CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner urged lawmakers on Friday to allow voters in 2018 to decide whether to change how political boundaries are drawn after the state’s Supreme Court a day earlier declared a petition-driven redistricting initiative for this fall’s statewide ballot unconstitutional. Rauner called Illinois’ existing political maps, which are drawn by Democrats who control the General Assembly, “rigged and gerrymandered” because they have left a majority of legislative races this fall without challengers to incumbent legislators. “Our system of government is broken,” Rauner told reporters during a stop in Marion, in far southern Illinois. “Two-thirds of our general elections don’t have opponents, and we’ve got to change the system.” The next opportunity for state legislators to put a constitutional amendment before voters comes in two years, when the first-term governor is expected to be in the midst of a re-election campaign. “Our system has been run by a broken, powerful political machine in Chicago that looks out for itself, not for the people of Illinois, and certainly not for the people of southern Illinois,” Rauner said. “We’ve got to get the power away from that machine, and we can do it with political reform.” Rauner’s comments came less than 24 hours after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to uphold a lower court ruling that would keep in place the once-a-decade, partisan-controlled political mapmaking process that has allowed for Democratic majorities in the state legislature and on the elected Supreme Court. The amendment, if it was placed on November’s ballot and passed by a majority of Illinois voters, would have transferred the power of re-drawing legislative districts to a bipartisan commission. More than 563,000 Illinois voters signed petitions backing the amendment.  There were 12 redistricting amendments filed in both chambers during the current legislative session though none won approval in both chambers. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled the ballot initiative fell outside the scope of permissible ballot initiatives, which may only be used for amendments directed at “structural and procedural subjects” in the constitution pertaining to Illinois’s legislative branch. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Robert Thomas wrote: “Today a muzzle has been placed on the people of this State, and their voices supplanted by judicial fiat.”

Summary: इलिनोइस के गवर्नर ने 'धांधली' वाले राजनीतिक मानचित्रण पर 2018 के मतदान का आग्रह किया


SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese state media on Saturday cheered the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as one that showed the world that confrontation between the two powers was not inevitable. The official China Daily newspaper said it was encouraging to see the two-day summit that ended on Friday “going as well as it could” after earlier “confusing signals” from Washington about how it was approaching the U.S.-China relationship. Trump had campaigned with strident anti-China rhetoric and had angered Beijing before taking office by talking to the president of Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own. But the two sides avoided any diplomatic gaffes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that would have tarnished the meeting in the eyes of the protocol-conscious Chinese. China Daily said both parties appeared “equally enthusiastic about the constructive relationship they have promised to cultivate.” “This may sound surreal to those preoccupied with an ‘inescapable’ conflict scenario between what they see as rising and incumbent powers,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial.  “But that Beijing and Washington have so far managed to do well in preventing conflicts shows confrontation is not inevitable.” State-run Chinese tabloid Global Times said the meeting “served as an indicator that the China-U.S. relationship is still very much on course since the Trump administration took office in January” and it was likely the two nations would develop a more “pragmatic relationship.”  “It seems that both countries have understood the importance of how essential a smooth transition needs to be and not just for the two countries involved here but really for the entire world over,” it said. Their comments were echoed by a front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, which said the meeting established the tone for the development of U.S.-China relations.  In a tweet on Saturday, Trump wrote of the meeting: “goodwill and friendship was formed, but only time will tell on trade.” The Chinese commentaries, however, made no mention of the U.S. missile strike on a Syrian government air base, which overshadowed the summit. Wang Dong, associate professor of international studies at China’s elite Peking University, said the move may have had the added bonus in Trump’s eyes of sending North Korea a message over its nuclear program, but that China was unlikely to be fazed. “There are great differences between the Syria situation and the Korean peninsula situation,” Wang said, noting North Korea’s conventional military capability to strike back at South Korea in the event of U.S. military action. “Any use of force or pre-emptive strikes against North Korea will carry huge ramifications, which would probably lead to a drastically different outcome compared to Syria,” Wang said. In the talks, Trump pressed Xi to do more to curb North Korea’s nuclear program and the two agreed to a 100-day plan for trade talks aimed at boosting U.S. exports and reducing the gaping U.S. trade deficit with Beijing. U.S. industry had hoped Trump would deliver a strong message to Xi behind closed doors to end what they see as discriminatory trade policies, but not do anything rash to spark a trade war. In an outcome likely to play well in China, state news agency Xinhua said U.S. and Chinese officials initiated new dialogue mechanisms on economic issues, as well as security and diplomatic issues, in what appeared to be a reimagining of the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue held under President Barack Obama. Some within U.S. industry had suggested those earlier talks yielded little substance, and urged the Trump administration to scrap them until Beijing displayed more initiative to address complaints about its industrial policies. “We would like to see more results-oriented outcomes coming out of these new dialogues and fewer laundry lists,” said Beijing-based Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council, although he added that he saw the meeting as “generally positive” on commercial issues.

Summary: चीनी राज्य मीडिया ने शी-ट्रम्प की बैठक की सराहना की, कहा कि टकराव अपरिहार्य नहीं है


NEW DELHI, ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - India denounced Pakistan on Tuesday over the treatment of the family of an Indian man sentenced to death for spying, saying they had been harassed during a visit, a charge Pakistan called  baseless . Among other things, the Indian government accused the Pakistani authorities of refusing to return the shoes of the visiting wife of Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav after she turned them over to security for the visit. Jadhav, a former officer in the Indian navy, was arrested in March 2016 in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, where there has been a long-running conflict between security forces and separatists, and he was convicted of planning espionage and sabotage. His wife and mother were allowed to see him behind a glass window on Monday, eight months after he was sentenced to death, but that gesture of goodwill appeared to have quickly descended into acrimony. Ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors are in a deep chill and Jadhav s case has added to long-running tensions, with each accusing the other of supporting cross-border violence.  Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said Jadhav s family had been subjected to harassment when they arrived to see him.  The Pakistani press was allowed on multiple occasions to approach family members closely, harass and hector them and hurl false and loaded accusations about (Shri) Jadhav,  Kumar said in a statement. Pakistan s foreign ministry rejected the accusations.  The Indian baseless allegations and twists ... about the visit of the wife and mother of Commander Jadhav, a convicted terrorist and spy, who has confessed to his crimes, are categorically rejected,  it said. The Pakistani statement added that it had kept both Pakistani, Indian and international media  at a safe distance, as requested by India . Pakistan authorities say Jadhav confessed to being assigned by India s intelligence service to plan, coordinate and organise espionage and sabotage activities in Baluchistan  aiming to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan . India says Jadhav is innocent, and it won an injunction from the World Court to delay his execution, arguing he was denied diplomatic assistance during his trial by a military court. On Monday, Pakistan released a picture of Jadhav s mother, Avanti, and wife, Chetankul, seated at a desk and speaking to him from behind the glass partition. Islamabad said it had honored its commitment to give access to the family.  But India said Jadhav s mother was not allowed to speak in her native Marathi language and was frequently interrupted during the meeting.  Kumar said the two women had been asked to remove the red dot that Hindus wear as well as their jewelry and shoes during security screenings, adding that Pakistani authorities had refused to return the shoes that Jadhav s wife had worn. The Pakistani foreign ministry rebuttal did not address the report of the missing shoes. India and Pakistan often accuse each other of spying, and several people have been held in prisons for years in both countries, some on death row, to be used as bargaining chips in their troubled relationship.

Summary: भारत का कहना है कि पाकिस्तान ने दोषी जासूस की पत्नी के साथ दुर्व्यवहार किया, उसके जूते जब्त कर लिए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, will not accept a nomination to be a U.S. presidential candidate, his spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said on Wednesday. “The speaker is grateful for the support, but he is not interested. He will not accept a nomination and believes our nominee should be someone who ran this year,” Strong said in an email to Reuters. She was responding to a report by Politico that quoted former Speaker John Boehner as saying that Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot at the convention in July.  “If we don’t have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I’m for none of the above,” Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton Florida, Politico reported on Wednesday. “They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I’m for none of the above. I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee.” Ryan, who is from Wisconsin and became House speaker last year, has been touted as a possible dark horse candidate for president, should the Republican convention fail to agree on any of the current contenders on the first ballot. Ryan has repeatedly insisted that he does not want to run for president this year, and a committee that sought to draft him closed last week after Ryan’s office urged a halt to its activities. Ryan ran for vice president in 2012 on the unsuccessful Republican ticket with presidential contender Mitt Romney.  U.S. Republican front-runner Donald Trump scored big wins in Republican primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on Tuesday which brought him closer to the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination. But he still might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland. A spokesman for Boehner said Wednesday that the former speaker, who is from Ohio, had endorsed that state’s Governor John Kasich in the presidential race. “His (Boehner’s) off-the-cuff comments this morning were about a hypothetical scenario in which none of the current candidates are able to secure the nomination at the convention,” the spokesman, Dave Schnittger, said.

