KINSHASA, (Reuters) - Congo s electoral commission announced on Sunday that long-awaited presidential elections to replace President Joseph Kabila would take place on December 23, 2018. Around 43 million voters have been registered for the vote so far, Corneille Nangaa told a news conference in Democratic Republic of Congo s capital, Kinshasa. The election will be held on December 23, 2018, with the results to be published on January 9, 2019, and the president to be sworn in on January 13, another official from the Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), Jean Pierre Kalamba, told the same news conference. The election, originally scheduled for late 2016, has been repeatedly delayed. Those delays have triggered unrest and raised fears the central African nation could slip back into the conflicts that killed millions around the turn of the century, mostly from hunger and disease. The electoral commission had said last month that the presidential vote could not take place until April 2019 at the earliest, and the opposition had warned that the population would  take matters into its own hands . Opposition leaders reacted furiously to the new date.  The predatory regime wants to prolong the instability and misery of the people. We do not accept this fantasy calendar,  exiled opposition leader Moise Katumbi tweeted. Civil society activist organization Lucha on Twitter also condemned the announcement. Dozens died in protests against Kabila s refusal to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last December.  U.S. envoy Nikki Haley said during a visit to meet with Kabila last month that the vote must happen in 2018 or it will lose international support.     With no imminent election in sight, a political crisis has set in that is fuelling increasing militia violence and lawlessness in Congo s east and center. Clashes between Congolese troops and supporters of a renegade colonel in Congo s eastern city of Bukavu killed seven people on Sunday before he surrendered and turned himself in to U.N. peacekeepers.  Kabila has ruled Congo since his father was assassinated in 2001. He says delays are owing to problems registering millions of voters across the vast, forested country. Opponents say he is using them to eventually remove term limits that prevent him from standing again, as presidents in neighboring Rwanda and Congo Republic have done. He denies that, but has not categorically said he will step aside.

Summary: कांगो में दिसंबर 2018 में होगा राष्ट्रपति चुनाव


LONDON, (Reuters) - Two influential U.S. Congressmen have asked the World Health Organization’s cancer agency to get ready to testify about its work assessing if substances cause cancer, citing concerns about its “scientific integrity”. Their letter to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), seen by Reuters and sent on Wednesday, is part of ongoing investigations by two Congressional committees into IARC that were fueled by the agency’s review of glyphosate, the primary ingredient of Monsanto Co’s weedkiller Roundup. A letter to IARC director Chris Wild from the Republican chairmen of the House Committee on Science and the Subcommittee on Environment said they are “concerned about the scientific integrity” of IARC’s “monograph” program, which assesses whether various substances can cause cancer in people. IARC, a semi-autonomous part of the WHO based in Lyon, France, has in recent years assessed whether substances as diverse as coffee, mobile phones and processed meat cause cancer - reports that have all caused controversy. A spokeswoman for IARC said she could not immediately comment on whether the letter had been received. IARC says its methods are scientifically sound and its monographs are “widely respected for their scientific rigor, standardized and transparent process and ... freedom from conflicts of interest”.    In a second letter seen by Reuters, the Congressmen, Lamar Smith and Andy Biggs, expressed concern that IARC’s assessment meetings, deliberations and drafts are not made public.  “It is an affront to scientific integrity to keep ‘confidential’ a scientific process that directly influences policy and individual taxpayers,” Smith and Biggs wrote.   “With United States’ taxpayer dollars funding (part of the monograph program), it is this (Science) Committee’s duty to ensure sound science and transparency within the agency.” Citing data from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the letter to Wild said that since 1985, IARC has received more than $48 million from NIH, more than $22 million of which went to the monographs program. It added that Smith’s Committee on Science, Space and Technology may soon hold a hearing to receive testimony from IARC on how it conducts its reviews. It asked Wild to provide “names and contact information of IARC-affiliated individuals who would serve as potential witnesses for this hearing”. The second letter, sent on Wednesday to acting U.S. Health Secretary Eric Hargan, asked his department to provide “all documents and communications between or among members of the IARC monograph program and any research institutes or agencies within HHS.” In this letter, the lawmakers said their aim was to understand the extent to which the taxpayer-funded National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Institutes of Health are involved with IARC’s monograph process. This is “to ensure scientific integrity and an honest use of taxpayer dollars”, the letter said.  In an assessment in 2015 that put it at odds with many government regulators, including those in the United States, Europe and Japan, IARC classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic”.          A Reuters investigation in October found that a draft of a key section of IARC’s assessment of glyphosate underwent significant changes before the report was made public. Reuters also reported in June on how the chairman of the IARC glyphosate panel was aware of new data showing no link between the weed-killer and cancer in humans, but the agency did not take it into account because it had not been published. The Congressional committee letters cited these Reuters investigations as well as other media reports, saying they revealed “troubling evidence” about the way IARC operates. In the letters, Smith and Biggs asked IARC to respond by Nov. 8, and the department of Health and Human Services to respond by Nov. 15.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः कांग्रेस कमेटी ने डब्ल्यूएचओ कैंसर एजेंसी के संचालन पर सवाल उठाए


HABUR, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Iraqi Kurds would go hungry if his country halts the flow of trucks and oil across the border with northern Iraq and warned that all military and economic measures were on the table against its neighbor. The comments, some of the harshest yet from Erdogan about Monday s referendum in Iraq s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, came as Iraqi troops joined the Turkish army for military exercises near Turkey s border with northern Iraq. While initial results indicated overwhelming support for independence, Turkey - long northern Iraq s main link to the outside world - sees the referendum as a threat to its own security, fearing it will inflame separatism among its Kurdish population.   (They) will be left in the lurch when we start imposing our sanctions,  Erdogan said in a speech broadcast live on television.  It will be over when we close the oil taps, all (their) revenues will vanish, and they will not be able to find food when our trucks stop going to northern Iraq.  Turkey, which is home to the region s largest Kurdish population, is battling a three-decade Kurdish insurgency in its southeast, which borders northern Iraq. Erdogan said on Monday that traffic was only being allowed to cross from the Turkish side of the border into Iraq. Erdogan has repeatedly threatened economic sanctions, but has given few details. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day flow through a pipeline in Turkey from northern Iraq, connecting the region to global oil markets. Iraq, including the Kurdish region, was Turkey s third-largest export market in 2016, according to IMF data. Turkish exports to the country totaled $8.6 billion, behind Germany and the United Kingdom. Erdogan said all potential measures - including economic and  military initiatives that involved land and air space - were on the table, adding that Iraqi Kurds would be incapable of forming a state.  They don t have an idea on how to be a state. They think that they are a state just by saying it. This can t and won t happen,  he said. Iraqi soldiers joined Turkish troops for military exercises in southeast Turkey near the border with Iraq on Tuesday, a Reuters witness near the border said, as the two countries coordinate steps in response to the referendum. A small group of soldiers holding an Iraqi and a Turkish flag walked across the dusty plain where the exercises, launched last week, were being held 4 km (2.5 miles) from the Habur border gate. The flags were then held aloft from the top of an armored personnel carrier. National and international media observed the exercises from the main highway leading to the border gate. The Turkish president also accused Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, of  treachery  over the vote.  Until the very last moment, we weren t expecting Barzani to make such a mistake as holding the referendum. Apparently we were wrong,  Erdogan said.  This referendum decision, which has been taken without any consultation, is treachery.

Summary: एर्दोगन ने इराकी कुर्दों से कहा कि अगर तुर्की प्रतिबंध लगाता है तो वे भूखे रह जाएंगे


