WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans lawmakers are starting to put in motion plans to destroy or defang the U.S. agency intended to protect individuals from financial fraud. On Tuesday, two Texas Republicans, Senator Ted Cruz and Representative John Ratcliffe, introduced a one-page bill to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau entirely.  Their move comes a few days after Representative Jed Hensarling, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, outlined a plan to limit the independent agency’s power and to crimp its funding via Congress’ budget process. The agency focuses on financial products such as mortgages and student loans. Next up: David Perdue, a Republican from Georgia on the Senate Banking Committee, will introduce a bill to make the CFPB more accountable to Congress by changing its funding mechanism, according to an aide. Unlike a complete elimination of the agency, which would require 60 votes, Perdue’s bill could be affixed to budget legislation that could become law with a 51-vote majority vote in the Senate. Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts and Sherrod Brown, the senior Democrat on the Banking Committee, have vowed to block changes they say would weaken the CFPB’s independence.  Killing the agency altogether would be a hard sell, and even some banking lobbyists have said they would be comfortable with a more restricted CFPB. The agency, which is also facing a court test, was created in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. Its sole director, currently Richard Cordray, serves a fixed term and its budget flows through the Federal Reserve without being subject to congressional review. Republicans criticizing the CFPB say it overreaches its authority, pushes unnecessary regulation on small banks and uses large fines to direct lenders’ behavior without going through proper rule-making processes. Perdue has also struck at the agency more specifically, introducing a resolution to repeal a new CFPB regulation requiring prepaid cards to disclose their terms prominently. Hensarling’s plan, which anti-CFPB lobbyists and congressional staffers are positing as a compromise, would push some CFPB powers to other agencies while making its budget subject to congressional review and its director a political appointee. Others want to see the agency become a five-member bipartisan commission. President Donald Trump, also a Republican, was elected partly on promises to lighten regulation and is expected to sign any CFPB-related legislation that reaches his desk.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन सीनेटरों ने अमेरिकी उपभोक्ता वित्तीय प्रहरी पर हमला शुरू किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key senators said on Tuesday they are crafting a law that would allow states to use federal foster care funds to help opioid-addicted parents raise their infants. The senior Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee envision the law as part of a comprehensive effort to address the opioid crisis with increased prevention, treatment and law enforcement. “Children and families are relying on us to take this important step,” committee chairman Sen. Orin Hatch, a Republican of Utah, said during the hearing. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, cited a recent Reuters investigation, which documented 110 preventable deaths of infants sent home with opioid-addicted parents ill-prepared to care for them. One drug-dependent baby is born in the United States every 19 minutes, the series found. “A parent’s drug addiction is becoming a growing reason for removing children from their homes and placing them in foster care,” Wyden said. Hatch and Wyden described only the general scope of the bill they planned to introduce. They did not offer specifics for the “Family First Act,” but their staffers said the money would likely come from existing funds. Nancy Young, director of Children and Family Futures, which provides services to government welfare programs, testified that parental opioid use before and after birth places a profound strain on the foster care system. Shifting foster care funds to help parents cope with addiction will reduce costs, she said, in part because it will help keep mothers and infants together. “We have the knowledge – we can no longer say we don’t know what to do,” said Young, who cited statistics from the Reuters investigation to describe the scope of the crisis. Last month, responding to the report, a House committee overseeing child abuse opened an inquiry into whether the federal government is failing to enforce a federal law meant to protect thousands of babies born dependent on drugs each year. Reuters found that no more than nine states comply with a law that calls on hospitals to alert social workers whenever such a baby is born, and help them develop a “plan of safe care.” Federal health and drug officials have declined to comment and, according to a congressional staffer, have not responded to the House queries.

Summary: सीनेटरों ने ओपिओइड पर निर्भर माता-पिता, शिशुओं के लिए सुरक्षा पर जोर दिया


SHAH PORIR DWIP ISLAND, Bangladesh (Reuters) - On a remote beach looking out onto the Bay of Bengal, a baby boy lies swaddled in cloth, his face smeared with wet sand. The bodies of nine more children and eight women lie alongside. Another woman and a child have already been buried. The group, all Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, were found washed up on the shore on Thursday by villagers from Shah Porir Dwip island in Bangladesh, a short distance from the mouth of the Naf river that separates the two countries. They died after two rickety boats capsized as they fled a Myanmar army counteroffensive that followed Rohingya insurgent attacks on security forces last week. Nearly 30,000 more Rohingyas have made the perilous crossing by boat or on foot into Bangladesh, while 20,000 more are stuck in no man s land at the border.  We left after the army came early yesterday. They burned houses and shot many people. We ran away so they couldn t find us,  said Samira, 19, a survivor from one of the boats, as the monsoon wind and rain blew off the sea to soak her bright orange hijab.  I have no words. I don t know what we ll do.  Samira and others fled violence unleashed after Rohingya insurgents wielding sticks, knives and crude bombs attacked police posts and an army base on Friday, leading to clashes that have killed at least 117 people. Journalists and other outside observers have been unable to independently travel to the northwest of Myanmar s Rakhine state since an earlier outbreak of violence last year, although some aid programs had quietly been resumed. Myanmar says its army is conducting clearance operations against  extremist terrorists  and that security forces have been told to protect civilians, but Rohingya arriving in Bangladesh say a campaign is under way to force them out. The bodies washed up on Thursday were hardly the first Rohingya to perish trying to escape by boat from Myanmar. Many died trying to cross the Naf after smaller-scale insurgent attacks last October provoked a harsh military response. Over the years, tens of thousands have attempted to flee across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea to Thailand and Malaysia. A crackdown on people smuggling networks in Thailand in 2015 saw many Rohingya abandoned at sea by traffickers. The disruption to the smuggling networks also cut off a major escape route for the Muslim minority, which is denied citizenship and endures apartheid-like conditions in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Samira s group hailed from a village to the south of the major regional town of Maungdaw in Rakhine. A Reuters reporter who traveled with government minders to the area on Wednesday saw many villages on fire. The two boats set off for the Bangladesh coast around 7 p.m. on Wednesday. The Naf here is about 3 km (1.9 miles) wide. After the group arrived on the Bangladeshi side, someone shouted that the police were near, Samira said. They went back out to sea - and a large wave tipped the boats over. Out of the 22 members of Samira s extended family six died.  My brother can swim so he managed to save some of us,  she said. In total, 14 people survived, but  young children and those women couldn t swim and they couldn t be saved,  she said, looking over the bodies lined up on the beach. The island - which used to be reachable by a bitumen road on a causeway - is about an hour by boat from Bangladesh s Teknaf peninsula. The road has been washed away by the Bay of Bengal s tides and strong winds. As the number of Rohingya refugees is expected to swell, humanitarian workers worry such boat accidents may become more frequent. Hundreds fleeing on boats were being pushed back by Bangladeshi border guards, according to authorities. The United Nations is pressuring Dhaka to let those fleeing Myanmar seek shelter on its territory, but Bangladesh - one of the poorest countries in Asia - has said it cannot cope with any more refugees and will not allow people to cross the border. Another boat in the area sank on Wednesday, killing two women and two children, after Myanmar border guards fired on it, Bangladesh Border Guard Lt. Col. Ariful Islam told Reuters.  One person survived by floating on a jerry can. Jahid Hussein Saddique, a local administrator, confirmed the Thursday accident took place and said that a broker has been sentenced to six months in jail by a mobile court for human trafficking.  They didn t know how to swim, so they died,  Saddique said. We don t know the actual cause of death.