Summary: सदन के अध्यक्ष रेयान राष्ट्रपति पद के लिए नामांकन स्वीकार नहीं करेंगे।


GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. Human Rights Council voted on Friday to extend its investigation into suspected crimes against humanity in Burundi, dealing a blow to an attempt by a group of African countries to dial down the level of scrutiny.  Burundi had hoped that by promising to cooperate fully with the U.N. human rights office and inviting three experts to the country, the Council would drop its Commission of Inquiry. It appeared to have succeeded on Thursday when the Council agreed to send the three experts, backing a resolution that also welcomed Burundi s decision  to restore full cooperation  with the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  Burundi s ambassador, Renovat Tabu, told the Council that after that decision, there was no longer any need to continue the Commission of Inquiry, as demanded by the European Union.  There is a clear will of the EU to instrumentalize the Council to politicize human rights,  he said. But the EU, with strong backing from the United States, pressed the case for the Commission of Inquiry.   Just days ago, when Burundi finally agreed to engage members of this council in discussions for the first time, the Burundian ambassador portrayed a rosy picture of his country, with the clear goal of ending the Commission of Inquiry, which he repeated again today,  U.S. diplomat Jason Mack said.   Don t be confused by Burundi s last-minute engagement, which is solely to put an end to ongoing investigations,  he said.  The commission has said there are reasonable grounds to believe crimes against humanity have been committed since April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term in office. The opposition has said he acted unconstitutionally by doing so.  Burundian officials at the highest level  should be held accountable for crimes against humanity and a list of suspects has been drawn up, the commission said earlier this month. In a statement following the vote, the commission said it   would like to believe that the Burundian authorities will now respond to a renewed request for dialogue . Among the 22 countries voting to maintain maximum scrutiny were Botswana and Burundi s neighbor Rwanda, alongside European countries and the United States. Other African nations were among the 11  no  votes and 14 abstentions.

Summary: बुरुंडी ने संयुक्त राष्ट्र के अत्याचारों की जांच रोकने का प्रयास खो दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States sought on Monday to avoid openly taking sides in an Iraqi-Kurdish dispute, as Iraq s capture of the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk raised the risk of an open conflict between U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic State. U.S. President Donald Trump expressed disappointment the two sides were fighting.  We don t like the fact that they re clashing. We re not taking sides,  Trump told reporters at the White House.   We ve had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know and we ve also been on the side of Iraq, even though we should have never been there in the first place. We should never have been there. But we re not taking sides in that battle.  Iraqi government forces captured the major Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk on Monday, responding to a Kurdish referendum on independence with a bold lightning strike that transforms the balance of power in the country. A convoy of armored vehicles from Iraq s elite U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Force seized Kirkuk s provincial government headquarters on Monday afternoon, less than a day after the operation began, a Reuters reporter in Kirkuk said. Senator John McCain, the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned Iraq s government of  severe consequences  over any further misuse of U.S.-provided weaponry against Kurdish forces. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning declined to speculate on whether the United States might cut off military aid and training to Iraqi forces in the event a major conflict, saying:  I m not going to speculate on that but I will tell you that we re looking at all options for planning considerations ... We encourage dialogue.

Summary: इराक-कुर्दिश विवाद में अमेरिका 'पक्ष नहीं ले रहा': ट्रम्प


MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia s government said on Wednesday it had requested a U.S. air strike that killed scores of suspected militants to help pave the way for an upcoming ground offensive against Islamist group al Shabaab. The U.S. military s Africa Command (Africom) said on Tuesday it had killed more than 100 of the al Qaeda-linked insurgents in the strike on a camp 125 miles (200 km) northwest of the capital Mogadishu.  Those militants were preparing explosives and attacks. Operations against al Shabaab have been stepped up,          Somali Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman told Reuters.  We have asked the U.S. to help us from the air to make our readied ground offensive more successful.  Al Shabaab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab denied the air strike had taken place.  It is just... propaganda,  he told Reuters.  The United States has ramped up operations in Somalia this year after President Donald Trump loosened the rules of engagement in March. Africom reported eight U.S. air strikes from May to August, compared to 13 for the whole of 2016. Including Tuesday s strike, it has reported five this month alone. The Pentagon said the U.S. military would continue to target militants in strikes in coordination with the Somali government. Al Shabaab has lost control of most of Somalia s cities and towns since African Union peacekeepers supporting Somali troops pushed the insurgency out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011. But it retains a strong presence in parts of the south and center. Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a dual U.S.-Somali citizen, has taken a harder line than his predecessors against the insurgency since he was sworn in earlier this year. But his plans have been undermined by the poor state of the Somali military and political infighting.  He has also had to try to mend fences with the powerful Habar Gidir clan, following a raid involving U.S. forces on the town of Bariire in August in which 10 people were killed including three children.

Summary: सोमालिया का कहना है कि उसने अमेरिकी हवाई हमले का अनुरोध किया जिसमें 100 आतंकवादी मारे गए


HARARE (Reuters) - When Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe sacked his vice president in front of 12,000 baying party members in 2014, Emmerson Mnangagwa sat quietly in the crowd, a green baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. The man who stood to gain most from the dismissal betrayed nothing through his expression and gentle clapping - a survival tactic honed during five decades of service to the mercurial Mugabe. His cap, however, spoke volumes. Emblazoned across its front, next to a portrait of Mugabe, were four words:  Indigenise, Empower, Develop, Employ  - a slogan of the ruling ZANU-PF party. That day, he became Mugabe s official deputy. Mnangagwa, whose sacking from the post this month brought Zimbabwe s political crisis to a head, is now poised to take over after Mugabe, 93, resigned on Tuesday, ending almost four decades of rule. Mnangagwa will be sworn in on Wednesday or Thursday, ZANU-PF s legal secretary Patrick Chinamasa told Reuters. The party s chief whip said Mnangagwa would serve the remainder of Mugabe s term until the next election due by September 2018. But there are questions over how Mnangagwa will lead the country led by Mugabe since independence in 1980. In a statement issued from hiding on Tuesday, Mnangagwa said Zimbabweans from all walks of life had to work together to rebuild a shattered economy and deeply polarized society.  My desire is to join all Zimbabweans in a new era, where corruption, incompetence, dereliction of duty and laziness, social and cultural decadence is not tolerated,  he said.  In that new Zimbabwe, it is important for everyone to join hands so that we rebuild this nation to its full glory. This is not a job for ZANU-PF alone but for all people of Zimbabwe.  The 75-year-old was one of Mugabe s most trusted lieutenants, having been at his side in prison, during wartime and then in government. With his appointment in 2014 as Mugabe s official deputy, Mnangagwa had appeared well set as the eventual successor to Africa s oldest head of state.  There are no arguments around his credentials to provide strong leadership and stability, but there are questions over whether he can also be a democrat,  said Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. Speaking at the congress in 2014, Mnangagwa reinforced the message emblazoned on his headgear, announcing revisions to ZANU-PF s constitution that backed  total ownership and control  of Zimbabwe s natural resources. It was a key insight to the party s direction as it contemplated life beyond Mugabe.  We will remain forever masters of our own destiny,  Mnangagwa said at the time, to cheers from the crowd. Along the way, Mnangagwa earned the nickname  Ngwena , Shona for crocodile, an animal famed in Zimbabwean lore for its stealth and ruthlessness. He backed Mugabe s economic nationalism, especially a drive to force foreign firms to hand majority stakes to local blacks, suggesting he may not be the pro-market pragmatist many investors were hoping for. He has been in every administration since independence, holding posts as varied as minister of state security, defense and finance, as well as speaker of parliament. Most controversially, he was in charge of internal security in the mid-1980s when Mugabe deployed a crack North Korean-trained brigade against rebels loyal to his rival Joshua Nkomo. Rights groups say 20,000 civilians, mostly from the Ndebele tribe, were killed. Mugabe denies genocide or crimes against humanity but has admitted it was a  moment of madness . Mnangagwa s role remains shrouded in mystery, typical of a political operator trained as a communist guerrilla in China in the 1960s and who always stayed in the shadows behind Mugabe. Secretive and insular, he prefers to operate under the radar, those in his inner circle say, and when pushed into a corner, resorts to jokes and trivia to avoid serious discussion.  I wouldn t say he is deceptive but it s fair to say his default position is to crack jokes and deflect uncomfortable questions by asking endless questions,  one member of parliament close to him said.  He is very conscious that his public image is that of a hard man but he is a much more complex personality - pleasant and an amazing story-teller,  the politician, also from Mnangagwa s Midlands Province, told Reuters. Mnangagwa s appointment as vice president came a day after his predecessor Joice Mujuru was fired for allegedly planning to topple Mugabe. Asked whether the purge would weaken the party, a smiling Mnangagwa said:  The revolution has a way of strengthening itself. It goes through cycles, this is another cycle where it rids itself of elements that had now become inconsistent with the correct line.  Mnangagwa learnt his politics in prison in the 1960s after being sentenced to death for sabotage by British authorities. He was captured while in one of the earliest guerrilla units fighting white colonial rule in what was then Rhodesia. He was 19 and only spared the noose by a law prohibiting the execution of convicts under 21. After a decade in prison, often sharing a cell with Mugabe, Mnangagwa became personal assistant to the leader of the liberation struggle, and went on to head the guerrilla movement s feared internal security bureau. In January, a photograph appeared in local media showing Mnangagwa enjoying drinks with a friend. In his hand was a large novelty mug emblazoned with the words:  I M THE BOSS.  To supporters of Mugabe, this bordered on treason. They suspected that Mnangagwa already saw himself in the leader s shoes. When Mugabe fired Mnangagwa as vice president this month for showing  traits of disloyalty , he removed a possible successor who was also one of his last remaining liberation war comrades. But relations had already cooled between the two men after suggestions by Mnangagwa s allies in August that he had been poisoned by ice cream from a dairy owned by the Mugabes.