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A group of investigative journalists whose slogan is  digging dung, fertilizing democracy  is holding South African President Jacob Zuma to account over his widely criticized links to a family of wealthy businessmen. AmaBhungane, which means dung beetles in the Zulu language,  was founded by three veteran reporters to expose wrongdoing in South Africa. Together with online news site the Daily Maverick, amaBhungane in June released leaked emails and documents that they said showed allegedly improper dealings in government contracts and influence peddling by the Guptas, a family with close ties to Zuma. Zuma and the Gupta family, which has said the emails were fake, have denied wrongdoing. Co-founder Stefaans Brummer said amaBhungane, which was founded in 2010, had spent several years probing Zuma s family business dealings, and had verified the authenticity of the leaked documents.  Our very first stories as amaBhungane was a series called  Zuma Inc  and we looked at the Zuma family and how its business fortunes had grown since Zuma took the office of president,  Brummer said.  He said the Gupta name popped up in several of amaBhungane s inquiries into Zuma s family business links and the organization was well placed to process the trove of information in more than 100,000 emails and documents.  You fight hard for every piece of information and when something like this happens it s like Christmas, you suddenly have a lot of information,  said Brummer. Brummer said amaBhungane, which mostly uses external hard drives to store documents for safety reasons, had sent a copy of the leaked Gupta emails to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project - a global consortium of investigative journalism centers. Reuters has not independently been able to verify the allegations in the so-called  GuptaLeaks  emails, sent between the Gupta brothers and their associates. The allegations, which came after an anti-corruption watchdog report into claims of influence peddling, opened Zuma up to renewed scrutiny and deepened divisions within the ruling African National Congress. Zuma survived an attempt in parliament to force him from office on Aug. 8, but he was left politically wounded after some ANC members voted with the opposition.   It s quite amazing that people in South Africa have woken up to  state capture  now in 2017 when amaBhungane have been exposing this for a decade,  said Glenda Daniels, a senior media studies lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand.  Perhaps the nature of their exposes were rather intense and detailed for people to follow. Maybe they have now let some air into their writing and everyone is getting it.  As a non-profit company, amaBhungane s 8 million rand  ($600,000) annual budget is funded by grants from charitable foundations and public donations. It does not sell adverts or accept funds from the government or from companies. Sam Sole, another amaBhungane co-founder, said his desire to expose society s injustices drove him into journalism. Both Sole and Brummer started their journalism careers before the end of apartheid in 1994.  During my subsequent conscription into the defense force I came face to face with the sharp, brutish reality of apartheid - and that was the impetus for my first piece of journalism,  said Sole.  Journalism, for me, was a way to fight against injustice.  The third amaBhungane co-founder, Adriaan Basson, is now editor of News24, an online news site. Sole and Brummer have won numerous journalism awards, including for their reporting on a 30 billion rand ($2.3 billion) deal to buy military equipment in the late 1990s that was plagued by allegations of fraud and corruption.  Zuma was linked to the deal through his former financial adviser, who was jailed for corruption. The president said last year that an investigation into the deal found no evidence of wrongdoing, but critics denounced the findings as a cover-up. All charges against Zuma were dropped in 2009, but a court last year ordered a review of the decision. Zuma is appealing the ruling.  The arms deal scandal lasted much longer and was much slower burning, which gave us time to develop some of the skills we use now,  Sole said. For amaBhungane, the aim was to probe the link between politics and money.  We set ourselves a target of trying to find that sweet spot of where organized crime, politics and business intersect,  Brummer said.  Politics has its good side but it has its bad side, business has its good side and its bad side, organized crime is all bad, but there is always that intersection where the three come together and that s where you get the worst wrongdoing.   But amaBhungane has been accused by a group called Black First Land First and some on social media of being run by  racist white men  and not doing enough stories on  white monopoly capital , a phrase used to describe the fact that the white minority still control much of the economy. Brummer said the criticism has not deterred amaBhungane.  We are not going to roll over and die. Investigative journalism is what we do and what we like to do,  he said.

Summary: गोबर खोदनाः दक्षिण अफ्रीका के अमाभुंगने ने जुमा पर दबाव डाला


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief executive officers of two major American companies - retailer Target Corp and agribusiness Archer Daniels Midland Co - offered opposing views in a hearing before U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday on a proposed border adjustment tax. Target CEO Brian Cornell has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Republican-backed border adjustment tax and testified alongside Juan Luciano, president and CEO of ADM, who spoke in favor of the proposal. The border tax would imposes a tax on imports while providing a credit for exports and has been proposed by House Republicans as part of a larger tax code overhaul. Target is a big importer of goods, while ADM exports. House Speaker Paul Ryan argues the proposed border tax, which is estimated to garner $1 trillion, will not affect prices and will allow rate cuts for businesses while not creating deficits, but retailers warn that it could raise consumer prices as much as 15 percent.  Cornell and Luciano took staunchly different positions on the tax.  “Under the new border adjustment tax, American families – your constituents – would pay more so many multinational corporations can pay even less,” Cornell told the committee.  Luciano, on the other hand, argued that the tax would make American companies more competitive. “A competitive tax code will help us continue providing American-made food and feed to our customers in the United States and abroad in the face of robust and, from a tax perspective, ever strengthening competition from abroad,” he said. The outlook for passage of the border tax - which drew staunch opposition from retailers - remains perilous, especially as key Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump have refused to endorse it. Several Republican members of the committee expressed concerns about the tax during the hearing that stretched more than three hours, including Republican Representative Jim Renacci who argued the proposal could hurt small businesses that rely on imports. Dimming the prospects more, lawmakers and lobbyists have begun to speculate that Congress will be unable to rally support for a sweeping tax code overhaul this year, and are beginning to look instead at cutting tax rates without broad reform. The committee heard from two additional supporters of the tax, including William Simon, the former CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc, who despite his past with a large retailer that opposes the tax, endorsed the measure. “We will see more good middle class jobs, a robust U.S. economy and an era of growth that will be led by a new industrial revolution,” Simon said. Lawrence Lindsey, the former director of the National Economic Council under President George W. Bush, also supported the tax. Economist Kimberly Clausing, of Reed College, criticized the proposal, saying she disagrees with the argument by proponents that currency markets would prevent consumer prices from increasing.  “This is an untested tax reform that is not ready for primetime,” she said.

Summary: टारगेट, ए. डी. एम. के सी. ई. ओ. सुनवाई के दौरान अमेरिकी सीमा कर पर अलग-अलग विचार रखते हैं।


ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Europe and Africa have joint responsibility for making migration more humane and orderly so they can end horrifying abuses being committed against African migrants by people smugglers, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Wednesday. He was speaking at a two-day Africa-European Union summit that was meant to focus on development and investment in youth, but had inevitably been overshadowed by the migrant crisis. Reports this month of white Libyan slave traders selling black African migrants at markets in Libya - a grim echo of the trans-Saharan slave trade in centuries past - have drawn worldwide horror. The outcry threatened to put migration to the top of the summit agenda and shine a light on a thorny issue for European leaders faced with a surge in far-right, anti-immigration parties at home.  It is clear that migration is a joint responsibility. It is in all our interests to have orderly migration that is more controlled, more humane and sustainable,  Tusk said in his opening remarks.  The recent reports about the treatment of Africans - especially young people - by smugglers and traffickers are horrifying,  he said, adding that 5,000 migrants had drowned in the Mediterranean last year. Soon after CNN aired grainy images from Libya this month appearing to show migrants being sold as slaves, African governments began recalling diplomats from Tripoli. Protests erupted in France, Senegal and Benin. Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara called for Libyan slave traders to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.  Let s work together to bring more humane solutions to this migration crisis that taints relations between the North and the South,  said Guinea s president, Alpha Conde, the chairman of the African Union. Libya has promised to investigate the reports, but many African citizens also blame European policies for abuses along the migrant trail.  The worst we can do is to start the blame game. What we need now are common solutions and stronger cooperation to save lives, protect people,  Tusk said.  Our common duty is to step up the fight against these unscrupulous criminals.   But European leaders - including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, who head the Franco-German axis at the heart of the EU - are hamstrung by electorates that are increasingly anti-immigration. Despite pressure at home, Merkel on Wednesday highlighted the need to create legal avenues for migration.  However, Gunter Nooke, her special envoy for Africa, later told Reuters that alone would not solve the problem.  There we talk about thousands, tens of thousands. But with (illegal) migration we talk about millions.   He added that no country is going to allow hundreds of thousands of students in from developing nations unless they can be sure most will go back within four years, which he said rarely happened. In a joint statement, the United Nations, African Union and European Union announced the creation of a joint task force  to save and protect lives of migrants and refugees along the routes and in particular inside Libya,  and to speed up returning migrants to countries of origin. European and African leaders met late on Wednesday to discuss the reports of slavery in Libya and the migrant crisis.  We must not only denounce it, we must act, by collectively attacking these smuggling networks,  Macron, who has called the abuses in Libya a crime against humanity, said at the meeting.   We are going to ... to carry out targeted sanctions.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ के टस्कः अफ्रीका, यूरोपीय संघ को 'भयावह' प्रवासी दुर्व्यवहार को समाप्त करने के लिए सहयोग करना चाहिए


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s Emperor Akihito is likely to abdicate at the end of March 2019 and Crown Prince Naruhito is expected to ascend the throne in April, the first abdication by a Japanese monarch in nearly two centuries, the Asahi newspaper reported on Friday. The government is in the final stage of formalizing the schedule, said the Asahi, citing several sources. In June, Japan s parliament passed a law allowing Emperor Akihito to abdicate and the government needs to hammer out the details including the timing.  Japan s top government spokesman denied the Asahi report.  We are not aware of the report and there is not such fact,  Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.  We will continue to discuss appropriately and will do our best to carry out the emperor s abdication smoothly,  he said. Akihito, 83, who has had heart surgery and treatment for prostate cancer, said in rare public remarks last year he feared age might make it hard for him to continue to fulfill his duties.  He will be succeeded by Naruhito, 57, and a new era will start from April 1, the Asahi reported. The abdication law, which applies only to Akihito and not to future emperors, included a resolution to debate letting female royals stay in the imperial family after marriage but did not touch on the controversial topic of allowing women to inherit. Asahi said the expected 2019 abdication schedule would minimize the impact on people in changing to a new imperial reign from the current Heisei Era, which started in 1989 after the death of Akihito s father Hirohito, according to the Asahi.  The Imperial Household Agency also wanted the transition to take place in spring 2019 as many ritual events are scheduled for the imperial family in autumn and winter, the report said. Akihito, the first Japanese emperor who was never considered divine, has worked for decades at home and abroad to soothe the wounds of World War Two which was fought in his father Hirohito s name.  In a written remarks of her 83rd birthday on Friday, Empress Michiko said that she thought this year her travels with Emperor Ahikito around Japan might be their last and have become deeply emotional.  The Empress also said she felt  an immeasurable sense of peace  that Akihito will be able to rest and spend quiet days after years of pursuing how the Emperor should be.

