JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African banking stocks rallied on Tuesday, buoyed by optimism that the newly elected leader of the ruling African National Congress will push through policies aimed at putting the economy on a stronger footing. South Africa s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa - a darling of markets - narrowly beat former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in Monday s vote, marking a pivotal moment for the party that launched black-majority rule under Nelson Mandela s leadership 23 years ago. As ANC leader, Ramaphosa, a 65-year-old union leader turned businessman, is likely to become the next president after elections in 2019 because of his party s electoral dominance. Ratings agency Moody s said Ramaphosa s victory opened up tentative prospects of a policy shift and rise in business confidence that  could reverse the gradual deterioration in South Africa s credit fundamentals.   Ramaphosa, a former chairman of Africa s biggest telecoms operator MTN Group, is seen by business leaders as well placed to turn around an economy. South Africa s GDP is estimated to grow by less than a percent this year, while the unemployment rate is at near records just shy of 28 percent. In an open letter, Mike Brown, the chief executive of South Africa s No.4 bank, Nedbank, urged Ramaphosa to immediately address governance failures in state-owned companies and ensure that the country retains the last sovereign investment grade from Moody s.  It is important that we have stable and rational policies, creating an environment that encourages growth for businesses and individuals,  Brown said. Ramaphosa s election victory over Dlamini-Zuma, who was backed by ex-husband President Jacob Zuma, put shares in banks, considered the barometer of both economic and political sentiment, back in demand. In afternoon trade, the blue-chip stock index, the JSE Top-40, added one percent to 51,601 with banks on top of the gainers  list. The banking index rose nearly six percent with FirstRand, the largest lender by market value, surging more than seven percent. Government bonds firmed, with the yield on the benchmark instrument due in 2026 falling 16 basis points to 8.695 percent. A local business lobby group, Business Leadership South Africa welcomed the election of Ramaphosa, saying it gave him a chance to address inequality, unemployment and poverty.  For this to happen, we require regulatory certainty and policy stability that will accelerate and deepen transformation,  said BLSA, which is composed of some of the biggest and most influential names in corporate South Africa.  Another key issue facing the ANC s new leader is policy uncertainty in South Africa s mining industry, where companies are challenging a requirement to increase black ownership of firms in the sector to 30 percent from 26 percent. The sector is a major employer and contributed 7.7 percent to gross domestic product in 2016. The sector also accounts for 25 percent of exports in Africa s most industrialized economy. Analysts at U.S. bank JP Morgan raised their economic growth forecast for next year to 1.4 percent from one percent, prompted by Ramaphosa s election.   The forecast change largely rests on a lesser purchasing power drag on consumers, as outlined below, and perhaps a modest resumption in the capex cycle,  the analysts said in a note.  FLAG-BEARER The rand currency retreated on Tuesday from a nine-month high notched up in the previous session. At 1107 GMT, the rand was 0.2 percent weaker against the dollar at 12.7950 rand. Expectations that Ramaphosa would win the ANC race had pushed the rand to 12.5200 per dollar on Monday, its firmest since March 27 before a cabinet reshuffle by Zuma rocked markets and triggered credit ratings downgrades to  junk . Ramaphosa will be the ANC s flag-bearer in the 2019 national election, but will have to contend with allies of his defeated rival, Dlamini-Zuma, in his leadership team. Some investors were worried that Ramaphosa may not be able to push through policy changes because the ANC s top decision making group, known as the  top-six , was split down the middle, consisting of three politicians apiece drawn from Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma s camps.  Ramaphosa s sole rival was Dlamini-Zuma, a veteran campaigner against racial economic inequality and big business interests.  There is some concern that the split of the ANC top six (officials) might hinder Cyril Ramaphosa s ability to invoke the much needed reforms he has been campaigning on,  said Shaun Murison, currency strategist at IG Markets.

Summary: रामफोसा की एएनसी चुनाव जीत ने दक्षिण अफ्रीकी बैंकों को ऊपर उठाया


The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS.  The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy.  @realDonaldTrump : - Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs, is bending over backwards in apologizing for the minor hit they took at Crooked H. Anna Wintour, who was all set to be Amb to Court of St James’s & a big fundraiser for CH, is beside herself in grief & begging for forgiveness! [1024 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR)

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः ट्विटर पर ट्रम्प (28 दिसंबर)-वैनिटी फेयर, हिलेरी क्लिंटन


PARIS (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will travel to France for the Bastille Day military celebrations on July 14, President Emmanuel Macron’s office said on Wednesday, in a sign the allies are seeking to bolster ties despite differences over climate change. The French presidency and White House said Trump had accepted an invitation to make the visit, which will also commemorate the U.S. entry into World War One 100 years ago.  “The two leaders will further build on the strong counter-terrorism cooperation and economic partnership between the two countries,” the White House said in a statement.  Macron appears to be broadly aligning his foreign policy with U.S. priorities of tackling terrorism while seeking better ties with Russia. But the two leaders publicly clashed after Trump said he would pull out of a global accord on action to combat climate change. “Beyond our differences on some subjects such as climate, it shows the strength and the links in our transatlantic ties and the convergence of views on counter-terrorism and our joint commitment in war zones,” said a French diplomat. After the United States, France is the biggest contributor to the coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The July 14 festivities see thousands of men and women from France’s army, navy and air force march down the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris. The U.S. military will this year march with French forces.  On July 14, 1789, crowds stormed the Bastille prison, where opponents of the monarchy were held, at the start of the French Revolution. Plans by Trump to visit Britain have yet to be finalised despite an invitation by Prime Minister Theresa May when she met him in Washington in January. The prospect of a visit has met opposition in Britain, prompting fears of angry protests, also a possibility in France. “Donald Trump is violent and there’s no reason for him being here,” a far-left lawmaker and former French presidential candidate said on Wednesday. “He is not welcome. That’s clear,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the France Unbowed movement, told Europe 1 radio.

Summary: राष्ट्रपति ट्रम्प 14 जुलाई को पेरिस समारोह में भाग लेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was unaware of any plans to oust him when he spoke to Senator Bob Corker on Thursday, Corker said. “He’s conducting business, as is the norm, and is unaware of anything changing,” Corker, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.

Summary: सीनेटर कॉर्कर का कहना है कि टिलरसन को उन्हें हटाने की योजना की जानकारी नहीं थी


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s government welcomed the upcoming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Thursday after the Trump administration gave notice it was kicking off the process with a letter to Congress. In a brief statement, Mexico’s economy ministry said NAFTA had been a boon to Canada, the United States and Mexico, and that all three nations deserved a modern pact to regulate trade. “Mexico expects a constructive negotiation that allows more cooperation, economic integration, and boosts regional competitiveness,” the ministry said in the statement.

Summary: मेक्सिको ने नाफ्टा पुनः वार्ता का स्वागत किया, रचनात्मक वार्ता की उम्मीद की


(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that he discussed forming a cyber security unit to guard against election hacking with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tweeting after his first meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump said now was the time to work constructively with Moscow, pointing to a ceasefire deal in southwest Syria that came into effect on Sunday. “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe,” he said following their talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Trump said he had raised allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with Putin. “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion.....” He added: “We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!” Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida immediately criticized the move on Twitter, saying Putin was not a trusted partner. Partnering with Putin on a “Cyber Security Unit” is akin to partnering with (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad on a “Chemical Weapons Unit,” he wrote.  Investigations by a special counsel, Robert Mueller, and several U.S. congressional committees are looking into whether Russia interfered in the election and colluded with Trump’s campaign. Those probes are focused almost exclusively on Moscow’s actions, lawmakers and intelligence officials say, and no evidence has surfaced publicly implicating other countries. Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia. (This version of the story corrects the day of meeting in second paragraph to Friday)

Summary: साइबर सुरक्षा इकाई के गठन पर पुतिन के साथ चर्चा हुईः ट्रम्प


JAKARTA (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory may create fresh tension between the United States and the Islamic world, an official at Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body said on Wednesday. Trump, who once proposed a ban on Muslims entering the United States, stunned the world by defeating heavily favored Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, ending eight years of Democratic rule. Trump had made “negative, cynical” comments about Muslims in the past, Din Syamsuddin, a senior official at the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), told reporters in Jakarta. “He had forgotten that many Americans are immigrants.” Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population.