Summary: म्यांमार से नाव से भागने में रोहिंग्या महिलाओं और बच्चों की मौत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From Syria’s bloody civil war and the slow-burning crisis in eastern Ukraine to perennial diplomatic headaches such as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, Rex Tillerson would face a messy, complex world as the chief U.S. diplomat. Below are brief descriptions of some of the problems that will land on his plate if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 69th U.S. secretary of state after a career spent at Exxon Mobil Corp, where he rose to be chief executive. Tillerson will inherit an increasingly complex conflict in Syria, where the rebel-held eastern portion of Aleppo is on the verge of falling to Syrian government forces backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias from Lebanon and Iraq. The civil war, now well into its sixth year, pits President Bashar al-Assad against a range of rebel groups, many supported by outside powers including the United States, Turkey and Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. During the U.S. presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump suggested his top priority was defeating the Islamic State militant group that has launched attacks in Europe and inspired mass-casualty attacks in the United States. If Trump cooperates with Russia against Islamic State, which holds a swath of northeastern Syria, there is a risk that moderate rebels, angered by what they viewed as abandonment by the United States, could gravitate toward militant Islamist factions that pose a potential threat to Western interests. Moreover, the persistent bloodshed could unleash new and destabilizing waves of refugees into neighboring nations from which they could then attempt to reach Europe. Earlier refugee flows triggered a backlash that has bolstered far-right nationalist parties in Europe. Cooperating with Russia would cause other complications for the new U.S. administration. For one thing, it could, by extension, align the United States with Iran and its Lebanese proxy militia, Hezbollah. Iran has used its ties to Syria to project force in the region, a troubling fact for Israeli officials not eager to see Tehran extend its influence. Next door in Iraq, Tillerson will confront a country struggling to overcome deep ethnic and sectarian divisions as it fights to stamp out the Islamic State insurgency with the help of some 6,000 U.S. support troops and military advisers. Even if Iraqi security forces prevail in retaking the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, the extremist group is expected to revert to waging a guerrilla war against the Shi’ite-dominated central government. If so, that could force Trump and Tillerson to decide whether the United States should remain engaged - and attempt to counterbalance the powerful influence of neighboring Shi’ite-led Iran – or play a diminished role. Tillerson also may face a renewed drive by Iraq’s minority Kurds, trained and armed by the United States to fight Islamic State, for independence for their oil-rich autonomous northern region. Such a move, which the United States has opposed, would raise the threat of a conflict between the Kurds and Baghdad that could affect the international petroleum market. It could also fuel demands by Kurds in Syria and in Turkey for greater autonomy, a prospect that Turkish officials bitterly oppose. North Korea’s secretive, authoritarian government has conducted five nuclear tests over the past decade, four of them during the Obama administration and two this year alone, along with an unprecedented flurry of ballistic missile tests. The North’s tests have brought tighter U.N. Security Council sanctions, including some passed last month that aim to cut its export earnings by a quarter, but no sign that Pyongyang’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, is willing to restrain its nuclear and missile programs. Reclusive, impoverished North Korea poses a direct threat to rich, democratic South Korea, a U.S. treaty ally that technically remains in a state of war with Pyongyang because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy the South and the United States, which maintains about 28,000 troops in South Korea as a tripwire to deter North Korean from attacking. North Korea said after its September nuclear test that it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile. If it developed an effective intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, it could strike the continental United States. Trump has harshly criticized the agreement struck on July 14, 2015, between Iran and six major powers under which Tehran agreed to restrain its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Many Republicans, particularly in the U.S. Congress, have argued that the deal, negotiated by the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, should be torn up. While Trump has been critical of the agreement, it is not certain he would actually abrogate it. For one thing, Israeli officials quietly say that they prefer to have Iran live under the deal’s restraints and subject to its transparency measures, than totally freed from both, which could allow them to race to acquire nuclear weapons. Further, if the United States were to be blamed for the agreement’s collapse, it would be unlikely to find much sympathy among its European allies to reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Even if the deal holds, Tillerson may have his hands full trying to find ways to counter Iranian support for Syria’s Assad, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis, the militia fighting the Saudi-backed government in Yemen. Tillerson may quickly find himself dealing with a crisis of Trump’s own making with China given Beijing’s angry response to the Republican president-elect’s view that Washington did not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of “one China.” If he were to upend some four decades of settled U.S. policy, Trump risks antagonizing Beijing, which could decide to restrict cooperation with the United States or, if truly pushed, seek to subvert U.S. policy aims around the world. The United States has a vast array of interests with China, which is the third-largest destination for exports of U.S. goods and the largest source of goods imported into the U.S. market. China is also the largest holder of U.S. government debt. Among the areas where the two sides have worked together under the Obama administration are maintaining growth in the world economy, reining in the Iranian nuclear program and seeking to combat climate change. They have also had disagreements over North Korea and China’s maritime claims.     Russia seized the majority Russian-speaking Crimea from Ukraine on March 16, 2014, after an uprising toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president. Ukraine, the United States and many governments in Western Europe also say that Moscow has armed and encouraged pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, and covertly infiltrated Russian military personnel. The conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists has cost nearly 10,000 lives since 2014. Germany and France have tried with little success to convince both sides to implement a peace deal agreed to in Minsk last year. The Kremlin denies Western charges that it is stoking the separatist movement and aiding the rebels and accuses Ukraine of perpetuating the violence and violating the Minsk deal. The United States and the European Union have imposed a range of economic sanctions on Russia as a result of its annexation of Crimea and its actions in eastern Ukraine. Trump has said that better relations with Russia could be a great benefit to the United States and there are suspicions that he and his nominee for secretary of state might be inclined to ease the Western sanctions on Russia. One U.S. official said there might be a deal to be done if Russian President Vladimir Putin were willing to abide by the Minsk peace deal, or to agree to something similar under a different name, in return for sanctions relief. Trump has given few specifics on his plans for Afghanistan, where nearly 10,000 U.S. troops remain more than 15 years after the Islamist Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces. Trump has said, however, that the United States should stop carrying out “nation building,” something it has been seeking to do for a decade and a half in the southwestern Asian nation. One of the most important questions facing Trump on Afghanistan, former officials and experts say, is how many U.S. troops will stay on there. Acknowledging that Afghan security remained precarious and Taliban forces had gained ground in some places, President Barack Obama shelved plans to cut the U.S. presence almost in half by year’s end, opting instead to keep 8,400 troops there through to the end of his presidency in January. A number of provincial capitals have been under pressure from the Taliban, while Afghan forces have been suffering high casualty rates, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.

Summary: सीरिया से लेकर उत्तर कोरिया तक टिलरसन को एक खराब वैश्विक स्थिति विरासत में मिलेगी


PARIS (Reuters) - Arab states may want their turn at the helm of UNESCO, but the barbs hurled by Egypt at rival candidate Qatar during the vote highlights the fractious geopolitics paralyzing the workings of the U.N. cultural agency. The Paris-based body is known for designating World Heritage sites like the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria and Grand Canyon National Park, but it has struggled for relevance as it becomes increasingly hobbled by regional rivalries and a lack of money.    After two days of a secret ballot that could run until Friday, Qatar s Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari leads France s Audrey Azoulay and Egyptian hopeful Moushira Khattab. Three other candidates, including from Lebanon, trail. The row between Qatar and Egypt has its roots in the crisis engulfing Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbors which have severed diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Doha after accusing it of sponsoring hardline Islamist groups, a charge Qatar denies.  The dispute has been bubbling for several months, but what we re seeing with the Arab candidates is that they are extremely divided. Some of the clashes are quite virulent,  said one UNESCO ambassador. Egypt, the Arab world s most populous state which has joined the boycott of Qatar, has not shied from making its feelings about Qatar s UNESCO bid clear. In an interview with Egypt Today and retweeted by the foreign ministry, Egypt s top diplomat Sameh Shoukry suggested Qatar was using its financial power to influence UNESCO s 58-member executive council.   It is an organization that is owned by international society and cannot be sold to a particular state or individual,  he was quoted as saying when asked about the Qatari candidate s campaign logo  I m not coming empty handed.  A diplomat at Qatar s embassy in Paris declined to comment. A Qatari official at UNESCO s headquarters also declined immediate comment.     Egyptian candidate Khattab s first message on Twitter in three months was a re-tweet of an article in the Israeli press entitled  Israel bemoans emerging Qatari victory in UNESCO leadership vote.  Kawari, the Qatari candidate, has so far not reacted to the Egyptian allegations, simply tweeting on Wednesday:  Al-Kawari tipped to head UNESCO .   Voting lasts over a maximum five rounds. If the two finalists end level, they draw lots.  You get the impression that some are playing politics and competing for the sake of having a post rather than actually wanting to secure the future of the organization,  said a European diplomat.

Summary: यूनेस्को के मतदान में मिस्र ने कतर को निशाना बनाया, अरब प्रतिद्वंद्विता उजागर


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered a message of support to European allies in Brussels on Tuesday but their concerns about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy have created a rift on a host of issues. European allies are troubled by Trump’s “America first” rhetoric, his decision not to certify Iran’s compliance with a nuclear deal, his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and now plans to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.  Tillerson told Europe’s foreign ministers at the European Union and NATO that the U.S. government remains committed to transatlantic ties that Trump has previously questioned.  Tillerson also sought to reassure U.S. diplomats posted abroad that his ideas to revamp the country’s foreign service were bearing fruit, saying he would reveal a modernization plan for the U.S. State Department soon. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said his visit showed “the strong commitment the U.S. has to the European alliance, the important role that the European alliance plays in our shared security objectives.” Before a lunch with EU foreign ministers, Tillerson stressed “shared values, shared objectives for security and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.” Trump visited the U.S.-led NATO alliance in May to admonish European leaders on their low defense spending. During his visit on Tuesday, Tillerson offered a more generous appraisal and gave an “unwavering” U.S. commitment to NATO’s mutual defense clause, which considers an attack on one ally as an attack on all. Tillerson ignored questions from reporters about whether he would be ousted from the White House, while his senior adviser R.C. Hammond said no EU or NATO foreign ministers raised the issue of whether Tillerson’s job was secure. In his first substantive public comments since reports last week of a White House plan for CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him, Tillerson said despite “a little criticism”, he was on top of his job. “While we don’t have any wins on the board yet, I can tell you we’re in a much better position to advance America’s interests around the world than we were 10 months ago,” he told senior U.S. diplomats and U.S. embassy staff at the U.S. mission to Belgium in Brussels.  Tillerson’s trip will also take him to Vienna and Paris. While Trump said last week he was not leaving and Tillerson said the reports were untrue,, Trump has also said he alone determines U.S. foreign policy, saying in a tweet on Friday: “I call the final shots.”  Tillerson told U.S. diplomats gathered at the embassy in Belgium that it had been “a bit of a shock” to meet Trump for the first time when he was approached as a possible secretary of state late last year.   Diplomats said EU governments face a dilemma because Tillerson’s views are more closely aligned with theirs but may not reflect those of Trump. Foreign ministers had been open about sharing disagreements with the United States on various issues, Hammond said. One EU diplomat said it was “fairly predictable” given tensions on issues, including Trump’s handling of the North Korea nuclear crisis and his threat to “totally destroy” the secretive country. “Allies have been very frank today in sharing some of their views,” Hammond said, although he said it was important to be honest, adding that: “dialogues only work if they go two ways.” In a speech in Berlin before flying to Brussels, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that the European Union could no longer rely on the United States as its closest ally. “The withdrawal of the United States under Donald Trump from its reliable role as a guarantor of Western-led multilateralism accelerates a change of the world order with immediate consequences for German and European interests,” Gabriel said. Standing next to Tillerson on the podium at the EU headquarters in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini also warned the Trump administration about a possible plan to the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Trump is considering recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which Gabriel also said could unleash turmoil. “A lot of member states, including us, are concerned that the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will not calm the conflict but rather inflame it,” Gabriel said at NATO after the EU ministers’ lunch with Tillerson. The European Union, as the Palestinians’ biggest aid donor and Israel’s top trade partner, says it has a right to make its voice heard in any U.S. initiatives in the Middle East.

