GAZA (Reuters) - A decade on, Rawda al-Zaanoun is at last willing to forgive the  gunmen who killed her son during the civil war that split Palestine. It has been painful, but she says it is time.  He was hit with a bullet in the back. He was a martyr,  the 54-year-old said at an event in Gaza city to mark the public reconciliation of families of people killed in the war.  The decision was not easy because the blood of our son is precious. But we have given amnesty. Her son Ala, a married father of two and an officer in the Palestinian Authority security forces, was killed in June 2007 after he rushed out of his house in Gaza City, having heard that his uncle was injured in clashes between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. Since that war a decade ago, Fatah, led by the secular heirs of Yassir Arafat, has run the West Bank, headed the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and been responsible for all negotiations with Israel. Its rivals, the Islamist group Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, drove Fatah out of Gaza and has run the tiny coastal strip that is home to 2 million people, nearly half of the population of the Palestinian territories. The schism is set to end on Monday, when Hamas hands over control of Gaza to a unity government. Although it agreed to  the arrangement three years ago, the decision to implement it now marks a striking reversal for Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and most of the most powerful Arab countries.  Hamas has made big concessions, and every coming concession will be stunning and surprisingly bigger than the one that passed, so that we can conclude reconciliation and this division must end,  the chief of Hamas in Gaza, Yehya Al-Sinwar, said during a meeting this week with social media activists. If Hamas has swallowed a bitter pill by ending the feud, perhaps bitterest of all is the role played by exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, once Hamas s fiercest foe who is now a leading player in regional efforts to pull Gaza back into the Palestinian mainstream. Officials on both sides of the Palestinian divide and in other Arab countries say Dahlan, based since 2011 in the United Arab Emirates, is behind an influx of cash to prop up Gaza, and a detente between Hamas and Arab states including Egypt. His office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Dahlan s return to prominence could have consequences for Palestinian politics as profound as the reconciliation itself. As hated as he once was in Gaza for trying to uproot Hamas, he is perhaps even more reviled by the Fatah leadership in Ramallah for challenging the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Ambitious and charismatic, he has long been suspected of harboring designs to succeed the 82-year-old Abbas. Among the initiatives Dahlan has promoted in Gaza is the reconciliation program of families like the Zaanouns and 19 others, who each accepted a $50,000 blood money payment from an Egyptian-Emirati charity fund in return for publicly renouncing the demand to avenge the deaths of their sons. Old wounds will be hard to salve. Activists on both sides hold memories of their enemies shooting out kneecaps or torturing each other in partisan prisons. Zaanoun said her family took the decision to reconcile, despite their intense grief over the loss of their son,  for the sake of preventing bloodshed, for the sake of blockaded Gaza and for the sake of Palestine . Dahlan has raised millions more, financing mass weddings for hundreds of young couples and distributing cash aid for several thousand needy families. He has also used a close relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in particular to regain his influence. Sisi, who took power by toppling a president from Hamas s Muslim Brotherhood allies, controls Gaza s only non-Israeli frontier and the keys to its prosperity.  Dahlan worked hard, together with his contacts in Egyptian intelligence and sometimes with direct intervention from Sisi,  a Gulf source who asked not to be named told Reuters. The strategy may be gaining him good will: an opinion poll last week by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey showed that those who still support Fatah in Gaza are shifting their loyalty to Dahlan. His popularity among Gazans, the survey said, has risen over the past nine months from nine to 23 percent. The handover of Gaza suggests Dahlan s allies in Egypt and the UAE realize that any bid to put the Palestinian house in order, for now at least, needs unity.  Every time anyone speaks to (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu, he would say how can you reach a solution when the Palestinians are splintered?  the Gulf source added.  The reconciliation is an effort by several like-minded countries looking for a comprehensive solution,  he added. Short of funds and friends, Hamas may have few options but to make concessions. For years it had modest but stable economic backing by Islamist-leaning Turkey and the wealthy Gulf Arab state of Qatar, where Hamas houses its headquarters. But in recent months its friends, especially Qatar, have been on the back foot. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have imposed an economic and diplomatic boycott on Doha over alleged support of terrorists, including, in their reckoning, Hamas. Three conflicts with the Jewish state left many civilian neighborhoods in Gaza pulverized. Rebuilding has been thwarted by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, which Sisi has the power to ease. Hamas figures blame Abbas, Fatah and Dahlan for encouraging Egypt and other Arab countries to keep the economic pressure on, forcing Hamas to agree to the reconciliation.  One of our reasons was to spare our people this suffering which this time was made by Palestinian hands,  Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Senior Fatah official Nasser al-Qidwa praised Hamas s reconciliation moves and chalked up the group s sudden change of tack to  the governance crisis that Hamas is living through and the crisis of foreign alliances, as well as the difficult conditions of some of Hamas  traditional allies.  Imposing its writ over policing Gaza and its borders will be the main challenge for the non-partisan cabinet of technocrats as it seeks to make this month s unity initiative a reality. Setting out a hard line, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said in a statement on Tuesday that Hamas must eventually cede all  crossings, security and government departments.  Gaza bristles with hundreds of rockets belonging to Hamas s armed wing, and the movement insisted that the arsenal it says is essential to confronting Israel will never be given up.      Hamas deputy political chief Musa Abu Marzooq conceded in an interview this month with pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat that decisions to fight or make peace with Israel should be in future agreed jointly with Fatah. But the movement, he suggested, would keep its finger on the trigger:  The subject of the resistance s weapons ... will not be on the table for dialogue.

Summary: कैसे खून का पैसा, कूटनीति और हताशा फिलिस्तीन को फिर से एकजुट कर रहे हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of dozens of former U.S. Homeland Security  officials sent letters supporting the nomination of Kirstjen Nielsen as the new head of the department ahead of her confirmation hearing on Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security Committee.  Among the signers were former Homeland Security (DHS) secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, both Republicans who served under former President George W. Bush.  “Ms. Nielson has been engaged in counter-terrorism, all-hazard risk mitigation, critical infrastructure protection, and response policy from the earliest days of what we now know as homeland security,” the two former secretaries wrote in a latter viewed by Reuters.  A separate letter was signed by former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander and former DHS officials Charles E. Allen, James M. Loy and John McLaughlin. The letter was also signed by Jane Holl Lute and Alejandro Mayorkas, both who served as under secretaries of DHS under former President Barack Obama. If confirmed by the Senate, Nielsen would take the reins at a sprawling department with more than 240,000 employees that is responsible for U.S. border and airport security, immigration policy, disaster response, refugee admissions and other matters. Nielsen, 45, is a cyber security expert with a considerable resume in homeland security work that includes service at the department’s Transportation Security Administration and on former Republican President George W. Bush’s White House Homeland Security Council. She was nominated to the role after John Kelly, the previous secretary, was named White House chief of staff this summer. Nielson worked as Kelly’s deputy in the White House prior to being nominated in October.

Summary: पूर्व अमेरिकी गृह सुरक्षा अधिकारियों ने सुनवाई से पहले नामांकित व्यक्ति को वापस किया


LONDON (Reuters) - Britain s Queen Elizabeth formally opened Scotland s biggest infrastructure project in a generation - the third bridge across the River Forth - on Monday, exactly 53 years after she opened the second.  The 91-year-old monarch met with workers and school children who had gathered on the bridge before cutting a blue ribbon to mark its opening, as a flotilla passed underneath and the Royal Air Force s Red Arrows display jets flew overhead.  The 1.35 billion-pound ($1.7 billion) Queensferry Crossing, the longest bridge of its type in the world at 1.7 miles (2.7 km), connects the capital Edinburgh to Scotland s north.  The Queen described all three  magnificent structures  crossing the River Forth, built in three separate centuries, as  feats of modern engineering .   The Queensferry crossing joins its iconic and historic neighbors to create not only a breathtaking sight across the Firth of Forth, but to provide an important link for so many in this community and the surrounding areas,  she said in a statement. Built with 35,000 tonnes of steel and 150,000 tonnes of concrete, the crossing reaches 210 meters (690 ft) above high tide, standing as tall as about 48 London buses stacked on top of each other. Barriers deflect the wind and shield vehicles from the huge gusts common on the Forth.

