VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrians elect a new parliament on Sunday in a test of whether a young conservative star has succeeded in halting the resurgence of the far-right Freedom Party after a campaign in which immigration has been the dominant issue.  Many voters feel the country was overrun in Europe s migration crisis in 2015, when it took in about 1 percent of its population in asylum seekers.  By taking a hard line that has left little daylight between him and the Freedom Party (FPO), Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, 31 has dislodged it from first place in opinion polls and he is the favorite to become Austria s next leader. Polls show the FPO in a close race for second place with the Social Democrats, who Kurz and his party have been at loggerheads with in the current coalition government.  That gives the FPO, which currently has a fifth of seats in parliament and is in government in two of Austria s nine provinces, a good chance of entering a national coalition.   It s still not certain that he (Kurz) will win with this (strategy). In my view first place is still open. We ll have to see what the last-minute movements are,  said Christoph Hofinger, a political analyst and pollster who puts together the most-watched projection on election night.  It could be that in the end, and this has been a theory of mine for a long time, it also serves the FPO that their issues and their views on these issues are firmly at the center of the campaign.  The Freedom Party has good chance of entering government for the first time since it became a junior partner to the People s Party (OVP) in 2000, when it was led by the late Joerg Haider, who praised Hitler s employment policies.  That prompted sanctions from the rest of the European Union and a wave of street protests.  More than 15 years later, few expect a similar uproar if the FPO did enter government, partly given the rise of similar movements in countries such as France and Germany. Heinz-Christian Strache s FPO wants to shut certain sectors of the economy to non-EU workers, limit the proportion of foreign pupils per classroom and deport foreign convicts to their home countries. Kurz, who triggered the snap election by calling an end to the coalition with the Social Democrats, has also frequently returned to the theme of immigration, pledging to avoid a repeat of 2015, when Austria and Germany threw open their borders to a wave of refugees and other migrants.  He wants to cap benefits for refugees at well below the standard level. Opinion polls have been remarkably similar for months, showing Kurz s People s Party in first place on around a third of the vote, with the FPO and Chancellor Christian Kern s Social Democrats competing for second on around a quarter of the vote. The FPO secured 20.5 percent in the last vote in 2013. Pollsters have said more than 10 percent of voters are likely to remain undecided until the last moment. A poll last weekend put the proportion of undecided voters at 27 percent. Social Democrats  campaign was already struggling to hit its stride when it became embroiled in a smear scandal. The party chairman stepped down two weeks ago, saying that, without his knowledge, the party had been involved in anti-Kurz websites. Despite that setback, poll ratings have barely moved, raising questions about the extent to which the scandal was felt outside the political bubble in Vienna. The SPO has also accused a member of Kurz s staff of trying to bribe a member of its campaign team, and both sides are taking legal action against each other.    That could play into the hands of the FPO, which denounces the near-duopoly those parties have enjoyed - they have governed together for 44 of the past 72 years, and one or other alone for another 17 years.  In the final election debate between the heads of all five current parliamentary parties on Thursday night, the candidates stuck to their core issues. Kern said reaching full employment as his top priority. He has focused his campaign on economic growth, jobs and social justice, seeking to capitalize on an economic recovery that has put the country on track for its fastest growth in six years.  Strache chose stopping immigration itself as his top issue, and Kurz picked what he says is a related topic   protecting the welfare state. Kern and Strache were due to hold their closing rallies on Friday afternoon. Kurz made only brief remarks to campaign workers on Friday.         (For a graphic on Austrian parliamentary election, click tmsnrt.rs/2hKIi65)

Summary: ऑस्ट्रिया के चुनाव में रूढ़िवादी सितारे ने दक्षिणपंथियों की गड़गड़ाहट चुराई


QATAR (Reuters) - France and Qatar signed commercial contracts worth around 12 billion euros  ($14.15 billion) on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said, adding that the deals underscored the close relationship between the two countries. Qatar has agreed to buy 12 more Rafale fighter planes from Dassault Aviation, will employ France s Suez to dredge and clean Qatar s lagoon and has retained France s RATP and SNCF to build and operate a metro system in Qatar.  In total, it amounts to nearly 12 billion euros which was signed today and which underlines the closeness of our relations,  Macron said at a press conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Macron also reiterated he disapproved of U.S President Donald Trump s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel s capital, saying the status of the city needed to be determined via negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. ($1 = 0.8482 euros)

Summary: फ्रांस और कतर ने 12 अरब यूरो के सौदे पर हस्ताक्षर किएः मैक्रों


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on Friday expressed optimism on chances for a deal with Republicans to continue Obamacare’s subsidy payments for low-income people, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to scrap the healthcare insurance supports. Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Schumer said, “We’re going to have a very good opportunity to get this done in a bipartisan way” during negotiations in December on broad federal spending legislation, “if we can’t get it done sooner.”

Summary: शीर्ष अमेरिकी सीनेट डेमोक्रेट ने ओबामाकेयर सब्सिडी की उम्मीद जताई


(Reuters) - Oklahoma’s Supreme Court declared a fee on cigarettes unconstitutional on Thursday, citing faulty lawmaking practices, prompting the state’s governor to suggest calling back the legislature to find a solution to replace the lost revenue. In a statement following the court’s decision, Republican Governor Mary Fallin said invalidating the fee would cause a $215 million budget shortfall. Most of the revenue created by the passage in May of the “cessation” fee - $1.50 per pack of cigarettes - was earmarked for health and human services agencies. “These agencies and the people they serve cannot sustain the kind of cuts that will occur if we do not find a solution,” Fallin said. “My belief is we will have to come into special session to address this issue.” The court called the fee a “revenue raising measure” that was passed in violation of the state’s legislative process that requires that such measures cannot be passed in the last five days of a session. The measure also did not garner either a required supermajority vote in favor, or a vote by the people to pass. Lawmakers were attempting to fill an $878 million shortfall.  A special session would cost the state an additional $30,000 per day, according to a statement released Thursday by the House Democratic Caucus. Petitioners, which included both tobacco and wholesale distribution companies, argued that the fee was a revenue-raising measure. Attorneys representing the state said the principle purpose of the fee was not to raise revenue, saying that it primarily aimed at reducing smoking rates, and therefore did not have to follow the constitutional process. Oklahoma has a balanced budget requirement. Its fiscal-year 2018 budget totaled about $6.8 billion, according to Michael McNutt, a spokesman for Fallin. The yield on Oklahoma 10-year general obligation bonds traded 20 basis points over the benchmark Thomson Reuters Municipal Market Data AAA yield scale on Wednesday, according to the data available. The yield was little changed from the end of May, when the state’s legislative session ended.

Summary: ओकलाहोमा सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने सिगरेट पर शुल्क को असंवैधानिक ठहराया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy on North Korea aims to pressure Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missile programs by tightening sanctions and Washington is open to negotiations, the Trump administration said on Wednesday. The U.S. stance, which appeared to signal a willingness to exhaust non-military options, was put forward in a statement following an unusual White House-hosted briefing for the entire Senate. It described North Korea as “an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.” “The United States seeks stability and the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We remain open to negotiations towards that goal,” it said in a joint statement by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. “However, we remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies.” Although the statement emphasized diplomacy, Democratic Senator Christopher Coons told reporters after the White House briefing that military options were discussed. “It was a sobering briefing in which it was clear just how much thought and planning was going into preparing military options, if called for, and a diplomatic strategy that strikes me as clear-eyed and well proportioned,” Coons said.

Summary: अमेरिका का कहना है कि उत्तर कोरिया पर रणनीति प्रतिबंधों पर केंद्रित है, बातचीत के लिए खुला है


KABUL (Reuters) - A group of armed men seized a building under construction in the Afghan capital on Monday and were exchanging fire with security forces in a heavily populated area, an official said.  The number of attackers, possible casualties and their target is not yet clear,  said Najib Danish, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior. The Afshar area of Kabul where the attack was under way is close to a facility of the National Directorate of Security, the main Afghan intelligence agency, as well as a private university.

Summary: बंदूकधारियों ने अफगानिस्तान की राजधानी में इमारत पर कब्जा किया, सुरक्षा बलों पर गोलीबारी की


KIEV (Reuters) - Russian aggression is to blame for violence in eastern Ukraine, where people are dying in what should be seen as a “hot war” rather than a “frozen conflict”, the U.S. special envoy to the Ukraine peace talks said on a visit to Ukraine on Sunday. Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, was appointed to his current role on July 7 to help resolve the conflict between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists, which has  killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.   Washington cites the conflict as a key obstacle to better relations with Russia.  On a visit to the Ukrainian-held town of Kramatorsk, 690 km (430 miles) southeast of Kiev, Volker said he would prepare a set of recommendations on how Washington can better engage with the peace process. “This is not a frozen conflict, this is a hot war, and it’s an immediate crisis that we all need to address as quickly as possible,” he said. Relations between Ukraine and Russia went into freefall after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent outbreak of a pro-Russian insurgency in the eastern Donbass region. Ukraine accuses Russian of sending in its own soldiers and military equipment, which Moscow denies. Volker replied in the affirmative when asked whether he saw the conflict as being as the result of Russian aggression rather than internal Ukrainian factors. “We’ve seen what’s happened, we understand the way this conflict has begun, we understand the way it is being managed today, and that’s why it’s important that the United States become more engaged.” Fighting in the Donbass region has killed 12 people in a particularly bloody week, prompting Germany and France to urge immediate progress in implementing ceasefire agreements signed in Belarus in 2015 that are regularly flouted.  Leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia will speak by phone on Monday to discuss the conflict.  U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in early July that Russia must make the first move to bring peace to Ukraine, which President Petro Poroshenko called a powerful signal of Washington’s backing. A career diplomat, Volker is a former aide to Republican Senator John McCain, a Russia hawk who wants the United States to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, a move the previous administration under Barack Obama shied away from.

