HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - President Donald Trump injected himself into a bitter U.S. Senate primary fight in Alabama on Friday, putting to the test his ability to enlist his anti-establishment voters to come to the aid of an endangered Republican incumbent.  Trump spoke at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama, on behalf of  Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed after the seat was left vacant when Jeff Sessions was named Trump’s attorney general. Strange is trying to ward off a challenge from Roy Moore, an arch-conservative former state Supreme Court justice, in a runoff election next week. Polls show the race to be close.  Trump appeared on stage as the latest Republican effort to repeal Obamacare looked to be faltering after Republican Senator John McCain announced his opposition to a measure to repeal and replace the healthcare law. McCain’s opposition could spell doom for the bill, which the Senate may vote on it next week, because Republicans can afford to lose few votes among their own. When Trump mentioned McCain’s name in front of the arena crowd of more than 7,000, attendees booed lustily.  Trump expressed optimism that the bill could still pass. “We’re going to do it eventually,” he said.  He also continued to engage in a rhetorical sparring match with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, again referring to him as “Rocket Man” to the crowd’s cheers. “We can’t have madmen out there shooting rockets all over the place,” Trump said.  The evening was reminiscent of the raucous campaign rallies that helped define Trump’s insurgent presidential candidacy, and the president’s popularity in this region appeared undiminished. As he has frequently done in such settings, he spent a significant portion of his remarks discussing his surprise victory last November.  He also again rejected any suggestion that his triumph was aided by Russian interference in the election. “Russia did not help me. That I can tell you,” Trump said. “Are there any Russians in the audience?” Trump, however, was in Huntsville not to back the maverick candidate Moore, but instead the establishment favorite, Strange. A win by Moore in Alabama could embolden other insurgent candidates to challenge Republican incumbents in next year’s congressional elections, and perhaps give an edge to Democrats in some of those races.  Trump’s involvement in the Alabama race could help bolster his strained relationship with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose help the president needs to advance his agenda on taxes, healthcare and immigration. McConnell has strongly supported Strange, viewing him as a reliable vote to further the Republican Party’s legislative agenda. Hours before Trump was due to arrive in Alabama, his housing secretary, Ben Carson, issued a statement in support of Moore as “truly someone who reflects the Judeo-Christian values that were so important to the establishment of our country.” “I wish him well and hope everyone will make sure they vote on Tuesday,” Carson said, stopping short of asking people in Alabama to vote for Moore.  Republican leaders fear that candidates who are too far to the right could lose to Democrats, who are seeking to wrest control of the House and the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections. Strange, 64, and dubbed “Big Luther” in reference to his 6-foot-9 stature, has been backed by nearly $9 million of advertising from a McConnell-allied political action committee.  Trump implored the crowd to back Strange so that “we can defend your interests, fight for your values, and always put America first.”  Moore, 70, is a religious conservative who twice lost his position as the state’s top judge. He was ousted in 2003 after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building. He is also known for his opposition to gay rights. He is popular with many of the same conservative voters who backed Trump last November. “A lot of people love Trump and love Roy Moore,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who has worked for Strange in Alabama. Trump’s embrace of Strange has put him at odds with his former adviser Steve Bannon and the nationalistic wing of the party. Breitbart, the conservative news site that Bannon oversees, has repeatedly attacked Strange as a Washington insider while praising Moore as an outsider in the mold of Trump when he was a presidential candidate.

Summary: अलबामा में सीनेट की दौड़ में ट्रंप केंद्र में


VILNIUS (Reuters) - The Lithuanian government got some much-needed support on Monday when members of parliament from a junior coalition partner surprisingly disavowed their own party s decision to withdraw from the coalition. The Social Democratic hierarchy voted on Saturday to leave the government coalition with the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Party. Their coalition has held a slim majority in Lithuania s parliament since last year s election. However, the 19-member Social Democratic block in parliament decided to remain in the government after a vote on Monday, disobeying the party s recently elected chairman, Gintautas Paluckas.   A majority of the members of parliament think that decision to withdraw from the coalition was rushed and was based on emotions, not on arguments,  the party said in a press release. The rank and file of the Social Democrats overwhelmingly supported leaving the government in a recent poll, and the party council on Saturday voted by a large margin to quit. Members of parliament and are not legally obliged to follow party orders. However, Paluckas told reporters the disobedient members of parliament could be thrown out of the party after upcoming reviews, the news agency BNS reported.

Summary: लिथुआनिया के सोशल डेमोक्रेट सांसदों ने सरकार में बने रहने के लिए पार्टी की अवज्ञा की


LONDON (Reuters) - Iran will reopen all its border crossings with Iraq s Kurdistan region in the coming days, lifting restrictions imposed after last month s Kurdish vote in favor of independence, its chief of staff said on Monday. The announcement comes a day after Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said he would give up his position as president on Nov. 1, after the independence referendum he championed backfired and triggered military action by the Baghdad. After the vote, Iraqi troops were ordered by the country s prime minister Haider al-Abadi to take control of areas claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurdish government. Iran, which has its own Kurdish minority, also opposes independence for Iraqi Kurds, and at the request of Baghdad   closed its borders with the Kurdish region in northern Iraq and halted all flights there and back.   Border restrictions between Iran and Iraq s Kurdish region will be lifted in coming days,  Iran s Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Baqeri was quoted as saying by ISNA  Tehran already re-opened the Bashmagh crossing last week.   Baqeri also said if Kurdistan implemented its plan to break away from Iraq,  there would be bloodshed in Iraq and neighboring countries would be affected . Abadi wants to take control of the border crossings between the Kurdish region and Turkey, Iran and Syria, including one through which an oil export pipeline crosses into Turkey.

Summary: ईरान आने वाले दिनों में इराक के कुर्द क्षेत्र के साथ सीमा प्रतिबंध हटाएगा


ZURICH (Reuters) - Austrian police are searching for a 66-year-old man suspected of shooting dead two neighbors and wounding a third before escaping in a white Volkswagen van. The suspect from the Graz area is suspected of killing a 64-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman and wounding a 48-year-old woman in a dispute among neighbors, Styria province police said in a statement. The suspect fled in a Volkswagen van whose number plate matched that of one with a poster reading  Heil Hitler  across its rear window that was shown on an Austrian website. The website offers users a platform to criticize alleged abuses of power by justice officials. Police warned residents not to approach the suspect amid a search stretching across neighboring provinces.

Summary: ऑस्ट्रिया पुलिस गोलीबारी में दो लोगों की मौत के बाद बंदूकधारी की तलाश कर रही है


LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivia s socialist President Evo Morales on Wednesday hailed a decision by the country s highest court to allow him to run for another re-election as  a great surprise for the people, for the revolutionaries, for the anti-imperialists.  The opposition said it would march against the ruling announced on Tuesday by the Constitutional Court, which paved the way for Morales to run for a fourth term in 2019. The court decision was final and cannot be appealed. The ruling  guarantees a democratic continuity, but also guarantees stability, dignity and work for the Bolivian people,  Morales said during a news conference. Opposition leaders called for several marches to be held on Wednesday, protesting what they say is  the end of democracy  in the land-locked, natural gas-producing country.   It means a coup d etat, it means trampling the constitution and the most worrying is that Bolivia is approaching the road that Venezuela is on,  Samuel Doria Medina, leader of the  National Unity party, told Reuters. Bolivia is allied with Venezuela, where leftist President Nicolas Maduro is struggling with a severe economic crisis.  Morales, in power since 2006, had previously accepted the results of a 2016 referendum, when 51 percent of voters rejected his proposal to end existing term limits. He later reversed course, saying that while he was willing to leave office, his supporters were pushing for him to stay. In September, Morales  Movement to Socialism (MAS) party asked the court to rescind legal limits barring elected authorities from seeking re-election indefinitely.