Summary: ब्रिटेन की महारानी एलिजाबेथ ने स्कॉटलैंड के तीसरे फोर्थ पुल का उद्घाटन किया


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders will agree this week to start preparing internally for talks with Britain on a post-Brexit transition, according to a new draft summit statement that spells out conditions which London must meet before negotiations start. The draft [L8N1MR56R], seen by Reuters on Monday, was circulated by summit chair Donald Tusk to the 27 other member governments for discussion by ministers on Tuesday, ahead of a summit with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday and Friday. Following objections from heavyweight powers Germany and France to a first draft last week, the text somewhat hardens up the requirement that London meet conditions set by the EU and softens any suggestion that it is a foregone conclusion that leaders will agree to launch trade talks in December. However, it retains an instruction for EU officials to  start internal preparatory discussions  on how the EU would negotiate a transition and future trade relationship. That, officials say, could save weeks of delay if a December summit does indeed give a green light to a second phase of talks.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ ने शर्तों के साथ मई के लिए शिखर सम्मेलन का संकेत बनाए रखा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia is testing President Donald Trump with a surge of violence in eastern Ukraine and the U.S. president should give Ukraine the lethal aid it needs to defend against the attacks, Senator John McCain said in a letter to Trump on Thursday. Renewed violence flared this week between Moscow-backed rebels and Ukraine government forces that has caused the highest casualty rate since mid-December and cut off power and water to thousands of civilians on both sides of the frontline. “That this surge of attacks began the day after he talked with you by phone is a clear indication that Vladimir Putin is moving quickly to test you as commander in chief. America’s response will have lasting consequences,” McCain said in a letter to Trump released by his office. Washington has supplied aid to Ukraine including drones, radar, first-aid kits, night vision and communications gear as part Democratic President Barack Obama’s strategy of providing non-lethal military assistance while focusing on sanctions and diplomacy to end the war. The election of Trump, whose call for better relations with Moscow, has alarmed Kiev as the conflict has remained unresolved. Lawmakers in Washington expressed support for Ukraine on Thursday and called for restraint from Moscow. McCain urged Trump to use his authority under an existing  defense policy law to provide lethal assistance to Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin’s violent campaign to destabilize and dismember the sovereign nation of Ukraine will not stop unless and until he meets a strong and determined response,” McCain wrote. McCain also urged Trump to expand current sanctions against Russia that were put in place after its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would work with McCain and other senators to codify the existing sanctions into law. “It is incumbent upon the Senate to clearly express its support for the sovereignty of Ukrainian and solidarity with our close allies in Europe,” he said. Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, also cautioned the Trump administration on Thursday against easing sanctions on Moscow, saying such a move would be “staggeringly dangerous.” On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia to use its “considerable influence” with separatist rebels to end the violence, which brought the festering conflict back into focus amid warnings of a looming humanitarian crisis in freezing winter temperatures.

Summary: मैक्केन का कहना है कि रूस यूक्रेन में अमेरिका का परीक्षण कर रहा है, ट्रम्प से पलटवार करने का आग्रह करता है


MIAMI (Reuters) - President Barack Obama warned Democrats on Friday that they need to work hard to defeat likely Republican nominee Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election but must avoid violence like that at a rally in California this week. “Strange things can happen in an election like this if we’re not working hard, if we’re not engaged, if we’re not participating,” Obama told donors at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. “I want us to run scared the whole time,” he said. Obama decried the clashes between supporters of likely Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and protesters on Thursday at a rally in San Jose, California. “We saw in San Jose these protesters starting to pelt stuff at Trump supporters; that’s not what our democracy’s about,” Obama said. “There’s no room for violence. There’s no room for shouting. There’s no room for a politics that fails to at least listen to the other side, even if you vehemently disagree,” he said. Obama spoke to about 90 people who paid $10,000 to $30,000 for the dinner at the home of Robert Rubenstein, a personal injury lawyer. He noted the “constant” television coverage of Trump, saying “celebrity and fame is such a driver in this culture.” Obama said Republicans have “no coherent economic theory.” “Rather it is feeding resentments and looking for a ‘they’ to blame for whatever frustrations people understandably feel at any given point in time,” he said. “Being able to say it’s immigrants or it’s gays or it’s somebody that is taking something away from you - that’s the essence of the message that the Republican nominee is delivering,” he said.

Summary: ओबामा ने डेमोक्रेट्स से कहाः 'मैं चाहता हूं कि हम चुनाव में डरें'


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China s ambassador to Washington said on Monday U.S. President Donald Trump s state visit to Beijing next week was a historic opportunity to boost cooperation between the world s two largest economies, but warned against attempts to  contain  Beijing. Cui Tiankai also stressed the urgency of efforts to find a negotiated solution to the crisis over North Korea s nuclear and missile programs and warned of a  more dangerous  situation if  tensions between the United States and Pyongyang continued. Cui sought to play down differences over China s massive trade surplus with the United States, saying Beijing was looking for ways to cut this and he was confident of  significant outcomes  from Trump s Nov. 8-9 visit on the trade and economic fronts. Speaking after senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, outlined an Asia-Pacific strategy involving greater cooperation between Japan, India, and Australia in the face of China s rise, Cui said relationships should not be seen as a  zero-sum game  at the expense of another county.  I don t think it will really serve the interests of these countries if their aim is to sort of contain China ... I don t think anybody would be able to contain China,  he said. Cui said Washington should not try to  interfere  in regional efforts to resolve disputes in the South China Sea, a vital strategic waterway that China claims, most of which is contested by several Asian countries.  Maybe it would be better for the U.S. to let the regional countries ... find a way a way of managing the situation.   Cui was asked about a call on Friday by a senior U.S. State Department official for revival of four-way dialogue between the United States, Japan, India and Australia to deepen security cooperation and coordinate alternatives for regional infrastructure financing to  predatory  Chinese options.  I don t think any attempts to form exclusive clubs in the region ... would help anybody,  he said.  When people are saying these things about China, they might just look into the mirror...it might be describing themselves.  Despite the cautionary words, Cui said he was sure the summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would be successful, following on from their first meeting in Florida in April.  This is a historic opportunity,  he said. Cui reiterated China s call for Washington to return to talks, while stressing Beijing s willingness to step up pressure on Pyongyang through U.N. sanctions.  We are ready to take up more cost and make greater efforts if there are more Security Council resolutions  he said.

Summary: चीन ने ट्रम्प की यात्रा से पहले बीजिंग को रोकने के प्रयासों के खिलाफ चेतावनी दी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday slammed what he said were  absolutely false  media reports asserting that President Donald Trump had called for an increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  This kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible,  Mattis said in a written statement. NBC had reported that Trump sought a tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, something Trump had already denied.

Summary: मैटिस ने परमाणु हथियार बढ़ाने के ट्रम्प के अनुरोध पर 'झूठी' रिपोर्टों की निंदा की


LONDON (Reuters) - Sally Jones, a British jihadi who recruited online for the Islamic State group, has been killed in Syria by a U.S. drone along with her 12-year-old son, The Sun newspaper reported on Thursday. A convert to Islam from southern England, Jones was nicknamed the  White Widow  by the British press after her jihadi husband Junaid Hussain, also an IS militant, was killed by a drone in 2015. Quoting a British intelligence source who had been briefed by U.S. counterparts, The Sun reported that Jones and her son had been killed in June close to Syria s border with Iraq, as she was attempting to flee the IS stronghold of Raqqa. U.S. intelligence chiefs were quoted as saying they could not be 100 percent certain that Jones had been killed as there was no way of recovering any DNA from the ground, but they were  confident  she was dead. Her son JoJo was presumed to be dead too, although his presence with her was not known at the time of the drone strike and he was not an intended target, according to The Sun. British Prime Minister Theresa May s spokesman declined to comment directly on the report, as did Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.  If you are a British national in Iraq or Syria, and if you have chosen to fight for Daesh, an illegal organization that is preparing and inspiring terror attacks on our streets, then you ve made yourself a legitimate target,  Fallon told reporters in London.   And you run the risk every hour of every day of being on the wrong end of an RAF or a United States missile,  he said. One Western security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Jones had not been heard of since earlier this year so the assumption was that she was dead, although the source refused to confirm the details of the Sun report.  Other IS militants have been reported dead only to reappear. A Central Intelligence Agency spokeswoman declined to comment. Jones, who before her jihadi days was once a singer in a punk band, has been the subject of years of fascination by the British press. She was believed to have left her home in Chatham, in the southern county of Kent, in 2013 to travel to Syria, where she married Hussain whom she had met online. She was active as an online recruiter and sometimes posted propaganda messages on social media, including a striking photograph of herself dressed as a nun pointing a gun toward the camera.

Summary: अमेरिकी ड्रोन ने ब्रिटिश जिहादी 'श्वेत विधवा' को मार डालाः सन रिपोर्ट


BERLIN (Reuters) - Police in the northern German city of Bremen said they had opened a murder investigation and were still seeking the suspected killer after a man who was shot in a supermarket on Thursday subsequently died of his wounds. In a statement, Bremen police said the killing of the 25-year-old man was not being treated as a terrorist incident and that they were still seeking the alleged killer, who appeared to have been known to his victim.  Initial indications are that the perpetrator and the victim knew each other,  they said.  The police have interviewed witnesses and continue to carry out urgent investigations.