Summary: यूक्रेन में 'गर्म युद्ध' के लिए रूस जिम्मेदारः अमेरिकी विशेष दूत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposal by U.S. Republicans to repeal and replace the Obamacare health insurance program suffered serious new setbacks within the party on Sunday, when Senator Ted Cruz expressed his opposition and Senator Susan Collins dug in with strong criticism of the legislation. Two other Republican senators, John McCain and Rand Paul, already said last week they would vote against the so-called Graham-Cassidy bill. One more “no” vote among Republicans would effectively kill the party’s latest effort in their seven-year mission to overturn Obamacare, while dealing a new blow to President Donald Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has said he “intends” to put the bill up for a vote this week, but he has withheld public comment over the past few days as some of his rank-and-file Republicans abandoned Trump. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union,” reflected the uncertainty in the battle. “It is going to be very close. I hope it passes,” he said.  Phil Novack, a spokesman for Cruz, confirmed that the Republican senator said at an event in Texas: “Right now, they don’t have my vote, and I don’t think they have (Senator) Mike Lee’s vote, either.” Lee is a conservative Republican and close ally of Cruz. A spokesman for Lee said the senator wanted “some technical changes” to the legislation, but did not provide details. “We haven’t committed to anything yet,” Conn Carroll said in an email. Politico reported that Cruz complained that the latest Obamacare repeal bill did not address his concerns about bringing down the costs of healthcare. On Friday, news of McCain’s opposition sent shares of health insurance companies up. Centene ended 1.6 percent higher and Humana closed up 0.2 percent. Trump has pressured his fellow Republicans for quick passage on what would be his first victory on major legislation. All Democrats are expected to vote against it.  But Collins, perhaps the most moderate of Republican senators, appeared poised to oppose her party’s latest replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement. She, along with McCain and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, voted in July against an earlier version of Obamacare repeal. “It is very difficult for me to envision a scenario where I would end up voting for this bill,” Collins said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, two days after saying she was “leaning against” the legislation.  Collins said her concerns centered on the impact the legislation would have on the federal Medicaid program, which helps disabled children and low-income elderly people get healthcare. The Senate, which Republicans control by 52-48, faces a Saturday deadline for deciding on the bill under an expiring rule that lets the healthcare proposal pass with just a simple majority in the 100-member chamber, instead of the 60-vote threshold needed for most legislation. Paul, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” attacked the centerpiece of the Republican bill that would have the federal government basically turn the health insurance system over to states in the form of “block grants.”  “They could remove the block grants from it, and we can vote on what we actually agree on,” Paul said. “I can’t in good conscience vote to keep all the spending.” Some key Senate Republicans were still pushing to forge ahead. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is leading the charge on the latest version of Obamacare repeal, told ABC he believed he would have the votes to pass the legislation. “The only way you know how people will vote is you have the vote,” he said.  Graham did not detail the path he sees to victory.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेट ने ओबामाकेयर निरसन विधेयक का विरोध किया


CAIRO (Reuters) - A foreign fighter captured during a raid on Islamist militants blamed by Egypt for a deadly attack in its western desert last month is a Libyan national, the Egyptian interior ministry said on Thursday.  The captured fighter, Abdelrahim Mohamed al-Mesmari, 25, is from the eastern Libyan town of Derna, an interior ministry statement said.  A little-known group called Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for the Oct. 21 attack. Three security sources said at the time that at least 52 police officers and conscripts were killed but the interior ministry refuted that figure the next day and said only 16 policemen had been killed. The new militant group risks opening up another front for security forces far beyond the remote northern Sinai, where they have battled an Islamic State insurgency since 2014. The Egyptian air force killed the 15 militants responsible for the deadly attack and later arrested 29 others for adopting the same ideology, the statement said.  The militants were being trained in Derna, it added.

Summary: मिस्र का कहना है कि घातक रेगिस्तानी हमले में शामिल पकड़ा गया लड़ाका लीबिया का है


LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON(Reuters) - The 27 states challenging Obama’s Clean Power Plan in court say the lower emissions levels it would impose are an undue burden. But most are likely to hit them anyway. Already, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Dakota appear to be meeting the CPP’s early targets. And changes in the power market, along with policies favoring clean generation, are propelling most of the rest toward timely compliance, according to researchers, power producers and officials, as well as government filings reviewed by Reuters. “We are seeing reductions earlier than we ever expected,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in an interview. “It’s a great sign that the market has already shifted and people are invested in the newer technologies, even while we are in litigation.” States engaged in the legal battle that is set for an appellate court hearing later this month say their concerns go beyond whether they can meet the mandate. The states, most of them led by Republican governors, say they object to what they view as federal overreach by Obama and the Democrats and want to maintain flexibility to make energy decisions at the state level that reflect changing market conditions. Cynthia Coffman, attorney general of Colorado, said her state’s likely ability to comply with the CPP’s mandate “truly is not the issue.” “We don’t have anything against clean air,” Coffman said. “That really doesn’t factor into my decision to say the federal government has gone beyond its legal authority.” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said that he sees the Clean Power Plan as a form of federal “coercion and commandeering” of energy policy and that the state should have “sovereignty to make decisions for its own markets.” The Obama administration finalized the Clean Power Plan in 2015 as a central part of meeting U.S. obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed implementation of the rule pending resolution of the states’ litigation. Later this month, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case. The CPP sets carbon-reduction goals for each state, but allows states to decide how to meet them. During the early years of implementation, the goals are guidelines intended to put states on track to meet the final deadline of 2030. If a state fails to submit a plan to the EPA by interim deadlines, the agency can impose its own plan on that state’s power producers. Failure to comply by 2030 could open a state up to administrative penalties and lawsuits. To be sure, some states fighting the mandate would have to drastically change course to meet it. West Virginia, which is leading the legal challenge with Texas, still relies largely on carbon-spewing, coal-fired power. And Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming have large gaps between their current emissions and the plan’s mandates. But, in a reflection of how rapidly the power market is shifting, the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration earlier this year reduced its forecast for 2030 power plant carbon emissions by nearly 11 percent, without factoring in reductions that may be generated by the Clean Power Plan. The projection for the nation as a whole would be nearly two-thirds of the CPP’s target by 2030, even if the law never takes effect. A 2015 analysis by consulting firm M.J. Bradley & Associates for the Environmental Defense Fund found that 21 of the 27 states suing to block the Clean Power Plan are on track to meet its 2024 targets with existing plants and planned investments. Eighteen states are on track to hit the 2030 targets with no changes to current plans, according to the Bradley analysis, which was filed with the court as part of an amicus brief from the Environmental Defense Fund in support of the government. And the outlook has improved for some states since the Bradley forecast. It didn’t expect Arkansas, for example, to meet the 2024 target. But in 2015, after shifting significant energy generation from coal to natural gas, the state reported power plant emissions for the year that were below the 2030 requirement. Some of the states contesting the rules say they object to strict timelines. “The CPP is very dramatic in the speed at which it would require things to happen,” said Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. “If you let the market play out, those things take care of themselves.” Texas also has protested the CPP’s timetable, saying it would require the construction of transmission lines that could raise costs for consumers. But the state already has moved heavily into wind and solar in recent years, and is nearing its 2030 goals. John Hall, Texas director for EDF and a former environmental regulator for the state, said Texas could profit from the rule, noting the state ranks at the top of the list of wind energy producers and is making big moves into solar. “The CPP would enable Texas to make money by exporting wind and solar electricity,” he said. States that export coal or gas-fired power, on the other hand, are concerned about their ability to keep doing so. “It is very important that we don’t get caught in the fray of an EPA energy policy that dictates what we do as an exporting state,” said Stuart Spencer, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Associate Director. Whatever happens in court, energy policy will remain a highly charged political issue. Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to the administration’s attempts to curb carbon emissions. “When I ran for office, I promised I would do everything in my power to protect coal miners’ jobs,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in a statement to Reuters. “I have followed through on that promise.”

