JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African High Court ruled on Friday that it could not compel President Jacob Zuma to set up a commission of inquiry into alleged influence-peddling in his government. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) had asked the court to force Zuma to establish a commission based on a report last year by an anti-graft watchdog into allegations that businessman brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta had influenced the appointment of ministers. Zuma and the Gupta brothers have denied the accusations. The president has challenged the report in court, arguing that the Public Protector had no right to ask him to form such a commission, as this was the president s prerogative.  To compel the President at this stage will not only be tantamount to denying the hearing or his day in court, but it will also be understood to mean the Public Protector s powers are unassailable irrespective of the content of the decision, that cannot be correct,  Pretoria High Court Judge Motsamai Makume said.  It will be in the best interests of justice to grant the President a stay of the implementation of the remedial action pending a decision of the review application.  New allegations of inappropriate collusion between state-owned companies and the Gupta brothers have put more pressure on Zuma and ministers close to him. But the ruling was a boost for the scandal-plagued Zuma at a difficult time. Allegations of widespread corruption and the raiding of taxpayer funds by outside interests   known locally as  state capture    have dented investor confidence in an economy which fell into a recession earlier in 2017. On Wednesday, thousands of South Africans marched in anti-corruption protests in a rallying cry against Zuma and his powerful allies three months before a new African National Congress leader is chosen. Zuma also survived a no-confidence vote in parliament in August but he lost the support of a number of ANC MPs, showing deep divisions within the party that has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. The DA said it had noted the ruling  with interest , saying it approached the court to avoid delays in probing influence-peddling allegations.  On a number of occasions, including before the National Assembly, President Zuma has stated that he will establish a Commission of Inquiry. To date, he has not done so,  the party s federal council chairman James Selfe said in a statement.  This matter has not been dismissed but has in fact been held back pending the outcome of the President s review application, which will be heard at the end of October, where we will also be in court to continue this fight for accountability.  Some analysts said the legal battles would prolong probes into influence-peddling allegations.    The court had its legal duties to perform, and this is going to allow Zuma not to perform his political duties,  NKC African Economics analyst Gary van Staden said.  Ultimately its negative for  state capture . It s not going to bring any finality to what s been going on.

Summary: दक्षिण अफ्रीका की अदालत ने कहा कि जुमा को प्रभाव डालने की जांच करने के लिए मजबूर नहीं किया जा सकता


BEIJING (Reuters) - The speech was long, the refreshments austere, but Zhang Weiguo, a Communist Party official from Hubei province in central China, was thrilled.   It was strongly persuasive, infectious, cohesive, and had rally-appeal,  Zhang said after Chinese President and party boss Xi Jinping gave a nearly three-and-a-half hour speech in Beijing s cavernous Great Hall of the People to kick off the 19th Communist Party Congress.   I came out of the auditorium feeling infected, my motivation infinitely enhanced.   The scene is a far cry from a convention of the Democratic or Republican Party in the United States, with their rock concert-like atmosphere, balloons falling from the rafters and raucous cheering crowds.  Instead, most delegates wore conservative business suits, turned pages of the speech in unison, and clapped politely on cue, giving the start of China's most important political event in five years the vibe of an academic conference.  This is party politics with Chinese characteristics. Delegates from China s dozens of ethnic minority groups were required, as always, to wear traditional costumes, often with elaborate headgear - and news photographers swarmed.  An Olympian wore the national team s jacket. Military men and women, as well as police, donned crisp uniforms. All, including Xi, wore red identifications badges.  Entering the Great Hall for the event required airport-level security checks, with x-ray machines and metal detectors. Outside food and drink were not allowed. Journalists, many of whom had queued in the rain since before dawn, were permitted one mobile phone each.  Inside, Xi laid out a vision for a strong and confident China stretching decades into the future. The speech will be the subject of intensive study by party members across the country in coming months and serve as a model for its content and language.  Still, it was a marathon even by Chinese politicians  standards, and some in the audience dozed off.  For those needing a refreshment, uniformed servers standing in order by height poured tea and hot water into Great Hall of the People paper cups outside the main auditorium.  One server who had been present for the 18th Party Congress five years ago said nothing had changed.   Everything s the same. Our service is getting better, though,  he said.  On stage, where the party s powerful Central Committee and former leaders sat, hosts and hostesses periodically marched from the wings in unison to pour fresh steaming water into porcelain mugs. At the two-hour mark, some started taking toilet breaks.  Luo Jialin, a member of the Sichuan province delegation, rushed to the post office at the Great Hall of People and bought five books of congress-themed stamps with the Great Hall postmark for 450 yuan ($68).   They are very commemorative, so I want to bring some back home,  said Luo.  The speech was broadcast live and images of groups of people watching it quickly circulated on social media - doctors at a hospital, Tibetan monks, prisoners in a detention center, and even children in kindergarten. One posting showed a cat sitting in front of a TV broadcasting the speech.  Printed copies of Xi s speech for foreign reporters were produced in 12 languages, including Lao and Portuguese, up from eight five years ago. The Chinese version ran to 68 pages.  Pictures of the seldom-seen 91-year-old former President Jiang Zemin peering at his copy through a chunky magnifying glass flew across the internet.  Later, someone identified Jiang s magnifying glass as German-made and posted a picture of an ad for it on Taobao. Price tag: 1,598 yuan, or about $240.  ($1 = 6.6219 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Summary: लंबा भाषण, बहुत सारी चायः चीनी विशेषताओं के साथ पार्टी की बैठक


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday that U.S. charges against President Donald Trump s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide showed Moscow had been unfairly maligned in accusations that it meddled in last year s U.S. presidential election. Federal investigators probing alleged Russian interference in the election, something Moscow denies, charged Manafort and Rick Gates with money laundering on Monday. But despite being brought as part of a five-month-old investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt the election in Trump s favor and into potential collusion by Trump aides, the charges, some going back over a decade, centered on Manafort s work for Ukraine s former government, not Russia s. That was welcomed in Russia, where officials are watching the investigation closely since public evidence of Russian meddling, something that has not so far been presented, would be sure to translate into tougher U.S. sanctions against Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov highlighted the absence of allegations against Russia in the indictment against Manafort and Gates, saying on Tuesday that Moscow had always said it had never interfered in the U.S. election. That assertion is challenged by U.S. intelligence agencies  who say unequivocally that Moscow did interfere in the November 2016 vote.  ...Russia does not feature in the charges that were leveled in any way. Other countries and other people feature (in the charges),  Peskov told a conference call with reporters.  Moscow never felt itself guilty so it doesn t feel  exonerated now,  he said, when asked whether the Kremlin interpreted the indictment as proof that its repeated denials about meddling election were true. Peskov also brushed aside any suggestion that someone with links to the Russian Foreign Ministry might have tried to set up a meeting with the Trump campaign through a third ex-aide, George Papadopoulos, who it was announced on Monday pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the FBI.  Russia s flagship TV news show took a similar line on Monday evening, saying it was  now clear that there was nothing  to allegations about Manafort being in touch with Russian officials to try to sway the election.     The U.S. investigation was an internal matter for the United States, said Peskov, but Moscow was following it with interest. Peskov laughed off the purported role of Papadopoulos, who told investigators he had tried to set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian leadership. In his unsuccessful quest to broker such a meeting, Papadopoulos said he had met a London-based professor boasting of contacts with Russian officials and an unnamed Russian woman. He also mentioned being in touch with someone linked to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Peskov, when asked what the Kremlin made of someone linked to the Foreign Ministry allegedly trying to set up a Putin-Trump meeting, said:  It s an absolutely laughable allegation.  Media reports have suggested the individual linked to the ministry is Ivan Timofeev, who works for a Moscow-based think-tank called the Russian International Relations Council (RIAC).  Timofeev did not respond to a request for comment, but told the gazeta.ru online news portal in August that Papadopoulos had emailed him in the spring of 2016 and spoken about the possibility of organizing a Trump trip to Russia. Timofeev said Papadopoulos had never made a formal request to either RIAC or the Russian Foreign Ministry for such a visit, however, and that he had got the impression that he had been  acting on his own initiative  and was  an enthusiast with little experience.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday that there was nothing  illegal  about Papadopoulos contacting someone at RIAC.