Summary: ब्रेमेन में एक व्यक्ति की हत्या के बाद जर्मन पुलिस शूटर की तलाश कर रही है


(Reuters) - A judge has decided to delay ruling on whether federal corruption charges against Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey should be dismissed, clearing the way for the Democrat’s trial to begin as scheduled on Sept. 6. In an order dated Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Walls in Newark, New Jersey said he would rule after prosecutors present their case to a jury. Menendez had argued last month that his bribery and fraud charges should be dismissed because they were not criminal, under a June 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the corruption conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. That decision narrowed the definition of “official acts,” and said routine political activities such as arranging meetings and reaching out to public officials did not qualify. Walls wrote that whether Menendez’s alleged wrongful activities as “official acts” was a “factual determination” to be made after prosecutors presented their evidence at trial. “The allegations of the superseding indictment are not legally deficient to prevent their going to a jury,” he added. Lawyers for Menendez and his co-defendant, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Prosecutors accused Menendez of accepting campaign donations and gifts, including a stay at a Caribbean villa and private jet flights, from Melgen in exchange for using his office to lobby for the doctor. Both defendants have pleaded not guilty. Menendez is expected to seek a third six-year term in 2018. Several politicians have sought to have their corruption cases thrown out since the McDonnell decision. Last month, a federal appeals court in New York cited the decision in overturning the corruption conviction of former New York state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Prosecutors plan to retry him. The case is U.S. v. Menendez et al, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 15-cr-00155.

Summary: न्यायाधीश ने एन. जे. सीनेटर मेनेंडेज़ की बर्खास्तगी बोली में देरी की, मुकदमा 6 सितंबर के लिए निर्धारित किया गया


EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scottish police responded to an incident at the Scottish parliament building in the capital Edinburgh on Tuesday following the discovery of a suspicious package, they said.  Police in Edinburgh responded to the Scottish Parliament at around 11.35 a.m. on Tuesday 7th November following the discovery of a suspicious package,  police said in a statement.  The building has been evacuated as a precaution and inquiries are continuing.

Summary: संदिग्ध पैकेज मिलने के बाद स्कॉटिश संसद में पुलिस


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, calling Afghanistan’s security situation precarious, said on Wednesday he will keep U.S. troop levels there at 8,400 through the end of his administration rather than reducing them to 5,500 by year’s end as previously planned. Obama, in a statement at the White House, said the role of U.S. forces in Afghanistan will remain unchanged: training and advising Afghan police and troops, and supporting counterterrorism missions against the Taliban and other groups. Obama’s presidency ends in January. Obama’s plan still calls for a reduction in U.S. troop levels from the current roughly 9,800, but not as much as previously planned. Obama, who took office in 2009 pledging to wind down the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he had ended America’s combat mission in Afghanistan. But he acknowledged that security concerns persist. “The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious,” Obama said. “The Taliban remains a threat. They’ve gained ground in some places.” Taliban forces now hold more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, according to recent United Nations estimates. The Islamic State group has also established a small presence in Afghanistan. Obama’s decision, which came after a review submitted last month by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army General John Nicholson, drew some criticism inside and outside his administration. Some Pentagon officials said that it does nothing to address the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. “It’s disappointing that the administration thinks that troop numbers are a substitute for a more comprehensive strategy,” said a U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is neither the reduction that the White House seems to have wanted nor the current numbers that don’t seem to be sufficient to deal with the security problem.” Mac Thornberry, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, criticized what he said was a new cap on U.S. troop levels. “It is time that the president level with the American people about what it will really take to achieve our goals in Afghanistan, and how much it will cost,” Thornberry said in a statement.  Obama spoke in advance of a NATO summit on Friday and Saturday in Warsaw, Poland, where alliance members are expected to confirm their support for the Kabul government. In addition to the U.S. forces, there are about 3,000 other international troops in Afghanistan. U.S. troops have been in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion launched by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, that toppled the Taliban leaders who harbored the al Qaeda organization responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000 people. It is America’s longest war. During his announcement at the White House, Obama was flanked by Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the top U.S. military officer, General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Summary: ओबामा ने कहा कि वह 2017 तक अफगानिस्तान में 8,400 अमेरिकी सैनिकों को रखेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday the issue of whether President Donald Trump s 2016 election campaign colluded with Russia remains an open question as the panel intensifies its probe into the matter. Republican Chairman Richard Burr and Democratic Vice Chairman Mark Warner also warned about the risk to future U.S. elections posed by Russia, including what is expected to be a closely contested election next month for governor of Warner s home state, Virginia. Burr told reporters the committee plans to conduct 25 more interviews with witnesses this month, but described his goal of finishing this year the main congressional investigation into Russian meddling as only  aspirational  at this point.  The issue of collusion is still open,  Burr said, standing alongside Warner at a press conference to provide an update on the investigation.  We have not come to any determination on collusion,  he said. Burr said he wanted very much to conclude the investigation before the height of campaigning for November 2018 U.S. mid-term elections, when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and one third of the 100-seat Senate will be up for grabs. Warner said the United States needed a  whole-of-government  approach to combating interference with U.S. elections.  The Russian active measures efforts did not end on Election Day, 2016,  he said.  Trump, who has called allegations of campaign collusion with Moscow a hoax, has faced questions about the matter since he took office in January. A special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, Robert Mueller, is conducting a separate probe that could lead to criminal charges. Russia denies meddling. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton through a campaign of hacking and releasing embarrassing emails, and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her campaign. Burr said the committee agreed with the intelligence community s conclusion that Russia had interfered.  The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion,  Burr said.  Now, I m not even going to discuss initial findings because we haven t any. We ve got a tremendous amount of documents still to go through.  He said the panel has conducted more than 100 interviews lasting more than 250 hours in its nine-month-old probe, and  we currently have booked for the balance of this month 25 additional interviews.  Those who have already come before committee members or investigators include the president s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and social media executives such as officials from Twitter Inc (TWTR.N).  On Wednesday, a representative for Kushner and Ivanka Trump denied a report in USA Today that the couple had re-routed personal emails through their family s business. Among witnesses who will appear at future public committee hearings are Trump s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and executives from Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter and Alphabet Inc s (GOOGL.O) Google. Warner and Burr urged American election officials and political campaigns to take the threat of Russian interference seriously.  You can t walk away from this and believe that Russia s not currently active in trying to create chaos in our election process. And I assume that the same tactics that you saw in Montenegro, in France, in Belgium and in the United States will continue to be tested within our structure of the election process,  Burr said. Burr said the committee has  hit a wall  in its investigation of a former British spy s explosive dossier on purported Russian support for Trump s 2016 campaign. Former MI6 officer Christopher Steele compiled the dossier, which Trump was told by former FBI director James Comey contained salacious material about the businessman-turned-president. Trump and his associates have called the dossier s contents false.  We have, on several occasions, made attempts to contact Mr. Steele, to meet with Mr. Steele,  Burr said.  Those offers have gone unaccepted. The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like who paid for it, who are your sources and sub-sources,  Burr added. (This corrected version of the story removes quote with incorrect attribution in sixth paragraph, replacing with another quote).

Summary: रूस-ट्रम्प अभियान की मिलीभगत एक 'खुला' मुद्दा हैः अमेरिकी सीनेट पैनल प्रमुख


(Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday: Trump proposes slashing tax rates for businesses and on overseas corporate profits returned to the country in a plan greeted as an opening gambit by his fellow Republicans in Congress. Trump’s plan could shift the U.S. economy into higher gear but could have one effect the White House would not welcome — interest rates ratcheted higher than expected by a wary central bank. The Trump tax cut will generate growth but not nearly enough to replace trillions of dollars in lost revenues, while rising deficits could even take back some of the economic gains, fiscal experts say. Congress inches toward a deal to fund the government through September but is preparing to possibly extend a midnight Friday deadline in order to wrap up negotiations and avoid an imminent government shutdown. Trump is considering issuing an executive order to pull the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, an administration official says, a move that could unravel one of the world’s biggest trading blocs. Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discuss bilateral trade in their second conversation in as many days  amid strains over softwood lumber and dairy. The Trump administration says it aims to push North Korea into dismantling its nuclear and missile programs through tougher international sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and remains open to negotiations to bring that about. Trump gives the military the authority to reset a confusing system of troop limits in Iraq and Syria that critics say allows the White House to micro-manage battlefield decisions and ultimately obscures the real number of U.S. forces. Trump signs an executive order to allow national monument designations to be rescinded or reduce the size of sites as the administration pushes to open more federal land to drilling, mining and other development. Trump orders Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to review the government role in school policy, which supporters cheer as a step in creating more local control in education and critics worry it could lead to lower quality schools in poorer neighborhoods. Israel’s intelligence minister says his country wants an “understanding” with the Trump administration that Iran must not be allowed to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria.

