WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to slap tariffs on Chinese products to show Beijing that the United States is “not playing games anymore” when it comes to leveling the field on trade. Addressing a rally in Tampa, Florida, Trump said that if he was elected in November, he would instruct the U.S. trade representative to bring cases against China both in the United States and at the World Trade Organization.  Tariffs would be necessary in some cases “because they have to understand that we’re not playing games anymore,” he added. Trump had previously pledged a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Trump said on Wednesday that the trade deficit with China was more than $500 billion, although the figure given by the U.S. government put it at $367 billion in 2015. The United States has brought cases against China at the WTO, and U.S. officials have frequently slapped antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese products under U.S. law based on complaints brought by U.S. producers. “We believe that whoever wins the U.S election, future U.S. leaders will continue to adopt a basic policy of mutual cooperation with China that accords with U.S. interests and the interests of the U.S. people,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters on Thursday. Trump, who is running behind Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in opinion polls, has pledged to return manufacturing jobs to America, although many economists believe that the “China shock” has long since passed. Economists at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere estimate that the “China shock” in the wake of the country’s accession to the WTO cost 800,000 to 1 million jobs in the United States. By way of comparison, U.S. manufacturing has shed 5 million jobs since 2000.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने चीन के व्यापार पर निशाना साधा, कहा-गंभीर कदम उठाने की योजना बना रहे हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Russia was hurting U.S. efforts to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons while China had been helpful. In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump said it would be easier to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue if the United States had a better relationship with Russia.  China is helping us and maybe Russia s going through the other way and hurting what we re getting,  Trump said of the North Korea situation. A series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have ratcheted up tensions. Trump has pressed China to help rein in North Korea s nuclear program. China, North Korea s sole major ally, accounts for more than 90 percent of trade with the isolated country. Trump said in a tweet that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday and the conversation included North Korea. U.S.-Russia relations have been strained over allegations Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Moscow s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its backing of the Syrian government.   I think we could have a good relationship  with Russia, Trump said. I think that North Korean situation would be easier settled.  Trump said during last year s campaign he hoped to improve relations with Moscow.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया के परमाणु मुद्दे पर अमेरिकी प्रयासों को रूस से नुकसानः ट्रम्प


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday said it not currently considering a value-added tax and a carbon tax as part of a planned tax code overhaul as it searches for ways to fund a major tax cut. The Washington Post had reported the White House was considering the VAT and carbon tax reforms Tuesday, citing an unidentified administration official and a person briefed on the matter. “The president’s team is hearing input from experts on all sides of the tax reform debate as we formulate what will ultimately be the president’s plan to enact the first significant tax reform since 1986. As of now, neither a carbon tax nor a VAT are under consideration,” said White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters. The administration is looking for funding for ways to pay for President Donald Trump’s promised cuts in middle class and corporate taxes. This is the second time the administration has played down the chances of a carbon tax. On Feb. 8, officials met with a group of Republicans who called for a $40 per ton tax on carbon emissions to fend off global climate change. Many Republicans have opposed a carbon tax arguing it would cut jobs and hike energy costs. The Washington Post said the new options reflect the challenges presented by a possible border adjustment tax that Republicans have been considering. A House panel has been working on a plan since mid-2016 that would cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, end taxing foreign profits for U.S.-based multinationals and cut other tax rates for businesses and investors. The plan has divided businesses, prompting import-dependent industries to warn of higher prices for consumer goods from clothing and electronics to gasoline.

Summary: ट्रम्प अब मूल्य वर्धित कर या कार्बन कर पर विचार नहीं कर रहे हैंः व्हाइट हाउस


SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe visited a hospital in Singapore this week apparently for medical checks, his first trip outside his country since he was ousted from office last month, sources in Singapore said on Thursday. The 93-year-old former leader who ruled the southern African nation for 37 years, resigned after the army and his ruling ZANU-PF party turned against him when it became clear that his 52-year-old wife, Grace, was being groomed as his successor. Mugabe left Harare with his wife and aides on Monday evening, a Zimbabwe state security official said this week. He was expected to also visit Malaysia where his daughter is expecting a child. An Air Zimbabwe flight arrived in Singapore on Tuesday. Mugabe visited a private hospital in central Singapore on Wednesday with an entourage that included his security guards, the sources who were familiar with the visit told Reuters. They spoke on the condition they were not identified as they are not authorized to speak to the media. A spokesman at the hospital said he would not be able to confirm whether Mugabe had visited its clinics. Mugabe has a reputation for extensive international travel, including regular medical trips to Singapore - a source of public anger among his impoverished citizens.

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे के पूर्व नेता मुगाबे ने सिंगापुर के अस्पताल का दौरा कियाः सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday repealed a measure granting automatic residency to virtually every Cuban who arrived in the United States, whether or not they had visas, ending a longstanding exception to U.S. immigration policy. The end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached U.S. soil to stay but returned any picked up at sea, is effective immediately. Cuban officials had sought the change for years. The shift had been in the works for months. It was announced abruptly because advance warning might have inspired thousands more people to take to the seas between the Communist-ruled island and Florida in order to beat a deadline. The United States and Cuba spent several months negotiating the change, including an agreement from Cuba to allow those turned away from the United States to return. “With this change we will continue to welcome Cubans as we welcome immigrants from other nations, consistent with our laws,” Obama said in a statement. The Department of Homeland Security also ended a parole program that allowed entry for Cuban medical professionals. That program was unpopular with Havana because it prompted doctors to leave, sapping the country’s pool of trained health workers. The U.S. Coast Guard intercepts thousands of Cubans attempting the 90-mile (145-km) crossing to Florida every year, but tens of thousands who reach U.S. soil, including via Mexico, have been allowed to stay in the country, while immigrants from other nations have been rounded up and sent home. Cuba welcomed the policy changes, saying they would benefit the whole region by discouraging people-trafficking and dangerous journeys that led to bottlenecks of Cubans in Central America last year. “Today, a detonator of immigration crises is eliminated. The United States achieves legal, secure and ordered migration from Cuba,” said Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign ministry’s chief for U.S. affairs.  El Salvador’s foreign ministry also welcomed the move, saying “there cannot be migrants of different categories.” Honduras, from where thousands flee each year without the attraction of favorable U.S. immigration policies, said it would wait to see if the flow of Cubans actually reduced.  Anticipating the end of the policy, Cuban immigration has surged since the 2014 normalization, said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser. “People were motivated to migrate,” Rhodes told reporters on a call, noting some 40,000 Cubans arrived in 2015 and about 54,000 in 2016. The administration had rejected Cuban entreaties to overturn the policy before President Barack Obama’s historic visit to the island last year, although even some White House aides argued that it was outmoded given efforts to regularize relations between the former Cold War foes.  “Wet foot, dry foot” began in 1995 under President Bill Clinton after an exodus of tens of thousands of Cubans who were picked up at sea by the Coast Guard as they tried to reach Florida. Obama has been working to normalize relations with Cuba since he and President Raul Castro announced a breakthrough in diplomatic relations in December 2014. His administration has eased restrictions on travel and trade, allowing more U.S. business with Cuba and improved communications with the island. The move to end the policy comes just eight days before the Democratic president turns the White House over to Republican Donald Trump, who has said the United States should get more concessions from Havana in exchange for improved relations. U.S. immigration policy has given Cubans benefits granted to nationals from no other country. Until now, virtually every Cuban who made it to U.S. soil was granted the right to stay in the country, the right to apply for work permits and, later, green cards, which convey lawful permanent residency. Jeh Johnson, secretary of Homeland Security, said on a call that Cuba will take back citizens as long as less than four years have passed between the time the migrant left Cuba and the start of the U.S. deportation proceedings.  Under the agreement Cuba will take back some 2,700 people who left the island among 125,000 others during the Mariel boat lift of 1980, fulfilling an agreement made in 1984 to take back 2,746 people who the United States did not grant citizenship to, mainly people with criminal convictions.  Cuba has previously taken back only a handful of that group.  The new policy sparked mixed emotions in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.  Mario Garcia, a Cuban mechanic in Little Havana, said the change angered him. “It’s not like Communism has ended in Cuba, so why stop this that has saved people’s lives?” he said. But Eulalia Jimenez, who is Venezuelan, said the policy was not fair to migrants from other countries who also flee bad conditions. “Why should only the Cuban people be able to come and make a life for themselves?” Jimenez said.   Some U.S. lawmakers had been demanding a fresh look at the immigration rules, saying Cubans coming to the United States simply for economic reasons should not be automatically granted benefits intended for refugees. “This is a welcome step in reforming an illogical and discriminatory policy that contrasted starkly with the treatment of deserving refugees from other countries,” Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said in a statement. Republican Senator Jeff Flake also said eliminating the policy was “a win for taxpayers, border security and our allies in the Western Hemisphere.”  Flake and Leahy both support Obama’s moves toward freer trade and travel with Cuba. But U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said the incoming Trump adminstration should reverse the part of the executive order that ended the medical parole system, and said Cubans fleeing political persecution should receive asylum.  The Department of Homeland Security is also eliminating an exemption that prevented the use of expedited removal programs for Cuban nationals picked up at ports of entry or near the border. But an existing Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program is not affected by Thursday’s announcement and remains in effect.