Summary: बोलिविया के राष्ट्रपति ने स्वागत किया, विपक्ष ने फिर से चुनाव के फैसले की निंदा की


(Reuters) - New Jersey and Maine ended partial government shutdowns just in time for the Fourth of July holiday on Tuesday, helping New Jersey Governor Chris Christie move past the embarrassment of being photographed on a beach that had been closed to the public. Both states had suspended non-essential services for three days after failing to reach budget agreements. Their Republican governors signed the budget bills after late-night negotiations with their respective state legislatures. New Jersey and Maine were two of nine states that had missed their deadlines for enacting budgets in time for the July 1 start of the fiscal year. Christie signed a $34.7 billion budget measure that included reshaping the state’s largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, which covers 3.8 million people in the state. All state parks and beaches would be open for the Fourth of July holiday and state offices would be open as usual on Wednesday, the governor said. Christie had remained unapologetic after the Star-Ledger newspaper captured the photos by hiring a plane to fly the New Jersey coastline, showing Christie with family and friends on a state beach on Sunday that was otherwise deserted because of the shutdown. The scandal became a popular topic on social media with images of Christie in his beach chair superimposed into places such as famous beach scenes in the movies “From Here to Eternity” and “Planet of the Apes.” Christie played down the kerfuffle. “If they had flown that plane over the beach and I was sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde in that beach chair next to me, that’s a story,” Christie said. While states have mostly recovered since the 2007-2009 recession, their revenue growth has not always kept pace with the national economy. Illinois is in its third year without an enacted budget. In Connecticut and Pennsylvania, lower-than-anticipated income tax collections exacerbated budget gaps and led to disputes over how to close them. Maine Governor Paul LePage announced on Twitter that he had signed a budget for the fiscal years 2018 and 2019. “The Maine state government shutdown is now over. Happy Fourth of July!” LePage said. “I have signed a budget with no tax increase. I thank the House Republicans for standing strong for the Maine people,” he said in a second tweet.Maine state police, parks and offices responsible for collecting revenue had all planned to work through the shutdown, the state’s first since 1991.

Summary: मेन, न्यू जर्सी ने राज्य सरकार के बंद को समाप्त किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that Donald Trump’s “shoot from the hip” style could pose national security risks as they prepare to give him a routine pre-election briefing once he is formally anointed as the Republican presidential nominee. Eight senior security officials told Reuters they had concerns over briefing Trump, whose brash, unpredictable campaign style has been a feature of his rise as an insurgent candidate. Despite their worries, the officials said the “Top Secret” briefing to each candidate would not deviate from the usual format to avoid any appearance of bias. Most of the officials asked for anonymity to discuss a domestic political issue. Current and former officials said that the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s use of emails also raises concerns about her handling of sensitive information. The likely Democratic nominee is facing an FBI probe into whether security was compromised and laws were broken by her use of a private email server for government business while she was Secretary of State. “The only candidate who has proven incapable of handling sensitive information is Hillary Clinton,” said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “If there is anyone they should be worried about it is Hillary Clinton.”  But Trump’s lack of foreign policy experience, his volatile style, and his little known team of foreign policy advisers make him a unique case, the officials said.   “People are very nervous,” said one senior U.S. security official.  Intelligence and other security and foreign policy officials are also trying to determine “who on (Trump’s) team are trustworthy, the official added. “We’ve never had a situation like this before. Ever.” A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Other officials downplayed such worries, noting that the traditional briefing, while classified as Top Secret, is mostly a broad overview of national security issues and does not include the most sensitive government secrets about intelligence sources and operations.  In the post-Second World War era, confirmed U.S. presidential nominees have traditionally received the briefing from intelligence officials — including spy agency chiefs — covering a broad range of national security issues. The nominees are usually briefed shortly after their party nominating conventions, and are allowed to include one or two aides who must undergo security checks. Current and former officials say the nominees are explicitly warned not to share the contents of the briefing, which includes detailed intelligence assessments.  After election day, presidents-elect receive the same Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, that the sitting president gets, complete with material on the intelligence agencies’ sources, methods, and covert operations. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters that he shared some of the concerns over how Trump, who has never held public office, might use information from the briefing.     “I would be very concerned with Mr. Trump’s ability to know what he can and can’t discuss” publicly about the contents of an intelligence briefing, said Schiff, who has endorsed Clinton for president. Schiff said one consequence of intelligence agencies’ worries about Trump’s reputation as a loose cannon could be that briefers circumscribe some of the information they provide to Trump and Hillary Clinton, his prospective Democratic opponent. Trump has tended to make broad-brush statements on foreign issues rather than delve into policy nuances. He drew criticism from some former national security officials last month when, without evidence, he quickly tweeted that the downing of an EgyptAir flight appeared to be a terrorist attack.   Clinton is honing in on national security as a key potential weakness for Trump, and is set to deliver a foreign policy speech on Thursday designed to portray the billionaire businessman as unfit for the White House.  Officials familiar with the views and policy of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s Office, which will give the in-person briefings, say it will do its utmost to avoid any suggestions of political favoritism or bias.  Officials say the spy agencies’ intend to follow past practice and give identical briefings to both nominees. One former intelligence official said Clinton could have an advantage in the briefing because she would likely ask more probing questions than Trump, a newcomer to foreign policy. The briefings provide an “overview of pressing issues and hot spots around the world,” said former CIA officer David Priess, who briefed attorneys general and FBI directors, but not presidents. One U.S. intelligence official said that Trump’s style may not be such a risk because the briefings are general in nature and often track publicly available information. “If he reads the papers every day, he won’t hear much that will surprise him,” the official said. Current and former officials said that covert operations and the intelligence agencies’ “sources and methods,” which are among the nation’s most tightly guarded secrets, are never discussed in the pre-election briefings.

Summary: कुछ अधिकारी ट्रम्प को जानकारी देने के बारे में चिंतित हैं, रहस्यों के फैलने का डर है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The millions of Twitter users following Donald Trump shouldn’t expect a “follow back” from the Republican presidential front-runner anytime soon.  Trump’s campaign account @realDonaldTrump has nearly 6 million Twitter followers, the most of any candidate running for president. But he is picky about who he follows, with just 49 accounts listed as of Friday. That means he has the highest ratio of followers to those he is following, in both the Republican and Democratic fields.  In contrast, Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas who has emerged as Trump’s strongest rival, follows nearly 14,000 accounts on Twitter and has 755,000 followers, according to his profile as of Friday. The exclusivity underscores how Trump primarily uses Twitter to broadcast his message as opposed to engaging in a back and forth with users, experts in digital strategy said. While other campaigns use a similar approach, Trump commands the most attention on social media. Trump’s pickiness may indicate a surprising strategy for the freewheeling Republican front-runner: Playing it safe when it comes to pledging his Twitter allegiance with a “follow.”  Candidates can’t pick and choose their followers, but they have control over when to click the follow button. “There is more risk in who you follow,” said Scott Talan, a communications professor at American University who teaches social media strategy. “If you’re actively following someone, you’re assuming it’s not going to be some religious extremist ... or a prisoner with a record.” And, while some Republican candidates follow each other, Trump follows none of them.  The accounts Trump monitors include those of his children and several hotel properties. Also on the eclectic list are musician Steven Tyler, basketball great Magic Johnson, Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of WWE Inc, and sisters Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle “Silk” Richardson, former Democrats who now stump for Trump and tweet under the handle @DiamondandSilk. Despite Trump’s highly public battle with Fox News over anchor Megyn Kelly’s role as a moderator in last week’s Republican debate, Fox shows or news personalities such as Sean Hannity account for better than 10 percent of the handles he follows. Kelly, not surprisingly, did not make the list, but the Fox handles still add up to a larger bloc than any outside of Trump’s family or business. Hannity and other Fox presenters are also widely followed by Trump’s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination. Trump’s cautious approach to who he follows hasn’t put a damper on his social activity. His account shows more than 30,000 tweets, the highest of any account reviewed by Reuters.  It also hasn’t stopped Trump from committing blunders with his retweets, like the one from an account called @WhiteGenocideTM, which gave its location as “Jewmerica” and featured an image that referenced George Lincoln Rockwell, a prominent figure in the neo-Nazi movement in the United States. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said that Trump operates his own Twitter account. “Everything you see on there is pretty much directly from him,” she said. “The strategy behind it is to tell the truth and to call it like he sees it.” On Twitter, Trump goes where his opponents fear to tread. He uses it to launch unfiltered personal attacks on those who cross paths with him. For example, he did not shy from retweeting a post that included photographs of a skimpily dressed Kelly from a magazine shoot and the comment, “And this is the bimbo that’s asking presidential questions?” “He is definitely a loose cannon in terms of how he uses his Twitter account,” said Micah Sifry, co-founder of Personal Democracy Media, an online forum on technology and politics. “At the same time, he hasn’t been hurt by it yet because apparently a big chunk of what he’s saying is popular among Republican voters.”  Trump is aware of his social media success. Following the seventh Republican presidential debate on Thursday, he tweeted Twitter data showing that he commanded the most traffic during the event. “Great Twitter poll-and I wasn’t even there,” he said. Twitter matters to campaigns - it is an increasingly important way for candidates to reach their most ardent supporters.  But talking about the issues on Twitter may not always be the most effective means of engaging supporters. A recent Trump tweet wishing retired golfer Jack Nicklaus happy birthday received more than four thousand “likes”, roughly twice as many as Clinton’s policy-related tweets on the same day.   (Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus and Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Dan Burns and Ross Colvin) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस के उम्मीदवारों में, ट्रम्प के ट्विटर पर 'फॉलो' बटन दबाने की संभावना सबसे कम है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House Rules committee approved a Republican healthcare bill late on Wednesday night, a procedural hurdle cleared ahead of a planned vote on Thursday on the legislation by the entire chamber. The bill would roll back the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, while keeping in place some key provisions and creating an $8 billion fund to cover costs for those with pre-existing conditions who would face higher costs under the new system.

