PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Wednesday said he was open to discussing letting more than 50,000 victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake stay in the United States past next January.  Kelly met with Haitian President Jovenel Moise during a brief visit to the island and he defended the U.S. decision earlier this month to extend a deadline for temporary protection from deportation for Haitians for six months that was set to expire in July.  “It is not meant to be an open-ended law but a temporary law,” Kelly told journalists. “It has been seven years since the earthquake, which was the reason TPS (temporary protected status) was implemented. I have committed to the president and the government that we can work together to go forward on any future extensions.” A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck near Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince in January 2010, killing some 200,000 people. Immigration activists said the extension did not take into account the damage created by Hurricane Matthew, which killed an estimated 1,000 people when it struck the Caribbean nation last year. Some aid groups warned mass deportations could unsettle the country that has long history of political instability.  Kelly dismissed critics who said his visit was too short to develop a proper idea of Haiti’s situation, saying that he visited the country “no less than 10, maybe 15 times” while he was based in Miami as the head of U.S. Southern Command.  “I would say to people who made those statements, well, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Kelly said. Under U.S. law, the Department of Homeland Security can award temporary protected status to citizens of nations devastated by violence, disease or natural disasters. Sudan, Somalia, Syria, El Salvador, Nepal and Yemen all have been designated for temporary protected status.

Summary: अमेरिका ने कहा हैतीवासियों के लिए संरक्षित स्थिति पर बातचीत के लिए खुला है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton had a four-percentage point advantage in support over Republican Donald Trump ahead of their first U.S. presidential debate, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll released on Friday. The Sept. 16-22 opinion poll showed that 41 percent of likely voters supported Clinton, while 37 percent supported Trump. Clinton has mostly led Trump in the poll during the 2016 campaign, though her advantage has narrowed since the end of the Democratic and Republican national conventions in July. With just six weeks before the Nov. 8 election, Monday’s debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York will be the first of three between the White House rivals. It presents a major opportunity for them to appeal to voters who have yet to commit to a candidate after a mostly negative race in which Clinton and Trump have sought to brand each other as untrustworthy and dangerous for the country. The live, televised matchup is expected to draw a Super Bowl-sized television audience of 100 million Americans, according to some commentators. Among those watching will be people who so far remain on the fence. This could be a sizable group: Some 22 percent of likely voters said in the latest poll that they do not support either major-party candidate. That was more than twice the proportion of uncommitted voters at the same point in the 2012 election between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. These uncommitted voters appear to be leaning more toward Trump than Clinton, according to the latest poll, though they have not been convinced enough to say they will vote for him in November. It was also possible that some of these voters would pick an alternative-party candidate like Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Clinton led a separate four-way poll that included Trump, Johnson and Stein. Among likely voters, 39 percent supported Clinton, 37 percent favored Trump, 7 percent picked Johnson and 2 percent supported Stein. The Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted online in English in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii. It included 1,559 respondents who were considered to be likely voters given their voting history, registration status and stated intention to show up on Election Day. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points, meaning results could vary by that much either way. National polls have produced varying measurements of support for Clinton and Trump during the 2016 campaign. The differences are partly due to the fact that some polls, like Reuters/Ipsos, try to include only likely voters, while others include all registered voters. The Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll gathers responses every day and reports results twice a week, so it often detects trends in sentiment before most other polls.  Polling aggregators, which calculate averages of major polls, have shown that Clinton’s lead over Trump has been shrinking this month. The most recent individual polls put her advantage at 3 percentage points.

Summary: क्लिंटन पहली राष्ट्रपति बहस से पहले ट्रम्प से 4 अंकों से आगेः रॉयटर्स/इप्सोस पोल


KUWAIT (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti court handed several lawmakers jail terms on Monday for forcing their way into the parliament building in 2011 - a move that could cause political turbulence in the Gulf Arab region s most liberal state. Protesters burst into parliament in 2011 after lawmakers had been denied the right to question then prime minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah about corruption allegations. Kuwait s al-Qabas newspaper said the court sentenced current MPs Jamaan al-Harbash and Waleed al-Tabtabai to five years and MP Mohammed al-Mutair to one year. An outspoken former parliament deputy, Musallam al-Barrak, who earlier this year finished serving a two-year prison sentence for insulting the country s ruler, was sentenced to seven years. The MPs have a considerable political following, especially among Kuwait s traditional tribes which have influence in areas outside the main cities. Kuwait avoided mass Arab Spring-style unrest though citizens held large street protests in 2012 after the Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah changed the electoral law.  While Kuwait allows more freedom of speech than some other Gulf Arab states, the emir has the last say in state affairs. There have been a series of political trials and authorities have revoked citizenship of some Kuwaitis in the past several years that have drawn rebuke abroad and anger at home.

Summary: कुवैत की अदालत ने संसद में घुसने के लिए सांसदों को जेल की सजा सुनाई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he spoke with President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday evening to discuss media leaks of a classified intelligence briefing on Russian hacking that Trump received last Friday. Clapper said in a statement that he does not believe the U.S. intelligence community leaked a private security document alleging Russian intelligence operatives have compromising information on Trump. “I emphasized that this document is not a U.S. Intelligence Community product and that I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC,” Clapper said.

Summary: अमेरिकी खुफिया प्रमुख क्लैपर का कहना है कि मीडिया लीक के बारे में ट्रम्प से बात की


(Reuters) - Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on Friday signed compromise gun legislation that recognizes concealed-carry permits from all states while making it illegal for someone under a permanent protective order to possess a firearm. McAuliffe, a Democrat, struck the deal with the Republican-controlled legislature last month. Some lawmakers and gun rights groups had objected to Attorney General Keith Herring’s decision in December to stop honoring concealed-handgun permits from 25 states. “Virginians elect their leaders to work together to get things done, and today I am proud to say we did just that,” McAuliffe said in a statement. McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, called the package the biggest step forward on gun safety in more than two decades. Under the new laws, Virginia must recognize concealed-handgun permits from all other states, a rollback of Herring’s stance. Virginia can confiscate firearms from anyone who is under a permanent protective order for domestic violence offenses. The legislature had rejected such measures for years. Virginia State Police also will attend gun shows to provide voluntary background checks for private sellers. Because of the compromise, McAuliffe has come under criticism from gun control advocates, including Everytown for Gun Safety, the organization founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Everytown for Gun Safety had poured money last year into Virginia, the home of the National Rifle Association gun lobby, in a failed bid to have Democrats take control of the state Senate. Reacting to McAuliffe’s approval of the legislation, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence praised the domestic abuse provision as a step in the right direction. But it said the concealed-carry law would let Virginians who are not eligible for a permit to circumvent it by getting a permit from another state and then carry a gun in Virginia. “In addition to the public safety concerns, this new approach sends a terrible message that Virginia is unwilling to enforce its own laws,” the group said.

Summary: वर्जीनिया के गवर्नर ने बंदूक कानून समझौता उपायों पर हस्ताक्षर किए


VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz said on Monday he has yet to decide which party he plans to start coalition talks with, though he was still widely expected to turn to the far-right Freedom Party within days. Having won last week s parliamentary election with 31.5 percent of the vote, Kurz s party is well short of a majority, needing a coalition partner to gain control of parliament and form a stable government. Only two parties have enough seats to do that with   the Social Democrats and the Freedom Party.  It has yet to be decided with whom we want to start negotiations. I will clarify that in the coming hours or days,  Kurz told reporters after a meeting with President Alexander Van der Bellen that many expected to be followed by an announcement on who coalition talks would be held with.  There are certain issues that I would like to discuss again informally or clear up before I start negotiations,  he added, declining to specify what those issues were.

