PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Joking that “opposites attract,” Prime Minister Theresa May called on President Donald Trump on Thursday to renew the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States and lead in a new, changed world. In the United States for what will be Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader since he took office last week, May signaled a shift in foreign policy, bringing her position more in line with that of Trump. She urged the two countries and their leaders to stand united and confront new challenges, including the rise of economies in Asia that people fear could “eclipse the West,” the threat of Islamic extremism and a resurgent Russia. “So we - our two countries together - have a responsibility to lead. Because when others step up as we step back, it is bad for America, for Britain and the world,” May told members of Republican Party at their retreat in a speech often punctuated by applause from an enthusiastic crowd. “This cannot mean a return to the failed policies of the past. The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over. But nor can we afford to stand idly by.” Her break with the interventionism that launched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan underscores a change in global politics.     It also fits with Trump’s move to put “America first” and scores well with voters in Britain whose feeling of being left behind by globalization helped fuel Britain’s vote to leave the EU last year that propelled May to power. Aware that Brexit will shape her legacy, May welcomed her early visit to the United States, a boost to her attempts to show that Britain can prosper outside the European Union despite criticism at home for cozying up to Trump. On her U.S.-bound flight, May concentrated on similarities with the U.S. leader, who some reporters suggested had a style in stark contrast to her more cautious, restrained approach. “Haven’t you ever noticed ... sometimes opposites attract?” she answered with a laugh. Eager to win favor — and a trade deal — with the new U.S. president to bolster her hand in the divorce talks with the European Union, May said both countries shared many values and that, contrary to his statements that NATO was “obsolete,” Trump had told her he was committed to the U.S.-led military alliance. May said she supported Trump’s “reform agenda” to make NATO and the United Nations “more relevant and purposeful than they are today,” and “many of the priorities your government has laid out for America’s engagement with the world.”  But there may be sticking points in Friday’s talks - May said she condemned the use of torture and would stick to UK policy, suggesting Britain may not accept intelligence that could have come from such methods that Trump could reintroduce. “We condemn torture and my view on that won’t change – whether I’m talking to you or talking to the president,” she said when asked what impact it would have if Trump brought back a CIA program for holding terrorism suspects in secret prisons. May will have navigate the middle ground carefully, wary of being criticized as too pro-Trump or alternatively as too negative toward a future trading partner.  She has threatened to walk away from the EU if she fails to get a good deal, and some critics say that could give other countries, like the United States, the upper hand in any talks.  And the EU might not take kindly to any overly friendly overtures to a president some of the bloc’s main leaders have voiced concern about. Some kind of trade agreement, though, is high on her list of priorities, despite Britain and the United States being at odds over genetically modified organisms, meat production and public procurement and May unable to sign deals until after Brexit. May says she will launch the divorce talks by the end of March by triggering Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which gives up to two years to negotiate an exit deal. Only then can she agree with third countries. Both leaders should use the time to find areas where they could remove trade barriers, May said. “We’re both very clear that we want a trade deal.”

Summary: 'विपक्ष आकर्षित करते हैं', ब्रिटेन के प्रधानमंत्री ने ट्रम्प से विशेष संबंधों को फिर से शुरू करने का आह्वान किया


BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia s president appointed on Wednesday the candidate of a junior coalition party as new education minister, defusing a month-long political crisis that had threatened the survival of the most pro-European Union government in central Europe. Martina Lubyova is the candidate of the Slovak National Party (SNS), a member of the ruling coalition that also includes Prime Minister Robert Fico s leftist Smer party and the ethnic Hungarian party Most-Hid. The SNS rattled the coalition on Aug. 7 by withdrawing its support for the government and calling for a new deal that would boost its role in decision-making. The conflict then escalated when Fico asked then-education minister Peter Plavcan of the SNS to resign after criticism from the European Commission that the ministry had chosen several companies with no history in research or innovation as recipients of EU subsidies aimed at supporting science. SNS leader Andrej Danko denied any funds had been misappropriated but agreed to replace Plavcan. Lubyova is a former director of forecasting at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. A new coalition deal struck this week also establishes regular weekly meetings and new communication rules within the coalition. They will be tested next month when the government is set to discuss a budget framework for the next three years. SNS has argued for more government investment to revitalize thermal spa resorts and wants to set up a national airline for Slovakia, a euro zone member state, but Smer says spending must not endanger the goal of reaching a balanced budget by 2019.   The government needs the votes of all three coalition parties to maintain its majority in the 150-seat parliament.

Summary: गठबंधन संकट के बाद स्लोवाकिया का नया शिक्षा मंत्री नियुक्त


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke on Wednesday with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and expressed his  profound concern  over the detention of staff at U.S. diplomatic missions in Turkey, the U.S. State Department said in a statement. Tillerson also called on the Turkish government to present evidence behind the accusations against two locally employed staff who were arrested in Turkey this year, the statement said. The detentions prompted Washington to stop issuing visas and triggered a diplomatic crisis.

Summary: टिलरसन ने वीजा विवाद पर तुर्की के समकक्ष से की बात


PRAGUE (Reuters) - Britain can negotiate its exit from the European Union within the two-year framework envisaged, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday.  We can do it comfortably in two years,  Johnson told reporters after meeting his Czech counterpart, Lubomir Zaoralek, in Prague.

Summary: ब्रेक्सिट पर दो साल में 'आराम से' बातचीत हो सकती हैः जॉनसन


PARIS (Reuters) - France wants a strong and stable Germany to move Europe forward and will continue to work with the current German government, an official at President Emmanuel Macron s office said on Monday.  For Germany and for Europe, we want our main partner to be stable and strong, to move forward together,  the official said.  This merely reinforces the need for France to make proposals, to take the initiative, to work on an ambitious European project that we will implement with our German partner,  the official added. Efforts to form a three-way coalition government have failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, pitching Germany into its worst political crisis in decades.

Summary: फ्रांस 'मजबूत और स्थिर' जर्मनी चाहता हैः राष्ट्रपति मैक्रों


WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Israel s ambassador to New Zealand on Wednesday appealed to the pop star Lorde to meet him after she canceled a show in Tel Aviv after appeals from activists for her to shun Israel as a protest against its treatment of Palestinians. Itzhak Gerberg, Israel s ambassador to New Zealand, said in a public letter it was  regrettable  that the concert had been called off and the boycott of his country represented  hostility and intolerance .    I invite you to meet me in person to discuss Israel, its achievements and its role as the only democracy in the Middle East,  Gerberg said on the Embassy of Israel s Facebook page.               Lorde s representatives did not immediately respond to request for comment on her response or whether she planned to meet the ambassador. The 21-year-old New Zealand singer had been slated to perform in Tel Aviv in June as part of a global tour to promote her chart-topping second album  Melodrama .   Campaigners have been urging her to scrap the show, calling in an open letter on Dec. 21 for her to pull out as part of a boycott to oppose Israel s occupation of the Palestinian territories.  Playing in Tel Aviv will be seen as giving support to the policies of the Israeli government, even if you make no comment on the political situation,  campaigners Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab, wrote on news website The Spinoff.  We believe that an economic, intellectual and artistic boycott is an effective way of speaking out,  they said. Lorde said on Twitter at the time she was speaking with  many people about this and considering all options .   Eran Arielli, the promoter of the concert, said on Facebook on Sunday that the show was off.    The truth is I was naive to think that an artist of her age would be able to absorb the pressure involved in coming to Israel,  he wrote in Hebrew.    The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement was launched in 2005 as a non-violent campaign to press Israel to heed international law and end its occupation of territory Palestinians seek for a state.  Artists who have boycotted Israel include Pink Floyd s Roger Waters and Elvis Costello.  Other major stars, such as Elton John, Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, the Rolling Stones, Justin Bieber and Rihanna have performed in recent years in Israel.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s right-wing government has long campaigned against the BDS movement, describing it as anti-Semitic and an attempt to erase Israel s legitimacy. (This story has been refiled to show Eran Arielli was sole promoter, paragraph 10.)