Summary: प्रमुख अमेरिकी सदन समिति ने स्वास्थ्य सेवा विधेयक को मंजूरी दी, गुरुवार के लिए मतदान निर्धारित


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of Donald Trump, the presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee, see refugees arriving from Iraq and Syria as one of the greatest threats to the United States, according to a study released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center. Eighty-five percent of respondents who said they supported Trump saw the refugees fleeing the Islamic State militant group as a threat, compared with 74 percent of Republicans overall, said the study. Only 40 percent of Democrats viewed the refugees from the region as a major threat.  Trump’s campaign said in a statement last December that he was “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” His comments followed fatal attacks in Paris claimed by Islamic State and a deadly shooting spree in San Bernardino, California, by a Muslim couple who the FBI said had been radicalized. U.S. President Barack Obama’s promise to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year has sparked a backlash from Republicans, concerned that violent militants could come into the United States posing as refugees. More than 30 governors have tried to block refugees from their states. There are nearly 5 million registered Syrian refugees according to the United Nations, a result of a war in which more than 250,000 people have been killed.  The Pew report, based mostly on telephone interviews with about 2,000 U.S. adults from April 12 to 19, found that 65 percent of Trump supporters also saw the U.S. involvement in the global economy in a negative light. There were also contradictions among Americans when asked about U.S. defense spending and foreign military action. Although 35 percent of all respondents said they were in support of increasing defense spending, the highest level of support since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, almost 60 percent said other countries should deal with their own problems.  Respondents overall saw Islamic State as the top foreign policy concern, followed by cyber attacks and global economic instability, according to the report.

Summary: ट्रम्प समर्थक इराकी, सीरियाई शरणार्थियों को बड़े खतरे के रूप में देखते हैंः रिपोर्ट


MANILA (Reuters) - About 30 Islamist rebels holding an estimated 20 hostages remain in Marawi City and military operations continue, an army spokesman said on Tuesday, despite President Rodrigo Duterte s earlier declaration that the southern city had been liberated.  The declaration of the president hopefully gives way for the entry and start of rehabilitation, reconstruction and rebuilding of Marawi from the ashes,  military spokesman Restituto Padilla told news channel ANC.  The fight for the remaining ground forces continues.  The military was uncertain whether Malaysian operative Mahmud Ahmad was still in the city but he was not known for his skills as a fighter and was therefore not a threat, Padilla said.

Summary: फिलीपींस के विद्रोही, बंधक मरावी में बने हुए हैं, लड़ाई जारी हैः सेना


PARIS (Reuters) - France has stopped a large shipment of Belarus mushrooms contaminated with low-level radioactivity probably from Chernobyl and not linked to a radioactive cloud that appeared in southern Russia last month, officials said on Thursday. Earlier, the head of French nuclear regulator ASN Pierre-Franck Chevet told the French senate that traces of cesium had been found on imported mushrooms from Russia and did not mention Belarus. A spokesman for French nuclear safety institute IRSN said that a few days ago customs officials found that a 3.5 tonne shipment of Belarus mushrooms coming through Frankfurt, Germany was contaminated with cesium 137, a radioactive nuclide that is a waste product of nuclear reactors.  While the contaminated mushrooms did not represent a health threat to consumers, the shipment will be destroyed in a specialized incinerator in coming days, the IRSN said.   There is no link with the ruthenium 106 pollution,  the official said.  Earlier this month the IRSN said that a cloud containing radioactive ruthenium 106 originating from southern Russia had blown over large parts of Europe in October but added that there was no danger to people.  Russia later confirmed it had measured ruthenium pollution at nearly 1,000 times normal levels in the Ural mountains, but did not acknowledge any accident.  As the mushrooms came from Belarus, it is very likely the contamination originated in Chernobyl,  the official said. ASN did not reply to a number of Reuters calls later on Thursday.  Chernobyl, Ukraine is just south of the Belarus border and was the site of a major nuclear disaster in 1986. Cesium 137, which has a 30-year half-life, is still widely found in the areas around Chernobyl. The official said it was highly unusual for such a large shipment of mushrooms to be stopped and that none of the produce had made it onto French retail markets. Mushrooms, more than any other vegetable, concentrate radioactivity because their thread-like root systems spread over a large area for several meters on the surface around the plant. The IRSN said eating tens of kilos of the Belarus mushrooms would expose a consumer to a radioactivity level similar to natural ambient radioactivity during a whole year.  He added there had been no risk for the customs officials, even if they had touched the mushrooms with their bare hands. Earlier, the head of the French nuclear regulator ASN told the French senate that traces of cesium had been found on imported mushrooms and said there was no connection with the ruthenium pollution. French consumer protection agency DGCCRF said in a statement that the Belarus mushrooms had cesium 137 levels above legal limits but contained no ruthenium 106.  The agency said that following the discovery of the ruthenium, it had started testing samples of food products imported from the regions affected by the radioactive cloud. So far, it has not found food items with ruthenium 106 levels above legal thresholds.

Summary: फ्रांस ने रेडियोधर्मी बेलारूस मशरूम की बड़ी खेप रोकी


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prospects that the presidential election will inject a hefty dose of volatility into U.S. stock markets are fading fast as Republican Donald Trump’s victory odds lengthen. A reading of positioning data on options tied to the benchmark S&P 500 index shows little pickup in demand for contracts that would offer investors downside insurance in the event that stock prices take a major hit right after the Nov. 8 election. Moreover, based on options term structures - calculated from prices of options with different expirations - it is hardly evident at all that investors are positioning for an uncertain outcome, even with Election Day barely two weeks away, Michael Purves, head of derivatives research at Weeden & Co, said. “There had been a modest premium bump for November options a few weeks ago, but that seems to have faded steadily with Trump’s slide in polls,” Purves said. In a Reuters poll of equity strategists earlier this month, a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton was viewed as the more positive outcome for stock prices in the near term.  Trump’s chances of defeating Clinton to capture the White House have diminished markedly over the last several weeks, according to most polls and prediction markets. The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project, which uses an online opinion poll to project election outcomes in all 50 states, estimates that Clinton has a better than 95 percent chance of winning the minimum of 270 Electoral College votes to claim the presidency if the election were held today. The most likely outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump. On PredictIt, a popular online predictions and betting market, Clinton’s implied chances of victory have risen to around 80 percent from around 63 percent a month ago. The lack of positioning for an election-related volatility shock is consistent across the options market. “I just don’t see a whole lot of shifting of positions. I don’t see people taking on a very bearish stance or anything like that. It’s a little bit surprising,” said Randy Frederick, managing director, trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab, Austin, Texas. “If it was a much closer race it might have been a different story, but the polls have Hillary Clinton in a pretty solid lead right now and the market seems to be on board with that idea,” Frederick said. A Brookings Institution study published on Friday from two U.S. economics professors concluded that a Clinton victory would further suppress stock market volatility, whereas a Trump victory would send it soaring. Justin Wolfers, of the University of Michigan, and Eric Zitzewitz, of Dartmouth College, said recent market reactions to pre-election events, including the first Trump-Clinton debate and the release of a video of Trump making vulgar comments about women, signal that equity volatility could fall by 15 to 30 percent with a Clinton win. (tinyurl.com/zl4ew4u) While the options market might be only a moderate catalyst for the S&P 500 index, individual sectors such as healthcare and energy might be more prone to election-related volatility, derivatives analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a recent note. And just because investors are not braced for election-linked stock gyrations is no guarantee that markets will remain calm, analysts said. Given that the market is not pricing a lot of volatility for November, the absence of positioning could aggravate a volatility shock in the event of a surprise result. “If you think Trump will win, you want to get long SPX puts or long CBOE Volatility Index calls right now as protection,” said Purves, referring to options contracts that profit from a jump in volatility. A clean sweep by the Democrats of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House could also unleash volatility, Purves said. Indeed, there is a very modest skew toward protective put options over more bullish calls among contracts expiring near the election. For S&P 500 index weekly contracts expiring on Nov. 11, puts outnumber calls by a 2.1-to-1 margin, compared with 1.9-to-1 for all expirations, according to Thomson Reuters data. Prices for at-the-money put and call contracts that expire on the eve of the election suggest a 1.8 percent move, up or down, in the S&P 500 by then, while comparable contracts expiring later that week see an up or down move of 2.1 percent. Nonetheless, demand for volatility protection remains low and such options are relatively cheap, and getting cheaper.  For instance, the cost for an S&P index option conveying the right to sell an S&P index future at the 2,050 level, about 4 percent below Friday’s close, and expiring on Nov. 9, the day after the election, has plunged from $12.42 on Monday to $4.80 on Friday, a 61 percent decline. With Trump trailing in opinion polls, the focus ahead of the Nov. 8 vote is shifting to whether Republicans can keep their narrow majority in the Senate or even their larger advantage in the House of Representatives. “Gridlock is the most market friendly outcome, and that is what the options market seems to be anticipating,” Purves said.