Summary: ऑस्ट्रियाई रूढ़िवादी कुर्ज़ का कहना है कि गठबंधन वार्ता पर और समय चाहिए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Time was running short for President Donald Trump to attract enough votes to pass a new bill to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system this week as Republican party moderates held out, fearing a backlash from voters worried about losing insurance benefits. A senior House of Representatives Republican aide said on Tuesday night no decision had been made on bringing legislation to the floor this week before the House is due to start a week-long break late on Thursday. A bill would need to be filed by late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning to hold the vote before the break.  Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who heads the conservative House Freedom Caucus faction that helped block Trump’s first attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, said earlier on Tuesday Republicans were still “a handful of votes away.” The lack of movement among Republicans puts Trump in danger of his second major legislative setback, raising questions about his ability to secure passage of other parts of his agenda, including a major tax reform plan. Most House Freedom Caucus Republicans have gotten on board with the new proposal, but Democrats are vowing to oppose any attempt to unravel Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul.  The latest Republican plan would allow states to opt out of Obamacare provisions that force insurers to charge sick and healthy people the same rates. That is seen as a concession to conservatives to attract their votes. Trump insisted in an interview with CBS News that aired on Sunday that the protections for those with pre-existing conditions would remain. “I think it’s time now” for a healthcare vote, the Republican president said at the White House on Tuesday.   Even if a plan passes the House, it is expected to face a tough fight in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrower majority. Republicans contend that Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law, which allowed some 20 million Americans to gain medical insurance, is too intrusive and expensive. The White House sent Vice President Mike Pence to the Capitol on Tuesday to meet Republican holdouts on the party’s latest effort to pass a healthcare overhaul. Republicans remain divided over key aspects of the healthcare bill, with some lawmakers worrying about a potential spike in the number of people without coverage, or sharp increases in insurance premiums. Representative Daniel Webster, whose central Florida district is home to many retirees, said Pence told him he would try to work out problems caused by proposed Medicaid spending caps that would limit nursing-home beds. “I just think it’s going to cost us a lot in Florida,” Webster said. Another Florida Republican, Thomas Rooney, said confusion over the potential loss of coverage for pre-existing conditions had his constituents scared that “they’re going to die because of a vote that we might be taking.” Conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action started to increase pressure on moderate Republicans who were resisting the bill, such as Representative Billy Long of  Missouri. “Billy is using liberal talking points to distort the truth,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh said, adding that Long “may want to keep Obamacare.” Left-leaning groups, including the Center for American Progress (CAP), were pushing their members to call lawmakers to urge them to oppose the healthcare bill, including via 7,000 medicine bottles delivered to congressional districts. Emily Tisch Sussman, a CAP organizer, said those efforts had generated “tens of thousands” of phone calls. Patient advocacy groups, including the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association, also oppose the reworked bill, while the American Medical Association and others have expressed concerns.

Summary: स्वास्थ्य देखभाल में सुधार पर उदारवादी रिपब्लिकन को हराने के लिए संघर्ष कर रहे हैं ट्रम्प


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico s finance minister resigned on Monday to seek the 2018 presidential nomination of the ruling party, anticipating a major break with tradition as it seeks outside help to clean up its tarnished image and stay in office for another six years. Jose Antonio Meade had been widely expected to run for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose credibility has been seriously undermined by corruption scandals, gang violence and accusations of electoral fraud. Meade is not a PRI member, and his reputation for honesty has persuaded many party grandees that he is the best bet to take on the front-runner in the July 2018 presidential race, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. PRI hopefuls can register from Dec. 3, and early indications suggested Meade would not face any major challengers. The PRI will formally elect its candidate on Feb. 18. He was warmly received by party members on a whistle-stop tour of organizations affiliated to the PRI in Mexico City on Monday. All the other early PRI favorites for the presidency expressed their support for him on Twitter. Soft-spoken and measured in tone, Meade, 48 first entered the Cabinet under the previous center-right administration of the National Action Party, or PAN. His ability to draw votes from other parties is viewed as one of his principal assets.  He ll be an attractive candidate for those who don t necessarily support the PRI,  tweeted Daniel Karam, who headed the Mexican Social Security Institute during Meade s initial Cabinet stint under the PAN. Eager to mend its reputation, the PRI changed its statutes in August to make it easier for outsiders to run for the job the party has held for most of the past century. At an event at his official residence, President Enrique Pena Nieto said Harvard-educated former World Bank official Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya would leave his job as chief executive of state oil company Pemex to replace Meade in the Finance Ministry. In a brief address at the ministry afterward, Meade said he would run for the presidency  after 20 years of serving my country continuously with integrity and honesty.  Lopez Obrador, twice runner-up for the presidency, has railed relentlessly for years against government graft. He quickly lashed out on Twitter against the PRI as  corrupt  and  predictable  after Meade made his announcement. Meade remains unknown to much of the Mexican public, and in opinion polls he lags far behind the veteran Lopez Obrador, who has sought to characterize all of the main opposition parties as corrupt extensions of the PRI. Serving as energy, then finance minister in 2011, Meade became foreign minister when Pena Nieto took office in December 2012. He later switched to the Social Development Ministry before returning to the Finance Ministry last year. Seen by allies as a discreet and diplomatic official, Meade s grasp of finance and economics is matched by few in Mexico, and his academic career includes degrees in law and economics as well as an economics doctorate from Yale. Crucially, argue his supporters, he has avoided the damaging scandals that have engulfed the PRI under Pena Nieto, who cannot constitutionally seek a second six-year term.       I thank (Meade) for his dedication and commitment and I wish him success in the project he has decided to undertake,  Pena Nieto said at the event at his Los Pinos residence. TV images showed Meade driving toward Los Pinos behind the wheel of a modest compact car, a frequent prop among Mexican politicians seeking to project the common touch. Gonzalez Anaya, who is related by marriage to influential former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, will be replaced at Pemex by Carlos Trevino, a senior executive at the company.

Summary: मेक्सिको के वित्त मंत्री ने सत्तारूढ़ पार्टी के लिए राष्ट्रपति पद की मांग करने के लिए इस्तीफा दे दिया


LONDON (Reuters) - Any moves by Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States or bring back waterboarding to interrogate suspects could have repercussions for some of his sprawling foreign business interests — from his golf course in Scotland to luxury resorts in Indonesia. A review of press releases published on the Trump Organization website shows that 15 of 25 new acquisitions or joint ventures announced over the past five years were overseas. These include the purchase of golf courses in Ireland and Scotland and deals to license his name to developers and manufacturers in Dubai, Indonesia, India, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Mexico and Panama. The deals underscore the potential conflicts of interest Trump will face after he is sworn in as president on Jan. 20 and his vulnerability to criticism that he is open to foreign influence. Foreign governments could potentially seek to exploit Trump’s business interests to affect his decision making, or to punish him through his pocket book for decisions they object to. Trump’s transition team declined to comment for this story. In the 16 months to May, Trump earned up to $23 million from licensing his name to developers in emerging markets, according to a filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. “The licensing deals are the best of all because there’s no risk,” Trump told Reuters in an interview in June. “I have 121 deals right now, going forward, right now, 121, all over the world, in China, in Indonesia,” he added. (Trump's foreign business interests: tmsnrt.rs/2gakiTQ) Trump has said he will hand control of his company to his children.  However, when he met with his Indian business partners last week it prompted a chorus of criticism that the wall between Trump and his company was still too porous. The Trump Organization has said a business structure will be set up that complies with “all applicable rules and regulations.” Trump has yet to commit to setting up a blind trust that would formally sever his ties with his business.  “I’m very confident he’s not breaking any laws,” Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, told reporters at Trump Tower in New York on Monday. Trump could face a backlash against his business interests in Middle Eastern and Asian markets if he follows through with his campaign promise to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and continues to be open to restoring waterboarding - a form of interrogation widely viewed as torture - or creating a national registry for Muslims, analysts said. “If the Muslim registry is introduced, he will have serious issues finding Muslim local partners,” said Professor Koen Pauwels, a marketing specialist at Ozyegin University, Istanbul. There would be a “backlash” if Trump substantially tightens visa restrictions on Muslim visitors, Pauwels added. In December 2015, Trump’s anti-Muslim comments cost him business in the Middle East when a major chain of department stores halted sales of his glitzy “Trump Home” line of lamps, mirrors and jewelry boxes in the region. Trump has long identified the Middle East as a major growth market, and his company is working with Dubai-based real estate giant DAMAC Properties to build two golf clubs - including one with a course designed by Tiger Woods - and a gated island community outside the city.  His daughter Ivanka said last year the organization was in talks on deals in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Trump has a licensing deal with a developer for a Trump-branded retail complex in Istanbul. He also has signed deals in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, to put his name on a redeveloped luxury golf resort in Java and a luxury cliff-top hotel and residential development in Bali. And it is not just in the Middle East that Trump could face repercussions for any foreign policy decisions. Trump’s $1.5 billion billion-pound golf and residential project north of Aberdeen in Scotland could also be affected, warned councilor Isobel Davidson, who sits on the panel responsible for approving planning applications for the project. If Trump proceeds with any anti-Muslim proposal, it could make it harder for him to advance his development, she said. “Councilors are not supposed to take the character of the applicant into consideration when we are making a planning decision but sometimes it’s quite hard not to,” she said. Analysts said they saw more potential upside for Trump’s business from his election than downside. Very simply, people would want to be associated with the personal brand of the U.S. president. “It will have a boost because he has become more famous that he was before,” said Professor Chiranjib Sen, Azim Premji University in India’s Bangalore. One test case could be China, which the Trump Organization has identified as a “top priority among high-potential emerging markets,” according to a 2013 press release. On the campaign trail, Trump threatened to label China a currency manipulator and impose import tariffs on Chinese imports.  Suisheng Zhao, a China expert at the University of Denver, said if Trump did impose tariffs and more robustly challenged China’s interests in the South China Sea, Beijing could tell Chinese businesses to abandon any talks or deals with the Trump Organization. Trump-branded property could also present a target for bombings or other kinds of attacks, said Professor Peter Neumann, of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College London. “From a terrorist’s perspective, it’s a very attractive target,” he said. What Trump does not do could also affect his foreign business interests.  Mehmet Ugur, Professor of Economics and Institutions, at the University of Greenwich Business School, said that Trump’s businesses could benefit if he takes a softer line on countries accused of human rights violations.  Countries such as Turkey, China and Indonesia would “be more than happy to welcome Trump Organization,” he said.