Summary: ओबामा प्रशासन ने क्यूबा के लोगों के लिए विशेष आप्रवासन नीति समाप्त की


(This version of the story from 8th October has been refiled to fix a typo in the headline) MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian firefighters on Sunday used specially equipped helicopters to dump water on a construction goods market on the northwestern edge of Moscow that caught fire. The fire at the market sent a thick cloud of gray smoke billowing into the air, footage broadcast on Russian television showed. The fire was causing tailbacks on the nearby Moscow orbital highway, according to live traffic data.  Three thousand shoppers and staff have been evacuated from the market, Russian media quoted emergency services officials as saying. There were no reports of any casualties.

Summary: रूसी अग्निशामकों ने बाजार की आग बुझाने के लिए हेलीकॉप्टरों का उपयोग किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have reached an agreement in principle on tax reform legislation, the Associated Press reported on Twitter on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. The AP gave no further details and Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the report.

Summary: अमेरिकी सदन और सीनेट के नेता कर योजना पर 'सैद्धांतिक रूप से' सहमत हुएः एपी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department’s legal office has reminded employees  not to promote private interests on social media after its online accounts publicized President Donald Trump’s private Florida resort and his daughter Ivanka Trump’s new book. An article on a State Department website in April about Mar-a-Lago and a retweet in May about the book were eventually withdrawn, but the new guidance issued on Tuesday said employees should “exercise caution before using a Department social media account to highlight non-official activities of U.S. government officials and their family.” The guidance was posted on an internal website and written by the Office of Ethics and Financial Disclosure of the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. A State Department official declined to comment on internal communications but said the legal adviser’s office routinely provides guidance to employees on ethics matters. The guidance was directed to social media managers who oversee hundreds of official government accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms used by State Department agencies, consulates and embassies to communicate information and U.S. foreign policy. The guidance, which was seen by Reuters, never specifically mentions Trump or his family. But its content appeared to be at least in part in response to the postings on the resort and the book. “If a government official has a commercial enterprise or has published a book, U.S. government resources should not be used to publicize those ventures,” the guidance said.  The posting on Trump’s resort was shared on the websites and social media accounts of several U.S. embassies. Ethics experts said the piece represented use of public office for private gain. The State Department said the article had been meant to inform the public about where Trump had been hosting world leaders. A Twitter account for the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues retweeted a post by Ivanka Trump in which she promoted her new book. Ivanka Trump serves in the White House as an adviser to her father. Trump maintains ownership of his global business empire, though he has handed control to his two oldest sons, an arrangement that ethics watchdogs say does not prevent conflicts of interest.

Summary: ट्रम्प के हितों पर पोस्ट के बाद विदेश विभाग ने कर्मचारियों को नैतिकता पर याद दिलाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior White House official said former Republican congressman Mike Rogers is being considered as a candidate to replace FBI Director James Comey, who was fired late on Tuesday by President Donald Trump. Rogers briefly served on the Trump transition team and was a national security adviser to the Trump campaign. He is a former chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee and was an FBI agent in Chicago for five years before retiring in 1994 to begin a career in  Michigan politics.  A spokeswoman for Rogers did not immediately comment on the report.  In 2013, the FBI Agents Association urged then-President Barack Obama to nominate Rogers, but Obama chose Comey instead.

Summary: पूर्व रिपब्लिकन सांसद माइक रोजर्स कोमी की जगह लेने के लिए उम्मीदवारः व्हाइट हाउस अधिकारी


BERLIN (Reuters) - Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage said on Friday that British Prime Minister Theresa May might be out of a job by Christmas unless she manages to get her party behind her and take charge of Brexit negotiations. Speaking at an election campaign event for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Berlin, Farage said May needed to rapidly assert her authority over her Conservatives and also over the Brexit negotiations.  If she doesn t do those two things - doesn t get some sense of order back into her own party and direction back into where the negotiations are going then I think the whispering campaign will go from something that is being done in private to being done in public and she might not last til Christmas,  he said. At a citadel on the outskirts of Germany s capital, Farage said leading British ministers have been contradicting each other on a weekly basis so the government looked rudderless.  She has to stamp her authority on the party and do so pretty damn quickly,  said Farage, who while leader of the anti-EU UKIP Party played an important role in pressuring then-Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the Brexit referendum.

Summary: ब्रिटेन के फराज का कहना है कि पीएम क्रिसमस तक नहीं चल सकते हैं


BEIJING (Reuters) - The situation on the Korean peninsula is getting more serious by the day and cannot be allowed to spin out of control, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his German counterpart, the state-run China News Service said on Thursday. A resolution to the North Korea issue cannot only rely on sanctions and not talks, Wang said, meeting German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York on Wednesday, the report added.

Summary: चीन ने कहा, उत्तर कोरिया की स्थिति दिन-ब-दिन गंभीर होती जा रही है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. senators signaled on Wednesday a new willingness to consider restrictions on the sale of guns after the Orlando nightclub massacre, with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and others in his party ready to discuss limited gun control measures.  With Republicans and the National Rifle Association gun lobby under pressure to respond to the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Trump said he would meet with the NRA to discuss ways to block people on terrorism watch or no-fly lists from buying guns.  Emotions have run high in Congress since Sunday’s mass shooting with Democrats stalling Senate proceedings on Wednesday in a bid to push for tougher gun control legislation. Democratic senators planned to speak on the Senate floor well into Wednesday night.  The Senate began discussions on legislation to ban firearm sales to the hundreds of thousands of people on U.S. terrorism watch lists after a gunman who had been on such a list killed 49 people at a gay nightclub on Sunday. But following a full day of wrangling, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said that negotiations “were little more than a smokescreen by Republicans trying to give themselves political cover while they continue to march in lock-step with the NRA’s extreme positions.” Reid said there were no Republican proposals “that come close to attracting Democratic support.” Earlier on Wednesday, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged senators to offer ideas on how to prevent another attack like the one in Orlando.  “I do not believe this was some random act of violence,” McConnell said. “It seems clear this was cold-blooded murder committed by a terrorist who picked his targets with deliberate malice.” On Tuesday, McConnell said that “nobody wants terrorists to have firearms.”  Earlier in the week, some Democrats in the House of Representatives interrupted a moment of silence for the victims, with shouts of “Where’s the bill?” to protest the Republican-led chamber’s refusal to consider tougher gun laws.   If Congress was to pass a gun control measure, it would mark the first time in more than 20 years that lawmakers agreed on how to address the hot-button issue. A ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, such as the one used in Orlando, had gone into effect in 1994 and expired 10 years later. Republicans over the years have blocked gun control measures saying they step on Americans’ right to bear arms as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.  Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, confirmed that he and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein were holding private talks on a possible compromise bill stopping weapons sales to those on watch lists.      Another Republican, Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, also is working on a bill that would keep guns from people on watch lists, a gun control group said. Toomey, who is in a possibly difficult re-election bid this year, took to the Senate floor urging compromise. “So there’s an obvious opportunity here guys, to work together and find a solution,” he said, adding, “This is not rocket science to figure this out.” A spokeswoman for Toomey, E.R. Anderson, said the senator was seeking bipartisan support for an approach that he had tentatively agreed on with gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, which is backed by ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Everytown spokeswoman Erika Lamb said the group was encouraged by the discussions but added, “We are not there yet and our support for any compromise legislation is contingent on support from both Republicans and Democrats.” Toomey’s bill would allow the U.S. attorney general to create a new list of “likely terrorists” and block any person on the list from buying or selling a gun. If someone was denied a gun, he or she would be entitled to a swift court hearing where the attorney general would have to turn over the evidence against the person. Democrats were dubious. One problem, a Democratic aide said, was that under the proposal officials would just have three days to try to block sales to anyone not already on the new list. Congressional Republicans and the NRA have thwarted previous gun control measures backed by President Barack Obama and other Democrats after other mass shootings, and supporters of new restrictions remained cautious about the moves. “The Cornyn bill is outlandish and is worse than nothing. From what I’m told all of the compromises proposed by Cornyn and Toomey are not at all acceptable,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York.     Feinstein, speaking to reporters following a closed briefing from the Obama administration on the Orlando massacre, held out little hope her talks with Cornyn would bear fruit. “I don’t think it’s going to work out,” she said, but added she was still engaged in talks. Trump said on Twitter he would meet with the NRA “about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no-fly list, to buy guns.” His campaign did not specify what he might support legislatively, and a spokeswoman declined to give details about the timing or nature of the meeting. The NRA, a politically influential lobbying group that claims more than 4 million members, said in a statement it was “happy to meet” with Trump, whom it endorsed for president on May 20. The group said in a statement that anyone on a terrorism watch list who tries to buy a gun “should be thoroughly investigated” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and any sale to that person delayed, a position the lobby group has long held. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who has supported gun control efforts, on Monday said she was “bewildered” that Republicans in Congress in December had blocked a Democratic effort to restrict gun sales to people on the watch lists. The U.S. government maintains two terrorism watch lists: a no-fly list barring people from flying to and from the United States and a larger one that subjects travelers to greater scrutiny at airports and border crossings. An FBI official said in 2014 there were 64,000 people on the no-fly list and 800,000 on the broader list. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, was on the broader list at one time. NRA Executive Director Chris Cox also voiced backing for legislation offered in December by Cornyn, who proposed to put gun sales on hold for 72 hours for people on watch lists. Critics have said such background checks could take longer to complete. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was too soon to tell if Republicans would support “common sense” steps like blocking firearm sales to people on the no-fly lists.