Summary: टिलरसन ने ट्रम्प को लेकर चिंतित यूरोप को आश्वस्त करने की कोशिश की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September and avoid federal agency shutdowns on Saturday when existing money is depleted. With the 309-118 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber, the legislation now goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass it before a midnight Friday deadline. The Pentagon is a big winner in the legislation, with defense spending rising significantly. While the bill cleared the House easily, dozens more Democrats voted for it than Republicans, many of whom oppose most spending measures. This was the first major legislation to pass the House this year with bipartisan support and marks Republican President Donald Trump’s first legislative victory, even though he railed against some of its provisions. The legislation bulks up federal funding for border security but does not pay for starting construction on a U.S.-Mexico border wall that Trump promised to keep out illegal immigrants and drugs. Trump had said he would make Mexico pay for the wall, but the Mexican government refused, making it necessary for the new administration to ask Congress for the money. Democrats and many Republicans have argued that a wall is an ineffective and wasteful way of securing the southern border. Another battle over the barrier is expected when Congress tries to pass a spending bill for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Trump already has begun focusing on that upcoming fight. In a tweet on Tuesday, he taunted lawmakers, saying, “Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!” The legislation would add $12.5 billion this fiscal year for the Pentagon, with another $2.5 billion available after Trump gives details on his plans for defeating the Islamic State militant group. It ignores many of the spending cuts on domestic programs the White House had sought and adds $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $295 million for Puerto Rico’s underfunded Medicaid healthcare for the poor and $407 million to fight fires in Western states. But the legislation is late in coming. The fiscal year began last Oct. 1 and for the last seven months federal agencies have been operating mainly on simple extensions of the previous year’s funding and the priorities that came with that.

Summary: अमेरिकी सदन ने सितंबर तक सरकार को धन देने के लिए विधेयक पारित किया


(Reuters) - An opposition leader who said she fled Cambodia in fear of arrest called on Western donors on Wednesday to impose targeted sanctions on Prime Minister Hun Sen s government to save democracy in the Southeast Asian nation. Mu Sochua, 63, left Cambodia on Tuesday, saying she had been tipped off that she was among the next targets of a crackdown in which opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) leader Kem Sokha was arrested a month ago and charged with treason. Elections are due next year and the opposition party has accused Hun Sen, 65, of arresting and harassing its leaders and other critics so he can extend over 30 years in power.  The time for statements has passed. It s time for sanctions, targeted sanctions. Also suspension of technical aid to the government of Cambodia,  Mu Sochua told Reuters.  Time is up for democracy. How long can the international community wait?  She was speaking to Reuters in Southeast Asia and requested that the location not be specified because of security concerns. She said last week that around half the CNRP s members of parliament had fled Cambodia. The sanctions could include visa restrictions on top officials, Mu Sochua said, but should not target the exports of garments - mostly to the United States and European Union - on which the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian workers depend. Responding to Mu Sochua s comments, government spokesman Phay Siphan said there was no reason for any country to impose sanctions on Cambodia because it was committed to peace and pluralism and the rule of law.  This is a sovereign state and it will protect its sovereignty,  he said. He said he could not comment on any potential arrests because that would be a matter for the judiciary.         The government accuses the opposition of planning a revolution to oust Hun Sen, whose rule has spanned Cambodia s three-decade transformation from a broken state after the Khmer Rouge genocide to one of the region s fastest growing economies. Hun Sen has called it a  color revolution , similar to movements in parts of the Balkans and the former Soviet Union in the 2000s. Since Kem Sokha s arrest, Mu Sochua had emerged as his most outspoken deputy. She said she grew worried at the weekend after suspected plain clothes police followed her to rallies in the countryside. TIP-OFF Then on Monday, Hun Sen threatened more arrests of opposition leaders. Mu Sochua said a senior government official had sent her a recording of his speech.  I said, is this about me?  He said  yes . I said  Is the arrest going to be this week?  He said  yes ,  said Mu Sochua, who is known internationally for decades of campaigning against sex trafficking and for women s rights. Insurrection charges over which she was detained for seven days in 2014 could easily be brought back, she said. The government has not said it planned to charge her. Mu Sochua said any international moves against Hun Sen should be aimed at preserving democracy.  When we talk about targeted sanctions we also talk about giving Mr. Hun Sen time to think and to adjust and to give the opposition, civil society, free media space so that the next 10 months will be time to prepare for elections,  she said. Western countries have condemned the arrest of Kem Sokha and the crackdown on non-governmental organizations, civil rights groups and independent media in the country of 16 million people, but they have not taken any concrete steps.  What is shocking is how the international community, especially Cambodia s donors, are essentially giving Hun Sen a free pass at each step of this crackdown,  Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. Western donors played an essential part in rebuilding Cambodia after 1991 peace accords to end civil war, but their influence has waned as Cambodia s economy has strengthened and as China has become its most important ally.  U.S. Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin introduced a resolution on Tuesday that called on the U.S. State and Treasury Departments to consider putting top Cambodian officials on a list that could stop them visiting the United States. China, by far the biggest donor to Cambodia, has given verbal support to Hun Sen. A former Khmer Rouge commander, he defected from the group and helped to drive it from power in 1979 after the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः कंबोडिया के विपक्षी नेता ने नेतृत्व पर प्रतिबंध लगाने का आह्वान किया


(Reuters) - Negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the United States kick off an ambitious first round of trade talks on Wednesday as the countries try to fast-track a deal to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement by early next year. Following are significant moments in the history of the deal: * June 10, 1990: U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari issue a statement endorsing a new, comprehensive free trade pact between the two neighbors, ordering talks to begin. Canada would join the talks in 1991, paving the way for three-way negotiations. The United States and Canada inked a bilateral free trade deal in 1988. * Nov. 3, 1992: Running as an independent for president in the United States, Ross Perot claims the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), would lead to a “giant sucking sound” of jobs rushing to Mexico. Bill Clinton wins the election, defeating incumbent Bush. Perot wins 19 percent of vote to place a strong third.  * Dec. 17, 1992: NAFTA is signed by outgoing Bush, Mexico’s Salinas de Gortari and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, creating the world’s largest free trade area. The timing was, in part, aimed at making it harder for President-elect Clinton to pursue major changes; Clinton had endorsed the deal but insisted on environmental and labor side agreements. * Jan. 1, 1994: NAFTA comes into effect, and a Mayan Indian guerrilla army in southern Mexico launches an armed rebellion against “neo-liberalism” and explicitly against the free trade deal. The declaration of war against the Mexican government leads to days of fighting and dozens of deaths before the rebels retreat into the jungle. * Nov. 30, 1999: Tens of thousands of anti-globalization protesters converge on the U.S. city of Seattle, leading to widespread rioting coinciding with a ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, which was seeking to launch new international trade talks. The protests underscore growing, if scattered, opposition to free trade deals like NAFTA. * July 16, 2004: Senior trade officials from Canada, the United States and Mexico issue a joint statement touting a decade’s worth of expanded trade in North America. Three-way-trade more than doubled to reach $623 billion while cumulative foreign direct investment increases by over $1.7 trillion compared to pre-NAFTA levels. * Dec. 11, 2001: China formally joins the World Trade Organization, integrating the Asian giant more deeply into the global economy. Easing trade with China intensifies a trend that had been seen since NAFTA came into effect as the U.S. trade deficit soared to more than $800 billion by 2006. * Jan. 1, 2008: NAFTA is fully implemented as the last of its polices come into effect. In many sectors, NAFTA stipulates that trade barriers would only gradually be phased out, which was designed to smooth economic shocks in vulnerable industries. By this time, trade within the three North American nations has more than tripled since NAFTA began.  * July 19, 2016: Billionaire businessman and political outsider Donald Trump formally clinches the Republican presidential nomination, winning the traditionally pro-free-trade party’s nod in part by denouncing NAFTA, calling it “the worst trade deal ever.”  * Aug. 16, 2017: High-stakes talks aimed at “modernizing” NAFTA kick off in Washington, with both U.S. and Mexican officials aiming to conclude a new pact in early 2018 before elections later in the year in both nations might derail negotiations. A second round of talks is due to take place in Mexico in September.