Summary: क्रेमलिन का कहना है कि ट्रम्प के पूर्व सहयोगियों के खिलाफ अमेरिकी मामले में रूस आरोपी नहीं है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration publicly released on Wednesday its rules for deciding whether to disclose cyber security flaws or keep them secret, in an effort to bring more transparency to a process that has long been cloaked in mystery. The move is an attempt by the U.S. government to address criticism that it too often jeopardizes internet security by stockpiling the cyber vulnerabilities it detects in order to preserve its ability to launch its own attacks on computer systems. The revised rules, published on whitehouse.gov, are intended to shed light on the process for how various federal agencies weigh the costs of keeping a flaw secret, said Rob Joyce, the White House cyber security coordinator. Speaking at an Aspen Institute event in Washington, Joyce said the rules were the “most sophisticated” in the world and that they set the United States apart from most other nations.  Private companies, he said, “are not getting tips from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran” about flaws in their technology. Under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. government created an inter-agency review, known as the Vulnerabilities Equities Process, to determine what to do with flaws unearthed primarily by intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA).  The process is designed to balance law enforcement and U.S. intelligence desires to hack into devices with the need to warn manufacturers so that they can patch holes before criminals and other hackers take advantage of them. The new Trump administration charter on the process explains how it functions and names the agencies involved in the vulnerability reviews. They include intelligence agencies in addition to several civilian departments, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, Energy and State. The NSA is listed as the “executive secretariat” of the inter-agency group, tasked with coordinating debate over flaws submitted by the various agencies if there is disagreement about whether to disclose them. If disagreements are not reconciled the group will vote on whether to disclose or retain the flaw. The rules also require an annual report, portions of which will be made public, that provides metrics about the amount of flaws discovered, retained and disclosed.  Decisions to retain vulnerabilities must be reconsidered every year, according to the charter.    The publication of the charter is “a major improvement,” said Ari Scwhartz, coordinator of the Coalition for Cybersecurity Policy and Law and a former Obama administration cyber official. The Obama administration sought to release a similar document before the end of last year but ran out of time, Schwartz said. Some security experts have long criticized the process as overly secretive and too often erring against disclosure.  Joyce said on Wednesday more than 90 percent of flaws are ultimately disclosed, though some critics say they are not shared quickly enough and that the most severe flaws are too often stockpiled. The criticism grew earlier this year when a global ransomware attack known as WannaCry infected computers in at least 150 countries, knocking hospitals offline and disrupting services at factories. The attack was made possible because of a flaw in Microsoft’s Windows software that the NSA had used to build a hacking tool for its own use.  But in a breach U.S. investigators are still working to understand, that tool and others ended up in the hands of a mysterious group called the Shadow Brokers, which then published them online. Suspected North Korean hackers spotted the Windows flaw and repurposed it to unleash the WannaCry attack, according to cyber experts. North Korea has routinely denied involvement in cyber attacks against other countries. Asked about the WannaCry attack, Joyce declined to say whether the Windows flaw detected by the NSA went through the vulnerability review process.

Summary: ट्रम्प प्रशासन ने साइबर खामियों का खुलासा करने के लिए नियम जारी किए


MANILA (Reuters) - At least 26 people were killed while several residents were missing in an island province in central Philippines after tropical storm Kai-tak brought heavy rains that triggered landslides, local authorities and media said on Sunday. Kai-tak cut power supplies in many areas, forced the cancellation of several flights, stranded more than 15,000 people in various ports in the region and prompted nearly 88,000 people to seek shelter in evacuation centers. The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of Biliran island said 26 residents had died, but the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) has yet to make any official announcement about fatalities. Biliran Governor Gerardo Espina Jr confirmed the deaths in an interview with DZMM radio, with 23 people still missing, he said.  We received reports of three deaths coming from the DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) but these are for confirmation,  said NDRRMC spokeswoman Romina Marasigan.  We are still trying to check the others.  Many areas were flooded, damaging crops and infrastructure. Kai-tak has weakened to a tropical depression after  barrelling through the eastern region of Visayas on Saturday, hitting islands and coastal towns such as Tacloban City where supertyphoon Haiyan claimed 8,000 lives in 2013. Locally known as Urduja, Kai-tak was packing winds of 55  kilometers (31 miles) per hour with gusts of up to 80 km/h, according to a weather bureau bulletin issued at 2000 GMT.

Summary: फिलीपींस के तूफान प्रभावित प्रांत में भूस्खलन से 26 लोगों की मौतः स्थानीय अधिकारी


TALLINN (Reuters) - After years of bailing out Greece, the idea of letting more poorer states into the euro zone has sparked controversy, particularly in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking re-election in two weeks time.  The backlash came after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on Wednesday for non-euro zone countries to quickly adopt the single currency so that the European Union can find new unity in the euro after Britain leaves in 2019. Juncker promised to propose technical and financial help for the willing, quickly triggering concern from influential German members of the European Parliament, like the deputy chairman of the economic committee Markus Ferber. Juncker s call was interpreted by some in Germany as meaning the Commission would be lenient in assessing the readiness for the single currency of the mostly former communist and poorer eastern European countries like Bulgaria or Romania. Greece, which adopted the euro in 2001, later turned out not to have been ready because of falsified deficit statistics. The country triggered a massive debt crisis in the euro zone and had to be bailed out three times by other euro zone governments.  Euro for all EU countries? There are clear criteria and rules for joining. Greece can not repeat itself,  Ferber tweeted after the Juncker speech. EU officials became concerned that the misreading of the Juncker speech in Germany could fuel support for populist and eurosceptic parties and Juncker aides took to Twitter on Friday to try and counter that effect. They stressed that countries would only be allowed into the single currency if they met economic and governance criteria. In German language-only tweets they also pointed out that some, like keen would-be member Bulgaria, already meet many, though not all, of the economic standards for entry. To adopt the euro, a European Union country has to have low inflation, interest rates and debt, a deficit within the EU limits, as well as a stable exchange rate, proven by two years spent in the Exchange Rate Mechanism II without severe tensions.  The exchange rate of the Bulgarian Lev is absolutely stable to the euro since 2006,  Juncker s head of cabinet Martin Selmayr tweeted.  The Inflation rate of Bulgaria is just at 0.2 pct and much lower than in the euro area.  Addressing German sensitivity to debt, he tweeted:  German debt is almost 66 pct of GDP, more than twice as high as the Bulgarian one.  Romania and Bulgaria meet all the nominal criteria to join the euro except the two-year exchange rate stability test in the ERM II and the compatibility of their central bank laws with euro zone requirements.  They are also far from meeting the  soft  criterion of real economic convergence with euro zone economies   a factor that could prevent them getting the go-ahead for adopting the euro. Countries outside the euro zone include Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Denmark and Britain, but the last two have a formal opt-out from joining. Others have a legal obligation to adopt the euro when they meet all the criteria, but there are no deadlines for that. Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said Bulgaria had expressed to him a clear desire to join the euro zone. Romania has expressed a similar sentiment.  But some of the biggest and more wealthy non-euro members of the EU like Sweden, Poland or the Czech Republic and Hungary have no plans to adopt the currency in the foreseeable future, preferring to keep the economic flexibility provided by control over their own exchange rate.

Summary: यूरो क्षेत्र के विस्तार के आह्वान पर जर्मनी में प्रतिक्रिया हुई


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria s Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump for its position on the Iran nuclear deal, saying in comments to state media that it would increase regional tension and threaten security and peace.   Syria condemns the aggressive policies of the U.S. administration against the interests of the people, and which will increase the atmosphere of tension in the region and the world,  state news agency SANA quoted an official source at the ministry as saying.  Trump refused on Friday to formally certify that Tehran was complying with the 2015 accord even though international inspectors say it is. He warned he might ultimately terminate the agreement.  Syria is a close ally of Iran, which has given extensive military and financial aid to President Bashar al-Assad in his more than six years of war against rebels seeking to oust him.  The nuclear deal was also signed by China, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union, leading European allies to warn that putting it into limbo risks undermining U.S. credibility abroad.  The U.S. Congress will now have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that it lifted under the pact.

Summary: सीरिया ने ईरान समझौते पर ट्रंप के रुख की निंदा की


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six U.S. senators have urged President Barack Obama to prioritize cyber crime at this weekend’s Group of 20 summit in China, in the wake of the theft of $81 million from Bangladesh’s central bank, according to a letter obtained by Reuters. In the letter sent to the White House ahead of the Sept. 4-5 summit, Sherrod Brown, a senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, and five other Democratic senators say they want the U.S. president to press leaders from the world’s 20 biggest economies to commit in joint communiques to a “coordinated strategy to combat cyber-crime at critical financial institutions.” The letter, dated Monday, suggests that concern among U.S. lawmakers is growing over the February incident in which hackers breached Bangladesh Bank’s systems and used the SWIFT banking network to request nearly $1 billion from an account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Some of the dozens of orders were filled, with much of the lost $81 million disappearing into Philippines casinos - prompting months of international finger-pointing, an ongoing investigation, and several requests from members of Congress for answers from the Fed and from SWIFT, the secure messaging service that banks use to transfer money around the world. “Our financial institutions are connected in order to facilitate global commerce, but cyber criminals - whether independent or state-sponsored - imperil this international system in a way few threats have,” the senators, headed by Gary Peters of Michigan, wrote in the letter to Obama. “We strongly urge you to work with your counterparts and prioritize this discussion at the G20 leaders level in September,” it said of the summit to be held in Hangzhou, China, adding that “executive leadership circles across the globe” needed to pay more attention to the risks. A senator in the Philippines has said Chinese hackers were likely to have pulled off the Bangladesh Bank heist, citing a network of Chinese people involved in the routing of the stolen funds through Manila. Beijing has dismissed the suggestion. Copies of the letter from the U.S. senators were also sent to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. OBAMA-XI TALKS The other senators signing the letter were Mark Warner and Martin Heinrich, both members of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence; Kirsten Gillibrand and Debbie Stabenow, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. The White House expects G20 members at the summit “to affirm their commitment to cooperate to fight cybercrime and to enhance confidence and trust in the digital economy,” a senior administration official said. Asked generally about cyber security on Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press conference: “I would anticipate that this issue more generally will be on the agenda” when Obama meets Chinese President Xi Jinping, the G20 summit host, later this week.  At a November summit, the G20 pledged not to conduct economically motivated cyber espionage, an agreement intended to reduce the estimated hundreds of billions of dollars worth of commercial trade secrets that are stolen by foreign governments seeking to benefit industry in their own countries.  Since then, the Bangladesh Bank attack and others that have emerged are only some of the threats posed by cyber criminals, the senators wrote. World regulators should “erect more robust defenses and collaborative systems to prevent and mitigate the impact of successful attacks,” the letter said, noting that steps already taken by SWIFT are not enough. Bangladesh said it supported raising the issue at G20. “In most cases, cyber attacks and crimes take place from outside the country,” said Zunaid Ahmed Palak, a junior government minister for information and communications technology.  “So while addressing fast growing cyber attacks, there should be a coordinated approach involving global stakeholders.”  The Fed and other U.S. regulators said in a letter last week they were focused on cyber risks and controls at banks in the wake of the Bangladesh incident, though they offered few specifics.  Peters, a member of the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told Reuters he is considering requesting a committee hearing on the heist. “I am concerned about the response and what steps have been taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said in an interview. “You just need more collaboration and sharing of information... because often times all these entities aren’t talking to each other.” (This story has been refiled with full name of Bangladesh minister)

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः छह अमेरिकी सीनेटरों ने ओबामा से जी-20 शिखर सम्मेलन में साइबर अपराध को प्राथमिकता देने का आग्रह किया


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s ZBC state broadcaster is preparing for an announcement in the next few hours, sending a broadcast van to State House where President Robert Mugabe is under pressure to resign, a source at the broadcaster said on Sunday.