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे के मुगाबे के इस्तीफे के बाद सभी की नजर 'मगरमच्छ' पर


PARIS (Reuters) - France s foreign ministry suggested on Monday that new sanctions could be imposed on Iran if needed over its ballistic missile program.  Iran rejected on Sunday a call by French President Emmanuel Macron for talks on Tehran s ballistic missiles, saying they were defensive and unrelated to a nuclear agreement with world powers.  As you know, the European Union has already placed sanctions on Iranian entities involved in the ballistic program,  foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne said. She was responding when asked to clarify comments made by Macron during a trip to the United Arab Emirates last week about the prospects of possible sanctions with regard to those activities.  If needed, new sanctions could be taken,  she said.  The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying Yemen s Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the United Nations to hold Tehran accountable for violating two U.N. Security Council resolutions. Saudi Arabia and its allies accuse Iran of supplying missiles and other weapons to the Houthis, saying the arms were not present in Yemen before conflict broke out there in 2015. Iran denies the charges and blames the conflict on Riyadh. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will be in the Saudi capital later this week and intends to travel to Iran before the end of the month.  The political dialogue between France and Iran is active and makes it possible to address all topics, including strategic and regional issues,  Romatet-Espagne said.  Mr Le Drian will have a firm dialogue when he goes to Iran.

Summary: फ्रांस ने बैलिस्टिक कार्यक्रम को लेकर ईरान पर नए प्रतिबंधों की संभावना जताई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facing potentially deep budget cuts to U.S. foreign aid, new USAID administrator Mark Green says he needs to do more with less and prove to President Donald Trump that development assistance can further his “America First” agenda.  In a first meeting with Trump back in January, Green made his pitch to the then president-elect, drawing from his experience in Central America to explain how U.S.-funded programs there could help slow the number of immigrants trying to enter the United States illegally. “I said ‘Mr. President-elect, I believe our development tools can help us achieve just about every one of your strategic priorities,’” Green told Reuters in his first interview since starting last week as head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Green had previously worked on U.S-supported projects with indigenous mayors in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to improve living conditions “so kids hopefully don’t go 1,000 miles through the worst conditions imaginable and jump the border.” “It works and is a great way to use development,” he said, sitting in a still bare office at USAID headquarters blocks from the White House. Green brings a unique resume to the job: a former four-term Republican congressman from Wisconsin who served as U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania under President George W. Bush. In his last job as head of the International Republican Institute, he helped promote governance and democracy overseas. His time on Capitol Hill will be key to his new job. In a sign of his good standing there, Green’s nomination had support across the political spectrum, as well as among aid groups.   Trump staked out his position on foreign aid on the campaign trail, casting it as a waste of U.S. tax dollars. And now his administration has proposed slashing the budget for foreign aid by a third, which could gut programs across a range of issues including health, governance, gender and education. But U.S. foreign assistance has traditionally garnered bipartisan support in Congress, which controls the aid purse strings. Green has stronger relations with lawmakers than his  predecessors, who battled Congress on funding and objectives. “What’s very different for Mark Green is that his strongest allies are on the Hill,” said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington. “Where he faces headwinds are with both the White House and the State Department.”  “There is a real potential for conflicts in basic philosophy about what USAID does,” added Morris. Green is nevertheless sanguine about prospects for a downsized, budget-constrained USAID.  “We can’t do everything,” he said. “The resources are limited, so we have to prioritize.” Green takes over an agency that has already been through waves of reform in the last decade, adapting to shifting global development patterns featuring deep-pocket philanthropic groups, more private-sector investment in emerging economies, and the rise of China as a financier in the developing world. New demands have emerged with an unprecedented refugee crisis from wars in Syria and Iraq, along with famine in Africa, and growing violent extremism. “USAID’s humanitarian work is unrivaled, it is mobilization of American generosity, and it will continue,” Green said, adding that U.S. assistance should both help in times of crisis and prevent crises from occurring. He wants U.S. foreign assistance to focus on results to show Americans that their tax-dollars are being put to good use. “I am going to ask every program to show me how it is moving us closer to the day when people can lead themselves,” said Green. “If it is not helping, they’re going to have to tell me why.”

Summary: बजट में कटौती के साथ, अमेरिकी सहायता प्रमुख ने कम के साथ अधिक करने का संकल्प लिया


VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz, who secured victory in Sunday s parliamentary election but fell well short of a majority, does not rule out the possibility of forming a minority government once the final result comes in.  I would of course like to form a stable government. If that cannot be done then there are other options,  he told broadcaster ORF, adding that he planned to talk to all parties in parliament but would first wait for a count of postal ballots that begins on Monday.  That count will settle the close race for second place between the Social Democrats and the far-right Freedom Party.

Summary: ऑस्ट्रिया के रूढ़िवादी नेता गठबंधनों पर कई विकल्प देखते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia, documents reviewed by Reuters show. The documents, which have not previously been made public, reveal new aspects of the plan, including the proposed involvement of a Russian company currently under U.S. sanctions to manufacture nuclear equipment. That company, major engineering and construction firm OMZ OAO, declined to comment. The documents do not show whether Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, took concrete steps to push the proposal with Trump and his aides. But they do show that Washington-based nuclear power consultancy ACU Strategic Partners believed that both Flynn, who had worked as an adviser to the firm as late as mid-2016, and Trump were firmly in its corner. “Donald Trump’s election as president is a game changer because Trump’s highest foreign policy priority is to stabilize U.S. relations with Russia which are now at a historical low-point,” ACU’s managing director, Alex Copson, wrote in a Nov. 16, 2016 email to potential business partners, eight days after the election. White House officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. ACU declined comment and also declined to make Copson available for an interview. Previously they told a congressional committee that they had not had any dealings with Flynn since May 2016, before Trump became the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.  Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, did not respond to a request for comment. Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about a discussion with the former Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, in late December 2016 regarding sanctions.   The documents also show that ACU proposed ending Ukraine’s opposition to lifting sanctions on Russia by giving a Ukrainian company a $45 billion contract to provide turbine generators for reactors to be built in Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations.     The contract to state-owned Turboatom, and loans to Ukraine from Gulf Arab states, would “require Ukraine to support lifting US and EU sanctions on Russia,” Copson wrote in the Nov. 16 email. A Turboatom spokeswoman said she did not have an immediate comment on the matter.     The email was titled “TRUMP/PUTIN ME Marshall plan CONCEPT.” ME stands for Middle East. The title, evoking the post-World War Two plan to rebuild Western European economies, reflected the hopes of the plan’s backers that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could cooperate on a project that would boost Middle East economies.     The email can be seen here: tmsnrt.rs/2ALdoCY The ACU documents reviewed by Reuters include emails, business presentations and financial estimates and date from late autumn 2016. As part of their investigation into the Trump election campaign’s ties to Russia, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Democrats on the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee are probing whether Flynn promoted the Middle East nuclear power project as national security adviser in Trump’s White House. Flynn resigned after just 24 days as national security adviser after it became known he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence by telling him he had not discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak in late December.  In response to questions about the emails and documents, ACU referred Reuters to letters written in June and September by ACU scientist Thomas Cochran to the House Oversight Committee. In those letters, Cochran had laid out the project’s strategy, describing a “ready-to-go” consortium that included  French, Russian, Israeli and Ukrainian interests, without naming specific companies.  Representative Elijah Cummings, the committee’s top Democrat, said the panel’s Republican chairman, Trey Gowdy, has for months rejected Democrats’ requests to ask the White House for documents pertaining to the ACU proposal. Gowdy “has blocked all efforts to allow committee members to vote on issuing subpoenas,” Cummings told Reuters. Gowdy did not respond to requests for comment. The ACU’s nuclear reactor plan aimed to provide Washington’s Middle East allies with nuclear power in a way that didn’t risk nuclear weapons proliferation and also helped counter Iranian influence, improve dismal U.S.-Russian relations, and revive the moribund U.S. nuclear industry, according to the documents seen by Reuters.     The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post reported this week that Flynn pushed a version of the nuclear project within the White House by instructing his staff to rework a memo written by a former business associate into policy for Trump to sign.      Two U.S. officials familiar with the issue told Reuters the policy document Flynn prepared for Trump’s approval proposed  working with Russia on a nuclear reactor project but did not specifically mention ACU. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they did not know if Trump had read the memo or acted upon it.     On Nov. 18, 2016, 10 days after Trump won the presidential election, ACU’s Copson received an email from nuclear non-proliferation expert Reuben Sorensen saying that he had updated Flynn on the nuclear project’s status. Sorensen’s role in the project was not clear from the emails.     “Flynn is getting closer to (being named) National Security Advisor. Expect an announcement soon. This is a big win for the ACU project,” Sorensen wrote.  “Spoke with him via backchannels earlier this week. He has always believed in the vision of the ACU effort ... We need to let him get settled into the new position, but update him shortly thereafter,” Sorensen added. The email can be seen here: tmsnrt.rs/2zTqxcZ Reuters could not independently confirm a briefing took place. Sorensen did not reply to an email seeking comment.     On Nov. 30, 2016, Copson briefed U.S. Representative Ed Royce, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on the nuclear project, an email shows.     Copson was joined by Jim Hamel, a senior official from Curtiss-Wright Corp., which has a nuclear division based in Royce’s California district and was eager for a role in the multi-billion dollar project.     In a follow-up email on Dec. 5 to a Royce aide, Hamel wrote, “We hope that the Chairman will follow-up on Alex’s suggestion to reach out to General Flynn” to discuss the project.     Royce’s spokesman, Cory Fritz, confirmed the briefing to Reuters. “No action was ever taken by the chairman or the committee,” he said in an email.     Hamel and Curtiss-Wright declined to comment.     Flynn was an adviser to ACU from April 2015 to June 2016, according to amended financial disclosure forms he filed in August 2017 to the Office of Government Ethics.       Democrats on the House Oversight Committee say that when Flynn applied last year to renew his government security clearance, he failed to disclose a June 2015 trip he made to Egypt and Israel to promote the reactor project. Flynn has not commented on the trips.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः मध्य पूर्व परमाणु योजना के समर्थकों ने ट्रम्प के शीर्ष सहयोगी फ्लिन के समर्थन की डींग मारी


COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan monks and hardline nationalists protesters forced 31 Rohingya Muslim asylum seekers to flee a United Nations safe house in the capital Colombo on Tuesday, police said.  The refugees, who were arrested in April along with two suspected Indian traffickers in a boat in Sri Lankan seas, were taken into protective custody and then to a detention center outside Colombo, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. A live telecast on the Facebook page of Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa, a hardline nationalist group, showed the Buddhist monks and some civilians storming the safe house chanting  do not allow terrorists into this country.  The Rohingya group fled Myanmar in 2012 and lived in India as refugees for nearly five years before trying to migrate illegally, a lawyer representing them told Reuters.  A local court later handed them over to UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). UNHRC officials were not immediately available for comment.  These Rohingyans are a group of terrorists. They have slaughtered our Buddhist monks in Myanmar,  Akmeemana Dayarathne a Buddhist monk who led the protest told the gathering. Tens of thousands Muslim Rohingya have fled mostly Buddhist Myanmar since 2012. Tension between majority Buddhists and Rohingya, most of whom are denied citizenship, has simmered for decades in Rakhine, but it has exploded several times over the past few years, as old enmities, and Buddhist nationalism, surfaced with the end of decades of harsh military rule. About 69,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh since October, straining relations between the two neighbors who each see the stateless Muslim minority as the other nation s problem.

Summary: प्रदर्शनकारियों ने रोहिंग्या शरणार्थियों को श्रीलंका के सुरक्षित घर से भागने के लिए मजबूर किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in a meeting on Tuesday that Iran represents a regional security threat, a senior adviser to the deputy crown prince said The adviser also said the talks marked a “historical turning point” in U.S.-Saudi relations. Saudi Arabia had viewed with unease the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, whom they felt considered Riyadh’s alliance with Washington less important than negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. It has been encouraged by the Trump administration’s hardline stance on Iran and its nuclear program. “The meeting today restored issues to their right path and form a big change in relations between both countries in political, military, security and economic issues,” the senior adviser said in a statement.

Summary: सऊदी उप क्राउन प्रिंस और ट्रम्प की मुलाकात एक 'महत्वपूर्ण मोड़': सऊदी सलाहकार


BEIJING (Reuters) - China reiterated on Monday its opposition to the deployment of a sophisticated U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang voiced China’s opposition to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system at a regular briefing in Beijing, and also urged all parties to work together to maintain peace and stability in the region. South Korean acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn and visiting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Monday reaffirmed their plans to go ahead with the deployment of the system. China says the system’s powerful radar is a threat to its security. The United States and South Korea say it is only aimed at defense against North Korean missiles.

Summary: चीन ने दक्षिण कोरिया की थाड मिसाइल रोधी प्रणाली का विरोध दोहराया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on Tuesday made the first move by a senior Republican to work with Democrats on repairing Obamacare after his party failed to repeal and replace the healthcare law, announcing work on bipartisan legislation to stabilize the individual health insurance market. Alexander, who chairs the Senate health committee, urged U.S. President Donald Trump to drop his threat to cut government subsidy payments to insurers that make Obamacare plans affordable and to allow the payments through September. The senator also said fellow lawmakers should fund those payments for one year. Alexander’s announcement followed the spectacular failure last week by Senate Republicans to pass their own repeal or replacement of the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic initiative also referred to as Obamacare. The Tennessee Republican said the Senate health committee “will hold hearings beginning the week of September 4 on the actions Congress should take to stabilize and strengthen the individual health insurance market so that Americans will be able to buy insurance at affordable prices in the year 2018.” The goal, Alexander said, would be legislation sponsored by both parties that would stabilize the insurance market and help lower premiums in 2018 for the roughly 18 million Americans who buy health insurance in the individual market, instead of getting insurance through an employer. Trump, frustrated that he and Republicans have not been able to keep promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, has threatened to let the law implode, including by cutting off about $8 billion in subsidies that are used to make Obamacare health plans more affordable for low income Americans. Insurers, who are finalizing their insurance premium rates for 2018, have asked Congress to guarantee that those funds will stay in place for the rest of this year and 2018. Without the subsidies, they say they will need to raise premium rates by about 20 percent. Without an answer, insurers have filed preliminary rates based on different parameters: Some set rates that assumed the subsidies would be paid, others set rates that assumed they would not, and some submitted two different set of rates reflecting both outcomes. Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the health panel, welcomed Alexander’s statement and said she looked forward to working in a bipartisan manner to stabilize the healthcare market and reduce premiums. In the House, a bipartisan group of 43 lawmakers on Monday called for Congress to quickly stabilize the individual insurance market by appropriating money for the cost-sharing payments and creating a stability fund for states.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन ने स्वास्थ्य सेवा पर डेमोक्रेट के साथ काम करने के लिए पहला कदम उठाया


GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations must take over responsibility for investigating rights violations in Yemen s civil war as the country s government is not up to the job, the global body s human rights office said.  In a report published on Tuesday, the office challenged the U.N. Human Rights Council, which meets this month, to agree to look into atrocities committed during what it called an  entirely man-made catastrophe . The 47-country council has shied away from that task for two years, leaving the job to Yemen s National Commission, which reports to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. He is backed by a Saudi-led coalition that is one of the combatants.  I ...join you in asking why the members of the Human Rights Council are not taking their responsibility and their membership to this body seriously,  the office s head of Middle East and North Africa, Mohammad Ali Alnsour, told a news conference. Yemen is mired in a war that has killed at least 10,000 people over the past two-and-a-half years, according to U.N. figures. Widespread hunger and internal displacement and an unprecedented cholera epidemic have led aid agencies to describe it as one of the world s worst humanitarian disasters. Alnsour said this was the third time the Council was being asked to set up an investigation.   That would really put pressure on the conflicting parties to adhere to the rules and the obligations under humanitarian law,  he said. The U.N. report said Yemen s National Commission was detrimentally affected by  political constraints .  The perceived partiality of the National Commission and its limited access have prevented it from executing its mandate comprehensively,  it said.  In addition... (it) appears to be lacking any instrument, or mandate, that would enable it to channel its findings into a credible accountability mechanism.  The head of the U.N. World Food Programme told Reuters on Monday that Saudi Arabia should fund the entire humanitarian aid budget for Yemen, or stop the war, or both   unusually direct criticism of a major U.N. donor. The U.N. report said at least 5,144 civilians were documented as being killed between March 2015 and Aug. 30, 2017, with the Saudi-led coalition responsible for more than half. Its air strikes were the leading cause of civilian and child casualties, the report said.  It also blamed the coalition for stoking a food crisis that has left 7.3 million on the brink of famine.

Summary: यमन के दुर्व्यवहार की जांच के लिए सऊदी समर्थित आयोग को न छोड़ें, संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने कहा


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street stock index futures were little changed throughout Sunday’s highly contentious presidential debate, indicating that markets continue to view that Democrat Hillary Clinton holds an edge in the Nov. 8 election against her Republican rival, Donald Trump. The 90-minute debate got off to a chilly start when Clinton and Trump greeted each other without the traditional handshake.  It quickly turned into an acrimonious discussion of a 2005 video that emerged on Friday in which Trump was heard using vulgar language and talking about groping women without consent.  Investors said there was not enough in terms of policy substance in Sunday’s debate to change the market’s perception of the direction of the race. “I don’t think it changed people’s opinions in the investing community that Clinton is more likely to win, as she was before the debate, certainly after Friday,” said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey. In a video released on Friday, Trump is heard talking on an open microphone in 2005 about groping women and trying to seduce a married woman. The video was taped only months after Trump married his third wife, Melania.  “There is still time to go and more things that could happen, but financial advisors are probably starting to feel they need to think about a Clinton win in terms of an investment thesis for 2017,” Meckler said. He said such a thesis would likely include government intervention in healthcare, particularly medicine prices, and little support for coal as an energy source. S&P e-mini futures remained in a tight range throughout the debate, slightly higher than at the close on Friday. “The market declared tonight’s debate a draw and has no more clue after debate than before, at least not in watching the S&P futures. Once again the debate was great theater, but did not give the market any insight,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. “Despite the night’s civil ending, it was hard to glean much information, as a good part of the debate was simply a name-calling fest.” Strategists in a recent Reuters equity poll mostly viewed an election victory on Nov. 8 by Clinton as more positive for the stock market through the end of the year, largely because her positions -unlike her opponent’s- are well known.           Steven Englander, global head of G10 currency strategy at CitiFX in New York, said: “Both Trump and Clinton supporters expected that emerging market currencies and U.S. equities would go down and the VIX .VIX would go up if Trump were to win and vice versa if Clinton wins,” he added. Trump has been critical of a U.S. trade deal with Mexico and Canada as well as other trade deals, and has promised to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. The Mexican peso rose as much as 2 percent on Sunday and was last trading up 1.3 percent versus the greenback. S&P 500 e-minis ESc1, which were up 6 points shortly after opening three hours before the debate began, were up 5.25 points, or 0.24 percent. “It’s a positive reaction (in stocks), and it’s very consistent with what the market has been discounting, which is that Clinton will win and that’s good news,” said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York, before the debate. “It’s also saying the House of Representatives will stay in the hands of the Republicans,” he added. U.S. stocks briefly gained ground following a perceived win by Clinton in the first presidential debate last month.