Summary: जापान के सम्राट अकिहितो के मार्च 2019 के अंत में गद्दी छोड़ने की संभावनाः असाही


ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish authorities summoned a U.S. consulate worker to testify on Monday over his relatives  alleged links to last year s failed coup attempt, state-run Anadolu news agency said, days after the arrest of another consulate employee. Anadolu said the suspect was wanted for questioning after his wife and daughter were detained in the Black Sea city of Amasya. It did not say whether he had complied with the summons.  The man s wife and daughter were detained over alleged links to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, Anadolu said, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the abortive putsch. The two were later brought to Istanbul for legal procedures, it said.  U.S. consulate worker N.M.C., husband and father of the suspects in question, has no diplomatic immunity and has been called to the prosecutor s office to testify,  Anadolu quoted a statement from the Istanbul prosecutor s office as saying. On Sunday, the U.S. mission in Turkey and the Turkish mission in Washington cut back visa services after Metin Topuz, a U.S. consulate employee, was arrested in Turkey last week. Washington said the charges linking him to Gulen were baseless.  The prosecutor s office said that testimony from Topuz pointed to the two suspects detained in Amasya being high-ranking members of Gulen s network. Gulen has denied any role in the failed coup.

Summary: तुर्की ने पूछताछ के लिए अमेरिकी वाणिज्य दूतावास के कर्मचारी को तलब कियाः अनादोलु


VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday that the situation on the Korean peninsula was complicated because of provocations by North Korea. The leaders met on the sidelines of an economic summit in the Russian far eastern city of Vladivostok as international concerns grow over Pyongyang s powerful nuclear test at the weekend. Moon added that the situation could become unpredictable if North Korea did not halt its provocative actions, according to a Russian translation of his comments in Korean to Putin.

Summary: दक्षिण कोरिया के मून का कहना है कि उत्तर कोरिया के उकसावे कोरियाई प्रायद्वीप पर स्थिति को जटिल बनाते हैं


(Reuters) - U.S. legislation that would impose new disclosure requirements on political ads that run on Facebook and other websites received support on Wednesday from Senator John McCain, giving a bipartisan boost to a bill already popular among Democrats.  McCain, a longtime supporter of regulating campaign finances, and two Democratic senators, Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner, plan to introduce the legislation on Thursday, according to a statement from their offices on Wednesday. Republicans control the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, so bills generally need Republican support to advance.   Online political ads are much more loosely regulated in the United States than political ads on television, radio and satellite services.  The lack of regulation was highlighted last month when Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc said that they had found election-related ad buys on their services made by people in Russia in the run-up to last year’s U.S. presidential election. Non-Americans are generally not allowed to spend money to influence U.S. elections.  The legislation from the three senators would put online ads under the same rules as television, radio and satellite, so that who paid for them and other information would need to be disclosed.  Last month, after U.S. regulators and criminal investigators began looking at the Russia-linked ads, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said his company would take several voluntary steps to make political ads more transparent, such as allowing anyone to seem them no matter whom they target. Facebook and Twitter said on Wednesday that they are open to working with lawmakers on the matter. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  McCain’s office declined to comment.

Summary: इंटरनेट विज्ञापनों को विनियमित करने के लिए अमेरिकी विधेयक को मैक्केन के साथ द्विदलीय समर्थन प्राप्त हुआ


ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Three United Nations soldiers from Chad were killed and two others wounded by an explosive device as they were escorting a convoy in northern Mali on Thursday, the peacekeeping mission in the West African nation said.  More than 80 members of the UN mission, known as MINUSMA, have been killed since 2013 in attacks by militant groups active in the country s north and center, making it the world s deadliest peacekeeping operation.  The mission said in a statement that the peacekeepers  vehicle struck the explosive device between the northern towns of Tessalit and Aguelhok around 2:30 p.m. (1430 GMT).  MINUSMA spokesman Olivier Salgado later told Radio France Internationale that the soldiers involved were from Chad, which has one of the region s most effective armies.  I condemn with the greatest energy such abject acts, whose only objective is to destabilize the country and harm the peace process under way in Mali,  said interim mission chief Koen Davidse. The rise of jihadist groups - some linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State - in the arid Sahel has alarmed Western powers like France, which has deployed thousands of troops to the region in response.  Four U.S. Special Forces troops were killed earlier this month in neighbouring Niger by fighters believed to belong to a local Islamic State affiliate operating out of Mali. Militants have exploited porous borders - particularly between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso - to step up attacks on military and civilian targets, including tourist sites in regional capitals. The G5 Sahel, an anti-terrorism taskforce of soldiers from those three countries, as well as Chad and Mauritania, plans to launch its first joint operations in the coming days.

Summary: उत्तरी माली में हुए विस्फोट में चाड के तीन संयुक्त राष्ट्र शांति सैनिकों की मौत हो गई


BEIJING (Reuters) - The retired former head of a Chinese state-run news agency has been expelled from the ruling Communist Party for graft, an anti-corruption watchdog said on Monday. Liu Beixian, editor-in-chief of the China News Service until retiring in February 2015, accepted bribes and expensive gifts while abusing his power to obtain financial gain for private enterprises, the watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said in a statement. The commission said Liu, 62, also violated regulations by flying first class multiple times and he was uncooperative when being investigated.  As a leading cadre, Liu Beixian lost his ideals and convictions and had serious thoughts of privilege,  the commission said, adding that the evidence would be transferred to relevant judicial authorities for prosecution. It was not possible to reach Liu or a legal or family representative for comment. Liu was put under investigation in August for  serious disciplinary violations , a euphemism for graft. The China News Service is run under the auspices of the cabinet s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, and is designed to serve as a news source for Chinese communities in places like Hong Kong and self-ruled Taiwan. It is separate from Xinhua, China s official news agency. Liu began working at the China News Service in 1983 and was its Hong Kong bureau chief from 1997 to 2000, according to his official resume. The former British territory was handed back to China in 1997. President Xi Jinping has mounted a sweeping campaign against deep-rooted corruption since taking office five years ago, jailing or meting out lesser punishments to hundreds of thousands of officials.

Summary: चीनी समाचार एजेंसी के पूर्व प्रमुख को भ्रष्टाचार के आरोप में पार्टी से निष्कासित किया गया


BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel is working to set a date this spring for a meeting with Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as U.S. president on Friday, German government sources said on Monday. Merkel had offered to meet Trump in the United States in her capacity as chairman of the Group of 20 leading economies, the sources said. The chancellor has spoken with Trump only once, shortly after his election to succeed U.S. President Barack Obama. In a joint interview published by the Times of London and Germany’s Bild newspaper on Monday, Trump said he had always had “great respect” for Merkel, but described her 2015 decision to allow in a wave of a million migrants as a “catastrophic mistake” that opened the door to terrorist attacks. Merkel refused to comment on the interview during a news conference with New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English, saying she would wait until after Trump’s inauguration and then planned to work with him at all levels of government.

Summary: जर्मनी की मर्केल ट्रम्प के साथ वसंत बैठक की दिशा में काम कर रही हैंः सूत्र


MANILA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in the Philippine capital Manila on Sunday to attend an annual gathering of leaders from East and Southeast Asian countries.  Trump arrived from Vietnam, where he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, during which he delivered a strong message on trade and briefly met Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.  The Philippines will be the last leg of a tour that has also taken Trump to Japan, China and South Korea. Just hours before Trump s arrival, Philippine riot police used water canon to prevent hundreds of anti-American protesters from reaching the U.S. embassy in Manila.

Summary: एशियाई नेताओं के शिखर सम्मेलन में भाग लेने के लिए फिलीपींस पहुंचे ट्रंप


BEIJING (Reuters) - China will not export its political system, President Xi Jinping told a forum for foreign political groups on Friday, as the ruling Communist Party seeks to boost its global image and take a more assertive international role. China s state media has this year touted the annual inter-party meeting as a  high-level dialogue  with Xi speaking at it for the first time. Xi told the forum s opening session China was  struggling for the cause of human progress  and it would bring benefits to every country in the world, according to state television.  We will not import other countries  models, and will not export the China model,  Xi said.  We will provide more opportunities for the world through our development,  he said. The official Xinhua news agency has said that representatives from hundreds of political parties in more than 120 countries have registered for the four-day meeting, though it has not provided a full list. Myanmar s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Tony Parker, treasurer of the U.S. Republican National Committee, were among attendees who spoke at the forum s opening. At a Chinese Communist Party (CPP) congress in October, where Xi cemented his power, he laid out a confident vision for a proud and prosperous China in a  new era  under his leadership.  At the time, he also called on the Communist Party, as the world s biggest political party with 89 million members, to have a  big image . China has expanded the reach of its foreign policy and military under Xi, whose  diplomatic thought  has been credited domestically with transcending 300 years of Western international relations theory and serving as a marker of China s growing soft power. But concern abroad about China using its influence to sway foreign business, academic, and political institutions have grown in tandem. Some foreign business has been alarmed by the increased push for influence by Communist Party units in their operations and joint ventures, and international publishers have sparked academic freedom controversies by pulling content that offends Beijing.  Jude Blanchette, an expert on China s Communist Party at The Conference Board s China Center for Economics and Business in Beijing, said Xi and the party had been re-articulating the idea of a  China solution  for governments around the world.  In isolation, the meeting will be forgotten by next week, but it s a small piece in a much larger strategy to rebrand the CCP from a reactive organization on the wrong side of history into a political force at the center of the global conversation,  Blanchette said.