Summary: सीनेटर, ट्रम्प ऑरलैंडो के बाद कुछ बंदूकों की बिक्री पर प्रतिबंध लगाने के लिए तैयार हैं


BRASILIA (Reuters) - The former finance minister under Brazil s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday accused the ex-president of receiving bribes from contractor Odebrecht [ODBES.UL], adding to a list of corruption accusations that threaten Lula s ability to run for president in 2018. Lawyers for the former finance minister, Antonio Palocci, said he told prosecutors that Lula accepted Odebrecht s purchase of land for an institute in his name, a country house in Sao Paulo state and 300 million reais ($97 million) to be used after he left office. A representative for Lula said in a statement that Palocci, who was arrested a year ago in a corruption investigation, was lying and making accusations without evidence to secure a favorable deal with prosecutors to reduce his sentence. Such testimony from a close confidant could be damning for Lula, who intends to run for president again next year if he can successfully appeal a conviction that would bar him from standing. Lula faces four additional trials. Separately on Wednesday, Brazil s top prosecutor, Rodrigo Janot, charged Lula, ex-President Dilma Rousseff and a former minister with obstruction of justice related to Lula s nomination as Rousseff s chief of staff in 2016. The nomination, later struck down by the Supreme Court, would have shielded Lula from prosecution by lower courts. It was the second charge from Janot in two days. On Tuesday he accused Lula, Rousseff and six other members of their Workers Party for allegedly forming a criminal organization to carry out corruption and other crimes involving state-controlled oil company Petrobras. Lula and Rousseff deny the charges. Palocci leveled his accusations in two hours of testimony on Wednesday as part of a probe into allegations that Lula accepted the land for the institute.   It was a blood pact and a package of bribes that included payment for a property, an estate ranch and 300 million reais that gradually were made available according to a spreadsheet delivered by the contractor,  said Adriano Bretas, one of Palocci s lawyers. Tracy Reinaldet, another of Palocci s lawyers, said the agreement was made during the transition from Lula into Rousseff s first term. Palocci also served as Rousseff s chief of staff initially but was forced to resign due to corruption allegations.

Summary: ब्राजील के पूर्व राष्ट्रपति लूला पर पूर्व मंत्री ने लगाया रिश्वत लेने का आरोप


HELSINKI (Reuters) - A senior politician in Finland s euroskeptic Finns Party said on Tuesday he would step down from the leadership of the party, formerly part of a coalition government, after harassing a lawmaker in parliament. Finnish media quoted a female MP from another party as saying that Teuvo Hakkarainen, a deputy chairman of the nationalist Finns Party, last week grabbed her neck and kissed her in parliament caf  despite her objections.  I am very sorry for what happened, alcohol does not suit me ... I have hurt (her),  Hakkarainen said in his Facebook page.  I will step down from the position of the party s second deputy chairman.  Finns Party s lawmakers issued a warning to Hakkarainen over the incident, saying any harassment was unacceptable. Hakkarainen will remain a member of the Finns Party parliamentary group. Hakkarainen was part of a new hard-line leadership nominated by the party in June, a development that led to it being kicked out of the government by Prime Minister Juha Sipila.  More than half of its lawmakers subsequently left the party and formed a new group to keep their government seats. The Finns Party, formerly called  True Finns , rose from obscurity during the euro zone debt crisis with an anti-EU platform, complicating the bloc s bailout talks with troubled states.  Hakkarainen was fined earlier this year for a Facebook post calling for a Muslim-free Finland which a district court said amounted to agitation against an ethnic group. The party currently has polling support of about eight percent, down from 18 percent in 2015 general election.

Summary: राष्ट्रवादी फिन्स पार्टी के उप प्रमुख ने उत्पीड़न के बाद नेतृत्व पद छोड़ा


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese politicians and bankers believe Saudi Arabia intends to do to their country what it did to Qatar - corral Arab allies into enforcing an economic blockade unless its demands are met. Unlike Qatar, the world s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas with a population of just 300,000, Lebanon has neither the natural nor financial resources to ride it out, and people there are worried. Up to 400,000 Lebanese work in the Gulf region, and remittances flowing back into the country, estimated at between $7-8 billion a year, are a vital source of cash to keep the economy afloat and the heavily-indebted government functioning.  These are serious threats to the Lebanese economy which is already dire. If they cut the transfer of remittances, that will be a disaster,  a senior Lebanese official told Reuters. Those threats came from Lebanon s former prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, who resigned on Nov. 4 in a shock broadcast from Riyadh that Lebanese political leaders have ascribed to pressure from the Saudis. Hariri, an ally of Saudi Arabia, on Sunday warned of possible Arab sanctions and a danger to the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese living in the Gulf. And he spelled out Saudi conditions for Lebanon to avoid sanctions: Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group that is Lebanon s main political power and part of the ruling coalition, must stop meddling in regional conflicts, particularly Yemen. According to a Lebanese source familiar with Saudi thinking, Hariri s interview  gave an indication of what might be waiting for us if a real compromise is not reached. The playbook is there in Qatar.  Hariri s resignation has thrust Lebanon to the center of an escalating rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran.  The non-confrontational Saudi policy of the past towards Lebanon has gone, analysts say, under the new leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 32-year-old son of King Salman. He is now the de facto ruler of the kingdom, running its military, political and economic affairs. Whether Iran and Hezbollah are willing to make significant concessions to Riyadh is doubtful, sources said.  They (Hezbollah) might make some cosmetic concessions, but they won t submit to the Saudi conditions,  a source familiar with Hezbollah thinking said. Lebanese analyst Sarkis Naoum said Riyadh wanted Hariri to return to Lebanon and press President Michel Aoun to open dialogue and address their conditions on Hezbollah s regional interventions.  They need to come up with a position that will be satisfactory to the Saudis ... If the Saudis decide on sanctions they will do it,  Naoum said. A source close to Hariri said he had  put the ball in the court of Aoun, Hezbollah and its allies, by saying  business cannot continue as usual.   There was no sugar-coating. The sanctions were spelled out clearly. They want Lebanon to be disassociated from Hezbollah . Aoun has welcomed comments that the former premier planned to return home soon, palace sources said on Monday. Saudi frustration with Lebanon seems to have boiled over after a string of setbacks to its foreign policy. Riyadh has been bogged down in the war it launched against Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2015. Saudi Arabia has accused Iran and Hezbollah of backing the Houthis, and also said Hezbollah had a role in firing a ballistic missile from Yemen towards Riyadh earlier this month. Hezbollah and Iran s involvement in Syria has also transformed the war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, while Saudi support for Sunni rebels in Syria s civil war have amounted to little. Hezbollah, a movement with a heavily armed fighting force in addition to seats in parliament and government, is Iran s spearhead in the region. Tehran s Revolutionary Guard looks to be trying to replicate it by building coalitions of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, according to some analysts. The list of potential sanctions against Lebanon, political sources there say, could include a ban on flights, visas, exports and transfer of remittances. Some of those have been imposed on Qatar, but that blockade, initiated in June, has had limited effect on the emirate so far, beyond driving it closer to Iran. Allegiance to foreign backers is not new to Lebanon. Sunnis have always looked to Saudi Arabia for support and funding while Shi ite Lebanese tended to turn to Tehran and Hezbollah.  The Lebanese have always been agents of foreign powers. They take their money, make promises, commitments and alliances,  Naoum said. But while Hezbollah fulfilled its promises to Iran, Sunni factions let Riyadh down, he said. Thanks in part to Iranian investment in the group, Hezbollah now calls the shots in the Lebanese capital as well as playing a pivotal role in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Riyadh has historically channeled billions of dollars to Lebanon to help its reconstruction after the 1975-90 civil war and following massive Israeli incursions of south Lebanon. Now it appears ready to do serious economic damage to Lebanon that could weaken Hezbollah s standing at home and in the region, should its demands not be met. The Saudi conditions are causing alarm among some Lebanese, who have long viewed Hezbollah as a  state-within-a-state . Many believe the solution is outside the control of local players.  Lebanon will pay the price,  a top Lebanese banker told Reuters.  The only pressure the Saudis have is economic ... they can put pressure by imposing sanctions that can hurt.