Summary: बहस के बाद क्लिंटन की जीत से वित्तीय बाजारों में तेजी जारी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. senators pushed for a compromise gun control bill on Tuesday, a day after the Senate failed to advance four gun measures following last week’s mass shooting in Orlando, the deadliest in modern U.S. history.   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would schedule a vote on a bill by fellow Republican Senator Susan Collins that would prevent about 109,000 people on “no-fly” and other surveillance lists from purchasing guns. Collins said she expected a vote on the bill this week or next. On Monday, the Senate defeated a Democratic prohibition on gun sales to people on a broader range of government watch lists, while also blocking a narrower Republican measure.  Some senior Republicans would not commit to supporting the Collins bill, citing worries about people being denied the ability to buy weapons without adequate safeguards. But the No. 3 Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, told reporters: “There may be a glimmer of hope now,” adding that Collins’ proposal seemed to be “a step in the right direction.” The measure is being debated in the Senate before the Nov. 8 election when Democrats hope to win control of the Senate and gain seats in the House of Representatives. Democrats believe Republican congressional opposition to wider control bills gives them a powerful campaign issue. It was too soon to tell if President Barack Obama would support the Collins bill. Spokesman Josh Earnest said senior officials including lawyers at the Department of Justice were taking a look at it. “If the assessment is that this would enhance the ability of our law enforcement professionals to keep us safe and prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing a gun, then that’s likely something that we’ll be able to support,” Earnest told reporters in a daily briefing.   In the Senate on Monday, four measures to expand background checks on gun buyers and curb gun sales to those on terrorism watch lists - two put forth by Democrats and two by Republicans - fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage in the 100-member chamber. The votes were a bitter setback to advocates who have failed to get even modest gun curbs through Congress despite repeated mass shootings. The bills lost in largely party-line votes that showed the political power in Congress of gun rights defenders and the National Rifle Association. The White House accused U.S. senators of a “shameful display of cowardice” and said they failed the American people by not advancing any gun control measures after the Florida shooting. The gunman, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to Islamic State during the June 12 rampage in which he killed 49 people and wounded 53 at an Orlando gay nightclub before being fatally shot by police. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said he had concerns about the Collins measure. “It’s a slippery slope when an American citizen is denied a constitutional right, without forcing the government to come forward with some evidence on the front end” that a person should be prohibited from buying guns, he said.   After Monday’s votes, the Senate also debated a different tactic for battling domestic attacks that could be inspired by Islamic State and other foreign militant groups. Senators were aiming to vote by Wednesday on legislation by Republican John McCain of Arizona expanding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ability to conduct secret surveillance in counter terrorism investigations. “This week we’ll have the opportunity to strengthen our ability to combat lone wolf terrorists and connect the dots so we are better able to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States” such as the Orlando massacre, McConnell said. Collins, who held a news conference with eight other senators including Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida, said her bill would stop about 2,700 Americans and 106,300 foreign national on surveillance lists from buying guns. “We believe that if you are too dangerous to fly on an airplane you are too dangerous to buy a gun,” the Maine lawmaker said. She said Americans and immigrants with work permits could appeal a denial and recover lawyers’ fees if they prevailed.  Nelson said he owed it to the families of the victims in the Orlando shooting as well as police and other first responders to the carnage.  It was not clear whether Collins’ plan would draw significant bipartisan support. The NRA said her proposal was “unconstitutional” and would not have prevented the Orlando attack.  Gun control groups promised to intensify their push for legislative action, and not just in Washington. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said her group, besides supporting pro-gun control candidates for Congress, would work to strengthen gun-sale background check laws “state by state until Congress acts.” “If the NRA and their lapdogs in the Senate thought moms would feel dispirited and back down, they are sorely mistaken,” Watts told reporters in a teleconference.

Summary: अमेरिकी बंदूक नियंत्रण विधेयक से समझौता करने के लिए 'उम्मीद की किरण' देखी गई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading conservative Republican, who helped block President Donald Trump’s healthcare bill, said on Thursday that Congress should begin rigorous debate on tax reform now if it hopes to pass legislation before an August deadline. The quest to revamp the tax code moved to the top of Trump’s legislative agenda after a Republican push to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law failed in the House of Representatives on March 24 in a humiliating defeat for the president and his party. To tackle the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code since the Reagan era quickly, House Republicans need to avoid the political fault lines that sank their healthcare bill, partly by having conservatives on board. House Republicans hope to vote on a tax reform bill before they leave for summer recess at the end of July. “We can get it done before August as long as we are real serious about having real debate... debate has to be about changing policy,” said Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of about three-dozen staunchly conservative lawmakers. “I’m optimistic on tax reform, if we do it differently than we did healthcare,” he told a forum hosted by Politico. Freedom Caucus members complained that House Republican leaders held no healthcare hearings this year before legislation was introduced and kept their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act under wraps until just before it was introduced. Meadows said the tax reform debate boils down to a decision between a controversial “border adjustment tax” plan backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and deficit-funded reforms. He did not take a position on Thursday but recently said his group could support reforms that are not revenue neutral. “We need to go ahead and start having those discussions today. Let’s look at legislative text,” he said. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady plans to hold public hearings on tax reform issues in coming weeks. On Thursday, Brady offered no indication that legislation was imminent but said he understood the need for rank-and-file members to have input. “We continue to work toward spring action from the Ways and Means Committee and continue to work to get this done in 2017,” Brady told reporters. “One lesson we learned in the healthcare debate is that members of Congress want plenty of time, not just to review the bill but to have input into tax reform.”

Summary: हाउस रूढ़िवादियों ने कर सुधार पर कड़ी बहस का आग्रह किया


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. unilateral sanctions on Iran undermine the Iran nuclear deal, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.  Using unilateral sanctions ... is illegitimate and undermines the collective nature of international efforts. Everyone is witnessing with alarm today the newer and newer restrictions by the U.S. against Iran,  Lavrov told the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering of world leaders.  They threaten the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,  he added, referring to the 2015 international accord between Iran and six world powers.

Summary: रूस का कहना है कि अमेरिकी ईरान प्रतिबंध परमाणु समझौते को कमजोर करते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will announce his decision next week on whether to put North Korea on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, the White House said on Thursday. “I believe the president will be making an announcement ... on that at the first part of next week,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a news briefing.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया को आतंकवादी सूची में डालने के फैसले की घोषणा अगले सप्ताह करेंगे ट्रंपः व्हाइट हाउस


JAKARTA (Reuters) - The Indonesian unit of Freeport-McMoRan Inc has reopened the main supply route to its huge copper mine in Papua, the company said on Monday, after the road was closed on Sunday following a shooting incident in the area.  No one was reported injured when shots were fired at an escort vehicle traveling from the lowlands, but Freeport canceled all convoys along the road on Sunday afternoon while the security situation was assessed.  Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama said the temporary closure has had no impact on production at the world s second-biggest copper mine.  The incident was the latest in a string of shootings near the mine since mid-August that have killed one police officer and wounded at least six others. Authorities have declared a state of emergency and stepped up security in the area around Tembagapura village, about 10 km from the mine.  The separatist West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM), a group linked to the Free Papua Movement, has said it is at war with police, military and Freeport. It was not immediately clear if TPN-OPM was behind Sunday s shooting.  Police in Indonesia s eastern-most province on Sunday said they would issue a notice to an  armed criminal group  that authorities say are occupying villages in Mimika regency, where Freeport s Grasberg mine is located, and demand that rebels surrender their weapons and turn themselves in.  Timika Police chief Victor Mackbon said they were investigating reports that an employee of PT Freeport had been kidnapped by an armed criminal group. Freeport spokesman Pratama said he could not confirm the reports of a kidnapping. He also said he could not confirm police reports that a Freeport excavator had been used by the group to dig up a road to Banti, one of the villages authorities said was occupied by the rebel group.  Freeport is  deeply concerned  about the escalation of violence, Pratama said, adding that the company was working with authorities to ensure the safety of its workers and the local community.  Grasberg workers have become  uneasy  amid the security concerns, union representative Tri Puspital told Reuters, urging police to handle the matter more carefully. Despite a long history of shooting incidents in the region, efforts to end the violence had been  sporadic, and not effective,  Puspital said, but warned that a  hard  approach could further escalation.  Part of the problem is a perception locally that most of the benefits from Grasberg go to the  political elite , he said.  About 200 officers were standing by to secure the area by force if necessary, police officials said.  Papua has had a long-running, and sometimes violent, separatist movement since the province was incorporated into Indonesia after a widely criticized 1969 U.N.-backed referendum.  Foreign journalists have in the past required special permission to report in Papua, and once there, have had security forces restrict their movement and work.  President Joko Widodo has pledged to make the region more accessible to foreign media by inviting reporters on government-sponsored trips, although coverage remains difficult.