Summary: राष्ट्रपति शी ने कहा कि चीन अपनी राजनीतिक प्रणाली का निर्यात नहीं करेगा


DAVOS, Switzerland - The global economy is in better shape than it’s been in years. Stock markets are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China, a major source of concern a year ago, have eased. And yet, as political leaders, CEOs and top bankers make their annual trek up the Swiss Alps to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the mood is anything but celebratory. Beneath the veneer of optimism over the economic outlook lurks acute anxiety about an increasingly toxic political climate and a deep sense of uncertainty surrounding the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on the final day of the forum. Last year, the consensus here was that Trump had no chance of being elected. His victory, less than half a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, was a slap at the principles that elites in Davos have long held dear, from globalization and free trade to multilateralism. Trump is the poster child for a new strain of populism that is spreading across the developed world and threatening the post-war liberal democratic order. With elections looming in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and possibly Italy, this year, the nervousness among Davos attendees is palpable. “Regardless of how you view Trump and his positions, his election has led to a deep, deep sense of uncertainty and that will cast a long shadow over Davos,” said Jean-Marie Guehenno, CEO of International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution think-tank. Moises Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was even more blunt: “There is a consensus that something huge is going on, global and in many respects unprecedented. But we don’t know what the causes are, nor how to deal with it.” The titles of the discussion panels at the WEF, which runs from Jan. 17-20, evoke the unsettling new landscape. Among them are “Squeezed and Angry: How to Fix the Middle Class Crisis”, “Politics of Fear or Rebellion of the Forgotten?”, “Tolerance at the Tipping Point?” and “The Post-EU Era”. The list of leaders attending this year is also telling. The star attraction will be Xi Jinping, the first Chinese president ever to attend Davos. His presence is being seen as a sign of Beijing’s growing weight in the world at a time when Trump is promising a more insular, “America first” approach and Europe is pre-occupied with its own troubles, from Brexit to terrorism. British Prime Minister Theresa May, who has the thorny task of taking her country out of the EU, will also be there. But Germany’s Angela Merkel, a Davos regular whose reputation for steady, principled leadership would have fit well with the WEF’s main theme of “Responsive and Responsible Leadership”, will not. Perhaps the central question in Davos, a four-day affair of panel discussions, lunches and cocktail parties that delve into subjects as diverse as terrorism, artificial intelligence and wellness, is whether leaders can agree on the root causes of public anger and begin to articulate a response. A WEF report on global risks released before Davos highlighted “diminishing public trust in institutions” and noted that rebuilding faith in the political process and leaders would be a “difficult task”. Guy Standing, the author of several books on the new “precariat”, a class of people who lack job security and reliable earnings, believes more people are coming around to the idea that free-market capitalism needs to be overhauled, including those that have benefited most from it. “The mainstream corporate types don’t want Trump and far-right authoritarians,” said Standing, who has been invited to Davos for the first time. “They want a sustainable global economy in which they can do business. More and more of them are sensible enough to realize that they have overreached.” But Ian Bremmer, president of U.S.-based political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, is not so sure. He recounted a recent trip to Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York where he saw bankers “rejoicing in the elevators” at the surge in stock markets and the prospect of tax cuts and deregulation under Trump. Both Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his JP Morgan counterpart Jamie Dimon will be in Davos. “If you want to find people who are going to rally together and say capitalism is fundamentally broken, Davos is not the place to go,” Bremmer said. Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), believes a “modern version of globalization” is possible but acknowledges it will take time to emerge. “It is going to be a long haul in persuading a lot of people that there is a different approach. But you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water,” he told Reuters. Still, some attendees worry that the pace of technological change and the integrated, complex nature of the global economy have made it more difficult for leaders to shape and control events, let alone reconfigure the global system. The global financial crisis of 2008/9 and the migrant crisis of 2015/16 exposed the impotence of politicians, deepening public disillusion and pushing people towards populists who offered simple explanations and solutions. The problem, says Ian Goldin, an expert on globalization and development at the University of Oxford, is that on many of the most important issues, from climate change to financial regulation, only multilateral cooperation can deliver results. And this is precisely what the populists reject. “The state of global politics is worse than it’s been in a long time,” said Goldin. “At a time when we need more coordination to tackle issues like climate change and other systemic risks, we are getting more and more insular.”

Summary: दावोस के अभिजात वर्ग जवाब के लिए संघर्ष कर रहे हैं क्योंकि ट्रम्प युग की शुरुआत हो रही है


(Editors Note: Attention to language that may be offensive to some readers in paragraph two) By Laila Kearney (Reuters) - A Fox-affiliated Philadelphia morning show host has been suspended after using a word considered offensive on live television to describe the Trump administration’s Kellyanne Conway, local media reported on Thursday. Good Day Philadelphia’s Mike Jerrick was discussing Conway’s use of the term “alternative facts” on Tuesday with co-host Alex Holley and guests when he said the Trump aide was “good at bullshit.” The group laughed at the remark before Holley apologized to the show’s audience. Jerrick, who did not appear on Fox 29’s “Good Day” on Wednesday or Thursday, has been suspended from the show for an indefinite period, Philadelphia Magazine reported, citing the host. Jerrick and Conway could not immediately be reached for comment. Fox Television Stations said in a statement that it had addressed the incident, but it offered no details. “This is not in line with FOX Television Stations guidelines,” the statement said. A spokeswoman with the broadcast group declined to say whether Jerrick had been suspended. Jerrick, who has also hosted the nationally syndicated Fox talk show “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,” wrote on Instagram late on Wednesday: “Night off. Why not. Always a good fight.” The post was followed by more than 150 comments, some from people who said they would boycott Fox until Jerrick’s return. The “alternative facts” remark drew widespread criticism on social media and has been credited with a spike in sales of George Orwell’s “1984” novel about a dystopian future where people are forced to simultaneously accept contradictory versions of the truth. Conway was responding to accusations that the Trump administration was fixated on the size of his inauguration crowds, saying: “We feel compelled to go out and clear the air and put alternative facts out there.”

Summary: फिलाडेल्फिया फॉक्स के सहयोगी ने कॉनवे की टिप्पणी के लिए टीवी होस्ट को निलंबित कियाः मीडिया


FRANKFURT (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he is determined to engage Germany in a debate that he wants to push forward on European reforms, despite a cool initial response from Chancellor Angela Merkel.  I believe that, if you have a vision, you shouldn t go to the doctor but you should open a debate,  Macron said in Frankfurt, where he was due to meet Merkel and attend the opening of an annual book fair. Macron s visit is his first to Germany since Merkel narrowly won an election last month, losing votes to a far-right party that drew support from people angered by an influx of more than a million migrants over the past two years. The 39-year-old French president, in a speech two days after the German vote, set out an ambitious vision for Europe, calling for tighter cooperation on defense and immigration, and for a common euro zone budget. Merkel, still to begin what promise to be difficult talks on building a new coalition government, has cautioned that reforming the euro zone should not be the top priority and the debate should be more inclusive. Macron was taking part in a panel discussion at Frankfurt s Goethe University with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the Green politician best known for his role in the Paris student protests of 1968, and Gilles Kepel, a political scientist and expert on the Middle East.

Summary: मैक्रों ने यूरोप सुधारों पर बहस में जर्मनी को शामिल करने का संकल्प लिया


DUBLIN/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ireland s foreign minister warned on Friday there was still  a way to go  in Brexit talks on the Irish border and welcomed an EU paper suggesting Britain needs to avoid  regulatory divergence  with the bloc if it wants to maintain a soft border. The future EU/UK land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is one of three issues   along with the exit bill and safeguarding expatriate rights   that Brussels wants broadly solved before it decides in December whether to give the green light to move on to talks on future trade relations.  I think that there is a way to go between the two negotiating teams to be able to provide credible answers and sufficient progress in the context of the Irish border before we can move on to Phase Two,  Coveney told Irish state broadcaster RTE.   While we welcome the language we get from the British government in the context of north-south challenges... there has always been a scepticism on how we are going to get there in the context of the British approach to Brexit as a whole.  The Irish government has called on Britain to do more than simply promise a  hard  border will not return between it and Northern Ireland, which until a 1998 peace deal was separated by military checkpoints because of 30 years of sectarian violence in the British province. The best way to achieve this is by maintaining the same regulations on both sides of the border, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Friday, adding that this did not amount to a demand that any part of the UK remain in the EU customs union. That point was underlined in a working paper circulated to governments by the EU s Brexit task force this week, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. It said it was essential the UK committed to ensuring no regulatory divergence emerges from the customs union if it wants to prevent a hard border. While Britain restated its commitment on Friday to avoid erecting any physical infrastructure on the border, it also plans to quit the customs union and does not want to be bound by EU rules and regulations once it leaves. Brexit minister David Davis said a deal on the border was only possible in the context of talks on future trade and that  cannot amount to creating a new border inside the UK , a nod to the Northern Ireland unionists backing his government firmly opposed to the province staying in the customs union. Coveney said the working paper showed that the other 26 EU countries remained  absolutely in sync  with Ireland on the issue and EU diplomats said there had been no shift in position. While some analysts saw it pushing for Northern Ireland to effectively remain in the customs union and single market in order to ensure regulations remained the same on both sides of the border, it can equally be read as suggesting the whole United Kingdom must not let its rules diverge far from the EU.  This is simply confronting the British with the logic of Brexit and the avoidance of a hard border,  one senior EU diplomat said.  Either London ensures no regulatory divergence between north and south but allows divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland that would create an effective customs border in the Irish Sea, he added.  Or, to avoid a new internal UK border as Davis said, the UK as a whole must continue to follow EU market rules and standards closely   something that EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier called for on Thursday.  They need to clarify this to have sufficient progress,  one Irish official said.  Asked whether Ireland might veto a move onto trade talks, Coveney said he did not think it was helpful  at this stage  to talk about individual countries blocking things.