Summary: अगर सऊदी अरब ने कतर की तरह नाकाबंदी की तो लेबनान की अर्थव्यवस्था को खतरा


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon and its financial institutions can cope with the impact of Prime Minister Saad Hariri s surprise resignation, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said on Monday.  We are confident in the stability of the financial and monetary situation in the country. There are no very big challenges ahead of us,  Khalil said in a televised statement after a meeting on the economy chaired by President Michel Aoun.  The state is able to finance itself,  he said.

Summary: लेबनान का वित्त प्रधानमंत्री के इस्तीफे से निपट सकता हैः वित्त मंत्री


(Corrects this Oct. 5 story’s headline to conform with quote from professor that a Trump defeat would upset the verdict of history.) (Reuters) - The forces influencing the U.S. presidential election favor Republican nominee Donald Trump to win the popular vote - but even proven prediction models face “the most difficult election by far to predict accurately,” a political forecaster with a three-decade winning streak said on Wednesday. History Professor Allan Lichtman of American University in Washington has accurately predicted the popular result in presidential elections since Republican President Ronald Reagan defeated Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in 1984. Although the number of ballots cast by voters for each candidate counts, it does not ultimately determine who takes the White House. In a process known as the Electoral College, the candidate who wins a majority of 538 electoral votes is the victor. Each state and the District of Columbia is allocated a certain number of those votes, and the candidates have to amass them state-by-state on Election Day. While Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” analysis predicts a popular victory by Trump, some other models, such as FiveThirtyEight’s and The New York Times’, have given Democratic rival Hillary Clinton a large probability of victory. Lichtman joined Reuters Global Markets Forum to discuss his take on Campaign 2016. What follows are excerpts from that conversation. Question: Why is Trump your favorite to win? Answer: With respect to my prediction, my “Keys” system is based on 13 true/false questions where an answer of “true” favors re-election of the White House party - the Democrats. They have exactly six “false” keys against them, just enough to predict their defeat. However, I also noted that Donald Trump is such a dangerously precedent-breaking candidate that he could upset the verdict of history and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The two candidates have been repeatedly fact-checked by independent sources, and his lies vastly outnumber hers. Q: How big is the immigration issue in deciding the election? A: I think immigration is a very important issue. America is a nation of immigrants and immigrants have been demeaned for more than two centuries, the French, the Irish, the Jews, the Asians, the Mexicans, and now the Muslims. The two candidates have fundamentally different approaches to dealing with the issue. Q: What is your expectation for the next two debates? A: Trump has got to convince voters that he has the temperament, knowledge, and background to be a dependable and effective leader. He can try to do that without losing his base, which will never abandon him. The first debate was definitely a lost opportunity (for Trump), which may be hard to regain for him. Obama lost the first debate (against Mitt Romney) in 2012, but voters still did not have as many doubts about him as they do about Trump. In terms of temperament, he could take a lesson from Pence, but Trump has a great deal of difficulty preparing for a debate or keeping himself under control.

Summary: ट्रंप की हार 'इतिहास के फैसले को परेशान करेगी': एलन लिक्टमैन


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia s foreign ministry said on Thursday it regrets the decision by the U.S. leadership to quit UNESCO, adding the move would disrupt a number of important projects planned by the United Nation s cultural and educational agency.  We share the concern by many countries that the activity of UNESCO has been too politicized lately,  the ministry said in a statement.  We hope the new director general will spare no effort to change the current situation and focus on exclusively humanitarian issues, which would allow us to continue beneficial cooperation in UNESCO s fields of competence with all countries, including the United States.

Summary: रूस ने यूनेस्को से अमेरिका के हटने पर खेद व्यक्त किया, कहा कि महत्वपूर्ण परियोजनाओं को नुकसान हो सकता है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. presidential election may turn out to be one of the world’s biggest un-popularity contests.  Nearly half of American voters who support either Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump for the White House said they will mainly be trying to block the other side from winning, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday.  The results reflect a deepening ideological divide in the United States, where people are becoming increasingly fearful of the opposing party, a feeling worsened by the likely matchup between the New York real estate tycoon and the former first lady, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.  “This phenomenon is called negative partisanship,” Sabato said. ”If we were trying to maximize the effect, we couldn’t have found better nominees than Trump and Clinton.”  Trump has won passionate supporters and vitriolic detractors for his blunt talk and hardline proposals, including his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, his vow to force Mexico to pay for a border wall, and his promise to renegotiate international trade deals.  Former Secretary of State Clinton’s appeal to voters seeking continuity with President Barack Obama’s policies, has won her a decisive lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but finds strong opponents among those disillusioned by what they see as lack of progress during Obama’s tenure.  The poll asked likely voters about the primary motivation driving their support of either Trump or Clinton heading into the general election on Nov. 8.  About 47 percent of Trump supporters said they backed him primarily because they don’t want Clinton to win. Another 43 percent said their primary motivation was a liking for Trump’s political positions, while 6 percent said they liked him personally.  Similar responses prevailed among Clinton supporters.  About 46 percent said they would vote for her mostly because they don’t want to see a Trump presidency, while 40 percent said they agreed with her political positions, and 11 percent said they liked her personally.  The April 29-May 5 poll included 469 likely Trump voters and 599 likely Clinton voters. It has a credibility interval of 5 percentage points. (For results, click tmsnrt.rs/1TLCbqX)  To be sure, voters’ opinions could change over the next several months. Candidates will be feted at party conventions, will square off in a series of national debates, and will be targeted by millions of dollars worth of advertisements.  But the negative atmosphere is likely to reign, says Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University professor who has studied the rise of negative partisanship in America.  Both campaigns probably will decide their best strategy is to work even harder to vilify each other, he said.  “It’s going to get very, very negative,” he added.  That would play into a longer-term trend.  A 2014 study by Pew Research Center found that Democrats and Republicans have shown increasingly negative views toward each other over the past few decades. In 2014 more than a quarter of Democrats, and more than a third of Republicans, viewed the opposition as “a threat to the nation’s well-being.”  Barbara Monson, 59, a Republican from Murray, Utah, is among them. “No matter who the Republican (nominee) is, I would have voted for him,” poll respondent Monson said of her support for Trump. “It’s never going to be Clinton. Never.”  Jo-Anne Michaud, 69, an independent voter from Abingdon, Maryland, told Reuters she would try to keep an open mind. Although she has voted for both Republicans and Democrats in the past, she feels repelled by Trump.  “I used to like the guy when I watched his show,” Michaud said. “But I just hate the way he talks now. I don’t think he’s a nice person deep down inside.”

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः अमेरिकी ट्रम्प को वोट देने का प्रमुख कारणः 'क्लिंटन को रोकने के लिए'-सर्वेक्षण


ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece is  ready and determined  to exit its international bailout next August, putting an end to years of crisis and uncertainty, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Thursday. Greece s third EU/IMF bailout since 2010 is due to expire in August 2018.   We are absolutely ready and determined to move in this direction and I m certain our lenders have the same approach of avoiding hurdles and delays,  Tsipras said during joint press conference in Athens with French President Emanuel Macron.  It is important not only for Greece, it is important for Europe,  Tsipras said.  The final end of the Greek crisis will signal Europe s passage into a new era of less uncertainty.

Summary: ग्रीस 2018 में बेलआउट से बाहर निकलने के लिए 'तैयार और दृढ़' हैः प्रधानमंत्री


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. congressional candidates worried that Donald Trump’s struggling White House bid will damage them too have seized on one of President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives to try to ward off Democrats in the Nov 8 elections. With control of the Senate and perhaps even the House of Representatives in the balance, millions of dollars has been spent on campaign advertisements criticizing last year’s Iran nuclear pact, even in districts where foreign affairs generally are not a top concern. Although Iran is unlikely to be most voters’ main reason for choosing a candidate, strategists said the money could be well spent.  Iran provides a distraction for Republicans concerned that the unpopularity of Trump — whose poll numbers are dropping as he fights off several allegations that he groped women — could also sink party members further down the ballot. One typical ad, for Iowa Republican Representative Rod Blum, uses apocalyptic imagery to tie Democratic challenger Monica Vernon to the Iran agreement. “Would you give billions to an Islamic Republic that burns our flag and chants ‘Death to America?’ Monica Vernon would,” a male voice thunders over a video montage of marching troops, nuclear weapons and protesters burning U.S. flags. Vernon, a member of the Cedar Rapids City Council, has voiced support for the nuclear deal. Blum’s spot is similar to dozens rolled out on behalf of Republican candidates who argue that America’s influence is weaker because of Obama and by extension Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of state who is now the Democratic presidential nominee.         “Iran is a piece of the national security anxiety people feel,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said. “Foreign policy’s really complicated. Average voters don’t understand it, don’t follow it closely, but they know what bad foreign policy looks like.” The agreement between Iran, the United States and other world powers curbs Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets. Trump frequently criticizes the accord and promises to make much better deals, based on his business experience, if he wins the White House. The real estate magnate has hammered the Iran pact in both of his presidential debates with Clinton and it is likely to come up at Wednesday’s third debate in Nevada. Reuters/Ipsos polling in May showed Americans preferred Republicans’ plans for dealing with Iran by 37 percent versus 21.9 percent for the Democrats’. Every Republican in Congress opposed the Iran breakthrough. Many worried that Obama gave up too much to a country that sponsors terrorism and threatens Israel. The issue has become more politicized recently, as congressional Republicans denounced the release of cash to Iran as a “ransom” payment and charged that huge Boeing Co and Airbus contracts to sell Iran jetliners could support terrorism. In the race for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina on Nov. 8, a conservative spending group spent $1 million on advertising attacking Deborah Ross, the Democrat running against incumbent Senator Richard Burr, over the Iran deal. Israel also opposed the Iran accord, as did AIPAC, the main U.S. pro-Israel lobby group. Support for Israel is important to voters, especially evangelical Christians who are a wellspring of Republican support. There is more election advertising opposing the Iran deal than supporting it, but there is some backing for it. J Street, a smaller liberal pro-Israel group, spent $500,000 on advertising attacking Republican Senators Patrick Toomey and Ron Johnson, in tight re-election races in Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for opposing the Iran pact.