Summary: अधिकांश राज्य उत्सर्जन लक्ष्यों को पूरा करने की राह पर हैं जिन्हें वे बोझ कहते हैं


(Reuters) - Republican lawmakers in several central U.S. states are pushing bills that would crack down on demonstrations, drawing criticism from free speech campaigners and underlining the polarization over protests in the era of President Donald Trump. Bills have been introduced over the past month in states including North Dakota, Indiana and Iowa that would impose measures such as harsher penalties for demonstrators who disrupt traffic, and scrapping punishment for drivers who unintentionally strike protesters blocking their vehicles. The push for stricter laws comes as opponents of Trump have vowed to take to the streets to demonstrate against his policies on issues ranging from immigration to abortion and climate change. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in women’s marches on Jan. 21 in cities across the country. While the fate of the bills was not immediately clear, supporters say they sum up the frustration some people feel about protests that get in the way of their daily lives. “People are just kind of sick and tired of this garbage,” Nick Zerwas, a Republican state representative in Minnesota, said by telephone. “If you block a freeway, you ought to go to jail and when you get out, you ought to get the bill.” Zerwas has introduced two bills, one of which would increase the penalty for obstructing traffic to a gross misdemeanor, meaning offenders could face up to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine. The other would make protesters pay policing costs if their protests were deemed illegal or a nuisance by a court. In Iowa, Republican state senator Jake Chapman is the lead sponsor of a bill that would make it a felony to block traffic on roads with speed limits of 55 miles-per-hour (88 km) or more. Offenders would face up to five years in jail and a $7,500 fine. “People are really fed up with it,” Chapman said of the disruption caused by demonstrations.  He said his constituents were not against the protests as such, but that they did not want their travel affected. He said demonstrations should be held in “appropriate” places. Free speech advocates said the proposals are worrying.  “What’s happening is a truly alarming spread of state legislation that, if passed, will have the intent or impact of criminalizing peaceful protests,” said Lee Rowland, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union rights group.  The bills were “unconstitutional right out of the gate,” Rowland said, adding that protests should be seen as a “success of representative democracy,” not a problem to be solved. Gregory Magarian, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, said the bills present a “major First Amendment problem,” referring to the section of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right to free expression. “They (the lawmakers) are putting their petty ideologies over the principles of free speech,” Magarian said. Defenders of the proposals, however, argue that they were formulated out of concern for public safety above all. One bill by Indiana Republican state senator Jim Tomes calls for police “to use any means necessary” to clear roads of people unlawfully blocking traffic no more than 15 minutes after law enforcement learns of the obstruction.  In an emailed statement, Tomes said he had no problem with protesters who apply for permits in advance. In North Dakota, where hundreds have been arrested during protests against a pipeline, a bill by Republican state Rep. Keith Kempenich would shield motorists from liability if they unintentionally hit a protester on a roadway, injuring or killing them.  Kempenich did not respond to requests for comment, but has said he introduced the bill after his mother-in-law was caught in a protest while driving.  “It’s shifting the burden of proof from the motor vehicle driver to the pedestrian,” he told the Bismarck Tribune.

Summary: अमेरिकी राज्यों में विरोध प्रदर्शनों को लक्षित करने वाले विधेयक अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता की आशंकाओं को बढ़ावा देते हैं


GENEVA (Reuters) - Human rights activists called on China on Wednesday to stop detaining lawyers and critics, voicing concern for their health and fate in custody after the death of jailed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo attracted international attention in July. China said the concerns had no basis in fact. The activists highlighted the case of Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer disbarred in 2009, who disappeared last November and was held incommunicado for six months.  Jiang s verdict is pending on charges of subversion, to which he confessed at a trial last month, saying he had been inspired to overthrow China s political system by workshops he attended overseas.  The trial can be reasonably called neither fair nor impartial. In just the most obvious violation of due process, Mr Jiang was shown in a televised confession on state media in March 2017,  Sarah Brooks of International Service for Human Rights told the United Nations Human Rights Council.  Jiang s physical and psychological health are a subject of great concern, given the real risks of abuse in places of detention,  she said. A Chinese diplomat told the Council that China firmly objected to the accusations about its legal handling of Jiang s and other cases, and said the NGOs should respect Chinese law and give up  outrageous tactics .  Jiang Tianyong is suspected of provoking trouble illegally, holding state secret documents, inciting subversion of the state and other criminal activities. He pleaded guilty,  the diplomat said.  China s treatment of dissidents stirred an outcry this year when Liu Xiaobo, serving an 11-year sentence for  citing subversion of state power , died after being denied permission to leave the country for treatment for late-stage liver cancer. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest for six years and her whereabouts and condition since his death are unknown, Brooks said.  Ms Liu Xia currently has personal freedom,  the Chinese diplomat told the Council, adding that China had picked the most qualified medical experts to treat Liu Xiaobo and given him medical parole.   Brooks also highlighted the case of Ilham Tohti, declared a case of arbitrary detention by a U.N. panel in 2014, who is serving a life sentence for  separatism . The Chinese diplomat said Ilham s crime was clear.   Ilham s case has nothing to do with human rights. He was trying to justify the acts of terror, divide the country and incite hatred, which no country could tolerate,  she said.  Zhang Qing, the wife of activist Guo Feixiong, told an NGO event in Geneva on Monday that he has suffered after being sentenced to six years in prison in late 2015. He conducted a 101-day hunger strike in 2016 to protest conditions.  Guo has encountered a wide range of brutal and evil torture in jail, such as 13 days and nights of sleep deprivation, high-voltage taser to his private parts to extract a confession,  she said. Guo was a  veteran political prisoner  whose voice had been silenced for demanding reforms, said Zhang, who lives in the United States. Human Rights Watch said this week that Beijing is waging a campaign of harassment against Chinese activists who seek to testify at the U.N. about repression, which it called the worst since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement was crushed. China s foreign ministry dismissed the accusations. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein, addressing the Geneva forum on Monday, said that China was drafting its first national law on detention centres, with the aim of improving treatment, oversight and accountability.  Zeid urged the government  to ensure that the law grants access to independent legal counsel and family members, as well as addressing the ill-treatment in detention and deaths in custody .

Summary: मानवाधिकार समूहों ने चीन से अपने आलोचकों को हिरासत में लेना बंद करने को कहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will introduce bills as soon as Monday to toughen U.S. foreign investment rules amid growing concern about Chinese deals, according to a source familiar with the legislation. Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Republican leadership who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, will introduce a Senate bill to broaden the government’s power to stop foreign purchases of U.S. firms by strengthening the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). CFIUS is an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews proposed transactions to review national security concerns. Rep. Robert Pittenger, a North Carolina Republican, will introduce an identical bill in the House of Representatives. At least four Democrats will back the bills, including Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Rep. Dave Loebsack of Iowa, said a source who spoke on background to protect business relationships. “The likelihood of Congress acting on this is pretty significant,” said the source. Rep. Denny Heck, a Democrat from Washington, said he was concerned about China at least partly because of allegations of stolen U.S. intellectual property.  “China’s actions are clear – they are cheating the system. They are evading the rules meant to prevent them from accessing technology critical to our national security and we need to do something to stop them sooner rather than later,” he said in a statement. “With these changes, we hope to modernize and update the law in order to meet today’s threats from around the globe.” CFIUS already has a reputation for being tough on high-tech deals involving China in particular, and has blocked transactions that involve sophisticated semiconductors. It has become more conservative since President Donald Trump was inaugurated amid growing political and economic tensions between the United States and China. Since the inauguration, the panel has balked at approving a broader range of deals from China, according to lawyers who specialize in representing proposed transactions to the board. The bills would expand CFIUS’ power to look at smaller investments and joint ventures, according to sources who have read drafts of the bills.  There have been calls for “green field” investment to be subject to CFIUS scrutiny, but under the bills CFIUS will only review these to ensure they are not close to sensitive military installations, the first source said. A green field investment is when a parent company starts a new firm overseas from the ground up.

Summary: द्विदलीय बिलों से अमेरिकी विदेशी निवेश नियमों के सख्त होने की उम्मीद


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump removed his chief strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council on Wednesday, reversing his controversial decision early this year to give a political adviser an unprecedented role in security discussions. Trump’s overhaul of the NSC, confirmed by a White House official, also elevated General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence who heads all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. The official said the change moves the NSC “back to its core function of what it’s supposed to do.” It also appears to mark a victory for national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who had told some national security experts he felt he was in a “battle to the death” with Bannon and others on the White House staff. Vice President Mike Pence said Bannon would continue to play an important role in policy and played down the shake-up as routine. “This is just a natural evolution to ensure the National Security Council is organized in a way that best serves the president in resolving and making those difficult decisions,” Pence said on Fox News.  Bannon said in a statement he had succeeded in returning the NSC back to its traditional role of coordinating foreign policy rather than running it. He cited President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, for why he advocated a change. “Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration so I was put on NSC to ensure it was ‘de-operationalized.’ General McMaster has NSC back to its proper function,” he said. Trump’s White House team has grappled with infighting and intrigue that has hobbled his young presidency. In recent days, several other senior U.S. foreign policy and national security officials have said the mechanisms for shaping the Trump administration’s response to pressing challenges such as Syria, North Korea and Iran still were not in place.  Critics of Bannon’s role on the NSC said it gave too much weight in decision-making to someone who lacked foreign policy expertise. Bannon, who was chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign in the months leading to his election in November, in some respects represents Trump’s “America First” nationalistic voice, helping fuel his anti-Washington fervor and pushing for the president to part ways at times with mainstream Republicans. Before joining the Trump administration, Bannon headed Breitbart News, a right-wing website. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, called the shift in the NSC a positive step that will help McMaster “gain control over a body that was being politicized by Bannon’s involvement.” “As the administration’s policy over North Korea, China, Russia and Syria continues to drift, we can only hope this shake-up brings some level of strategic vision to the body,” he said. Bannon’s removal from the NSC was a potential setback for his sphere of influence in the Trump White House, where he has a voice in most major decisions. But a Trump confidant said Bannon remained as influential as ever. “He is still involved in everything and still has the full confidence of the president but to be fair he can only do so much stuff,” the confidant said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The White House official said Bannon was no longer needed on the NSC after the departure of Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Flynn was forced to resign on Feb. 13 over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, prior to Trump taking office on Jan. 20. The official said Bannon had been placed on the NSC originally as a check on Flynn and had only attended one of the NSC’s regular meetings. The official dismissed questions about a power struggle between Bannon and McMaster, saying they shared the same world view. However, two current national security officials rejected the White House explanation, noting that two months have passed since Flynn’s departure. McMaster, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also has dueled with Bannon and others over direct access to Trump; the future of deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, a former Fox News commentator; intelligence director Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a Flynn appointee; and other staffing decisions. Trump is preparing for his first face-to-face meeting on Thursday and Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping with the threat of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs a key component of their talks. Bannon’s seat on the NSC’s “principals’ committee,” a group that includes the secretaries of state, defense and other ranking aides, was taken by Rick Perry, who as energy secretary is charged with overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