Summary: इजरायल के राजदूत ने कार्यक्रम रद्द होने पर न्यूजीलैंड के पॉप स्टार लॉर्ड से मिलने को कहा


MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Libya put 142 illegal migrants on a flight back to Guinea on Wednesday with the help of the U.N. migration agency, officials said, as the North African country steps up deportations to ease severe overcrowding in its detention centers. The number of people stuck in Libyan detention centers has risen dramatically this year after armed groups largely shut down the boat route to Italy from the smuggling hub of Sabratha. The International Organization for Migration flew the Guinean migrants from two western cities to the city of Misrata, from where they boarded a plane for Conakry. The deportations come in the wake of a CNN report on migrants being sold for slave labor that sparked an international outcry. Migrant flows through Libya have surged since 2014. More than 600,000 people have crossed the central Mediterranean to Italy in the past three years, but departures from Libya s coast dropped sharply in July when armed groups in Sabratha began preventing boats from leaving. After clashes in the western city in September, thousands of migrants held near the coast emerged and were transferred to detention centers under the nominal control of the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli. Amnesty International said this month that up to 20,000 people are being held in detention centers and are subject to  torture, forced labor, extortion, and unlawful killings . Other human rights organizations have said similar things in recent months.

Summary: लीबिया ने विमान में सवार 142 प्रवासियों को गिनी वापस भेजा


TOULON, France (Reuters) - France s defense minister warned on Tuesday that North Korea could develop ballistic missiles that reach Europe sooner than expected.  The scenario of an escalation towards a major conflict can not be discarded,  Florence Parly said in a speech to the French military.  Europe risks being within range of (North Korean President) Kim Jong Un s missiles sooner than expected,  she said.

Summary: यूरोप जल्द ही उत्तर कोरियाई मिसाइलों के दायरे में आ सकता हैः फ्रांस


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish academic Fikret Baskaya was briefly detained on Monday as part of an operation targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, state-run Anadolu news agency said. Twelve other suspects were detained along with Baskaya, it said. Further information about the other suspects  status was not immediately available. Baris Yarkadas, a lawmaker from the main opposition CHP, wrote on Twitter that Baskaya, 77, had been detained at his home in the capital Ankara at 6.30 am (0330 GMT) and that police had seized some of his personal possessions. Baskaya, who is an author and university lecturer, was later released after giving a statement to police, another CHP lawmaker, Murat Emir, said in a tweet.  He added that Baskaya was detained over an article he wrote on Nov. 7, called  Real Terror is State Terror,  in which Baskaya said Turkey s Kurds suffered oppression at the hands of authorities. The investigation is ongoing despite Baskaya s release, Emir said. Anadolu said arrest warrants had been issued for a total of 17 people on allegations of aiding the PKK and spreading the group s propaganda on social media. Operations to detain the other suspects were ongoing. The PKK launched a separatist insurgency in southeast Turkey in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union.

Summary: तुर्की पुलिस ने कुर्द आतंकवादी जांच में शिक्षाविद को कुछ समय के लिए हिरासत में लियाः एजेंसी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand fired back at President Donald Trump on Tuesday and said she would not be silenced after he attacked her on Twitter for calling for an investigation into accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct against him. Six U.S. senators, including Gillibrand, have said Trump should resign.  Trump lambasted Gillibrand on Twitter on Tuesday writing, “Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump.” Schumer is the Senate Democratic leader. Gillibrand, whose name has been floated as a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, said she would not back down.  “It was a sexist smear attempting to silence my voice, and I will not be silenced on this issue,” she told reporters at a news conference. Trump did not answer a reporter’s question at a White House event later on Tuesday when asked what he meant by the tweet. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, told that some people thought Trump’s tweet contained sexual innuendo, said, “Only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way ... it’s obviously talking about political partisan games that people often play and the broken system.” Sanders told a regular White House briefing that Trump had used similar language previously to refer to men of both major parties.       Other Democratic lawmakers rallied behind Gillibrand, including U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, another possible 2020 presidential candidate.  In a tweet directed at Trump, Warren wrote on Tuesday, “Are you really trying to bully, intimidate and slut-shame @SenGillibrand? Do you know who you’re picking a fight with? Good luck with that, @realDonaldTrump. Nevertheless, #shepersisted.” U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s  attack on Gillibrand was “nasty, unbecoming of a president,” but he did not join her call for Trump to resign the presidency over sexual misconduct accusations. More than a dozen women have accused Trump, a New York-based real estate developer and former reality television star, of making unwanted sexual advances against them years before he entered politics. Trump, a Republican, has denied the allegations.     Reuters has not independently verified the accusations against Trump.  Interest in accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct came to the fore again on Monday when three women who had previously accused Trump of misconduct called on the U.S. Congress to investigate his behavior.  On Tuesday, a fourth woman who had also previously made similar accusations backed their call for an investigation during an interview with NBC. Nearly 60 female Democratic U.S. lawmakers called for an investigation in a letter on Monday. By Tuesday, the group said many male colleagues had also joined on, bringing the number to more than 100 lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, responded to the group in a letter on Tuesday that said, “The specific allegations set forth in your letter constitute crimes,” both federal and state. Gowdy noted that congressional panels cannot prosecute crimes so he was forwarding the group’s letter to the Justice Department. He added that any charges not alleging crimes should go to the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over “allegations related to fitness for office and non-criminal matters.”   Trump has called the accusations fabricated stories and he has said he did not know his accusers.  On Monday, Gillibrand called the allegations credible and called on Trump to resign over them.  The attention to sexual harassment accusations against Trump comes amid a wave of similar accusations against prominent men in Hollywood, the media and politics in recent months. Federal Election Commission records showed Trump gave $4,800 to Gillibrand’s Senate campaign in 2010, and that he donated $2,100 to her in 2007 while she was a member of the House of Representatives. Concerns over sexual impropriety have become a political issue the United States, leading to the resignations of two Democratic and one Republican lawmaker. Reuters has not independently verified accusations against them.  The issue of sexual harassment has also become central to Tuesday’s U.S. Senate election in Alabama after accusations of misconduct were made against Republican candidate Roy Moore.    The White House said on Monday that the women’s accusations against Trump were false and “totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts” and later promised to provide a list of those accounts to reporters.  On Tuesday, the White house sent a list of three 2016 media reports, including a New York Post interview with a British man who disputed one of the accusers’ accounts of alleged groping and said he never saw it happen. It also included New York Daily News and CNN reports with two other former pageant participants supporting Trump.