Summary: शुरू से ही विरोध में, नाफ्टा का चट्टानी इतिहास


DORKING, England (Reuters) - A man charged with trying to attack Donald Trump with a policeman’s gun found it hard to cope with life but did not have political views and was never violent, his father told British media on Tuesday.    Michael Sandford was arrested after trying to grab a police officer’s side arm at a Trump rally in Las Vegas on Saturday. When asked why, he told police: “To shoot and kill Trump,” according to U.S. court papers.  “He’s never shown any violent tendencies before. He’s never been a bad person,” his father, Paul Davey, was quoted as saying by the MailOnline website which put Sandford’s age as 20. U.S. prosecutors have said he is 19.   “He’s a nice kid and literally wouldn’t hurt a fly - he used to tell us not to use fly spray because he didn’t want any flies to die.” The Mirror newspaper’s website quoted Davey as saying his son had Asperger’s Syndrome and had left school at the age of 15 “because he couldn’t cope with it all”.  He went to the United States 18 months ago after an American girl he had met returned home, something that had made him “quite down and depressed,” Davey said. “He’s been refusing to come back and we were worried about him, we were in contact with the American Embassy ... (but) the American authorities said ‘he’s over 18 we can’t do anything.’” Davey said someone must have coerced or “radicalised” his son into attacking the presidential candidate. “He has never mentioned Donald Trump. The reason it is such a shock is because he shows no interest in anything like that ... I doubt he would even know who the president of the United States is.” Sandford lived on his own in Dorking, a commuter town near London, in a flat in a large white house. A local who knew Sandford’s mother, who did not want to be named, told Reuters Sandford had autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder.  “He was one of those guys who just stays in his room that’s it, wouldn’t come out,” the man said.  The U.S. court documents said Sandford had been planning to kill Trump for about a year. He had visited a gun range the day before the rally to fire a weapon for the first time.  Last week, a British member of parliament was shot and stabbed to death in the street - an incident that has shocked a country that has strict gun controls and where attacks on public figures are rare. Media reported that Sandford and his mother had taken part in a “Robot Wars” competition where contestants operate robots trying to destroy their opponents’ machine. A web page for the Fighting Robots Association listed Michael and Lynne Sandford and Paul Davey as owners of a number of robots, including machines named ‘Mr Nasty’, ‘X-Terminator’ and ‘Steel Avenger’.  “He was quite active in the robot community for a while - buying famous robots from the show ... I then got them working for him because he had absolutely no idea about robots,” John Findlay, director of the company behind Robot Wars, told the Mirror newspaper.   “He was calm, very quiet, a little bit weird and reserved.”

Summary: ट्रंप की रैली में गिरफ्तार किया गया ब्रिटिश नागरिक 'मक्खी को चोट नहीं पहुँचाएगा', पिता ने कहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s top trade officials hope to keep the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral deal in negotiations with Canada and Mexico to revamp the 23-year-old pact, senators said on Tuesday. Several members of the Senate Finance Committee said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and new U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told them in a closed door meeting that they would prefer the current three-nation format but left open the possibility of parallel bilateral agreements with Canada and Mexico. “Their preference is trilateral,” Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow told reporters after the meeting. Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said from the meeting it sounded to him as if a trilateral deal was more likely “unless there’s problems” with that approach. “If trilaterally you aren’t getting anyplace, I suppose then you do it bilaterally,” Grassley said. Ross, who has floated the idea of doing two bilateral trade deals with Canada and Mexico, declined to confirm the administration’s preference for a trilateral approach. “Right now it is a trilateral deal and we shall see what comes in the future but the important thing is to get to the substance,” Ross told reporters after leaving the meeting, adding that talks would be “long and complicated.” The meeting was one of several on Capitol Hill this week involving Lighthizer, who was sworn in as U.S. trade representative on Monday, that are required for the Trump administration to trigger the start of the NAFTA negotiating process with a 90-day consultation period. Farm state senators said they also warned Ross and Lighthizer not to take actions that would damage agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico.  “We made it pretty clear that’s a priority, that we don’t want to see ag hurt,” said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “NAFTA by and large has been good for agriculture, and we’re seeing some disruptions in the ag marketplace today because of uncertainty about where this is headed.” Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, said Ross and Lighthizer assured him they would push to drop NAFTA’s dispute-resolution mechanism. Trump has complained that the mechanism is biased against the United States.

Summary: ट्रम्प व्यापार अधिकारी त्रिपक्षीय नाफ्टा सौदे को पसंद करते हैंः अमेरिकी सीनेटर


ZURICH (Reuters) - The Swiss government urged voters on Wednesday to reject a campaign for a nationwide ban on face veils, saying any  decision on facial coverings was a matter for Switzerland s cantons individually. But, in a counter move to a referendum to be held by 2020, the government said it would propose to voters a ban on face veils being worn by individuals while doing business with federal authorities, including in immigration offices or employment agencies.  Regulation of public spaces in Switzerland is traditionally a cantonal matter,  the government said in a statement.  So cantons should continue to decide for themselves whether to enact a ban on facial coverings.  In particular, it said it was down to individual cantons to decide how they handled tourists from the Arab world who wore the veil. In September, activists submitted a petition for a nationwide ban after collecting more than the 100,000 signatures required to put the proposal to a binding referendum. Several cantons have already taken a stand on the issue. Zurich, Solothurn, Schwyz, Basel City and Glarus have rejected a ban on veils, while Italian-speaking Ticino has imposed a ban. At least two demonstrators who wore veils in Ticino in defiance of the ban were fined 250 Swiss francs ($260), according to media reports. The parliament in St. Gallen canton this year backed a ban on facial coverings which were deemed likely to endanger public security or upset the peace. With an eye to the referendum, the federal government said it would also present a proposal to stop individuals being forced to cover their face.  We can not allow husbands and fathers to demand their wives and daughters wear a face veil,  Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga told a news conference.

Summary: स्विस सरकार ने मतदाताओं से चेहरे के घूंघट पर राष्ट्रीय प्रतिबंध के आह्वान को अस्वीकार करने का आग्रह किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Republican U.S. senators criticized Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday for saying that Russia may have the “right approach” on Syria and for what they called his lack of focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. “His statements about Syria really disturb me. No, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not have it right when it comes to Syria,” Senator Lindsey Graham said. In separate television interviews, Graham and Senator John McCain, prominent Republican foreign policy voices, took aim at Tillerson’s remarks last week that Russia may have “got the right approach” and the United States the wrong approach to Syria. Russia has backed President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, while the United States supports rebel groups trying to overthrow him. McCain told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he “sometimes” regretted backing Tillerson’s nomination by Republican President Donald Trump and that his comments on Russia being “right” on Syria made him emotional and upset. “I know what the slaughter has been like. I know that the Russians knew that Bashar Assad was going to use chemical weapons. And to say that maybe we’ve got the wrong approach?” he said. Both senators backed the nomination of Tillerson in January, even while expressing concern about his dealings with Russia when he was chief executive of ExxonMobil. (XOM.N) Graham, who visited Afghanistan and Pakistan last week with McCain, accused Tillerson of being “AWOL” on the two countries and failing to fill key State Department posts. “I am so worried about the State Department,” Graham said  on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” A State Department official responded to the criticism of Tillerson by saying that a U.S.-Russian-brokered ceasefire for southwest Syria was an example of what the secretary had described as the potential to coordinate with Russia, in spite of unresolved differences, “to produce stability and serve our mutual security interests.” The official, who did not want to be identified, also said the State Department was taking an active role in a review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy and continued to work with the White House on nominations. Since the exit of most foreign troops in 2014, Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government has lost ground to a Taliban insurgency in a war that kills and maims thousands of civilians each year.

Summary: दो वरिष्ठ रिपब्लिकन सीनेटरों ने रूस पर टिलरसन की टिप्पणी की आलोचना की


HARARE (Reuters) - A Belgian-based businessman on Friday challenged Zimbabwean First Lady Grace Mugabe s accusation that he duped her of a $1.35 million diamond ring and asked her to provide the court with evidence to back her lawsuit. President Robert Mugabe s wife Grace this week sued Jamal Hamed in a Harare High Court, accusing him of failing to deliver the 100 carat jewel she said she had ordered from him for her wedding anniversary last year. Grace, 52, who is seen as a possible successor to her 93-year-old husband, said Hamed had instead provided an inferior ring worth $30,000 and when she had complained had refunded only $120,000. But Hamed filed his own court application disputing the claim and demanded that Grace should supply the court with details such as a copy of the sale agreement and proof of payment before he put in his defense. Hamed s lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said she had deposed the court papers on behalf of her client on Friday. In the court papers seen by Reuters, Hamed, a British national, said Grace should also provide proof that he in fact owned Zimbabwean companies the first lady wished to be sold to recover the money  When, exactly, is it alleged the payment was done? Full dates are required. Full details of the account holder, the account number and a copy of the account statement are required,  Hamed said in the court application. Grace s lawyer Wilson Manase did not answer his phone when contacted for comment. The court case has lifted a veil on the wealthy lifestyle of Mugabe and his wife, nicknamed  Gucci Grace  for her reputed dedication to shopping, at a time Zimbabwe is in the grip of a severe U.S. dollar crunch and cash shortages.

Summary: बेल्जियम के व्यवसायी ने ग्रेस मुगाबे के हीरे की अंगूठी के दावे को चुनौती दी


CAIRO (Reuters) - Personnel assigned to the U.S. Mission in Egypt are prohibited from visiting religious sites outside greater Cairo until further notice, the U.S. embassy said on Monday in a security message posted on its website. “Terrorists have attacked targets associated with the Christian community in Egypt. Incidents have occurred in both urban and isolated settings. Additional attacks may be possible,” the message said. “Until further notice, personnel assigned to the U.S. Mission in Egypt are prohibited from visiting religious sites outside greater Cairo. U.S. citizens residing in or visiting Egypt should take prudent steps to enhance their personal security,” it said. Gunmen attacked a group of Coptic Christians travelling to a monastery in central Egypt on May 26, killing at least 29 people and wounding 24. Many children were among the victims. Islamic State took responsibility for the attack, which came on the eve of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. It followed other church bombings claimed by the militant group in a campaign of violence against Christians.