Summary: हाइलाइट्सः ट्रम्प प्रेसीडेंसी 26 अप्रैल को रात 9.12 बजे ईडीटी/022 जीएमटी 27 अप्रैल को


(Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey will testify to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday about Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election.  President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of Comey on May 9 renewed attention to allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election to benefit Trump. It also raised questions about the motivations behind Comey’s dismissal.  The following describes what is publicly known and not known about U.S. investigations into meddling and possible collusion between Russia and members of the Trump campaign:  How did the investigations begin? Former President Barack Obama ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to assess whether Russia tried to intervene in the election after a cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee in July 2016 and the publication of thousands of hacked personal emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in the month before the Nov. 8 election. Obama told intelligence officials to deliver a report on possible foreign interference before he left the White House in January 2017.  What did the intelligence agencies find? The Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency concluded in a report declassified in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system but to affect the outcome.  The agencies said Putin and the Russian government had a “clear preference” for Trump to win the White House. Putin’s associates hacked information, paid social media “trolls” and backed efforts by Russian government agencies and state-funded media to sway public opinion, the agencies said.  The report stopped short of assessing whether Russia succeeded in swaying the election result.  Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election.  How many U.S. probes are there into Russia’s election meddling? Comey told the House Intelligence Committee on March 20 that the FBI was investigating Moscow’s role in the election, including possible collusion with Trump’s campaign.  The Justice Department announced on May 17 that it has appointed Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel to lead an independent Russia probe. Mueller would, if the evidence merits, work in tandem with the FBI to handle any related criminal prosecutions.  In addition there are multiple committees in the Senate and House of Representatives investigating various aspects of Russian election meddling.  What has Trump said about Russia’s role in the election? Trump has not taken a clear public position.  “I will tell you this, Russia: if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a July 2016 news conference, in reference to an FBI probe into Clinton’s use of a private email system when she was secretary of state and emails that had possibly been deleted.  Trump subsequently dismissed reports, including from U.S. intelligence officials, that Russia had attempted to intervene in the election on his behalf.  The first time Trump said he accepted the findings of the intelligence agencies was at a Jan. 11 news conference ahead of his inauguration. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,” Trump said, although he added: “It could have been others also.”  Trump said in May that China may have hacked the emails of Democratic officials to meddle with the election, offering no evidence and countering the view of intelligence officials.  Trump has made clear on multiple occasions he believes the Russia investigations have run their course and should be closed. “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” he wrote on Twitter on May 8.  On May 30, Trump wrote on Twitter: “Russian officials must be laughing at the U.S. & how a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election has taken over the Fake News.”  Did the FBI probe continue after Comey’s dismissal? There is no evidence that the FBI ended or paused its investigation after Comey’s departure.  FBI acting Director Andrew McCabe, who is leading the agency, promised the Senate Intelligence Committee that Comey’s firing would not affect the investigation and that he will notify the committee of any attempt to delay or derail it.  Trump on June 6 tapped former U.S. Justice Department official Christopher Wray, who represented New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the so-called Bridgegate scandal, to be the next FBI director. Wray will need Senate confirmation.  Why was Comey fired? The White House cited a May 9 letter to Trump from Attorney General Sessions that attached a memo from Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, on “Restoring Confidence in the FBI” that recommended Comey’s dismissal.  Rosenstein’s memo said Comey erred in July 2016 by announcing the FBI had been examining Clinton’s use of a private email server and that the case should be closed without prosecution. Rosenstein’s view was that Comey’s decision to make a public statement broke with longstanding FBI precedent and should have been handled by the then-U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch.  Trump called Comey a “showboat” and “grandstander” in an interview with NBC News on May 11, saying that he would have fired Comey regardless of Rosenstein’s recommendation.  In an unorthodox move, Great America Alliance, an offshoot of a pro-Trump super PAC devoted to promoting the White House agenda, developed a television ad called “Showboat” to air as Comey testifies. The ad claims Comey was “consumed with election meddling” at the expense of fighting terrorism.  Was Comey’s firing related to the FBI’s Russia probe? Whether Comey believes his firing was linked to the FBI’s Russia probe will likely be a main focus when he testifies on Thursday.  Trump asked Comey to end the agency’s investigation of Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, and also to make some sort of public statement that he was not personally under investigation in order to clear “the cloud” hanging over his presidency, according to Comey’s prepared testimony.  Comey found it “very concerning” that Trump would ask him to drop the agency’s probe of Flynn and declined to state publicly that Trump himself was not under investigation, in part because it would create a “duty to correct” if that changed, according to the testimony.  “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,” Trump told Comey at a January 27 dinner, according to the testimony.  Less than a week before he was fired, Comey told a congressional panel that it made him “mildly nauseous” that he may have affected the outcome of the election by publicly re-opening, and then re-closing, the Clinton email probe days before the election.  Has there been any fallout for Trump associates over contacts with Russia before, during or after the election campaign? Flynn was fired in February. The White House said he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the contacts he had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, before Trump took office.  On May 9, federal prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas seeking business records from people who worked with Flynn when he was a private citizen. On May 10, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued the first subpoena in its Russia investigation, demanding documents from Flynn. He provided the first batch on June 6.  Sessions had to recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related probes at the Justice Department because he had not told Congress of his own contacts with Kislyak in 2016. Rosenstein is handling matters related to Russia and it is he who appointed Mueller as special counsel.  Is Trump himself under investigation? In the short letter Trump sent to Comey dismissing him from the FBI, he thanked Comey for informing him on three separate occasions that he was not under investigation. Comey confirmed in his written testimony that he told Trump that he was not personally under investigation.

Summary: Q & A: 2016 के चुनाव में रूसी हस्तक्षेप की अमेरिकी जांच के बारे में हम क्या जानते हैं


(Reuters) - Proposals from U.S. Republicans to repeal or restrict a popular deduction on federal income tax for state and local tax (SALT) payments would hit Americans in high-tax states. The 10 states with the highest taxes are represented in the Senate by Democrats, and by Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats. A Senate tax plan about to be unveiled on Thursday was expected to propose ending the SALT deduction entirely. An earlier House plan would sharply curtail the deduction. If left unchanged, the Senate plan’s SALT provision would make it harder to attract what could be necessary support for the tax bill from Democratic senators, as it would disproportionately hurt their constituents. Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the chamber, meaning they can afford to lose only two Republican votes and so could be looking for some Democratic support for passage.  Here are the U.S. states with the highest annual combined state and local income taxes and property taxes, measured as an average per capita, as calculated by the Tax Foundation, a pro-business Washington think tank.    1. New York: $5,208; Chuck Schumer (D), Kirsten Gillibrand (D) 2. Connecticut: $4,935; Richard Blumenthal (D), Chris Murphy (D)   3. New Jersey: $4,404; Cory Booker (D), Bob Menendez (D) 4. Massachusetts: $4,141; Elizabeth Warren (D), Ed Markey (D)  5. Maryland: $3,558; Chris Van Hollen (D), Ben Cardin (D) 6. Vermont: $3,416; Bernie Sanders (I), Patrick Leahy (D) 7. Rhode Island: $3,338; Sheldon Whitehouse (D), Jack Reed (D) 8. Minnesota: $3,186; Al Franken (D), Amy Klobuchar (D) 9. California: $3,137; Kamala Harris (D), Dianne Feinstein (D)  10. Oregon $3,024; Ron Wyden (D), Jeff Merkley (D)

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः अमेरिकी सीनेट में, डेमोक्रेट उच्चतम कर वाले राज्यों का प्रतिनिधित्व करते हैं


SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Donald Trump brought his message of walls and deportations to the doorstep of America’s busiest border crossing on Friday as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee greeted supporters in San Diego, amid one of the largest counter-protests organized against him. The scene inside the San Diego Convention Center during Trump’s speech was relatively placid, while outside demonstrators opposed to his controversy-ridden White House bid marched and chanted, carrying signs criticizing his rhetoric against illegal immigration.  Waving U.S. and Mexican flags, more than 1,000 people turned out for anti-trump rallies in San Diego, a city on the U.S.-Mexico border whose San Ysidro port of entry sees nearly 300,000 people a day cross legally between the countries. San Diego is considered a binational city by many who live and work on opposite sides of the border, and about a third of the city’s population is Latino. During Trump’s speech on Friday, some protesters outside the convention center scaled a barrier and lobbed water bottles at police. One man was pulled off the wall and arrested as others were surrounded by fellow protesters and backed away from the confrontation.  After the convention center emptied, clusters of Trump supporters and anti-Trump demonstrators began to mix in the streets, many exchanging shouted epithets and some throwing water bottles at one another.  Police in riot gear declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse, herding the crowd out of the city’s hotel and restaurant-filled Gaslamp Quarter. San Diego police said on Twitter that 35 arrests were made during the protest. No property damage or injuries were reported, police said.  “Fantastic job on handling the thugs who tried to disrupt our very peaceful and well attended rally,” Trump tweeted to police afterwards.  Trump has weathered months of blowback from all ends of the political spectrum for his immigration policy, which calls for the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and deporting the nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the United States. Critics have said his plan is needlessly cruel and impossible to implement. At Trump’s campaign stops, attendees often chant “build the wall.” While Trump is running unopposed in the June 7 California Republican primary, his stance on border control and deportation seems unlikely to resonate with the electorate at large in a state where political fallout from a Republican-backed crackdown on illegal immigrants 20 years ago cost the party dearly.     Friday was not the first time Trump has been greeted by civil unrest in California, which is home to the largest Latino population in the country. Late last month, a visit to the California Republican convention set off days of protests in the area, leading to several arrests.  Shortly before taking the stage in San Diego, Trump issued a statement ruling out a one-on-one debate with second-place Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders, who was also in California, killing off a potentially high-ratings television spectacle. The suggested debate, an idea first raised during a talk show appearance by the New York billionaire, would have sidelined likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but given Sanders a huge platform ahead of California Democratic primary.     A day after saying he would welcome a Sanders debate, Trump called the idea “inappropriate,” declaring that he should only face the Democrats’ final choice. “I will wait to debate the first-place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton,” Trump said in a statement. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, expressed disappointment on Friday, and sought to goad Trump into reconsidering. “Well, Mr. Trump, what are you afraid of?” he said in a video clip posted on ABC News’ Twitter account. Trump suggested broadcast networks were unwilling to go along with his demand that at least $10 million raised from the encounter be donated to charity. “I’d love to debate Bernie,” he told a rally in Fresno, California. “But the networks want to keep the money for themselves.”     Sanders is trailing Clinton in the race to secure their party’s nomination, but opinion polls show he is slicing into her lead in California. Clinton has shown no interest in debating Sanders before the California primary, which will be part of a final slate of nominating contests. It is possible she will clinch the nomination by winning New Jersey earlier that day, making the outcome in California superfluous.  The former U.S. secretary of state has said she is looking forward to debating Trump later this year ahead of the Nov. 8 general election. Clinton leads Trump by 4 percentage points in the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. Democrats nationally remain evenly split between Clinton and Sanders.