Summary: कांग्रेस के रिपब्लिकन तेहरान से बात करना चाहते हैं, न कि ट्रम्प से


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress, long the staunchest opponents of the Iran nuclear deal, may be the best hope for preserving it if President Donald Trump declines on Friday to certify that Tehran is complying with the pact. Every Republican in Congress opposed the international accord reached under Democratic former President Barack Obama two years ago. Joined by several Democrats, they nearly passed legislation to kill the deal in which Iran agreed to curb its disputed nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. However, with the agreement in place and strongly supported by co-signers Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, many Republicans who still abhor the pact nevertheless do not want to blow it up for fear that doing so would erode U.S. credibility. They want to find other ways to clamp down on Tehran. Meeting with officials from the Trump and Obama administrations, European diplomats and among themselves, they have been preparing strategies to save it, including pushing for tougher inspections, changing the law requiring Trump to certify Tehran’s compliance and setting new sanctions over Iran’s non-nuclear activities. “As flawed as the deal is, I believe we must enforce the hell out of it,” Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Wednesday. On Friday, Trump is expected to unveil a broad strategy for Iran, including announcing that he will decertify the agreement ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline, although he could always change his mind. If the Republican president goes ahead, that would open a 60-day window in which Congress could reimpose sanctions, a step toward an unraveling of the deal. However, Trump is not expected to call on lawmakers to revive those sanctions. If he stops short of recommending that, it gives Republicans room to stand pat for now. Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who is now a professor at Princeton University, said the political pressure could be intense. “There will be an onslaught of phone calls and letters and visits to senators to ‘do something’ about Iran,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged Washington to either fix the Iran deal or “nix it.” On Wednesday, H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, discussed Iran with the Republican chairmen of House of Representatives national security committees. On Thursday, intelligence officials scheduled a classified briefing for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, a key player in the Iran debate, has suggested changing the Iran Review Act he co-authored to eliminate the requirement that Trump recertify Iran’s compliance with the deal every 90 days, several congressional sources said. Trump, who pledged during his campaign to rip up the Iran deal, has recertified it twice since taking office in January and hates having to do so. A Twitter feud that erupted this week between Trump and Corker could complicate the efforts by the influential Republican to broker a deal that would likely require both Democratic and Republican support. “Congress and the administration need to be on the same page, and a major breakdown in the working relationship between one of the very few key Republicans on the Hill who works with Democrats and the president on Iran policy bodes very poorly,” said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a former Treasury Department official now at the Center for a New American Security. To win over some conservative Republicans and Iran hawks, Corker and other leaders are considering proposing sanctions on Iran’s non-nuclear activities and broader inspections, particularly of Iranian military facilities. On Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved sanctions targeting Iran’s ballistic missiles development. It could come up for a vote in the full House well before the end of the 60 days Congress has to react to Trump’s announcement.

Summary: अमेरिकी कांग्रेस में ईरान समझौते के दुश्मन इसके संभावित रक्षक हो सकते हैं


YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar s army said on Wednesday that it had appointed a senior officer to investigate whether any members of the security forces were involved in the killing of 10 people whose bodies have been uncovered in a mass grave in Rakhine State. A violent crackdown by the security forces in response to attacks by militants in the western state has caused around 650,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh in recent months. The discover of the grave, at the village of Inn Din, about 50 km (30 miles) north of the state capital Sittwe, was announced by the military two days ago. In a statement posted on the Facebook page of the military s commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the army said a five-member investigation team had left the capital Naypyitaw on Wednesday. The team, led by Lieutenant General Aye Win, would  investigate whether the security forces took part or not, in relation to the unidentified dead bodies found in Inn Din village graveyard . It gave no further details and military officials were not immediately available for comment. General Aye Win is the same officer who led a wider probe into the conduct of troops in a conflict that began in late August, which concluded in a report last month that no atrocities took place. Myanmar s armed forces launched what they termed clearance operations in northern Rakhine, where many of the stateless Muslim minority lived, after Rohingya militants attacked 30 police posts and an army base on Aug. 25. Rights monitors have accused troops of abuses, including killings, mass rape and arson during those operations. The United States has said it amounted to  ethnic cleansing . Myanmar s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has faced fierce international criticism for failing to do more to protect the Rohingya. The civilian government, which has no control over the military, has said the army was engaged in legitimate counter-insurgency operations. It has promised to investigate allegations of abuses in Rakhine if it is given evidence.

Summary: म्यांमार की सेना ने रखाइन राज्य में सामूहिक कब्र की जांच के लिए जनरल नियुक्त किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ivanka Trump said on Wednesday she would work in the White House in an unpaid, informal advisory role to the president as she sought to allay ethics concerns about working there.  “I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the president in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees,” she said in a statement. Questions about possible conflicts of interest arose after it was announced on March 20 that Trump, 35, would become an informal adviser to her father, President Donald Trump, with an office in the West Wing. She has been an increasingly influential adviser to the president and her husband, Jared Kushner, is a powerful Trump adviser.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस की अवैतनिक कर्मचारी बनीं इवांका ट्रंप


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump will speak with House of Representatives Republicans on July 7 in what would be the first meeting of the party’s presumptive presidential nominee with its entire House caucus, Republican aides said on Tuesday. House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers announced plans for the meeting in a closed-door gathering of House Republicans on Tuesday, the aides said. Some House Republicans have publicly criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments about Muslims, immigrants and women, saying they risked the party’s chances of winning the Nov. 8 election. Speaker Paul Ryan, who has endorsed the real estate mogul, this month denounced the candidate’s criticism of a Mexican-American judge as textbook racism. On Tuesday, Ryan said banning Muslims from entering the United States is not in the nation’s interest, in contrast to Trump’s call to limit Muslim immigration. At the meeting with Trump, members will have a chance to “share their policy priorities, learn about his plans to unite the party; and get details about his plans to move America forward,” McMorris Rodgers said, according to an aide. During his previous visits to Washington, Trump has met with House Republican leaders and a number of lawmakers who support him but not with all members of the caucus. A Senate Republican aide said there were no schedules yet for Trump to meet with Republican senators.

Summary: 7 जुलाई को रिपब्लिकन सभा के सदस्यों से मिलेंगे ट्रम्प


STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Europe s top human rights court ruled on Tuesday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny s conviction for fraud in 2014 had been  arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable  and ordered Russia to pay him compensation.  We have won. Thanks everyone for support,  tweeted Navalny, a campaigner against corruption among Russia s elite who hopes to run against Vladimir Putin in a March election. Putin is widely expected to seek and win a fourth term as president.  Russian authorities have three months to decide whether to appeal against the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the TASS news agency cited Russia s deputy justice minister and ECHR representative Mikhail Galperin as saying.  We proved that this case was a fabricated one, and that this ugly buffoonery in the court room in 2014 had nothing to do with a fair legal proceeding,  Navalny wrote on his website, www.navalny.com, after the court announced its ruling. A suspended jail sentence in a separate case   which Navalny says was politically motivated   may still bar him from running for president. The Strasbourg-based ECHR said Navalny and his brother Oleg s convictions for fraud and money laundering were based on an unforeseeable application of criminal law and that the proceedings were arbitrary and unfair.  I am glad that justice was done,  Navalny wrote.  He said the case against him had been staged to thwart his anti-corruption and political activities through the pressure put on him and his family.  When thieves and swindlers in power declare that I cannot run (for president) because of  the law ,  the sentence , because (I am)  a criminal  and  recidivist , we can show them with confidence what they will never have   a decision by a true, fair court,  he wrote.  It is clearly written there that the law and the right are on our side. It s them who are criminals, not me.  Navalny and his brother were convicted in December 2014 of money laundering and defrauding their business partners. Navalny was given a suspended sentence of 3-1/2 years and his brother a prison sentence of the same length. The Navalnys lodged a complaint with the ECHR in January 2015. The ECHR ruled that Russia must pay Navalny and his brother 10,000 euros ($12,000) each for non-pecuniary damage, plus costs and expenses of 45,000 euros for Alexei and 10,971 euros and 460,000 roubles ($8,000) for Oleg. In another case which Navalny says was a Kremlin attempt to prevent him standing for election, a Russian court in February found him guilty of embezzlement in relation to a timber firm called Kirovles and gave him a five-year suspended sentence. It was the second time the case had been heard, after the ECHR said Navalny s right to a fair hearing had been violated and ordered a retrial.