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे राज्य प्रसारक घोषणा की तैयारी कर रहा हैः सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will not meet members of Turkish opposition groups during a one-day visit to Ankara this week where talks with President Tayyip Erdogan will focus on the war in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday. Thursday’s visit comes at a politically sensitive time in Turkey as the country prepares for a referendum on April 16 that proposes to change the constitution to give Erdogan new powers. A senior State Department official said Tillerson will meet with Erdogan and government ministers involved in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. “It is certainly something we are very acutely aware of and the secretary will be mindful of while he is there,” one State Department official told a conference call with reporters, referring to political sensitivities ahead of the referendum.  American officials expect Erdogan and others to raise the case of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of orchestrating a failed coup last July. The focus of the Ankara talks is the U.S.-led offensive to retake Raqqa from Islamic State and to stabilize areas in which militants have been forced out, allowing refugees to return home, officials said. A major sticking point between the United States and Turkey is U.S. backing for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey considers part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party that has been fighting an insurgency for three decades in Turkey. But the United States has long viewed Kurdish fighters as key to retaking Raqqa alongside Arab fighters in the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). “We are very mindful of Turkey’s concerns and it is something that will continue to be a topic of conversation,” a second U.S. official said. Turkey, Russia and Iran have held Syrian peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, on a ceasefire in Syria. The United States has proposed “areas of stability” where Islamic State has been pushed out and refugees can be returned. Six years since the start of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he is winning on the battlefield although the war is far from over. The once stable country is broken into fiefdoms ruled by rebels and warlords. “We’re looking forward to discussing with Turkey how we can reinforce ceasefire negotiations through the Astana process,” the second U.S. official said.

Summary: टिलरसन इस सप्ताह अंकारा की यात्रा में तुर्की के विपक्ष से नहीं मिलेंगे


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani gave a bitter speech on Sunday to announce his resignation, saying no one outside the Kurds  home region had stood up to support their right of self-determination.  Barzani made a televised speech after the Iraqi Kurdistan  parliament approved his request not to extend his term beyond Nov. 1, after an independence referendum he championed last month backfired and triggered military and economic retaliation against the Kurdish region he has been leading since 2005.  Three million votes for Kurdistan independence created history and cannot be erased,  he said, referring to the referendum held on Sept. 25.   Nobody stood up with us other than our mountains,  he said, speaking with Kurdish and Iraqi flags behind him. He criticized the United States for allowing Abrams tanks  supplied to Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State militants to be used against the Kurds. He said American weapons were also used in attacks by Iranian-backed paramilitaries.  Without the help of Peshmerga (Kurdish fighters), Iraqi forces could not have liberated Mosul from ISIS alone,  he said, referring to Islamic State s former stronghold in northern Iraq.  Why would Washington want to punish Kurdistan?  He said followers of rival Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who died in early October, had been guilty of  high treason  for handing over the oil city of Kirkuk to Iraqi forces without a fight two weeks ago.  He said the Iraqi offensives since Oct. 16 and the refusal of the Iraqi government to agree to dialogue vindicated his view that  Iraq no longer believes in Kurdish rights .

Summary: कड़वे बरजानी कहते हैं, "कोई भी कुर्दों के साथ खड़ा नहीं था"


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of 22 members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked the Environmental Protection Agency in a letter on Thursday not to lower some requirements for mixing biofuels into the country’s fuel supply, but also not to let ethanol exports qualify for renewable fuel credits, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Reuters. The members of Congress are part of a bipartisan voting bloc dedicated to supporting the biofuels industry called the House Biofuels Caucus. They represent districts in states such as Iowa and Illinois where farmers grow corn for ethanol and other biofuels. They urged the agency to increase biomass-based biodiesel requirements and not to decrease the amount of advanced biofuels required to be added to the fuel supply.  “Our farmers and biofuels producers need greater certainty from the EPA,” the letter said, adding recent proposals the agency said it was considering “create unnecessary angst.”  “We will respond to the House Biofuels Caucus through the proper channel,” said EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox in an email to Reuters. Midwestern politicians and industry representatives have been pressuring the EPA not to reduce renewable fuel standards.  Fuel companies, meanwhile, want to change certain rules for complying with the standards to make it easier and cheaper for them to meet their renewable fuel requirements. They want ethanol exports to count as tradable credits toward their renewable fuel requirements, a proposal the Biofuels Caucus members condemned. “This proposition would upend infrastructure investments needed to blend ethanol into our fuel supply and pick winners and losers in a manner inconsistent with the Congressional intent of the Renewable Fuel Standard,” they wrote.  Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds said that President Donald Trump told her on a phone call on Wednesday that he was committed to renewable fuels, though advocates say they won’t be satisfied until the EPA reverses recent steps it has taken to lower renewable fuel requirements.   Last month, the EPA said it was looking to cut 2018 biodiesel blending requirements, roiling markets and drawing criticism from the country’s farm belt. In July, it proposed cutting total volumes of all renewable fuels use for next year.

Summary: अमेरिकी सदन के सदस्यों ने ई. पी. ए. से जैव ईंधन की आवश्यकताओं को कम नहीं करने के लिए कहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A debate is under way in the Trump administration about whether the United States should declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and subject it to U.S. sanctions, according to U.S. officials and people close to President Donald Trump’s transition team. A faction led by Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, wants to add the Brotherhood to the State Department and U.S. Treasury lists of foreign terrorist organizations, the sources said. “I know it has been discussed. I’m in favor of it,” said a Trump transition advisor, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. The advisor said Flynn’s team discussed adding the group to the U.S. list of terrorist groups but said it was ultimately unclear when or even if the administration ultimately would go ahead with such a move. Other Trump advisors, as well as many veteran national security, diplomatic, law enforcement and intelligence officials argue the Brotherhood has evolved peacefully in some countries, according to officials and people close to Trump’s entourage. They worry that a U.S. move to designate the entire Brotherhood a terrorist group would complicate relations with Turkey, a key American ally in the fight against Islamic State, and where the Islamist-rooted AKP Party that dominates the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in power. Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda Party has also participated in democratic elections. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the country’s oldest Islamist movement, was designated as a terrorist organization in that country in 2013. It is not clear which faction within the U.S. administration has the upper hand, and Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Mario Diaz-Balart this month introduced legislation to add the Brotherhood to the terrorist list. There was no immediate comment from the White House. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates among others have designated the group on their terrorist lists, and Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, described the Brotherhood an “an agent of radical Islam”, during his Senate confirmation hearing. U.S. criminal law prohibits people in the United States from knowingly providing “material support” to designated terrorist organizations, and members of such groups are banned from entering the United States.Some conservative and anti-Muslim activists have argued for years that the Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in 1928 and sought to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate by peaceful means, has been a breeding ground for terrorists. Some branches of the Brotherhood, including the Palestinian group Hamas, have engaged in anti-government violence and provoked violent government reactions. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, was once a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Other offshoots in Turkey and Tunisia have forsworn violence and come to power by democratic means. Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Mursi became Egypt’s first freely elected president in June 2012 in the aftermath of the ousting of long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak. An army takeover stripped Mursi of power in 2013 following mass protests against his rule. Hundreds of Islamists have since been killed and arrested. Sisi and Trump spoke by phone this week and the two leaders discussed ways to boost the fight against terrorism and extremism. A U.S. official who declined to be identified told Reuters there had been discussions at the State Department which looked at intelligence and information on the group in which it was thought “it would be difficult to justify legally, in terms of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, to meet the criteria”. “It’s one thing to say one group’s ideology has been used to influence a terrorist organization and another thing to say that this group is a terrorist organization,” said the U.S. official. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States, the George W. Bush administration launched investigations into the Brotherhood and related Islamist movements. After years of investigations, however, the U.S. and other governments, including Switzerland’s, closed investigations of the Brotherhood leaders and financial group for lack of evidence, and removed most of the leaders from sanctions lists. A British government review into Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood published in December 2015 concluded that membership of or links to the political group should be considered a possible indicator of extremism but stopped short of recommending that it should be banned.