Summary: ट्रम्प की विदेश नीतियाँ उनके व्यापारिक साम्राज्य को नुकसान पहुँचा सकती हैं, मदद कर सकती हैं


VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian conservatives and the anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPO) have agreed to expand voter participation in legislative matters in their coalition deal to bring the state closer to the citizens, the party chiefs said on Saturday. Austria is set to become the only western European country with a far-right party in government after the FPO under Heinz-Christian Strache and Sebastian Kurz s People s Party (OVP)  struck a coalition deal on Friday. But their plans for more direct democracy ruled out referendums on Austrian membership of the European Union.  Our model does not provide for any referendum ... that contradicts European law or fundamental rights or our constitution,  Kurz said.     It is also clear that there will be no votes on our memberships in international organizations including the European Union.      The introduction of more ways for voters to participate in the legislative process was one of the FPO s main conditions and also one of the most difficult issues in the coalition negotiations.     In Austria around 8,000 signatures are needed currently to initiate a popular petition. If the petition then gets more than 100,000 signatures it must discussed in parliament. Such petitions are not legally binding and often do not result in legislation but they can fuel the public debate.  In future, if a petition has the support of 900,000 voters and parliament does not support the issue, it can be turned into a legally binding referendum, Kurz said at a news conference in Vienna, where he and Strache presented the coalition program. Austrians will have to vote on this proposal as it will require a comprehensive change to the constitution, for which a vote is already mandatory, Kurz said. There were only two binding referendums in post-1945 Austria: The nuclear power referendum in 1978 and the European Union membership referendum in 1994.   History will be written (with this initiative),  said Strache.  In Europe, the Swiss vote the most, whereas Germany has not as yet held a nationwide referendum. Ireland and Italy are the European Union countries with the most referendums.

Summary: ऑस्ट्रिया की भावी सरकार प्रत्यक्ष लोकतंत्र का विस्तार करेगी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz split victories in four nominating contests with front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday, bolstering Cruz’s argument that he represents the party’s best chance to stop the brash New York billionaire. The results were a repudiation of a Republican establishment that has bristled at the prospect of either Cruz or Trump winning the party’s nomination and has largely lined up behind U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who was shut out in all four contests. “I think it’s time that he dropped out of the race,” Trump said of Rubio after the contests. “I want Ted one on one.” Cruz won Kansas and Maine on Saturday, while Trump won the bigger states of Louisiana and Kentucky, holding onto his lead in the race for the Republican nomination for the November 8 presidential election, even though Cruz captured more delegates on Saturday. The next big contest, and a crucial one, will be Tuesday’s primary in the industrial state of Michigan. Republicans in three other states, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii, also will vote on Tuesday. Puerto Rico Republicans will vote on Sunday. In the Democratic race, front-runner Hillary Clinton won in Louisiana, and her rival Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, won in Kansas and Nebraska, in results that did not substantially change Clinton’s big delegate lead. Mainstream Republicans have blanched at Trump’s calls to build a wall on the border with Mexico, round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and temporarily bar all Muslims from entering the United States. But the party’s establishment has not been much happier with Cruz, who has alienated many party leaders in Washington. “It looks like it will be the angry Trump voters against the purist conservative Cruz voters,” said Washington-based Republican strategist Ron Bonjean. “The establishment is just being left out.” A spokesman for Rubio, who spent the past week launching harsh personal attacks on Trump, said the senator would push on with an eye on the March 15 contest in Florida. “After we win the Florida primary, the map, the momentum and the money is going to be on our side,” spokesman Alex Conant said in a statement. Cruz, a first-term U.S. senator from Texas who has promoted himself as more of a true conservative than Trump, said the results showed he was gaining momentum in the race to catch the real estate mogul. Cruz, 45, has run as an outsider bent on shaking up the Republican establishment in Washington. A favorite of evangelicals, he has called for the United States to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State militant group and has pledged to eliminate the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service and four cabinet agencies and to enact a balanced budget amendment. “The scream you hear, the howl that comes from Washington, D.C., is utter terror at what ‘We the People’ are doing together,” Cruz told supporters in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after his early win in Kansas. “What we’re seeing is the public coming together, libertarians coming together, men and women who love the Constitution coming together and uniting and standing as one behind this campaign,” Cruz said. Trump, 69, has a substantial lead in the delegates needed to secure the nomination at the Republican National Convention, but since winning seven of the 11 contests on Super Tuesday he has come under withering fire from a Republican establishment worried he will lead the party to defeat in November’s election. [nL2N16C08F] But endorsements from establishment Republicans have failed to sway voters. Rubio won the backing of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback but still came in third there. The four Republican contests on Saturday together accounted for just 155 delegates. Cruz won 64 delegates on Saturday, while Trump took 49. The races on Saturday were open only to registered Republicans, excluding the independent and disaffected Democratic voters who have helped Trump’s surge to the lead. The anti-Trump forces have a short window to stop the caustic businessman, who ahead of Saturday had accumulated 319 of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination at July’s Republican national convention, outpacing Cruz, who had 226 delegates. On March 15, the delegate-rich states of Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina will vote. Both Florida and Ohio use the winner-take-all method to allocate Republican delegates, making the stakes in those states particularly high. All of the Republican contests on Saturday, and through March 14, award delegates proportionate to the popular vote, although some states set minimum thresholds to qualify for any delegates. If Trump takes both Florida and Ohio he would be nearly impossible to stop. There are a total of 358 delegates at stake in the five states voting March 15, including 99 in Florida and 66 in Ohio.  On the Democratic side, Clinton has opened up a big delegate lead and Sanders might have a tough time making up the difference. All states in the Democratic race award their delegates proportionally, meaning Clinton can keep piling up delegates even in states she loses. The three states holding Democratic contests on Saturday had a total of 109 delegates at stake. The early estimates were that Clinton, who appeared headed to a smashing nearly 50-point win in Louisiana, had won at least 48 delegates on Tuesday and Sanders 37. But Sanders made it clear he was not planning to end his White House quest anytime soon. “We have the momentum. We have a path toward victory. Our campaign is just getting started,” he said in a statement after his wins on Saturday.

Summary: क्रूज़, ट्रम्प ने चार राज्यों को विभाजित किया, रिपब्लिकन प्रतिष्ठान के लिए झटका


BARCELONA (Reuters) - The Spanish government was reluctantly forced to send in national police to stop a referendum on Catalan independence that had descended into farce, the top Spanish official in the northeastern region said on Sunday. The aim of the National Police and Civil Guard police who descended on polling stations in Catalonia was to seize election materials and they were not targeting people wanting to vote, Enric Millo, the Madrid government s representative in Catalonia, told a news conference.  We have been made to do something we didn t want to do,  he said. Referring to the Catalan government s announcement on Sunday that people would be allowed to vote at any polling station they found open in the region, Millo said:  It s all a sham, a farce. It is the first time in history that the rules of the game are changed 45 minutes before the start of voting.

Summary: स्पेन अनिच्छा से कैटलन वोट में कार्रवाई करने के लिए मजबूर, अधिकारी का कहना है


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders welcomed a proposal by British Prime Minister Theresa May aimed at unblocking Brexit talks, but said concessions to ease the fears of EU citizens living in Britain were not enough. Arriving at a two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday with other EU leaders, May sought to shift the focus away from a failure to push the talks beyond a discussion of a divorce settlement and onto trade talks just 17 months before Britain is due to leave. Instead the prime minister, weakened after losing her Conservative Party s majority in a June election, put renewed emphasis on settling citizens rights, one of three issues that must be solved to break the deadlock in talks. But EU leaders said there was more work to be done, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel describing some  encouraging  signs that could help pave the way for a discussion on future trade ties at the next EU summit in December. May said the leaders assess the progress that has been made so far in the Brexit talks and set out  ambitious plans  for the weeks ahead.  I particularly, for example, want to see an urgency in reaching an agreement on citizens  rights,  May told reporters. But she avoided questions about increasing the amount Britain is willing to pay when it leaves, instead referring back to a speech last month in Italy when she outlined an offer of around 20 billion euros ($24 billion). May will discuss her Brexit strategy over dinner. On Friday morning, once she has left, other EU leaders are expected to say the talks have not yet made enough progress for them to open the trade negotiations. Weakened after losing her Conservative Party s majority in a June election and failing to rally support at an ill-fated party conference, May is constrained in her ability to address EU demands that she increase her pay offer for the divorce agreement. Some members of her own party would prefer to see her walk away if the EU does not agree to move the talks forward to discuss trade. Germany and its allies do not want to be left with a large bill when Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019. Merkel said EU leaders would listen to the report from their chief negotiator Michel Barnier, but that sufficient progress had not yet been made.  We will continue the talks with a view to reaching the second phase in December . Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar urged May to  come up with more clarity  not only on guarantees on citizens rights, but also on her plans to avoid a return of a hard border with Northern Ireland.  These are still difficult issues, but particularly the question of the exit bill,  he told reporters. May tried to shift the focus away from how much Britain should pay. On her Facebook page, she wrote that  we are in touching distance of agreement  for protecting the rights of around 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and promised to make it as easy as possible for them to stay. Luxembourg s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told reporters the Facebook post  went in the right direction  and that  every movement in the right direction is important , noting a change in tone in the British government over the past six months. But Finland s leader, Juha Sipila, said the EU was  a little bit frustrated about the progress.  The lack of movement has increased the pressure on May from inside her own party. In an open letter on Thursday, pro-Brexit lawmakers and business people said that unless the deadlock was broken, Britain should signal it is ready to be subject to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules from March 30, 2019, when Brexit takes effect. Owen Paterson, a lawmaker and former minister from May s Conservative Party, said it looked  inevitable  that the trade relationship between Britain and the EU would end up being governed by WTO rules, meaning no special deal.  So what we re saying is it would be much better to state that now, give business and all our administrative organisations certainty so they can begin to prepare,  he said.