Summary: रूस के विपक्षी नेता की धोखाधड़ी की सजा मनमाना, यूरोप की शीर्ष मानवाधिकार अदालत ने कहा


(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday blocked Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s order barring state officials from helping Syrian refugees resettle in the state, saying it was discriminatory. Pence was among more than 25 U.S. governors, mostly Republicans, who called on President Barack Obama to stop resettling refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war after November attacks by militants in Paris that killed 130. Governors have cited concerns that some refugees could be associated with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks. The suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Exodus Refugee Immigration Inc was among the first challenging governors’ moves to block resettlement. “The State’s conduct clearly discriminates against Syrian refugees based on their national origin,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in a ruling granting the preliminary injunction. She added that withholding federal grant money from Exodus did not advance Indiana officials’ assertions that they were barring refugees for safety reasons. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller plans to appeal the decision and will seek a stay of Pratt’s order, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said in a statement. The ACLU had contended that decisions on immigration and refugee resettlement were exclusively the province of the federal government and could not be dictated by state officials. Indiana had argued that Exodus, a nonprofit that gets federal money to resettle refugees, lacked standing to assert refugees’ rights. The U.S. State Department said in November that a refugee family that had been headed to Indiana was relocated to Connecticut, but did not specify the family’s country of origin. After the Paris attacks, the Obama administration stood by its pledge to admit some 10,000 refugees to the United States over the following year. Refugee advocates have noted that candidates for resettlement go through extensive background checks, taking up to two years, before reaching the United States.

Summary: न्यायाधीश ने इंडियाना के गवर्नर के सीरियाई शरणार्थियों पर प्रतिबंध लगाने के आदेश को अवरुद्ध कर दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Republican House of Representatives lawmakers said on Friday they were concerned that Boeing Co’s reported plans to sell aircraft to Iran could threaten U.S. national security and had requested more information from the company. “American companies should not be complicit in weaponizing the Iranian Regime,” Representatives Jeb Hensarling and Peter Roskam said in a letter to Boeing released on Friday. Iran said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Boeing for the supply of jetliners, reopening the country’s skies to new U.S. aircraft for the first time in decades under an international nuclear agreement that eased sanctions. Boeing has not confirmed an aircraft sale agreement. The company on Tuesday declined to provide detailed comment in response to Western and Middle East sources saying Iran had reached an understanding with the company to acquire over 100 passenger jets. The nuclear pact reached by Democratic President Barack Obama was opposed by every Republican member of the U.S. Congress. Several questioned the Boeing deal as soon as the news reports came out. In their letter to Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg, the lawmakers asked for “clarification” of the current state of negotiations. Their questions included whether Boeing could guarantee that Iran’s government could not convert Boeing passenger aircraft to cargo aircraft and whether it would repossess aircraft if Iran violated the nuclear agreement. Hensarling is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and Roskam is chairman of the Oversight subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee. Not every congressional Republican is opposed to a potential U.S. aircraft deal. Senator Mark Kirk, who represents Illinois, where Boeing is headquartered, said in a hallway interview at the Senate he had mixed feelings about it. “You want the jobs, but you are worried about what the Iranians are going to do with the aircraft,” Kirk said this week.

Summary: बोइंग ईरान की संभावित बिक्री को अमेरिकी कांग्रेस में विरोध का सामना करना पड़ रहा है


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday that U.S. charges against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide showed Moscow had been unfairly maligned in accusations that it meddled in last year’s U.S. presidential election. Federal investigators probing alleged Russian interference in the election, something Moscow denies, charged Manafort and Rick Gates with money laundering on Monday. But despite being brought as part of a five-month-old investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt the election in Trump’s favor and into potential collusion by Trump aides, the charges, some going back over a decade, centered on Manafort’s work for Ukraine’s former government, not Russia’s. That was welcomed in Russia, where officials are watching the investigation closely since public evidence of Russian meddling, something that has not so far been presented, would be sure to translate into tougher U.S. sanctions against Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov highlighted the absence of allegations against Russia in the indictment against Manafort and Gates, saying on Tuesday that Moscow had always said it had never interfered in the U.S. election. That assertion is challenged by U.S. intelligence agencies  who say unequivocally that Moscow did interfere in the November 2016 vote. “...Russia does not feature in the charges that were leveled in any way. Other countries and other people feature (in the charges),” Peskov told a conference call with reporters. “Moscow never felt itself guilty so it doesn’t feel  exonerated now,” he said, when asked whether the Kremlin interpreted the indictment as proof that its repeated denials about meddling election were true. Peskov also brushed aside any suggestion that someone with links to the Russian Foreign Ministry might have tried to set up a meeting with the Trump campaign through a third ex-aide, George Papadopoulos, who it was announced on Monday pleaded guilty in early October to lying to the FBI.  Russia’s flagship TV news show took a similar line on Monday evening, saying it was “now clear that there was nothing” to allegations about Manafort being in touch with Russian officials to try to sway the election.     The U.S. investigation was an internal matter for the United States, said Peskov, but Moscow was following it with interest. Peskov laughed off the purported role of Papadopoulos, who told investigators he had tried to set up a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian leadership. In his unsuccessful quest to broker such a meeting, Papadopoulos said he had met a London-based professor boasting of contacts with Russian officials and an unnamed Russian woman. He also mentioned being in touch with someone linked to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Peskov, when asked what the Kremlin made of someone linked to the Foreign Ministry allegedly trying to set up a Putin-Trump meeting, said: “It’s an absolutely laughable allegation.” Media reports have suggested the individual linked to the ministry is Ivan Timofeev, who works for a Moscow-based think-tank called the Russian International Relations Council (RIAC).  Timofeev did not respond to a request for comment, but told the gazeta.ru online news portal in August that Papadopoulos had emailed him in the spring of 2016 and spoken about the possibility of organizing a Trump trip to Russia. Timofeev said Papadopoulos had never made a formal request to either RIAC or the Russian Foreign Ministry for such a visit, however, and that he had got the impression that he had been “acting on his own initiative” and was “an enthusiast with little experience.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday that there was nothing “illegal” about Papadopoulos contacting someone at RIAC.

Summary: क्रेमलिन का कहना है कि ट्रम्प के पूर्व सहयोगियों के खिलाफ अमेरिकी मामले में रूस आरोपी नहीं है


LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May showed guts and grace by continuing with her keynote Conservative Party conference speech despite a repeated coughing fit and an interruption by a prankster, business minister Greg Clark told Sky on Thursday.  She showed guts and grace,  Clark told Sky News. He added that there was huge warmth towards May in the conference hall. May s bid to reassert her dwindling authority was ruined on Wednesday when her keynote speech was interrupted by repeated coughing fits, a prankster, and even letters of her slogan falling off the set behind her.

Summary: मंत्री ने कहा, ब्रिटिश प्रधानमंत्री ने सम्मेलन के भाषण में साहस और गरिमा दिखाई


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday named Patrick Chinamasa acting finance minister until a new cabinet has been appointed, the chief secretary to the president and cabinet said in a statement. Chinamasa was a former finance minister under Robert Mugabe s government but was moved to a newly created ministry of cyber security during a reshuffle last month.

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे के राष्ट्रपति मनांगाग्वा ने चिनमासा को कार्यवाहक वित्त मंत्री नियुक्त किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday assailed what he said were illegal and “criminal” leaks from U.S. intelligence agencies in the controversy over contacts with Russian officials that forced his national security adviser Michael Flynn to resign. Speaking at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump called Flynn a “wonderful man” and added: “I think it’s very, very unfair what’s happened to General Flynn, the way he was treated, and the documents and papers that were illegally, I stress that, illegally leaked.”

