as outlined, and we apologize to our customers, associates and all other stakeholders for what has occurred,” he said.

Summary: ट्री ट्रिमिंग फर्म ने अमेरिकी आप्रवासन मामले में सबसे बड़ा जुर्माना लगाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump told Reuters on Thursday that he was “psyched” to terminate the NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, but changed his mind after their leaders asked for it to be renegotiated instead. Trump said in an interview with Reuters that he will not hesitate to change course again and pull the plug on the North American Free Trade Agreement if the negotiations become “unserious.” His comments came at the end of a long 24 hours during which Ottawa and Mexico City were whipsawed over the Trump administration’s intentions over the 23-year-old trade pact. “You know I was really ready and psyched to terminate NAFTA,” Trump said. He decided that it would be better to terminate the trade deal after hearing about Wisconsin farmers’ struggles with new Canadian dairy rules that were shutting out their milk protein exports. “You saw that, you wrote about it,” Trump said. “And I said I’ve had it. I’ve had it.” But after administration officials said a withdrawal order was being prepared, Trump said he received phone calls from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking to renegotiate the pact.   “I’m not looking to hurt Canada and I’m not looking to hurt Mexico. They’re two countries I really like,” Trump said. “So they asked to renegotiate, and I said yes.” News of the possible U.S. pullout from NAFTA rattled financial markets on Wednesday. Relative calm returned on Thursday after Trump’s comments, and the Mexican peso strengthened 0.86 percent against the U.S. dollar, while the Canadian dollar was flat versus the greenback. Mexico, Canada and the United States form one of the world’s biggest trading blocs, and trade disruptions among them could adversely affect farm, automotive, energy and other sectors in all three countries. NAFTA removed most trade and tariff barriers between the neighbors, but Trump and other critics have blamed it for deep U.S. job cuts. Trump campaigned for president last year on a pledge to pull out of NAFTA if he could not renegotiate better terms. The United States went from running a small goods trade surplus with Mexico in the early 1990s to a $63-billion deficit in 2016. Asked by Reuters what would make NAFTA a fair deal, Trump said: “Open markets. Open borders for trade” and “Fairness, no government subsidies so that it makes it impossible for our people to compete.” He added that if the NAFTA negotiations “become unserious, I will terminate.” As Trump spoke, a new trade irritant between the United States and Canada emerged, as Boeing Co asked the U.S. Commerce Department to investigate alleged price dumping and unfair Canadian government subsidies for Bombardier Inc’s  new Canadian-made CSeries jetliners.    Trudeau told a news conference in Saskatchewan he had urged Trump not to withdraw from the trade pact and warned that doing so “would cause a lot of short- and medium-term pain.” “That’s not something that either one of us would want, so we agreed that we could sit down and get to work on looking at ways to improve NAFTA,” Trudeau said. Canada sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States. On Tuesday, Trump said he did not fear a trade war with Canada, a day after his administration moved to impose tariffs on Canadian lumber. In Mexico City, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said Pena Nieto had called Trump on Wednesday and spoken with him for about 20 minutes in a conversation focused exclusively on the looming talks over NAFTA’s “renegotiation and modernization.” Trump has accused Mexico of luring away American factories and jobs with cheap labor and other advantages enabled by NAFTA. During the presidential campaign he accused Mexico of sending rapists and criminals into the United States, and as president plans a U.S.-Mexico border wall. One of Trump’s first major acts after becoming president in January was to pull out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama. Several agriculture lobby groups in Washington were told U.S Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, confirmed by the Senate on Monday, met with Trump on Wednesday evening to dissuade him from withdrawing from NAFTA. American Soybean Association President Ron Moore said, “When you’re talking about $3 billion in soybean exports a year, any threats to withdraw from agreements and walk away from markets makes farmers extremely nervous.” Formal NAFTA talks likely will not get started until August. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office must first send Congress a notice that starts a 90-day consultation period preceding any negotiations. A USTR spokeswoman said the notice would not be sent until the Senate confirmed Trump’s nominee for trade representative, Robert Lighthizer.

Summary: नाफ्टा को समाप्त करने के बारे में सोच रहे थे, लेकिन इस पर पुनर्विचार किया गयाः ट्रम्प