Summary: आयरलैंड ब्रेक्सिट वार्ता में सीमा पर समझौते से पहले 'एक रास्ता देखता है'


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A crisis over the relationship between President Donald Trump’s aides and Russia deepened on Wednesday as a growing number of Trump’s fellow Republicans demanded expanded congressional inquiries into the matter. Trump sought to focus attention on what he called criminal intelligence leaks about his ousted national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump forced Flynn out on Monday after disclosures he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office, and that he later misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. The drama of Flynn’s departure was the latest in a series of White House missteps and controversies since the Republican president was sworn in on Jan. 20. At a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, Trump said Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was a “wonderful man” who had been mistreated by the news media. But Republican Trump critics including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham voiced fresh consternation. Adding to the pressure were comments by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, who has been a Trump supporter. Corker said the Russia issue was threatening Trump’s agenda on foreign affairs and domestic matters like healthcare and tax policy. He questioned whether the White House was able to stabilize itself and said Flynn should testify before Congress. “Let’s get everything out as quickly as possible on this Russia issue,” Corker told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “Maybe there’s a problem that obviously goes much deeper than what we now suspect.” Democrats, doubting Trump’s Justice Department or the Republican-led Congress will pursue the matter vigorously, have demanded an independent investigation of possible illegal communications between Flynn and the Russian government and any efforts by Flynn or other White House officials to conceal wrongdoing. The most powerful Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a close ally of Trump, must recuse himself from any investigation. The Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee asked Sessions and FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday to send the committee documents and provide a briefing on Flynn’s resignation. Citing reports that both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department were involved in events leading to Flynn’s departure, Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein said they raised “substantial questions” about Flynn’s discussion with Russian officials. Graham called for a broader bipartisan congressional investigation to be conducted by a newly formed special committee rather than existing committees, if it turns out  Trump’s presidential campaign communicated with the Russians. But the top Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives have insisted the matter be investigated by existing Republican-led committees. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees and a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary committee have announced they launched investigations into alleged Russian efforts to influence the election through computer hacking. U.S. intelligence agencies previously concluded that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the presidential campaign as part of efforts to tilt the vote in the Nov. 8 election in Trump’s favor. Congressional inquiries into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. elections are gaining momentum as Capitol Hill investigators press intelligence and law enforcement agencies for access to classified documents.  The FBI and several U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating Russian espionage operations in the United States. They are also looking at contacts in Russia between Russian intelligence officers or others with ties to President Vladimir Putin’s government and people connected to Trump or his campaign. The FBI recently questioned Flynn about his telephone contacts with the Russian ambassador in Washington. People familiar with the agency’s multiple probes said there was no evidence so far of pre-election collusion between Russians and Trump’s campaign, or any evidence of criminal activity by Flynn or anyone else connected to Trump. Some experts expressed concern the White House could curtail or divert probes into Flynn and Russian involvement in the election unless Congress becomes more aggressive by holding hearings and appointing an independent commission or special prosecutor into whether Trump’s team violated federal laws in their contacts with Russia. Intelligence agencies now overseen by Trump may not be ideally suited to the job, they added. “It’s not, at the end of the day, the job of the intelligence community to regulate the White House - and it shouldn’t be,” said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor who focuses on constitutional law and national security. ‘VERY UN-AMERICAN’ In Twitter posts on Wednesday, Trump called the reported Russian connection with his campaign team nonsense and said the leaks were the “real scandal.” From early on in his White House bid, Trump said he would like improved relations with Putin, a stance criticized by Democrats and those Republicans concerned about Washington softening its stance after Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and aggression in Syria. Only a few Republican lawmakers have supported even the idea of extending any investigation to cover actions by Trump’s team in the weeks after the election, when Flynn made his calls. Some Republicans, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, are calling for investigations into leaks to the news media of conversations between Flynn and Russia’s ambassador in Washington. The Trump administration has offered Flynn’s former job to U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert Harward, said two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. It was not immediately clear if Harward, a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, had accepted the offer, according to sources.

Summary: अमेरिकी सांसदों ने ट्रम्प टीम के रूस संबंधों पर जवाब के लिए जोर दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President George W. Bush had every intention of sticking to his self-imposed exile from politics, but found that the phone kept ringing with appeals from Republican U.S. Senate candidates for help, friends say. As a result, Bush has embarked on a rescue mission to try to preserve the Republicans’ narrow Senate majority in a year in which many party figures fear presumptive nominee Donald Trump will drag them down to defeat in the Nov. 8 elections. Republicans control 54 seats in the 100-member Senate. “I think that this is a one-off, temporary thing that where he can be helpful he will be,” said Dana Perino, who was Bush’s White House press secretary. Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush’s secretary of state and is now a political science professor at Stanford University, is also raising money for Republican candidates, but on Friday ruled out speculation that she might be drafted as Trump’s vice presidential running mate. “Dr. Rice has repeatedly said in past cycles as well as this one, she’s not interested in being vice president. She’s happy at Stanford and plans to stay,” said Rice chief of staff Georgia Godfrey. Friends say Bush was initially reluctant to get involved, feeling his time in the limelight had passed. They said he was surprised at the appeals he was receiving to get back into politics more than seven years after his eight-year White House run ended. So far Bush has headlined fund-raising events for Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. He plans to help senators Rob Portman of Ohio, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Roy Blunt of Missouri. Bush is no fan of Trump, but to a certain extent, he is doing Trump a favor in spite of the continuing antagonism toward the Bush family from the bellicose New York businessman. Typically, the party’s nominee is the chief fund-raiser in election years, but Trump’s fund-raising effort has lagged. Meanwhile, Trump continues to take swipes at the Bush family, particularly at Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who was defeated by Trump in the Republican presidential primary race. On Wednesday in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump complained about Jeb’s decision not to honor a pledge made last year to support the Republican presidential nominee whoever it is. “He signed the pledge but he hasn’t endorsed me,” Trump said. Like his brother, Jeb Bush is helping raise money for Republican congressional candidates. “The Bush family has a deep love for the party and cares about the future and in light of Trump’s capacity to damage the brand, I think this is part and parcel of doing what they can to preserve the party,” said Jeb Bush’s spokeswoman, Kristy Campbell.

Summary: जॉर्ज डब्ल्यू बुश ने निर्वासन समाप्त किया, रिपब्लिकन को धन जुटाने में मदद की


MANDAN, N.D. (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would get into “great detail” in the next two weeks on his U.S. tax reform plan, which has been short on specifics, even after months of discussions among administration and congressional leaders. Trump, at a speech in North Dakota, listed his broad principles for tax reform as simplifying the U.S. tax code and providing tax relief to middle-class Americans, ideas he has been talking about since his 2016 presidential campaign. “We’re going to get into great detail over the next two weeks, but we’re working on it with Congress now and coming up with very exacting numbers,” Trump said. The U.S. stock market rallied earlier this year on hopes of swift tax cuts for businesses under Trump, but analysts have since reduced expectations for major tax changes this year. The Republican party is still divided on significant issues, such as whether or not tax cuts should be offset with spending cuts to avoid expanding the federal budget deficit and how deeply to cut the corporate income tax rate.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who accompanied Trump on the trip, said he expected the administration’s tax plan to be considered by congressional committees later this month. “We have a plan. The plan’s being socialized with members,” Mnuchin told reporters on Air Force One on the return to Washington. “Our expectation is it will be in the (congressional) committees later this month,” he said. Mnuchin is one of a six-member Republican team that has been negotiating a tax plan behind closed doors for months, excluding Democrats and producing only a few pages of basic principles. Some members of the team have recently tangled with Trump. Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn is also a member of the “Big Six” team. According to sources close to the White House and an administration official, Trump has soured on nominating Cohn to lead the Federal Reserve.  That comes, two sources said, since Cohn criticized the president’s response to the violence sparked by a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month. McConnell, leader of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate, is also a Big Six team member. McConnell was attacked repeatedly last month by Trump on Twitter over Congress’s failure to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota flew with Trump to her home state for the speech and was called on stage by the president along with Republican officials. “Everybody’s saying, ‘What’s she doing up here?’” Trump said. “But I’ll tell you what: Good woman, and I think we’ll have your support.” Trump is trying to persuade Democrats to support his push to cut tax rates and simplify the tax code this year, a plan critical to bolstering Republicans heading into 2018 midterm elections, but which so far has included few details. Heitkamp said in a statement that having Trump visit North Dakota was a good opportunity for the state to explain its priorities. She said she was “open to working with Republicans and Democrats on comprehensive, permanent tax reform”, but she cautioned that “the devil is in the details.”  The White House plans to put Trump out on the road on a near-weekly basis this fall to sell his plan, which faces huge obstacles in Congress. Republicans control Congress but have so far been unable to pass Trump’s top legislative priorities.