Summary: ट्रम्प की जीत अमेरिका और इस्लाम के बीच नया तनाव पैदा कर सकती हैः इंडोनेशिया लिपिक निकाय


MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday asked Congress to extend martial law on the southern island of Mindanao for a year, arguing that Islamist militants have been regrouping since a five-month urban conflict ended there in October. He said fighters who survived the battle for Marawi City were determined to establish a Southeast Asian  wilayat    or governorate - for Islamic State and named militant Abu Turaifie as potentially the radical group s next regional  emir . The previous  emir , Isnilon Hapilon, and another rebel commander loyal to Islamic State were killed in October as the military closed in on fighters who had occupied the heart of Marawi since May 23. More than 1,100 people - mostly militants - were killed and 350,000 displaced by the Marawi unrest. In his letter to the Senate and House of Representatives, Duterte said militants were radicalizing and recruiting local people, reorganizing themselves and building their finances.  These activities are geared towards the conduct of intensified atrocities and armed public uprisings,  he said, adding that they were aimed at establishing a global Islamic caliphate and a  wilayat , not only in the Philippines but the whole of Southeast Asia.  A group led by Turaifie - who heads a splinter group of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and, according to Duterte, is  said to be Hapilon s potential successor  - was planning bombings in the Cotabato province south of Marawi. Intelligence reports indicate that militants are plotting to attack another city, Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said on Monday. Duterte placed restive Mindanao, which has a population of 22 million, under military rule after the attack on Marawi, and martial law was due to be lifted there on Dec. 31.  Lawmakers will vote on his request for a one-year extension at a joint session on Wednesday, Congress majority leader Rodolfo Farinas told reporters. Continuing martial law beyond the initial 60-day limit requires lawmakers  approval, but the constitution does not limit any extensions. Martial law allows for tougher surveillance and arrests without warrant, giving security forces greater rein to go after suspected extremist financiers and facilitators. Duterte has long warned that Mindanao faced contamination by Islamic State, and experts say Muslim parts of the predominantly Catholic southern Philippines are fertile ground for expansion, due to their history of marginalization and neglect. Critics of Duterte, who has held open the possibility of extending military rule to the whole country, have slammed the imposition of martial law in Mindanao as a misuse of power and evidence of the president s authoritarian tendencies. Martial law is a sensitive issue in the Philippines, bringing back memories of the 1970s rule of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was accused of exaggerating security threats to justify harsh measures to suppress dissent. Human rights group Karapatan questioned why martial law should be extended in Mindanao nearly two months after the military s victory in Marawi City.  This is a dangerous precedent that inches the entire country closer to a nationwide declaration of martial rule,  it said in a statement.

Summary: फिलीपींस के दक्षिण में सैन्य कानून का विस्तार करने की कोशिश में, दुतेर्ते कहते हैं कि आतंकवादी फिर से संगठित हो रहे हैं


(Reuters) - A U.S. judge ordered the State Department on Thursday to release by Sept. 13 any emails it finds between Hillary Clinton and the White House from the week of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, among the thousands of additional emails uncovered by federal investigators. The order came after the Federal Bureau of Investigation gave the department a disc earlier this month containing 14,900 emails to and from Clinton and other documents it said it had recovered that she did not return to the government. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has been criticized for using an unauthorized private email system run from a server in the basement of her home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, a decision she says was wrong and that she regrets. The issue has hung over her campaign for the White House and raised questions among voters about her trustworthiness.  Judge William Dimitrouleas of the U.S. District Court in southern Florida made his order in response to a request by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which is suing the State Department for Clinton-era records under freedom of information laws. Spokesmen for Clinton did not respond to requests for comment. At least one other judge has said the department will eventually have to release all the newly recovered work emails, and at least some are expected to appear before the Nov. 8 presidential election. After the system’s existence became more widely known, Clinton returned what she said were all her work emails to the State Department in 2014, and the department released them in batches to the public, some 30,000 in all. The FBI took her server in 2015 after it was discovered she had sent and received classified government secrets through the system, which the government bans.  Clinton has said she did not know the information was classified at the time. After a year-long investigation, FBI Director James Comey said last month that Clinton should have recognized the sensitivity of the information and that she had been “extremely careless” with government secrets. But he said there were not enough grounds for a prosecution, a decision criticized by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other Republicans. It remained unclear if there were any newly discovered emails that related to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed. “Using broad search terms, we have identified a number of documents potentially responsive to a Benghazi-related request,” Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “At this time, we have not confirmed that the documents are, in fact, responsive. We also have not determined if they involve Secretary Clinton.”

Summary: न्यायाधीश ने 13 सितंबर तक जारी करने के लिए क्लिंटन के नए ईमेलों की खोज का आदेश दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will discuss advanced wireless technologies and drones on Thursday with top executives at AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, T-Mobile US Inc and other firms, focusing on how government can create the right environment for breakthroughs. AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure and CenturyLink Inc CEO Glen Post will be among the executives discussing advanced technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, 5G wireless technologies and universal broadband, officials said. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump will see “demonstrations of how these technologies will contribute to the 21st century economy and how the government can ensure that their safe adoption leads to the best possible outcomes for the American worker and American businesses.” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Deputy Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House National Economic Director Gary Cohn and FAA and NASA officials will attend small group meetings before the group meets with Trump at about 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT). Venture capital firms and portfolio companies also are expected. Last year, the FCC cleared the way for 5G, a lightning-fast next generation of wireless services that lead to universal access to broadband wireless. Testing is under way and deployment is expected around 2020. New 5G networks are expected to provide speeds at least 10 times and maybe 100 times faster than today’s 4G networks, the FCC said. Policymakers and mobile phone companies have said the next generation of wireless signals needs to be much faster and far more responsive to allow advanced technologies such as virtual surgery or controlling machines remotely. They face regulatory hurdles to adding infrastructure to create the system. The 5G networks could help wirelessly connect devices such as thermostats or washing machines to facilitate the “internet of things.” They could improve road traffic by monitoring sensors in streetlights and cars. It could even help detect air pollution using sensors in trees. The FAA in March estimated that by 2021 the fleet of small hobbyist drones will more than triple and the commercial drone fleet will increase tenfold to about 442,000. The Obama administration implemented rules that opened the skies to low-level small drones for education, research and routine commercial use. The Trump administration still is considering whether to allow a sweeping expansion in drone use for purposes such as deliveries where aircraft would fly beyond the sight of an operator.

Summary: वायरलेस तकनीक, ड्रोन पर शीर्ष अधिकारियों से मिलेंगे ट्रंप


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new path forged by Hurricane Irma posed a severe threat to  Florida s west coast and the Florida Keys, the head of the U.S. federal emergency agency said on Sunday, and the storm was bringing tornado watches and warnings around the state.  This is a worst case scenario for Monroe County, the Florida Keys and the west coast of Florida,  Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the  Fox News Sunday  program.  Any time you re in that northeast quadrant as the storm is moving forward, that s where the maximum radius winds are that define the intensity of the storm,  he said.  That s where the storm surge is most prevalent and the inland winds are going to be tough.

Summary: FEMA प्रमुख का कहना है कि फ्लोरिडा कीज़ के लिए इरमा मार्ग 'सबसे खराब स्थिति' है


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission called on Monday for Poland to seek European legal advice on two draft judicial reform laws put forward by President Andrzej Duda, to check that they comply with European democratic standards. In July, Duda, an ally of Poland s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, unexpectedly vetoed its plan to overhaul the judiciary, after nationwide protests and warnings from Western allies that the changes would undermine the independence of the courts. Earlier on Monday he presented his own drafts of the two vetoed laws, proposing a greater role for himself over the nomination of judges. The European Commission said Poland should seek the opinion of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe on the drafts. The commission provides legal advice to its members to help them bring their laws and institutions into line with European standards.  It would be extremely helpful if these two draft laws... would be given to the Venice Commission for advice,  European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans told a news conference.  We will make our comments on that also once we have analysed it,  he said, referring to the ongoing unprecedented process of EU monitoring of Poland s adherence to the rule of law launched at the beginning of 2016. The Venice Commission ruled last year that laws passed by the PiS government on the country s Constitutional Tribunal were incompatible with European standards, prompting the European Commission to launch its rule-of-law monitoring procedure. Timmermans said the Commission s monitoring of Poland s democratic practices had received broad support from national governments, which stressed that the rule of law was fundamental for the functioning of the European Union as a whole. He said he would be happy to receive Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro and Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski in Brussels or himself go to Warsaw to continue the dialogue with Poland that other governments were so keen on. Speaking to reporters after delivering an update on the rule of law monitoring process in Poland to EU ministers, Timmermans said he had broad support to continue.  What is most important to me is that everybody around the table said: Rule of law? It is not an option, it is an obligation... it is the fundament of European cooperation... it concerns us all,  he said.  I was encouraged by the broad, broad support I felt in the Council for trying to find a solution. But there is still a lot, a lot we need to do before we can say that the problem has been solved,  Timmermans said.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ ने पोलैंड के नए न्यायिक सुधार कानूनों की जांच के लिए कानूनी आयोग का आह्वान किया