Summary: ट्रम्प की सैन डिएगो रैली ने 1,000 से अधिक नारे लगाने वाले प्रदर्शनकारियों को आकर्षित किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders won his first endorsement from a fellow U.S. senator on Wednesday, and he and rival Hillary Clinton both announced backing from New York City labor unions as they battled to win next week’s state primary. The Transport Workers Union Local 100, representing 42,000 workers in the New York region, backed Sanders as he struggled to dent Clinton’s lead in a state each has called home. Deriding “fierce attacks” against unions over the last several decades, Sanders called organized labor the last line of defense against corporate greed in America. “We’ve got to stand together, take on the big-money interests and make it clear that our government works for all of us, not just the 1 percent,” the U.S. senator from Vermont said. Following his endorsement announcement, Sanders joined a picket line of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) workers, who went on strike on Wednesday after contract talks hit an impasse. He thanked the workers for fighting corporate greed and told them: “Today you are standing up not just for justice for Verizon workers. You’re standing up for millions of Americans.” Clinton, a former two-term senator from New York, scored her own union endorsement from Local 3 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, representing more than 27,000 area workers. Sanders trails Clinton in the number of delegates won in primaries and caucuses. The former U.S. secretary of state has 1,758 delegates to Sanders’ 1,069, according to the Associated Press. A candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the nomination to be the party’s candidate in the Nov. 8 election. Clinton on Wednesday also won backing from New York’s Daily News, which called her a “superprepared warrior realist” who understands the economic toll the country has faced, while labeling Sanders “utterly unprepared” with “politically impossible” goals. The newspaper’s editorial board interview with Clinton’s Brooklyn-born rival this month prompted criticism of Sanders as lacking detailed understanding of some of his main policy initiatives. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, announced his endorsement of Sanders in a New York Times column, saying he supports Sanders for his work battling economic inequality, opposing trade deals and fighting for the middle class. “It is time to recommit ourselves to that vision of a country that measures our nation’s success not at the boardroom table, but at kitchen tables across America,” wrote Merkley, the junior U.S. senator from Oregon. Merkley’s announcement precedes Oregon’s May 17 primary.

Summary: न्यूयार्क में राष्ट्रपति पद की दौड़ के करीब आने पर यूनियनों ने सैंडर्स, क्लिंटन को राष्ट्रपति पद के लिए समर्थन दिया


BERLIN (Reuters) - Near the end of a recent campaign speech in northern Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel turned to Europe s refugee crisis of 2015 and offered her audience a comforting dual message. Germans should be proud of the warm welcome they gave  hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, many of them fleeing war and persecution in the Middle East, she told an audience of over 1,000 gathered in the fishing village of Steinhude.  Then she shifted gears:  What happened in 2015 cannot, should not and must not happen again.   It is a phrase she has used repeatedly in market squares across Germany as she campaigns for a fourth term in a federal election on Sept. 24 that she is widely expected to win. [nL5N1LQ0H1 Two years since she opened Germany s borders to asylum seekers to avert what she says was a looming humanitarian disaster, and saw her popularity slide as a result, Merkel has climbed her way out of the deepest hole of her political career.  There are many factors behind her comeback. But few are as important as her skill at spinning a narrative about the refugee crisis that many Germans can support, whether they cheered or condemned her actions of 2015.  Merkel is not running on a policy of open borders and that fits perfectly with the mood in the country,  said Robin Alexander, author of a best-selling book on the German government s handling of the refugee crisis.  Many people like the image of Germany as a model of humanitarian virtue. At the same time they know the country could not continue to welcome refugees like it did. It is this set of feelings that Merkel is appealing to.  By the end of 2015, 890,000 asylum seekers had entered Germany, many without proper identity checks, overwhelming local communities. Merkel s actions divided Europe and led to a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment. The hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party seems sure to enter parliament for the first time. A year after her decision, and following a series of small-scale attacks in Germany by Islamist militants, her popularity ratings had plunged 30 points to 45 percent and she faced questions about whether she would run for chancellor again.  Yet today, 63 percent of Germans say she is doing a good job and, according to a Bertelsmann Foundation survey this week, 59 percent believe the country is on the right track.  It has been a long, difficult road back,  said one of her top aides.  But we have gotten to a point where the refugee issue is no longer a negative for Merkel in the election campaign.  Merkel has been helped by external events such as Britain s vote for Brexit last year and Donald Trump s election victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, both of which reinforced her appeal as a guarantor of stability.  A decision by Macedonia in early 2016 to shut its border with Greece stemmed the flow of refugees, easing pressure on Germany. And the country has not suffered a large-scale Islamist attack, an event which might have triggered a voter backlash. But Merkel s knack for understanding how Germans tick has also been crucial.  At many of her public appearances, she is confronted by anti-immigration protesters who try to drown out her speeches with whistles and chants of  Merkel must go! .  In Steinhude, a woman held up a sign showing Merkel s diamond-shaped hand pose over a German flag with a blood-spattered bullet hole in the middle.  I offer you terror, death and chaos , the sign read. But the dozen or so protesters were dwarfed by supporters who applauded her message.  I m not sure if there was another way to handle the refugee crisis. Those refugees had to go somewhere,  said Willi Kordes, 70, who runs a sewage treatment firm in nearby Vlotho.  I don t trust anyone to do it better.  Working in her favor in the election is the fact that many of Germany s other established parties, including the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), led by her main challenger Martin Schulz, backed her open-door policy. The AfD, running a racially-tinged campaign that has put off some voters, has come off its 2016 highs in the polls. The one mainstream party that has offered a hardline alternative, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is the Bavarian sister party to Merkel s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). A vote for the CSU is akin to a vote for Merkel. A crucial factor behind Merkel s rebound has been the decline in asylum seekers entering Germany. About 280,000 arrived in 2016, with another drop likely this year. Merkel takes credit for this, pointing to a deal she brokered between the European Union and Turkey, under which Ankara has cut the number of migrants crossing into Europe via its territory.   But critics say the closing of Balkan borders   which Merkel publicly opposed   was the real driver. Some see parallels with her behavior in the euro zone financial crisis, when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi s pledge to do  whatever it takes  to keep the currency bloc together, allowing her to stick to a hard line towards euro states such as Greece without fear of consequences.  In the refugee crisis, it has been countries like Macedonia, Turkey and Hungary - which shut down routes the refugees used - that have done Merkel s  dirty work , allowing her to maintain the image of a caring leader who helped people fleeing war. The approach has helped Merkel extend her control over the political centre. Some right-wing voters may have fled for the AfD but polls suggest young, urban voters who traditionally lean left could fill the gap.  Germany s economy has been strong enough to absorb the influx of refugees without big cracks emerging in society. In reaction to its Nazi past, Germany has emerged as a more open, tolerant country than many assumed when the crisis hit. A survey published this month ranking the top fears of the Germans put terrorism at the top. But a separate poll for the Bild newspaper showed they do not see curbing immigration as a priority.  Germans are astonishingly global, liberal and open to the world,  said Menno Smid, head of the Infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences, which released a survey last month showing broad acceptance of refugees in Germany.  We are the winners from globalization. The economic factors that led to Trump simply don t exist.

Summary: मर्केल और शरणार्थीः कैसे जर्मन नेता एक राजनीतिक रसातल से उभरे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on Monday pushed against rushing through confirmation hearings scheduled this week for at least seven of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, saying the nominees need a thorough vetting. “Jamming all these hearings into one or two days, making members run from committee to committee, makes no sense,” Schumer said in a speech. “It is only fair that they are given a thorough and thoughtful vetting.”