Summary: ट्रम्प का कहना है कि वह अगले दो हफ्तों में कर सुधार पर 'बहुत विस्तार' में जाएंगे


HARARE (Reuters) - In the annals of missed stories, it ranks up there. When Wednesday s edition of The Herald, Zimbabwe s main state newspaper, hit the streets, Zimbabweans were surprised to learn that talk of ructions between President Robert Mugabe s ruling ZANU-PF party and military chief Constantino Chiwenga were unfounded.  ZANU-PF unfazed by Chiwenga,  the Herald declared on its front page, reporting on the party s denunciation of the military chief as a traitor the previous day. Most people in Harare had spent the night glued to social media and the Internet for updates on a coup slowly unfolding against 93-year-old Mugabe, Zimbabwe s leader of the last 37 years. Just after 4 a.m., an army spokesman in camouflage fatigues appeared on state media to announce that the army had seized power. The final line of his declaration:  To the media, we urge you report fairly and responsibly .

Summary: तख्तापलट? कौन सा तख्तापलट? जिम्बाब्वे का हेराल्ड मुगाबे पर सैन्य कदम से चूक गया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday it would continue to work with Republican Senator Marco Rubio as he seeks a further expansion of a child tax credit in a tax overhaul bill, but that it was proud lawmakers were already considering doubling it. “We’re really proud of the work that we’ve done already, up until this point with Senator Rubio, already doubling the child tax credit,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. “We’re going to continue working with the senator, but we think we’ve made great strides.”

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने कहा कि वह बाल कर क्रेडिट पर रूबियो के साथ काम करेगा


(Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives’ tax panel continued debating amendments on Tuesday to a tax bill offered by congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump. The following are its major provisions, grouped as revenue-losing tax cuts or revenue-gaining tax increases, based on 2018-27 fiscal estimates by Congress’s nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. CORPORATE RATE. Cuts corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. Federal revenue loss: $1.5 trillion over 10 years from 2018 through 2027. PASS-THROUGHS. Caps maximum tax rate on small businesses and other non-corporate enterprises at 25 percent, down from present top rate on “pass-through” income of 39.6 percent. Sets rules for distinguishing between individual wage income and actual pass-through business income to block abuse. Loss: $448 billion. TERRITORIAL SYSTEM. Ends ‘worldwide’ system used by United States to tax corporations’ domestic and foreign profits. Adopts ‘territorial’ system making foreign profits brought into the country tax-exempt. Ends ‘deferral’ rule that lets corporations hold foreign profits abroad tax-free. Loss: $205 billion. CAPITAL EXPENSING. Allows businesses to immediately write off, or expense, at full value certain new capital investments. Relaxes similar write-off requirements for small businesses. Allows more businesses to use cash accounting and other simplified accounting formats. Loss: $66 billion. CORPORATE MINIMUM. Repeals 20 percent federal corporate alternative minimum tax. Loss: $40 billion.  REPATRIATION. Imposes mandatory one-time tax on $2.6 trillion in foreign profits held abroad under deferral rule, at 12 percent for cash; 5 percent for illiquid assets. Both are far below the 35 percent rate corporations would owe if they brought the same profits into the country, or repatriated them, under present law. Tax due as a result of one-time tax would be payable over eight years. Gain: $223 billion. INTEREST DEDUCTIONS. Limits interest cost deductions to 30 percent of taxable income. Exempts businesses with average gross receipts under $25 million, some public utilities and “real property trades.” Gain: $172 billion. NOL CARRY. Tightens carry-back and carry-forward by businesses of net operating losses (NOL). Gain: $156 billion. FOREIGN COMPANIES. Slaps 20 percent excise tax on large, foreign-owned companies active in U.S. market that import goods and pay royalties or other tax-deductible, non-interest fees to foreign parents. Exempts those that agree to treat these payments as income connected to their U.S. business and subject to overall U.S. income tax. Gain: $154 billion. DOMESTIC PRODUCTION. Repeals deduction for domestic production activities. Gain: $95 billion. MINIMUM TAX. Imposes new 10 percent minimum tax on U.S. companies’ high-profit foreign units. Gain: $77 billion. VETERANS, DISABLED, KIDS. Repeals tax credits that subsidize business costs of testing for rare diseases; employer-provided child care; fixing historic buildings; first-year wage costs for veterans, poor people, ex-prisoners and kids working summer jobs; providing access for disabled; and Social Security on waiters’ and waitresses’ tips. Gain: $73 billion. STADIUMS. Repeals tax deduction for government bonds to subsidize stadiums and other projects. Gain: $57 billion. FRINGE BENEFITS. Curbs deductions for entertainment, amusement and recreation facilities. Gain: $34 billion. LIKE-KIND. Closes loophole some taxpayers use to avoid tax on gains in property values by swapping for similar property in “like-kind exchanges.” Gain: $30 billion. CLEAN ENERGY. Repeals or curtails tax credits for producing  electricity from wind, biomass, geothermal, solar, municipal waste and hydro power; constructing alternative energy plants; and installing alternative energy equipment. Gain: $15 billion. FDIC PREMIUMS. Limits federal deductibility of big banks’ Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation premiums. Gain: $14 billion. STATEHOUSE LOBBYING. Restricts deductions for incentives from state and local governments to stop a business from relocating and local government lobbying. Gain: $8 billion. ROLL-OVERS. Tightens rules on rolling over gains from stock sales into a small business; selling inventions, patents and copyrighted material; and ending partnerships. Gain: $4 billion. FEWER BRACKETS. Consolidates tax brackets from seven to the following: For married couples filing jointly, zero tax on income up to $24,000; 12 percent from $24,000 to $90,000; 25 percent from $90,000 to $260,000; 35 percent from $260,000 to $1 million; 39.6 percent over $1 million. For unmarried individuals and married couples filing separately, the bracket thresholds would be about half of those above, except the 35 percent bracket for unmarried individuals would click in at $200,000. Revenue loss: $1.1 trillion. STANDARD DEDUCTION. Increases standard deduction for taxpayers to $12,200 from $6,350 for individuals, and to $24,400 from $12,700 for married couples. Loss: $913 billion. AMT. Repeals alternative minimum tax on high-income taxpayers. Loss: $695 billion. CHILD TAX CREDIT. Expands child tax credit to $1,600 from $1,000. Creates $300 credit for parent and non-child dependent. Preserves child and dependent care credit. Loss: $640 billion. INHERITANCES. Doubles exemption from estate tax on inherited assets and repeals tax over six years. Loss: $172 billion. PERSONAL EXEMPTION. Repeals $4,050 individual personal exemption. Revenue gain. $1.6 trillion MORTGAGES, STATE AND LOCAL TAXES AND MORE. Lowers cap on interest deduction for new mortgages to $500,000 from $1 million in home debt. Repeals mortgage interest deduction for second homes. Repeals deduction for state and local income and sales tax paid by individuals and families, but preserves it for business owners. Caps deduction for state and local property tax paid at $10,000. Repeals deductions for personal casualty losses, tax preparation costs and medical expenses. Repeals cap on itemized deductions for high-earners. Gain: $1.3 trillion.  COLLEGE COSTS. Repeals and consolidates several tax breaks for higher education costs. Gain: $65 billion.      MOVING, DIVORCE. Repeals moving expense deduction and income exclusion for moving expense reimbursements. Ends alimony deduction. Gain: $27 billion. IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED. Sets new identification requirements for taxpayers claiming tax credits for children, education costs or earned income. Gain: $23 billion. HOME GAINS. Restricts tax exemption on gains in home value and imposes new residence requirements. Gain: $22 billion.   EMPLOYEES, TEACHERS. Repeals tax break for employee awards. Ends teacher expenses deduction. Ends tax break for dependent care expenses. Gain: $9 billion. ELDERLY, ADOPTIONS. Curtails tax credits for elderly and disabled, child adoption expenses, mortgage credit certificates, plug-in electric vehicles. Gain: $4 billion.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः टैक्स बिल में क्या है यू. एस. हाउस रिपब्लिकन बहस कर रहे हैं?


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. senator said on Tuesday he would like to pass legislation to extend expiring sanctions on Iran and enable Congress to quickly enact new ones if necessary over the country’s ballistic missile tests. The Iran Sanctions Act, which imposed nuclear, missile and terrorism sanctions on Iran, expires at the end of 2016, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress support extending it. But Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged that lawmakers have not yet unified behind a proposal that would attract enough votes to pass and become law. “Members have different views,” he said at a roundtable discussion with reporters. The Obama administration has warned Congress that it would oppose new sanctions that interfere with the international nuclear pact, laying the groundwork for a potential fight over any legislation. Senator Bob Corker, the committee’s Republican chairman, has said he is working on legislation with Cardin that he hopes will attract strong bipartisan support. That measure has not yet been unveiled and aides said they had no more information about when it might be introduced. Cardin was one of several Democrats who joined every Republican in Congress in opposing the nuclear agreement with Iran announced last July. But he has urged lawmakers to accept it since a Republican-led effort to block the pact failed in September. After the deal went ahead, Cardin filed legislation meant to increase U.S. oversight of it. That bill never came up for a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. Cardin said he still felt that bill was valid and wants to amend it to extend the Iran Sanctions Act and create a “legislative framework” so sanctions could be imposed quickly if Iran pursues its ballistic missile program. Late last month, two Democratic senators who supported the Iran nuclear agreement, Tim Kaine and Chris Murphy, introduced a separate bill to extend the Iran Sanctions Act until Obama can guarantee Iran’s nuclear program is purely peaceful.  And Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, with 18 other senators form her party, introduced a separate bill that would extend the Iran Sanctions Act through 2031 and require new sanctions over Iran’s ballistic missile efforts. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has said he wants any Iran bill to come to the floor with at least the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto.