(Reuters) - When Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, talks of social mobility, about helping struggling Americans move out of impoverished areas to give them greater opportunity, Shiva Daniels is the kind of person he has in mind. A federal housing voucher allowed Daniels to escape her crime-plagued neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, and move her four children to the suburb of Garland. That move helped Daniels find a good job, working for a property management company. Today, she cherishes the small, two-bedroom house she rents, with a yard where her children can safely play, away from drugs and gang violence in Dallas. But if Daniels, 31, were to lose the $1,082 monthly stipend she receives, she has no doubt what would happen. “I would have to move back,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to afford it.” Pulling Americans out of poverty is a subject close to Ryan’s heart. And President Donald Trump has frequently talked about aiding the inner cities. But the housing assistance provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, could fall victim to fiscal policies under consideration by the White House and Congress, which include a massive tax cut and increased military spending, according to a dozen congressional aides who spoke to Reuters. While the White House has not been specific about its plans for HUD — the budget process remains in flux — it has called for a $54 billion cut in non-military discretionary domestic programs in the next fiscal year, which likely will dramatically impact safety-net programs that are not entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security, budget experts said.      Altogether, housing advocates paint a bleak picture of the landscape for low-income housing under the Trump administration. They warn that deep cuts to housing funds would force some people out of their homes and hollow out grant programs meant to revitalize urban neighborhoods.  There is also a ripple effect, they warn: Rental prices would likely rise alongside declines in affordable housing projects and vouchers available to renters. That would make it tougher for renters to save enough to eventually buy homes. “It’s a bad cycle,” said Carol Galante, a former top HUD official during the Obama administration. “It puts pressure on the rental market. The rents are higher and higher so people can save less and less.”  HUD provides about 5 million Americans with some form of housing assistance, either through vouchers to renters, subsidies to landlords or public housing projects, which comprises about 85 percent of its budget. It also sends about $8 billion annually directly to communities through grants. Even so, only about one-quarter of those eligible for assistance in the country receive it. Housing advocates say changes to its budget or mandate would be directly felt in low-income communities. They point out that in 2013, when the legislatively mandated budget cuts known as sequestration hit HUD, more than 100,000 renters nationwide lost their housing support. Douglas Rice, an expert at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, estimates that for every 1 percent cut in HUD’s budget, 20,000 renters would lose their assistance But critics of the agency, including some Republican lawmakers, say its anti-poverty and community-development programs are inefficient and wasteful, and that it has failed to live up to its mission. Today, the proportion of Americans who live below the poverty line — 14.5 percent — is about the same as it was 35 years ago. HUD has also at times had difficulty shaking the image of a bureaucratic agency that is vulnerable to corruption. It was at the center of a bid-rigging scandal during the Reagan Administration. And Alphonso Jackson, the HUD secretary under President George W. Bush, resigned in 2008 amid allegations that he steered contracts to friends. Charges were never brought against Jackson.  “There are some sports teams that never seem to gel. I think we’re a little like that at HUD,” said Bud Albright, a Washington lobbyist who worked at the agency when Republican Jack Kemp was secretary in the early 1990s. Trump, who has not been specific on his plans for the agency, selected Ben Carson to lead HUD. The former neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate won Senate confirmation last week.  Although Carson’s views hew closely to Republican orthodoxy on how too much government can discourage people from working hard, his upbringing in inner-city Detroit gives him a unique perspective: his mother received food stamps to provide for her family and he was raised around housing assistance programs similar to those he will now manage. Carson, who declined requests for interviews by Reuters, has pledged to fight to protect HUD’s housing-assistance budget and preserve the agency’s community-development initiatives. He also said he would push to include funding to rehabilitate public-housing facilities in Trump’s proposed $1 trillion infrastructure plan. But given the White House’s determination to cut domestic spending, Carson will have to fight for every dollar. A HUD spokesman declined to comment on which programs could be hurt by any possible budget cuts. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment.   Congress, too, is looking to narrow HUD’s reach.  Ryan has called for work requirements and time limits on those who receive housing assistance, similar to how child support, food assistance and other welfare benefits function. Tax reform spearheaded by Ryan and Kevin Brady, the House Ways and Means chairman, could ultimately do away with a key tax credit used by developers to build affordable housing, or could drastically curtail the credit’s use. One vocal critic of HUD is Jeb Hensarling, Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees the housing agency. Hensarling plans to introduce legislation this year to narrow the $1 trillion portfolio of the Federal Housing Administration, which helps low-income and first-time homebuyers purchase homes, his office said. Hensarling has said he fears that if home values drop the FHA would require another federal bailout as it did in 2013, when it received a taxpayer-funded infusion of $1.7 billion to cover its losses. If the cuts to HUD’s budget are as severe as some expect, those who are on waiting lists now for vouchers will be staying on them for a very long time, and recipients such as Shiva Daniels, who has been receiving assistance for six years, will be at risk of seeing that support end. That would mean losing her small house, with the yard she sees as a safe haven for her children. “It might not feel like it’s a big deal, but it is,” Daniels said. “When you feel good, it allows you to do better, and do better for them.”

Summary: ठंड में बाहरः नई अमेरिकी बजट प्राथमिकताओं से आवास सहायता कार्यक्रमों को खतरा है


SINGAPORE (Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 struck off the Pacific Ocean nation of Papua New Guinea on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of any damage or injuries from the quake, which struck 125 km (78 miles) east of the town of Rabaul, at a depth of 70 km (44 miles).

Summary: पापुआ न्यू गिनी में 6.2 तीव्रता का भूकंपः यूएसजीएस


(Reuters) - Hurricane Maria was on course Tuesday to slam Puerto Rico with a direct hit that could devastate the island s underfunded power grid, still recovering from Hurricane Irma two weeks ago. The Category 5 storm, the top end of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, could strain the resources of the island s power provider, Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). The utility filed for bankruptcy in July, after years of underinvestment that yielded a system it called  degraded and unsafe.   Maria is expected to strike the island on Wednesday with winds of up to 160 miles per hour (257 km per hour), the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Irma grazed Puerto Rico, knocking out power to more than 1 million of PREPA s 1.5 million customers, according to the U.S. Energy Department. All but about 60,000 have had power restored, and the island s power plants were not severely damaged.  Maria, however, could be the first major hurricane - defined as Category 3 or higher - to make landfall since Georges in 1998, said Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at The Weather Company, an IBM company. It could be the first Category 5 since San Felipe II in 1928, which killed more than 300 people on the island.   No generation has seen a hurricane like this since San Felipe II in 1928. This is an unprecedented atmospheric system,  said Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossell , in a statement on Tuesday. The island could be faced with outages for weeks, straining the resources of a utility whose power plants have a median age of 44 years, compared with an industry average of 18 years, and more frequent power outages. PREPA said in a draft fiscal plan released in April that  years of underinvestment have led to severe degradation of infrastructure.    Even if we had an energy system in prime condition, which we all know we don t have, it still would be very difficult,  said Nydia Suarez, who works at CNE Group, a think tank, and lives on the island. She plans to stay with her son in Guaynabo, which is farther inland than her home in San Juan. The utility had to declare bankruptcy in July due to a $9 billion hole deepened by a lengthy recession on the island, inconsistent management and ineffective collections.  The island s power prices are already higher than any U.S. state other than Hawaii, according to the U.S. Energy Department.   They have been reluctant to raise rates to generate additional revenues to increase capital expenditures on the island ... because the population is a bit depressed,  said Rick Donner, vice president and senior credit officer at credit rating agency Moody s Investors Service in New York.     PREPA will use the same plan it used for Irma, Executive Director Ricardo Ramos said in a news release, by first energizing hospitals, water plants and some industries.  The utility said it has refilled all fuel tanks while workers collect debris and trim trees damaged by Irma near transmission lines.  The Department of Energy said it was working with the American Public Power Authority (APPA), PREPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to get mutual aid workers to Puerto Rico and elsewhere.  I was 12 days without electricity after Georges. We think about that and with a power system that is worse than it was then   more fragile   we re expecting more time without power,  CNE Group s Suarez said.

Summary: प्यूर्टो रिको बिजली ग्रिड तूफान मारिया में पीढ़ीगत खतरे का सामना कर रहा है


EL ALTO, Bolivia (Reuters) - In El Alto, a former shantytown high in the Andes that has mushroomed into Bolivia s second-largest city, students and professors are growing disenchanted with Evo Morales, the leftist president their protests helped put in power a decade ago. A sprawling settlement of nearly 1 million people on Bolivia s dusty Altiplano plateau, El Alto is a larger and more politically radical extension of the capital La Paz, which sits hundreds of meters below in a canyon. An uprising here in 2003 over the use of revenues from the poor South American nation s natural gas reserves helped force the resignation of U.S.-backed President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Some 60 residents were killed in the upheaval. The protests were led in part from the campus of El Alto s public university UPEA and opened the way for Morales to take power as Bolivia s first indigenous president three years later. Now, students and teachers feel forgotten. Demonstrations, some violent, have broken out in recent weeks over what teachers and students call insufficient funding for the school, a potential obstacle in Morales  plan to win a fourth term in 2019.  The government has a pending debt,  said Ramiro Limachi Apaza, director of UPEA S communications department and an El Alto resident who protested alongside Morales in 2003 in the so-called  gas wars.  Morales fulfilled protesters  demands to nationalize the gas industry after taking office in 2006, promising to spread natural resource wealth in the country of more than 10 million, long one of Latin America s poorest. Bolivia s economy grew and thousands of Aymara peasants moved to El Alto. While El Alto generally remains poor, some immigrants became wealthy merchants, building glamorous, colorful homes known as  cholets  and hosting lavish parties. Lines of cable cars, inaugurated by Morales, whisk Bolivians between El Alto and La Paz, above the dizzying mountain traffic.        Yet Limachi said the public university, which charges students next to nothing, has been unable to pay its teachers for three months. Morales  administration, one of Latin America s few remaining hard-line leftist governments after the region turned to the right in recent years, says it increased spending on education by 25 percent since 2006. It questions UPEA s use of its funding and the number of students enrolled. Due to its history, the recent protests at UPEA have drawn national attention, especially as they coincided with a widely criticized court decision in late November allowing Morales to run for a fourth turn. Bolivia s constitutional court, padded with members of Morales MAS party, argued term limits violate human rights - defying the result of a referendum last year in which 51 percent of Bolivians said they opposed Morales running again. The ruling was criticized by the United States and raised eyebrows in urban areas across Bolivia where support for Morales is weakening. Mining communities, coca farmers and rural villages generally still support him. Across the sprawling city of El Alto, where new homes are being built every day, discontent had been creeping up for some time. Since 2015, the city has had an opposition mayor.  It s quite disturbing that our demands are not being listened to,  said Celia Quecana, a UPEA sociology student dressed in a traditional Aymara pollera, a flowing skirt worn in the Andes. She said that Bolivia s constitution guarantees funding for public universities.  There s a lot of discontent that democracy, in the form of the Feb. 21 (2016) referendum, has not been respected,  she said at the university, where trash had not been collected nor bathrooms cleaned for days. In judicial elections on Dec. 3, nearly 54 percent of Bolivians spoiled their ballots rather than voting, as a means of protesting against Morales.  Vote null  graffiti remains scrawled across walls in El Alto and La Paz.  As El Alto has grown, so has the number of students studying at UPEA, the basis for the university s dispute with the government. UPEA says it now has 47,000 students, double the 2011 enrollment when the amount of funding it receives was determined.  For Diego von Vacano, a Bolivian political scientist at Yale University, the UPEA protests have legitimate roots and touch on a major problem for Morales.  The government did not invest in education,  Vacano said.  El Alto is one of the most radical areas of Bolivia. A government can quickly fall if it does not get the support of El Alto.   The United Nations says Bolivia spent about 7 percent of its gross domestic product on education in 2014, its most recent data, a percentage that is high for Latin America, although one that had not changed much over the past decade.  El Alto s explosive growth coincided with the end of a commodities boom felt in Bolivia through lower gas prices, which have halved since 2006. Bolivia s gas production peaked at an average 59.6 million cubic meters per day in 2014 and has fallen for the past two years, according to the government.   The gas issue is incredibly important, it affects everything. We had received an impressive amount of money, but it s gone down for everyone,  said Nelson Vila, a UPEA professor who was hospitalized after clashes with police in November.