Summary: सीनेटर गिलिब्रैंड ने ट्रंप के ट्विटर पोस्ट को बताया 'सेक्सिस्ट स्मीयर'


(Reuters) - Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, on Monday said that she was not distracted by rumors of ill health and that attacks on the Clinton Foundation were not rooted in fact. Clinton, speaking on her campaign plane, also said she continued to support a “no-fly zone” over Syria.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने कहा कि उनके स्वास्थ्य के बारे में 'साजिश के सिद्धांत' चिंता का विषय नहीं हैं


PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron has said his government could consider changes in the relationship between mainland France and Corsica, which seeks greater autonomy, but ruled out new residency rights or recognition of Corsican as an official language. An alliance of Corsica s two main nationalist parties swept a local election on Dec. 10 and has been pressing for talks with Paris.  Its leaders want more autonomy on fiscal issues, an equal status for the French and Corsican languages, and the limiting of the right to buy property in some areas to people who have been resident on the holiday island for at least five years.  The two-party  Pe a Corsica  (For Corsica) alliance won nearly two thirds of seats in the local assembly election. Support for their cause is driven by dissatisfaction with France s mainstream parties, mirroring a trend that has spurred secessionist ambitions elsewhere in Europe, such as Catalonia.  Looking ahead, we could consider possible changes, and the prime minister has indicated this to Corsica s leaders,  Macron said in an interview published by Spanish daily El Mundo on Wednesday.   But these would come, as elsewhere, within the framework of the constitution. This republican framework does not allow us to say yes to certain demands, such as on residency rights or recognizing Coriscan as the official language alongside French.  Corsica s nationalists are split between those who seek greater autonomy and those who see full independence as the ultimate goal.  Corsica makes up two of France s 101  departments  - local administration areas. Unlike in Catalonia, its nationalists downplay any immediate ambitions for independence, saying the island - where Napoleon was born in 1769 - lacks the Spanish region s demographic and economic clout. While Macron did not say what he might be prepared to negotiate, it is the first time he has touched on the subject since the vote. France is a highly centralized state and Corsica s demands for more autonomy have often been met with irritation and a refusal to negotiate by past governments.

Summary: मैक्रों ने मुख्य भूमि-कोर्सिका संबंधों में बदलाव के लिए दरवाजे खोले


(Reuters) - Parliamentary elections in September showed that Russians do support their government, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Putin cemented his supremacy over Russia’s political system when his ruling United Russia party took three quarters of the seats in parliament in Sept. 18 elections, paving the way for him to run for a fourth term as president.

Summary: पुतिन का कहना है कि संसदीय चुनावों से पता चलता है कि रूसियों को सरकार पर भरोसा है


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany said on Friday it supported the Spanish government in its dispute with separatists in Catalonia and would not recognize an independence vote by the Catalan parliament. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Berlin viewed the escalation of the situation with concern, noting that the unilateral declaration of independence violated the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Spain. The Spanish government on Friday moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia, stripping the region of its autonomy less than an hour after its parliament declared independence.   The German government does not recognize such a declaration of independence,  he said, adding that Berlin supported the  clear position  of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in his bid to restore calm and order.  We hope that all involved will use the remaining possibilities for dialogue and de-escalation,  he added.

Summary: जर्मनी ने कैटेलोनिया की स्वतंत्रता के कदम को मान्यता देने से किया इनकार


(Reuters) - A few hours after President Donald Trump said there was no chaos in the White House, the administration announced on Monday that Anthony Scaramucci was leaving his job as communications director after a little more than a week on the job. The brash Scaramucci’s brief tenure was marked by a determination to crack down on White House leaks to the media and profanity-filled comments to The New Yorker attacking then-chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Sources familiar with the situation said Trump fired Scaramucci over the obscene tirade. “The president certainly felt that Anthony’s comments were inappropriate for a person in that position,” spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. Following is a partial list of officials who have been fired or have left the administration since Trump took office on Jan. 20, as well as people who were nominated by Trump for a position but did not take the job. * Philip Bilden - a private equity executive and former military intelligence officer picked by Trump for secretary of the Navy, withdrew from consideration in February because of government conflict-of-interest rules. * James Comey - Federal Bureau of Information director who had been leading an investigation into the Trump 2016 presidential campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to influence the election outcome, was fired by Trump in May. * James Donovan - a Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker who was nominated by Trump as deputy Treasury secretary, withdrew his name in May. * Michael Dubke - founder of Crossroads Media, resigned as White House communications director in May. * Michael Flynn - resigned in February as Trump’s national security adviser after disclosures that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. * Mark Green - Trump’s nominee for Army secretary, who had served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, withdrew his name from consideration in May. * Gerrit Lansing - White House chief digital officer, stepped down in February after failing to pass an FBI background check, according to Politico. * Jason Miller - communications director for Trump’s transition team who was named by the president-elect in December as White House communications director, said days later that he would not take the job. * Reince Priebus - the former chairman of the Republican National Committee was replaced by Kelly as Trump’s chief of staff on Friday. A confidant of the president said Trump had lost confidence in Priebus after major legislative items failed to pass the U.S. Congress. * Todd Ricketts - a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and Trump’s choice for deputy secretary of commerce, withdrew from consideration in April. * Walter Shaub - the head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, who clashed with Trump and his administration, stepped down in July before his five-year term was to end. * Michael Short - senior White House assistant press secretary, resigned last Tuesday. * Sean Spicer - resigned as White House press secretary on July 21, ending a turbulent tenure after Trump named Scaramucci as White House communications director. * Robin Townley - an aide to the national security adviser, Flynn, was rejected in February after he was denied security clearance to serve on the National Security Council, according to Politico. * Vincent Viola - an Army veteran and a former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, nominated by Trump to be secretary of the Army, withdrew his name from consideration in February. * Katie Walsh - deputy White House chief of staff, was transferred to the outside pro-Trump group America First policies in March, according to Politico. * Caroline Wiles - Trump’s director of scheduling, resigned in February after failing a background check, according to Politico. * Sally Yates - acting U.S. attorney general, was fired by Trump in January after she ordered Justice Department lawyers not to enforce Trump’s immigration ban.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः स्कारामुची ने हाल ही में ट्रम्प प्रशासन छोड़ा है


SAN JOSE (Reuters) - The presidents of three Central American countries congratulated Donald Trump on Wednesday after his shock victory over rival Hillary Clinton in a campaign that focused on immigration issues. On Twitter, the presidents of Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras wrote to congratulate Trump, even as they could be affected by his hardline proposals on immigration and trade. “Congratulations United States on (your) elections,” wrote Juan Orlando Hernandez, the conservative leader of Honduras. “The people decided ... To success between USA/Honduras relations.” The government of El Salvador welcomed President-elect Trump, but called for calm among Salvadorans in the United States and said it would work to ensure their rights were respected. Immigration became a principal issue during the U.S. presidential race, with Trump promising to step up deportations and triple the number of border patrol agents to dissuade immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally. The Republican president-elect has also threatened to keep many immigrants out of the country by building a massive border wall he says Mexico will pay for.