Summary: ट्रंप ने स्टीव बैनन को राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा परिषद से हटाया


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday that he agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin that North Korea s latest nuclear test is a serious threat to regional peace and a challenge to global nuclear non-proliferation regime.    Abe made the comments after holding talks with Putin on the sidelines of an economic forum in Russia s eastern port city of Vladivostok.   We completely agreed that North Korea s nuclear test is a serious threat to the peace and stability of Korean peninsula as well as the region, and a grave challenge to the global non-proliferation regime,  Abe told reporters.

Summary: जापान के आबे ने पुतिन से सहमति जताई उत्तर कोरिया के परमाणु परीक्षण से शांति को खतरा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has identified Russian officials who fed material hacked from the Democratic National Committee and party leaders to WikiLeaks at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin through third parties, according to a new U.S. intelligence report, senior U.S. officials said on Thursday.  The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Central Intelligence Agency and others have concluded that the Russian government escalated its efforts from discrediting the U.S. election process to assisting President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.  The intelligence assessment was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday and will be briefed to Trump on Friday. Trump has rejected the broad intelligence community’s assessment that Russia staged cyber attacks during the election campaign to undermine Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.  Russia has rejected the hacking allegations.  MORE FROM REUTERS* Trump says U.S. funds spent on border wall would be repaid by Mexico* Schumer emerges as Trump's newest punching bag* Beheading attire and sexy suicide vests? Satire of ISIS wives stirs anger and praise “By October, it had become clear that the Russians were trying to help the Trump campaign,” said one official familiar with the full report speaking on the condition of anonymity because the complete version is Top Secret.  In some cases, one official said, the material followed what was called “a circuitous route” from the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, to WikiLeaks in an apparent attempt to make the origins of the material harder to trace, a common practice used by all intelligence agencies, including U.S. ones.  These handoffs, the officials said, enabled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to say the Russian government or state agencies were not the source of the material published on his website.  In an interview with Fox News this week, Assange said he did not receive emails stolen from the DNC and Clinton aide John Podesta from “a state party.” Assange did not rule out the possibility that he got the material from a third party.  Details of the report emerged as the top U.S. intelligence official, James Clapper, said on Thursday he was “even more resolute” in his belief that Russia staged cyber attacks on Democrats during the 2016 election campaign.  Not all 17 intelligence agencies participated in preparing the assessment. An unclassified version of the report is expected to be released on Friday morning, two officials said.  The report contains some of what the officials called “minor footnotes” about open questions and other uncertainties, in part because some of the evidence supporting the conclusion is inferential.  One such example, the officials said, was that intercepted messages and conversations among senior Russian officials in Putin’s inner circle indicated they were aware of the hacking campaign and celebrated Trump’s election as a victorious end to the campaign.  The officials declined to discuss the nature of the communications, including whether they were domestic, international, or both.  “People who knew what this was about were celebrating a victory over the United States,” said one official.  Another example of inferential evidence, the officials said, was that as time passed and the early leaks attracted media attention that undermined or eclipsed Clinton’s campaign, the Russians increasingly focused their hacking “almost exclusively” on Democratic rather than Republican targets.  There was also strong resemblance — including the use of the same computer malware — the Russians have used against targets in Europe and the marriage of traditional espionage tactics used by Soviet and Russian intelligence such as bribery, blackmail and internet vulnerabilities, which they said Putin has devoted increasing resources and attention to exploiting.  For example, one official said, the Democratic databases and email servers the Russians hacked also contained personal information that WikiLeaks has not published.  Such information could be used to search for financial, medical, browsing history and other records that can be used to target individuals for recruiting efforts by Russian spies.

Summary: अमेरिकी खुफिया रिपोर्ट ने विकिलीक्स-अधिकारियों को ईमेल देने वाले रूसियों की पहचान की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday acknowledged that escalating tensions with North Korea were challenging but said diplomatic efforts will continue amid harsh rhetoric and threats of military confrontation. “We are quite challenged but our diplomatic efforts continue unabated,” Tillerson said in an interview with ABC. “We have put in place the strongest economic sanctions ever to have been assembled against (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un.” “So he is being tested with the sanctions, voices from every corner of the world.”

Summary: खतरों के बीच टिलरसन ने उत्तर कोरिया पर कूटनीति पर जोर दियाः एबीसी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to head the Transportation Department, a source with knowledge of the decision said on Tuesday. The source, who requested anonymity, confirmed the pick to Reuters. Chao, the wife of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, served as labor secretary under President George W. Bush and was the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. The formal announcement was expected Tuesday afternoon. Although Trump spoke on the campaign trail about wanting to “drain the swamp” in Washington, more than half of Trump’s nine key appointments so far have been accomplished Washington insiders, such as Chao. Chao will face a number of big decisions at the agency that regulates the nation’s vehicles, airplanes, railroads, pipelines, ports and highways - including how to proceed on self-driving cars on U.S. roads, the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, over people and whether U.S. fuel efficiency standards should be revised. There are dozens of other pending regulatory issues the next administration will face, including railroad safety and staffing rules, requiring event data recorders in all U.S. vehicles and whether to set rules for airlines requiring they give more passengers with disabilities seats with extra leg room and whether to ban or restrict phone calls made on personal phones on U.S. flights. She may also take a leading role in Trump’s plans to rebuild U.S. infrastructure. Trump has called for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending over 10 years to rebuild airports, bridges and other projects, but it is unclear how much of the funding would come from the federal budget. Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group that has urged the Trump administration to conduct a sweeping review of auto regulations, praised Chao as a “superb choice.” He said the next administration will make important decisions on self-driving cars and how to maximize “the rate of innovation in the technologies that save lives, avoid crashes and improve fuel economy.” Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised Chao’s expected nomination. She will be a “great Secretary of Transportation. She really understands the federal government-can lead rebuilding our infrastructure,” he wrote on Twitter. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats want to work with Chao on fixing infrastructure but “will not allow Republicans to use an infrastructure bill as a Trojan horse for undermining workers’ wages and handing massive tax breaks to big corporations.”  Chao is a former deputy transportation secretary and sits on the boards of Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), Ingersoll-Rand Co [IRCOM.UL], News Corp (NWSA.O) and Vulcan Materials Co (VMC.N). A Chinese immigrant, Chao arrived in the United States at age 8. Her father, James S.C. Chao, is founder of the Foremost Group, an international shipping company.

Summary: परिवहन पद के लिए एलेन चाओ को नामित करेंगे ट्रम्पः सूत्र


MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected suicide bombers killed at least 12 people and injured 26 others on Monday in northeast Nigeria s state of Borno, epicenter of the Islamist militant Boko Haram insurgency, the chairman of the local emergency agency said. The attacks are the latest in a series of bombings in the restive northeast that have killed at least 200 people since June 1, according to a Reuters tally.   Three suicide bomber infiltrated a settlement called Mashimari, in Konduga Local Government,  said Ahmed Satomi, chairman of Borno s State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA). The area is around 35 kilometers southeast of the state capital, Maiduguri.  Another SEMA official said the suicide bombers joined a gathering of farmers in Mashimari before detonating their devices around 11:45 a.m. (1045 GMT) as they mingled with the group.  Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the use of suicide bombers is a hallmark of Boko Haram.  Boko Haram, which is trying to create an Islamic state in the Lake Chad region that includes northeast Nigeria, has killed more than 20,000 people and caused over two million to flee their homes since 2009.

Summary: नाइजीरिया में तीन आत्मघाती हमलावरों ने 12 लोगों की हत्या कीः आपातकालीन एजेंसी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The No. 2 official at the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday told Congress the special counsel investigating Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign is going to have “the full degree of independence” he needs. “Director Mueller is going to have the full degree of independence that he needs to conduct that investigation appropriately,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told a Senate appropriations subcommittee, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller. Rosenstein, who has the sole ability to fire Mueller given that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from matters relating to the investigation, told the panel he had seen no evidence of good cause for letting Mueller go and that he would not follow any theoretical order to fire him absent such evidence.