Summary: बोलिविया के बेलवेदर शहर में मोरालेस पर गुस्सा बढ़ता जा रहा है


TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The Libyan force holding the brother of the brother of the bomber who killed 22 people in Manchester in May is ready to cooperate on a British extradition request if it is approved by the attorney general, a spokesman said on Thursday.  If there is agreement between the attorney general and the British authorities, we are ready for the next step,  said Ahmad Ben Salim, a spokesman for the Special Deterrence Force (Rada), a counter-terrorism group aligned with the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli. Ben Salim said earlier the group was not prepared to extradite Hashem Abedi, brother of bomber Salman Abedi.

Summary: बम हमलावर के भाई के प्रत्यर्पण के ब्रिटेन के अनुरोध पर सहयोग करने के लिए लीबिया की सेना तैयारः प्रवक्ता


MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine teachers on Tuesday gave families returning to the  destroyed lakeside city of Marawi a course on how to identify unexploded bombs in their homes and warned them to stay clear. The five-month battle to retake Marawi from pro-Islamic State rebels left the city in ruins. The government announced the end of military operations on Monday in the country s biggest security crisis in years, allowing rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts to begin.. The teachers taught children and their parents how to recognize live mortar shells, grenades, aircraft rockets and  improvised explosive devices  in their villages. Security forces used artillery bombardment and air strikes to flush out the gunmen who endured 154 days of the offensive by stockpiling huge amounts of weapons, including bombs.  Warnings from the teachers included drawings of inquisitive children hammering bombs and trying to set them on fire.  This helps us parents to understand and tell our children not to touch or get near the bombs,  said Sobaida Sidic, a housewife attending the training.  Authorities said 920 militants, 165 troops and police and at least 45 civilians were killed in the conflict, which displaced more than 300,000 people. Lominog Manoga, a principal at a school in Marawi overseeing the training, said it was important to teach people the risks. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had declared Marawi City liberated last week, even though fighting was not actually over. On Sunday, he said it was important to be vigilant because no country could escape Islamic State s  clutches of evil .

Summary: बर्बाद फिलीपींस शहर लौट रहे परिवारों को बमों की पहचान करना सिखाया गया


GENEVA (Reuters) - The new president of the world s largest humanitarian network, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), promised on Tuesday to crack down on corruption after a scandal over Ebola funds in West Africa. Francesco Rocca, who headed the Italian Red Cross and oversaw its role in the Mediterranean refugee crisis, was elected on Monday to lead the IFRC. He said the organization should have  zero tolerance for any grey area or black hole  and its 190 national societies should adopt  very strict  policies.   What has happened could jeopardize our credibility,  Rocca told Reuters. Last month the IFRC said it had uncovered fraud committed during its operations to combat the deadly Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-2016.  The estimated losses totaled 6 million Swiss francs, including suspected collusion between IFRC staff and bank employees in Sierra Leone, fake billing in Guinea and inflated prices and payments in Liberia.   It s a huge offense to our volunteers, who spend their lives and sacrifice their time (away from) their family, their friends, their free time, sometimes their job, to spend for humanity,  Rocca said.  Then someone is creating profit on their shoulders. It is something that is really unacceptable.  Rocca said other priorities for the organization included recruiting more volunteers to help cope with bigger and more frequent natural disasters, and persuading politicians to take the right decisions. Politicians were too concerned about the present and needed to think longer-term to solve big problems, Rocca said.  One such issue was the flow of migrants and refugees from Africa to Europe, thousands of whom die every year as they try to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean.   If after 30 years people are still escaping for the same reason, perhaps we need to rethink how we have worked so far in that area of the world,  he said.

Summary: रेड क्रॉस फेडरेशन के प्रमुख ने भ्रष्टाचार के खिलाफ कार्रवाई का संकल्प लिया


TORONTO (Reuters) - A U.S.-Canadian couple freed in Pakistan this week, nearly five years after being abducted in Afghanistan, reunited with the husband s family on Saturday, the Associated Press reported. Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman arrived with their three children late on Friday in Toronto, where the husband said one of his children was murdered and his wife had been raped. Citing an email from Boyle, the AP reported the family had  reached the first true  home  that the children have ever known   after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully.  Boyle, a Canadian, and Coleman, an American were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. Pakistani troops rescued the family this week in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border. The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Haqqani network. The couple had three children while in captivity. Boyle opened his Friday media statement by saying he was delayed due to a medical emergency involving one of his children. AP, citing Boyle s email, said his daughter had a cursory medical exam and hospital staff were  enthusiastically insistent that her chances seemed miraculously high based on a quick physical.   Boyle made a brief statement at Toronto s Pearson International Airport late on Friday, calling on the Taliban  to provide my family with the justice we are owed.   God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network,  he said.

Summary: बचाया गया Canadian-U.S. दंपति परिवार के साथ फिर से मिला; चिकित्सा उपचार प्राप्त कर रहा है


BOSTON (Reuters) - Democratic White House candidate Hillary Clinton is leading among likely voters aged 18 to 29, according to a Harvard University opinion poll released on Wednesday. The former U.S. secretary of state had the support of 49 percent of likely voters, ahead of Republican rival Donald Trump’s 28 percent support, a substantially wider lead than Democratic President Barack Obama had over Republican former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at the same point in 2012. National polls of voters of all ages also show Clinton leading, though by a substantially narrower margin. Some 14 percent of respondents said they planned to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson, with 5 percent supporting the Green Party’s Jill Stein and 11 percent still undecided. More than one in three self-described Johnson voters said they were likely to change their minds before Election Day. A majority of respondents, 51 percent, described themselves as “fearful” about the future of America, with just 14 percent of the 2,150 respondents saying they believed the country was headed in the right direction. The sense of fearfulness was most predominant among white respondents, though 85 of black respondents said they believed they were “under attack” in modern American society. Some 62 percent of respondents said they believed race relations in the United States would worsen if Trump was elected president. Twenty-two percent thought race relations would deteriorate if Clinton won the Nov. 8 election, with the plurality, 36 percent predicting they would stay the same. The survey, conducted Oct. 7-17 has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, meaning results could vary that much either way.