Summary: मिस्र में अमेरिकी दूतावास ने काहिरा के बाहर धार्मिक स्थलों पर जाने वाले कर्मियों पर प्रतिबंध लगा दिया


BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin court ruling that permits the parents and siblings of a 16-year-old Syrian migrant to join him in Germany will now take effect after the foreign ministry abruptly dropped an appeal of the decision, German broadcaster ARD reported on Friday. ARD said Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a member of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), decided to drop an appeal filed just days ago, allow the ruling to take effect, following intense criticism by top SPD leaders.  The ruling was the first to deal with the right of under-age migrants to bring their families to Germany and could set a new precedent, ARD reported.  The foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the issue, but Gabriel told the broadcaster:  We know that it is bad, of course, when minors are here without their parents. It s a good thing that we now have clarity.  The ministry s reversal on the issue comes as Gabriel s party prepares to enter talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives about continuing the  grand coalition  that has ruled Germany for the past four years.  Migration - and the issue of allowing migrants to bring family members to Germany - could be a key topic in the coalition talks, which are due to begin on Jan. 7. Merkel had failed to reach agreement with two smaller parties. The case in question centers on a Syrian youth who arrived in Germany in the summer of 2015 with an older cousin, and was granted only  subsidiary protection  rather than full asylum. In 2016, the government had decided to suspend family re-unifications for two years for migrants with  subsidiary protection , which is granted to people who are not considered as being persecuted individually but in whose home country there is war, torture or other inhumane treatment. The court said that rejecting the family reunification in this case violated child welfare protections guaranteed under the European human rights convention and the U.N. Refugee Convention.

Summary: अदालत के फैसले ने सीरियाई युवाओं को परिवार को जर्मनी लाने की अनुमति दी


LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May s divorce deal with the European Union is the strongest signal since the shock 2016 Brexit referendum that the United Kingdom is heading towards an orderly departure that preserves very close trade ties. May rushed to Brussels before dawn on Friday to secure the European Commission s agreement that  sufficient progress  had been made to begin talks about trade and a two-year Brexit transition period that will start when Britain leaves the EU on March 29, 2019. Below are some scenarios for Brexit. An orderly Brexit, with a clear transition and the hope of a trade deal to keep the UK and EU economies as close as possible, would cheer investors and business chiefs.  Friday s deal appeared to put Britain on course for an orderly Brexit.  May largely conceded to the EU on the structure, timetable and substance of the negotiations. At least for now, she has convinced her divided party and the Northern Irish lawmakers who prop up her minority government that she can deliver a deal that is acceptable to them. If all sides stay happy enough to keep the talks on track May is aiming to strike a transition deal early in 2018 and a free trade deal to be signed shortly after exit day.  The EU says any transition deal in the next few months will be interim in the sense that nothing is definite until the Withdrawal Treaty is ratified in 2019. The EU thinks a free trade deal would be negotiated during the transition. May is committed to the UK leaving the single market and customs union. But she agreed with the EU that the rules between Northern Ireland and Ireland would stay if they could not work out another way to avoid a hard border on the island.      That indicates that the UK will keep significant alignment with EU rules, at least for the first few years after the transition. Brexit negotiator David Davis has said his preferred deal would be similar to Canada s CETA deal with the EU but  Canada plus plus plus .[L8N1NL26Q] May has said she wants a bespoke British deal.   The Canadian deal focuses on access to goods but services is more important for Britain as it accounts for about 4/5 of the economy.  Brexit does look more benign if you think there will be a transition and a trade deal,  said Mark Essex, director of Brexit at KPMG.  At the very least, Canada, or CETA, plus banking seems a smart move.   Such a benign Brexit assumes that May can stay in power long enough to deliver one. The talks came close to collapse in Brussels on Dec. 4 when the Northern Irish party which props up May s government vetoed a draft deal already agreed with Ireland.   Many companies fear that events in either Britain or the EU could still derail a final deal.  Cliff edge Brexit is still a possibility,  said Essex  After what we saw in Brussels last week, you have to have a lot of faith to assume it will be plain sailing all the way to next March.   The shock Brexit vote on June 23 2016 thrust Britain into its deepest political crisis since the Suez crisis of 1956. May, who pitched her premiership as a way to calm the turmoil, increased uncertainty when she lost her party its majority in a June snap election which strengthened Jeremy Corbyn s position as opposition Labour Party leader. With her authority weakened and her minority government dependent on 10 lawmakers from the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, May has to constantly gauge how far she can bring her party and her allies with her on Brexit.  May is like fatigued metal: she is going to break but you just don t know when the collapse will come,  said one former British diplomat.  The Conservatives will never allow her to fight another general election so the question is whether she lasts until Brexit, if we do indeed (do) Brexit.  Foreign diplomats in London are already trying to figure out which candidates could win the top job when she is gone. So far May s survival has been dependent on the absence of a clear successor and fear in her party that if she is toppled then opposition leader Corbyn could win a national election. Betting markets indicate a 29 percent probability of a UK election in 2018. Corbyn has the lowest odds on being the next prime minister after May, followed by Conservative lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.  A YouGov poll showed May s Conservatives were ahead of Labour in the first time since the June election. A Labour government is now seen as such a real possibility that some major financial services companies are trying to gauge just how radical Corbyn, a lifelong socialist, and his finance chief, John McDonnell, will be. While Labour s official policy is to leave the EU, Corbyn has barely detailed the party s Brexit position. Many of his lawmakers want to stay in the EU but many traditional Labour supporters voted to leave. Labour s Brexit chief Keir Starmer has said Britain should keep the closest possible trading ties with the EU.  Brexit doesn t happen: The $2.6 trillion economy stalls, prompting calls for a second EU referendum that - if held during a deep recession - could produce a vote to remain in the EU. Ever since the referendum, Brexit opponents  - from French President Emmanuel Macron and former British prime minister Tony Blair to billionaire investor George Soros - have suggested Britain could change its mind and avoid what they say will be disastrous economic consequences. Reversing Brexit assumes the fall of May, who triggered Article 50 of the treaty on March 29. The legalities of reversing Brexit are unclear as the EU s treaties do not cover such an eventuality. John Kerr, a former British ambassador to the EU, who drafted Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty said Britain could unilaterally scrap its divorce plans. In Brussels, there is no single view on how a reverse Brexit might work. While the EU would be likely to welcome a Brexit reversal, it might require the agreement of all 27 other members and some of Britain s special favors, such as the rebate on its payments could come under attack. Supporters of Brexit have repeatedly said that any attempt to have another referendum, or to undermine Brexit, would catapult the world s sixth largest economy into crisis.

Summary: मई ब्रिटेन को एक दोस्ताना यूरोपीय संघ के तलाक की ओर धकेलता है


BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia s leftist ELN rebels said on Sunday they are willing to extend a ceasefire set to expire next month if there is sufficient progress at peace talks with the government. The National Liberation Army (ELN) and the government have been in public peace talks in Quito for 10 months, after a long exploratory phase of negotiations, in a bid to end more than 53 years of war. The group s first-ever ceasefire began in October and is set to expire Jan. 9. It is being supervised by the Catholic Church and the United Nations.  We are willing to agree a new ceasefire once we have jointly evaluated at the negotiating table the progress, confidence and results of the current one,  the group said in an open letter to the U.N. posted on the ELN s Twitter account. The ELN added that it would also assess the government s willingness to overcome hurdles at the talks. The 2,000-strong ELN, which has regularly bombed oil infrastructure and taken hostages, has continued kidnapping despite the ceasefire. An indigenous leader in Choco province died in October after being detained by the group.

Summary: अगर बातचीत आगे बढ़ती है तो कोलंबिया के ई. एल. एन. विद्रोही संघर्ष विराम बढ़ाने के लिए तैयार हैं


KINSHASA (Reuters) - An election to replace Congolese President Joseph Kabila cannot take place before April 2019, the electoral commission said, a delay that the opposition said would cause an impatient population to  take matters into its own hands . The schedule outlined by the electoral commission would torpedo an agreement between Kabila s camp and his opponents to hold the election - originally scheduled for November 2016 - before the end of this year. Dozens of people were killed last year in protests against Kabila s refusal to step down at the end of his term. Parts of Democratic Republic of Congo are in the hands of insurgents who say they will not stop fighting while he remains in power.  The electoral commission, CENI, said in a statement following a meeting with civil society representatives on Tuesday that it would need at least 504 days to organize the poll once voter registration is completed. Enrolment began in parts of Kasai, a region ravaged by insurrection, in mid-September and will take about three months, the commission says. That means the vote could not be organized until April 2019 at the earliest. CENI is expected to announce election dates this month.  What the CENI has announced is not an electoral calendar but an election-killing agenda,  opposition leader Claudel Lubaya told Reuters.   Everything now rests on the shoulders of the population, which must take matters into its own hands.  The opposition suspects Kabila is trying to cling to power by postponing elections until he can find a way to remove term limits that prevent him from standing for re-election, as presidents in neighboring Rwanda and Congo Republic have done. Kabila, who took power after his father Laurent Kabila was assassinated in 2001, denies that, and says the election delays are due to difficulties enrolling millions of voters and mobilizing hundreds of millions of dollars in financing. His spokesman has repeatedly said that the electoral commission operates independently and that Kabila has no control over the timing of elections. The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, Maman Sidikou, said CENI was badly underfunded. International donors have contributed only 6 percent of the $123 million that the United Nations had been expecting, he told the U.N. Security Council.  Congo has never experienced a peaceful transition of power and Kabila s refusal to step down has fueled mounting insecurity across a country where millions died in regional conflicts between 1996-2003, most from hunger and disease. An insurrection in Kasai has killed up to 5,000 people and displaced 1.4 million since August 2016, and militia violence has also spiked in the eastern borderlands, where dozens of armed groups are active.