Summary: विशेष वकील म्यूलर को बर्खास्त करने का कोई कारण नहीं हैः उप अटॉर्नी जनरल


(Reuters) - Virginia Republican leaders said they will file a contempt motion on Wednesday against Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe over his efforts to restore voting rights to about 206,000 felons. The motion comes the week after McAuliffe said he had restored voting rights to almost 13,000 felons on a case-by-case basis after the state Supreme Court blocked his blanket clemency effort. McAuliffe’s executive order was seen as a possible aid in tipping Virginia, a swing state in the Nov. 8 presidential election, in favor of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Opinion polls show her leading Republican candidate Donald Trump in the state. “After a thorough legal review, it is clear that Governor McAuliffe has once again illegally suspended the Constitution of Virginia,” House of Delegates Speaker William Howell said in a statement. He was joined in the 27-page motion by Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment and four voters. The Republican lawmakers said they would ask the high court to hold McAuliffe in contempt for his bid to work around the justices’ July 22 ruling that he lacked the constitutional authority to restore felons’ political rights as a group. McAuliffe criticized the motion, saying his office has complied with the order and set up a process that was in line with it. “The people who have filed it are more concerned with the impact new voters could have on Donald Trump’s campaign than they are with the dignity of the people whom they continue to drag through the mud with their political lawsuits and ugly attacks,” he said in a statement. McAuliffe has said his original order would move Virginia away from lifetime disenfranchisement that hits African-Americans particularly hard. Many of the convicts who benefited were African-Americans or Latinos, two groups that have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates in the past. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, won Virginia in 2012 and 2008.

Summary: वर्जीनिया रिपब्लिकन गवर्नर के मतदान अधिकार बहाली को अवरुद्ध करना चाहते हैं


TUNIS (Reuters) - Dubai airline Emirates will stop flying to Tunisia, it said on Sunday, after the North African country said it had banned flights from the United Emirates carrier. The announcement came two days after Tunisian government officials said the UAE had banned Tunisian woman from flying to or transiting through its territory. No reason was given for either decision. Emirates said on Twitter it would stop its Dubai-Tunis connection from Monday following instructions from Tunisia. The Tunisian transport ministry said in a statement earlier that Emirates flights would be suspended until the UAE airline found a way to operate according to international law and treaties. The UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said on Twitter both countries had been in contact about the  security measure information , without elaborating. He added that the UAE valued and respected Tunisian women. In Tunisia anger has been building after women said they had been banned at Tunis airport from boarding Emirates flights to Dubai. Tunisian civil organizations and political parties called on the government to act.

Summary: ट्यूनीशियाई महिलाओं पर प्रतिबंध के विवाद में अमीरात ने ट्यूनीशिया के लिए उड़ान रोक दी


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Saad al-Hariri, who resigned as Lebanon s prime minister this month while in Saudi Arabia, told President Michel Aoun in a phone call he would be in Lebanon on Wednesday for Independence Day celebrations, Aoun said on Twitter on Saturday. Hariri arrived in Paris on Saturday with his wife from Riyadh, where he has been since he announced his resignation on Nov. 4. He is due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron later on Saturday.

Summary: हरीरी ने लेबनान के राष्ट्रपति को बताया कि वे बुधवार को लेबनान में होंगेः औन


(Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Friday signed into law a package of legislation that provides distressed gambling hub Atlantic City with immediate cash help but also a potential state takeover if the city cannot fix its finances. The bills will help reform the city’s “overblown municipal government” while protecting state and local taxpayers, Christie said in a statement while continuing to take shots at local officials. “We all agree that Atlantic City’s government has not demonstrated the competence to properly manage the people’s money without state guidance and oversight,” he said.  The legislation “embraces my demand that Atlantic City immediately account for every dollar it receives and spends, and triggers a series of strict conditions and rigorous requirements the city must meet immediately,” Christie said. Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier on Friday, Guardian marked the opening of summer beach season for the seaside resort city. The bills provide a $60 million, six-month bridge loan from the state to the city and establish $120 million of payments annually from casinos in lieu of property taxes, a move aimed at stabilizing the city’s volatile, eroded tax base. In return, the city must prepare a balanced budget for fiscal 2017, which begins Jan. 1, and a five-year recovery plan. If it falls short, the state can move to take over operations and throw out collective bargaining agreements, among other powers. The package could prove positive for the city’s credit rating, which is deep in junk territory at Caa3, because it provides much-needed financial relief and removes the immediate threat of default or bankruptcy, Moody’s Investors Service said after the governor announced his signature. But a bond restructuring, which Guardian has said the city will likely pursue, would be considered a default if it includes bondholder impairment, Moody’s said. The city has about $240 million of bond debt outstanding.

Summary: एन. जे. गवर्नर क्रिस्टी ने अटलांटिक सिटी बचाव पैकेज पर हस्ताक्षर किए


CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Liberal Elizabeth Warren attacked Republican Donald Trump on Monday during her first campaign appearance with U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, calling him an “insecure money grubber” who is driven by greed and hate.  Warren, a leader of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and a potential vice presidential pick, said Clinton had spent her career fighting for liberal values while Trump, a wealthy real estate developer, was focused on boosting his bottom line. The U.S. senator from Massachusetts appeared with Clinton before a raucous, enthusiastic crowd in Cincinnati, Ohio, targeting a battleground state in a potential preview of a Clinton-Warren campaign team. She repeatedly accused Trump of looking out for himself instead of for average Americans. “When Donald Trump says he’ll make America great, he means make it even greater for rich guys just like Donald Trump,” Warren said, standing shoulder to shoulder with a cheering Clinton. Clinton has struggled to win over some liberal backers of rival Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist U.S. senator from Vermont, since beating him for the Democratic nomination this month. She hopes the support of Warren can help her in that effort as she campaigns against Trump for the Nov. 8 election. Warren, who has vigorously attacked Trump in recent weeks, called him “a small, insecure money grubber who fights for no one but himself” and warned: “He will crush you into the dirt to get whatever he wants. That’s who he is.” The capacity crowd repeatedly roared its approval, and a line of supporters who could not get inside stretched out the door and down the street. At one point, Warren stopped her speech to turn and applaud Clinton, a former secretary of state. “She knows what it takes to beat a thin-skinned bully who is driven by greed and hate,” said Warren, known for calling for reining in Wall Street and eradicating income inequality. WARREN ‘A SELLOUT’ - TRUMP In a statement, Trump called Warren “a sellout” for backing Clinton, who has taken donations from Wall Street interests and once backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Asian trade deal. Clinton has since reversed her trade stance. In an interview with NBC News, Trump called Warren “a fraud” and “a racist,” accusing her of making up claims about her Native American heritage to advance her career. He again called Warren “Pocahontas,” the name of a 17th-century Native American figure, to draw attention to a controversy first raised during Warren’s 2012 Senate race in Massachusetts. “She is one of the least productive senators in the United States Senate,” Trump told NBC. “We call her Pocahontas for a reason.” Two other potential Clinton vice presidential picks - U.S. senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sherrod Brown of Ohio - rejected Trump’s assertion and defended Warren’s record. “That’s what he does, he attacks people. He acts like he’s attacking their character - he’s attacking his own character when he does that,” Brown told Reuters. “You can’t believe anything Donald Trump says. Period,” Kaine told Reuters. Taking the microphone in Ohio, Clinton said she liked Warren’s aggressive approach to her Republican rival, who has sprayed rivals and critics with insults throughout his campaign. “I just love how she gets under Donald Trump’s skin,” Clinton said. Clinton’s decision to campaign with Warren for the first time in Cincinnati, a city on Ohio’s southwestern border with Kentucky and Indiana, underscored the swing state’s vital role in the November showdown with Trump. Ohio has backed every successful presidential nominee since 1964 and no Republican has won the White House without carrying the state.     Warren’s calls to rein in corporate excess could resonate with two groups Clinton must court in the election - Sanders supporters and those anxious about the economy who are drawn to Trump’s promise to toss out international trade deals. Ohio’s manufacturing base has taken a hit in recent economic slowdowns, and Trump has identified it as a state where his anti-free trade rhetoric could resonate with alienated blue-collar voters. Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, Clinton has repeatedly tried to portray businessman Trump as fundamentally unfit for the presidency. Clinton said Warren’s long history of fighting for progressive economic values made her a perfect messenger for that critique.