Summary: मुस्लिम ब्रदरहुड को आतंकवादी संगठन घोषित करने पर ट्रम्प प्रशासन में बहस


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s choice for the top U.S. trade negotiator on Tuesday pledged an “America First” strategy to aggressively enforce U.S. laws and trade deals to stop unfair imports and push China to scrap excess factory capacity. Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative nominee, told senators at his confirmation hearing that Trump chose him because of his trade enforcement background. “I expect that we’re going to have a very rigorous enforcement policy,” Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee. “This will be the point of emphasis.” Lighthizer said he would bring as many trade enforcement actions as can be justified under World Trade Organization rules, bilateral trade agreements and U.S. trade remedy laws.  As a deputy USTR in the 1980s, Lighthizer, 69, negotiated Japanese import quotas. As a veteran trade lawyer in more recent years, he pursued dozens of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against imports of steel and other products. Lighthizer said he would seek to increase trade while making it “freer and fairer” to the benefit of U.S. workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses. An outspoken critic of China, Lighthizer said Beijing’s industrial policies have supported vast amounts of “uneconomic” production capacity that would not survive without state support. He said this was particularly true in the steel and aluminum sectors, leading to the dumping of products into U.S. markets. Lighthizer told senators that he would engage with China in multilateral forums to reduce that capacity, but said trade enforcement actions may be more effective by raising the costs of keeping such factories alive.  “It has to be more difficult for them to maintain non-economic capacity, and that means enforcing our trade laws, and it means encouraging other countries where they can ship their products to enforce their trade laws.” Lighthizer said he believes China was a “substantial currency manipulator” in the past, but that it was unclear if Beijing was continuing to do so.  The comment was in line with more neutral statements on the subject from Trump administration officials more recently after the president threatened during his campaign to declare China a currency manipulator. Lighthizer also pledged to fight for strong protections for intellectual property rights and for digital trade access. In renegotiating the North American Free Trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, he said it was important not to lose gains in agricultural exports to those countries while encouraging more production to return to the United States. Regarding Canada, he said finding a solution to a long-running trade dispute over softwood lumber would be his top priority. Trump’s cabinet already is crowded with senior trade officials, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the director of the newly created White House National Trade Council, Peter Navarro. Lighthizer said that if confirmed, he would have the USTR’s full statutory powers and would play a lead role to “sort out” U.S. trade policy, working closely with other agencies.

Summary: ट्रम्प के यू. एस. टी. आर. उम्मीदवार ने यू. एस. व्यापार कानूनों को सख्ती से लागू करने का संकल्प लिया


ACCRA (Reuters) - At least seven people were killed and dozens injured, mostly suffering burns, after a huge explosion at a fuel distribution site in Ghana s capital, local authorities said on Sunday. The blast on Saturday evening was heard across much of the city, sending a giant fireball into the sky above the eastern part of Accra and causing frightened residents to flee their homes in large numbers. Others were forcibly evacuated. At least seven people died and 132 were injured, a statement from the Ministry of Information read out on local radio said on Sunday. About half of them had already been treated and discharged, it said The site includes a liquefied petroleum gas storage depot and two service stations run by state-owned GOIL and oil major Total. It was not immediately clear where or how the explosion began. Witnesses said people had already began fleeing the area ahead of the blast because of the pungent odor of gas - a factor that likely reduced casualties. Neither Total nor GOIL responded to requests for comment. Ghana, a relatively new oil and gas producer, has suffered several recent accidents including an explosion in 2015 that killed around 100 people. Like many teeming African cities, Accra s infrastructure has failed to keep up with its population, which has shot up to 7 million. At the scene of the fire on Sunday, scattered fruit and broken coconuts from street vendors were strewn near the wreckage next to burnt-out cars and a fuel lorry, a Reuters witness said.  Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia described the accident as  one too many  and promised to toughen safety measures. Several onlookers there expressed anger that the government had not done more to prevent another fatal accident in the city.  It s annoying to see all the big men in our society trooping to this place as if this is the first time we have such an incident,  said Joshua Vokeh, a 38-year-old mini bus driver.  They visit, talk tough and make promises, drive off and it ends there.

Summary: घाना में ईंधन स्थल पर हुए विस्फोट में कम से कम 7 लोगों की मौत, दर्जनों घायल


PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia on Thursday deported 74 Chinese nationals wanted in China on suspicion of extorting money from people there over the internet and by telephone, Cambodian police said. This raises the number of people from China and Taiwan who have been deported this year for suspected telecom scams to 346, Uk Heisela, the head of the Cambodian police told reporters at a press conference at the airport in the capital of Phnom Penh. Several hundred suspected scammers have been arrested in Cambodia, which has emerged as a major center of rackets that have cost the victims billions of dollars. A team of Chinese police arrived at the airport on a China Southern Airlines flight to pick up the suspects, who wore masks and had numbers marked on pink shirts. Uk Heisela said the 74 suspects, including 14 women, had been detained on Oct. 5 in the seaside town of Sihanoukville. Two Indonesians were also deported back to their home country.  They tricked victims in China, the civil servants there, such as teachers, medics and artists,  Uk Heisela said. In some cases, they had obtained naked pictures of the victims and used them for blackmail, he said. Cambodia is one of China s closest allies in Southeast Asia. More than 400 Chinese and Taiwanese were arrested in Cambodia in August alone for suspected telecom scams. The country s good internet connections and relaxed immigration laws have attracted con artists to carry out crimes.

Summary: कंबोडिया ने दूरसंचार जबरन वसूली घोटालों के लिए गिरफ्तार 74 चीनी लोगों को वापस भेजा


(Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign has settled a legal dispute with former aide Sam Nunberg, according to a court document filed in New York on Thursday. Trump had sought $10 million in damages from Nunberg in arbitration proceedings. Trump accused Nunberg, who was fired in 2015, of violating a confidentiality agreement. The one-page filing with a New York state court did not give the terms of the settlement. Nunberg’s attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said “the matter was amicably resolved” but he declined to comment further. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nunberg said in court filings in July that Trump accused him of being the source for a New York Post story in May that recounted a public argument between Corey Lewandowski, who was then the campaign manager, and Hope Hicks, Trump’s spokeswoman. In the affidavit, Nunberg said the argument was part of a “sordid and apparently illicit affair” between the two. He denied being the source for the New York Post story. Lewandowski was fired by the campaign in June, a move apparently unrelated to the Post story.  A Trump Organization lawyer, Alan Garten, last month called Nunberg’s allegations “categorically untrue.” The Trump campaign fired Nunberg in August 2015 after the discovery of Facebook posts that critics deemed racist. Nunberg has denied he wrote the posts.

Summary: ट्रंप ने चुनाव अभियान के पूर्व सहयोगी के साथ कानूनी विवाद सुलझा लिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. oil and gas industry workers have contributed only slightly more money to the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton than to Republican Donald Trump since the two clinched their parties’ nominations for the White House, according to Reuters’ review of federal disclosures. The nearly even support suggests ambivalence in the industry between two rivals who have put forward wildly different energy visions. Trump calls for a drastic reduction in regulations to bolster drilling, while Clinton advocates tougher environmental protections and more renewables. Employees in the industry gave Clinton $114,141 and Trump $99,302 since July 1, Reuters found in reviewing individual campaign contributions exceeding $200 and donations funneled through their joint fundraising committees. Both were officially nominated by their parties in mid-July. Several oil and gas industry employees reached by Reuters said they did not donate just because of the candidates’ energy policies. Most requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the election. “I am moved by the disturbing nature of what I see in Trump’s vision for America on trade, the economy and national security,” said American Gas Association head Dave McCurdy, who has contributed to Clinton’s campaign. He added, however, that he agreed with Clinton on reducing carbon dioxide emissions blamed for climate change and felt natural gas would play a role in that effort. The association has not endorsed a candidate. Continental Resources Inc Chief Executive Officer Harold Hamm, who has contributed repeatedly to Trump’s campaign, has argued in favor of the candidate’s energy policies. Hamm has said bolstering U.S. drilling would reduce dependence on Middle East oil, whose proceeds he says finance terrorist attacks. A Continental official did not respond to a request for comment from Hamm. An energy lobbyist based in Washington said he understood the industry’s ambivalence. “Clinton is pro-regulation, which hurts,” he said, requesting anonymity. “And Trump has no record in the industry, so there’s no evidence he understands the issues.”  Clinton had far exceeded Trump in campaign contributions from industry employees during the primaries, but donations to the Republican side of the ledger were split among a much larger number of candidates than on the Democratic side. During the Republican primaries, the industry had taken an early liking to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, giving him more than all his rivals combined, before he dropped out of the race in February.

Summary: तेल उद्योग के कर्मचारी ट्रम्प और क्लिंटन के बीच विभाजित हो गए


LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Monday he was preparing new executive actions to save coal mining and put miners back to work. “As we speak we are preparing new executive actions to save our coal industry and to save our wonderful coal miners from continuing to be put out of work. The miners are coming back,” Trump told a rally in Louisville, Kentucky, without providing any details.

Summary: ट्रंप ने कहा, कोयला खनन को बचाने के लिए नए कार्यकारी कदम उठाए जा रहे हैं


BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday it attached great importance to China-U.S. ties after confirming it had received a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China commended Trump for sending Lunar New Year greetings to the Chinese people and said cooperation between the two countries was the only option. Trump sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday saying he looked forward to developing a “constructive relationship”, a White House statement said.