Summary: ब्रिटेन की नई रियायतें पर्याप्त नहीं हैं, यूरोपीय संघ के नेताओं ने मई को बताया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In an abrupt shift, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Friday, saying he is the only candidate who can stop Democrat Hillary Clinton from winning the White House on Nov. 8. “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment. And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him,” the former Republican presidential candidate said in a lengthy statement. Cruz, a senator from Texas who is a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, was one of Trump’s last challengers for the Republican presidential nomination to drop out of the race. When Cruz addressed the Republican National Convention in July in Cleveland, where Trump accepted the nomination, he declined to endorse Trump and was essentially booed off stage by the New York businessman’s supporters. During the heated primary battle, Trump had insulted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, for her physical appearance. His wild suggestion that the senator’s father was linked to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin prompted Cruz to denounce Trump as a “pathological liar.” In July, Trump said, “I don’t want his endorsement.” On Friday he said he was greatly honored to have Cruz backing him. “We have fought the battle and he was a tough and brilliant opponent. I look forward to working with him for many years to come in order to make America great again,” Trump said. Cruz cited the possibility of Democrats taking control of the U.S. Supreme Court as a major reason why he decided to drop his opposition to Trump. Trump earlier in the day released the names of 21 prominent conservatives and said he would pick from this list in nominating a replacement for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. The Senate has refused to take any action on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, chief judge of the federal appeals court in Washington, to fill the vacancy. One of the names on Trump’s list was that of U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a key ally of Cruz. Cruz said that for some time he had been seeking greater specificity on Trump’s views toward filling the opening on the court, which is currently deadlocked between four right-leaning and four left-leaning jurists. He said Trump’s list “provides a serious reason for voters to choose to support Trump” and that Lee “would make an extraordinary justice.” Cruz noted his qualms about Trump, saying, “I have struggled to determine the right course of action in this general election.” But in the end, he decided, Trump “is the only thing standing in the way” of a Clinton presidency that he said would be devastating to the United States.

Summary: लंबे समय से प्रतिद्वंद्वी, टेड क्रूज़ ने अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति पद की दौड़ में ट्रम्प का समर्थन किया


BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Four people were killed when a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) aid convoy was ambushed in northeast Nigeria, a WFP spokeswoman said on Sunday, in the latest attack in the region as the conflict with Boko Haram nears its ninth year. Attacks on aid workers are relatively rare in the conflict with the Islamist insurgency, compared with assaults on the military and civilians in Nigeria s northeast. The years of fighting have spawned what the United Nations calls one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with 8.5 million people in need of life-saving assistance.  WFP can confirm that a convoy escorted by the Nigerian military including WFP-hired trucks was the subject of an attack by armed groups 35 km southwest of Ngala in Borno State on Saturday,  she said in an emailed statement.   Four people, including the driver of a WFP-hired truck and a driver s assistant, were killed in the incident,  the statement said, adding that  WFP is working with the authorities to determine the whereabouts of the trucks.  The spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the driver and assistant were WFP staff, or give details about the other two people killed. A military spokesman declined to comment. Last year, the United Nations suspended aid deliveries in Nigeria s northeastern state of Borno, the epicenter of the conflict, after a humanitarian convoy was attacked, leaving two aid workers injured. Last week, the Nigerian government approved the release of $1 billion from the country s excess oil account to the government to help fight the Boko Haram insurgency, despite a two-year narrative that Boko Haram has been all but defeated. There are other signs the government and military may be abandoning that narrative. Nigeria s long-term plan is now to corral civilians inside fortified garrison towns - effectively ceding the countryside to Boko Haram. Earlier this month, Nigeria replaced the military commander of the campaign against Boko Haram after half a year in the post. Military sources told Reuters that came after a series of  embarrassing  attacks by the Islamists.

Summary: नाइजीरिया में विश्व खाद्य कार्यक्रम के काफिले पर घात लगाकर किए गए हमले में चार लोगों की मौत


HAMBURG (Reuters) - Returning to her birthplace, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged supporters to mobilize undecided voters before Sunday s election, telling them not to take her conservatives  solid lead in opinion polls for granted. Surveys show many voters are still undecided and, with the election likely to return a fractured parliament, she wants to maximize support to bolster her position in coalition negotiations.  What I ve heard in the last days is unbelievable ... that everything is already decided,  the 63-year-old told a crowd of several hundred packed into the Fish Auction Hall in Hamburg.  It is not. Every vote counts!  Noting that the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), her closest rivals, have not ruled out a left-wing coalition with the Left party and the environmentalist Greens - a tie-up untested at national level - Merkel added:  We live in turbulent times. We can t afford any experiments.    In these times, we need stability and security, and a clear path, both at home and abroad,  she said. Before Merkel spoke in Hamburg, a band pumped up the crowd, belting out  Celebration  by Kool & The Gang and Bryan Adams   Summer Of  69 . One or two greying supporters stood up and danced. SPD leader Martin Schulz told broadcaster RTL he believed there could still be a last-minute swing in his party s favor.  The experience of all elections, national or international, show that the number of undecided people is growing more and more,  Schulz said.  Everything is still possible.  A win for him would be against the run of the opinion polls. On Tuesday, a weekly survey conducted by Forsa showed support for Merkel s CDU/CSU bloc - known as the  Union  - at 36 percent, its lowest since April, but still far ahead of the SPD, on 23 percent. Attention in Germany is largely turning to who Merkel will govern with after the election, rather than whether she will stay in power. Latest surveys suggest that only another grand coalition of Merkel s conservatives with the SPD or a nationwide untested three-way  Jamaica  alliance of the conservatives, FDP and Greens would have a stable majority. A coalition involving the FDP could limit her room for maneuver on pressing ahead with euro zone reform. Without detailing how she wanted to develop the EU, Merkel delivered an impassioned defense of the European project, saying she regretted Britons  vote to leave the bloc.  I could stand here and talk for hours about how arduous Europe often is,  she said, before adding:  It always is worth standing up for Europe, even just because it gives us peace and freedom.

Summary: मर्केल ने मतदान से पहले समर्थकों को चेताया, 'यह अभी खत्म नहीं हुआ है'