Summary: हार्वर्ड के सर्वेक्षण में पाया गया कि युवा मतदाताओं में क्लिंटन आगे चल रही हैं


(Reuters) - Two more women came forward on Wednesday with allegations of sexual misconduct against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, one accusing him of groping her and the other of forcing a kiss on her when he was 30 and she was about 18. They are the sixth and seventh women to accuse Moore of sexual improprieties since his race for the Alabama Senate seat began. Most were teenagers at the time. Moore, 70, has denied the accusations and said he is the victim of a witch hunt. Gena Richardson told the Washington Post that Moore, then a 30-year-old attorney, had repeatedly asked her for a date in 1977 just before or after she turned 18. Richardson said she finally agreed and went to a movie with Moore, the Post said. In a dark parking lot at a mall in Gadsden, Alabama, Richardson said Moore gave her an unwanted, “forceful” kiss that scared her, the Post reported. Another woman, Tina Johnson, told AL.com, an Alabama news site, that Moore groped her while she was in his Alabama law office on legal business in 1991. Johnson, who was 28 at the time, said she visited Moore’s office with her mother, who had hired Moore in a custody case involving Johnson’s 12-year-old son. Johnson said Moore grabbed her buttocks as she left. “He didn’t pinch it, he grabbed it,” Johnson told AL.com. Reuters was unable to independently verify the allegations from either woman, and Moore’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Five other women have accused Moore of sexual misconduct or of dating them when he was in his 30s and they were teenagers. National Republican Party leaders have responded with demands that he drop out of the Senate race. The Dec. 12 special election will fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when he was named U.S. attorney general last spring. Moore on Wednesday denied the allegations of the first five women to step forward. “We are in the process of investigating these false allegations to determine their origin and motivation,” he said in a statement. Moore also said he believed a message that one of the accusers, Beverly Young Nelson, said he had written in her high school yearbook had been tampered with. Nelson accused Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was 16 and he was in his 30s. Nelson displayed the yearbook message at a news conference in New York, where she made the allegations on Monday. Moore’s campaign on Wednesday demanded that Nelson turn over the yearbook to a neutral custodian so a handwriting expert could examine it. The Alabama state party’s leadership met on Wednesday night to discuss their stance and took no action, news media reported.  Republican leaders in Washington have asked Moore to withdraw from the race and said they are exploring write-in options for the election.  U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has spoken to President Donald Trump and others about the situation. Trump appeared at the White House on Wednesday but did not mention Moore. Under state law, Moore cannot be removed from the ballot. If, however, the state party tells election officials that it wants to withdraw its nominee, or if Moore himself decided to do so, election officials would not certify any votes cast for Moore.  Before the allegations surfaced, Moore, a Christian conservative and former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, had been heavily favored to defeat Democrat Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney. But a new poll on Wednesday, released by the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, had Jones surging to a 12-point lead since the allegations surfaced. A Democratic win in Alabama would be a blow to Trump’s agenda and shift the political outlook for next year’s congressional elections, giving Democrats a stronger shot at wiping out the Republicans’ 52-48 Senate majority. Moore has suggested that McConnell and other establishment Republicans are working with news media to discredit him. The Washington Post first disclosed allegations by four women about their relationships with Moore when they were teenagers, ranging in age from 14 to 18. One of the women said he initiated sexual contact with her when she was 14 and Moore was in his 30s.

Summary: दो और महिलाओं ने सीनेट उम्मीदवार मूर पर यौन दुराचार का आरोप लगाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will not make a decision on whether to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement until after he returns from the May 26-27 Group of Seven summit, the White House said Tuesday. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump is continuing to hear from advisers on the pros and cons of the United States remaining in the global accord. He will make a decision when he returns from the G7 summit in Italy, not prior to that, as originally planned.   “It’s a sign that the president wants to continue to meet with his team ... and come to a decision on what’s (in) the best interest of the United States,” Spicer told reporters. Trump advisers had been scheduled to meet at the White House on Tuesday to try to reach a final decision, but a White House official said the meeting was postponed due to scheduling conflicts. His advisers and cabinet chiefs have been split over whether Trump should keep his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the agreement or remain to try to reshape it, according to senior administration officials and several people briefed on the meeting. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who are senior presidential advisers, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are in favor of remaining, while Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and senior adviser Steve Bannon have urged Trump to withdraw.  Advisers had been under pressure to deliver a final recommendation to Trump ahead of the May 26-27 G7 meeting.

Summary: जी7 शिखर सम्मेलन के बाद पेरिस जलवायु समझौते पर निर्णय लेंगे ट्रंप


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz on Wednesday said the Senate should not vote on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. “Merrick Garland is exactly the type of Supreme Court nominee you get when you make deals in Washington D.C.,” he said in a statement that also criticized rival Donald Trump, who often boasts of his ability to close deals.   “A so-called ‘moderate’ Democrat nominee is precisely the kind of deal that Donald Trump has told us he would make - someone who would rule along with other liberals on the bench like Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor.”

Summary: रिपब्लिकन टेड क्रूज़ का कहना है कि सीनेट को राष्ट्रपति ओबामा के सर्वोच्च न्यायालय के उम्मीदवार पर मतदान नहीं करना चाहिए


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A confidential draft United Nations blacklist seen by Reuters on Tuesday names a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition for killing and maiming children in Yemen, though it notes that the alliance has put in place measures to improve child protection. In an effort to dampen controversy surrounding the annual children and armed conflict report, the draft blacklist - contained in an annex to the full report - is split into  listed parties that have put in place measures during the reporting period to improve the protection of children  and those which have not.   In Yemen, the coalition s actions objectively led to the listing for the killing and maiming of children, with 683 child casualties attributed to this party, and, as a result of being responsible for 38 verified incidents, for attacks on schools and hospitals during 2016,  according to a draft explanation of the blacklist seen by Reuters.   The coalition is included in section B of Annex I, as it has put in place measures during the reporting period aimed at improving the protection of children,  the draft said. The draft U.N. annex blacklists the Houthis, Yemen government forces, pro-government militia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for violations against children in 2016 as it did in last year s report covering violations in 2015.   The draft report has to be approved by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and is subject to change. It is due to be submitted to the U.N. Security Council this month, and the 15-member body is to discuss the report on Oct. 31.  The Saudi U.N. ambassador, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, declined to comment until the report is officially issued. In August, the Saudi U.N. mission said there was  no justification whatsoever  for including the coalition on the blacklist.  U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the United Nations does not comment on leaked documents.  The coalition was briefly added to the blacklist last year 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 its U.N. funding. Saudi Arabia denied threatening Ban. The report - produced by U.N. children and armed conflict envoy Virginia Gamba and issued in Guterres  name - does not subject those listed to any U.N. action, but rather shames parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children. The Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen in March 2015 with the aim of preventing Iran-allied Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen s ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking power. An earlier draft of the latest annual report, which covers 2016 and was seen by Reuters in August, said that of the 683 child casualties blamed on the Saudi-led coalition, about half of those were killed and the rest injured.   That earlier draft said the Houthi rebels and affiliated forces were responsible for nearly a third of the total 1,340 child casualties verified by the United Nations.  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. Separately, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council agreed on Friday to set up a panel to examine all alleged human rights violations committed in Yemen s war and identify those responsible. U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein had long-pleaded with the 47-member Human Rights Council to launch an independent investigation into the war, which has killed thousands, ruined the economy and pushed millions to the brink of famine.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र की काली सूची के मसौदे में यमन में बच्चों की हत्या के लिए सऊदी गठबंधन का नाम