Summary: ट्रंप का पत्र मिलने के बाद चीन ने कहा, संबंधों को बहुत महत्व देता है


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Stopping Rohingya refugees from crossing India s porous eastern border with Bangladesh is straining the resources of guards battling to halt a flow of smuggled cattle in the opposite direction, security officials say. More than half a million Muslim Rohingya, a stateless ethnic minority, have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since violence erupted on Aug. 25, but it is not clear how many then sought to travel on to India. Last month India ordered its border guards to use  rude and crude  methods, such as  chilli and stun grenades , to block their entry. But that directive clashes with another task India s Hindu nationalist government has set its border guards - to keep cows, seen by many Hindus as sacred, from being smuggled into Bangladesh for slaughter, in a trade worth $600 million a year.   It s hard to stop cows and human beings at the same time,  a senior official of India s Border Security Force (BSF), which has about 30,000 troops patrolling the frontier with Bangladesh, said in New Delhi, the capital.  The collective duty to seize cattle and push Rohingyas is having a negative impact on the morale of our troops,  added the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.   We have conveyed this message to the top government officials.   He was one of four senior officials who told Reuters that Prime Minister Narendra Modi s government must decide which task  should get priority. An official of the Indian home ministry told Reuters the  authorities were working to tackle the concerns of the border guards, who have been successful in blocking entry of the Rohingya. India wants to deport about 40,000 Rohingya refugees who arrived in previous years, calling them a threat to national security, despite an outcry from rights groups. Since the violence in Myanmar, there has been a sudden rise in the number of cattle coming from India, said traders in Bangladesh, which considers the border trade legal.   There are fewer obstacles to getting cattle from India right now,  said Rabiul Alam, secretary of the Bangladesh Meat Traders  Association, which has about 1,000 members. In July, India s top court suspended a government ban on the trade of cattle for slaughter, giving a boost to its meat and leather industries, worth more than $16 billion in annual sales, and run mostly by members of the Muslim minority. The slaughter of cows was already banned in most parts of India, but Hindu hardliners and cow vigilante groups have been increasingly asserting themselves since Modi s government came to power in 2014. Stopping the cattle smugglers is not easy. At least 400 border guards have been injured and six killed in such operations since 2015, BSF figures show.  The guards often have to wade through fields and ponds, wielding bamboo sticks and ropes to deter smugglers and round up the cattle.    Injuries to guards is almost a routine affair now,  said R. P. Singh, a BSF official in West Bengal state, which shares a 2,216-km (1,375-mile) border with Bangladesh.

Summary: भारत मवेशियों और रोहिंग्याओं के सीमा प्रवाह पर लगाम लगाने के लिए संघर्ष कर रहा है


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif that Russia remains fully committed to the Iran nuclear deal, Russia s foreign ministry said in a statement. Lavrov told Zarif in a telephone conversation that Moscow was firmly determined to implement the deal in the form in which it was approved by the United Nations Security Council, the ministry said.

Summary: रूस के लावरोव ने ईरान के जरीफ से कहाः मास्को ईरान परमाणु समझौते के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है


CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley on Wednesday signed into law a bill banning most abortions after 19 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is at risk, a spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday.  The South Carolina legislature passed the bill last week, making it the 17th U.S. state to approve such a ban. A signing ceremony will take place on a date to be announced later, said Haley representative Chaney Adams.  The act, proposed last year in South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature, passed after it was stripped of exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. The law allows abortions at the 20-week mark if the pregnancy endangers a mother’s life. It also includes a second exception if severe fatal abnormalities will mean the fetus would definitely die at full-term birth.  Sixteen other states have passed similar laws as conservatives have chipped away at the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. Courts have overturned the bans in three states. “I believe that life begins at conception and every step we can take to get back to that point is important,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Wendy Nanney, told Reuters. “In my view and many others’, it’s inhumane to subject that baby to pain at 20 weeks.” Critics have said the name of the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act goes against medical evidence showing that a fetus at 20 weeks cannot feel pain. The law also removes necessary medical options in the extremely rare instance that an abortion is recommended after 19 weeks, critics said.  “We are incredibly disappointed in Governor Haley for signing HB 3114 into law today,” Jenny Black, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in a statement on Wednesday. “This dangerous and politically-motivated measure bans abortion after 20 weeks with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and no consideration for a woman’s individual circumstances.”

Summary: दक्षिण कैरोलिना के गवर्नर पिछले 19 हफ्तों से गर्भपात पर प्रतिबंध पर हस्ताक्षर करेंगे


BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia respects the European Union s highest court decision to dismiss complaints by Slovakia and Hungary about EU migration policy but its negative position to refugee quotas will not change, Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday.  Our position on quotas does not change,  Fico said.  We will continue to work on having solidarity expressed in different ways other than forcing (on us) migrants from other countries that don t want to be here anyway.

Summary: स्लोवाकिया शरणार्थियों पर यूरोपीय संघ की अदालत के फैसले का सम्मान करता है, स्थिति अपरिवर्तित हैः प्रधानमंत्री


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President Donald Trump announced on Oct. 12 he would stop subsidies to health insurers critical to the Obamacare law, the response from Democratic state officials was swift and predictable: a lawsuit by 18 state attorneys general was filed within 24 hours.  The race to the courthouse in response to presidential actions has become a familiar pattern since Trump took office in January, and early rulings in many of the lawsuits have, at least temporarily, hobbled key parts of the president’s agenda.  Many of the Republican president’s most significant executive actions, in areas from immigration and transgender rights to energy and the environment, have been impeded by court rulings in cases brought by Democratic state and local officials as well as liberal advocacy groups.  “We are more of a check on this administration than Congress,” Democratic New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said of state attorneys general.  Similarly, important executive actions taken by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama were stymied by lawsuits filed by Republican state attorneys general, including one eventually decided by the Supreme Court that was intended to protect millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation.  Since Trump took office, courts have at least temporarily blocked Trump’s plans to:  **ban travelers and immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries  **withhold federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities on immigration enforcement  **ban transgender people from serving in the military  **delay implementation of a regulation issued by the Obama administration limiting methane emissions  **put the brakes on an Interior Department rule requiring energy firms to pay more mineral royalties on federal land  **delay compliance with an Obama-era rule aimed at curbing natural gas drilling waste emissions on federal land  **and impede a detained illegal immigrant teenager from obtaining an abortion      Trump has claimed some court victories, too, including on Oct. 25 when a federal judge in California refused the request by the state attorneys general to force the government to keep the subsidies to insurers under Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, in place as the litigation proceeds. That decision was more the exception than the rule.  "President Trump remains committed to protecting our national security and to eliminating excessive regulations that, if implemented, would destroy jobs, harm consumers and provide no meaningful benefit," a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a statement provided to Reuters. "The Trump administration is confident in its legal positions and looks forward to arguing -- and winning -- before the federal judiciary," the official added.  In response to legal setbacks, Trump has lashed out at the judiciary in ways that even his own Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch called disheartening and demoralizing. Trump called U.S. courts “so political,” labeled various rulings and proceedings “ridiculous” and “disgraceful,” and disparaged one jurist who ruled against him as a “so-called judge.”  While presidents often face legal challenges over policy initiatives, Trump’s administration stands out for the number of suits it has encountered so soon after taking power.   Trump has faced far more litigation than Obama had at this stage of his presidency. A review of legal database Westlaw showed that in Trump’s first nine months in office, cities or states filed 24 lawsuits challenging major policy initiatives of the administration. The review showed no similar lawsuits during the same time period of Obama’s presidency.  Trump also faces numerous suits by advocacy groups and others challenging such actions as his termination of an Obama program that protected people brought into the United States illegally as children from deportation and the authority of a presidential commission formed to investigate alleged voter fraud.  Trump has relied heavily on unilateral executive actions to advance his policy objectives. His fellow Republicans who control Congress have been unable to pass any major legislation he has sought.  Executive actions can be challenged in court more quickly than lengthy federal rule-making procedures, said law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University School of Law.  Obama relied on executive actions during the later years of his presidency after being unable to win congressional approval of key initiatives, and some of those actions drew legal challenges. But early in his presidency, he relied on unilateral actions less often because his fellow Democrats controlled Congress and passed major legislation including the 2010 Obamacare law.  Some legal experts say the haste with which Trump drafted some of his policy initiatives may have helped those challenging the actions because the orders were not sufficiently vetted.  “This administration is more willing to shoot from the hip” when compared with the Obama administration, Adler said.  That is how San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, a Democrat, saw Trump’s executive order on sanctuary city funding, which Herrera calculated could jeopardize up to $2 billion in federal funds for his city.  Herrera said he saw Trump’s action as “designed to appeal to a part of the administration’s political base without really having been vetted” by lawyers to ensure it was legally airtight. Herrera won an initial ruling in April blocking the measure, and the case is now pending before an appeals court.  Trump’s actions have appealed to his conservative political base, while the legal challenges have pleased his liberal critics.  Speaking at an event at New York University, Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, called Trump’s first travel ban, signed in January just a week into his presidency, a “galvanizing moment” for Democratic officials.  While lawsuits challenging the president’s actions have won some important early victories, the litigation onslaught’s ultimate effect on Trump’s agenda is not yet clear.  Trump’s opponents have tended to file suits in jurisdictions where they think they are likely to prevail, and where appeals will be heard in regional federal circuit courts dominated by Democratic-appointed judges.  The final decisions on the cases could be made by the Supreme Court, where Trump’s appointment of Gorsuch restored a 5-4 conservative majority.  The high court is likely to “prove more receptive” to the administration’s arguments on issues like immigration, said George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley.  Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco who was appointed by Obama appeared skeptical in a hearing about the challenge by the 18 states to the Affordable Care Act subsidies, illustrating the limits of resistance through litigation.  Alluding to the political aspect of the case, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria asked rhetorically during a hearing: why “have all these attorneys general rushed to court seeking an emergency ruling against President Trump?” Chhabria then ruled in favor of Trump.  Follow Trump's impact on energy, environment, healthcare, immigration and the economy at The Trump Effect [www.reuters.com/trump-effect]   (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Sue Horton and Will Dunham)