Summary: फ्रीपोर्ट इंडोनेशिया ने गोलीबारी के बाद खदान तक पहुंच फिर से खोली


ROCKVILLE, Md. (Reuters) - The 100 Democratic women who packed into a suburban Maryland conference room recently for a one-day training on how to run for political office were more than activists eager to battle President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans. The teachers, students and business leaders were also a window into the future for a Democratic Party desperate for new blood, and into the booming effort to turn the left’s grassroots anti-Trump activism into a new wave of Democratic officeholders. As thousands of potential first-time candidates explore  political bids in what Democratic veterans say is an unprecedented surge of activity, a broad but informal network of groups is beefing up efforts to train them for the task. The goal: turning neophytes into successful politicians who can win, giving the party a deep and diverse bench of up-and-coming progressive talent at all levels of government. “This era of Trump has made everybody just want to run for office, and it’s not easy,” said Josh Morrow, executive director of 314 Action, which since its founding last year has heard from about 6,000 scientists, engineers and mathematicians exploring  political runs and trained nearly 500 of them. “No matter how accomplished people are, they need help when they first run,” Morrow said. The surge of interest has given dispirited Democrats, long criticized as a top-heavy party lacking fresh faces, hope for a renaissance at the local and state levels after repeated setbacks under President Barack Obama. Building from the ground up, from the school board to the statehouse, is a party priority after losing nearly 1,000 state legislative seats in the last eight years. Republicans also control the White House, both chambers of Congress and 33 governor’s offices, the most in nearly a century. “Local offices matter, and as Democrats we have sort of forgotten that,” said Amanda Litman, a staffer on Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign who founded the group Run for Something after the 2016 election to recruit and prepare millennials for office. For first-timers, the initial enthusiasm for public service can quickly give way to worried questions about the logistics of building a fundraising list, utilizing social media and crafting a message. “I knew I had a steep learning curve,” said Thereasa Black, a lawyer and Navy veteran running for the U.S. Congress from Maryland. She attended the Rockville session run by Emerge America, which prepares women for office. “This is a way to find people who are like-minded and going through what you are, and can help you,” she said. A Republican spokesman said Democrats would need more than training and fresh faces to gain ground in next year’s midterm elections given the losses of first-time Democratic candidates in special congressional races in Georgia and Montana earlier this year. “The challenges that Democrats face go much deeper and come down to fundraising and messaging,” said Rick Gorka, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, which sponsored a training program for about 4,500 volunteer field staff and operatives last year. Geoffrey Dittberner, 30, said he had volunteered on campaigns before deciding to run for the Minnesota legislature, but he was still unprepared for being a candidate before he was accepted into Run for Something’s training program. “There were so many things I didn’t know - fundraising, setting up a campaign organization - but they made it pretty easy,” he said. The group’s Slack application gave him access to a variety of resources, from tutorials to mentors and peer networks, discussion groups and on-call experts, he said. Aside from new groups like 314 Action and Run for Something, about a dozen established organizations that have long offered training to progressive candidates also have been flooded with interest since Trump’s election. Emily’s List, which for years has trained women candidates who favor abortion rights, has hired five more staffers this year for a reconstituted training unit. It already has heard from 16,000 women interested in becoming candidates this year, compared to 920 in 2016. Emerge America has seen applications jump by 87 percent and added five new state chapters. The Maryland state chapter, which ran the one-day course in Rockville, had trained 250 women by mid-year. Last year, it trained 55. At Emerge’s Rockville session, candidates were encouraged to listen more than they talk and delve into their own experiences to explain what motivated them to run. “When we tap into our own personal story, we relate better to people in our community,” Diane Fink, executive director for Emerge Maryland, told the class. She asked them to put together a three-minute story that explains how they got started. While Democrats nationally have battled over their core message, most of the training programs say they avoid telling candidates specifically what issues to emphasize. “First and foremost you should be talking about what matters to voters, not to you,” said veteran Democratic strategist Kelly Dietrich, who founded the National Democratic Training Committee last year to offer free online training for any Democrat running for any office. So far, more than 6,000 have signed up.

Summary: क्रोधित और प्रेरित डेमोक्रेट उम्मीदवारों की नई लहर को प्रशिक्षित करते हैं


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has lost track of 30,000 rejected asylum seekers, Bild daily reported on Thursday, piling pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to agree a migrant policy with potential coalition partners that ensures no repeat of a migration crisis in 2015. The paper said migrants were on a December 2016 list of people due to leave the country and quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying they could not rule out that some  had already left or disappeared without the relevant authorities knowing . One commentator at Bild, which has run a campaign to speed up deportations of failed asylum seekers, wrote:  No wonder many people are worried and unsettled. They ask:  Can the state protect me?  Politicians must take this insecurity seriously.  The report, coinciding with official data showing the number of people seeking refuge in Germany more than doubled in the two years until the end of 2016 to 1.6 million, comes amid warnings that courts are overburdened by the sheer volume of applications. Voters punished Merkel for her open-door policy in a September election, with her conservatives suffering heavy losses to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and migration policy now tops the agenda in coalition talks. Her conservative bloc has tried to paper over internal divisions on migrant policy but is still at odds with the Free Democrats (FDP) and especially the Greens with whom they want to rule. Plans to discuss the issue on Thursday were delayed. Points of contention include to what extent family members should be allowed to join asylum seekers in Germany and putting limits on the number of people who arrive. The Statistics Office said the 1.6 million people seeking refuge by the end of last year was a 113 percent jump from 2014 and equivalent to 16 percent of Germany s foreign population. Included in the figures are people from abroad staying in Germany for humanitarian reasons, people still going through the asylum process, those granted refugee status or subsidiary protection status and failed asylum seekers who stay. More than half of the 1.6 million people had by the end of 2016 been granted permission to stay in Germany while some 158,000 were rejected asylum seekers, said the Office. Some 455,000 of the total were from Syria.  According to data requested by the Linke party and seen by Reuters, refugees made 321,837 aslyum applications in German courts in the year to June 30, five times the volume in the same period last year.  The administrative courts are so heavily burdened that the current staff can not deal with the work in a timely manner,  Erich Mueller-Fritzsche, a member of the Federation of German Administrative Judges, told Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper. Although the number of new arrivals to Germany has fallen sharply in the last 18 months and the government has stepped up deportations of rejected asylum seekers, many Germans, worried about security, say better controls are needed.  We need to know who is in our country and who has left,  said conservative Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, known for taking a tough line on migrants.  Last year, a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia killed 12 people when he drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas Market. On Tuesday, a 19-year old Syrian man was detained on suspicion of planning a bomb attack in Germany. The AfD, continuing to put pressure on politicians on the migrant issue, criticized the southern state of Baden Wuerttemberg for accepting 34,000 Syrian refugees.   Although the war in Syria is as good as over, the regional government does not mind the asylum authorities continuing to let Syrians stay here,  said the regional AfD in a statement.

Summary: भविष्य के गठबंधन में प्रवासी नीति को लेकर मर्केल पर दबाव बढ़ा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI’S deputy director, Andrew McCabe, will appear for a closed-door interview on Thursday with two key U.S. congressional committees, after Republicans asked him to discuss the bureau’s handling of its Hillary Clinton email probe. The Justice Department confirmed in a letter on Wednesday to the chairmen of the House of Representatives Judiciary and Oversight committees that McCabe will sit for a transcribed interview, but said McCabe will not be permitted to discuss anything related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. It said the interview must be conducted in a classified setting and that the transcript should not be publicly released. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of the Justice Department. The Republican-led House Judiciary and Oversight committees announced in October they were launching fresh probes into a number of long-standing political grievances, including concerns over the FBI’s handling of the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. Republicans have said they want to get to the bottom of why former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump, publicly discussed the Clinton investigation and announced that the bureau would not seek to bring charges. Comey also publicly revealed, just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, that he was reopening the matter after the FBI discovered a new batch of Clinton emails. The case was closed shortly after the emails were reviewed, and no new information was uncovered. Critics say the Republicans’ focus on Clinton is merely a tactic to distract from Mueller’s investigation and whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. Since the new Clinton probe was announced, Republicans have also turned up the pressure on Mueller and attacked the FBI’s integrity, after anti-Trump text messages surfaced between two FBI employees who worked on Mueller’s team. One of the employees, agent Peter Strzok, was reassigned after the texts were discovered. The other, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, completed her temporary 45-day detail assignment with Mueller in mid-July.  Republican have also asked the Justice Department to make Page, who works in the FBI’s general counsel’s office, available for interviews. Trump has openly attacked the FBI, saying its reputation is in “tatters.” Russia has denied meddling in the election, and Trump has said there was no collusion.