SEOUL (Reuters) - The escalating threat arising from nuclear-armed North Korea’s recent series of missile tests is prompting South Korea to beef up its military muscle and experts warn it could spur an arms buildup elsewhere in Northeast Asia. South Korea and Japan are accustomed to the North’s frequent threats to attack. But the war of words between Washington and Pyongyang has raised fears of a sudden clash along the world’s most militarised border dividing the two Koreas, which might quickly escalate to all-out war. After North Korea’s second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 28, South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered a speedy deployment of the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense system, reversing his earlier decision to postpone it pending an environmental review.  This week, the U.S. Defence Department said it was “actively” considering revising bilateral ballistic missile guidelines with South Korea to allow Seoul to build more powerful missiles — at the South’s request. Moon told U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation on Monday South Korea also wants to build a nuclear-powered submarine, presidential officials said. “All of this could lead to further militarization of South Korea,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum. South Korea, which spends around a tenth of its annual budget on defense, is already home to some 625,000 local soldiers and more than 28,000 U.S. troops. The country, still technically at war with the North after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a peace treaty, has deployed the U.S.-built Patriot missile defense system, as well as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system. Trump warned the North and its leader Kim Jong Un against attacking Guam or U.S. allies on Friday, a day after the isolated country said it was finalizing by mid-August a plan to launch four intermediate range missiles toward waters off the U.S. Pacific territory. “If North Korea actually launches Hwasong-12 missiles towards Guam, they’re going to do it with all their other missiles, artillery and tanks ready for action,” said Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul. “And we should be prepared too.” Even before the latest spike in tensions, South Korea was seeking to enhance its missile-defense capabilities in the face of the unprecedented pace of North Korean missile tests. Japan, worried its ballistic missile defenses could be overwhelmed by swarm attacks or circumvented by warheads launched on lofted trajectories, is likely to acquire a ground-based version of the Aegis missile defense system. It is also mulling the acquisition of munitions that would allow it to strike North Korea missile sites. “The greatest threat to both states remains shorter range artillery, artillery rockets and stockpiles of short-to-medium range missiles. The focus will primarily remain upon bolstering defensive rather than offensive capabilities,” said Reed Foster, a defense analyst for IHS Jane’s. “I don’t believe that there will be any significant altering of East Asian procurement strategies, despite the rhetoric emanating from North Korea, principally because for them the threat hasn’t altered drastically,” Reed added. Conservative lawmakers in Seoul in recent days have even called for a “nuclear balance” on the peninsula, saying Seoul should ask Washington to redeploy U.S. nuclear weapons if South Korea is unable to develop its own. The United States withdrew nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1992, when the two Koreas agreed to make the peninsula nuclear free. In violation of that agreement as well as U.N. Security Council resolutions, North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests. “Now is the right time to actively look at bringing back tactical nuclear weapons,” Chung Woo-taik, floor leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, told Reuters. “North Korea broke the denuclearisation agreement a long time ago.” Reintroducing nuclear weapons remains an unlikely scenario, as that would undermine demands from Seoul and Washington for North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs. For now, officials are instead focused on changing the missile guidelines, which allow Seoul to have ballistic missiles with a flight range capped at 800 km (497 miles), topped with a maximum 500 kg (1,102 pounds) warhead. South Korea is less focused on increasing the flight range, as that could face opposition from neighbors including China, Russia and Japan, and the 800-km range limit covers all of North Korea in any case, senior government officials said. Rather, Seoul wants to double the maximum payload to 1,000 kg or greater, powerful enough to target underground bunkers or nuclear sites within the North, the officials said. That’s still a fraction of the size of “the mother of all bombs”, which the United States dropped on a suspected Islamic State target in Afghanistan in April. The 21,600-pound GBU-43 bomb is one of the largest non-nuclear devices used in combat.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया मिसाइल संकट ने दक्षिण कोरिया को बंदूक उठाने के लिए प्रेरित किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Sunday delivered a more orderly, less haphazard response than he has offered to other provocations by North Korea after Pyongyang conducted a powerful nuclear test that intensified the pressure on his young presidency. Trump s handling of Pyongyang s nuclear test reflected a more traditional approach to crisis management, which U.S. officials said illustrated the influence of the new White House chief of staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. That included the tone the president struck in some early morning tweets. A meeting on the crisis that Trump convened on Sunday was limited to top aides and generals directly involved. In the past, according to administration officials, White House aides and others wandered in and out of such discussions,  contributing to an impression of policymaking chaos. After the meeting, Mattis, also a retired Marine Corps general, appeared before reporters, along with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford, to warn North Korea of U.S. military resolve. Trump himself was more restrained. Last month, he inflamed tensions by declaring that North Korea might face  fire and fury like the world has never seen.  When asked on Sunday if he planned to launch an attack, he said only:  We ll see.   North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success,  Trump said on Twitter. A U.S. official who has participated in the discussions of how to respond to the North s sixth nuclear test, which Pyongyang says was of an advanced hydrogen bomb, told Reuters the U.S. response thus far reflected an improved organization.  If today s meeting and the president s public remarks on Twitter, and the outreach to our allies and others by Rex and others is an early indication, the process is at least more orderly,  said the official, referring to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The crisis is also presenting a test for Kelly, who officials said was trying to rein in the president s more combative impulses and place limits on who gets access to him. The Republican president has sometimes chafed at the restrictions his new chief of staff has imposed on the information flow in and out of the Oval Office in a bid to streamline the decision-making process, people familiar with the situation said.  You can t manage Trump like that,  said one outside Trump adviser, who predicted the president would eventually tire of the process. A second official familiar with the situation noted that  Kelly s influence extends so far.   The president is still the commander in chief, and he has his bully pulpit in Twitter,  said that official, who also requested anonymity to discuss internal White House matters. If there was a discordant note on Sunday, it might have been when Trump took to Twitter to admonish South Korea, a key ally, for what he termed a policy of  appeasement  of North Korea.  South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they (North Korea) only understand one thing!  he said on Twitter. A former senior State Department official criticized Trump for making the remark.  It was unseemly, unhelpful, and divisive to gratuitously slap our major ally at the very moment when the threat from (North Korea) has reached a new height,  said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mattis has a closer relationship with Trump than do Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Tillerson, and had played the leading role in explaining to the president the military options and the dangerous implications of using any of them, the second U.S. official said.  It s no accident that it was Mattis who spoke to the media after the meeting,  the official said.  Both officials said Trump had been briefed on North Korea multiple times since taking office in January, but had pushed back against the idea that military action would be so costly that it should remain a last resort. Most military scenarios predict that a strike on North Korea would bring a massive missile and artillery response against South Korea and its capital, Seoul, resulting in mass casualties. For now, the strategy emerging in the White House includes greater economic pressure on China to step in to help resolve the crisis, officials said. Beijing denies it has sufficient influence on Pyongyang. The effort was signaled by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who told  Fox News Sunday  that he was drafting a sanctions package in which  anybody who wants to do trade or business with them (North Korea) would be prevented from doing trade or business with us.  China is North Korea s biggest trading partner. A recent round of U.S. sanctions targeted some Chinese financial institutions, but administration officials said a broader effort was being contemplated. Whether Trump would launch such an effort is far from clear. He has sought to impose tariffs against Chinese steel imports but has been persuaded by his advisers not to take such a step because it could start a trade war.

Summary: नवीनतम परीक्षण के बाद ट्रम्प, सलाहकारों ने उत्तर कोरिया के लिए अधिक व्यवस्थित प्रतिक्रिया तैयार की


BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Supporters of U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders may inhabit opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they have one thing in common: an unprecedented hunger for campaign swag. Fans of the Republican billionaire Trump and of Democrat Sanders have bought nearly $20 million worth of campaign hats, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and other merchandise so far, according to campaign officials, a level that political brand experts reckon is a record for a presidential election. The sales reveal deep passion for the White House contenders among some voters, and could also signify an expansion of merchandise as a fundraising tool in future races, said Laura Ries, president of branding consultancy Ries & Ries. “I’m sure we’ll see more of this. Merchandise is a great way of getting your message out there, of engaging people, and of raising money,” she said. Among offerings from Trump, now the only candidate left in the Republican race, are T-shirts featuring slogans like “Team Trump” and “New York Values”, trucker hats emblazed with “Make America Great Again” and a “presidential dog raglan” sweater designed to be worn by dogs. The campaign shop for Sanders, who describes himself as a Democratic socialist and who has promised to go after Wall Street and redress social inequalities, features “Feel the Bern” mugs, T-shirts with slogans like “Join the political revolution NOW”, and a “Babies for Bernie” baby bib. Hillary Clinton, who is expected to fend off the challenge from Sanders to become the Democratic nominee for the Nov. 8 election, has run a much smaller campaign merchandise business. “Hillary is a huge front-runner in the polls, but in terms of passion, she’s lagging,” Ries said. “Not as many people want to wear a Clinton T-shirt.” T-SHIRTS AND COFFEE MUGS The Sanders campaign has raised about $12.8 million in gross revenue from campaign merchandise sales, accounting for some 7 percent of total individual contributions so far, according to Kenneth Pennington, the campaign’s digital director. He said the campaign had sold more than 800,000 individual items since launching last year, including 207,000 t-shirts and 44,000 coffee mugs. That gear cost the campaign $8.5 million to manufacture, representing about 5 percent of the campaign’s total expenditures to date, according to federal disclosures, meaning the campaign’s net revenue on merchandise is about $4.3 million. The primary manufacturer of the goods was Tigereye Promotions of Ohio. Campaign reports do not require candidates to break out revenue from merchandise sales. Trump’s merchandise business is smaller than Sanders’, but still historically huge. The real estate developer has mainly used his own funds to finance his White House bid so far, but his campaign has raised more than $6 million in gross revenue by selling Trump trademark gifts and apparel, representing “a majority” of the campaign’s individual contributions, according to spokeswoman Hope Hicks.  “The sale of official campaign products has been extremely successful,” she said. That gear cost the campaign more than $4.7 million to produce. Among the most used manufacturers were Cali-Fame of California and Ace Specialties of Louisiana, according to federal campaign finance disclosures. The owner of Ace Specialties, Christl Mahfouz, is on the board of Trump’s son’s foundation, the Eric Trump Foundation, which raises money for terminally ill children. Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, has spent just $1.4 million on swag manufacturing so far, according to campaign records. A campaign official was not immediately available to comment on how much the campaign had raised through the sale of that merchandise. “For Hillary, I suspect we will see more swag, as she tries to pick up Bernie supporters in the general election,” said Karen Post, a brand consultant and author of “Brand Turnaround”. “What young person do you know who doesn’t love T shirts?” The Trump and Sanders swag spending this year is unmatched by recent elections.  Democratic President Barack Obama, seen as one of the best-branded presidential candidates in recent U.S. history, spent just $1.3 million on T-shirts, posters and bumper stickers during his first election bid in 2008, when he galvanized supporters behind his core messages of hope and change slogan and his rising sun campaign logo.  Obama spent less than $70,000 on merchandise during his 2012 re-election bid against Republican Mitt Romney, whose campaign dished out $3.4 million on campaign promotional items, according to campaign finance reports.