Summary: ट्रम्प के विरोधी उन्हें विफल करने के लिए अदालत की ओर दौड़ते हैं


ASUNCION (Reuters) - Paraguayan Senator Mario Abdo Benitez, a lawmaker with ties to a former Paraguayan dictator, won the ruling Colorado Party s presidential primary on Sunday in a sharp rebuke for President Horacio Cartes, the party s flagbearer. Abdo, the son of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner s private secretary, beat out ex-finance minister Santiago Pena, a young economist and Cartes  hand-picked successor, in a surprise outcome that followed increasing dissatisfaction with Cartes, who has been in power since 2013. Abdo will face lawyer Efrain Alegre, who won the opposition Liberal Party s nomination, in the April presidential election in the land-locked nation of 6.8 million, long one of South America s poorest.  The Colorado party has governed Paraguay for nearly 70 years, including during Stroessner s 1954-1989 dictatorship, with a brief interruption when leftist Fernando Lugo was elected in 2008 and impeached in 2012.  With over 96 percent of primary votes counted, Paraguay s electoral authority said that Abdo had received 50.9 percent of the vote. Pena had garnered 43.3 percent.  The arrogant establishment has been defeated today and forever ... we all have scars but are urging unity for the Colorados and later, Paraguay,  Abdo told his supporters following his victory. Cartes, a former soft-drink and tobacco executive, has run a low-tax policy that investors credit with spurring one of the fastest economic growth rates in Latin America. But his attempt to change laws enabling him to run for re-election spurred protests and was widely criticized. Abdo, known in Paraguay by his nickname  Marito,  has been a harsh critic of Cartes, and aligned with the opposition in Congress to fight his proposed re-election amendment. More than one million members of the Colorado Party voted on Sunday, an estimated turnout of 50 percent.

Summary: तानाशाही संबंधों के साथ पराग्वे के सीनेटर राष्ट्रपति पद के लिए चुनाव लड़ेंगे


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly one-fifth of registered Republicans want Donald Trump to drop out of the race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, reflecting the turmoil his candidacy has sown within his party. Some 19 percent think the New York real estate magnate should drop out, 70 percent think he should stay in and 10 percent say they “don’t know,” according to the Aug. 5-8 poll of 396 registered Republicans. The poll has a confidence interval of six percentage points. Among all registered voters, some 44 percent want Trump to drop out. That is based on a survey of 1,162 registered voters, with a confidence interval of 3 percentage points. That is 9 points higher than his support for the presidency in the latest Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll.  The figures underscored deep divisions within the Republican Party over Trump’s candidacy. A number of prominent Republicans have declined to endorse him in the Nov. 8 election against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, citing his fiery rhetoric and  policy proposals such as building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and temporarily banning Muslims from entering the country. Mike Smith, a 74-year-old retiree from Clearwater, Florida, said he supported Trump for much longer than he should have, but now feels the candidate should drop out of the race. Trump “has not comported himself as a leader,” said Smith, adding that he might vote for Clinton over his party’s nominee. “His policies don’t seem to be well formed, they don’t seem to make any sense,” Smith said. “The support he has from Republicans almost seems obligatory rather than voluntary.” Trump found himself embroiled in yet another controversy on Tuesday after saying at a rally that gun rights activists could act to stop Clinton from nominating liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices - a comment his campaign said was misinterpreted, but that Clinton’s campaign called “dangerous.” “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” Trump said at the rally at the University of North Carolina. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know,” he continued. The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees a right to keep and bear arms. Megan MacDonald, 25, is a Republican but did not support Trump through the primary. He has not done anything since to change her mind, and believes he should leave the race.  “I just feel there are so many derogatory things that have come out of his mouth, and he’s putting it out there – it’s not like someone is finding skeletons in his closet,” said MacDonald, a stay-at-home mom in Louisiana, who may pick a third-party candidate. “It feels like he’s not even trying to be a decent person who we should look up to.” Trump had previously stirred criticism for engaging in a spat with the parents of a Muslim U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.  In addition, 50 prominent national security experts signed an open letter saying they would not vote for Trump in the fall, saying he “lacks the character, values, and experience” to be president. Trump dismissed the group as part of the Washington establishment that he blames for many of the United States’ problems. Stacie McDaniel, 42, said Trump’s rhetoric has, at times, made her think he should drop out of the race.  “Sometimes I think he has good intentions, but his mouth gets overloaded,” said McDaniel, a relocation director for a real estate company in Louisiana. “I think he says things that if he does get elected, he’s not going to get anything done.” Still, she plans to vote for Trump, she said, because she cannot bring herself to support Clinton. “I dislike Hillary so much,” she said. “As the lesser of two evils is why I’m voting for him.” Indeed, neither Trump nor Clinton enjoys great popularity. Some 53 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Clinton, who has been accused of mishandling her emails as secretary of state, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.  Nearly 63 percent have an unfavorable view of Trump. Clinton led Trump by more than 7 percentage points in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, up from a less than 3-percentage-point lead late last week.

Summary: पाँच में से एक अमेरिकी रिपब्लिकन चाहते हैं कि ट्रम्प बाहर हो जाएंः रॉयटर्स/इप्सोस पोल


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials on Thursday over the treatment of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority, one of the strongest efforts yet for Washington to intervene in the humanitarian crisis. Introduced the day before Republican Donald Trump leaves on his first trip to Asia as president, the legislation would reimpose some sanctions lifted last year as Myanmar returned to democracy. It also would bar the United States from supplying most assistance to the country’s military until perpetrators of atrocities against the Rohingya are held accountable. The measure does not target Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Myanmar’s civilian-led government and a Nobel peace laureate who still enjoys strong support among some U.S. officials. But congressional aides said it is intended to underscore a strong desire among many members of Congress for her to do more to help the Rohingya. The legislation is sponsored by lawmakers including the Republican Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “This bill will allow Congress to strengthen the president’s hand by making it clear to Burmese officials that there will be consequences for their crimes against humanity,” Cardin said in a statement. Among other things, it re-imposes a ban on jade and rubies from Myanmar and requires a report on which individuals should be subjected to sanctions, and instructs the U.S. Treasury Department not to support international financial assistance programs that partner with enterprises owned by the Myanmar military. A companion bill is also being introduced in the House of Representatives. That measure is also bipartisan, led by Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Republican Representative Steve Chabot, another foreign affairs panel member. Members of Congress have been clamoring for a strong response to the plight of the Rohingya, and the Trump administration has been weighing labeling their treatment “ethnic cleansing.”  The State Department announced on Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would accompany Trump on his trip to Asia, and also stop in Myanmar. More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar since security forces responded to Rohingya militants’ attacks in August with a crackdown that has included reports of burnt villages and widespread killings. The United Nations has denounced it as a classic example of ethnic cleansing.

Summary: अमेरिकी सांसदों ने नए प्रतिबंधों के साथ म्यांमार की सेना को निशाना बनाया


BELGRADE (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday the United States should dismiss its ambassador to Ankara if he took the decision to suspend visa services in Turkey, adding he did not regard him as a representative of the U.S. government. Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade, Erdogan blamed the United States for causing the dispute between the two countries and asked how “agents” had infiltrated the U.S. consulate, referring to a consulate worker who was arrested last week and the involvement of a second individual at the mission.

Summary: तुर्की के एर्दोगन ने वीजा विवाद पर अमेरिकी राजदूत को निशाना बनाया


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Friday said U.S. missile strikes on a Syrian airbase had the “understandable intention” of preventing more chemical attacks but stressed that a negotiate solution was the only way out of the conflict. “The US has informed the European Union that ... they launched a strike on Shayrat Airfield in Syria with the understandable intention to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons,” the EU’s top diplomat Federica Mogherini said on behalf of the bloc’s 28 member states.  “The US also informed us that these strikes are limited and focused on preventing and deterring further use of chemical weapons atrocities ... Those found responsible should be sanctioned within the framework of the United Nations.”