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc YHOO.O came under renewed scrutiny by federal investigators and lawmakers on Thursday after disclosing the largest known data breach in history, prompting Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) to demand better terms for its planned purchase of Yahoo’s internet business. Shares of the Sunnyvale, California-based internet pioneer fell more than 6 percent after it announced the breach of data belonging to more than 1 billion users late on Wednesday, following another large hack reported in September. Verizon, which agreed to buy Yahoo’s core internet business in July for $4.8 billion, is now trying to persuade Yahoo to amend the terms of the acquisition agreement to reflect the economic damage from the two hacks, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. No. 1 wireless carrier still expects to go through with the deal, but is looking for “major concessions” in light of the most recent breach, according to another person familiar with the situation. Asked about the status of the deal, a Yahoo spokesperson said: “We are confident in Yahoo’s value and we continue to work towards integration with Verizon.” Verizon had already said in October it was reviewing the deal after September’s breach disclosure. Late on Wednesday, it said it would “review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions” about whether to proceed.  The company declined to comment beyond that statement on Thursday.  Verizon has threatened to go to court to get out of the deal if it is not repriced, citing a material adverse effect, said the people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. No court in Delaware, where Yahoo is incorporated, has ever found that a material adverse effect has occurred that would allow companies to terminate a merger agreement.  Nevertheless, the threat of a court case on the issue has been successfully used by companies to renegotiate deals, and experts said that some concessions from Yahoo are likely, given the magnitude of the cyber security breaches. Renegotiating the deal’s price tag would be the simplest but also least likely scenario because the impact of the data breaches will not be apparent for some time, according to Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.  A more likely concession would be for Yahoo to agree to compensate Verizon after the close of the deal, based on the liabilities that occur. The two companies may also agree to extend the close of the deal to allow for more time for information to come in on the impact of the breaches, Gordon suggested. Verizon shares rose 0.4 percent to close at $51.81, in line with the S&P 500 Index .SPX. Yahoo closed down 6.1 percent at $38.41.  Yahoo said late on Wednesday that it had uncovered a 2013 cyber attack that compromised data of more than 1 billion user accounts, the largest known breach on record.  It said the data stolen may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. The company added that some of its partners were affected. One such partner, Europe’s Sky Plc (SKYB.L), said Yahoo provides email services to its 2.1 million Sky.com email account holders, but it was unclear how many of those accounts were affected.  The announcement followed Yahoo’s disclosure in September of a separate breach that affected over 500 million accounts, which the company said it believed was launched by different hackers.  The White House said on Thursday the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was probing the breach. Several lawsuits seeking class-action status on behalf of Yahoo shareholders have been filed, or are in the works. Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said he was looking into Yahoo’s cyber security practices. “This most-recent revelation warrants a separate follow-up and I plan to press the company on why its cyber defenses have been so weak as to have compromised over a billion users,” he said in a statement. Warner, who will become the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee next year, described the hacks as “deeply troubling.”  New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman urged anyone with a Yahoo account to change their passwords and security questions and said he is examining the breach’s circumstances and the company’s disclosures to law enforcement.  Germany’s cyber security authority, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), advised German consumers to consider switching to safer alternatives for email, and criticized Yahoo for failing to adopt modern encryption techniques to protect users’ personal data. “Considering the repeated cases of data theft, users should look more closely at which services they want to use in the future and security should play a part in that decision,” BSI President Arne Schoenbohm said in a statement. The latest breach drew widespread criticism from security experts, several advising consumers to close their Yahoo accounts. “Yahoo has fallen down on security in so many ways I have to recommend that if you have an active Yahoo email account, either direct with Yahoo of via a partner like AT&T, get rid of it,” Stu Sjouwerman, chief executive of cyber security firm KnowBe4 Inc, said in a broadly distributed email.  A Yahoo spokesperson, in response to criticism of the company’s security measures, said on Thursday: “We’re committed to keeping our users secure, both by continuously striving to stay ahead of ever-evolving online threats and to keep our users and platforms secure.”

Summary: नवीनतम हैक के बाद याहू जांच के दायरे में, वेरिज़ोन ने सौदे की नई शर्तों की मांग की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called on Pakistan to ensure that its territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries, the White House said in a statement. The two leaders, who held a meeting at the White House on Monday, also “called on all nations to resolve territorial and maritime disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law,” the statement said.

Summary: ट्रम्प, भारत के मोदी ने पाकिस्तान से आतंकवादी हमलों को रोकने का आह्वान किया


(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday he would nominate retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a presidential rival-turned-supporter to serve as Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary.  Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as Trump works to form his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and media reports. See the end of list for posts already filled. * Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor  * Rudy Giuliani, Republican former mayor of New York City * Bob Corker, Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee * David Petraeus, retired general and former CIA director who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information that he shared with his biographer, with whom he was having an affair * Jon Huntsman, former Republican Utah governor and ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, ran for 2012 Republican presidential nomination in 2012  * James Stavridis, retired Navy Admiral * John Bolton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, foreign policy adviser to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney * Rex Tillerson, president and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil * Joe Manchin, Democratic U.S. Senator of West Virginia  * Dana Rohrabacher, Republican U.S. Representative of California and senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs * Michael McCaul, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee * David Clarke, Milwaukee County sheriff and vocal Trump supporter * Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, former leader of Southern Command  * Joe Arpaio, who lost his bid for re-election as Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff, and has campaigned for Trump * Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state * Frances Townsend, who was homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Republican President George W. Bush * Jeff Holmstead, energy lawyer, former EPA official during George W. Bush administration * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors  * Leslie Rutledge, Republican Arkansas attorney general * Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management * Scott Pruitt, Republican Oklahoma attorney general * Kevin Cramer, Republican U.S. representative from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors  * Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota * Joe Manchin, Democratic U.S. senator from West Virginia * Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc * Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp * James Connaughton, CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush * Rick Perry, former Republican Texas governor * Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil * Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in Gryphon * Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. representative from Washington state and House Republican Conference chair * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee * Jan Brewer, former Republican Arizona governor * Mary Fallin, Republican Oklahoma governor * Ray Washburne, CEO of investment company Charter Holdings * U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency * Ronald Burgess, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief  * Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Pete Hoekstra, former Republican U.S. representative from Michigan * Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor   * Dan DiMicco, former CEO of steel producer Nucor Corp * Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants  * Lou Barletta, Republican U.S. representative from Pennsylvania * Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission member and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration * Dr. Ben Carson, former 2016 Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon * Gary Cohn, Goldman president * Mick Mulvaney, Republican U.S. representative from South Carolina * Scott Brown, former Republican U.S. senator from Massachusetts * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor * Jeff Miller, former Republican U.S. representative from Florida who was chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee The Trump transition team confirmed the president-elect would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  * Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus * Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative website Breitbart News * Jeff Sessions, Republican U.S. senator from Alabama and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (subject to Senate confirmation) * Republican U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo from Kansas (subject to Senate confirmation) * Michael Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency * Nikki Haley, Republican South Carolina governor (subject to Senate confirmation) * Betsy DeVos, Republican donor and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party (subject to Senate confirmation) * Tom Price, Republican U.S. representative from Georgia,  orthopedic surgeon (subject to Senate confirmation) * Elaine Chao, former labor secretary and deputy transportation secretary under Republican Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, respectively (subject to Senate confirmation). Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell * Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman executive and Trump’s campaign finance chairman (subject to Senate confirmation) * Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor, chairman of Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co (subject to Senate confirmation) * James Mattis, retired Marine Corps general (subject to Senate confirmation) * Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः दावेदार, ट्रम्प प्रशासन में प्रमुख पदों के लिए चयन


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The wife of a detained former Mexican governor is living in Britain and has demanded back artwork, golf clubs and crystal that were seized by the government, according to a letter obtained by news site Animal Politico. Karime Macias is the wife of former ruling party Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte, who is awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement and organized crime, in a case that public auditors said was the worst they had ever seen in Mexico. In the letter, which the news site posted online, Macias said she was forced to leave the country and shelter in the UK because of  persecution  at home. Reuters did not obtain the letter and could not verify its authenticity. Macias  lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Macias has not been charged with any crime. Neither the attorney general s office nor the Veracruz government responded to requests for comment.  Macias confirmed in the letter that diaries in which she had reportedly written  I deserve abundance  repeatedly were hers, and said that her phrases were of a spiritual nature. Macias said she wanted back personal items including paintings, luxury pens, golf clubs and books that she said were seized by prosecutors without a warrant, adding that she feared other items found were planted there. In April, Duarte was arrested in a Guatemala hotel where he had been with his wife after fleeing the country. He has denied any wrongdoing, and Macias was not detained. Top Mexican auditor ASF said in 2016 that the irregularities in public funds under Duarte were the highest amount it had ever seen. Prosecutors say Duarte headed an organization consisting of at least nine other people, whose criminal operations were carried out in Veracruz, the eastern Gulf state of Campeche and Mexico City between 2011 and 2016. At a hearing in July, a judge gave prosecutors six months to proceed with the investigation against Duarte. He is one of four ex-governors detained this year from President Enrique Pena Nieto s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Corruption is one of the central issues in Mexico s July 2018 election, with public discontent widespread over a spate of conflict-of-interest rows that have dogged the Cabinet and Pena Nieto himself.

Summary: ब्रिटेन में शरण ले रही मैक्सिकन गवर्नर की पत्नीः रिपोर्ट


ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi government asked the autonomous Kurdish region on Sunday to hand over international border posts and its international airports, retaliating to a Kurdish independence referendum to be held on Monday in northern Iraq. It also asked the foreign countries to stop oil trading with the Kurdish region and to deal with the central government in regards to airports and borders, said a statement published by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi s office.

Summary: इराकी सरकार ने जनमत संग्रह विवाद में कुर्दिस्तान क्षेत्रीय सरकार से सीमा चौकियों, हवाई अड्डों को सौंपने को कहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her post on Sunday to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, following months of rising tensions within the group. “I think it’s most important for us, as we look at our choices as to who our next commander in chief will be, is to recognize the necessity to have a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment,” Gabbard, a U.S. representative for Hawaii, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Gabbard, one of five vice chairs, and her committee colleagues have butted heads over a thin debate schedule in the months leading to Democratic voting contests for the party’s nomination, with Gabbard calling for the group to add more debates to the calendar. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is competing with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination to run for president on Nov. 8. Critics have said the scheduling of the debates has favored Clinton, who is better known than Sanders and is favored to win the nominating contest. Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz issued a statement accepting Gabbard’s resignation, calling her a friend and praising the active-duty veteran for her service in the armed forces. “Congresswoman Gabbard is a role model who embodies the American ideal that anyone can dream big and make a difference,” Wasserman said in the statement.  “She is also a colleague in Congress and a friend, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside her when our Party unites behind whoever emerges as our nominee.”  (Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by David Goodman and Jonathan Oatis) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: कांग्रेस महिला ने डेमोक्रेटिक नेशनल कमेटी छोड़ी, बर्नी सैंडर्स का समर्थन किया


MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s High Court said on Wednesday it has called on the head of the Catalan police, Josep Lluis Trapero, to testify for the alleged crime of sedition in relation to arrests of high-ranking officials over the organization of a banned independence vote. High Court judge Carmen Lamela has also called on deputy police official Teresa Laplana and the heads of the independent groups Omnium Cultural and the ANC, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez.  Spanish police raided Catalan government offices and arrested officials September 20 to halt a banned referendum on independence.