Summary: अमेरिकी विकल्प बाजार मतदान से पहले बहुत 'ट्रम्पेड' नहीं है


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The commander of Iraq s biggest Shi ite Muslim paramilitary group told its fighters on Thursday to take their orders from the national military and cut their ties with the group s political wing. Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Iran-backed Badr Organisation, also called on the group s fighters to withdraw from the cities under their control. The move paves the way for Amiri to stand in parliamentary elections on May 12. Participation in the election by members of Iraq s Iran-backed Shi ite paramilitaries, collectively known as Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), has been hotly debated in Iraq. PMF members cannot run for office unless they formally resign their posts. Amiri is the second commander to issue such a call in as many days. He called on those in charge of his armed wing to cut their ties with the group s political party, which holds 22 seats in the Iraqi parliament.  I also call on all my brothers, the commanders of various formations, to clear cities of all signs of militarisation,  he said in a speech. Badr, which says it is loyal to both Iraq and Iran, is the biggest group within the PMF, which fought alongside security forces against Islamic State. Sunni Muslims and Kurds have called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who declared victory over Islamic State last week, to disarm the PMF, which they say are responsible for widespread abuses. The PMF were officially made part of the Iraqi security establishment by law and formally answer to Abadi in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Abadi has said the state should have a monopoly on the legitimate use of arms. Qais al-Khazali, head of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, announced a similar move on Wednesday when he said he would place his fighters under Abadi s command. The fighters and their political wing were now separate entities, he said. Powerful Shi ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr set out conditions on Monday for his followers to give the government the weapons they used to fight Islamic State. Iran-backed Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, which has about 10,000 fighters and is one of the most important militias in Iraq, said last month it would give any heavy weapons it had to the military once Islamic State was defeated.

Summary: इराकी शिया अर्धसैनिक प्रमुख राष्ट्रीय सेना के तहत सैनिकों को रखना चाहते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz apologized to Ben Carson on Tuesday over an email his campaign sent on Monday night that implied Carson was about to drop out of the race and that his Iowa backers should be urged to vote for Cruz instead. A staffer for Cruz sent the email after rumors began circulating that Carson would return to Florida following Iowa’s caucuses on Monday rather than go straight to New Hampshire or South Carolina, other early voting states in the state-by-state nominating contests for the Nov. 8 election. “The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week,” the email read, according to CNN. “Please inform any Carson caucusgoers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz.” Carson said he was simply leaving Iowa to avoid a winter storm and to get fresh clothes before continuing his campaign on Wednesday. The retired neurosurgeon, who said his fourth-place performance in Iowa would have been better had the email never been sent, criticized the move as “a dirty trick” and said the Cruz campaign should face some kind of consequences. “What this does is makes me more determined than ever to try to save our country,” Carson said on Fox News on Tuesday. In an apology released on Tuesday afternoon, Cruz, who won the Iowa Republican caucuses, categorized the email as a regular update the campaign would send to grassroots leaders. But the U.S. senator from Texas acknowledged another email should have been sent once Carson clarified he was not dropping out. “This was a mistake from our end, and for that I apologize to Dr. Carson,” Cruz wrote. Carson accepted the apology, his communications director, A. Larry Ross, said in a statement later on Tuesday. “This incident further demonstrates that we need an individual who is not a politician to lead and to heal our nation, not someone driven by ambition,” Ross said, adding that Carson would continue his campaign in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said he would not interfere in the situation. “You take them at their word for it, and you move on to the next state,” he said on CNN. The question remains whether the dispute will hurt Cruz, a favorite of conservative evangelicals looking to win over Carson supporters should Carson drop out. Dartmouth University political scientist Linda Fowler said it could hurt Cruz if other candidates start to pick up on the interaction and say: “There’s a reason why nobody likes Ted Cruz, and here it is.”  (Reporting by Megan Cassella, Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन क्रूज ने कार्सन के दौड़ से बाहर होने का संकेत देने वाले ईमेल के लिए माफी मांगी


TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese cosmetic surgeon criticized for praising Nazis and playing down Japan s wartime atrocities won an auction for a memoir by Emperor Hirohito that chronicles the nation s slide into World War Two, paying $275,000 for the document. Katsuya Takasu, who often appears on TV shows in Japan, has been blasted by a Jewish human rights body, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, for violating  all norms of decency  by dismissing as fabrications the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre in China.  I think both Nanjing and Auschwitz are fabrications,  Takasu said in a message on social network Twitter in October 2015.  There was no doubt that the Jews were persecuted,  he has tweeted, but also praised Nazi scientists  contributions to science, medicine and other fields. Contacted by Reuters on Thursday, Takasu said he bought the handwritten document, known as the  Emperor s Monologue , because he thought it contained a message to royals and the Japanese people, and should be kept in Japan. The document record events dating from the 1920s, such as Hirohito s stated resolve not to oppose future cabinet decisions. It caused a sensation when made public in 1990, reigniting a debate over the emperor s responsibility for the war. The account was dictated to one of Hirohito s aides in 1946, when a defeated Japan was occupied by Allied forces and the emperor faced the possibility of being tried as a war criminal - a step that ultimately was not taken. In a telephone interview, Takasu said his social media posts had been intentionally misunderstood.  It (the criticism) is from those who have skillfully picked out some of my tweets and maliciously interpreted them and it is a misunderstanding,  he said.  If you look at all my tweets, I am clearly against Nazism. But I do highly evaluate the wonderful medicine of that era.  But Takasu added that he thought the number of people killed in the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre had been exaggerated - a stance common among Japanese ultra-nationalists. China says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in Nanjing between December 1937 and January 1938, while an Allied tribunal put the death toll at about half that.     What I wanted to say was that it is said that six million or seven million were killed (in the Holocaust) but was that not  several tens of thousands?  Takasu asked.  It is said that 300,000 were killed in the Nanjing massacre but was that not 6,000 to 7,000 people instead? That is what I meant by  fabrication.   Hirohito s memoir ends with his statement that if he had vetoed the decision to go to war, it would have resulted in a civil conflict that would have been even worse and  Japan would have been destroyed,  auction house Bonhams said on its website. Academics say Hirohito s responsibility for the war has never been fully pursued in Japan, largely due to U.S. occupation authorities  decision to retain the emperor as a symbol of a newly democratic nation. Asked about Hirohito s responsibility for the war, Takasu said that, in his view, the late emperor was absolved when he said he would give his life for the Japanese people.  At the point the emperor made that comment, he had no sin,  he added.

Summary: जापान के शल्य चिकित्सक द्वारा खरीदे गए सम्राट हिरोहितो के संस्मरण की नाजियों की प्रशंसा करने के लिए आलोचना की गई


BOGOTA (Reuters) - Thirteen people, including civilians, were killed during a confrontation between Colombia s ELN rebels and dissidents from the now-demobilized FARC guerrilla group in a remote area known for drug trafficking, the country s ombudsman said on Tuesday. The incident took place on Nov. 27 in the southwestern Narino region, a place where crime gangs and rebel groups are known to grow, process and smuggle coca, the base ingredient in cocaine. A hard-won peace accord was agreed with the now-disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group last year, ending some five decades of war.  But an array of FARC dissidents, National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, right-wing ex-paramilitaries and crime gangs are still active in Colombia, competing for control of lucrative illegal mines and drug trafficking routes.  In Narino, fighters from the ELN attacked members of the Rural Resistance, ombudsmen Carlos Alfonso Negret said in a report. The Rural Resistance are FARC dissidents who refused to demobilize following the peace deal.  The ombudsman s office visited the area and was able to determine that there was an exchange of fire between the group that calls itself Rural Resistance and the ELN,  Negret told journalists.  There was crossfire that killed 13 people.  Neither the report nor Negret specified how many of the dead were civilians. More than 11,000 fighters and collaborators from the FARC handed over their weapons this year as part of the peace accord. The group has kept its initials in its reincarnation as a political party. But Negret says some 800 former guerrillas did not demobilize, while other security sources and thinktanks put the number of dissident ex-FARC at between 700 and 1,300. The ELN and the government began their first ever bilateral ceasefire in October, part of peace talks taking place in Ecuador. The ceasefire is set to run through Jan. 9 and may be extended. The incident was a violation of the ceasefire, Negret said. It is the second act of violence which has overshadowed the ceasefire, after the ELN admitted to killing an indigenous leader in restive Choco province.