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ ने कहा कि वह सीरिया में अमेरिकी हमलों के उद्देश्य को समझता है


(This version of the July 25 story corrects paragraph 11 to show that bill calls for banning chlorpyrifos and reviewing other similar pesticides, not reviewing effects of chlorpyrifos) By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of Democratic senators hopes to ban a pesticide the U.S. government has greenlighted for use, according to a bill unveiled on Tuesday in a challenge to Republican President Donald Trump’s push to loosen environmental regulations.  The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, would outlaw chlorpyrifos, an agricultural insect-killer that has been found to cause brain damage in children. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denied a petition to ban the chemical on March 29, and a federal appeals court on July 18 denied a petition by green groups to force the agency to reverse its decision and enact the ban. The bill is called the Protect Children, Farmers and Farmworkers from Nerve Agent Pesticides Act of 2017. Seven other senators are co-sponsoring it: Ben Cardin of Maryland, Kamala Harris of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.  Chlorpyrifos, produced by a variety of manufacturers, including a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, is listed as a neurotoxin by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. “Current regulatory safety standard for chlorpyrifos rests on five decades of experience in use, health surveillance of manufacturing workers and applicators, and more than 4,000 studies and reports examining the product in terms of health, safety and the environment,” a Dow spokesman said on Tuesday. “Authorized uses of chlorpyrifos products, when used as directed, offer wide margins of protection for human health and safety.”   The EPA considered whether to ban it for roughly a decade before Trump appointed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a Republican from Oklahoma, to lead the agency. In denying the petition to ban chlorpyrifos, Pruitt said the EPA had previously relied on “novel and uncertain” scientific study methods to conclude the substance was dangerous. The agency said it was still reviewing the chemical’s registration.  “EPA will continue to evaluate the potential risks posed by chlorpyrifos as part of the ongoing registration review,” said EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham. Trump and Pruitt have vowed to roll back environmental regulations they say are harming business growth in the United States.  Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who is dean for global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said three long-term, independently funded studies showed the substance was toxic. “Chlorpyrifos has been shown beyond any shadow of a doubt to damage the brains of children, especially those of fetuses in the womb,” he said. Udall’s bill also calls for the EPA to conduct a broad review of the use of other pesticides similar to chlorpyrifos to determine which groups are most vulnerable to their harmful effects. If the review shows any people are being exposed to harmful levels of the chemicals, called organophosphates, the EPA administrator must take “appropriate regulatory action” within three months by either suspending or revoking the their registration or lowering the amount that can legally be used.  “Congress must act because Administrator Pruitt has shown that he won’t,” Udall said in a statement on Monday.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेटरों ने कीटनाशक क्लोरपायरीफॉस पर प्रतिबंध लगाने की मांग की


MADRID (Reuters) - The leader of Catalonia s regional government, Carles Puigdemont, said on Thursday his administration would push on with a banned Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain, in defiance of a court order banning the vote.  We will do it because we have contingency plans in place to ensure it happens, but above all because it has the support of the immense majority of the population who are sick of the arrogance and abuse of the People s Party (PP) government,  he said in a televised statement. The ruling PP government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and major opposition parties in Madrid have declared an independence referendum illegal and against Spain s constitution.

Summary: कैटलन नेता का कहना है कि वह 1 अक्टूबर को स्वतंत्रता जनमत संग्रह के साथ आगे बढ़ेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the U.S. role in the United Nations and other international organizations, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The executive orders would also begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties, the Times reported, citing unnamed officials.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र में अमेरिकी भूमिका को कम करने के लिए ट्रम्प कार्यकारी आदेश तैयार कर रहे हैंः न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स


KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwandan police have arrested supporters of jailed opposition figure Victoire Ingabire who they said were planning to join an armed group in a neighboring country. Ingabire was jailed for 15 years in 2012 for conspiring to form an armed group to undermine the government and for seeking to minimize the 1994 genocide. Among the seven people arrested was Boniface Twagirimana, the vice president of Ingabire s party, and Leonille Gasengayire, a member of the party - FDU-Inkingi - which has never been registered as an official political movement, the police said on Wednesday.  Both have in the past accused the government of killing or being behind the disappearance of party members, which the government denies. Ingabire returned from exile in the Netherlands to contest a presidential election in January 2010 but was barred from standing after being accused of genocide denial. More than 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda when an ethnic Hutu-led government and ethnic militias went on a 100-day massacre. Afterwards, President Paul Kagame, who won a third term last month, was lauded for bringing economic improvements but he has faced increasing accusations of widespread human rights abuses, suppression of the political opposition and muzzling the media.

Summary: रवांडा ने जेल में बंद विपक्षी नेता के समर्थकों को गिरफ्तार किया


TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s portrayal of Japan as a free-rider on security is stirring worries in Tokyo about damage to its U.S. alliance, and could embolden hardliners keen to bolster Japan’s military in the face of a rising China. The U.S.-Japan alliance has been the lynchpin of Tokyo’s  security policy for decades, but worries have simmered in recent years as to whether Washington will continue to be willing and able to defend its key Asian ally.  Comments from the Republican Party frontrunner have done little to allay those fears. “If somebody attacks Japan, we have to immediately go and start World War III, okay? If we get attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us,” Trump said at a campaign speech late last year. “Somehow, that doesn’t sound so fair.” Trump has also accused Japan of stealing jobs and criticized the U.S.-led 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact that Tokyo sees as vital for strategic as well as economic reasons.       “If you listen to his comments (on security), the United States would become isolated so I think there is great anxiety for allied countries,” Itsunori Onodera, who served as defense minister under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, told Reuters. Last year, Abe spent considerable political capital enacting controversial legislation that allows Japan’s military to defend friendly countries under attack, a major reinterpretation of the country’s pacifist constitution. “It is incumbent on Japan to protect itself and its defense is necessary for the alliance to be maintained in the best possible posture,” said a source close to Abe. Abe also wants to formally revise the post-war charter to further loosen limits on military action overseas. “Most people consider Trump bad news, but for those who want to revise the constitution and strengthen the military, it actually provides a boost for their position,” said a former Western diplomat still in touch with Japanese policymakers. As host to around 50,000 U.S. troops, Japan is vital to Washington’s “rebalance” of its economic and security focus to the Asia-Pacific region. Trump did not respond to requests for comments about the U.S.-Japan alliance. Both Washington and Tokyo are alarmed by China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where Beijing has territorial rows with several Southeast Asian nations. Japan has a separate dispute with China over tiny islands in the East China Sea. Like many Trump observers around the world, Japanese policy makers at first watched with amusement and then disbelief as the reality TV star and property tycoon garnered growing momentum. Only in recent weeks have they begun taking Trump’s chances seriously and are now scrambling to find out who is advising him on security, another government source said.  Japanese policymakers have not geared up specifically to counter what they see as his misleading rhetoric, which seems to hark back to an outdated 1980s vision of Japan, the source close to Abe said. “I think it’s too early. Number one, he has not made it known even to the American voters whom he counts on as far as foreign policy goals,” the source said, adding they expected Trump would change if elected. “We are fully aware campaign rhetoric is dramatically different from real policies pursued by incumbents.”   For now, though, Japanese government insiders say they are betting that if Trump becomes the Republican nominee and goes on to win the Nov. 8 presidential election, he would surround himself with experts who would draft more realistic policies. Publicly, Japan is playing it politely. Asked about Trump’s candidacy on Wednesday, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters: “We are of course watching this because of the impact such a large country has, but we cannot otherwise comment on another country’s election.”

Summary: ट्रंप की उम्मीदवारी से जापान में गठबंधन की चिंता बढ़ी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Monday it was reviewing  adjustments  in arms for U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria but stopped short of declaring a halt to weapons transfers, suggesting such decisions would be based on battlefield requirements. Turkey said on Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump told President Tayyip Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Ankara views as threat. It called on Monday for Washington to follow through on its pledge.  We are reviewing pending adjustments to the military support provided to our Kurdish partners in as much as the military requirements of our defeat-ISIS and stabilization efforts will allow to prevent ISIS from returning,  said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, using an acronym for Islamic State, which U.S. and U.S.-backed forces are battling in Syria.

Summary: पेंटागन का कहना है कि सीरियाई कुर्दों के लिए हथियारों में 'समायोजन' की समीक्षा की जा रही है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Not even a week after the Trump administration and Congress rekindled optimism that they could soon make progress on a pro-growth agenda including tax cuts, the unexpected firing of the head of the FBI late Tuesday presented investors with a fresh reason to second-guess their confidence in the “Trump trade.” At the least, financial market participants viewed President Donald Trump’s abrupt dismissal of FBI Director James Comey as an unwelcome distraction, while some fretted it could tie Washington in knots for months, potentially postponing already-delayed reforms. The takeaway for the stock markets: don’t bet on any quick legislation around trade, the budget, healthcare or infrastructure. “There is nothing good out of this for markets,” said Michael Purves, chief global strategist at Weeden & Co. “It will weigh on Trump’s ability to cut deals with Congress. It costs him negotiating leverage.”  Jack Ablin, Chief Investment Officer at BMO Private Bank, said, “on a medium-term basis, it does undermine the administration’s power to get things done.”  Trump's election last November unleashed a powerful upswing in U.S. stock markets on the premise that he would cut taxes and regulation and usher through a major infrastructure spending package. The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX has gained 12 percent since Election Day, while shares of tech stocks and smaller companies have performed even better.  Nagging concerns about Trump’s ability to get things done, along with some anxiety about stretched equity valuations, have combined to cap the rally, and stocks have done little since early March. Around midday Wednesday, the S&P was near unchanged, as were other market benchmarks. The administration recovered some credibility last week when the House of Representatives voted to repeal major portions of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act after failing to do so a month earlier. The simple achievement of advancing the healthcare bill to the Senate had been seen by investors as a signal that enacting tax cuts was doable, the big question was just how soon - this year or next.  “There’s a tremendous amount of hope baked into the market that Trump is going to be able to act, particularly on tax reform,” said Brad McMillan, Chief Investment Officer for Commonwealth Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts. Edward Perkin, Chief Equity Investment Officer at Eaton Vance, said if the date to pass tax “is pushed out it’s not so much a problem, but if people question if it will ever happen, then that’s a problem.” The degree to which this further alienates Democrats on Capitol Hill, especially in the Senate, was another concern given how narrow support has been so far for Trump’s agenda. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a senior Democratic lawmaker from California, was not optimistic that tensions between the parties would ease anytime soon. “I had been hopeful that we could have a line of activity that’s going to bring a very divided country together,” Feinstein told Reuters Wednesday. “The problem out there is that people are so divided.” Should the Comey episode weaken Trump’s bargaining ability with lawmakers, it may actually act as a catalyst for a tax bill, just one that might resemble congressional Republicans’ version more than Trump’s. “An ongoing special investigation or shift in the balance of power could actually make Trump more eager to sign off” on the previously existing congressional tax plan, analysts at NatWest Markets said. Of course, some had already adopted the view that Trump’s promised reforms were a distant hope, at best. “Investors are realizing that the fiscal policy agenda is being pushed out farther on the horizon,” Michael Arone, Chief Investment Strategist at State Street Global Advisors (STT.N).