Summary: शूमर ने पुष्टि सुनवाई में देरी का आग्रह किया, कहा समीक्षा अधूरी है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers said on Thursday that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told them he will defer to President Donald Trump on the timing of a decision on new steel import curbs, likely meaning further delays and deliberations on the issue. Members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee attending a briefing with Ross said he did not specify a timetable for releasing a long-awaited report that will lay out options for shielding the steel industry from imports on national security grounds. Ross had originally hoped to release the steel “Section 232” report at the end of June but the timing has slipped amid disagreements among White House aides over the merits of restricting imports that could hurt steel consuming industries. A House Democratic aide who attended the briefing said Ross repeated President Donald Trump’s comments in a Wall Street Journal interview this week that the decision on potential steel tariffs would take more time and could come after congressional debates on health care, tax reform and infrastructure spending.     “I can only follow my leader,” the aide said Ross told the briefing. The Commerce secretary also told lawmakers the issue had a lot of complexities and that he was considering the interests of both steel makers and steel users and concerned about potential trade retaliation against U.S. agricultural products. The lawmakers said Ross told them he was taking a similar approach to a parallel national security probe into aluminum imports. “I think it’s a good sign that they’re actually slowing down and taking a long look, not trying to mix this in with these other issues that have to be lifted,” said Republican Representative Jackie Walorski.   “I think that Secretary Ross is committed to making sure that we’re doing no harm, that we’re getting this right. I need it to be right when it comes to aluminum,” Walorski said, adding that the recreational vehicle industry in her northern Indiana district does not want to higher aluminum prices due tariffs. Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said Ross told the lawmakers that the Trump administration also wanted to pursue negotiations with other steel-producing countries to address the problem of excess capacity that was causing a flood of dumped imports. But Ross and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week failed to secure commitments from their Chinese counterparts to make specific commitments to cut steel production capacity. China, which produces half the world’s steel, is widely viewed as the source of much of the metal’s excess production.

Summary: सांसदों का कहना है कि रॉस ने अमेरिकी इस्पात शुल्क समय पर ट्रम्प को टाल दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans maintained their majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress in a momentous election on Tuesday in which Republican Donald Trump won the presidency, empowering the party to reshape Washington. The Republican sweep sets up the United States for two years of “unified” government, which would normally mean significant policy change, although Trump’s election was anything but normal and he will start his presidency with unusual handicaps.  Both Republican leaders on Capitol Hill held Trump at arm’s length during the campaign. Trump offended and attacked some congressional Republicans on the stump, including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan. Early on Wednesday, shortly after Clinton conceded to Trump, Ryan said in a statement: “We are eager to work hand-in-hand with the new administration to advance an agenda to improve the lives of the American people.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also a Republican,  said in a guarded and similarly timed statement: “The American people have chosen a new direction for our nation.” The new Congress will not convene until Jan. 3, but the “lame-duck” Congress will return next week and Republicans are set to begin the process of picking leaders for both chambers. Ryan’s position as speaker could be challenged by Republican conservatives who backed Trump and it remains to be seen if the president-elect himself will try to push Ryan out. “Trump seems magnanimous right now,” an aide to one of Trump’s House supporters said after Trump stressed unity in his victory speech in New York. “We shall see.” In a huge disappointment to Democrats, Republicans were on a pace to lose only a handful of seats in the House, well below the double-digit losses some predicted. Similarly, Democrats gained only one seat in the Senate, although a few races were still to be determined, including New Hampshire, where incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte was deadlocked with Democrat Maggie Hassan early on Wednesday. In Illinois, Democratic U.S. Representative Tammy Duckworth defeated Republican Senator Mark Kirk. Democrats needed to pick up a net five seats to win Senate control. Republican successes came on the heels of big Republican gains in the 2014 congressional elections and defied predictions the party was in tatters and on the verge of splitting apart because of deep divisions over Trump. Congressional Republicans are sure to flex their muscles on a range of legislation, not the least of which is fulfilling a six-year quest to repeal President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law known as “Obamacare.” Republicans also campaigned on an agenda that shunned comprehensive immigration reform and opposed gun control and expanded environmental and financial regulations. In the Senate, McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, was expected to remain at his post for at least the next two years. Paul Sracic, who chairs the politics department at Youngstown State University in Ohio, said: “There was all this concern that Trump would damage Republicans down-ticket. Just the opposite happened” as Trump brought out more Republican voters. Come January, Republicans will have to pivot from trying to block Obama’s initiatives - such as his signature health insurance program Obamacare - to governing along with Trump. “Republicans no longer have the luxury of being the opposition party, said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University. “For example, will they actually repeal Obamacare and agree what to implement in its place?” she added. McConnell led conservatives’ opposition to any Supreme Court nominee named by Obama following last February’s death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. His gamble paid off and he will now await a nomination from Trump, likely dooming Obama’s choice of federal judge Merrick Garland. Star-power incumbent Republicans, such as Senator John McCain in Arizona and Marco Rubio in Florida, also scored victories.  Issues ranging from tax cuts to border security will now take center stage in Washington. Trump’s opposition to trade deals with foreign countries puts in serious jeopardy the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiated by Obama that would cover economies from Japan to Chile. “In terms of trade, I think TPP is dead. The stake went through its heart tonight,” Sracic said.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन ने अमेरिकी कांग्रेस पर पकड़ का बचाव किया क्योंकि ट्रम्प ने राष्ट्रपति पद जीता


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government may become a movie and music industry player, at least temporarily, after moving to seize $1 billion in assets that prosecutors said were bought with money looted from the Malaysian state development fund.  The 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” and an interest in the rights of EMI Music Publishing are among the targets of civil lawsuits that are filled with allegations that Malaysian officials, their relatives and associates laundered the fund’s money and hid it in property, artwork and luxury goods in the United States. Seizures of assets by government authorities are fairly common, but they more typically involve sports cars, yachts and jewelry bought with drug trafficking proceeds or with profits from white-collar crime. The case of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB announced on Wednesday is unusually large and involves some out-of-the-ordinary assets, such as rights associated with the dark comedy film starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a corrupt New York stockbroker. The film could make another $100 million in the near future, a box office analyst said. According to the lawsuits, a Malaysian national involved in creating 1MDB, Low Taek Jho, used about $10 million from 1MDB to invest in the film and separately used about $107 million to buy “a substantial interest” in EMI, the world’s third-largest music publishing company by revenue.  Low did not respond to requests for comment sent to his Hong Kong-based company, Jynwel Capital. U.S. government-seized assets are usually sold off at auction to raise money for victims. Until that can happen, U.S. authorities must maintain the assets, officials said. The U.S. Marshals Service manages and auctions seized assets. If a judge approves the seizure of 1MDB-linked assets, the usual process would be followed, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said. The assets would be initially restrained so their owners could not sell or transfer them. Any profits generated would be held in escrow until the case was resolved, Carr said. “We would sell those interests and, if possible and appropriate, use the proceeds of those sales for the benefit of the victim citizens in Malaysia,” Carr said in an email.  In the 1990s, the government owned shares in a California casino and through a trustee helped to manage it, putting Washington for a short time in the gambling business. A Marshals Service spokeswoman said she did not immediately know if the agency had previously auctioned film and music royalty rights. The agency had 17,564 assets on hand as of September 2015, valued at $3.1 billion, its website said. Court papers filed by the Justice Department would, if approved by a judge, grant sweeping powers to the Marshals Service to manage the 1MDB-linked assets. Under a proposed restraining order, Red Granite Pictures, which produced “The Wolf of Wall Street,” would have to maintain present contracts related to the film and “allow the United States to join in and direct key business decisions about day to day operations.” In a statement, Red Granite said that to its knowledge, none of the money it received was illegitimate and that co-founder Riza Aziz and the company did nothing wrong. Aziz is the stepson of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who oversaw the 1MDB fund. The Justice Department lawsuits said that high-level officials of 1MDB corruptly diverted more than $3.5 billion from the fund over six years.

Summary: अमेरिका मलेशिया में फिल्म, संगीत भूमिकाएँ ले सकता है संपत्ति जब्त करने के लिए धन


SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump made his first major tax reform speech on Wednesday, but in a long list of thank yous he did not mention Gary Cohn, the White House point man on taxes who traveled with Trump to the event. At a manufacturing company in Springfield, Missouri, Trump reiterated his longstanding call for slashing the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent at a time when lawmakers believe they could be lucky to bring it down to 25 percent. When asked about the omission of Cohn’s name, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Air Force One, en route to Washington from Missouri, that it was customary for Trump to recognize Cabinet members, but not advisers, in speeches. Cohn traveled with Trump on Air Force One for the Missouri speech, in which Trump called on Democrats to join his tax overhaul effort. He said he would cut taxes and simplify the sprawling U.S. tax code for the middle class. But he offered few specifics, and tax reform will be an uphill task in Congress. “We must reduce the tax rate on American businesses so they keep jobs in America, create jobs in America and compete for workers right here in America,” Trump said in his first presidential speech specifically on tax reform, one of his key 2016 campaign issues. Both congressional Democrats and Republicans say tax reform is needed but the Republican goal of enacting legislation this year faces a battle in Congress, which has already failed to deliver on healthcare reform sought by Trump. During his speech, Trump did single out Cabinet members, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon, as well as members of Congress — more than a dozen people in all. He asked his daughter Ivanka Trump, who is not a Cabinet member but is a staff member, to stand and be recognized in his speech at a manufacturing company in Springfield. “Anybody I forgot?” Trump asked.  Cohn, who stood next to the stage during the speech with Sanders, has worked side-by-side for months with Mnuchin developing Trump’s tax reform strategy. “It’s pretty standard practice for us not to specifically call out staff,” Sanders told reporters afterward. “He regularly mentions Cabinet members but very rarely mentions staff in speeches.” Asked if the oversight of Cohn was significant, Sanders said, “Well, look, Gary is here. The president is here. They’re both working hard and extremely committed to providing tax relief for middle-class America. The president has made very clear this is a top priority for him, for his administration, and Gary is one of the people leading the charge.” Cohn recently criticized Trump for his comments about violence at racially charged protests in Virginia earlier this month. Trump blamed “both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville, in which white supremacists and neo-Nazis battled anti-racism protesters. Trump’s comments drew condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats. Cohn told the Financial Times last week that the Trump administration “can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning” hate groups. The former Goldman Sachs executive, who is Jewish, said he had come under “enormous pressure” to resign over Trump’s remarks. TAX REFORM UNLIKELY BEFORE YEAR-END Independent analysts and lobbyists are increasingly pessimistic that Congress can act by the end of 2017, and some believe final tax legislation could be more like a straight tax cut than a reform. “I don’t want to be disappointed by Congress. Do you understand me?” Trump said to cheers. Trump said business tax cuts would lead to higher wages for workers by boosting economic growth and making American companies more competitive, an argument Democrats dismiss as more of the “trickle-down” economics that they blame for leaving workers behind in recent decades. “If President Trump’s previous tax plans are any indication, the wealthy and big corporations will be the ultimate winner,” Representative Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.                 There has been no comprehensive overhaul of the tax code since 1986. Trump singled out Missouri’s Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, telling voters to throw her out of office in the 2018 midterm elections if she does not get on board with tax reform. McCaskill’s office did not respond to queries from Reuters about Trump’s remark.  After more than seven months in power, Trump and Republican leaders who control both the U.S. Senate and the House are still far from agreement on a tax package. Initially expected in the spring, tax reform legislation now may not emerge until as late as November, lobbyists say. Trump will discuss a tax overhaul at a White House meeting next Tuesday with the “Big Six” tax reform negotiators: House Speaker Paul Ryan, Mnuchin, Cohn, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican chairmen of two congressional tax committees.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने कर सुधार का दावा किया, व्हाइट हाउस के सहयोगी कोहन को नजरअंदाज किया


(Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday defended his decision to settle lawsuits over his Trump University real estate seminars for $25 million, saying he does not have time to fight the fraud cases in court now that he is headed to the White House. The lawsuits cast a shadow over the Republican’s presidential campaign and led to one of the more controversial moments of his run for the White House when he claimed the judge overseeing two of the cases was biased because he was of Mexican ancestry.  While denying any wrongdoing, Trump agreed on Friday to pay $25 million to settle the lawsuits. “I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning.   New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has said over 5,000 students across the country were defrauded out of about $40 million, so Trump’s settlement of $25 million was around 60 percent of these estimated damages.  “The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!” He said in a second tweet. In announcing the settlement, Schneiderman said the deal followed repeated refusals by Trump “to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university.” In a statement, Schneiderman called the settlement a “stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.” Students had claimed they were they were lured by false promises into paying up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing secrets from his hand-picked instructors. Trump’s lawyers denied this. The deal covers three lawsuits relating to Trump University: two class actions suits in California and a New York case brought by Schneiderman. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego must still approved the settlement. During his election campaign, Trump said that Curiel, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrant parents, could not be impartial because of Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to control illegal immigration.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने ट्रम्प विश्वविद्यालय के मुकदमों को निपटाने के फैसले का बचाव किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions of Americans would lose their health insurance under the Republican healthcare plan backed by President Donald Trump, a nonpartisan congressional agency said on Monday in an eagerly awaited report. The report by the Congressional Budget Office forecast that 14 million more people would be uninsured in 2018 and 24 million more in 2026 if the plan being considered in the House of Representatives were adopted.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन योजना के तहत लाखों लोगों को स्वास्थ्य बीमा का नुकसान होगाः कांग्रेस की रिपोर्ट


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is troubled by reports that an Iranian-American man may have been sentenced by Iran to 18 years in prison, a State Department spokesman said on Tuesday, a week after an Iranian-American businessman and his father were also jailed by an Iranian court.  “We are troubled by reports that Robin Reza Shahini, a person reported to be a U.S. citizen, may have been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison,” spokesman John Kirby told a daily briefing. He called on Tehran to halt “arbitrary and politically motivated detentions.” California-based Shahini was detained while visiting his mother in Gorgan in July, according to Shahini’s friends.  Last week, businessman Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official, were sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of cooperating with the United States. Iran does not recognize dual nationality, which prevents Western embassies from visiting such detainees. Washington secured the release of five U.S. citizens from Iran in January in a prisoner exchange and has said it raises the detention of other Americans held by Tehran during meetings with Iranian officials. Major world powers, including the United States, reached a landmark nuclear deal with Iran in July last year, which lifted some international sanctions against Iran.  “Nobody is turning a blind eye here, but what is behind this, I don’t think any of us know with certainty,” Kirby said, when asked why Iran keeps detaining dual citizens. “I can’t speak to the motivation behind these detentions but if one of the motivations was to secure ransom, it is a false perception. It is wrong.” Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives plan a vote as soon as mid-November on a 10-year reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act, congressional aides told Reuters. The move could increase frustrations in Iran, which has been complaining for months that remaining U.S. sanctions have frightened away trade partners.

Summary: ईरान द्वारा एक और अमेरिकी नागरिक को जेल भेजे जाने की खबर से परेशान है अमेरिका


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration announced a broad expansion on Tuesday of a program to let people fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras enter the United States as refugees, and said Costa Rica agreed to temporarily shelter some of those with no other recourse. Under the plan, Costa Rica will host up to 200 applicants at a time deemed too vulnerable to remain in their homelands while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security evaluates them for possible resettlement, which could take up to six months. The United States will also expand a program for child refugees and allow some people to apply for refugee status in their home countries. The steps, after months of criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the crisis, are modest in comparison to plans announced by Secretary of State John Kerry in January to open several refugee processing centers in the region. “Our current efforts to date have been insufficient to address the number of people who may have legitimate refugee claims,” Amy Pope, deputy homeland security adviser at Obama’s National Security Council, told a telephone briefing for reporters. Many details, including how the program would be financed or how many people might be eligible, were unavailable. Advocates said they were pleased the administration was  moving to provide the migrants, especially children, with an alternative to staying home with their lives at risk or relying on smugglers for the dangerous journey through Mexico. “It’s really the way the program should have been established from the start, but even belatedly we’re happy to see that this is the direction that they’re taking it,” said Bill Frelick, director of the refugee rights program at Human Rights Watch. Since October, nearly 80,000 children and families from the three countries have been apprehended at the U.S. border with Mexico. The crisis has fueled heated debate on the campaign trail over whether to welcome migrants fleeing violence or build a wall to keep them out, a centerpiece of Republican Donald Trump’s run for president. Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, called the plan an abuse of the law. “Today’s expansion of the Obama Administration’s policy is simply a continuation of the government-sanctioned border surge,” he said in a statement. The program also met resistance in the region. Guatemalan government officials rejected the description of those seeking to leave the country as refugees. The administration also will expand its Central American Minors program, which allows those under 21 with a parent in the United States legally to seek refugee status. The program will now allow siblings, care givers or another parent to do so. Only 267 minors have entered the United States since the program began in December 2014. Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said 2,880 applicants have been approved and are awaiting resettlement. The New York Times reported in January that the United States planned to admit up to 9,000 Central American refugees. Costa Rican Minister of the Presidency Sergio Alfaro told a news conference in San Jose the government reserved the “explicit right” to ask for more information if there were doubts about those granted the six-month humanitarian visas. Carlos Maldonado of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said the UNHCR and International Organization for Migration would handle costs incurred as applicants were processed in Costa Rica. If approved, they would most likely head to the United States, but could go to Canada, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile or Uruguay. Convincing countries to host a center has been difficult amid concern slow processing would lead to a backlog of people with nowhere to go, U.S. sources said. Nearly 8,000 Cubans migrating to the United States were stuck in Costa Rica recently when neighboring Nicaragua closed its border. Costa Rica’s location is also a challenge. Salvadorans, Hondurans and Guatemalans seeking to move to the United States must travel south, across Nicaragua, to get there.