Summary: कोलंबिया में विद्रोहियों के बीच गोलीबारी में 13 की मौत, सरकार ने कहा


BUEA/BAMENDA, Cameroon (Reuters) - Soldiers shot dead at least eight people and wounded others in Cameroon s restless English-speaking regions on Sunday during protests by activists calling for its independence from the majority Francophone nation, an official and witnesses said. The demonstrations - timed to take place on the anniversary of Anglophone Cameroon s independence from Britain - came as a months-old movement against perceived marginalization by the Francophone-dominated government gathered pace.  The protests, which began late last year, have become a lightning rod for opposition to President Paul Biya s 35-year rule. Donatus Njong Fonyuy, mayor of the town of Kumbo, said five prisoners were killed at around 6 a.m. (0500 GMT) after the jail where they were being held caught fire.   We don t know what caused the fire in the prison ... But five prisoners were killed by soldiers. Two were wounded by bullets and are at the hospital,  he told Reuters, adding that another two civilians were also injured. In other incidents in Kumbo, soldiers shot and killed a demonstrator and wounded two others who had raised the blue and white flag of the Ambazonia separatist movement in the town. Another woman was killed inside her home, Fonyuy said, without giving further details. Police and army officials were not immediately available to comment on the shootings.  We won t use violence unless there is major cause. There are numerous risks, even terrorist risks. We re keeping calm,  a security source, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said earlier in the day. Writing on his official Facebook account, President Biya condemned the violence.   Let me make this very clear: it is not forbidden to voice any concerns in the Republic. However, nothing great can be achieved by using verbal excesses, street violence, and defying authority,  he said.  Cameroon s divide has its roots in the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.  Authorities had banned all gatherings of more than four people, ordered bus stations, eateries and shops to shut and forbade movement between different parts of the English-speaking regions ahead of the protests. The government also ordered Cameroon s border with Nigeria closed for the weekend. Access to popular social media and messaging apps, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, was disrupted from Friday. Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary on Sunday threatened to shut any media outlets giving a voice to separatists, saying they  must not encourage those who advocate division, who want to destroy and destabilize our country . Businesses were shuttered in the regions  main cities, Buea and Bamenda, where military helicopters circled overhead. The security deployment included troops from the Cameroonian army s Rapid Intervention Brigade, a unit that typically fights Islamist Boko Haram militants in the country s north. One protester was killed on the edge of Buea as security forces attempted to block pro-independence marchers from entering the city, three witnesses said.  Hundreds nevertheless slipped through the countryside to get around the blockade and into the city, where security forces used teargas to try to stop them from marching on the regional governor s office.  A Reuters witness also heard gunfire, though it was not clear whether the shots were targeting protesters or being fired in the air.  The military, which is supposed to protect lives and property, has turned into our greatest nightmare,  said one Buea resident, who asked not to be identified out of fear of reprisal.  In Bamenda, where a bomb attack blamed on separatists wounded three policemen last week, young men brandishing improvised secessionist flags clashed with security forces who attempted to disperse them with teargas.  Thousands of government supporters meanwhile marched in Douala, Cameroon s main port city and its commercial hub, voicing their opposition to calls for independence or more autonomy for the Anglophone regions.   We are here ... to reject sectarianism, to condemn all kinds of hate, all forms of violence carried out under any pretext whatsoever,  Justice Minister Laurent Esso told the pro-government crowd.

Summary: कैमरून में एंग्लोफोन विरोध प्रदर्शनों में कम से कम आठ लोगों की मौत


NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton launched a bid on Thursday to draw young voters and small donors to her campaign, targeting the strengths of her rival, Bernie Sanders, as she looks ahead to the general election. Dubbed “for45” - for Clinton as the 45th president of the United States - the group will offer associate level membership for as low as $250, according to an invitation seen by Reuters for an April 25 Philadelphia event. “We will have an opportunity to fundraise and host low-dollar events, speaking to what we are passionate about and why we support her,” said Akilah Ensley, a 32-year-old Clinton supporter planning to join the group. “It’s important that we engage.”      The group held its “kick-off” conference call on Thursday, featuring the Clinton campaign’s finance director, Dennis Cheng, other campaign officials, and actress Lena Dunham, according to an invitation to the call. The group includes two other tiers, according to an information sheet seen by Reuters - a “member” level with minimum fundraising of $2,500 and an “advisor” level for raising at least $10,000. The Clinton and Sanders campaigns did not respond to  requests for comment.  The formation of the group underscores the challenge facing the former secretary of state in winning over the young people who have helped power Sanders’ run. Younger voters are a critical voting block and source of financing should she win the Democratic nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election. Clinton has a commanding delegate lead over Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont, and checked his momentum by winning New York’s primary earlier this week. But she has struggled to attract younger voters. While she won New York on Tuesday by 16 points, Sanders took 65 percent of Democratic voters aged 18 to 29, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research and published in the New York Times. Younger voters have also turned out more heavily for Sanders in other states. Sanders so often boasts about his average donation level of $27 that rally crowds now shout the number out along with him.  Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida who is not affiliated with the Clinton campaign, said for45 was a “smart way” to begin courting Sanders’ supporters. He compared it with the “Gen44” group of young voters that supported President Barack Obama.  “Anything that spurs people to get involved financially, it just builds more ownership in the campaign,” he said.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने नए धन उगाहने वाले समूह के साथ युवा मतदाताओं को निशाना बनाया


ATLANTA/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Martin Luther King’s daughter said on Monday that “God can triumph over Trump,” but the slain civil rights leader’s son struck a conciliatory tone after meeting with the president-elect on the U.S. holiday that honors their father. The comments by the children of King, who championed racial justice until he was assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39, punctuated an imbroglio involving Donald Trump and African-American congressman John Lewis that broke out over the weekend. The dispute started when Lewis, 76, a contemporary of King’s who endured beatings and jail time in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said in a televised interview that he saw Trump’s election as illegitimate because of Russian interference in the campaign. That drew a scornful response from Trump. Bernice King, King’s youngest daughter, told a gathering at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta not to give up hope and “Don’t be afraid of who sits in the White House.” “God can triumph over Trump,” she said, drawing a standing ovation, one of several times she was interrupted by thunderous applause. The service at the church where King once preached takes place every year on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a federal holiday honoring his life. This year the holiday fell days before Barack Obama ends his second term as the country’s first African-American president. Trump takes the oath of office as his successor on Friday. Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spent part of their last MLK Day in office helping paint a mural in the “community room” of a Washington shelter, to which they donated a play set used by their daughters when they arrived at the White House in 2009.  Trump, who won only 8 percent of the black vote, offered praise for King in a Twitter post on Monday, a few hours before meeting King’s oldest son, Martin Luther King III, at his Trump Tower offices in New York.  “Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!” Trump tweeted. Trump and King III emerged from an elevator together, shaking hands. Trump said goodbye to King, then returned to the elevator without answering questions. King said they had a constructive meeting to discuss how to improve the U.S. voting system, which King considers broken, but he skirted questions about whether he was offended by Trump’s comments on Lewis. “First of all I think that in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides. I think at some point I bridge-build. The goal is to bring America together,” King told reporters. Lewis did not mention Trump in a speech in Miami about the civil rights struggle to honor King, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, but he urged young black Americans to consider voting a “sacred” act.  “We all must become participants in the democratic process. When you get old enough to register to vote, go and register and vote,” Lewis said in a half-hour address.  Gunfire during Miami holiday festivities wounded eight people ages 11 to 30 at Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Park, police said. Two people were detained and two weapons seized, and the cause of the shooting is under investigation. The Trump-Lewis exchange began when Lewis told NBC News in segments of an interview released on Friday that he would not attend Trump’s inauguration in part because “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.” He referred to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia used hacking and other methods to try to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election.     Trump was withering in his response the following day, saying in tweets that Lewis, a revered figure who risked his life for civil rights, was “All talk, talk, talk - no action or results.” While many Democrats and Republicans said they disagreed with Lewis, they also questioned Trump’s decision to denigrate an African-American political leader of Lewis’ stature, especially over the Martin Luther King Jr weekend.  Civil rights leaders have also opposed Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after allegations that he was racist and harbored sympathies toward the Ku Klux Klan, a violent white supremacist organization. The Senate Judiciary Committee has received letters from 400 civil rights organizations opposing his confirmation to the country’s top law enforcement post, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has said. Sessions strongly denied that he is a racist during his confirmation hearing in the Senate last week. (This story corrects senator’s name in final paragraph to ‘Feinstein’.)