Summary: कोमी की बर्खास्तगी के बाद ट्रम्प के विकास के एजेंडे में एक बार फिर देरी देखी गई


AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch politicians gave each other high-fives when they won a contest to host the European Medicines Agency last month, but not everyone in the capital is celebrating the expected influx of highly-paid pharmaceutical experts. Amsterdam s residents and media, already sick of the numbers of tourists searching out stag-do strip joints on their streets, are increasingly vexed about another group of visitors - white-collar, expatriate workers.  A Nice Brexit Trophy, But Can The City Handle It?  newspaper NRC Handelsblad said in a headline, referring to the decision to move the regulatory agency from London to Amsterdam after Britain leaves the EU. The EMA will come with around 900 staff - a wonderful economic boost, according to supporters of the move. Detractors say it s just another group of foreigners with big pay packets driving up rents and property prices.  Home Buyers Will Pay The Price For Drugs Agency In Amsterdam,  said national broadcaster NOS. On social media, many also mourned the death of the city s free-wheeling and edgy spirit, killed off, they said, by the likes of the EMA s army of bureaucrats. The sanitation of Amsterdam has been going on for more than a decade.  Advertising campaigns have focused on the city s canals, the Anne Frank House, the museums packed with Van Gogh and Rembrandt s greatest works.     Legislators have helped the re-branding by shuttering a third of the city s brothels in 2008 and starting a program to close marijuana cafes near schools in 2011. The number of overnight tourists nearly doubled from 2011 to 2016, according to Amsterdam Marketing. Amsterdam and its 850,000 residents now welcome more than 6 million foreign tourists a year. That has all coincided with a surge in the number of well-heeled expatriates - numbers have also doubled to 77,000 in 2015 from 39,000 in 2009, according to the city s statistics office.   Amsterdam has always been an open city,  said Reinier van Dantzig, leader of the largest faction in city parliament from the centrist D-66 party.     Immigrants were an integral part of the city s 17th-Century golden age and were continuing to contribute to the current economic boom, he added.   That s why I have such difficulty with people who say that people from outside who want to become Amsterdammers would be some kind of danger - I think they re an addition.  The city, he said, was building housing for 70,000 more people, with extra space allotted to apartments for low and medium-income families. Too little, too late for Danielle van Diemen, a 5th-generation Amsterdammer.  The city is being defined by a mix of Western foreigners who think that Amsterdam is edgy but that s no longer true,  she said, pointing to a ban on squatting that went into effect in 2010.  The gap between wealthy expats who don t speak Dutch and locals is all but unbridgeable, she added.  So: expats go home and leave the city to us.   I am like a visitor in my own neighborhood,  said Bert Nap, who lives near the center.  We have lost all our bakers and other shops to tourism-orientated shops,  he added, echoing complaints across Europe s holiday hotspots. A survey by apartment-searching website Nestpick in April ranked Amsterdam #1 on its global list of best cities for millennials, citing its tolerance, night life and thriving startup scene.  These people have qualifications, they have skills, they are networked, and so the fact is that they compete for houses and jobs with people who don t have those qualifications,  said Jan Rath, a sociology professor at the University of Amsterdam.  You could argue that what s happening ... is actually a replacement of the population  he said. Real estate prices have soared, leading to a squeeze on unskilled workers, whether they are native Dutch or Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 40 percent of young couples leave the city within four years of having their first child, driven out by the lack of affordable housing. Resentment also stems from a policy that allows skilled immigrants to receive 30 percent of their income tax-free. On a salary of 100,000 euros that amounts to 15,000 euros in extra take-home pay for an expat over a Dutch person doing the same job. Property prices rose 13 percent in the third quarter of 2017 from the same period a year earlier, according to the CBS, above their 2008 highs. Listings have dried up. As one real estate agent put it, the market has  boiled dry . Michiel van Hemert, a kitchen assistant, said government priorities were wrong.  Imagine the  economic boom  that would come from retraining 40 and 50-year-olds, which is clearly needed,  he said. He recommended more funding for educators, police, nurses and other public servants.  I speak for myself and two or three generations before me.

Summary: 'एक्सपैट्स गो होम': एम्स्टर्डम के आगंतुकों की तेजी ने स्थानीय लोगों को नाराज कर दिया


(Reuters) - Six current and former Michigan and Flint officials were criminally charged on Wednesday for their roles in the city’s water crisis that was linked to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that caused at least 12 deaths, the state’s attorney general said. Five of the officials, including Michigan Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon, were charged with involuntary manslaughter stemming from their roles in handling the crisis, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a statement.   Involuntary manslaughter is a felony that carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. Lyon, 49, was also charged with one count of misconduct in office. The felony charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. Four current and former state and Flint officials were also charged with involuntary manslaughter. The four had all been previously charged with lesser crimes in connection with the water crisis.  The state’s chief medical executive, Eden Wells, was charged Wednesday with obstruction of justice and lying to police. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said in a statement that Lyon and Wells have his “full faith and confidence” and would remain on duty and help in Flint’s recovery. An attorney for Lyon could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately known if Wells had an attorney. Schuette said his team had not spoken with Snyder as part of the investigation. “We attempted to interview the governor. We were not successful,” Schuette said. He declined to elaborate. Previously, Schuette, when asked if Snyder was a target in the investigation, said there were no targets but “nobody is off the table.” Some critics have called for high-ranking state officials, including Snyder, to be charged. Snyder previously said he believed he had not done anything criminally wrong. “The governor isn’t going to speculate on where the investigation is or is not headed, but he continues to cooperate fully,” Snyder’s spokeswoman Anna Heaton said.  Snyder’s attorney, Brian Lennon, said in a statement that Snyder was made available to testify under oath this spring after being told a subpoena would be produced, but that never occurred. He added that Snyder previously testified under oath to Congress. Wednesday’s charges stem from more than 80 cases of Legionnaires’ disease, including the fatalities, that were believed to be linked to the water in Flint after the city switched its source to the Flint River from Lake Huron in April 2014. Lyon was aware of the Legionnaires’ outbreak in Genesee County at least one year before he informed the public, according to court documents. His deliberate failure to inform the public resulted in the death of Genesee Township resident Robert Skidmore, 85, from Legionnaires’ in December 2015, the documents said.   Wells lied to police about when she became aware of the outbreak, according to the documents. She also threatened a team of independent researchers who were studying the source of the disease, court documents said. “It’s good to see that state Attorney General Schuette and his team are taking this matter seriously,” Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement. “We all are waiting to see what else the investigation uncovers.” The crisis in Flint erupted in 2015 when tests found high amounts of lead in blood samples taken from children in the predominantly black city of about 100,000. The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from pipes and into the drinking water. Lead levels in Flint’s drinking water have now fallen below levels considered dangerous by federal regulators, state officials said last January. Others charged with involuntary manslaughter on Wednesday included former state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley, former Flint city employee Howard Croft, and former state Department of Environmental Quality officials Stephen Busch and Liane Shekter-Smith.

Summary: फ्लिंट जल संकट में मिशिगन के छह अधिकारियों पर आपराधिक आरोप लगाए गए


KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Chinese submarine has docked in Malaysia, the second such visit to the Southeast Asian country this year, as western powers fret over China s expanding reach in the South China Sea. China claims nearly all the South China Sea, through which an estimated $3 trillion in international trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also have claims. Tensions between China and Malaysia over their overlapping claims, however, appear to have eased after Malaysia agreed in November to buy four Chinese naval vessels and pledged with Beijing to handle South China Sea disputes bilaterally. The Royal Malaysian Navy confirmed the visit by the Chinese submarine, which docked at the Sepanggar naval base in the state of Sabah in Borneo between Friday and Monday. RMN chief Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin said it was standard international procedure to welcome visits by foreign navy vessels,  based on each nation s request and upon diplomatic clearance .  This is part of our efforts to enhance defense diplomacy and strengthening bilateral relations,  he told Reuters. The submarine was escorted by a surface ship from the PLA Navy and was returning to China after conducting escort missions in the Gulf of Aden, according to defense magazine Jane s 360, which first reported the submarine s docking. In January, a Chinese submarine docked in Sepanggar, only the second confirmed visit of a Chinese submarine to a foreign port, according to state media. Chinese warships have also been calling at ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, unnerving regional rival India.

Summary: इस साल दूसरी बार मलेशियाई बंदरगाह पर चीनी पनडुब्बी