Summary: मध्य अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपतियों ने ट्रम्प को बधाई दी


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea warned countries at the United Nations on Monday in a statement: don t join the United States in military action against the Asian state and you will be safe from retaliation. The caution was contained in a copy of North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong s prepared remarks for a discussion on nuclear weapons by a U.N. General Assembly committee. However, Kim did not read that section out loud.  As long as one does not take part in the U.S. military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country,  according to Kim s prepared remarks.  The entire U.S. mainland is within our firing range and if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe,  the statement read. Tensions have soared between the United States and North Korea following a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs since 2006. North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim did tell the U.N. General Assembly committee on Monday:  Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiation table under any circumstance.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया ने राज्यों को चेतावनी दीः किसी भी अमेरिकी कार्रवाई में शामिल न हों और आप सुरक्षित हैं


The White House on Wednesday disclosed a group of former lobbyists working in President Donald Trump’s administration who have been issued ethics waivers, following a request from the U.S. government’s ethics agency. The list of at least 11 waivers include White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and Trump's Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, according to a chart issued on the White House website. (bit.ly/1LPKWx8) Conway is permitted to “participate in communications and meetings involving former clients which are political, advocacy, trade or non-profit organizations,” while Priebus, a former Republican National Committee chairman, is allowed to have communications and meetings with the RNC, the document says. Shortly after taking office in January, Trump signed an executive order barring lobbyists who joined the administration from working on issues related to their prior work. But the administration has the power to grant waivers to particular hires, exempting them from that restriction. Also on the list is Michael Catanzaro, a special assistant to the president and a former oil and gas lobbyist, who is cleared to weigh in on energy policy. Daniel Epstein, associate counsel to the president, “may provide legal advice to the White House Office or any agency of the executive branch and to take positions adverse to Cause of Action Institute.” Shahira Knight, a special assistant to the president who formerly worked for Fidelity, a financial services company,  “may participate in broad policy matters and particular matters of general applicability relating to tax, retirement and financial services issues.” Andrew Olmem, a special assistant to Trump who worked as an attorney to the Senate Banking Committee during the financial crisis, is cleared to join meetings with former clients involving Puerto Rico’s fiscal issues, along with a wide range of activities involving financial regulation. Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), had promised in a letter on Friday that the White House would comply with a request from the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to provide information on which former lobbyists are working in the administration.       Mulvaney said in the letter that the administration was not seeking to impede efforts by OGE to obtain that information, despite earlier protests from Walter Shaub, the agency’s director. Shaub, an appointee under President Barack Obama in the final year of a five-year term, had requested in April copies of waivers the Trump administration granted to former lobbyists now appointed to positions in the government. Those requests were sent to agencies across the administration, seeking waivers that would allow former lobbyists to work on issues they had been involved with as paid advocates.  But OMB requested a stay of that request, prompting a fierce response from Shaub. He called the request “highly unusual” and said his agency has the authority to take “corrective action proceedings” against agencies that refuse its requests. In his Friday response, Mulvaney said the requested stay was not an attempt to stifle OGE efforts but rather to provide more time to “ensure sufficient consideration was given to legal questions.” “OMB has never sought to impede OGE,” he wrote. Mulvaney closed the letter by saying the OMB did not grant any lobbyist waivers itself.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने नैतिकता में छूट पाने वाले पूर्व नौकरशाहों की सूची जारी की


WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump disbanded two high-profile business advisory councils on Wednesday after several chief executives quit in protest over his remarks blaming weekend violence in Virginia on anti-racism activists as well as white nationalists. A parade of prominent Republicans also rebuked Trump, as well as U.S. ally Britain, leaving him increasingly isolated after his comments on Tuesday about the bloodshed in the college town of Charlottesville further enveloped his seven-month-old presidency in controversy.  The mayor of Phoenix asked Trump to delay a rally planned for next Tuesday, an appeal the president appeared to reject. A memorial service was held on Wednesday in Charlottesville for 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was killed when a car plowed into anti-racism protesters on Saturday. A 20-year-old Ohio man said to have harbored Nazi sympathies has been charged with her murder. Trump, a real estate magnate who had never before held public office, was elected president in November touting his experience in the business world and ability to strike deals. However, some of the Republican president’s actions and words have alienated many corporate leaders. He said he would dissolve the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum after eight executives, including Campbell Soup Co CEO Denise Morrison and 3M Co CEO Inge Thulin, quit the panels.  Both councils were moving to disband on their own when Trump made his announcement on Twitter. “Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both,” he wrote. The Strategic and Policy Forum was headed by Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, a close ally of Trump in the business world. Schwarzman organized a call on Wednesday for member executives to voice concerns after Trump’s comments, and an overwhelming majority backed disbanding the council, two sources said. Schwarzman then called Trump to tell him about the decision to disband. Campbell Soup Co’s Morrison said: “Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville.” JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon, a member of one of the panels, said in a statement that “fanning divisiveness is not the answer.” Dow Chemical Co Chief Executive Andrew Liveris, who headed the manufacturing council, said he told the White House on Wednesday that “in the current environment it was no longer possible to conduct productive discussions.” The Strategic and Policy Forum was intended to advise Trump on how government policy impacts economic growth, job creation and productivity. The manufacturing council was designed to promote U.S. job growth. Along with the snubs from business leaders, Trump was rebuked by a string of Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Ohio Governor John Kasich, Senator Lindsey Graham and former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Trump needs the support of fellow Republicans as he tries to push his policy agenda, including tax cuts, through a Congress that is controlled by the Republicans. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat, said Trump would “enflame emotions and further divide our nation” if he used next week’s rally to pardon Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff who was found guilty last month of criminal contempt of court. Arpaio gained a national profile due to his harsh treatment of inmates and outspoken opposition to illegal immigration. Shortly after Stanton’s statement, Trump urged supporters on Twitter to attend the Phoenix rally. Few public figures have voiced support for Trump over his response to the violence. Vice President Mike Pence, who is cutting short a trip to Latin America, told reporters in Chile that “I stand with the president and I stand by those words.” Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised Trump’s “honesty and courage,” while Richard Spencer, head of a white nationalist group, lauded the president for “speaking the truth.” U.S. stocks ended slightly firmer but off the day’s highs as investors worried that the backlash to Trump’s remarks could stunt his ability to deliver on pro-business promises. A former senior Trump administration official raised the prospect that some White House officials could quit because of Trump’s comments. The demise of the councils raised Wall Street speculation that senior administration figures, such as White House economic adviser Gary Cohn or U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, might step down to avoid being tarnished by association with Trump. Cohn, Mnuchin and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stood awkwardly by Trump during his remarks at Trump Tower on Tuesday. “He’s worried about his reputation being trashed, which is much more valuable to him than anything else,” the former administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of Cohn. McConnell, who drew Trump’s ire last week over the Senate’s failure to pass healthcare legislation, issued a statement saying “messages of hate and bigotry” from white supremacists should not be welcome in the United States. McConnell’s statement did not mention Trump by name. The Republican Jewish Coalition, a group whose board includes big party donors including casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, called on Trump to “provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry and antisemitism.” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there is “simply no place” in American public discourse for the “hate and violence” displayed in Charlottesville. He spoke before a meeting with Canada’s foreign minister. Trump’s remarks on Tuesday were a more vehement reprisal of his initial response to the bloodshed. He said at a heated news conference in New York “there is blame on both sides” for the violence, and that there were “very fine people” on both sides. In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May offered a rare rebuke of a U.S. president from so close an ally. “I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them and I think it is important for all those in positions of responsibility to condemn far-right views wherever we hear them,” May told reporters.  Politicians in Germany, which has tough laws against hate speech and any symbols linked to the Nazis, who murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust during World War Two, expressed shock at the images of people in Charlottesville carrying swastikas and chanting anti-Jewish slurs. Germany’s justice minister accused Trump of trivializing anti-Semitism and racism. Senior American military officers usually stay clear of politics but three more of the U.S. military’s top officers weighed in on Wednesday, without explicitly mentioning Trump. Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Beijing: “I can absolutely and unambiguously say that there is no place, no place, for racism and bigotry in the U.S. military or in the United States as a whole.” U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley wrote on Twitter: “The Army doesn’t tolerate racism, extremism, or hatred in our ranks. It’s against our Values and everything we’ve stood for since 1775.” Air Force Chief of Staff General Dave Goldfein said on Twitter that “I stand with my fellow service chiefs in saying we’re always stronger together.”  Their comments followed similar ones from the top officers of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Summary: सीईओ के इस्तीफे के विरोध में ट्रंप ने व्यापार परिषदों को भंग किया