Summary: मार्टिन लूथर किंग की बेटी का कहना है कि 'भगवान ट्रम्प पर विजय प्राप्त कर सकते हैं'


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama made a plug on Monday for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to a group of 2,400 investors looking at locating business in the United States, saying the deal would help boost the global economy. Trade has become a hot-button issue in the Nov. 8 presidential election campaign, with presumptive candidates from both parties voicing objections to the 12-nation TPP deal that Obama wants the U.S. Congress to sign off on before his time in office ends on Jan. 20. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns have tapped into populist skepticism about the benefit of trade deals on jobs and wages, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Obama tried to dispel the economic gloom-and-doom coming from the campaign trail, extolling the recovery of the United States from recession. “I don’t mind being America’s pitch man,” Obama said in a speech at the SelectUSA Summit. “In seven months or so, I’ll be on the job market, and I’m glad I’m going to be here. I’m going to get on LinkedIn and see what comes up,” he quipped. Obama argued that while there are legitimate concerns about boosting wages and improving working conditions, ultimately  global trade can help connect people from around the world and reduce poverty. “This is not just about jobs and trade, it’s not just about hard cold cash,” he said. “It’s also about building relationships across borders. When your companies come together you help bring countries and cultures together.”   American business lobby groups have been pushing the White House and congressional leaders to finish their work to ratify the TPP before the next administration takes office. Obama’s top economic adviser sidestepped a question on a conference call about the timeline. “We’re continuing to work with congressional leaders to find the right opportunity, the right window of opportunity, to get TPP passed this year,” Jeff Zients, the director of the National Economic Council, told reporters. On Monday, Obama announced a $70 million matching grant to a Los Angeles “manufacturing hub,” a group of businesses and researchers piloting sensors and other technology to help factories cut costs and energy use. It is the ninth of 15 planned hubs that the White House hopes will boost manufacturing across the country. On Friday, Obama will continue his pitch for business, speaking about technology and the economy on a panel with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg at another summit at Stanford University aimed at boosting entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Summary: ओबामा ने टी. पी. पी. व्यापार सौदे को बेचने में मदद करने के लिए 'अमेरिका के पिच मैन' के रूप में लिया रुख


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Ron Wyden pledged on Wednesday to fight legislation expected shortly in Congress that would limit encryption protection in American technology products. The proposal by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, would give federal judges authority to order technology companies to help law enforcement officials access encrypted data, according to sources familiar with the situation. “I believe weakening strong encryption puts at risk millions of Americans, families and communities from one end of the country to another,” Wyden told Reuters after his speech at the RightsCon digital rights conference in San Francisco. “This issue is as important as any that I’ve been involved in in my 15 years in the intelligence committee.” Asked if he would put a hold on the expected legislation, the Oregon Democrat, who is a leading privacy advocate, said: “I would do anything within my power as a United States senator to block any plan that weakens strong encryption.” His remarks followed a high-stakes confrontation between the U.S. Justice Department and Apple over a court order that the company provide access to an iPhone used by one of the assailants in a deadly shooting rampage last December in San Bernardino, California. The government said on Monday it unlocked the phone without Apple’s help and dropped its legal action. Apple and other technology companies strongly opposed the court order, saying anything that helps authorities bypass the security features of tech products will undermine security for everyone. Government officials have insisted that criminal investigations could be crippled without access to phone data, and both sides are gearing up for a fight in Congress. Wyden said he would revive a 2014 bill he introduced to block court attempts by U.S. law enforcement to undercut encryption as in the Apple case. Without such a measure, he said the FBI would try again to get a precedent allowing it to compel companies to hack their customers “as sure as night follows day.” Recalling his role in the successful fight to stop a copyright bill four years ago opposed by Internet companies, Wyden told the conference: “We can win this fight for security and liberty. I know it’s not going to be easy, but we have done it before.”

Summary: सीनेटर वाइडन ने कूटलेखन पर सीमाओं से लड़ने का संकल्प लिया


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Saturday it had opened an investigation into  reports that a former teenage altar boy, who allegedly repeatedly forced a dormitory mate to have sex with him, went on to become a priest. The allegations concerning the St. Pius X Institute, known as a pre-seminary, were made in a recent book and in Italian television reports. The pre-seminary is a residence inside the Vatican for altar boys who serve at masses in St. Peter s Basilica mostly presided over by priests, bishops and cardinals. At times they also participate in papal liturgies.  The boys go to Italian schools while they live in the Vatican, a sovereign city-state surrounded by Rome. The reports said that despite complaints to superiors against the teenager, he was accepted into what is known as a major seminary when he became an adult. He was later ordained a priest and is now serving in a parish in northern Italy, they said. The statement said an initial investigation in 2013 had resulted in  no adequate confirmation . A new investigation had been opened following the latest reports in order to try to shed  full light on what really happened , it added.

Summary: वेटिकन का कहना है कि पादरी बनने वाले कथित दुर्व्यवहार करने वाले की जांच की जा रही है


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany welcomed on Wednesday a suggestion by Russian President Vladimir Putin that armed U.N. peacekeepers could be deployed to eastern Ukraine to help protect ceasefire monitors, but said any prospect of lifting sanctions was still a way off. Putin said on Tuesday that Russia intended to draft a U.N. Security Council resolution to this end, saying it would help resolve the problem in eastern Ukraine, though he also said preconditions would have to be met before any deployment. German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said any deployment would have to be across the whole area of conflict, not just on the contact line between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists. The war between the two sides has killed more than 10,000 people in three years.  The president s suggestion is a step,  said Demmer, adding many further steps were needed before sanctions could be lifted.  For a complete lifting of sanctions to be discussed, there would need to be the full implementation of the Minsk ceasefire agreement,  she added. Ukraine believes external peacekeepers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should be deployed throughout separatist-held territory and on the sections of the Ukraine-Russia border that are not under Kiev s control. Kiev accuses Moscow of sending troops and heavy weapons to the region, which Russia denies. Putin also said on Tuesday that any decision by the United States to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine would fuel the conflict.

Summary: जर्मनी का कहना है कि यूक्रेन में संयुक्त राष्ट्र शांति सैनिकों पर पुतिन का कदम एक 'कदम' है


RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi air defenses shot down a ballistic missile fired by Yemen s Houthi group towards Riyadh on Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition said, in an attack that could escalate a proxy war between the kingdom and Iran. There were no reports of casualties or damage. In contrast, a U.N. human rights spokesman said coalition air strikes had killed at least 136 non-combatants in war-torn Yemen since Dec. 6. The Iran-aligned Houthi movement said it had aimed the missile at the Saudi royal court at al-Yamama palace, where a meeting of Saudi leaders was under way. It described the attack as a new chapter in the conflict.  The Saudi-led coalition said the missile, the latest of several fired towards Riyadh, had been directed at residential areas and there had been no damage.  Quoting a statement from the coalition, Saudi state news agency SPA said Iranian-made missiles were a threat to regional and international security. It accused the Houthis of using humanitarian entry points into Yemen to smuggle in missiles from Saudi Arabia s regional arch-foe Iran.  Coalition forces confirm intercepting an Iranian-Houthi missile targeting (the) south of Riyadh. There are no reported casualties at this time,  the government-run Center for International Communication wrote on its Twitter account. Saudi palaces, military and oil facilities are within range of such missiles, the Houthis said in a statement carried by the group s Al-Masirah television. The U.S. State Department condemned the missile attack and called on Iran to stop arming the Houthis. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the Houthi missile strike  bears all the hallmarks of previous attacks using Iranian-provided weapons.  Haley said she was exploring, with some U.N. Security Council colleagues, several options for pressuring Iran to  adjust their behavior.  Haley is likely to struggle, however, to convince some members, like veto powers Russia and China, that U.N. action is needed. Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in struggle for influence in the Middle East. The conflict in Saudi Arabia s backyard Yemen has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced over 2 million.     The Houthis for their part have fired several missiles at the kingdom, but have not caused any serious damage. The attack came as the Houthis marked 1,000 days since the Saudi-led coalition began military operations in Yemen in March 2015 after the Iran-aligned group drove Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.  The enemies had their own mirage calculations ... but over 1,000 days, there has been this great steadfastness,  said Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, a Houthi leader, in a speech on the group s Al-Masirah TV. The United Arab Emirates, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and part of its coalition, said the latest Houthi attack underscored the need to keep the military campaign in Yemen going.  With every Iranian missile fired by the Houthi militia against civilian targets, the necessity of (Operation) Decisive Storm becomes clear,  United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on his Twitter account. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri condemned the attack, saying such actions exacerbated divisions in the region. Saudi Arabia and Iran are also competing for influence in Iraq and Syria. Reuters witnesses described hearing a blast and said they saw smoke in the northeast of Riyadh. Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has described what Riyadh says is Iran s supply of rockets to the Houthis as  direct military aggression  that could be an act of war. Iran has denied supplying such weaponry to the Houthis, who have taken over the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and other parts of the country during its civil war. Saudi Arabia said on Nov. 4 it had intercepted a ballistic missile over Riyadh s King Khaled Airport, an attack that led the coalition to close Yemeni ports.  On Nov. 30, Saudi Arabia shot down another missile near its southwestern city of Khamis Mushait. Last week, the United States presented for the first time pieces of what it said were Iranian weapons supplied to the  Houthis, describing them as conclusive evidence that Tehran was violating U.N. resolutions. The arms included charred remnants of what the Pentagon said was an Iranian-made short-range ballistic missile fired from Yemen in the Nov. 4 attack, as well as a drone and an anti-tank weapon recovered in Yemen by the Saudis.