Summary: क्लिंटन के साथ प्रचार अभियान की शुरुआत में वारेन ने कहा कि ट्रम्प लालच से प्रेरित हैं


COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces intensified operations against Rohingya insurgents on Monday, police and other sources said, following three days of clashes with militants in the worst violence involving Myanmar s Muslim minority in five years. The fighting - triggered by coordinated attacks on Friday by insurgents wielding sticks, knives and crude bombs on 30 police posts and an army base - has killed 104 people and led to the flight of large numbers of Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist civilians from the northern part of Rakhine state. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is deeply concerned by reports that civilians have been killed in Rakhine state and appealed for neighboring Bangladesh to allow fleeing Rohingya to seek safety, his spokesman said on Monday.   Many of those fleeing are women and children, some of whom are wounded,  U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.   (The Secretary-General) calls for humanitarian agencies to be granted unfettered and free access to affected communities in need of assistance and protection. The United Nations stands ready to provide all necessary support to both Myanmar and Bangladesh in that regard,  Dujarric said.  The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered since October, when a similar but much smaller series of Rohingya attacks on security posts prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of rights abuses. The treatment of about 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar has emerged as the biggest challenge for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has condemned the attacks and commended the security forces. The Nobel peace laureate has been accused by some Western critics of not speaking out on behalf of the long-persecuted minority, and of defending the army s sweep after the October attacks. The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries, with communities marginalized and occasionally subjected to communal violence.  Now the situation is not good. Everything depends on them - if they re active, the situation will be tense,  said police officer Tun Hlaing from Buthidaung township, referring to the Rohingya insurgents.  Rohingya villagers make up the majority in the area.  We split into two groups, one will provide security at police outposts and the other group is going out for clearance operation with the military,  he said. A Buthidaung-based reporter, citing police sources directly involved in events, said three police posts in northern Buthidaung had been surrounded by Rohingya insurgents. Many houses had been burning since Sunday in parts of neighboring Maungdaw town, another journalist and a military source in Maungdaw told Reuters. A Rohingya villager in the area said the army attacked three hamlets in the Kyee Kan Pyin village group with shotguns and other weapons, before torching houses.  Everything is on fire,  he said by phone.  Now I m in the fields with the people, we re running away.  A military source in Rakhine state confirmed that houses were burned in the area but blamed the insurgents, who he said  opened fire when soldiers came to find them and clear landmines.  The insurgents fled, he said, adding there were no casualties. The Myanmar military reported clashes over the weekend involving hundreds of insurgents, taking the death toll to at least 104, the majority militants, plus 12 members of the security forces and several civilians. There were no official updates from the army or the government on Monday. The unrest has exposed the dark side of Myanmar s historic opening: an unleashing of ethnic hatred that was suppressed during 49 years of strict military rule that ended when the generals stepped back from direct rule in 2011. The following year, hundreds of people, most of them Rohingya, were killed in communal clashes in Rakhine state and about 140,000 people were displaced. In neighboring Bangladesh on Monday, border guards tried to push back refugees stranded in no man s land near the village of Gumdhum. Reuters reporters have heard gun fire from the Myanmar side in the last three days. A Bangladesh foreign ministry official told reporters Bangladesh was willing to work with Myanmar to crack down on the insurgents.  The main purpose is to ensure Myanmar can t accuse us of harboring them to use against them,  said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly to media. An Islamist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which Myanmar has declared a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks. It was also behind the violence in October. In a video posted online on Monday, ARSA leader Ata Ullah, flanked by two gun-toting men in masks, warned Myanmar against  oppressing  Rohingya and vowed to keep fighting to protect the rights of the community.  Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar since the early 1990s and there are now about 400,000 in Bangladesh, which has said no new refugees will be allowed in. Bangladeshi police threatened refugees already in the country with arrest if they help new arrivals, refugee sources said.  How can we go back there? Just to get killed?  asked Mujibur Rahman, standing on the border. Nevertheless, an estimated 5,000 people have crossed into Bangladesh in the past few days, with more than 1,000 coming early on Monday, according to Rohingya refugees in camps in the border district of Cox s Bazar. Myanmar has urged Rohingya civilians to cooperate with security forces, assuring those with without ties to the insurgents they would not be affected. The government has evacuated thousands of non-Muslim villagers from the north of Rakhine state to towns, monasteries and police stations. About 500 people arrived in the state capital, Sittwe, on Monday, the government said.  A lot of Kalar were coming and we had to run away,  said Nyo Nyo Win, 52, using a racial slur for Rohingya.  They followed us and we ran and ran.  (For a graphic on Myanmar's ethnic groups click tmsnrt.rs/2wY3MSQ)

Summary: म्यांमार की सेना रोहिंग्या विद्रोहियों से लड़ रही है; हजारों लोग पलायन कर रहे हैं


LONDON (Reuters) - Christine Keeler, the model and dancer whose liaisons with a British minister and a Soviet diplomat at the height of the Cold War shocked Britain and embroiled the government in a notorious political sex scandal, has died aged 75. Keeler s relationship with married Minister of War John Profumo, whom she met, aged 19, while swimming naked at the grand Buckinghamshire estate of his colleague William Astor, shocked socially conservative Britain in the early 1960s.   Front-page revelations that she was also having an affair with a Soviet naval attache, Yevgeny Ivanov, titillated the public and shone a light on the social and sexual mores of Britain s secretive ruling establishment. Profumo was forced to resign after lying to parliament about their relationship.  The political and diplomatic firestorm helped bring down the Conservative government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the 1963  Profumo affair  is still seen as a watershed moment that changed British attitudes to sex and class. Keeler s son, Seymour Platt, told The Guardian newspaper she had died on Tuesday night after suffering for months from a form of lung disease. She had led a humble lifestyle after the scandal but never escaped the notoriety it brought her.    There was a lot of good around Chris s rather tragic life, because there was a family around her that loved her,  Platt was quoted as saying.  I think what happened to her back in the day was quite damaging.   The black-and-white photograph of a naked Keeler sitting astride an Arne Jacobsen chair remains the defining image of the lurid scandal that has been retold several times on screen and stage, including as a musical. It even added an expression to the British lexicon. At the trial of Stephen Ward, the man who brought Keeler and Profumo together, a fellow showgirl was told that another establishment figure denied having sex with her.  Well, he would, wouldn t he?,  responded Mandy Rice-Davies. In later life, Keeler had regrets about how the scandal unfolded and said she had been a victim.   I wish, that at that time, I had been older so that I would have been able to have answered or spoke up for myself and Stephen but I was only a young girl,  she said.

Summary: ब्रिटेन के सबसे बड़े सेक्स स्कैंडल के केंद्र में रहने वाली महिला क्रिस्टीन कीलर का निधन


MIAMI (Reuters) - The man answering a volunteer’s knock on the door in the Kendall section of Miami-Dade County on Saturday was emphatic: Not only would he vote but “esperamos que la presidenta gane” - Spanish for “we hope Madam President wins.” Volunteers across Florida made a last-minute push to get voters to the polls this weekend with early voting ending on Sunday ahead of Election Day on Tuesday, pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton, or “la presidenta,” as the man at the door called her. Latino voters like the man in Kendall and elsewhere could have an outsized influence in Tuesday’s election. Early voting data may portend a jump in the number of Hispanic voters this year, especially in the key swing states of Nevada and Florida, and Clinton would likely be the biggest beneficiary. Clinton has polled much stronger among Latino voters nationwide: a Washington Post/Univision poll released last week gave her 67 percent of the Hispanic vote to Trump’s 19 percent. Trump has fared poorly with America’s largest minority voting group, having repeatedly angered Hispanics with disparaging comments about their communities.  A recent poll conducted by the firms The Tarrance Group and Bendixen and Amandi found that Hispanic registered voters in Florida favor Clinton 60 percent to 30 percent. In Nevada the gap was even wider - 72 percent for Clinton and 19 percent for Trump. In Florida, the Clinton campaign estimates early Latino voting is up 139 percent, or more than twice as much, compared to 2012, according to a field report dated Wednesday. Democratic strategist Steve Schale, a Florida expert, estimated that 170,000 more Hispanics had voted early or by mail as of Wednesday than had voted early or by mail in the entire 2012 election, according to a post on his blog. “And keep in mind, because Hispanic is a self-identifying marker, studies have found that the real Hispanic vote is larger than the registration. So while Hispanics might make up 14.2 percent of the voters who have voted so far, in reality, the number is larger,” he wrote. Despite the surge in early voting, there is no certainty about which candidate people chose for president. There is also no guarantee that the higher Latino turnout rate will continue on Election Day and that they and other minority voters will make enough of a difference to swing Florida and other states.  Trump kicked off his maverick campaign last year by describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, and made a tough stance on immigration a signature part of his vision for America. He called for a wall to be built on the border and said an American-born federal judge could not do his job because of his Mexican heritage. That rhetoric might be hurting him in an increasingly diverse Florida, where many election watchers believe Trump must win to have a chance to secure the minimum 270 votes in the Electoral College needed to claim the White House.  Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who also does voting research, said Democrats have a strong lead among Hispanics who have voted early in Florida.  “From my perspective this is Hispanics in Florida reacting viscerally to Donald Trump,” said Smith. “His scorched earth campaign against immigrants and especially Hispanics is coming home to roost in Florida.” The state of Nevada does not note race or ethnicity on its voter registration but other data there suggest Latinos also are turning out in force. For one thing, Clark County has seen a surge in early voting. Between in-person and absentee voting, registered Democrats have now returned over 72,000 more ballots than registered Republicans there. Those figures do not indicate which candidate voters picked, only the party with which the voters are registered. Friday alone saw 57,172 votes in person in Clark County. Photos making the rounds on social media showed especially long lines at a Cardenas market voting site, which stayed open late to accommodate the surge of voters. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, has a large Latino population – 30.6 percent, compared to 28.1 percent for Nevada as a whole, according to the U.S. Census. Even more Republican votes elsewhere in the state are so far not enough to counterbalance that Democratic lead in Clark County. Overall, the Democrats have cast around 46,000 more ballots in Nevada than Republicans. That’s not an accident, said Artie Blanco, the Nevada state coordinator for the progressive group For Our Future. Her organization and others banded together in a major get-out-the-vote push, especially among voters of color, and the coalition’s data suggest that the effort paid off. Twenty-two percent of Democrats who voted on Friday had a conversation with someone from that progressive coalition at some point after Oct. 15, Blanco said. Among Latino voters on the last three voting days, the coalition had conversations with 14 percent of them after Oct. 15, according to the group’s data. Trump on Saturday took a jab at the early voting turnout in Nevada. “They didn’t get the kind of vote that they needed to stop us on Tuesday,” Trump said in Reno. “Tuesday is our day in this state.” He said Reno and northern Nevada could “carry us all the way to Washington.”  But Blanco said the votes were instead the result of major work to bring out voters, especially people of color and that progressive organizations were not done yet. “We have all these voters that we need to now go back and say, ‘You’ve got one day,’” she said of those who had not yet cast ballots.