BERLIN (Reuters) - Critics of a new hate speech law in Germany are upbeat that it can be revised after its Social Democratic sponsors vowed to drop out of the ruling coalition following last month s national election and go into opposition. The German parliament in June approved legislation that will allow authorities to fine social media networks up to 50 million euros if they fail to remove hateful postings promptly, despite warnings that the law could limit free expression. Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives will start talks in coming weeks on forming a new coalition with the environmental Greens, who abstained from voting for the law, and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), who opposed it outright. Germany has some of the world s toughest laws covering defamation, public incitement to commit crimes and threats of violence, with prison sentences for Holocaust denial or inciting hatred against minorities. But few online cases are prosecuted. The new law, which came into effect on Oct. 1, gives social media networks 24 hours to delete or block obviously criminal content and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases, with an obligation to report back to the person who filed the complaint about how they handled the case. Failure to comply could see a company fined up to 50 million euros, and the company s chief representative in Germany fined up to 5 million euros. Opponents argue the law could damage free speech because the threat of fines will prompt social media companies to censor more content than really necessary.     Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms are scrambling to adapt to its requirements and avoid hefty fines that the law forsees in the event of violation. The departure from government of Justice Minister Heiko Maas, an SPD member and main driver behind the new hate speech law, offers critics a new chance to get the law overturned or at least revised, according to politicians and industry groups. Nicola Beer, secretary general of the FDP, vowed in a Tweet to make the law  the shortest-ever in force.  Konstantin von Notz, digital spokesman for the Greens, told Reuters his party would press for  a new start  in many policy areas, including the hate speech law and cyber security. Bernhard Rohleder, head of the IT industry association, told the Handelsblatt newspaper on Monday that if it succeeded in forming a government, the new coalition should  correct the mistake and eliminate the law without replacement.  Marie-Teresa Weber, who heads the group s consumer law and media policy department, said the legal experts considered the law unconstitutional.  The new coalition should rescind it before the courts do so,  she said. Parliamentary experts said it might be tough to overturn the law completely, but it would likely to be tweaked in coming years once authorities begin to implement it. Affected individuals or companies could also challenge it as unconstitutional, they said.

Summary: चुनाव के बाद, आलोचकों को उम्मीद है कि जर्मनी के घृणापूर्ण भाषण कानून को संशोधित किया जा सकता है


ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is considering several more executive orders concerning national security that could be issued as early as Friday but has not yet made decisions on their scope or sequencing, the White House said on Thursday. Drafts of executive orders on a series of issues have leaked recently, but White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to comment specifically on what was under consideration.’ “I think the president sometime later today will be presented with some options by his senior team and decide whether or not they meet his intent and whether or not all of them are ones that he wants to go either by the end of this week or into next week,” Spicer told reporters traveling with Trump to Philadelphia, where the president will meet with Republican lawmakers. Responding to questions about reports that Trump was looking at reducing the U.S. role in the United Nations and other international institutions, Spicer said Trump was reviewing all federal government spending, in the United States and abroad. “I’m not ready to make any announcements on funding or action on any of those institutions,” Spicer said. Asked whether Trump was considering executive action to bring back a program to hold terrorism suspects in secret overseas “black site” prisons, Spicer declined to comment. “There is a question of what he wants and whether or not those documents represent his current thinking, what his desires are. There’s inputs that can be shared with individuals or with the White House or with staff, it doesn’t necessarily reflect the president’s current thinking,” he said. Trump plans to sign an executive order later on Thursday ordering an investigation into U.S. voter fraud, which repeated studies have shown is rare and isolated. On Friday, he intends to visit the Pentagon where he will participate in a ceremonial swearing-in of new Defense Secretary James Mattis, and meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others to get assessments on a broad range of national security issues. “There’s a lot of issues that he continues to be updated on on a daily basis, from a national security standpoint, from military hot spots, whether it’s Syria, our efforts there or our efforts to fight ISIS - other threats that we face, whether it’s the Middle East or South China Sea,” Spicer said. “But he’s going to continue to get briefed and have a discussion on their assessment of the current national security situation.”  Trump will also hold a press conference on Friday with British Prime Minister Theresa May, his first meeting with a foreign leader at the White House, Spicer said. The president had planned to meet with U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch and U.S. Representative Kevin Brady on trade issues later on Thursday, but that meeting was postponed, Spicer said.