Summary: ट्रम्प, सैंडर्स के प्रशंसकों ने अभियान टी-शर्ट, कॉफी मग के लिए भूख साझा की


FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A Swiss man was handed a suspended prison term of nearly two years and a fine on Thursday for spying on a German tax authority, in a case that has pitted Swiss bank secrecy against Germany s clampdown on tax evasion. The penalty was relatively modest as spying for a foreign state is punishable in Germany by up to five years in prison, but the Frankfurt court said the man, identified only as Daniel M., had no prior convictions and had made a full confession. Daniel M., 54, had tried to get the personal contact details of German tax officials for Swiss intelligence, which wanted to prosecute them for obtaining secret bank data. German states including the one in question, North Rhine-Westphalia, have over the past few years gotten hold of CDs containing details of bank accounts held secretly in Switzerland by Germans hoping to avoid tax. Swiss authorities say this amounts to the theft of business secrets, while German officials say they are combating illegal tax evasion. Lawyers for Daniel M., whose spying activities lasted from 2011 until 2015, had argued that their client was simply a  patriot  caught between two ideologies. The court, which handed him a suspended prison term of a year and 10 months and a fine of 40,000 euros ($46,392), acknowledged that he had suffered considerable financial damage since being detained in Frankfurt in May. But it also criticized his cooperation with Swiss intelligence over a period of at least two and a half years.  The depiction of the defendant s actions as those of a Swiss patriot did not convince the court, especially because tax evasion, the reason for the tax officials  actions, is not considered morally protected behavior in Switzerland either,  the court said in a statement. The Swiss Banking Act requires employees of Swiss-regulated banks to keep client information confidential, but a number of staff have leaked account details to foreign authorities in the past decade as Western governments crack down on tax evasion. Whistleblowers and new disclosure standards have proven costly for Swiss banks, which have suffered hundreds of billions of dollars in outflows as a result. Over a third of Swiss private banks have permanently closed.

Summary: जर्मनी में जासूसी करने के आरोप में स्विस व्यक्ति को निलंबित जेल की सजा मिली


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Congressional plan to help Puerto Rico shed billions of dollars in bad debt can win enough support to make its way to a vote in the House of Representatives, U.S. lawmakers who support the measure said on Tuesday. Under the rescue plan, an independent panel would erase some of Puerto Rico’s $70 billion debt load that has crippled the island state already facing a 45 percent poverty rate and the Zika epidemic. U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, a Republican, has endorsed the fix and the fate of the measure could help define his tenure as party leader which began in October. But Ryan can rely on some Democrats who say the rescue will aid the ailing island even if some of the legislation’s provisions are too punitive of Puerto Rico. “This is the only bill that will attract enough support from our colleagues on the Republican side to pass in a Congress they control,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, the leading Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. Grijalva of Arizona said he expects lawmakers will ratify the plan when they write the fine-print of the legislation at a hearing on Wednesday. Rep. Rob Bishop, the panel’s chairman, postponed a law-writing session in April because of opposition to the Puerto Rico rescue but on Tuesday he said he was hopeful. Ryan and Democratic leaders stress the aid plan for the island means relief without federal spending though investors will see a cut in their Puerto Rican bond holdings and they are fighting for terms that could limit the hit to their portfolios. A leading voice for investors, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), on Tuesday backed the plan which expects Puerto Rico to control deficit spending. A Puerto Rico oversight panel, or control board, could veto Puerto Rico spending measures that it finds irresponsible and SIFMA endorsed such “broad powers to enforce and monitor fiscal discipline.” The oversight board would have the power to push creditors to accept a write-down of debt, even over the objections of holdout investors. The plan would also ask the oversight board to protect the interests of Puerto Rico pensioners who rely on a system that is now under funded by at least $40 billion.

Summary: सांसद प्यूर्टो रिको बचाव योजना के लिए आगे का रास्ता देखते हैं


(Reuters) - Like any Republican candidate, front-runner Donald Trump needs to collect a majority of the party’s 2,472 delegates in state nominating contests to become his party’s candidate for the U.S. presidential election in November. If he falls short of that 1,237 threshold, the Republican Party’s delegates will need to pick their nominee at a contested convention in Cleveland in July, by following a complex process of sequential votes. Trump currently has 673 delegates, after winning nominating contests in Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina on March 15, according to the Associated Press. That compares with 411 delegates for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 143 for Ohio Governor John Kasich. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who had 168 delegates, dropped out of the race on Tuesday night after losing his home state to Trump. At this point, Trump would need to win around 55 percent of the delegates still up for grabs in order to avoid a contested Republican convention in July. That is a tall order for a candidate who has so far been scoring in the mid-to-high 40 percent range in state contests - though his chances could improve given that several upcoming state primaries are winner-take-all. If Trump walks into the convention in July with the most delegates, but falls short of the 1,237 threshold, delegates will start a sequence of floor votes. In the first vote, at least 5 percent of the total 2,472 Republican delegates are unbound - meaning they can vote as they please. The other delegates must vote according to the result of the voting district they represent.  If no candidate reaches the 1,237 threshold in that vote, a second vote is held, this time with a larger proportion of delegates becoming unbound. This process continues, with more delegates becoming unbound with each new vote, until a candidate gets a majority and wins the party nomination to run for the presidency. All bets are off, however, if different rules are adopted before the convention, which is always a possibility. The Republican National Committee rules committee will meet ahead of the convention to draw up bylaws.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः एक दलाली वाला रिपब्लिकन सम्मेलन कैसे काम करेगा?


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The sole Republican member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Michael Piwowar, expressed deep skepticism about a retirement advice rule that the Labor Department released on Wednesday, a sign of potential conflict over the long-awaited regulation. “I am disappointed that the rule announced today seems to ignore the chorus of voices that questioned whether it will restrict middle-class families’ and minority communities’ access to professional financial advice by making retirement advice unaffordable,” Piwowar, an SEC commissioner, said in a statement.  “I am fearful that those concerns, which were widely and bipartisanly held, will prove to be true once the rule becomes effective.”    The SEC, the country’s chief securities regulator has been crafting its own rule on retirement advice for years. Some lawmakers and industry members had said that the Labor Department, which oversees retirement laws, should hold off until that rule was finalized. Under the Labor rule that takes full effect Jan. 1, 2018, brokers would have to follow a fiduciary standard, acting in clients’ best interests when advising about retirement accounts. It aims to end potential conflicts of interest by brokers who advise on individual retirement accounts, and to protect consumers from buying unnecessary investment products. But after a draft was released last year, members of both political parties, along with financial services firms, expressed concern that the rule would drive up costs and put professional advice out of reach for middle and lower-income people.

Summary: अमेरिकी प्रतिभूति नियामक ने सेवानिवृत्ति सलाह नियम से 'निराश' कहा


MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have occupied the Catalan government s communications hub on the eve of a banned independence referendum which Madrid is attempting to thwart, the regional authority said on Saturday. Tens of thousands of Catalans are expected to vote in a ballot that will have no legal status as it has been blocked by Spain s Constitutional Court and Madrid has sent thousands of police to the northeastern region to stop it taking place. But Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont told Reuters on Friday that the referendum would go ahead regardless.  Everything is prepared at the more than 2,000 voting points so they have ballot boxes and voting slips, and have everything people need to express their opinion,  Puigdemont said. On Saturday a Catalan government spokesman said at least four police officers had entered the center in Barcelona which controls the regional government s telecommunications and IT and were expected to stay there for two days. This followed an order by Catalonia s High Court on Friday for police to prevent electronic voting taking place. The court also instructed Google to delete an application it said was being used to spread information on the vote. Police and Spain s interior ministry did not confirm the action. The head of the Catalan regional police has ordered officers to evacuate and close polling stations by 6 a.m. on Sunday, before the voting is due to open at 9 a.m. At a closing rally for the independence campaign in Barcelona on Friday, people formed the slogan  Referendum is democracy  in large white letters on a stage in front of a cheering crowd, many draped in the red-and-yellow Catalan flag. Other Catalans camped out in polling stations in order to defy court orders to close them.

Summary: स्पेन की पुलिस ने प्रतिबंधित मतदान से पहले कैटलन तकनीकी केंद्र पर कब्जा कर लिया


BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. short-term rental service Airbnb Inc has removed listings in Beijing as the capital prepares to host a five-yearly Party Congress later this month, the most important event on China s political calendar during which security is at its highest. A Reuters search on Wednesday of Airbnb listings in the city s center yielded  zero  results for all of October. Listings were present as recently as Tuesday evening for periods including the congress dates of Oct. 18 to 31.  Due to external circumstances, homes in certain areas in Beijing are unavailable through October 31,  Airbnb said in an email to hosts reviewed by Reuters. The move, mirrored by local rental firms, comes a week before the congress where President Xi Jinping is widely expected to consolidate power in a leadership reshuffle. Such high-profile events are often accompanied by increased surveillance and online censorship. During the last Congress, in 2012, access to Alphabet Inc s Google search engine was cut off. Google services have since been blocked in China. For this year s event, authorities have stepped up ID checks at metro stations and elsewhere in an effort to detain unregistered workers and others illegally residing in Beijing. Four Airbnb hosts in the capital told Reuters they had received notices from the U.S. firm late on Tuesday, which said properties in certain areas of the city would be removed from its website until the end of the month due to  external circumstances .  Similar to action taken by other hospitality companies, Airbnb listings in certain areas in Beijing will be temporarily unavailable throughout October,  the company said in a statement to Reuters. Short-term rentals were also unavailable during the same period via local services Xiaozhu.com and Tujia.com. Neither firm responded to requests for comment. Airbnb and other home-stay sites occupy a legal grey area in China, where tourists are required to register accommodation with local police using a passport or identification card. The requirement is harder to enforce with short-term rentals. The Ministry of Public Security and Beijing s city police did not respond to faxed requests for comment.  (The congress blackout) is a pain, but it s not for such a long time,  said a 28-year-old press relations worker surnamed Liu, who rents out two flats on both Xiaozhu and Airbnb.  As long as (bookings) open again eventually, I don t mind.