Summary: अमेरिकी सांसद ईरान पर और प्रतिबंध चाहते हैं, लेकिन सहमत नहीं हो सकते


WASHINGTON - The chairman of a U.S. House committee that oversees child abuse issues opened an inquiry Friday into whether the federal government is failing to enforce a law meant to protect thousands of babies born dependent on drugs each year. The inquiry, launched by Representative John Kline of Minnesota, comes in response to a Reuters investigation last month that identified 110 examples of children who were exposed to opioids while in the womb and later died preventable deaths after leaving the hospital. No more than nine states comply with a 2003 law that calls on hospitals to alert social workers whenever a baby is born dependent on drugs, the news agency found. Since the law was enacted, the number of newborns diagnosed with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome has skyrocketed – from 4,991 cases in 2003 to 27,315 in 2013, federal data show. A Reuters analysis found that thousands of drug-dependant newborns are sent home each year without a referral to social service agencies, contrary to the intent of the federal law. Those referrals are intended to help social workers develop a “plan of safe care” for the newborns and mothers. Although most states fail to comply with the provisions, Reuters found none has lost federal funding. In a letter Friday, Kline told Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell that he was “deeply concerned” that the agency may not be enforcing the law.  “A Reuters investigation released in December cast serious doubts over whether these basic requirements in federal law are being followed,” wrote Kline, a Republican who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The letter was co-signed by Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, who chairs a subcommittee on early childhood education. “The Reuters investigation reveals the shocking and deadly consequences when these vital federal and state child welfare policies are not properly implemented and enforced,” the lawmakers wrote. “Even more troubling, according to the Reuters report, there are some states that have failed to put these policies in place altogether, yet not a single state is being denied … funds.” Kline and Rokita asked Health and Human Services officials to explain the review process for determining whether each state has created a safe-care plan for babies born drug-dependent, and to make clear the consequences for states that do not comply. Agency officials did not immediately respond to the lawmakers’ letter.  The primary backer of a key provision in the 2003 law, former Representative James Greenwood, said he was “delighted” that Kline and Rokita took “this step to light a fire under” the Department of Health and Human Services.  “Precious little lives are at stake,” Greenwood said. Last month, top U.S. senators also called for action. Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, asked for an “emergency surge” of funds to help protect the newborns, and Sen. Robert Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, sought oversight hearings. The senior Republican in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said the series “brings to the forefront a problem” that he has urged the Obama Administration to address faster. The Reuters investigation, “Helpless & Hooked,” can be found here. (reut.rs/1NSc7uC) Kline and Rokita’s letter to the Health and Human Services secretary can be found here. (1.usa.gov/235146g)

Summary: सदन ने नशीली दवाओं पर निर्भर नवजात शिशुओं की मौत की जांच शुरू की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the U.S. Congress worked to reach agreement on a short-term spending measure to keep the federal government open, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday a shutdown could still happen. “It is always a possibility but it’s certainly not what we hope for,” she said at a media briefing, adding that the top Democrats in Congress, Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, would meet with Trump this week.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस का कहना है कि सरकार के बंद होने की संभावना हमेशा बनी रहती है


BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary s main opposition party would be unable to compete at an election next April if state auditors impose a heavy fine in a campaign finance case, a vice chairman for the nationalist Jobbik party told Reuters on Thursday.     The party, which was once on the far right but has moved toward the center in recent years, lags far behind the ruling party Fidesz, according to opinion polls. The case could hurt Jobbik s bid to take the political center ground from the populist and nativist Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has ruled Hungary since 2010. Jobbik should pay a fine of 331 million forints ($1.24 million), equal to a price advantage it received illegally for a billboard campaign. Its annual state subsidy should also be cut by the same sum as a penalty, the auditors said on Wednesday in a preliminary finding. Jobbik denies wrongdoing and has 15 days to respond to the findings. The auditor, called ASZ, will deliver a final ruling in a few weeks and Jobbik would then have to pay the fine even if it challenges the decision in court. The penalties are more than Jobbik s 476 million forint annual state subsidy, which is the party s largest source of funding as it receives only small contributions from donors, Jobbik vice chairman Janos Volner said.  This case has been so absurd that anything is possible,  he said, adding that the inquiry could be a pretext to try to dissolve the party.  They will shake us down for every last penny we have,  he told Reuters by phone. The auditor is independent and non-political, said its spokesman Balint Nemeth. ASZ Chairman Laszlo Domokos is a former Fidesz lawmaker while Chief Prosecutor Peter Polt is a former Fidesz member twice appointed to his post by Fidesz-dominated parliaments. On Wednesday, prosecutors also pressed espionage charges against Jobbik European Parliament member Bela Kovacs, who subsequently quit the party. In its ad campaign Jobbik accused Orban and some of his associates of corruption. The party used billboards owned by a tycoon named Lajos Simicska for the campaign. Simicska was once a key ally of Orban who has since become a supporter of Jobbik. In stormy debates with Jobbik party leader Gabor Vona in parliament, Orban has repeatedly said Jobbik has been hijacked by Simicska and accused it of doing his bidding. Jobbik and Simicska deny this. Fidesz restricted the use of privately-owned billboards by political parties in a recent law. Jobbik then bought more than 1,000 billboards outright. The party has declined to detail the sources it used for that deal. ($1 = 266.53 forints)

Summary: हंगरी की जोबिक पार्टी का कहना है कि 2018 के मतदान से पहले इसे दिवालिया बनाने का अच्छा जोखिम है


GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. s freedom of speech expert said on Wednesday he was concerned about the ramifications of a decision in the United States to roll back net neutrality, since it could lead to small and independent voices being drowned out on the web. Last week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal rules intended to ensure a free and open internet, setting up a court fight over a move that could recast the digital landscape. David Kaye, an American law professor and the U.N. Human Rights Council s independent expert on freedom of expression, said net neutrality, the idea that all internet traffic should be treated the same regardless of content, was essential.  Net neutrality is a really, really important principle from the perspective of ensuring broad access to information by all individuals,  Kaye told reporters in Geneva on the sidelines of the Internet Governance Forum.  I don t want to say that tomorrow there will be a huge amount of censorship, but over the long term, combine this with the concentration of media in the United States and in most places around the world, I think we should be worried about the ability of smaller voices that often (find it) harder to get traction in the market.       He said it would take years to know exactly what impact the U.S. move would have.  My concern in the U.S. space is that over time the companies will make decisions based more on their business model than on the content of information and the breadth of information that people should have access to,  he said.   That s a long-term problem and that s why I m very, very concerned about the rollback of net neutrality.  As companies blur the lines between providing the infrastructure and the content that makes up the internet, there is increasing risk of political pressure creeping in, Kaye said.   We used to think of telcos being very separate from content providers. But there s a lot of convergence now. So one of the risks is as content and infrastructure are merged more, the pressures on both, which might be of a political nature ... might restrict certain kinds of coverage.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र बोलने की स्वतंत्रता विशेषज्ञ नेट तटस्थता के बारे में चिंतित हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House officials said on Friday they did not know yet whether President Donald Trump would seek to block former FBI Director James Comey from testifying to Congress next week, a move that could spark a political backlash. “I have not spoken to counsel yet. I don’t know how they’re going to respond,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters. Comey was leading a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign when the president fired him last month. Critics have charged that Trump was seeking to hinder the FBI’s investigation by dismissing Comey. The former FBI chief is due to testify on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its own Russia-related investigation, and his remarks could cause problems for the Republican president. Comey is widely expected to be asked about conversations in which the president reportedly pressured him to drop an investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whose ties to Russia are under scrutiny. Critics have said that such pressure could potentially amount to obstruction of justice. Presidents can assert executive privilege to prevent government employees from sharing information. However, legal experts say it is not clear whether certain conversations between Trump and Comey that the president has talked about publicly would be covered, and any effort to block Comey, who is now a private citizen, from testifying could be challenged in court. Democratic lawmakers sent White House counsel Donald McGahn a letter warning that invoking executive privilege “would be seen as an effort to obstruct the truth from both Congress and the American people.”  In an interview with ABC News, White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway appeared to indicate the president would allow Comey to testify. “We’ll be watching with the rest of the world when Director Comey testifies,” she said. But asked directly whether Trump would invoke executive privilege on Comey’s testimony, she added: “The president will make that decision.” Amid a political firestorm touched off by Comey’s firing, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel last month to take the lead on the Russia investigation. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the Russian government sought to influence the U.S. election in Trump’s favor, a charge Russia has denied. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, said on Thursday some Russians may have acted on their own. Trump, who has raised doubts about the U.S. agencies’ findings and denounced the continuing Russia probes, has denied any collusion.

Summary: क्या ट्रम्प कोमी की गवाही को रोकेंगे? व्हाइट हाउस को अभी तक पता नहीं है


MADRID (Reuters) - The detention of Catalan activists on Monday, the first imprisonment of senior secessionist figures since the region s Oct. 1 banned referendum on independence, was a judicial, not a political, matter, Spain s justice minister said on Tuesday. On Monday, the court ordered that the heads of the pro-independence groups Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Omnium be held without bail pending an investigation for alleged sedition.  These are not political prisoners because yesterday s prison ruling was due to a crime (that was committed),  Justice Minister Rafael Catala said at an event in Madrid.