Summary: ट्रम्प राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा पर अगले कार्यकारी आदेशों पर विचार करते हैंः व्हाइट हाउस


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said on Saturday that President Donald Trump was right to call Australia’s universal healthcare system better than the U.S. system. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, also said the Senate should use the Australian system as a model while crafting an alternative to Republican healthcare legislation that Trump endorses. “President Trump is right. The Australian healthcare system provides healthcare to all of its people at a fraction of the cost than we do,” Sanders commented on Twitter. The tweet was accompanied by a short video that set out the virtues of Australia’s universal healthcare system, saying it guarantees better service to all Australians at about half the cost of U.S. healthcare. The video also noted that Australians can expect to live longer than Americans, on average.  Sanders’ tweet came two days after Trump told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in New York: “You have better healthcare than we do.” The president’s comment raised eyebrows, coming just after the U.S. House of Representatives had approved a Trump-backed bill that would overturn much of former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law and move the U.S. system further away from universal coverage. The White House later said Trump was simply being nice to an ally and does not think the United States should adopt Australia’s healthcare approach.    The healthcare legislation that Trump endorses would pare back insurance protections for the sick, and, according to nonpartisan congressional researchers, would lead to 24 million more Americans being without health coverage by 2026. But the bill’s approval in the House on Thursday sent the legislation to the Senate, where it has little support. “We will take this pathetic healthcare bill, throw it in the garbage can and do something that will work for ordinary Americans instead,” Sanders said in a second Saturday tweet. A Vermont independent, Sanders has become more influential in the Senate since 2016, when he took his long-shot presidential bid and turned it into a political movement against inequality. (This story corrects name of Australian prime minister in paragraph 5)

Summary: सैंडर्स ने ऑस्ट्रेलियाई स्वास्थ्य सेवा प्रणाली की ट्रम्प की प्रशंसा का बचाव किया


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis urged U.S. President Donald Trump to be guided by ethical values and as he took office on Friday, saying he must take care of the poor and the outcast during his time in office. “At a time when our human family is beset by grave humanitarian crises demanding farsighted and united political responses, I pray that your decisions will be guided by the rich spiritual and ethical values that have shaped the history of the American people and your nation’s commitment to the advancement of human dignity and freedom worldwide,” Francis said in a message sent to Trump minutes after he was inaugurated. “Under your leadership, may America’s stature continue to be measured above all by its concern for the poor, the outcast and those in need ...,” Francis said in the message released by the Vatican. Francis, the first pope from Latin America, has made concern for the poor and the weakest members of society a key platform of his nearly four-year-old papacy. Last year, in response to an answer about Trump’s views on immigration and his intention to build a wall on the border with Mexico, Francis said a man with those views is “not Christian”. Trump struck back, calling the pope’s comments “disgraceful.”

Summary: पोप ने ट्रम्प से गरीबों के लिए चिंता दिखाने और नैतिक मूल्यों द्वारा निर्देशित होने का आग्रह किया


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made an appeal for greater regional cooperation on Tuesday after returning to Tehran from a two-day visit to Oman and Qatar. Zarif s visit came with Qatar in the midst of a row with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Together with Egypt, they accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism, a charge it denies.  We have repeatedly suggested a system of dialogue in the Persian Gulf, but unfortunately this has not been acknowledged by some countries, who see their future through tension, pressure and imposing on neighbors,  Zarif said, according to state media. Qatar calls the economic boycott a  siege  aimed at neutering an independent foreign policy it says promotes peaceful regional reform and fighting terrorism. Another point of contention between Qatar and its fellow GCC members is its relationship with the Islamic Republic. Zarif said on Tuesday that the economic pressure regional neighbors have put on Qatar in recent months has brought about closer economic ties between Doha and Tehran, state media reported. Zarif s discussions in Oman and Qatar also focused on ending the conflict in Yemen as well as the situation in Iraq and Syria, where Iran is supporting the government of president Bashar al-Assad while Qatar has funded some armed opposition groups.  With attention to the situation in Syria and that in the past, we had differences with Qatar; we need to have more dialogue,  Zarif said, according to state media.  But the political will exists to have a broader dialogue with all countries about ending the suffering of the Syrian people.  The Qatari government announced it is restoring diplomatic ties with Tehran in August. Qatar recalled its ambassador to Tehran in January last year after Saudi Arabia cut ties with the Islamic republic, accusing it of failing to protect its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad against demonstrators who had ransacked them. The demonstrators were protesting Saudi Arabia s execution of a prominent Shi ite Muslim cleric convicted on terrorism charges.

Summary: ईरानी विदेश मंत्री ने ओमान, कतर से लौटने के बाद क्षेत्रीय सहयोग का आग्रह किया


COLUMBUS, Ohio/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voting is no easy task for Roland Gilbert. The 86-year-old retired Ohio lawyer, who is legally blind, completes his absentee ballot with help from a machine that magnifies the print. So the registered Democrat was not completely surprised to learn he had made an error in filling out his 2014 ballot, entering that day’s date in the birthdate field. What surprised him was that it cost him his vote. Local election officials rejected it because it did not perfectly match his registration information on file. “It didn’t seem right,” Gilbert said. “I felt foolish for making a silly mistake.” Laws passed by the Republican-led Ohio state legislature in 2014 require voters to accurately fill out their personal information on absentee or provisional ballots or they will be rejected - even if the votes are otherwise valid. The laws are being applied in a presidential election for the first time this year. A Reuters analysis found that where a voter lives can determine whether their provisional or absentee ballot counts in Ohio. The law requiring a perfect match on information such as name, address, birthdate, signature and ID number has been enforced unequally county to county, federal data and court documents show, with local officials sometimes using wide latitude in applying the standards. The disparity could hurt Democrats in Ohio, a vital battleground in the Nov. 8 election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. The 14 Ohio counties with the most restrictive enforcement accounted for 53 percent of Ohio’s total vote in 2012 and gave Democratic President Barack Obama 60 percent of the votes he won in Ohio. More than half of the provisional and absentee votes discarded for minor errors in 2014 came from five large, Democratic-dominated urban counties: Lucas, home to the city of Toledo; Cuyahoga, which includes Cleveland; Franklin, home to the state capital, Columbus; Summit, which includes Akron, the fifth-largest city in the state; and Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati. While the number of votes rejected for technical reasons was small in the 2014 congressional election, when nearly 3,000 absentee and provisional ballots were thrown out, those totals are likely to swell in a presidential election, when more people will vote. The number of discarded ballots could go even higher in Ohio after a court ruled that tens of thousands of voters who had been purged from the state voter rolls can cast provisional ballots, expanding the possible pool of disputed votes. A provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there are questions about a voter’s eligibility. Election boards, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats in Ohio, then examine the provisional ballots to determine if the vote should count. “There are going to be thousands of indisputably registered and eligible voters in Ohio who are going to be disenfranchised solely because they made trivial, immaterial errors and omissions on forms,” said attorney Subodh Chandra, who has led a court challenge to the laws on behalf of a homeless coalition and the Ohio Democratic Party. A federal district judge threw out the provisions requiring a perfect match on personal information as discriminatory earlier this year, but most were later restored by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court did remove the requirement that voters accurately fill in their address and birthdate on the absentee form - any vote cast by mail or in person prior to Election Day - but kept the requirement for the other fields on both types of ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected without explanation a request for an emergency stay of the appeals court ruling that would have allowed ballots with those technical mistakes to be counted. A spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, said the 2014 laws were aimed at finding a balance between making it “easy to vote and hard to cheat” and that officials were striving to be more consistent in the law’s application. The office has issued a directive that mistakes in the address and birthdate fields of provisional ballots should not be the sole basis for rejection if a board can still identify the voter. Chandra and other critics say the Ohio laws are aimed at low-income and minority voters who move more often and have less flexibility with schedules, making them more likely to cast absentee or provisional ballots. They also are more likely to back Democrats. “It’s a clever scheme to shave off Democratic votes,” said Chandra, arguing the laws create a modern-day literacy test by requiring voters to read, write and understand voting forms without making any errors or leaving out information. Republican backers of the Ohio law reject the claims of racial or partisan bias. “It is just nonsense,” said Ohio State Senator Bill Coley, lead sponsor of one of the bills. “We aren’t trying to disallow their ballot, we are trying to make sure that every ballot that is cast was cast by an actual registered voter and you are cutting down on opportunities for shenanigans.” U.S. Election Assistance Commission records show Democratic-leaning Franklin, the state’s second-largest county, was the most strict in 2014, throwing out 651 ballots for technical errors including missing or incorrect Social Security numbers, zip codes, birthdates, cities or street names. Officials tossed five ballots because the voter wrote their name in cursive. Another seven were rejected because the voter mixed up two digits of their Social Security number, the federal data showed. Some 256 were rejected because the voter did not provide a birthdate. “We are not allowed to do anything other than what the law says,” said David Payne, deputy director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. “We can’t be arbitrary.” In Democratic-leaning Lucas County, the elections board rejected an absentee ballot in 2014 because the street name was misspelled as “Cuthberth” rather than “Cuthbert,” according to evidence presented in the lawsuit.  Many smaller, heavily Republican rural counties did not reject any ballots for those reasons. In Wyandot County, ballots examined for the lawsuit found officials approved ballots without a valid street address, city or zip code, a wrong or missing birthdate, or a misspelled name. “We’re not monsters. We want to count everybody’s vote,” said Deb Passet, elections director for Wyandot County, a sparsely populated county south of Toledo where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the vote in 2012. Election officials in rural, Republican-leaning Adams County are also more likely to forgive voters who make a mistake. “If there is an opening and they can help the voter out, that’s the way they will go,” said Mary Fannin, director of the county’s board of elections. Other states have tried to introduce similar exact-match information requirements. Georgia and Wisconsin also faced recent challenges that led to adjustments in laws requiring voters to provide letter-perfect personal identification information. The battle over the Ohio law is just one of several voting rights disputes complicating election forecasts in the state. In the last year, courts have also allowed the state to eliminate a period of early voting, known as Golden Week, when voters could register and cast a ballot on the same trip - a convenience that has been popular with minority voters. “People should not have to jump through all these hoops to get their votes counted in Ohio,” said Ohio Democratic Rep. Kathleen Clyde.