Summary: 2019 के मध्य तक कांगो में कोई चुनाव नहीं, मतदान आयोग ने कहा, विपक्ष नाराज


DUBAI (Reuters) - The United States is scaling back its involvement in some joint military exercises in the Gulf region, a spokesman said on Friday, following a rift between Qatar and its neighbors. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, along with Egypt, severed ties with Qatar in June, accusing it of supporting terrorism, in the most serious rift between the United States  Gulf Arab allies. Doha denies it supports terrorism and says the sanctions are intended to force it to change its foreign policies. Asked whether the United States had scaled back military operations with some Gulf Cooperation Council countries due to the rift, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Colonel John Thomas said in an emailed statement:   We are opting out of some military exercises out of respect for the concept of inclusiveness and shared regional interests.  We will continue to encourage all partners to work together toward the sort of common solutions that enable security and stability in the region,  he added, without elaborating. The U.S. Central Command is responsible for 20 countries in the Middle East and South and Central Asia, from Egypt to Kazakhstan. The United States has sought to encourage its Arab allies to discuss their differences, which appear to revolve around Qatar s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group designated by Saudi Arabia and its allies as a terrorist organization. Gulf Arab states also accuse Qatar of cozying up to non-Arab Iran, which they accuse of trying to expand its influence in Arab countries by supporting Shi ite Muslim minorities, something Tehran denies. The United States maintains close military ties with all Gulf Arab states and regularly holds joint exercises. It has military bases in several of the counties, including Qatar which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East.

Summary: अमेरिकी सेना ने खाड़ी में दरार के बाद कुछ अभ्यासों से 'बाहर निकलने' का फैसला किया


HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba and the United States will meet next week for a third round of talks on improving relations, Havana said on Thursday, adding that the two former Cold War foes were not yet negotiating their multibillion-dollar claims against one another. A bilateral commission will meet next Monday in the Cuban capital to evaluate the progress made in putting their decades-old conflict behind them, and to identify new areas of cooperation, said Gustavo Machin, the deputy director for U.S. affairs in the Cuban foreign ministry. “We will set the agenda for the rest for the year,” Machin told a news conference. “We are not yet negotiating the topic of claims even if there is a recognition on both sides that these exist.” Cuba and the U.S. reestablished diplomatic relations a year ago and have signed agreements on issues of common concern such as the environment, postal services and direct flights. Many differences remain however. Machin reiterated Cuba’s demands for the return of the Guantanamo naval base and lifting of the U.S. trade embargo. Cuba complains that some of the policy changes the U.S. has carried out, such as relaxing currency restrictions against the island, have had little real impact given the persistent fear among U.S. institutions of risking government sanctions. The White House said in March it would allow U.S. banks to process dollar transactions for Cuba as long as neither buyer nor seller were U.S. entities. “Until now, no bank transactions have been carried out in U.S. currency,” Machin said. “There is still a great fear.” Cuba has said it will only lift a 10 percent tax on cash dollars once it is clear U.S. banks are processing dollar transactions for the Communist-ruled island. The issue of reparations is another sticky point. Late last year, Cuba and the U.S. outlined their respective claims, with the former demanding at least $121 billion in reparations for the U.S. trade embargo and other acts it describes as aggressions against the Caribbean country. The Americans meanwhile are seeking upwards of $10 billion in compensation for nationalized properties. The third bilateral commission will be led by Josefina Vidal, the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s chief of U.S. affairs, and Kristie Kenney, counselor for the U.S. State Department.

Summary: क्यूबा और अमेरिकी अधिकारी हिरासत को गहरा करने के लिए अगले सप्ताह मिलेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday he was “even more resolute” in his belief that Russia staged cyber attacks on Democrats during the 2016 election campaign, rebuking persistent skepticism from Republican President-elect Donald Trump about whether Moscow was involved. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said he had a very high level of confidence that Russia hacked Democratic Party and campaign staff email, and disseminated propaganda and fake news aimed at the Nov. 8 election. “Our assessment now is even more resolute than it was” on Oct. 7 when the government first publicly accused Russia, Clapper told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said motives for the attack would be made public next week. Trump on Thursday morning called himself a “big fan” of intelligence agencies. But he has cast doubt on their assessments that Russia targeted the campaign of his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, drawing ire from his fellow Republicans as well as Democrats who are wary of Moscow and distrust Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The intelligence officials at Thursday’s hearing said they worried a lack of support from atop the government could prompt valued staff members to leave their agencies. “There’s a difference between healthy skepticism ... and disparagement,” Clapper said. Vice President-elect Mike Pence has used the expression “healthy skepticism” to defend Trump’s criticism of intelligence findings. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, speaking at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics on Thursday, said that because Trump had never served in government, he was unfamiliar with the intelligence profession. “It doesn’t bother me if someone is going to be skeptical and challenge our work and maybe disagree with our views, but I expect that the president of the United States will recognize that the CIA and intelligence community were established by statute for a very important reason,”  The congressional hearing was overseen by Republican Senator John McCain, a vociferous Russia critic. It was the first in a promised series of briefings and hearings on allegations that Russia tried to disrupt or influence the U.S. campaign, one of the most bitter in recent history. Moscow denies the allegations. McCain told reporters that Senator Lindsey Graham, also a vocal critic of Moscow, would chair a new Armed Services subcommittee dedicated to cyber issues. Trump will be briefed by intelligence agency chiefs on Friday on the hacks. President Barack Obama received a report on the matter on Thursday. An unclassified version will be made public early next week. “I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we’ve seen in this case,” said Clapper, who leaves when Trump becomes president on Jan. 20. Clapper stopped short of declaring Russia’s actions “an act of war,” saying that determination was beyond the scope of his office. Clapper and the two other officials who testified, National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers, and Marcel Lettre, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, did not say what made U.S. intelligence confident Russia was behind the cyber attacks, a conclusion also reached by several private firms. Obama last week ordered the expulsion of 35 suspected Russian spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies he said were involved in hacking U.S. political groups such as the Democratic National Committee. The CIA has identified Russian officials who fed material hacked from the DNC and Democratic Party leaders to WikiLeaks at Putin’s direction through third parties, according to a new U.S. intelligence report, senior U.S. officials said.  Documents stolen from the DNC and Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, were posted on the Internet before the election, embarrassing the campaign. In a tweet on Wednesday, Trump was skeptical about a Russian role in the affair, writing: “(WikiLeaks founder) Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ - why was DNC so careless? Also said the Russians did not give him the info!” But on Thursday, Trump said in another Twitter post that he was not against intelligence agencies or in agreement with Assange. “The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!” Trump tweeted. Clapper said Assange had put American lives in danger and deserved no credibility. McCain and other lawmakers also blasted Assange. Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said there would be “howls” from Republicans if a Democrat described intelligence officials as Trump had. U.S. intelligence officials have said Russian cyber attacks were specifically aimed at helping Trump beat Clinton. Several Republicans have acknowledged the Russian hacking but have not linked it to an effort to help Trump win. Trump and top advisers believe Democrats are trying to delegitimize his victory by accusing Russia of helping him.  Senator Tim Kaine, an Armed Services member who was Clinton’s vice presidential running mate, said: “It is my hope that this Congress is willing to stand in a bipartisan way for the integrity of the electoral process.” Graham said Obama’s actions against Moscow fell short. “I think what Obama did was throw a pebble. I’m ready to throw a rock,” Graham said. “Putin is up to no good and he better be stopped.”

Summary: रूस के साइबर हमले पर अमेरिकी जासूस प्रमुख 'दृढ़', ट्रंप से अलग


HANOI (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said several civil society members in Vietnam were prevented from meeting him on Tuesday and that, despite great strides made by the country, Washington still had concerns about the limits it puts on political freedom. Obama said during a meeting with about six activists that there were “significant areas of concern” about political freedom and praised those Vietnamese who were “willing to make their voices heard”. Obama announced on Monday the end of an arms ban on Vietnam, which Washington had long said hinged on the extent to which the country’s human rights record had improved.