Summary: अमेरिका ने मध्य अमेरिकी शरणार्थी जांच कार्यक्रम का विस्तार किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Donald Trump faced criticism from advocacy groups for not including more women and minorities in his cabinet last January, the incoming administration promised that the lower rungs of the bureaucracy would ultimately look more diverse.  Now, recently available government data on the ethnic and gender make-up of the broader Trump administration shows that with over 1,000 mid-level political jobs filled by mid-year the appointees look much like the top leadership: mostly white and male. Office of Personnel Management numbers analyzed by Reuters show that 88 percent of such appointees were non-Hispanic white and 62 percent were men.  By comparison, in the final year of Barack Obama's Democratic administration, non-Hispanic whites made up 67 percent of that group and men accounted for 47 percent - closer to what the U.S. population looks like. Non-Hispanic whites account for 61 percent and men make up 49 percent, according to 2016 census data. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2xOf1ip) “This administration so far has not in any direct sense prioritized diversity,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a non-partisan group that tracks federal hiring, when presented with Reuters’ findings. Out of the Trump administration’s 24 top cabinet-level positions, 17 are filled by white men.  Asked to comment on the mid-level personnel data, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Trump had a long history of promoting women and pointed to last week’s nomination of Kirstjen Nielsen to lead the Department of Homeland Security.  “He will continue to elevate and empower women to top posts in his administration,” Walters said. She declined to discuss Trump’s views on the ethnicity of political appointees. One day before Trump took office on Jan. 20, his then-spokesman Sean Spicer responded to criticism of the cabinet’s lineup by saying that members were picked on their merits and  appointments across the broader federal bureaucracy would satisfy demands for more diversity.  “People (will) look at and respect the level of diversity throughout his entire administration,” he told reporters. The mid-level political positions, known as “Schedule C” and “non-career SES” posts, numbered 1,051 in June, according to most recent data published in late September. How many more of those jobs have been filled since and whether their demographics has changed will be known at the end of the year, when third quarter numbers are expected. The positions include office managers, aides, policy experts and schedulers who are hired by top appointees, such as cabinet secretaries and their deputies. The mid-level bureaucrats act as a link between political leadership and over two million career civil servants who tend to work for multiple administrations.  In recent decades, such jobs would account for about half of some 4,000 positions that get filled anew with every change of administration. The OPM does not publish data on the more senior positions. The personnel office has published data sorted by gender that goes back to 1998 and by ethnicity since 2006, allowing comparisons with only two past administrations. Some political analysts say the profile of the new group of mid-level officials largely reflects a lower share of minorities among Republican voters and the fact that the Republican party has weaker ties to organizations that promote diversity and gender equality. “It’s just a smaller set of folks who organize around those things and are connected to the Republican party,” said David Lewis, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University who studies presidential appointments. In fact, this administration’s numbers are similar to those under the previous Republican administration of George W. Bush. Between 2006-2008, the only Bush years covered by OPM gender, race and ethnicity data, men made up 60 percent of mid-level staff and 88 percent described themselves as non-Hispanic white. However, the United States has become more diverse over the past decade, making the numbers for this administration less representative of America’s demographic makeup than was the case under Bush. In 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration, non-Hispanic whites made up 65 percent of the general population. Now that share is 4 percentage points lower, U.S. Census figures show.  Among Republican registered voters, the share of those identifying themselves as non-Hispanic white has edged down from 88 percent in 2008 to 86 percent just before the 2016 presidential election, according to the Pew Research Center. Women also have a larger share of overall U.S. jobs than during the Bush years. Their 38 percent share of mid-level political jobs in the current administration is a notch below the 40 percent average they had in 2001-2008. In 1998-2000, the final years of Bill Clinton’s presidency captured in the OPM data, that share averaged 51 percent.

Summary: श्वेत और पुरुषः व्यापक नौकरशाही ट्रम्प कैबिनेट के प्रोफाइल को प्रतिबिंबित करती है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A trade deal fight led by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Saturday failed to fully materialize as rival and presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton announced a compromise to expand mandatory healthcare funding over the next decade. At a meeting of the Democratic Party draft platform committee in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday, supporters of Sanders were unable to influence the committee to adopt strong language opposing the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, marking a powerful blow to the efforts by the U.S. senator from Vermont to push the party further to the left. “We did everything we could to win that vote,” said Sanders policy adviser Warren Gunnels. “It was very disappointing.” Instead of a condemnation specific to the TPP, the committee reached language saying they would oppose “trade agreements that do not support good American jobs.” Sanders has headed the effort on the U.S. left to oppose the TPP and trade deals like it, which he says are unfair to American workers. Clinton has also come out as opposed to the agreement.  Despite Clinton having already secured the requisite delegates to clinch the party’s nomination at the July 25-28 convention, Sanders remains in the race to be the party’s nominee.  He has indicated that he would hold off on endorsing Clinton for the Nov. 8 general election fight against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump until she adopted policies and campaign language that more closely resembled his own more liberal tone. “I would like to say that while this vote was disappointing, we have won some tremendous victories,” Gunnels said, including securing language in the draft supporting a federal $15 minimum wage, another trademark issue for Sanders. On the same day, the Clinton campaign announced changes to its healthcare policy proposal, including increasing mandatory healthcare funding under the Affordable Care Act by $40 billion over the next 10 years, highlighting the significant influence Sanders still yields over the party.  “We have more work to do to finish our long fight to provide universal, quality, affordable healthcare to everyone in America,” Clinton said in a statement that included her intention to give Americans the choice of a public-option insurance plan and allow for individuals below Medicare age, beginning at 55, to opt in to the U.S. federal program that pays elderly Americans’ hospital bills. Sanders has made combating healthcare costs a rallying cry of his campaign and often battled with Clinton during the primary race on how best to reach their shared goal of universal healthcare. On Saturday, Sanders praised the updates to Clinton’s proposal as a step in the right direction to “save lives and ease suffering,” indicating, along with the more liberal tone in several parts of the 2016 platform draft, a growing compromise between the two camps. For Clinton, an endorsement from Sanders - seen as a champion of the progressive left - could open the door to many of his supporters who have been reluctant to support the more moderate Clinton. “The proposal brought forth today by Secretary Clinton, working with our campaign, is an important step forward in expanding healthcare in America - and expanding health insurance and healthcare access to tens of millions of Americans,” he said in a statement. “I congratulate Secretary Clinton for this extremely important initiative.” The New York Times reported on Thursday that an endorsement is imminent, and Sanders is expected to officially throw his support behind Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, at a campaign stop in New Hampshire early next week. (This story corrects age at which individuals could opt in to Medicare under Clinton plan in paragraph 10)

Summary: सैंडर्स के टी. पी. पी. रुख को डेमोक्रेट्स की मंच समिति ने खारिज किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Opponents of a proposal to create a U.S. border tax on imported goods are targeting lawmakers in their home states for the next two weeks while Congress is in recess, according to organizers of the lobbying effort. The anti-border tax coalition, known as Americans for Affordable Products, includes large corporations that require imports like automakers and retail giants like Target (TGT.N) , Best Buy (BBY.N) and Walmart (WMT.N). The tax opponents will target 40 members of Congress in 11 states, said coalition spokesman Joshua Baca.  “We’re talking to businesses, local associations, having a frank conversation with them about how dumb this idea is,” Baca said. His group argues the proposal will raise consumer prices. As part of a total overhaul of the U.S. tax code, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has proposed lowering the corporate income tax to 20 percent from 35 percent, imposing a 20 percent tax on imports and excluding export revenue from taxable income. The proposal has some strong corporate backers who say it will boost American jobs and not raise prices, including companies that do considerable amount of exporting, such as Boeing (BA.N), Caterpillar (CAT.N) and Pfizer (PFE.N). The anti-border tax group is planning to host a town hall meeting next week in Nevada with Republican Senator Dean Heller, which will also be co-sponsored by local business groups and Americans For Prosperity, the conservative group funded by the Republican Koch brothers which also opposes the border tax. Town hall meetings have gained more attention recently as events featuring Republican lawmakers have been targeted by activists to voice their opposition to several proposals, including repealing the Affordable Care Act which widened health insurance coverage for about 20 million Americans. Additionally, the anti-tax group will hold a discussion in Ohio with Republican Representative David Joyce, where he will hear from local furniture store owners who would be affected by a border tax, Baca said. Concurrently, members of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which is comprised of large retailers like Autozone (AZO.N) , Walgreens Boot Alliance, Inc. (WBA.O) and J.C. Penny Company, are using the recess to give members of Congress behind-the-scenes tours of both their headquarters and stores in an effort to persuade them against the tax, spokesman Brian Dodge said.  Both groups are hoping to make more voters aware of their position and are armed with an opinion poll by a pollster who also works for several Republican members of Congress.  The poll, shared first with Reuters and which was conducted with funding from opponents of the tax, found 63 percent of voters are against the tax, including 70 percent of women. Additionally, the poll makes the case that 56 percent of voters say they would be less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports the tax proposal.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीमा-विरोधी कर गठबंधन कांग्रेस के अवकाश के दौरान सांसदों को निशाना बनाएगा


LONDON (Reuters) - London s police force urged people on Oxford Street, a major shopping district in the center of the city, to go inside while they dealt with an ongoing incident on Friday.  If you are on Oxford Street go into a building. Officers are on scene and dealing (with it),  the Metropolitan Police said on their official Twitter feed. London s transport authority said Oxford Circus underground station was closed while police dealt with what it called  customer incident .

Summary: लंदन पुलिस ने ऑक्सफोर्ड स्ट्रीट पर लोगों से इमारतों के अंदर जाने का आग्रह किया