Summary: ओहायो में, एक वर्तनी त्रुटि आपके वोट की कीमत चुका सकती है


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran opened a border crossing with the Kurdistan region of Iraq Wednesday after having closed it following last month s vote in favor of independence in the Kurdish area, Iranian state media reported. Iran backs the Shi ite-led central government in Baghdad in its opposition to Kurdish secession, and Iranian-backed militias assisted government forces when they seized a number of Kurdish cities last week.   The decision comes on the same day as the Kurdish Regional Government offered to put their independence drive on hold, stepping up efforts to resolve a crisis in relations with Baghdad via dialogue rather than military means.  After the referendum and changes within the Kurdistan region our borders with the Kurdistan region of Iraq were closed... today the Bashmagh border is open,  Jahangir Bakhshi, the head of customs for the border crossing, said, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) news agency. The report made no mention the KRG s offer for resolving the dispute through talks. The Bashmagh border crossing is located approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of the city of Sulaimaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan. Last week, Iraqi security forces took control of several cities, including the oil-rich Kirkuk, from Kurdish forces in a lightning assault. Shi ite fighters from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), many of whom have been armed and trained by Iran, took part in the military action. Prior to the assault, Major-General Qassem Soleimani, commander of foreign operations for Iran s elite Revolutionary Guards, traveled to Iraq s Kurdistan region to encourage Kurdish leaders to withdraw their forces, known as Peshmerga, from Kirkuk. Peshmerga commanders have accused Iran of orchestrating the operation, a charge Iranian officials have denied. Bakshi said on Wednesday that it was not clear when the other borders points between Iran and the Kurdistan region of Iraq would reopen. There is approximately 20 billion dollars of annual cross border trade through the Bashmagh border point Bakhshi said, according to IRIB.

Summary: ईरान ने इराकी कुर्दिस्तान क्षेत्र के साथ सीमा पार को फिर से खोल दियाः राज्य मीडिया


PARIS (Reuters) - Common sense is prevailing in Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European Union, France s foreign minister said on Friday, as he welcomed signs that talks were moving into a new phase after an initial breakthrough.  The European Commission said on Friday enough progress had been made in Brexit negotiations with Britain and that a second phase of discussions should begin, ending an impasse over the status of the Irish border.  The work that has been done on negotiations ... is gradually leading us to common sense,  Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter radio.  We wanted the conditions for (Britain s) withdrawal to be clearly defined to be able to move into another phase. That s what s going to happen now, I hope.

Summary: फ्रांस का कहना है कि ब्रेक्सिट वार्ता में प्रगति सामान्य ज्ञान को दर्शाती है


(Reuters) - Georgia Governor Nathan Deal issued a mandatory evacuation order on Thursday for the state s coast, including historic Savannah, as deadly Hurricane Irma rolled toward Florida and the southeastern United States. The evacuation order for areas east of Interstate 95 and some areas to its west takes effect Saturday at 8 a.m., Deal said in a statement. The governor also authorized up to 5,000 Georgia National Guard members to respond to the storm and expanded a state of emergency to 30 southeast Georgia counties. The order affects the cities of Savannah and Brunswick in Georgia, which has not been hit by a Category 3 hurricane or higher since 1898, according to WSB-TV.  I encourage all Georgians in our coastal areas that could be impacted by this storm to evacuate the area as soon as possible,  Deal said in a statement. Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, plowed past the Dominican Republic toward Haiti on Thursday after devastating a string of Caribbean islands and killing at least 10 people. Irma will likely hit Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, with storm surges and flooding beginning within the next 48 hours, according to the NHC. Gas shortages in the  Miami-Fort Lauderdale area worsened on Thursday, with sales up to five times the norm. The storm s exact path is uncertain, but it could affect Georgia and the Carolinas early next week.