Summary: फ्लोरिडा, नेवादा में जल्दी मतदान से क्लिंटन को लाभ हो सकता है


(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will name Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson as his choice for secretary of state, Fox News reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources.

Summary: एक्सॉन मोबिल के सीईओ टिलरसन को अमेरिकी विदेश मंत्री के रूप में नामित करेंगे ट्रम्पः फॉक्स न्यूज


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s Shinzo Abe was re-elected prime minister on Wednesday after his ruling bloc s big election win last month and days ahead of a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump that is expected to be dominated by concerns over a volatile North Korea. Abe, 63, took office in December 2012, promising to reboot the stale economy and bolster defense. His Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition retained its two-thirds  super majority  in parliament s lower house in the Oct. 22 election, reenergizing his push to revise the post-war, pacifist constitution. Abe was expected to reappoint current cabinet ministers and tell them to compile an extra budget for the year to March 31, 2018 focusing on child care and boosting productivity. In a telephone conversation on Monday, Abe and Trump agreed to work together on steps to counter Pyongyang s nuclear and missile development.  Trump told Abe  he is looking forward to his visit to Japan, that Japan and America are 100 percent together and there is no room to doubt the Japan-U.S. alliance,  Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters. The two leaders have developed a close personal relationship since Trump was elected, and plan to play golf together during Trump s Nov. 5-7 visit to Japan.

Summary: चुनाव में भारी जीत के बाद जापान के आबे फिर से प्रधानमंत्री चुने गए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the FBI whether it warned Donald Trump’s presidential campaign about alleged attempts by Russia to infiltrate the campaign. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s office said on Thursday he wrote to Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray asking whether the agency provided “defensive briefings” to Trump’s team given its ongoing investigation of Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager. “If the FBI did provide a defensive briefing or similar warning to the campaign, then that would raise important questions about how the Trump campaign responded,” Grassley wrote in the letter dated Sept. 20. If the FBI did not alert the campaign, Grassley said, that would raise “serious questions about what factors contributed to its decision and why it appears to have been handled differently in a very similar circumstance involving a previous campaign.” The senator said that according to press reports, U.S. intelligence had raised similar concerns with John McCain during the Republican senator’s 2008 presidential campaign. Grassley, however, did not ask the FBI about the possibility that it had offered Trump or campaign officials such a briefing but the offer was declined.     After the 2016 election, two U.S. intelligence officers flew to New York to brief President-elect Trump on Russia, only to find when they arrived at Trump Tower that the briefing had been canceled, two senior U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Manafort became Trump’s campaign manager in June 2016 but was forced to resign two months later amid reports of his business relationship with the Kremlin-backed former Ukrainian leader, Viktor Yanukovich. Trump denies his campaign colluded with Russia and dismisses investigations into allegations of Russian interference in the election as witch hunts. Russia denies meddling in the U.S. election.

Summary: सीनेटर ने एफ. बी. आई. से पूछा कि क्या उसने रूसी हस्तक्षेप के बारे में ट्रम्प अभियान को चेतावनी दी थी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kathryn Stellmack expects the world from Donald Trump. After listening to his speeches and casting her vote for him, she expects Trump to toughen immigration laws, restore lost jobs, upend a corrupt political system, build a wall on the border, and be, as the millionaire put it, the “greatest jobs president that God has ever created.” “We expect him to move forward on all the items he has promised to move forward on,” said Stellmack, 69, a retiree in West Palm Beach, Florida. “And if he doesn’t, we will hold his feet to the fire.” After a presidential race fueled by brash but constantly shifting policy proposals, Trump’s millions of followers — from social conservative activists to struggling blue-collar workers to hardline militant groups — say if he does anything less than take a wrecking ball to business-as-usual Washington, they will be disappointed. “We’ll be watching, Mr. Trump,” said Stellmack. Trump’s promises have been hard to pin down, with many policy details left elusive and vague. NBC News identified 141 “distinct shifts” on 23 major issues since Trump announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015.  Still, his fiery rhetoric had an unmistakable message of ending big government and the entrenched power of establishment elites in both parties. That inspired hope that Trump can break through Washington’s gridlock to make progress on plans to invigorate the economy, eliminate terrorist threats, rip up trade agreements and repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan known as Obamacare. “I totally trust him,” said Laura Czarniak, 56, of Manistee, Michigan, a Rust Belt state that leans Democrat in presidential elections but which flipped to Trump on Tuesday.  “I know he’ll build the wall. I know he’ll take care of the Syrian refugee problem. I know he’ll get rid of Obamacare. There is not a chance in hell he won’t do those things,” she said. But even with Republicans retaining control of Congress, Trump will have to accept limits and compromises on some of his plans. Many Republicans, for example, are wary of his proposals to scrap trade deals and boost spending on infrastructure improvements. Some of his plans have already been rolled back. Trump faces his highest expectations on the issue of immigration, given his intense focus on attention-grabbing campaign proposals like forcing Mexico to pay for a border wall, and temporarily banning Muslims from entering the country. But he recently indicated he would at first deport only criminal undocumented immigrants, after previously pledging to deport all undocumented aliens, while the Muslim ban has softened into “extreme vetting” of immigrants from some countries. He told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Friday that he would consider keeping parts of Obamacare intact — easing off his calls for a total repeal — after Obama spoke to him on the issue at the White House on Thursday. Mark Morris, a leader of the Colorado-based Three Percent United Patriots militia group, said he understood Trump would need time on some issues, but he expected quick movement on repealing Obamacare and appointing a conservative Supreme Court justice to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia. He said he hoped Trump would stand with ranchers in their disputes with the federal government over fees charged for cattle grazing on public land – a call to arms for many in the patriot and militia movement. Morris warned Trump should not count on his followers to stay with him if he did not produce results. “People voted with a lot of faith that he will come through,” he said. “I don’t think it is going to work out very well if he doesn’t get the things done and he comes back at the end of four years and says I need four more years to accomplish what I need to accomplish.” Trump had to take strong action on immigration given his rhetoric, said Roy Beck, head of Numbers USA, a group that favors reduced immigration levels. He said Numbers USA and other grassroots groups would pressure Trump to keep his promises to bolster enforcement and cut back on legal immigration and foreign workers, including eliminating immigration by low-skill and non-extraordinary-skilled workers. “There’s no way he would have been elected president if he had not so boldly made immigration his top issue,” Beck said. “You have to come through on your top issue. The question is in the details.” He said many Trump supporters understood his talk about the border wall was “shorthand” for restoring the rule of law in immigration, although it was a promise by which he would be judged. “We’re in the best position we’ve ever been in since the 1950s to get control of this issue, but we still have big challenges,” Beck said. For many activists in the anti-abortion movement who are suspicious Trump’s promises are fueled by politics more than conviction, he still has plenty to prove. “I think we’re seeing a mix of emotions, from excitement and some fear to somewhere in between,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the anti-abortion group March for Life Education and Defense Fund said of Trump’s election. “For us the most important thing will be to hold him to his campaign promises, particularly on the Supreme Court. We want to be sure he is true to his word,” she said of Trump’s vow to appoint justices who will vote to overturn Roe vs Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. But Trump needs to move quickly, said Thomas Pyle, a Trump supporter and president of the free-market advocacy group American Energy Alliance. “Washington is a very, very difficult place to turn the ship. He has a limited window before the culture in Washington seeps in,” Pyle said. “But if he acts boldly, he can do a lot.”

Summary: ट्रम्प के समर्थकः अपने जोखिम पर अभियान के वादों को तोड़ें


BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of high-level talks aimed at increasing pressure on North Korea over its nuclear program, her spokesman said on Monday. Berlin remains ready to support discussions about ways to find a peaceful solution to the crisis, spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference, noting that Germany is one of few countries with diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.  That is why we have offered to be helpful in the search for new ways to de-escalate the situation,  he said, hours before the U.N. Security Council was due to vote on a U.S.-drafted resolution that would impose new sanctions on Pyongyang.  The only conceivable solution is a peaceful and diplomatic one. But to achieve such a solution, the pressure on North Korea must be increased.  Merkel has already discussed the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and also planned a telephone call with Putin, he said. North Korea was condemned globally for conducting its sixth nuclear test on Sept 3, which it said was of an advanced hydrogen bomb. Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Sunday she was ready to become involved in a diplomatic initiative to end the North Korean nuclear and missiles program, and suggested the Iran nuclear talks could be a model. Germany and the five countries on the United Nations Security Council with veto power took part in talks that led to Iran agreeing a landmark deal in 2015 to curb its nuclear work in return for the lifting of most economic sanctions. Seibert said there had been no concrete request for Germany s help in initiating discussions over the North Korean crisis. Merkel, one of the world s longest serving democratic leaders, is expected to win a fourth term in office in a Sept. 24 vote, with polls giving her conservatives a double-digit lead over their main center-left rivals. Merkel is widely seen in Germany as a safe pair of hands at a time of global uncertainty such as the North Korea crisis, Britain s looming departure from the European Union and Donald Trump s presidency in the United States.