Summary: सऊदी अरब ने रियाद की ओर दागी गई हौती मिसाइल को रोका, किसी के हताहत होने की सूचना नहीं


TOKYO (Reuters) - Election campaigning in Japan began in earnest on Tuesday with  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeking to repel an upstart new party that has pledged to rid the government of cronyism in a challenge to Abe s near-five year hold on power.     The Oct. 22 lower house election pits Abe s Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition against the less than one-month-old Party of Hope headed by popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, a former LDP lawmaker often floated as a possible first female premier. Abe says he needs to renew his mandate to tackle a  national crisis  stemming from North Korea s nuclear and missile threat and the demographic time-bomb of Japan s fast-ageing population. The 63-year-old Abe called the poll amid opposition disarray and an uptick in approval ratings that had slid due to a series of scandals over suspected cronyism. But the sudden emergence of Koike s party, which also appeals to conservative voters, could upset Abe s calculation. The main opposition Democratic Party imploded last month and a big chunk of its candidates are running on the Party of Hope ticket. In his first campaign speech Abe attacked the opposition for using populist slogans.   What creates our future is not a boom or slogan. It is policy that creates our future,  Abe said in Fukushima in northeast Japan.  We just cannot afford to lose.   The LDP-led coalition is defending a two-thirds  super majority  in parliament s lower house, so losing its simple majority would be a major upset. Abe s LDP had 288 seats in the lower house before it was dissolved for the election, while its junior partner the Komeito had 35. The total number of seats has been cut to 465 from 475. Recent opinion polls show the LDP in the lead and some analysts think Abe could still pull off another landslide victory. A poll of 3,119 voters by public broadcaster NHK released on Tuesday showed 36 percent had positive expectations for the Party of Hope, down from 47 percent in a survey a week ago. Support for Abe s government was unchanged, at 37 percent.  A soggy performance for the LDP, however, could stir calls from inside the party to replace Abe or deny him a third term as LDP leader in September 2018, ending his chances of becoming Japan s longest-serving premier. Koike, who defied the LDP last year to run for governor, calls her fledgling party a  reformist, conservative  group free from the fetters of vested interests   an often popular campaign slogan in Japan.  We have a surplus of things in this country, but what we don t have is hope for the future,  said Koike, 65, kicking off her campaign outside one of Tokyo s major train stations.  Koike decided not to run for a lower house seat needed to make her eligible for the premiership and has declined to say whom her party would support for the post, leaving the door open to a variety of possible tie-ups including with Abe s LDP.  The Party of Hope looks a lot like the LDP, but doesn t have the same problem with vested interests,  said Koji Sasaya, 82, a U.S. resident and longtime LDP supporter who traveled to Japan to vote in the election for Koike s new party. Others outside the station were less convinced by Koike s talk of cleaner politics, while trusting Abe to safeguard national security.  I doubt she can deliver politics free from vested interests,  said Minori Hiramatsu, a 28-year-old mother of one who was on her way to a job interview.  Abe has problems domestically, but he is the best person to protect us from North Korean threats.   The Party of Hope echoes Abe s LDP on security and diplomacy - it backs tough sanctions on North Korea and controversial security measures adopted in 2015 to expand the military s role overseas. Koike also agrees with Abe that Japan s post-war, U.S.-drafted, pacifist constitution should be amended, though not necessarily on the changes needed. On economic policies, Koike s party has sought to differentiate itself by demanding an end to nuclear power by 2030 and a freeze on a sales tax hike planned for 2019. Abe wants to keep nuclear power as a key part of Japan s energy mix, and raise the sales tax and spend more of the revenues on education and child care. A center-left Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, formed from the liberal wing of the failed Democratic Party, is wooing voters dissatisfied with both conservative options.

Summary: जापान में चुनाव प्रचार चल रहा है क्योंकि आबे ने होप को लिया है


LAHORE (Reuters) - In campaigning for a Pakistan by-election seen as a test of support for ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the most visible figure is not on the ballot: Sharif s daughter, Maryam, widely touted as his political heir-apparent. This past weekend, crowds mobbed Maryam s car and threw rose petals as she crisscrossed the eastern city of Lahore campaigning for her mother, Kulsoom, who is the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party s candidate to contest the seat Nawaz was forced to vacate by a Supreme Court ruling in July. With Kulsoom in London for cancer surgery, accompanied by Nawaz, 43-year-old Maryam has led the campaign with fiery speeches denouncing Nawaz s opponents and the Supreme Court. Her influence within the PML-N has grown in recent years, with senior party figures crediting her with Nawaz s move to embrace relatively more pro-women and liberal causes in a staunchly conservative nation of 208 million people. In a rare interview with foreign media, Maryam outlined to Reuters what drives her political ambitions as she emerges from her father s shadow to become a prominent figure in the ruling party he still controls.  I m proud to be the torch bearer of ideology which PML-N has,  Maryam said at the weekend in Punjab s provincial capital Lahore, her father s electoral power base.  I am (Nawaz s) reflection, I am his extension. I have grown up espousing his agenda, his ideology.  Maryam has framed the election as a chance for voters to protest the Supreme Court s verdict against her father and help the PML-N flex its electoral muscle.  Your vote was disrespected and disregarded, will you answer to this disrespect on Sept. 17?  Maryam asked at a recent rally. The by-election is seen as a litmus test for the PML-N s political fortunes in the wake of Nawaz s ouster, and an early indicator of voter sentiment ahead of a general election next year. Opposition leader Imran Khan, on the ascendancy after Nawaz s ouster, and eager to make inroads into the PML-N s political heartlands in Punjab, has accused Maryam of benefiting from alleged corruption swirling around her father, and cast the by-election as a plebiscite on corruption.  This election will decide where the people of Pakistan stand,  Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, told crowds in Lahore last week. The PML-N made Maryam - a telegenic but inexperienced politician - the face of the campaign despite a Supreme Court-appointed panel accusing her of signing forged documents to obscure ownership of offshore companies used to buy upmarket London flats. She denies any wrongdoing but the Supreme Court has ordered the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to launch a criminal investigation into her, Nawaz and other family members. Ahead of another rally on Sunday, Maryam hinted at military interference in Pakistani politics, a source of instability since independence in 1947, and portrayed herself as a campaigner for democracy.  Our history is marred with dictatorships and repeated attacks on democracy, so this is what I struggle for,  she told Reuters. Maryam says her father s dismissal by the Supreme Court is a conspiracy, noting his success in reinvigorating the economy - with a pro-business focus on infrastructure spending to boost development - and overall popularity  sent alarm bells ringing  for those who don t want Pakistan to have a strong leader.  This was the main reason he was being targeted,  she said, before adding:  That s all I can say.  Such coded talk is a familiar dance in Pakistan, where politicians speak between the lines to imply that the hidden hand of the powerful military is behind unfolding events. Asked if she is talking about elements of the military being involved in her father s ouster, as some senior PML-N figures have hinted, Maryam paused before saying:  It s not my place to comment . Maryam was coy when asked whether she has ambitions to be prime minister one day, saying she was not eyeing anything and was for now  happy with love and affection that I m getting . But senior PML-N officials expect her to at least become a minister in the next cabinet if the party holds on to power after the 2018 poll. Others have suggested she may become a leader soon. Maryam was more forthcoming when asked about comparisons with slain female leader Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of former premier Zulfikar Bhutto who vied for power with Nawaz during two decades of political turmoil and tussles with the military.  I have a lot of respect for the lady, but ... the only thing which is common between us is gender,  she said.