Summary: ओबामा का कहना है कि वियतनाम के कई कार्यकर्ताओं को उनसे मिलने से रोका गया


VARADERO, Cuba (Reuters) - In the wake of Hurricane Irma, foreign tourists partied in the coastal resort of Varadero and some Cubans swam in the flooded streets of central Havana, both glad that the deadly storm s damage to the island of 11 million people had not been worse. British visitor Josephine Breslin, 49, spent the night on an inflatable bed in a hotel bathroom when Irma s 120 mph (195 km) winds walloped Cuba s top beach destination, but after helping sweep up on Sunday morning, she felt ready to start relaxing.   I think the atmosphere now is relief, knowing it is past and the building is still there and everyone is OK,  said the British woman, wearing a colorful pareo over her swimsuit.   You can feel people are settling down, the winds are going, the sun is coming out, its business as usual, Cuban rum   yes please!  she said. Irma was packing 160 mph (260 kph) winds when it made landfall in Cuba, the first storm of that power to reach the island since 1932, and it caused major damage to tourist infrastructure including an international airport on the sandy keys popular with Europeans and Canadians. It tore off roofs and downed electricity poles throughout the country before turning northwards and plowing through Florida on Sunday. But even with the power out across most of the country of 11.2 million people, the damage to inland Cuba appeared less than devastation wrought on smaller Caribbean islands. Winds had slowed a little by the time Irma reached Varadero. The storm, which killed at least 28 people in the Caribbean and at least one man in Florida, did not lead to reported fatalities in Cuba, which carried out a major evacuation effort prior to the storm. Havana was spared a direct hit but locals in the poor central district of the colonial city close to the seafront were dealing with waterlogged homes and possessions after 36 foot (11 meter) waves breached the city s curving sea wall, turning roads into canals.  Some let off steam on Sunday by diving into deeply flooded streets, paddling on wooden boards, or wading to stores for rum through the waist-deep water.  In the Barcelo hotel, Breslin was full of praise for the Cubans who evacuated them on buses along with thousands of others from the keys before Irma, and for the hotel staff who brought sandwiches to her room during the hurricane.  Earlier in the day, the mainly British guests on inclusive package tours with operator Thomas Cook had cleaned up the pool, put sunbeds back in their place and helped workers clear away the fallen trees and branches, everyone mucking in.  In the afternoon, guests milled around the lobby area, drinking from plastic cups, where the reggaeton summer hit Despacito blasted out of loudspeakers and hotel staff geared up to provide an evening of entertainment including salsa dancing.   We put the music on to bring stress levels down and so the clients feel better,  said Juan Carlos Varcas, 30, a Cuban salsa teacher at the hotel.  Another British tourist, Dave Kelsey, said he was winding down after spending part of the night huddled in a bathtub as winds howled through the hotel, flinging sunbeds far away, tearing up palm trees and flooding rooms.  After a few drinks, Kelsey was horsing around with a friend, both wearing random items of women s clothing and about to jump into the swimming pool. Other guests egged them on.  While it will take much of Cuba s tourism industry weeks, if not months to recover from the hurricane, guests at the Barcelo said they would not be deterred from returning to the Caribbean s largest island.  Don t get me wrong, my children don t want me to come back - they have been worried sick,  said Breslin, who has visited Cuba each of the past four years.  But I will come back to Cuba ... because the Cuban people are lovely.

Summary: इरमा के बाद, टूरिस्ट पार्टी और क्यूबा के लोग बाढ़ वाली सड़कों पर डुबकी लगाते हैं


KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will aim to reduce unhappiness over rising costs of living when he unveils his 2018 budget on Friday, ahead of an election that must be held within 10 months. Prices rose sharply in Malaysia - where household debt is among the highest in Asia - after Najib cut subsidies and in 2015 imposed a broad-based consumption tax, denting his popularity.  The leader also faces a political challenge from his mentor-turned-foe, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who called Najib a thief in connection with a scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Najib has denied any wrongdoing. Najib will bank on the new budget to shore up support before his five-year tenure ends in June. Given the coming election,  it will be more surprising if he announces something not people friendly,  said Brian Tan, a Singapore-based economist with Nomura. Stronger global commodity prices have aided the oil-dependent economy and given Najib some room to boost spending. But progress in narrowing the fiscal deficit - expected at 3 percent this year compared with 6 percent in 2009 - would plateau next year if the government focuses on pre-election spending, said Moody s analyst Anushka Shah.  It depends on what they do... whether they spend it on handouts and be seen as more populist or whether they save it, in which case we should see a reduction in the deficit,  Shah said. Most economists expect the new budget s fiscal deficit target will be slightly below 3.0 percent.  Any widening of the deficit would disappoint foreign investors. They have gradually returned to Southeast Asia s third largest economy as the ringgit currency, after a tumultuous period, strengthened 6 percent against the dollar this year. Najib, who has pushed a pro-business stance since becoming premier in 2009, dismantled decades-old fuel subsidies after narrowly winning the 2013 elections, to stave off the threat of a sovereign rating downgrade. To bolster government revenue in 2018, Najib will likely broaden the scope of the goods and services tax imposed in 2015 to include e-commerce transactions, though he is unlikely to change the 6 percent rate. The extra revenue is expected to fund  goodies  for Malaysia s 1.6 million civil servants - a key vote bank for his Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition - to mitigate the strain from pricier goods and services. Civil servants saw a salary hike between 7 and 13 percent in 2012, ahead of the 2013 polls. But the recent sharp price increases may be eroding support among them. The opposition naturally anticipates that the coming budget will have handouts to help the BN win votes in the election.  Malaysians can expect many goodies... budgets are one of the political tools for Barisan Nasional to prepare them for general election,  said Kerk Chee Yee of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP).  Najib, who is also finance minister, has already rolled out billions of ringgit worth of handouts for palm plantation settlers and armed forces veterans, and affordable housing projects, new schools and hospitals across the country.  We have to ensure quality of life of Malaysians (by) introducing more affordable housing, steady level of income growth, managing cost of living and certain initiatives that can supplement income,  Najib said on the government s official budget website. He is likely to maintain cash handouts to low income earners, provide tax breaks for middle income earners and expand policies to provide affordable housing. ($1 = 4.2240 ringgit)

Summary: नजीब चुनाव से पहले पिछले बजट में मतदाताओं को जीतने का लक्ष्य रखेंगे।


PARIS (Reuters) - Two French ministers said on Tuesday they had no immediate plans to overhaul legislation to make it easier to target corrupt foreign firms - a change demanded by their own anti-graft agency. Charles Duchaine, head of the new AFA anti-graft body, told Reuters last week that the current law, brought in just a year ago, had to be re-drawn as it gave him almost no powers to pursue foreign companies. He repeated the point at a conference on Tuesday. But Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet responded at the same event that she wanted to see how the  Sapin 2  legislation worked on the ground before making any alterations.  We re not going to rewrite the law every morning,  she said. Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin told the conference:  It is important that the agency first gets on with its work.  Under the law, the AFA agency can only target public bodies and companies with more than 500 employees and turnover of above 100 million euros ($118.19 million), or subsidiaries of foreign companies that are headquartered in France and meet those two criteria. AFA s work has got off to a slow start. It was created by the Sapin 2 act a year ago but only launched its first investigations in October. The ministers said there was funding to increase the number of AFA agents to 70 from 50. ($1 = 0.8461 euros)

Summary: फ्रांसीसी मंत्रियों ने भ्रष्टाचार रोधी एजेंसी से कहाः अभी के लिए कोई कानून सुधार नहीं


BERLIN(Reuters) - Any United Nations peacekeepers sent to eastern Ukraine must be granted access to the entirety of the region held by Moscow-backed separatists, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Russian President Vladimir Putin floated the idea of deploying U.N. troops to eastern Ukraine in a Monday call with Merkel, suggesting that the U.N. mission could protect observers from the international OSCE monitoring mission. With growing calls in Germany for the lifting of European Union sanctions against Russia over its activities in Ukraine, Moscow has been keen to float proposals that would help soften export bans that have hit Russians  living standards.   I find President Putin s proposal to send U.N. troops to protect OSCE observers interesting,  she told the FUNKE newspaper group on Friday.  A few days ago I discussed with him that the U.N. troops must have access to everywhere where the OSCE is stationed, so the entire Donetsk/Luhansk region.  The conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists has claimed more than 10,000 lives since it erupted in 2014. Russia denies Western accusations it fomented the conflict and provided arms and fighters. The observers are there to monitor implementation of a peace deal agreed in Minsk in 2015, which has been largely unsuccessful in settling the conflict despite German and French urgings. Some German politicians have said sanctions should be lifted if the peace deal is implemented. Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democrats, a likely coalition partner for Merkel after Sept. 24 elections, even suggested Germany must accept Russia s occupation of Ukraine s Crimean peninsula. Merkel said Putin s proposals were  tender shoots  of progress,  which give no cause for softening sanctions  so far. She rejected Lindner s proposal.  The annexation is against international law and must not be accepted,  she said.

Summary: पुतिन के प्रस्तावित संयुक्त राष्ट्र यूक्रेन शांति सैनिकों की पूरी पहुंच होनी चाहिएः मर्केल


(Reuters) - Iraqi forces launched on Thursday an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, on the border area with Syria, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.  Daesh members have to choose between death and surrender,  he said in a statement announcing the offensive on region of al-Qaim and Rawa. The Iraqi airforce dropped thousands of leaflets on the border area calling on the militants to surrender and urging the population to stay away from their positions, according to a statement from the Joint Operations Command in Baghdad. The militant group also holds parts of the Syrian side of the border, but the area under their control is shrinking as they retreat in the face of two sets of hostile forces - a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition and Syrian government troops with foreign Shi ite militias backed by Iran and Russia. Islamic State s self-declared cross-border caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, in a grueling battle which lasted nine months. The militants  Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, fell to U.S.-backed forces last week. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared the caliphate from Mosul in mid-2014, released an audio recording on Sept. 28 that indicated he was alive, after several reports he had been killed. He urged his followers to keep up the fight despite setbacks.  Tell those among your children and relatives who took up a weapon against the state to throw it aside immediately, and to go to any house on top of which a white flag have been raised when the liberation forces enter al-Qaim,  said the leaflets dropped by the Iraqi airforce. Regular army units, Sunni tribal forces and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation are taking part in the offensive toward the Syrian border, the Joint Operations Command said.