Summary: ट्रम्प ने खुफिया एजेंसियों द्वारा 'आपराधिक' लीक की निंदा की, फ्लिन को 'अद्भुत' कहा


SEOUL (Reuters) - Supporters of former South Korean president Park Geun-hye have asked a United Nations body to investigate whether her detention during her corruption trial was preventing Park from getting proper medical treatment, a barrister said on Tuesday.  Park, ousted earlier this year and in detention since March, is undergoing a lower court trial for charges of abuse of power and bribery. Her current detention period for the lower court trial is due to end on October 17, which the prosecution asked the court to extend on Tuesday. A legal team working for Park s supporters has asked the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva to look into whether Park was given medical treatment and whether there were procedural irregularities in her current trial, said Rodney Dixon QC, a London-based human rights barrister.   She is not a flight risk... She has been denied opportunity to receive adequate medical care through provisional release or options of house arrest,  said Dixon.  Since her detention began in late March, Park has declined witness appearances in concurrent trials citing health issues, and various South Korean media have reported her as having chronic back and shoulder pains, difficulty sleeping and nodding off more than once during hearings.  South Korea s justice ministry, which oversees the Seoul Detention Center where Park is held, said all detainees are guaranteed ample chances to receive medical care both inside the center and at outside medical facilities when needed, and as such Park is receiving proper medical care.  The ministry declined to disclose Park s exact medical conditions as they are private. Seoul Central District Court, where Park s trial is ongoing, directed questions about Park to the justice ministry as detention is its purview.  The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention did not respond to a request for comment.  Although the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention does not have the power to enforce an action, it can seek information from the South Korean government, organize a visit to Park to investigate and announce its findings.  The team working on behalf of Park s supporters said in a statement this month it will also bring Park s case before the U.N. Human Rights Council in November during a periodic review of South Korea s human rights compliance.

Summary: दक्षिण कोरिया की पूर्व नेता पार्क के समर्थकों ने संयुक्त राष्ट्र निकाय से उनकी नजरबंदी की शर्तों की जांच करने को कहा


SYDNEY (Reuters) - The 11 countries committed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership are considering amendments to the trade deal, three sources said on Tuesday, as officials meet in Sydney for talks to re-energize the stalled agreement. Among the areas being discussed, Vietnam has raised the prospect of changes to labor rights and intellectual property (IP) provisions in the original pact, one source familiar with the talks told Reuters. Vietnam had been one of the countries expected to enjoy the biggest economic benefits from TPP through greater access to U.S. markets. However, the original 12-member TPP, which aims to cut trade barriers in some of Asia s fastest-growing economies, was thrown into limbo in January when U.S. President Trump withdrew from the agreement. Trump s move fulfilled a campaign pledge to put  America first  - a policy that aimed to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Although the remaining members have publicly said they remain committed to the deal, implementation of the agreement linking 11 countries with a combined GDP of $12.4 trillion has stalled - raising fears that other countries will follow the  U.S. lead and withdraw. Eager to keep all members onboard, representatives from the remaining countries are considering changes to the original TPP deal, three sources familiar with the talks said.  We re all open to evaluating what we can do and what viable alternatives there may be,  Edgar Vasquez, Peru s deputy trade minister, told Reuters. While no agreement is expected at the end of the three-day meeting, Vietnam s desire to shelve the IP provisions around pharmaceutical data is likely to win broad support, with Japanese and New Zealand officials also indicating their support for the change, two other sources said. The original TPP agreement was seen as particularly onerous on Vietnam, which be forced to make significant reforms, analysts said.  There s not much sense to agree to provisions they don t really want such as stronger monopolies on medicines if they are not going to get access to the U.S. market,  said Patricia Ranald, research associate, University of Sydney. The original TPP offered an eight-year window before competitors can have access to proprietary pharmaceutical data, which critics said would impede development of cheap generics.  Potential amendments, however, require delicate positioning.  While Trump has said he will not change his mind on TPP, the remaining members are hopeful a future U.S. president will commit to the agreement, a cornerstone of former President Barack Obama s pivot to Asia. But analysts said wholesale changes, while ensuring the support of smaller members, would repel the United States.  The more you change the agreement, it is going to be harder to get the U.S. to sign on when it is ready to,  said Shiro Armstrong, research fellow at the Crawford School of Economics in Canberra.

Summary: टी. पी. पी. देश रुके हुए व्यापार समझौते में संशोधन पर विचार कर रहे हैंः सूत्र


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations blacklisted a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition on Thursday for killing and injuring 683 children in Yemen and attacking dozens of schools and hospitals in 2016, even as it said the coalition had taken action to improve child protection. The blacklist attached to the U.N. annual report on children in armed conflict also named the Iran-allied Houthi rebel group, Yemen government forces, pro-government militia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for violations against children in 2016. The U.N. report said the Houthis and affiliated forces killed and injured 414 children in 2016.  The report from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was submitted to the Security Council on Thursday and seen by Reuters. A draft of the blacklist was reported by Reuters on Tuesday. The actions of the Saudi-led coalition  objectively led  to it being blacklisted for killing and injuring 683 children and for 38 attacks on schools and hospitals last year, the report said, adding that all incidents were verified by the U.N. The coalition had been briefly added to the blacklist in 2016 and then removed by then-U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon pending review. At the time, Ban accused Saudi Arabia of exerting  unacceptable  undue pressure after sources told Reuters that Riyadh threatened to cut some U.N. funding. Saudi Arabia denied threatening Ban. In an effort to dampen controversy surrounding the report, the blacklist this year is split into two categories. One lists parties that have put in place measures to protect children,  which includes the Saudi-led military coalition, and the other includes parties that have not. The report, which was produced by U.N. Children and Armed Conflict envoy Virginia Gamba and issued in Guterres  name, does not subject those listed to U.N. action but rather shames parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children. Guterres spoke with Saudi King Salman by phone on Wednesday. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said:  They had a very positive discussion on issues of mutual interest, including the situation in the Middle East and beyond.  Saudi U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi plans to hold a news conference on Friday.  Yemen has been devastated by more than two years of civil war in which President Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi s government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, is fighting to drive the Houthis out of cities they seized in 2014 and 2015. More than 10,000 people have been killed and the conflict has ruined the economy and pushed millions to the brink of famine. The Houthis control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. U.N. sanctions monitors reported to the Security Council in January that the Saudi-led coalition had carried out attacks in Yemen that  may amount to war crimes.  Riyadh denies the allegation. The U.N. sanctions monitors said at the time that the coalition was made up of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan.  The coalition has received limited U.S. support, including in logistics. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are major recipients of U.S. arms. Saudi Arabia is also a major customer of British defense companies.  The coalition needs to stop making empty promises to exercise caution, take concrete action to stop these deadly unlawful attacks in Yemen, and allow desperately needed fuel and aid to reach those in need,  said Jo Becker, children s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.  Until this happens, governments should suspend all Saudi weapons sales,  she said.  The annual children and armed conflict report is produced at the request of the U.N. Security Council. In 2015 the United Nations left Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas off the blacklist, after they had been included in an earlier draft, but criticized Israel over its 2014 military operations.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने यमन में बच्चों की हत्या के लिए सऊदी के नेतृत्व वाले गठबंधन को काली सूची में डाला


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s campaign urged a tactical vote against party front-runner Donald Trump on Friday, saying Rubio supporters in Ohio should vote for the state’s governor, John Kasich, next week. Ohio is one of five states holding Republican primary contests on March 15.  “If you’re a Republican primary voter in Ohio, and you don’t want Donald Trump to be the nominee, John Kasich is your best bet,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told CNN in an interview. “If you’re a Republican primary voter here in Florida and you don’t want Donald Trump to be your nominee, Marco Rubio is your best bet. That is indisputable,” he added, referring to the U.S. senator’s home state. Rubio, Kasich and Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, are battling to stop Trump from winning the nomination to represent the party in the Nov. 8 presidential election.  Some Republicans, most notably 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, have urged conservatives who oppose Trump to vote for which ever alternative candidate is most likely to win certain states in the upcoming primary contests.  (Reporting by Susan Heavey and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Frances Kerry) 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: रूबियो अभियान ने ओहियो में समर्थकों से कासिच का समर्थन करने का आग्रह किया


BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel told U.S. President Donald Trump that the global fight against terrorism was no excuse for banning refugees or people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, her spokesman said on Sunday. Steffen Seibert said Merkel had expressed her concerns to Trump during a telephone call on Saturday and reminded him that the Geneva Conventions require the international community to take in war refugees on humanitarian grounds. “She is convinced that even the necessary, decisive battle against terrorism does not justify putting people of a specific background or faith under general suspicion,” he said.      Seibert said the German government regrets the U.S. entry travel ban, would review the consequences for German citizens with dual nationalities, and would “represent their interests, if needed, vis a vis our U.S. partners”. The German and Dutch foreign ministers issued a joint statement on Sunday saying they were pressing U.S. authorities to determine what the order meant for their dual nationals. “We are determined to protect the rights of our citizens and will take rapid action within the European Union about the steps that are now needed,” Germany’s Sigmar Gabriel and his Dutch counterpart Bert Koenders said. Trump ordered on Friday a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily banned travelers from Syria and six other mainly Muslim countries. Seibert’s comments were the first indication of discord over the issue between Merkel and Trump, who had highlighted common interests such as strengthening NATO and combating Islamist militancy in a joint statement after their 45-minute phone call. Thomas Oppermann, who heads the parliamentary faction of the Social Democrats, the junior partner in Merkel’s right-center coalition, called Trump’s order “inhumane and foolhardy” and said it would result in significant damage to the U.S. economy. “The order contradicts everything that makes up the United States’ good reputation as a country of immigration,” he told Die Welt newspaper. “No one should be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.” Omid Nouripour, a Green party lawmaker who is vice-chair of the German-American parliamentary group and a German-Iranian dual national, said the new U.S. rule was a “dirty symbolic gesture that would hurt hundreds of thousands of people”. “The German government must stand up for the over 100,000 German citizens who are affected by the order,” Nouripour told Reuters. He said Trump had not included Saudi Arabia in the order because of his strong business ties there. Niema Movassat, a Left party lawmaker who also has German and Iranian citizenship, told the Tageszeitung newspaper that the ban would prevent him from visiting the United Nations to work on development issues and from visiting his relatives.  Dieter Janecek, economic spokesman for the Greens in parliament, said Germany should consider a travel ban on Trump and his senior adviser Stephen Bannon unless the order was rescinded. Trump on Saturday accepted Merkel’s invitation to attend the a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized nations in Hamburg in July. He also invited Merkel to visit Washington soon.