Summary: मर्केल उत्तर कोरिया पर राजनयिक दबाव बना रही हैं, पुतिन से बात करेंगीः प्रवक्ता


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday Republicans had enough votes to pass a tax overhaul bill in the Senate. “We have the votes,” McConnell said. Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who had been holding out support for the legislation, said he now supported the bill.  Republican Senator Susan Collins, another holdout, said a deal had been reached to include her unspecified property tax deduction amendment in the Republican tax bill.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन के पास सीनेट में कर विधेयक पारित करने के लिए वोट हैंः मैककोनेल


BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president raises concern that Washington may increase the intrusiveness of domestic intelligence gathering, former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden said on Monday, warning that democratic checks and balances were losing ground to authoritarianism. Snowden lives in Moscow under an asylum deal after he leaked classified information in 2013 that triggered an international furor over the reach of U.S. spy operations. He spoke at a teleconference hosted by Buenos Aires University’s law school. “We are starting to substitute open government for sheer authoritarianism, a government based not upon the principle of informed consent granted by people who understand its activities but rather a trust in personalities, a trust in claims, a trust in the hope that they will do the right thing,” Snowden said. Washington pledged not to engage in indiscriminate espionage following Snowden’s 2013 disclosures. But Snowden questioned if that policy could be modified by new officials “who have a very different set of values and can govern in the dark.” “If government does actually win our trust, because they go for some years and they do operate in a way that we should support, what happens when it changes?” he asked. “This is kind of the challenge that we’re facing today in the United States with the result of the last election.” Supporters see Snowden as a whistleblower who boldly exposed government excess. But the U.S. government has filed espionage charges against him for leaking intelligence information. Trump, who scored an upset win over Democrat Hillary Clinton in last Tuesday’s election, broke with many in his own Republican Party during the campaign and emphasized his success as a businessman and reality TV show star. He promised sweeping security measures to deal with the threat of attacks on the United States. His election was greeted with concern from the American Civil Liberties Union over statements he made during the campaign supporting increased surveillance of U.S. Muslims, mass deportation of illegal immigrants, reauthorization of waterboarding and changing libel laws to increase press restrictions.     Snowden, asked if he thought the election of Trump, who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader, might increase chances of him being pardoned by the U.S. government, responded: “Who knows?”

Summary: स्नोडेन ने ट्रम्प की जीत के बाद अमेरिकी घरेलू जासूसी में वृद्धि की चेतावनी दी


BEIJING (Reuters) - Wang Qin, 59, collects scrap at a demolished residential district on the outskirts of Beijing, working 15 hours a day and struggling on her own to pay for her granddaughter s education. She worries that her own home, a small illegally constructed shack where she lives with her granddaughter and mentally ill husband, might also be bulldozed by local authorities. The family lives off the 1,500 yuan ($228) a month Wang makes selling scrap and receives no assistance from the Beijing government.  As migrants from another province, they are not recognized as residents of the capital despite having lived there since 2014. Since she is not registered in Beijing, Wang has to pay more for things like school and medical care - a hardship for migrants in cities, where costs such as housing are also far higher than in the countryside.   Every month you still need to live, I still need to pay the school fees for the child, and her food and drink every day,  said Wang, who came to Beijing to try escape the grinding poverty of her village in Henan province in central China.  I can t take it, my whole body aches, I can t earn the money.   Wang s plight is a common one among millions of poor migrants in China s big cities, as well as in the rural areas from which so many of them come, highlighting the challenges of the government s campaign to wipe out extreme poverty by 2020.   President Xi Jinping made the campaign one of his signature policy issues after pledging in 2015 that China would lift the 70 million people living under the poverty level at the time out of poverty by 2020.  The campaign has been ratcheted up as the Communist Party prepares to hold a twice-a-decade leadership meeting on Wednesday.   The country is placing an unprecedented amount of effort on alleviating poverty,  Liu Yongfu, head of the government s Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.  President Xi Jinping is personally in command, and has visited all of the areas of concentrated poverty  in China.  He added:  With the active participation of all parts of society, it can be said that the battle against poverty has achieved significant results.  Asked by Reuters about people like Wang, the scrap collector, Liu said migrants could receive benefits in their hometowns, noting that city dwellers were covered by urban social security programs. Beijing has pledged to spend 86 billion yuan on poverty alleviation this year, 30 percent more than last year, according to the Ministry of Finance. Liu said direct spending by central and local governments on poverty alleviation from 2013 to 2017 totaled 461.2 billion yuan, adding that other types of government spending also had an impact. The funds are used for infrastructure projects, as well as subsidies for education, health care and rural agriculture. The government s poverty line is income of 2,300 yuan per year, and by the end of 2016, 43.35 million people were still officially below it. The government s goal is to lift 10 million out of poverty this year, and at that rate the country by 2020 should, at least officially, be rid of serious poverty. The program is credited with increasing the attention given to the countryside and improving things like rural infrastructure.  The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, on Thursday said China s achievement in lifting 800 million people out of poverty since 1990 was  one of the great stories in human history . But many researchers and social workers say the campaign doesn t address the most serious problems facing China s poor.  I personally don t really agree with the government setting this 2020 poverty alleviation target,  said Yang Lixiong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing who has studied the issue.  The supportive policies can relieve poverty in the short term, but from a long-term perspective, they will easily fall back into poverty.    Yang said up to half the residents lifted from poverty in some western regions would slip back under the poverty line if government support was removed.  Yang said not enough attention was being paid to long-term issues such as access to schools and health care.   Poverty can only be reduced over a very long period of time. And you can t say poverty is eliminated, it s impossible to eliminate,  said Yang. Central government officials acknowledge the challenges, which they say include poor implementation of policies and misuse of funds at the local level. They also say the program is narrowly focused in order to address the most pressing problems of the poorest rural residents, but insist that much effort is going into improving health care and education.  First we need to win this battle, resolve the current problems,  said Liu, responding to a question from Reuters about whether the program would continue beyond 2020.  Wu Chen, founder of the Beijing-based Social Resources Institute, which works in Dalinggou, a village in Hebei province, said development of rural areas faced challenges like the emptying of the countryside as people move to cities looking for work, environmental destruction, and lack of capital.  Dalinggou is plastered with slogans calling for the village to win the war on poverty. With that aim in mind, the local government built a new paved road to the village and last month installed solar-powered street lights.  Wu said there had been a huge improvement in rural infrastructure, but a wide information and culture gap between the rural poor and urbanites remained a major challenge.  Can these villagers not only escape poverty in terms of income, but also information and ability poverty?   ($1 = 6.5785 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Summary: चीन ने गरीबी के खिलाफ युद्ध तेज किया, हालांकि कुछ अभी भी पीछे रह गए हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior U.S. and Chinese officials will meet to discuss bilateral economic issues this month after threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to use trade to pressure Beijing to do more to rein in North Korea’s weapons programs, a U.S. official with knowledge of the decision said.  The meeting of the U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue will take place in Washington on July 19, and will be the first covering economic and trade issues in a new format for U.S.-China dialogue agreed after a summit between Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in April. Trump pledged repeatedly during his election campaign to take a tough stance on Chinese trade practices deemed unfair to the United States, but his rhetoric softened after a friendlier-than-expected summit with Xi. Shortly after their meeting, Trump said he had told Xi that China would get a better trade deal if it worked to rein in North Korea, whose nuclear and missile programs have become an increasing threat to the United States. Lately though, Trump, who is to meet Xi again on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg this week, has appeared increasingly frustrated that China - North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner - has not taken stronger action. North Korea said it tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Tuesday and experts said it appeared to be of a type capable of hitting all of Alaska, prompting renewed U.S. calls for global diplomatic action. The United States has said it will propose new United Nations sanctions in response to the test, but it is unclear whether China and Russia will support these. Unlike Washington, neither Moscow nor Beijing have described the missile used in the test as an ICBM. Trump vowed on Thursday to confront North Korea “very strongly” after the latest missile test and urged nations to show Pyongyang that there would be consequences for its weapons programs

Summary: अमेरिका, चीन आर्थिक वार्ता के लिए 19 जुलाई को वाशिंगटन में मिलेंगे


CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Imam Zaman mosque in the Kabul s western Dasht-e-Barchi district, which killed at least 39 people, the group said in a statement on Saturday. The group said in the statement that a suicide bomber had detonated a vest. It did not provide evidence to support its claim.

Summary: इस्लामिक स्टेट ने काबुल में शिया मस्जिद पर हमले की जिम्मेदारी लीः बयान