Summary: इराक ने सीरिया की सीमा के पास इस्लामिक स्टेट पर अंतिम हमला किया


CHARLOTTE, N.C./LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday charged that the women accusing him of sexual misconduct fabricated their stories to damage his campaign after two more women came forward with allegations that he had groped them. The new accusations were made by a contestant on his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” who cited a 2007 incident, and by a woman who described an incident from the early 1990s. With the allegations against Trump dominating the campaign, opinion polls show Trump trailing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll taken Oct. 7-13 and released on Friday showed Trump behind Clinton by 7 percentage points among likely voters in the Nov. 8 election. Trump has spent more and more time at his rallies denying allegations of groping since a video from 2005 became public a week ago showing him bragging about groping and making unwanted sexual advances. On Friday, in addition to his denials, he suggested that he never would have found two of the women who have made allegations attractive. Summer Zervos, who competed on the fifth season of “The Apprentice” in 2006, appeared at a news conference with celebrity attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles, saying Trump kissed her, touched her breast and tried to get her to lie down on a bed with him during a meeting about a possible job. “He put me in an embrace and I tried to push him away. I pushed his chest to put space between us and I said, ‘Come on man, get real.’ He repeated my words back to me, ‘Get real,’ as he began thrusting his genitals,” Zervos said. Zervos said she thought Trump was going to take her to dinner to discuss a job, but the meeting took place in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “I wondered if the sexual behavior was some kind of test and whether or not I had passed” by rejecting it, she said, but Trump later offered her a job at a golf course for half the salary she had requested. Trump released a statement denying her allegations. “I vaguely remember Ms. Zervos as one of the many contestants on ‘The Apprentice’ over the years. To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago,” Trump said. “That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life.” At his last event of the day on Friday, in Charlotte, Trump suggested that his accusers were fabricating their stories for publicity or to damage his campaign. “It’s not hard to find a small handful of people willing to make false smears,” he said.  Trump said the women may be motivated for financial reasons or political reasons or “the simple reason they want to stop our movement.” Earlier Friday, the Washington Post published an interview with a woman who said Trump put his hand up her skirt in a crowded New York nightclub in the early 1990s in an unwanted advance. “He did touch my vagina through my underwear, absolutely,” Kristin Anderson said in a video interview on the newspaper’s website. “It wasn’t a sexual come-on. I don’t know why he did it. It was like just to prove that he could do it,” she told the newspaper. Anderson could not be reached for comment. Trump’s White House campaign has been scrambling to recover from the release a week ago of the 2005 video. While Trump said the video was just talk and he had never behaved in that way, several women subsequently went public with allegations of sexual misconduct against the New York real estate magnate going back three decades. National opinion polls have shown that women voters have been fleeing Trump in large numbers, putting his campaign in free-fall. Late on Friday, the Trump campaign put forward a British man who disputed the account of one of the accusers, Jessica Leeds.  Leeds, who is now 74, said Trump groped her on a flight to New York, in or around 1980. Her account was published in The New York Times earlier this week and she has since been interviewed on CNN. The New York Post reported that the man, Anthony Gilberthorpe, contacted the Trump campaign after Leeds went public with her story, and said he was sitting near Leeds and Trump in first class on the same flight.  “I was there, I was in a position to know that what she said was wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Gilberthorpe, who is now 54 and would have been a teenager at the time. Trump had been promising that he would soon provide information showing the allegations against him were false. Gilberthorpe is known in Britain for his claims that he provided underage boys to British politicians for sex parties in the 1980s. Trump, 70, mocked Leeds on Friday. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you,” he said. He called Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter who wrote in People magazine that Trump kissed her and pinned her against a wall, a “liar” and told the rally to “check out her Facebook page, you’ll understand.” Many Republicans have sought to distance themselves from Trump. The most senior of them, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, angered Trump when he announced this week he would no longer campaign for Trump or defend him but would focus on trying to preserve the Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate in the election. Ryan gave a campaign speech in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday without mentioning Trump’s name once. He urged college students to look beyond the “ugliness” of the presidential campaign to focus on issues such as tax and healthcare reform. “The kind of election we really want to have, it’s not the one we’re necessarily having right now,” Ryan said, urging students to “take the high ground.” Trump on Friday also accused Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the top shareholder in The New York Times Company, of helping to generate the reports of sexual misconduct. He said Slim, as a donor to the Clinton Foundation charity and who holds a 17.35 percent stake in the Times, has an interest in helping Clinton’s White House campaign. Arturo Elias, Slim’s spokesman and son-in-law, said Slim had “absolutely no contact” with the newspaper’s reporters or editors on their Trump campaign coverage and “zero” contact with the paper’s news operations. New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said in a statement, “Carlos Slim is an excellent shareholder who fully respects boundaries regarding the independence of our journalism. He has never sought to influence what we report.”     Trump’s allegation about Slim was the latest chapter in a running series of skirmishes he has had with Mexico and Mexicans. Trump kicked off his campaign last year accusing Mexico of sending rapists and drug dealers to the United States, and promised to build a wall along the southern U.S. border and said he would make Mexico pay for.

Summary: यौन उत्पीड़न के आरोप लगाने वाले 'हमारे आंदोलन को रोकना चाहते हैं': ट्रम्प


ZAKHO, Iraq (Reuters) - More than three weeks after Iraq s Kurds voted for independence, it s business as usual at the bustling Ibrahim Khalil border crossing with Turkey. Ankara has threatened to impose economic sanctions on Iraq s autonomous Kurdistan region to deter moves towards independence, but hundreds of trucks still cross the border each day   some with supplies for Kurdish areas, others en route to Baghdad.  Closure of the border would sever a lifeline for the region in northern Iraq and step up efforts by Turkey, Iran and the Iraqi government to isolate it.   But the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is gambling that its three main trade partners will be reluctant to impose a blockade that would put billions of dollars in trade at risk and could hurt all sides involved.      We send about 100 packed trucks a day to Baghdad,  said Hani Anas, a trader standing by rows of steel rods stacked near the border.  Iraq will suffer as well.  It is a risky gamble for a region that is heavily dependent on food imports and oil exports, via a pipeline that passes through Turkey. The undermining of its economy could deal a heavy blow to its chances of survival as an independent state if it pushes ahead with breakaway moves. The outcome of the standoff could also have repercussions far beyond the immediate region as Iraqi Kurdistan produces about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day   15 percent of Iraqi output and around 0.7 percent of global oil production.  The KRG has not taken any formal steps to break away from Iraq since the Kurds overwhelmingly backed independence in a referendum on Sept. 25, but has scheduled regional presidential and parliamentary elections for Nov. 1.  If Baghdad tries to hurt us it will hurt itself,  said Soran Aziz, vice president of the chamber of commerce and industry in the Kurdish administrative capital Erbil.  If borders are closed with neighboring countries it will have a limited impact on us,  he added.  If an economic blockade impacts us by 1 percent, it will impact them by 10 percent.  Baghdad opposes Kurdish independence because it wants to hold Iraq together. Iran and Turkey fear secession would encourage their own Kurdish populations to press for a homeland, and Washington worries that the tensions will damage unity in the fight against Islamic State. Iraqi Kurdistan is certainly vulnerable over its economy. Apart from oil, it is largely dependent on agriculture, tourism, and cement and steel exports to Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. But some Iraqi officials acknowledge that blocking the main trade route between Iraqi Kurdistan and other parts of Iraq would hit not just the Kurds  economy. Turkish exports to Iraq this year had by the end of August reached $6.4 billion.     This key trade route is a lifeline for all of us and we will make sure to keep it operational, no matter what levels of disagreements,  said Waleed Mohammed, an advisor to the Iraqi trade ministry.     Near the border with Turkey, traders seem confident as they work their cell phones, dealing with orders. Around them, laborers load crates of powdered milk and potatoes on to trucks that haul average loads of 27 tonnes to Baghdad and elsewhere.  There is no way anyone can close down the border. One truck arrives and then heads to Baghdad, another one goes the other way,  said Samer Rushdi, a trader who says he is so busy he cannot take time off. Even so, pressure on the Kurds has mounted since the referendum, especially from Baghdad, which has imposed an air ban on Iraqi Kurdistan, slapped sanctions on Kurdish banks and halted foreign currency transfers to the region.  Iraqi government forces have also captured the city of Kirkuk, wresting control of an area that is rich in oil and a vital source of revenue. Government forces have also taken control of Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh province, which includes the city of Mosul, and the Mosul hydro-electric dam is among the positions recaptured, according to a government statement. Iran has shut its border crossings with Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey has said it could do the same, warning the Kurds they will go hungry if the border is closed and that their revenues will dry up if it closes the oil tap. Iran has vast economic and military influence in Iraq, but also has reason to tread cautiously.  Iraqi officials say Tehran has gained a big edge in the Iraqi market by flooding the country with cheap goods such as air conditioners and cars, and cannot afford prolonged disruptions. Iran exports goods worth about $20 million dollars to Iraq each day. One third of the exports   goods worth about $200 million a month   go to the KRG, Hamid Hosseini, head of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce, was quoted as saying by Iranian media.  About 2,000 trucks usually bring goods from Iran to Iraq each day   with 500 to 600 of them delivering items to the KRG. But since the referendum, Iran has prevented at least 600 trucks, carrying about 13,000 tonnes of fuel, from crossing the border into Iraqi Kurdistan. At the Haj Omran border post, a poster of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, stares down at rows trucks lined up to cross the border.  Iran can t afford to shut the border,  Kurdish truck driver Jalal Rasoul said.  Besides, it s our right to create an independent state.

Summary: कुर्द विद्रोहियों ने स्वतंत्रता मतदान के बाद व्यापार युद्ध के खतरे को टाला


WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland will not change its stance on the European Union s posted workers directive, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said on Thursday.  We are not going to change our stance,  Szydlo told reporters.  We will defend our position to the very end, because it is a position that is in the interests of Polish workers.

Summary: पोलैंड यूरोपीय संघ के तैनात कर्मचारियों के निर्देश पर अपना रुख नहीं बदलेगाः प्रधानमंत्री