Summary: कैटलन कार्यकर्ताओं को हिरासत में लेना न्यायिक मामला है, न कि राजनीतिकः स्पेन के न्याय मंत्री


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Myanmar authorities have given approval for the first deliveries of foreign aid in the northwest of the country, Turkey said on Tuesday, after President Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, Erdogan s spokesman said. Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said 1,000 tonnes of food, clothes and medicine would be delivered to the area by helicopter from Wednesday, where Muslim Rohingya are fleeing violence.

Summary: तुर्की का कहना है कि म्यांमार ने प्राथमिक विदेशी सहायता वितरण की अनुमति दी है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said on Thursday the Trump administration thinks the threat posed by North Korea s nuclear weapons capability is currently manageable but Pyongyang cannot be allowed to develop the ability to strike the U.S. homeland.  A state that has developed a pretty good ICBM (missile) capability and is developing a pretty good nuclear re-entry vehicle, I would believe ... that that state simply cannot have the ability to reach the homeland,  Kelly said.  Right now we think the threat is manageable but over time if it grows beyond where it is today, well, let s hope that diplomacy works,  said Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general.

Summary: अमेरिका का मानना है कि उत्तर कोरिया के वर्तमान परमाणु खतरे को नियंत्रित किया जा सकता हैः व्हाइट हाउस


LONDON (Reuters) - An aardvark was killed and four meerkats are missing believed dead after a blaze tore through part of London Zoo early on Saturday, destroying a cafe and gift shop. The fire broke out shortly after 0600 GMT at the zoo s Animal Adventure section before spreading to the shop and cafe, near to an area where visitors can handle and feed animals, the zoo and London Fire Brigade said. More than 70 firefighters took three hours to bring the fire under control while desperate keepers who live on the site in Regent s Park in central London moved animals to safety. Some of the staff needed treatment for smoke inhalation and shock. Ten-year-old Misha the aardvark, one of the zoo s best-loved animals, perished in the fire and four of the meerkats were unaccounted for and are also presumed to have died. Taking their name from the Afrikaans word for  earth-pig , aardvarks are large burrowing mammals found across much of Africa.  We re absolutely devastated that Misha the aardvark has been killed and we re still trying to find out what happened to the meerkats, but at the moment the site where this fire took place is closed down,  Dominic Jermey, the zoo s Director General, told BBC TV.   At the moment we re not certain what has happened to the meerkats but I m not optimistic at this stage, unfortunately.  Other animals nearby are being monitored by vets, but the zoo said indications were that they were unaffected. It said it hoped to reopen on Sunday. It is the world s oldest scientific zoo, dating from 1826, and houses 20,166 animals, according to its inventory for 2017.  The fire brigade said it had sent 10 fire engines and 72 firefighters to the scene and added that the cause of the blaze was under investigation.  The fire mainly involved the cafe and shop but part of a nearby animal petting area was also affected,  said Station Manager David George.   When they arrived our crews were faced with a very well developed fire. They worked incredibly hard in arduous conditions to bring it under control as quickly as possible and to stop it from spreading to neighboring animal enclosures.

Summary: लंदन चिड़ियाघर में आग लगने से आर्डवार्क की मौत, मीरकैट लापता


ABOARD CLINTON CAMPAIGN PLANE (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the proposed tie-up between AT&T Inc and Time Warner Inc raised concerns that needed study. “I think it raises questions and concerns, and they should be looked into,” she told reporters on her campaign plane. “If I’m fortunate enough to be president, I will expect the government to conduct a very thorough analysis before making a decision,” she said.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने एटी एंड टी-टाइम वार्नर सौदे पर चिंता व्यक्त की


COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Doctors treating some of the 429,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in recent weeks have seen dozens of women with injuries consistent with violent sexual attacks, U.N. clinicians and other health workers said. The medics  accounts, backed in some cases by medical notes reviewed by Reuters, lend weight to repeated allegations, ranging from molestation to gang rape, leveled by women from the stateless minority group against Myanmar s armed forces.  Myanmar officials have mostly dismissed such allegations as militant propaganda designed to defame its military, which they say is engaged in legitimate counterinsurgency operations and under orders to protect civilians.  Zaw Htay, spokesman for Myanmar s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said the authorities would investigate any allegations brought to them.  Those rape victim women should come to us,  he said.  We will give full security to them. We will investigate and we will take action.   Suu Kyi herself has not commented on the numerous allegations of sexual assault committed by the military against Rohingya women made public since late last year.      Violence erupted in Myanmar s northwestern Rakhine state following attacks on security forces by Rohingya militants last October. Further attacks on Aug. 25 provoked a renewed military offensive the United Nations has called  ethnic cleansing . Reuters spoke with eight health and protection workers in Bangladesh s Cox s Bazar district who between them said they had treated more than 25 individual rape cases since late August. The medics say they do not attempt to establish definitively what happened to their patients, but have seen an unmistakeable pattern in the stories and physical symptoms of dozens of women, who invariably say Myanmar soldiers were the perpetrators. It is rare for U.N. doctors and aid agencies to speak about rape allegedly committed by a state s armed forces, given the sensitivity of the matter. Doctors at a clinic run by the U.N s International Organization for Migration (IOM) at the Leda makeshift refugee say they treated hundreds of women with injuries they said were from violent sexual assaults during the army operation in October and November. There have been fewer rapes reported among the influx of refugees since August, said Dr. Niranta Kumar, the clinic s health coordinator, but those they have seen have injuries suggesting  more aggressive  attacks on women. Several health workers suggested that, whereas in October many women had initially remained in their villages believing the army sweeps were only targeting Rohingya men, this time most had fled at the first sign of military activity. Doctors at the Leda clinic showed a Reuters reporter three case files, without divulging the identity of the patients. One said a 20-year-old woman was treated on Sept. 10, seven days after she said she was raped by a soldier in Myanmar. Handwritten notes say she said soldiers had  pulled her hair  and a  gun used to beat her  before raping her. Examinations often find injuries suggesting forced penetration, beating and even what looked like intentional cutting of the genitals, doctors said.  We found skin marks, it showed a very forceful attack, an inhuman attack,  said IOM medical officer Dr Tasnuba Nourin. She had seen incidents of vaginal tearing, bite marks and signs that seemed to show a firearm was used to penetrate women, she said. Among the new influx of Rohingya she had treated at least five women who appeared to have been recently raped, she said, adding that in each case the physical injuries observed were consistent with the patient s account of what had happened. At Bangladesh government clinics supported by U.N. agencies in the Ukhia area, doctors reported treating 19 women who had been raped, said Dr. Misbah Uddin Ahmed, head of the main health complex there, citing reports from female clinicians.  The evidence included bite marks, tearing of the vagina, these sorts of things,  he said. In one day alone, Sept. 14, six women showed up at one of the clinics, all saying they were sexually assaulted.  They all said Myanmar army had done this.  An IOM doctor who asked not to be identified, working at one of those clinics near the Kutapalong refugee camp, said a woman who crossed from Myanmar in late August said she was raped by at least seven soldiers.  She was extremely weak and traumatized and said she struggled to make it to the clinic,  the doctor said.  She had a laceration on the vagina.  The doctor treated 15 of the 19 cases of women who appeared to have been raped, and another eight women who had been physically assaulted. Some were given emergency contraceptives, and all were given treatment to reduce the risk of contracting HIV and jabs against hepatitis. Symptoms included bite marks over the arms and back, tearing and laceration on the vagina and vaginal bleeding, the doctor said. Internal reports compiled by aid agencies in Cox s Bazar recorded that 49  SGBV survivors  were identified in just four days between Aug. 28-31. SGBV, or sexual and gender-based violence is used to refer to only cases of rape, according to U.N. doctors. Data for reported rape cases was not available for other dates. A situation report from aid agencies says more than 350 people had been referred for  life-saving care  relating to gender-based violence - a broad term that includes rape, attempted rape and molestation, as well as emotional abuse and denial of resources based on gender - since Aug. 25. It did not refer to the perpetrators. Kate White, emergency medical coordinator for M decins Sans Fronti res (MSF) in Cox s Bazar said the charity had treated at least 23 cases of sexual and gender-based violence including gang-rape and sexual assault since Aug. 25.  This is a fraction of the cases that are likely to be out there,  she said.  Reuters first reported allegations of mass rape of Rohingya women within days of militant attacks in northern Rakhine in October. The same reports were also heard by U.N. investigators who visited Bangladesh in January.  A report of the U.N. Secretary General in April said the sexual assaults were  apparently employed systematically to humiliate and terrorize their community . Before her rise to power last year Suu Kyi had spoken of rape being used as a tool of division in the country s myriad ethnic conflicts.   It is used as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and to divide our country, this is how I see it,  she said in 2011 in a video message to a conference on sexual violence in conflict. Her spokesman Zaw Htay said there was  nothing to say  when asked if her view had changed since then.  Everything should be according to the rule of law,  he said.  The military leaders also have said they will take action.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र के चिकित्साकर्मियों ने म्यांमार सेना के 'सफाई' अभियान में बलात्कार के सबूत देखे