Summary: स्पेन के उच्च न्यायालय ने कैटलन पुलिस के प्रमुख को गवाही देने के लिए बुलाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the Trump White House, it’s getting lonely at the top. President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress are showing signs of going their own way, both on politics and policy, determined to salvage what they can of their agenda on healthcare and tax reform in the wake of one of the most difficult weeks of any American presidency. At the same time, Trump’s failure to fill senior roles at federal agencies means he does not have a cadre of loyalists who can help rein in a bureaucracy that many in Trump’s orbit believe are out to leak information intended to damage the president. That has worsened the isolation of the White House in a city that relies on friends and allies to shake off a crisis. The result is problems on multiple fronts: a government whose bonds with Congress, federal agencies and the public look increasingly fractured; an ambitious but stalled program of reforms; and a president whose low approval ratings threaten his party’s control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. Trump and his beleaguered staff, some White House aides told Reuters, feel besieged by a parade of negative stories and abandoned by fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, as the furor over the firing of FBI Director James Comey and allegations that Trump tried to influence the probe into Russian meddling in last year’s election show little sign of abating. Since Tuesday, when leaked excerpts of a purported memo by Comey detailing his conversations with Trump were made public, few Republicans beyond the White House have rushed to the airwaves to push back against suggestions that the president may have obstructed justice in asking Comey to end the probe into the conduct of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. As the Russia probe entered a new phase on Wednesday with the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel in the investigation, a move that will likely place the White House under even stronger scrutiny, some Republicans expressed surprise that the White House had not done more to recruit them to backstop the president. “It’s kind of funny. The answer is no,” said Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, when asked by Reuters whether the White House had reached out to him to come to Trump’s defense. “I don’t know anyone else that has been contacted.”     The White House did not respond to a request for comment on this story. Trump left on Friday for his first foreign trip as president. The 10-day trip will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Europe.     The administration has continued to struggle to fill the hundreds of open positions at senior levels of government that remain open, leaving the White House alone to grapple with one challenge after another. For example, the Justice Department still lacks senior officials in place to head up the anti-trust, civil rights, criminal, and civil divisions, as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to its website. At the Department of Homeland Security, the chiefs of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Transportation Security Administration, have yet to be confirmed. And at the Department of Education, a sprawling bureaucracy of 4,400 employees with a $68 billion budget, “all the key roles except for the secretary remain empty or filled with people in an acting capacity,” said a Department of Education official. “Nobody knows when or if they will be filled anytime soon,” said the official, who declined to be identified by name. The department did not respond to a request for comment. Trump has frequently complained that Senate Democrats have stalled the approval process for his nominees. But the White House has also been slower to send nominees to the Senate than previous administrations. Many top State Department posts also remain vacant. One consequence, say several officials, is that department experts played little role in briefing Trump for his telephone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin or his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, where officials say he disclosed highly classified intelligence. State Department and intelligence officials say that as power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few Trump loyalists in the White House, the roles of professional Foreign Service, intelligence and civil service officers have shrunk compared to past administrations. For instance, said two U.S. diplomats, no one from the State Department attended Trump’s Feb. 15 meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - a sharp contrast from past administrations which would typically staff such a high-profile meeting with high-level State Department officials. Asked for comment, the State Department would not address the circumstances of the meeting with the Russian officials in the Oval Office, but did speak to the efforts involving Netanyahu and the Middle East.  “As the president has repeatedly noted, Middle East peace is a top priority for this administration,” a department spokesperson said. “This is an effort supported by both the White House and the State Department. Claims that the State Department has not been involved have no basis in facts.”  Overall, more than 500 of the 557 federal government positions requiring Senate confirmation remain vacant. Only 33 nominees have been confirmed, and only 57 other positions now have a nominee, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in Washington.     A lack of communication from the White House left many Republicans on Capitol Hill frustrated as a sense of crisis mushroomed over the past week. One, Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own Russia probe, publicly complained about the situation. Tuesday morning, after news broke the previous evening that Trump had shared classified information with Russian officials, Burr said he couldn’t get through to the White House, as the story lit up television news programs and buzzed online.  “Maybe they’re busy,” he said. Some Republicans said the constant focus on responding to allegations concerning the Russia probe was draining their caucus of focus and energy to push through their agenda. Absent guidance, Republican staff members in Congress were beginning to devise their own strategy about how to respond to the gusher of bad news, one aide told Reuters.  And at the White House, with lines of communication to Congress seemingly frayed at times, a narrowing circle of people has come to the president’s defense, as senior staff grapple not only with the cascade of revelations but with a president who at times contradicts on Twitter their talking points. “Everyone is just tired,” said one White House aide.

Summary: संकट में व्हाइट हाउस में, ट्रम्प तेजी से अलग-थलग दिख रहे हैं


GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations urged Sudan to end violence and human rights abuses against the 2.6 million people displaced by its long conflict in Darfur, a U.N. report documenting the abuses said on Tuesday. Conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms against Sudan s Arab-led government.  Progress on resolving the conflict was a key demand made by the United States before it lifted 20-year sanctions last month that had long-isolated the country. Sudan said last month that it would extend a unilateral ceasefire with rebels that has been in place since October 2016 until the end of December. The U.N. report found that  despite a ceasefire between the Government and various armed opposition groups ... violence against internally displaced people continues to be widespread and impunity for human rights violations persists.   I urge the Government to address fundamental issues that are preventing the return of displaced people, such as continued violence, including from armed militias, which raise continuing and justifiable fears for their safety and the lack of basic services that leave them dependent on aid,  U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein said in a statement.  People displaced by the conflict face  outright absence of law enforcement and judicial institutions  and  serious human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law,  the statement said.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने सूडान से दारफुर के विस्थापित लोगों की दुर्दशा में सुधार करने का आग्रह किया


DAVAO, Philippines/MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has a problem with women, says the woman who has known him longer than perhaps any other: his sister Jocellyn.  He s a chauvinist,  she told Reuters in a recent interview.  When he sees a woman who fights him, it really gets his ire.  Then Jocellyn ran through a list of Duterte s female critics that included his vice president, a prominent senator who is now in jail and the head of the Philippines Supreme Court.  All three have sparred with Duterte after denouncing his brutal war on drugs, which has killed thousands of people in the Asian nation since he took office in June 2016. Duterte has joked about rape, insulted the Pope and baffled friends and foes with often contradictory public statements. Neither this, nor his profanity-laden reactions to women critics, seem to have dented his popularity among Filipinos. The 72-year-old president is a self-confessed womanizer who once told a large gathering of local officials,  I can t imagine life without Viagra.  On the campaign trail last year, he joked about the gang rape of an Australian missionary who was killed in a prison riot. Speaking to Philippine troops in May, he said he would take responsibility for any rape they might commit.  But women s rights advocates also praise him for handing out free contraceptives in his hometown, Davao City, where he was mayor for 22 years, and for championing a reproductive health bill opposed by the country s influential Catholic Church. In a recent statement, even Human Rights Watch - a fervent critic of the drug war - acknowledged Duterte s  strong support  for legislation aimed at protecting and promoting women. After nearly 15 months in power, he remains highly popular with men and women alike, according to the latest survey by Manila-based pollster Social Weather Stations. While foreigners frown at Duterte s rape jokes, says Gina Lopez, a former environment secretary in Duterte s male-dominated cabinet, Filipinos judge him by his actions not his words.  When I see him dealing with women in the cabinet or whatever, he has been very above-board, very decent,  she told Reuters. She said this decency also once extended to Vice-President Leni Robredo, who has publicly fallen out with Duterte. She is from an opposition party and was elected separately.  He really liked Leni. They got along and he was always flirting,  said Lopez.  That s what men do, right?  In a statement to Reuters, the president s office called Duterte  an advocate of women s rights  who had launched a  massive campaign against gender bias  while mayor of Davao. As president, it added, he had  hand-picked the best and brightest women  for his cabinet. Three of the country s 25 cabinet secretaries or ministers are women. Duterte spends up to four days a week in his far-flung hometown Davao, ruling a nation of 100 million people not from the presidential palace in the capital, Manila, but from a modest house shaded by a jackfruit tree. Duterte was mayor of Davao for 22 years. He sleeps until lunchtime, holds cabinet meetings infrequently and sometimes announces major policies without forewarning senior officials, leaving them scrambling to catch up. Duterte s volatility has baffled Washington, which has long seen the Philippines as a bulwark against Chinese expansionism. He has courted Beijing and publicly berated the United States in rambling speeches. Much of Duterte s venom is reserved for women who oppose him. In August, he called Agnes Callamard, a U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, a  daughter of a whore  after she condemned the police shooting of a teenage drug suspect.  He s a misogynist,  said Senator Leila de Lima, who spoke to Reuters at a police detention facility in Manila. De Lima was arrested in February on drugs charges she says were trumped up as part of a presidential vendetta.  To him, women are inferior,  she said.  It s totally insulting to him that a woman would be fighting him.  According to Jocellyn Duterte, Duterte is also fighting with the woman he hopes will cement his political legacy: his daughter Sara. Sara Duterte reluctantly replaced her father as mayor of Davao City in the southern Philippines when he became president. Father and daughter barely speak, said Jocellyn.  I know in his quiet moments he considers himself a failure as a father because of Sara fighting with him,  she said. Jocellyn said she had her own problems with her older brother but they now get along. They have two other brothers. Jocellyn, who refers to the president as  the mayor,  said Duterte still eats the same simple food their mother Soledad once cooked: cheap fish simmered in vinegar. She also traces Duterte s authoritarianism to Soledad, who punished her children with a horsewhip or made them kneel at an altar for hours.   You can see that in the mayor,  says Jocellyn.  Sometimes people perceive it as arrogance or call it close to being a dictator. But we grew up in that atmosphere.  Their father Vicente, also a politician, was often absent, and the young Duterte saw the bodyguards, police and soldiers around him as role models, his sister said. He grew up in a macho culture where wives and daughters were expected to be submissive, Jocellyn said. His daughter Sara is anything but. In 2011, during her first term as Davao s mayor, she was caught on camera punching a local official who angered her. In 2016, Sara ran as mayor again, but only because she was  pressured  by her father s supporters, she told Reuters.  If it were up to me, I would not have run,  she said. She said she now only saw her father on special occasions, such as birthdays and Christmas, but denied they had differences.  He s very busy,  she said. Duterte and his daughter have  a normal Filipino parent-child relationship which has its own share of ups and downs,  said the president s office in its statement. Like her father, Sara is blunt, down-to-earth and thronged by admirers at public appearances in Davao. She told Reuters she wanted to practice law and, once her three-year term as mayor was up, had no wish or intention to continue in politics. But in a country famous for political dynasties spanning many generations, Duterte wants his daughter to  preserve what the family has done for the city,  said Jocellyn.  He is trying to instill in Sara that it is our legacy,  she said.  Maybe she needs more time.