Summary: एफ. बी. आई. के उप निदेशक हाउस पैनलों के साथ बंद साक्षात्कार के लिए बैठेंगे


(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday put new restrictions on presidential powers, limiting a president’s authority to staff certain top government posts in a case involving an appointment to the National Labor Relations Board.     The court decided 6-2 to uphold a lower court’s ruling that then-President Barack Obama exceeded his legal authority with his temporary appointment of an NLRB general counsel in 2011. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court said that under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a person cannot serve as the acting head of a federal agency once the president nominates him or her to permanently serve in the role if it is a position that requires U.S. Senate confirmation. SW General Inc, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based private ambulance company and a subsidiary of Envision Healthcare Holdings Inc (EVHC.N),  had challenged the makeup of the NLRB as it sought to invalidate a board ruling that said it violated federal labor law by discontinuing bonus payments for longtime employees. The NLRB had argued that the law’s restriction applied only to politically appointed “first assistants” who are first in line for acting positions when the heads of agencies leave office, and not to other officials. The ruling will give President Donald Trump and future presidents less flexibility in filling jobs that require Senate confirmation. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, saying the court ignored the fact that since the law governing vacancies was adopted in 1998, more than 100 people have served in acting roles while the U.S. Senate considered their nominations for permanent jobs.      The case focused on Obama’s appointment of Lafe Solomon as the NLRB’s acting general counsel to fill a vacancy in the job. The position requires Senate confirmation.     Obama nominated Solomon to fill the position permanently but also named him to fill in for former general counsel Ronald Meisburg, who resigned in 2010, in the interim while awaiting Senate action. Obama eventually withdrew Solomon’s nomination after it stalled for more than two years. The Senate ultimately confirmed Richard Griffin to the post in 2013.     SW General argued that Solomon should not have continued to fill the position on a temporary basis pending Senate confirmation, and the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed. The case is National Labor Relations Board v. SW General Inc, U.S. Supreme Court No. 15–1251.

Summary: सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने राष्ट्रपति की नियुक्ति की शक्तियों पर लगाम लगाई


BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - East Libyan forces said they launched air strikes against suspected Islamic State militants on Wednesday south of the jihadist group s former stronghold of Sirte.  The Libyan air force struck and destroyed the biggest concentration of Daesh (Islamic State) south of Sirte, after monitoring the site over a period of time,  said Sherif al-Awami, an air force commander with the Libyan National Army. The site contained a large camp with military vehicles and stocks of petrol and water and had been used as a base for mounting attacks, he said. Islamic State was driven from Sirte last year and has been trying to regroup in the desert to the south, launching occasional forays into inhabited areas and attacks against local forces.  The United States has reported launching three sets of air strikes against jihadist camps in the area this year.

Summary: लीबिया की सेना ने हवाई हमले से इस्लामिक स्टेट के शिविर पर हमला कियाः कमांडर


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump plans to nominate financier Lewis Eisenberg to be ambassador to Italy, the White House said on Monday. Eisenberg is a co-founder and managing partner of Ironhill Investments and was chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for six years, the White House said in a statement. He will need Senate confirmation to take up his post.

Summary: फाइनेंसर लुईस आइजनबर्ग को इटली में राजदूत के रूप में नामित करेंगे ट्रम्प


SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia on Tuesday launched a postal vote on whether to legalize same-sex marriage as a widely watched poll indicated the country would be overwhelmingly in support. The non-compulsory ballot, which runs until the end of October, will determine whether Australia becomes the 25th country to legalize same-sex marriage, while also healing a rift in the government. Despite securing 70 percent public support in an Ipsos/Fairfax poll on Tuesday, the issue of same-sex marriage had faced a political deadlock, only broken last week when the High Court gave the all-clear for the vote. The poll illustrates why parliament should simply vote to approve same-sex marriage without holding the national ballot, opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten said.     Change in this country only ever happens when people participate in the change,  Shorten told reporters in Canberra.  Please don t leave this change to other people.   The ballot of nearly 16 million people at a cost A$122 million ($97.86 million) will help Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unite his Liberal-National coalition, which had been fractured over the issue throughout his two-year tenure. Turnbull had been under pressure to resolve the impasse after two previous efforts to hold a compulsory vote were rejected by the Senate, where the government is in the minority. Frustrated progressive members said they would side with the opposition Labor Party to secure same-sex marriage if the PM could not finally resolve the issue, though some conservative lawmakers threatened to resign if Turnbull did not stick to a public vote, threatening the PM s one-seat majority. The impasse was eventually resolved when the High Court ruled the government could proceed with the non-compulsory vote, without Senate approval. For a graphic on where same-sex marriage is legal, click: here

Summary: ऑस्ट्रेलिया ने हफ्तों तक चलने वाले समलैंगिक विवाह मतदान की शुरुआत की


SAN JUAN/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chances of Puerto Rico’s power utility PREPA reaching a deal with creditors to restructure its $8 billion debt were cast in uncertainty on Friday as one deadline passed and the utility baulked at the new terms offered for a new one. Puerto Rican lawmakers’ failure to vote by Friday on legislation needed to make the restructuring deal work prompted a group of bondholders to offer to extend the deadline until Feb. 12, but PREPA rejected the changed terms. “We are disappointed that the ... group did not grant our requested extension,” Lisa Donahue, PREPA’s chief restructuring officer, said in a statement.  “PREPA remains willing to continue discussions with the Ad Hoc Group and other stakeholders.” As the Friday deadline passed, the bondholder group issued a statement describing PREPA’s refusal as “extremely disappointing and perplexing”. Pressure is mounting to secure a deal at PREPA, as the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear an appeal later this year in a case that could allow Puerto Rico to push PREPA into bankruptcy, an outcome creditors dread. Reaching a deal to restructure PREPA’s debt is seen as key to fixing the debt-ridden U.S. territory’s finances. Needing to restructure debts totaling $70 billion, the island’s leaders want U.S. Congress to allow it access to U.S. bankruptcy law or some form of court-sanctioned debt restructuring process. PREPA said in December that it had reached a deal with 70 percent of all creditors, under which the bondholders agreed to accept 15 percent cuts to repayments in exchange for new bonds with higher ratings. For that to work, Puerto Rico needs to pass legislation enabling PREPA to create a new charge on customer invoices specifically to pay the debt, so that the new bonds could earn the higher ratings that creditors expect.  As part of their proposed extension, bondholders were also offering to provide $115 million of additional capital. However, PREPA said the bondholders changed the terms of that offer, conditioning it on regulatory approval by Puerto Rico’s energy commission for the imposition of the additional charges to customers. Without a restructuring deal in place, the matter could devolve into litigation.

Summary: प्यूर्टो रिको पी. आर. ई. पी. ए. ने नए ऋण सौदे की समय सीमा के प्रस्ताव को अस्वीकार कर दिया


CLEVELAND (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in remarks at an African-American church on Wednesday, praised “stop-and-frisk” policing methods that have aroused protests and successful legal challenges, for singling out minorities. The anti-crime tactic in which police stop, question and search pedestrians for weapons or contraband, gained traction in New York City under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a top Trump supporter. But opposition to the practice led police departments in New York, as well as Chicago and Newark, New Jersey, to agree to cut back on its use, in some cases submitting to outside monitoring and improving police training. “I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to,” Trump said, according to excerpts of a Fox News “town hall” in Cleveland, after a listener asked what he would do to reduce crime in predominantly black communities across the nation. “I see what’s going on here, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York City it was so incredible, the way it worked,” he added.   Ending the practice in New York was a key plank of Democrat Bill de Blasio’s successful 2013 run for mayor. As the race between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton tightens ahead of the Nov. 8 election, he has been reaching out to African-American voters, shown by opinion polls to largely favor Clinton. Trump has portrayed himself as the “law-and-order candidate.” But Clinton has criticized many of his proposals as unconstitutional attacks on American freedoms. Clinton’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement. “Stop and frisk” had saved lives and reduced crime in New York City under Giuliani, the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Mr. Trump believes that a locally tailored version of ‘stop and frisk’ should be used in Chicago to help reduce skyrocketing violence and make our Chicago safe again,” spokesman Jason Miller said. Anger over police tactics has risen as their fatal encounters with African-Americans, many of them unarmed, have sparked protests and unrest across the country. In his appeal to African-American voters, Trump has lamented the woes of black communities, asking those who traditionally vote Democratic to take a chance on him. But his often dire portrayals of their lives have left some black voters unmoved.    Connie Tucker, a pastor at Father Heart Ministries in Columbus, Ohio, said she liked policies that brought results, so if stop-and-frisk helped cut crime, she backed it. But Tucker, who is white, said she sensed discomfort in the room at Trump’s remarks. “I felt like there was a pause,” she said.      Another attendee, Geoff Betts, 38, who is black, said he felt dismayed by Trump’s response. Betts, a hair products distributor, said he was registered to vote as an independent and attended to learn how Trump would try to win over black voters.  He said he thought police unfairly discriminated against black citizens and that he opposed stop-and-frisk. “We are victims,” he said, adding that he had walked out of the meeting. “I just couldn’t take it anymore, I had to go. I don’t think that Donald Trump gets it.”