Summary: चुनावी परीक्षा में पाकिस्तान के अपदस्थ प्रधानमंत्री के उत्तराधिकारी सुर्खियों में आए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The investigation into alleged ties between President Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russia is threatening to dampen already flagging momentum for the president’s legislative agenda of rolling back Obamacare and overhauling the tax code.  With the Senate convening on Monday and the House of Representatives on Tuesday for a legislative sprint leading up to an August recess, the spotlight is on James Comey, the FBI director fired by Trump on May 9. Comey, who will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, will be grilled on whether Trump tried to get him to back off an investigation into alleged ties between the president’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump, a Republican, has called the Russia probe a “witch hunt” designed to undermine the legitimacy of his electoral win. The Russia matter presents a double-barreled threat to congressional Republicans: It could impede healthcare and tax initiatives that already were languishing and it could hurt efforts to hold onto their majorities in the House and Senate in 2018 midterm elections. “It’s an enormous distraction and it creates uncertainty,” said veteran Republican Representative Tom Cole in a telephone interview. “It casts a pall over the political system and slows things down. You don’t want to slow things down when you have all three levers of power,” Cole said, referring to the White House, Senate and House. The day before Comey’s scheduled testimony, top U.S. intelligence officials are set to appear before the same panel to discuss renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which allows the government to collect communications of foreigners thought to be living overseas whose communications pass through American phone or internet providers. But senators are likely to also wade into the Russia affair. [nL1N1IZ0VV] Lawmakers must also come up with a plan to raise the country’s debt limit. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is clamoring for Congress to quickly approve more borrowing authority as the incoming stream of tax revenues slows. Republican fiscal conservatives routinely demand budget cuts and other concessions as a price for raising the debt limit, setting up a likely fight. [nL1N1IZ13F] Amid all this, Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress hope the new work session, following a week-long Memorial Day break, will be a chance to ‘reset’ the conversation in Washington that has centered on Russia and their failures so far on healthcare and tax legislation. House Republicans hope this week to pass a repeal of portions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. But that bill will face resistance in the Senate, where Democrats are expected to use procedural tactics to kill it. Even so, House Republicans hope passage of ‘low-hanging fruit’ bills like this will allow them to argue that they have racked up accomplishments when they go home to their districts in August. Meanwhile, the Senate is struggling to craft legislation repealing and replacing Obamacare, former President Barack Obama’s landmark law that expanded health insurance coverage to millions and placed new controls on insurers. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a May 24 interview with Reuters said, “I don’t know how we get to 50 (votes) at the moment” but pledged to forge ahead. Senators this week are expected to be presented with  options for a new healthcare program they hope will be more acceptable to voters than one passed by the House. [nBER4WKzcM] Failure to agree on a formula by early July could doom the push to kill Obamacare, which has been a Republican vow since it became law in 2010. Congress is already months behind in writing a budget blueprint that would guide federal spending in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Republicans are deeply divided over the level of defense spending and potential structural reforms to social welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If that is not enough, House Republicans are promising to streamline the antiquated tax code and reduce rates. Democrats and some experts outside of Congress argue their approach would largely help the wealthy while ballooning the nation’s debt.

Summary: जैसे-जैसे रूस की जांच आगे बढ़ रही है, ट्रम्प को एजेंडे पर ध्यान आकर्षित करने के लिए संघर्ष करना पड़ रहा है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. intelligence officer has asked Congress to drop a provision in a pending bill that would create a special committee to combat Russian efforts to exert covert influence abroad, saying such a panel would duplicate current work and hinder cooperation with foreign allies. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper laid out the objections of the U.S. intelligence community in a Sept. 9 letter to the chairmen and top Democrats on the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees. He charged that parts of the bill amounted to “micromanagement” of the intelligence community. The intelligence bill, an annual measure that provides broad Congressional authorization for a wide range of U.S. intelligence activities and agencies, has already been approved by both intelligence committees and the House of Representatives. Backers in the Senate are marshalling support for the bill in the hope it will be approved next week, an official familiar with the matter said. The legislation would require the creation of an interagency committee to combat Russian propaganda and covert efforts to influence people, economic and political decisions in the United States and elsewhere. Clapper’s letter, seen by Reuters, said the panel would duplicate work already being done by intelligence agencies, and could also damage U.S. agencies’ relationships with their foreign counterparts. As a general matter, many provisions in the legislation “go well beyond oversight and into micromanagement” of the intelligence community, wrote Clapper, who was appointed by outgoing Democratic President Barack Obama. The bill would require multiple Cabinet officers, including the National Intelligence and FBI directors and the secretaries of State, Defense, the Treasury and Energy, as well as the heads of the other intelligence community agencies to appoint officials to serve on the panel examining Russian political interference in Western politics. Its main mission would be to “counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and government by exposing falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies,” the pending legislation says.    The term “active measures” describes actions by the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency whose officers included now-Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States and other countries have conducted similar campaigns. American and some allied intelligence agencies detected an increase in such activities in Europe several years ago, and began making cooperative efforts to track and combat them, a senior U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday. The escalating Russian campaign started well before the hacking of U.S. political institutions, in particular of Democratic Party, during the 2016 presidential election campaign said the official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject matter. American officials have traced that hacking to Russia, but the Kremlin has denied any involvement. Moscow’s campaign has included other hacking, overt and covert financing of far-right and nationalist political groups, efforts to influence powerful political and economic figures, and propaganda spread by government-controlled media outlets and on the Internet, said U.S. and European security officials. U.S. and other intelligence analysts have concluded that the  campaign is a “well-funded and coordinated effort to degrade and discredit Western-style democracy and sow divisions internally and within the NATO alliance, directed from the highest levels of the Russian government,” the senior American intelligence official said. The objections by Clapper were unrelated to the incoming administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump. Clapper’s letter preceded the election on Nov. 8 of Trump, who has said he will seek to improve ties with Moscow.

Summary: अमेरिकी जासूसी एजेंसियां गुप्त रूसी प्रभाव अभियान की जांच की योजना को लेकर कांग्रेस से लड़ती हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump may take four or five executive actions on Friday, the day he is sworn into office, spokesman Sean Spicer said. “He’s got a few of them probably in the area of four or five that we’re looking at for Friday,” some of them logistical, Spicer said Wednesday at a news briefing. “Then there are some other ones that I expect him to sign with respect to a couple of issues that have been high on his priority list.”  Spicer did not elaborate. Trump had promised to take  executive actions immediately after taking office to counter some of the policies of Democratic President Barack Obama.

Summary: ट्रम्प पहले दिन मुट्ठी भर कार्यकारी कार्रवाई करेंगेः संक्रमण


HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez angrily protested the expulsion of 15 diplomats from the Cuban embassy in Washington on Tuesday, calling it “unjustified.” U.S.-Cuba tensions rising, in the wake of what the United States has described as “attacks” affecting the health of American personnel in Cuba, Rodriguez told reporters in Havana that Washington had failed to provide sufficient information for an investigation into the matter.

Summary: क्यूबा ने 15 अमेरिकी राजनयिकों के निष्कासन की निंदा की


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

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


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. State Department spokesman, commenting on remarks by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday calling for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces from a southern island, said Washington had not officially received such a demand. State Department spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing that he had seen reports about Duterte’s comments, but “we are not aware of any official communication by the Philippine government ... to seek that result.” The United States is committed to its alliance with the Philippines, he added.

Summary: अमेरिका ने कहा कि फिलीपींस से विशेष बलों को वापस बुलाने की कोई आधिकारिक मांग नहीं


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia s Foreign Ministry said on Friday it was ready for talks with the United States to try to keep a landmark arms control treaty that helped end the Cold War alive and that Moscow would comply with its obligations if the U.S. did. The ministry was referring to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which was signed in 1987 and banned all Soviet and American short and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles. Its statement was published to mark the 30th anniversary of the treaty, which was signed with the Soviet Union. The ministry said Moscow was ready to hold talks with the U.S. on problems that have arisen around the treaty, but considered  the language of ultimatums  and attempts to pressure Russia by imposing sanctions unacceptable.

Summary: रूस ने कहा, हथियार समझौते को बचाने के लिए अमेरिका के साथ बातचीत के लिए तैयार