Summary: मर्केल ने कहा, आतंकवाद के खिलाफ लड़ाई अमेरिकी प्रवेश प्रतिबंध का बहाना नहीं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump extended his war of words with African-American civil rights leader John Lewis on Tuesday, accusing the Democratic congressman of lying when he said Trump’s inauguration would be the first that he would miss. “John Lewis said about my inauguration, ‘It will be the first one that I’ve missed.’ WRONG (or lie)! He boycotted Bush 43 also because he ‘thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush’s swearing-in....he doesn’t believe Bush is the true elected president.’ Sound familiar!” Trump said in a pair of posts on Twitter. “He got caught in a very bad lie,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview broadcast on Fox News on Tuesday.  Lewis’ office did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The Republican president-elect initially clashed with Lewis on Twitter over the weekend after the U.S. representative from Georgia questioned the legitimacy of his Nov. 8 election victory, because of U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia meddled in the campaign. Lewis also said he would not attend Trump’s swearing-in this Friday and that “it will be the first one that I miss since I’ve been in the Congress.” Lewis’ remarks, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” were released last Friday at the beginning of the holiday weekend honoring slain black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Trump responded on Saturday by tweeting that Lewis had falsely complained about the election results and instead “should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested).” Trump wrote dismissively that he was “all talk.” On Tuesday, Trump continued the battle, quoting an article in the Washington Post in 2001 that said Lewis spent  Inauguration Day in his Atlanta district rather than see Republican President George W. Bush sworn in. Bush was declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election after the U.S. Supreme Court halted a protracted recount of a close race in Florida against Democrat Al Gore. Trump’s attacks on Lewis offended many Americans including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans. Trump drew just 8 percent of the black vote in the November election.  The 76-year-old Lewis, who has been a civil rights leader for more than half a century, was beaten by police during a march he helped lead with King in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, drawing attention to hurdles for blacks to vote. Maine’s Republican governor, Paul LePage, chided Lewis on Tuesday in a radio interview, saying several Republican presidents had pursued civil rights reforms and Lewis should offer a simple word of thanks. LePage, who has referred to himself as a proto-Trump political figure, has been involved in controversies including making racially charged statements and using obscenities.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने नागरिक अधिकार नेता लुईस पर उद्घाटन के बारे में झूठ बोलने का आरोप लगाया


AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Texas governor signed a law on Thursday to protect the religious rights of faith-based groups in state child welfare programs, but critics said it could be used to discriminate against LGBT and non-Christian families in adoptions. Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 3859 which allows faith-based groups working with the Texas child welfare system to deny services “under circumstances that conflict with the provider’s sincerely held religious beliefs.” It was supported by several Christian groups. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative James Frank, said on social media,”HB 3859 bans no one” and has a mechanism for the state to offer alternative providers to anyone denied the right to be adoptive or foster parents because of the provider’s religious beliefs.  He said the legislation would help troubled children find homes.  Abbott’s office was not immediately available for comment. Democrats and civil rights groups said the bill could allow private, faith-based agencies to block parents who practice a different religion or who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.  LGBT rights groups have said they would challenge the adoption bill in court, arguing discrimination in the name of religion had no place in the state. “This law’s clear intent is to allow service providers that receive state tax dollars to misuse religion as a license to discriminate against LGBT families and children in the state’s child-welfare system,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a civil rights group. Texas next month holds a special 30-day session of the Republican-controlled legislature with one item on the agenda, a bill that would limit access to public bathrooms for transgender people. Critics contend the legislation would promote discrimination.

Summary: टेक्सास के गवर्नर ने गोद लेने के विधेयक को मंजूरी दी जो आलोचकों का तर्क है कि भेदभाव करता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. intelligence officials will testify before a Senate panel next week on the law governing the collection of foreign intelligence, parts of which are due to expire at the end of the year, the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Friday.  Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will appear before the committee in both open public and closed-door hearings on Wednesday to discuss the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the committee said in a statement.  The next day, former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump last month, is scheduled to testify before the same committee.  Comey had been overseeing an FBI investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and Trump associates, and the Senate panel is conducting a parallel probe. A part of FISA known as Section 702 will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it. The statute allows the NSA to collect digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas whose communications pass through American phone or internet providers. For technical reasons, it also incidentally collects data on Americans, a practice that privacy advocates have said evades Constitutional protections against warrantless searches. FISA and U.S. surveillance practices have come under increased scrutiny in recent months amid unsubstantiated assertions by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the White House under former President Barack Obama improperly spied on Trump or his associates.  A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House of Representatives is working on legislation that would renew Section 702 but with additional transparency and oversight, among other changes, though it remains unclear if it would have enough support to pass Congress and be signed by Trump. A White House official told Reuters in March the administration supported the law’s renewal and did not want to alter it.

Summary: कोमी की उपस्थिति से एक दिन पहले, अमेरिकी खुफिया प्रमुख निगरानी पर गवाही देंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday backtracked on his push for a cyber security unit with Russia, tweeting that he did not think it could happen, only hours after promoting it following his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t,”  Trump said on Twitter. He then noted that an agreement with Russia for a ceasefire in Syria “can & did” happen.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने U.S.-Russia साइबर इकाई पर पीछे हटते हुए कहा कि ऐसा नहीं हो सकता


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has a number of likely options as he looks for a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. Within a few hours, Obama said he intends to make a nomination, despite Republicans stressing they opposed any appointment being made until after November’s presidential election. The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate would have to approve the nomination. If Obama’s nominee is not confirmed by the Senate, the White House could use the process to energize Democratic voters ahead of the presidential and congressional elections in November. If a Democratic nominee were to replace Scalia it would lead to a sizable shift in the ideological balance of the high court, which has had a conservative majority for decades. Here are some of the possibilities, including two prominent Asian-American judges: Sri Srinivasan Among those the administration could turn to is Sri Srinivasan, 48, who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since May 2013. He would be the first Indian-American on the court and has impeccable bipartisan credentials. The Senate confirmed him on a 97-0 vote three years ago. He was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, now retired, a 1981 appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan. At Srinivasan’s confirmation hearing, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, now a presidential candidate, described himself as a long-standing friend dating back to their time together as law clerks in the U.S. appeals court based in Richmond, Virginia. Cruz said Srinivasan had done a “very fine job” in answering the committee’s questions. During his nomination to the appeals court, prominent Republicans such as former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson supported Srinivasan. At his 2013 investiture, leading lights of the legal establishment from both parties praised him. Federal appeals court judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee for whom Srinivasan was also a law clerk, called him “lightning smart.” So far on the appeals court, his rulings have not sparked controversy. Jacqueline Nguyen Other names the administration could consider include Jacqueline Nguyen, 50, a Vietnamese-American who has been a judge on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since May 2012. The first Asian-American woman to sit on a federal appeals court, she was confirmed by the Senate in 2012 by a 91-3 vote. When she was a child, Nguyen fled South Vietnam with her family toward the close of the Vietnam War in 1975, and then lived in a refugee camp in California. Nguyen was a federal prosecutor and district court judge in Los Angeles before she was elevated to the appeals court. Paul Watford An African-American who is also a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Paul Watford is another possibility. He was an appellate litigator at the Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm before Obama nominated him to the appeals court in 2011. Watford, 48, clerked for 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, a libertarian-leaning Republican, and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of Scalia’s colleagues on the Supreme Court.  He was confirmed by a 61-34 vote, as some Republicans raised concerns about Watford’s work as a lawyer on immigration and death penalty cases. Jane Kelly Jane Kelly, a white woman and former public defender who has served on the St. Louis, Missouri-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since April 2013. She was supported by Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the key committee that would review the nominee.  Kelly, 51, clerked for now-retired Judge David Hansen, a friend of Grassley’s who served on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was confirmed by the Senate on a 96-0 vote.

Summary: ओबामा के विकल्पों में एशियाई-अमेरिकी न्यायाधीश शामिल हैं क्योंकि वह स्कैलिया को बदलना चाहते हैं