Summary: ट्रम्प ने पुलिस की 'रुको और दौड़ो' रणनीति की सराहना की


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow s ambassador to the United Nations said the United States and Ukraine have told Russia they will not work on a Russian proposal to deploy United Nations peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin this month suggested armed U.N. peacekeepers be deployed to eastern Ukraine to help protect ceasefire monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and to help end a conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists, which has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014. Putin originally said the peacekeepers should be deployed along the line of contact between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists, but later said they could also be deployed in other areas where OSCE inspectors work.  However, Washington and Kiev also want peacekeepers to be deployed along those parts of Ukraine s border with Russia which Kiev does not control. TASS cited Vasily Nebenzia, Moscow s U.N. ambassador, as saying on Monday the United States and Ukraine had formally told Russia in the United Nations Security Council that they were unwilling to work on Moscow s draft resolution on the subject because they had too many objections to it.  The U.S. and Ukrainian delegations said after the first discussion that they were not ready to work on the (Russian) text in future,  Nebenzia was cited as saying.   (They said) they had significant objections and that, possibly, the Ukrainians would have a counter proposal to deploy peacekeepers to Donbass (eastern Ukraine).  Moscow was not abandoning its own proposal, however, said Nebenzia, saying it would continue to advance it when the conditions were right.  Ukraine has advocated an alternative plan that would ban any Russian nationals from taking part in a peacekeeping mission which it wants deployed along the part of its border with Russia which it does not control, an idea Moscow has so far baulked at.

Summary: रूस का कहना है कि अमेरिका, यूक्रेन ने पूर्वी यूक्रेन के लिए संयुक्त राष्ट्र के प्रस्ताव को अस्वीकार कर दियाः टीएएसएस


PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that he had spoken with British Prime Minister David Cameron about Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and that he was confident the United Kingdom was committed to an orderly transition. “While the UK’s relationship with the EU will change, one thing that will not change is special relationship that exists between our two nations,” Obama said in a speech at a global entrepreneurs conference at Stanford University. “That will endure. The EU will remain one of our indispensable partners.”

Summary: ओबामा ने कहा, ब्रिटेन के साथ अमेरिका के विशेष संबंध बने रहेंगे


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Myanmar national security adviser Thaung Tun told Reuters on Monday that Rohingya Muslims who had fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape violence in Rakhine State would be able to return but the process would have to be discussed.   We will make sure that everybody who left their home can return to their home but this is a process we have to discuss,  he said after a ministerial meeting on the crisis hosted by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.  We want to make sure that everybody who needs humanitarian assistance gets it, without discrimination. That is one of the things we agreed on,  Tun said.

Summary: म्यांमार सलाहकारः रोहिंग्या वापस आ सकते हैं लेकिन प्रक्रिया पर चर्चा की जाएगी


NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration reiterated arguments defending its temporary travel ban in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, repeatedly citing the executive’s broad powers to exclude foreigners from the United States. The travel ban barring refugees and people from six Muslim-majority nations was signed as an executive order in March, after an earlier version had to be scrapped in the face of legal challenges. Two federal appeals courts blocked the revised order from taking effect until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June it could move forward on a limited basis. The nation’s highest court has agreed to hear oral arguments about the lawfulness of the ban on Oct. 10, and the brief laid out the legal position the government plans to make. The state of Hawaii and refugee organizations challenging the executive order claim it is discriminatory against Muslims, citing statements Trump made on the campaign trail calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” However, the government, hammering against a broad ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked the ban, said campaign statements made by the president when he was a private citizen should not be taken into account. The brief said it was a mistake to probe the president’s motives in decisions about national security, which would amount to inappropriate “judicial psychoanalysis” of the president. Trump said the order was necessary to review vetting procedures to help protect the country from terrorist attacks.  The Department of Justice argued the case would “invite impermissible intrusion on privileged internal Executive Branch deliberations” and that the plaintiffs in the case were calling for “up to 30 depositions of White House staff and Cabinet-level officials.” The government repeated its stance that Congress has granted the president wide authority to limit refugee admissions and bar the entry of any foreigner or group of foreigners if it would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”  The Supreme Court ruled parts of the revised March executive order could go into effect on June 29, finding that anyone from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen with a “bona fide relationship” to a U.S. citizen or entity could not be barred. However, the government excluded grandparents and other family members from the definition of who would be allowed in, leading to another round of legal sparring. Eventually the Supreme Court said that, while litigation continues over enforcement of the ban in lower courts, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and siblings-in-law of people from the six countries would be let in but that refugees with relationships with U.S. resettlement agencies would not.  Attorney Neal Katyal, who is representing Hawaii in its challenge to the ban, said in an email on Thursday: “We look forward to the Supreme Court hearing our case in October.”

Summary: ट्रम्प प्रशासन ने सुप्रीम कोर्ट में यात्रा प्रतिबंध का बचाव किया


(Reuters) - Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Mary Fallin vetoed a bill calling for prison terms of up the three years for doctors who performed abortions, saying the legislation would not withstand a criminal constitutional legal challenge, her office said on Friday. The bill, which was approved a day earlier in the Republican-dominated legislature, would have made performing an abortion a felony. It also called for revoking the license of any doctor who conducted one. The bill allowed an exemption for an abortion necessary to save the life of the mother. “The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered ‘necessary to preserve the life of the mother,’” Fallin said, in a statement from her office, where she was described as “the most pro-life governor in the nation.” Abortion rights groups had promised a bruising legal battle if the bill were signed into law, which would have resulted in an expensive legal battle.  Cash-strapped Oklahoma is battling a $1.3 billion budget hole that has caused it to cut education funding and other state programs. Had the bill been approved, the state would have been the first to use its codes of professional conduct to implement a measure that would effectively serve as an abortion ban, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which backs abortion rights but whose data is used by both sides of the debate. Other states that have tried to impose outright abortion bans after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision have seen their laws struck down by courts, it said. Supporters have said the bill could withstand a legal challenge because the state was within its rights to set licensing requirement for doctors. Legal experts have said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is legal in the United States and Oklahoma must abide by the court’s decision. Since Fallin took office in 2011, Oklahoma has been one of the leaders in adding restrictions to abortions. “Governor Fallin did the right thing today in vetoing this utterly unconstitutional and dangerous bill,” said Nancy Northup, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group.

Summary: ओकलाहोमा के गवर्नर ने गर्भपात करने वाले डॉक्टरों को जेल भेजने के विधेयक पर वीटो लगा दिया है।


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was unfazed by President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to boost the U.S. nuclear arsenal, praising Trump for being in touch with U.S. public opinion while branding the Democrats sore election losers. Speaking at his annual news conference in Moscow, the Russian president said earlier comments he had made about his country’s own military modernization had been misunderstood in the United States and that he accepted that the U.S. military, not Russia’s, was the most powerful in the world. Putin said on Thursday Russia’s military was “stronger than any potential aggressor”. Trump later tweeted that the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” Asked to clarify his comments on Friday, MSNBC reported that Trump had said: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” But Putin said he did not regard the United States as a potential aggressor and had only been talking about countries he thought might realistically launch an attack on Russia.  “I was a bit surprised by the statements from some representatives of the current U.S. administration who for some reason started to prove that the U.S. military was the most powerful in the world,” Putin said, referring to State Department comments from Thursday.    “Nobody is arguing with that.” Putin said he saw nothing new or remarkable about Trump’s own statement about wanting to expand U.S. nuclear capabilities anyway.  “In the course of his election campaign he (Trump) spoke about the necessity of strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and strengthening the armed forces. There’s nothing unusual here,” said Putin. “If anyone is unleashing an arms race it’s not us ... We will never spend resources on an arms race that we can’t afford.” Trump’s comments, made in a tweet, alarmed non-proliferation experts who said that a boost to the U.S. arsenal could fuel global tensions. The Russian leader, speaking in a news conference that lasted just under four hours, fielded questions on everything from Syria to the economy, Ukraine and sports doping. But he only became really animated when talking about the United States, launching a scathing attack on the Democrats. He said they had forgotten the meaning of their own name and were sore losers. “The current administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party are trying to blame all their failures on external factors,” said Putin.   “(We are talking about) a party which has clearly forgotten the original meaning of its own name. They (the Democrats) are losing on all fronts and looking elsewhere for things to blame. In my view this, how shall I say it, degrades their own dignity. You have to know how to lose with dignity.” The Obama administration and U.S. intelligence officials have accused Russia of trying to interfere with the U.S. election by hacking Democratic Party accounts. Information from those hacks was leaked online, causing political problems for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Putin dismissed suggestions Moscow had helped Trump to victory in any way however. “It’s not like that,” he said. “All of this (the accusations) speaks of the current administration’s systemic problems.” Putin, who spoke positively of Trump before his election win, said that only Moscow had believed in his victory however. “Trump understood the mood of the people and kept going until the end, when nobody believed in him,” Putin said, adding with a smile. “Except for you and me.” Putin said he would be willing to visit the United States if Trump invited him and expected U.S.-Russia ties to return to normal now, particularly in the security and economic spheres. He was more cagey when it came to his own political future though, saying he needed time before deciding whether he would run for president again in 2018. Most Kremlin-watchers believe he will stand and win again.  “I will look at what’s going on in the country, in the world,” said Putin coyly, calling a reporter who had asked him to provide reasons why people would want to vote for him again “a provocateur”.

Summary: पुतिन ने ट्रम्प की परमाणु योजनाओं को दरकिनार किया, कहा डेमोक्रेट हारने वालों के लिए दुखी हैं