Summary: राष्ट्रपति की सभी महिलाएँः दुतेर्ते की सबसे उग्र आलोचक और एक आश्चर्यजनक राजनीतिक उत्तराधिकारी


HANOI (Reuters) -  This isn t like China,  says Vietnamese activist  Anh Chi  at a noisy bar off one of the narrow streets of Hanoi s Old Quarter.  They can t shut Facebook down here.  His 40,000 Facebook followers make him one of Vietnam s better-known critics, but by no means the biggest in a Communist state whose attempts to crack down on dissidents have collided with the rapidly expanding reach of foreign-owned social media. Vietnam s President Tran Dai Quang this month called for unspecified tougher internet controls in the face of  hostile forces  that he said threatened not only cybersecurity but also  undermined the prestige of the leaders of the party and the state . But taming the internet in a young, fast-growing country is not easy, especially when the companies providing the platform are global. China, in contrast, allows only local internet companies operating under strict rules. Vietnam is among Facebook s top 10 countries, by number of members. It now reports more than 52 million active accounts to advertisers, according to research provided to Reuters by social media agencies We Are Social and Hootsuite. Google s YouTube and Twitter are popular too. As elsewhere in Southeast Asia, social media underpins business and communications as well as government critics. Some dissidents posting on social media have been caught in a major crackdown that has followed changes in the ruling party hierarchy. At least 15 people have been arrested this year. High profile bloggers Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as  Mother Mushroom , and Tran Thi Nga have been jailed for 10 and nine years respectively. Government critics also complain of beatings by unidentified assailants and intimidation. But dozens of activists still post critical comment every day. Several have more than 100,000 followers and at least one has over 400,000 - more than double that for the government s own Facebook page and nearly a 10th the size of the Communist Party s national membership.  We use any chance we have to raise our voice: environmental issues, territorial issues, land issues,  said  Anh Chi , 43, a Vietnamese teacher, translator and publisher whose real name is Nguyen Chi Tuyen. Vietnam tried to pressure Facebook (FB.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) to take down thousands items of anti-government content in March by leaning on advertisers, but the continued prevalence suggests limited success. One reason it is hard to take tougher action is business: From brewers to insurers to the makers of the motorbikes buzzing Vietnam s streets, social media is a key marketing route to young and increasingly affluent consumers in an economy growing at more than 6 percent a year, one of the fastest rates in Asia. For small businesses it is crucial: One new silk flower shop in Hanoi told Reuters 95 percent of customers found it through Facebook or Instagram.  You ve got kids that are building businesses on these platforms and generating significant success,  said Simon Kemp, founder of the Kepios marketing consultancy. While it accounts for only a tiny part of Facebook or Google parent Alphabet s revenue, Vietnam is a hot target for global consumer brands. Asia-Pacific was Facebook s fastest growing region by revenue last year, up nearly 60 percent. Tighter Internet controls could dampen innovation and impact the growth of Vietnam s digital economy and its competitiveness, said Jeff Paine, managing director of the Asia Internet Coalition, whose members include Facebook, Google and Twitter. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. Google declined to comment. Vietnam s foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told Reuters the government was an advocate of the internet but tried to minimize  behaviors that harm users and illegal acts such as inciting violence and a depraved lifestyle . China blocked Facebook in 2009 and only local sites such as WeChat and Weibo are permitted, operating under laws that ban content that is obscene, violent or offends the Communist Party.  China has had remarkable success controlling discussion,  said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project and a fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. Tools include keyword filtering by the local internet companies and the close monitoring of big networks, he said. Even so, China has said it is investigating its top social media sites for failing to comply with its laws. Facebook has been blocked in Vietnam occasionally - sometimes at sensitive moments - but never for long.  Vietnamese authorities have tried for years and so far failed to stop independent journalists and bloggers from using the internet,  said Shawn Crispin, Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists.  It s a losing battle.  That does not stop activists being targeted for arrest. Activist Pham Doan Trang noted on Facebook that some campaigners appeared to have withdrawn from the scene in the face of the crackdown, but said she would not be discouraged.  Freedom has a very funny rule,  she told Reuters  Once people know the limit of freedom they will never go back.

Summary: वियतनाम के फेसबुक असंतुष्ट कम्युनिस्ट राज्य की सीमाओं का परीक्षण करते हैं


MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A court in Somalia on Thursday released without charge a former minister and government critic who spent two days in jail after being arrested for alleged treason, an arrest which ignited a smoldering political crisis for the fragile government. Abdirahman Abdishakur was released after the attorney general, who had ordered his arrest, had failed to bring evidence against him, Judge Aweys Sheikh Abdullahi told a courtroom. He was released at midnight after reconciliation efforts between the government and traditional leaders before  Thursday s court ruling, Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said. Somali attorney general Ahmed Ali Dahir said he planned to appeal the ruling and criticized the court for not granting him five extra days to investigate as he had requested.   The case is in its first phase,  he told reporters.  The attorney general s office was not given the investigation period  it asked for.  Earlier this week, Dahir had described Abdishakur s house as a hub for the opposition and a gathering point for people who wanted to replace the government. The arrest of Abdishakur, who ran in the February election won by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, followed mounting pressure on the president and his U.N.-backed government to end an Islamist insurgency.  On Wednesday, some Somali lawmakers said they planned to impeach the president. [L4N1OK3Z0] Parliament adjourned last week until the end of February, but some legislators want it to reconvene on an emergency basis, lawmaker Mahad Salad told Reuters. The political turmoil endangers fragile gains against the Islamist al Shabaab insurgency. Islamist militants al Shabaab have been stepping up pressure on Mohamed s government by staging frequent and increasingly large-scale bombings against both civilian and military targets in recent months in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere.  The group is fighting to expel African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM from Somalia, topple the federal government and impose rule based on its strict interpretation of Islam s sharia law. More than 500 people were killed in twin bomb blasts in Mogadishu in October while this month a suicide bomber killed at least 18 people at a Mogadishu police academy. Early on Thursday, al Shabaab militants ambushed three vehicles belonging to the military s U.S.-trained special forces unit Danab on a road between Mogadishu and the town of Wanlaweyn. The group said it seized the three cars while residents said they saw two burning cars. Police Major Ahmed Nur told Reuters al Shabaab had targeted the convoy with a roadside bomb before ambushing it.  We sent reinforcement to the area but we believe many died from both sides,  he said.  We ambushed the so-called military commandos and took their pickups,  Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab s military operation spokesman, said. Somalia has been locked in lawlessness and violence since the early 1990s, following the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Summary: सोमालिया ने जेल में बंद पूर्व मंत्री और सरकारी आलोचक को रिहा किया


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Jewish ultra-Orthodox demonstrators protesting the arrest of a prospective army conscript from their community clashed with police in Jerusalem on Sunday and eight men were detained, police said. Police used a water canon and mounted officers dispersed the protest that briefly turned violent near Jerusalem s military recruiting office which lies on the edge of one of the city s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. Although most ultra-Orthodox seminary students gain exemption from military service on religious grounds, they must obtain their exemption through a conscription procedure. Police said the protest was prompted by the man s arrest after he refused to turn up for recruitment. Last week Israel s Supreme Court ruled that parts of the conscription law that exempt seminary students were unconstitutional and gave the government a year to resolve the matter. Most Jewish Israelis, men and women, are called up for military service when they turn 18. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said protesters blocked streets and threw stones at police officers. Video footage showed officers kicking, punching and pushing some demonstrators and a few were dragged across a street.