Summary: कोई रिक्तियां नहीं हैंः एयरबीएनबी ने पार्टी कांग्रेस से पहले बीजिंग किराए को बंद कर दिया


HAR ADAR, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian man with security clearance to work at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank opened fire at a checkpoint on Tuesday, killing two Israeli security guards and a paramilitary policeman. The assailant, who was armed with a pistol and also seriously wounded a fourth Israeli, was shot dead, police said. The incident was unusual in that the 37-year-old man had been issued an Israeli work permit - a process that entails security vetting - unlike most of the Palestinians involved in a wave of street attacks that began two years ago. A police spokeswoman said the gunman approached Har Adar among a group of Palestinians who work at the settlement, and aroused the suspicion of guards at the entrance checkpoint. Challenged to halt, the Palestinian  opened his shirt, drew a pistol and fired at the security staff and troopers at close range,  the spokeswoman said.  Residents of the settlement told Israeli media the man worked as a cleaner. One of them, Moish Berdichev, said he had domestic problems - his wife had left him - and speculated he may have carried out the attack knowing he would not survive.  He was a guy with a good head on his shoulders. It s a shame. Very sad,  Berdichev told Army Radio. The Shin Bet internal security service identified the man as Nimr Jamal and said he had  severe personal and family issues, including domestic violence . The man lived in the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Suriq, the police said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet that the man s house would be demolished and any work permits issued to his relatives would be revoked.

Summary: वेस्ट बैंक बस्ती में फिलिस्तीनी बंदूकधारी ने तीन इजरायली गार्डों की हत्या कर दी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tax-policy writers in the U.S. House of Representatives are considering legislation to bring tax relief to businesses and individuals affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the top House lawmaker on tax issues said on Tuesday. Representative Kevin Brady, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said staff was working with lawmakers from affected states to craft a bill that would help lessen the blow of property losses, facilitate access to retirement savings and encourage charitable giving. He said the committee could act on legislation before Oct 1. “They’re really looking at how do we get our small businesses back up and running, how do we get customers to them and how do we help families and communities rebuild,” Brady told reporters.  In past years, aides say Congress has sought to help disaster victims through a number of tax innovations including special tax credits for low-income housing, tax deferrals on gains from insurance payments and special refunds on tax filings from past years. Irma has caused widespread damage in Florida, weeks after Harvey inundated Houston and southeast Texas with record flooding last month.

Summary: हाउस कमेटी तूफान पीड़ितों के लिए कर राहत पर विचार कर रही है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to pick businessman  William Hagerty as the next U.S. ambassador to Japan, an adviser to Trump’s transition team told Reuters on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei news service reported that Trump would soon announce the choice of Hagerty, the director of presidential appointments in his transition team. The adviser who spoke to Reuters confirmed the Nikkei report on condition of anonymity. Hagerty is a Tennessee native who founded a private equity firm, Hagerty Peterson. He spent several years in Japan with the Boston Consulting Group management consultancy and later served in the White House of former President George H.W. Bush. He will replace Caroline Kennedy, who has held the position since 2013. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, declined to comment on the report since the choice has yet to be formally announced, saying only that he hoped the new ambassador would be able to develop a friendly U.S.-Japan relationship. Others said that while the extent of Hagerty’s knowledge of diplomacy and regional politics remained unknown and could be a concern, the choice suggests Trump is prioritizing economics in bilateral ties, which may relieve officials concerned by his protectionist stance on trade during the presidential campaign.   Japanese companies play a key role in the U.S. economy, employing more than 800,000 American workers. They contributed $78 billion to U.S. exports in 2014, according to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Koichi Hori, the chairman of consulting firm Dream Incubator Inc and a former president of Boston Consulting in Japan, who worked with Hagerty in the early 1990s, termed him a pragmatist who might not always toe Trump’s conservative line on trade. “Rather than doing that, he might advise Trump that if he doesn’t think of other countries more, it ultimately may not benefit the United States,” Hori added. A long-time U.S. resident of Tokyo with knowledge of business and politics who knows Hagerty by reputation, but not personally, said he had a reputation as a “typical management consultant - logical, thoughtful, and has no patience for trade rhetoric.” The news was likely to reassure officials at the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry (METI) as well as the Ministry of Finance (MOF), he added.  “The boys at the U.S. Defense Department and the Defense Agency may be disappointed because of his lack of experience in the geopolitical aspects of the U.S.-Japan relationship, but METI, MOF and everyone else here in Tokyo should be breathing a sign of relief,” he added. Japan’s Defense Ministry was formerly called the Defense Agency.

Summary: ट्रम्प व्यवसायी हैगर्टी को जापान के लिए अगले अमेरिकी राजदूत के रूप में चुनेंगेः सूत्र


NAIROBI (Reuters) - A presidential election due to take place in Kenya on Thursday has no legitimacy because of a High Court ruling that the appointment of constituency-level electoral officers was illegal, an opposition lawyer said on Wednesday.  It would be illegal and unconstitutional for them to move ahead with the election,  lawyer James Orengo told media outside the Supreme Court, after that court said it could not hear a petition to delay the election because not enough judges were available. The High Court ruling was earlier on Wednesday, but only the Supreme Court has the power to delay elections.

Summary: केन्या के विपक्षी वकीलः उच्च न्यायालय के फैसले के कारण चुनाव अवैध है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to step back from running his global business empire to avoid conflicts of interest but gave few immediate details as concern over his dual role mounts ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump, a real estate magnate who owns hotels and golf resorts from Panama to Scotland, said he would spell out at a Dec. 15 news conference how he will separate himself “in total” from his worldwide business holdings, which include a winery, modeling agency and a range of other businesses. After Trump won the Nov. 8 election, his company, the Trump Organization, had said it was looking at new business structures with the goal of transferring control to Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump - three of his adult children who are involved with the company. Trump gave few details in a series of early morning tweets but said that “legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations” and that his children would attend the news conference. He did not say what the planned change might mean for ownership of his businesses. Although Trump’s fellow Republicans generally take a more laissez faire stance toward business than Democrats, the president-elect will travel to Indiana on Thursday to formally announce a deal he reached with United Technologies Corp to keep close to 1,000 jobs at its Carrier Corp air conditioner plant in Indianapolis rather than have them moved to Mexico. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, railed against Carrier on the campaign trail, using the company’s outsourcing move as an example of how trade agreements hurt American workers.     Critics have raised questions about the role of Trump’s children, who are on the executive committee of his White House transition team. His daughter Ivanka joined a telephone call her father had with Argentine President Mauricio Macri earlier this month and attended a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, creating concerns about possible conflicts of interest. A brand name around the globe, Trump previously argued he had no need to separate himself from the Trump Organization, which includes a hotel down the street from the White House, a Manhattan tower where he lives and is running his transition to office, and a New Jersey golf course where he interviewed Cabinet candidates earlier this month. Trump said on Wednesday he was not required by law to alter his relationship with his business, but added: “I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.” As the Republican heads toward taking over the White House from Democratic President Barack Obama, scrutiny of potential conflicts has grown. Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill called for hearings on the issue. Rules on conflict of interest for executive branch employees do not apply to the president, but Trump will be bound by bribery laws, disclosure rules and the U.S. Constitution, which bars elected officials from taking gifts from foreign governments. The nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics, a government office that oversees ethics programs for the executive branch, issued a statement saying it applauded Trump’s aims and appearing to suggest that he completely shed his holdings. “Divestiture resolves conflicts of interest in a way that transferring control does not,” it said. Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer to former Republican President George W. Bush, concurred.  “He needs to sell the businesses not just have someone else manage them for him,” Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said in an emailed comment. Trump, a former reality TV star, has spent much of the past few weeks setting up his Cabinet and interviewing candidates for top jobs in his administration. On Wednesday, Trump said he would nominate his chief campaign fundraiser, Steven Mnuchin, to lead the U.S. Treasury. Mnuchin said the administration would make tax reform and trade pact overhauls top priorities as it seeks a sustained pace of 3 percent to 4 percent economic growth. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, also signaled a desire to remove U.S. mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government ownership, a move that could have wide-ranging ramifications for how Americans pay for their homes, and said banking regulations should be eased to spur lending. Trump named Wilbur Ross, a billionaire known for his investments in distressed industries, as his nominee for commerce secretary. Both nominees will require confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Trump is also considering Goldman Sachs President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, a former commodities trader, to head his White House budget office or to fill another position, a Trump transition official said. The economic picks were praised by the Business Roundtable, a group that represents America’s largest corporations. But U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren called Mnuchin “just another Wall Street insider.” “That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised to bring to Washington - that is hypocrisy at its worst,” Sanders, a Vermont independent who ran for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, and Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a joint statement. Trump pledged during his campaign to “drain the swamp” in Washington. A spokesman said giving top economic jobs to Wall Street figures was not inconsistent with that vow. “You want some people that are insiders and understand the system and some outsiders that are creative thinkers, out-of-the-box thinkers and disruptors,” said Anthony Scaramucci, an asset manager who is on Trump’s transition committee. Trump is also working to fill out his foreign policy team, but no decision appeared imminent on who the next secretary of state would be.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस पर ध्यान केंद्रित करने के लिए कारोबार से पीछे हटेंगेः ट्रंप