Summary: येरुशलम में हिंसक झड़प में अति-रूढ़िवादी प्रदर्शनकारी गिरफ्तार


LONDON (Reuters) - Two men arrested on suspicion of belonging to a banned far-right group and planning terrorist acts have been released without charge, British police said on Sunday. The men were among five, including some serving soldiers, arrested on Sept. 5 as part of a pre-planned, intelligence-led operation. They were detained on suspicion of being involved in the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism and of being members of neo-Nazi organization the National Action group.   Two men arrested by officers from West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit on suspicion of terrorism offences have been released from custody ... without charge following enquiries,  West Midlands Police said in a statement.  Three other men ... continue to remain in police custody. Detectives have been granted extra time to question the men.

Summary: ब्रिटेन पुलिस ने दूर-दराज़ आतंकवाद के संदेह में गिरफ्तार किए गए समूह के दो लोगों को रिहा कर दिया


(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld federal disclosure rules for political advertising, rejecting an appeal by a Denver-based libertarian think tank that wanted to run an ad without being forced to divulge its major donors. The Denver-based Independence Institute sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing the law requiring such disclosure violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling last year in favor of the commission. It was the latest in a decade-long series of cases brought by conservatives aiming to roll back federal campaign finance restrictions. The Independence Institute was supported in the case by influential Republican and conservative voices including Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the  Judicial Watch legal activist group as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business group. The institute, ahead of the 2014 congressional elections, had sought to run a radio advertisement about increasing prison costs, telling listeners to urge their Colorado U.S. senators to support sentencing reform. Because the ad mentioned a senator by name in the lead up to an election, it triggered a provision in the 2002 campaign finance statute known as the McCain-Feingold law requiring the institute to file with the election commission and disclose any donors supporting the ad. The law was enacted to combat an explosion of what is known as “soft money” in campaigns through so-called sham issue advertisements, which cloaked partisan advocacy in discussions of public policy. Though the Supreme Court allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions in its landmark 2010 decision in the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case, the court also upheld disclosure requirements for campaign ads. The Federal Election Commission said that for more than a century federal law has required organizations that influence elections to disclose information about their funding sources, a principle upheld in the Citizens United ruling. The Independence Institute sued in federal court in Washington in a bid to keep the names of its donors secret, arguing that its proposed ad focused on the sentencing reforms that senators were considering, not any senator’s re-election campaign.  Last October, a three-judge panel of the federal court ruled against the group, saying it would be impossible to distinguish genuine issue ads that reference candidates from campaign-style ads that openly promote or disparage a candidate.

Summary: अमेरिकी शीर्ष अदालत ने राजनीतिक विज्ञापन प्रकटीकरण नियमों को चुनौती देने से इनकार कर दिया


BEIJING (Reuters) - One of China s  most-wanted  overseas fugitives, a manager in a real estate company sought on charges of corruption and bribery, turned himself in on Tuesday after fleeing to Canada seven years ago, the anti-graft agency said. He Jian, a manager in the northern province of Hebei who had fled in September 2010, becomes the 49th on a list of 100 most-wanted individuals to return, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said on its website.  Reuters could not immediately reach He, his family, or a legal representative to seek comment. He s assets were frozen after he fled and Interpol issued a  red notice  for his provisional arrest, the agency said, but it did not make clear where He lived after his flight to Canada, nor from which country he had returned. The widely-publicized  Fox Hunt  and  Sky Net  operations to repatriate overseas fugitives suspected of corruption and economic crimes constitute a key plank of President Xi Jinping s sweeping anti-graft campaign. China published its list of  most-wanted  suspects believed to be hiding overseas in April 2015.  But it has had limited success in securing cooperation from Western countries, including Australia, Canada and the United States, where many of the most wanted live, largely because of what those governments see as a lack of transparency and due process in China s judicial system.

Summary: चीनी 'मोस्ट वांटेड' भगोड़ा कनाडा भागने के सात साल बाद लौटा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who advocates for strong financial regulation, asked U.S. securities regulators on Thursday to investigate comments made by major insurance companies about a forthcoming federal rule on retirement advice. Last month, Warren criticized Lincoln National, Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Prudential Financial and Transamerica, a unit of Aegon NV , for publicly stating that the rule requiring retirement advisers to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own would hurt business while privately telling investors it would not create a major hurdle. On Thursday, she went one step further and requested the Securities and Exchange Commission to formally look into whether the statements were contradictory and ran afoul of securities laws.  “Both sets of industry claims - that the proposed rule will harm them and their business model, and that the proposed rule will not harm them and their business model - cannot possibly be true. And if one these public statements is materially false, it would appear to violate long-standing interpretations of our securities laws,” she wrote to SEC Chair Mary Jo White. The White House will soon publicly release the latest version of the rule, drafted by the Labor Department. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law called for holding brokers who give retirement advice to a strong fiduciary standard, meaning they must act in their clients’ best interest, as a way to protect retirees from buying unnecessary products that line brokers’ pockets. The Labor Department had to withdraw its initial version of the rule in 2011 after complaints from members of both political parties and the financial services industry. Warren says that financial and insurance companies have warned in public that the proposed rule could drive up costs and stop them from offering retirement services such as annuities to middle- and lower-income people. But in earnings calls they have reassured investors that they will come up with new products or approaches that will minimize threats to their businesses. Responding to Warren’s critique last month, most of the insurers said their public warnings did not contradict reassurances to investors that they could withstand regulatory changes. They said their companies could navigate potential disruptions but they were still concerned about the consequences for consumers seeking retirement advice.

Summary: सीनेटर वारेन ने सेवानिवृत्ति नियम पर बीमाकर्ताओं की जांच की मांग की


PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump hinted on Tuesday that he would issue a pardon for Joe Arpaio, a controversial former sheriff convicted last month of criminal contempt in a racial profiling case. Trump, who had already held out the possibility of a pardon for Arpaio, decided against announcing it at a major rally in Arizona on Tuesday night but suggested that he would step in at some point. “I’ll make a prediction. I think he’s going to be just fine, okay? But I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy. But Sheriff Joe can feel good,” he said.  Arpaio, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, was the sheriff of Maricopa County in Phoenix before he lost a re-election bid in 2016. Last month a judge found him guilty of contempt for intentionally defying a 2011 court order that barred his officers from stopping and detaining Latino motorists solely on suspicion that they were in the United States illegally. The judge in the underlying lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others in 2007, held that such traffic stops were a violation of the motorists’ constitutional rights. Arpaio, who was in office for 24 years, gained national prominence for his treatment of jail inmates and crackdown on undocumented immigrants.  Arpaio’s situation resonated with the crowd of Trump supporters. “Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?” Trump asked, sparking loud applause and a chant of “Pardon Joe!”  “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?” Trump said. His mention of Arpaio seemed to contradict comments by White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who told reporters earlier in the day that the subject would not come up. “There will be no discussion of that today at any point and no action will be taken on that front at any point today,” she told reporters traveling on Air Force One.

Summary: ट्रंप ने एरिजोना के पूर्व शेरिफ अर्पायो के लिए माफी के संकेत दिए


LIMA (Reuters) - Peru said on Monday that it was expelling North Korea s ambassador over the country s refusal to heed the world s  constant calls  to end its nuclear program. The ambassador, Kim Hak-Chol, has five days to leave Peru, the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement. Earlier this month North Korea launched its biggest nuclear bomb test, prompting global condemnation as U.S. President Donald Trump said  appeasement  would not work. Peru stressed that it was committed to a peaceful solution to the dispute and  strict compliance  with resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council. The UN Security Council is set to vote on Monday to impose new sanctions on North Korea after the United States watered down the text of a resolution to appease China and Russia. Peru said it would  carry out all diplomatic efforts aimed at denuclearizing the North Korean peninsula.  Peru s announcement follows a similar move by Mexico last week and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence s public call last month for Latin American nations to isolate Pyongyang. North Korea s embassy in Lima declined comment.

Summary: पेरू ने कहा, परमाणु कार्यक्रम को लेकर उत्तर कोरिया के राजदूत को निष्कासित किया जा रहा है