Summary: जॉर्जिया के राज्यपाल ने सवाना, इरमा से पहले तट को खाली करने का आदेश दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump outlined a plan on Monday to privatize the U.S. air traffic control system to modernize it and lower flying costs, but his proposal drew immediate criticism from Democrats who said it would hand control of a key asset to special interests and big airlines. Trump’s proposal to spin off air traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was part of a weeklong White House focus on infrastructure. The administration is looking to shift the spotlight back onto Trump’s agenda and away from a growing probe into alleged ties between his campaign and Russia. “We’re proposing reduced wait times, increased route efficiency and far fewer delays,” Trump said. “Our plan will get you where you need to go quickly, more reliably, more affordably, and yes, for the first time in a long time, on time.” Executives from United Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines [HAII.UL], American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, all represented by the Airlines for America lobbying group, attended the Trump speech. The group praised the Trump plan, which most airlines back.  The proposal, which would require congressional approval, is opposed by many Democrats and some Republicans. The FAA spends nearly $10 billion a year on air traffic control funded largely through passenger user fees, and has spent more than $7.5 billion on next-generation air traffic control reforms in recent years. Trump said current air traffic reform efforts have failed and were a “total waste of money.” It is unclear if privatization would speed the rollout of new  systems such as satellite-based aircraft tracking that replaces ground radar dating back to World War Two. Proponents say a private entity could sign contracts with vendors more quickly than if deals are put through the FAA’s procurement process, which also is subject to budget instability.  Opponents, including Delta Air Lines, say the U.S. system is so large that privatization would not save money, and would drive up ticket costs and could create a national security risk. Opponents also say technology upgrades would be sidetracked while the private entity was set up, potentially adding years to awarding contracts.  There also are concerns that airlines would dominate the private-company board and limit access to airports by business jets.  The new systems would represent major wins for U.S. companies that have been positioning for the shift. Technology company Harris Corp is a leading candidate to supply the FAA with real-time aircraft tracking data in partnership with satellite operator Iridium Communications Inc. Harris already provides a similar data feed using 640 ground-based antenna towers, and the FAA is its largest customer, Chief Executive Bill Brown said in an interview. Iridium has a joint venture that has partnered with air traffic control authorities in Canada, Italy, Ireland and Denmark to provide air traffic surveillance, in cooperation with Harris.  Under Trump’s proposal, a board made up of airline, union and airport officials would oversee the nonprofit entity that would assume oversight after a three-year transition. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that Trump was recycling “a tired Republican plan that both sides of the aisle have rejected” and would “hand control of one of our nation’s most important public assets to special interests and the big airlines.” The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association said it will not support a plan that imposes fees on small plane owners. “The U.S. has a very safe air traffic system today and we don’t hear complaints from our nearly 350,000 members about it,” said Mark Baker, the group’s president. The infrastructure push comes as the White House seeks to refocus attention on core promises to boost jobs and the economy Trump made last year during his presidential campaign. Those pledges have been eclipsed by the furor over Russia’s alleged meddling in the election. That drama will come to a head on Thursday when former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, who was leading the Russia probe until Trump fired him last month, testifies before a Senate panel. Trump has denied any collusion between Russia and his campaign. He has struggled to keep the spotlight on plans that could give him a political boost. On Wednesday, Trump will travel to Cincinnati to talk about improvements to the 12,000 miles (19,300 km) of inland waterways, dams, locks and ports critical for shipping farm products.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने हवाई यातायात नियंत्रण प्रणाली के निजीकरण की योजना बनाई


CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. agriculture groups are pushing for continuing talks with the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees in an effort to influence their farm policy positions as a slump in crop prices squeezes the sector’s profits. Representatives of about a dozen trade associations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union, met with staffers for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday at her New York campaign headquarters. It was the farm coalition’s first meeting with Clinton’s staff and included discussions of issues ranging from agricultural trade and labor to mandatory labels for foods containing genetically modified ingredients, attendees said on Wednesday. The meeting was the start of a push by the sector for more details from Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump about their stances on issues affecting farmers and agribusiness. The groups are seeking a meeting with Trump’s campaign. “All of us agreed, on both sides of the table, that it is a successful meeting only if it’s the first of a number of exchanges,” said Jay Vroom, the chief executive of pesticide association CropLife America, who attended the session. The candidates’ agriculture policies are crucial, the groups say, because net U.S. farm income is forecast to drop to its lowest since 2002, largely due to a decline in grain prices. If that happens, incomes will be down 56 percent from a recent high of $123.3 billion in 2013. “With that kind of climate, we’re definitely concerned about what farm policy will look like building to the next (congressional) farm bill,” said Tom Bryant, the National Farmers Union’s membership director.     If elected, Clinton will increase agricultural production and profitability for family farms, spokesman Tyrone Gayle said. A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Matt Paul, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman working with Clinton’s campaign, participated in the meeting. The gathering came a day after Britain’s surprise vote to exit the European Union, which drew support from some regions with low population densities. Chandler Goule, incoming CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers, said farm groups drew parallels to Britain’s referendum because “it’s going to be rural America that’s going to turn out for this election, that’s actually going to determine the outcome of this (presidential) election.” Now that Clinton and Trump are the presumed nominees, “it’s time to start making more detailed and more in-the-weeds-type commitments,” he said.

Summary: अमेरिकी कृषि समूहों ने क्लिंटन कर्मचारियों के साथ नीति पर चर्चा की, ट्रम्प का पीछा किया


LONDON (Reuters) - The United States must keep military options on the table when dealing with North Korea, but it does not want to use them unless it has to, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said during a visit to Britain on Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a hard line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from China and proceeded with nuclear and missile programmes seen by Washington and others as a direct threat. “Allowing this dictator to have that kind of power is not something that civilized nations can allow to happen ... of course we don’t want to have military options employed, but we must keep all options on the table,” he said when asked if the U.S. administration would be willing to drop bombs on North Korea. Ryan said he was encouraged by the results of efforts to work with China to reduce tensions, but that it was unacceptable North Korea might be able to strike allies with nuclear weapons. In a wide ranging question and answer session at an event organized by the policy Exchange think tank, Ryan also said he wanted to “ratchet up” sanctions on Iran but believed a nuclear deal struck in 2015, and previously criticized by Trump, would remain in place. “There are lots of things that Iran is doing outside of this deal: proliferation of terrorism, weapons, violating missile tests - those things we should apply sanctions to,” he said. The Trump administration said on Tuesday it was launching an inter-agency review of whether the lifting of sanctions against Iran was in the United States’ national security interests, while acknowledging that Tehran was complying with a deal to rein in its nuclear program. Ryan was visiting Britain with a cross-party delegation of lawmakers as part of a trip to reassure European allies of U.S. commitment to the NATO military alliance.  He used his remarks to call on countries to meet the alliance’s minimum defense spending requirement, and also singled out the international threat posed by Russia. “Russia is determined to exploit weakness and opportunity wherever it may surface,” he said, citing Moscow’s involvement in supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “As they expand, and seek to expand their sphere of influence, they are continuing to challenge the sovereignty of all our allies in eastern and central Europe.” He repeated U.S. concerns, denied by Moscow, that Russia had interfered in its 2016 election and said Russia was currently interfering in elections in Europe. He gave no further details. “We’ve learned a thing or two about their tactics in America and we commit to sharing those lessons learned with our allies so that you can be better prepared,” he said.

Summary: अमेरिका को उत्तर कोरिया पर सैन्य विकल्प खुले रखने चाहिएः हाउस स्पीकर रयान


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces and Shi ite paramilitaries captured an air base from Islamic State on Monday, the army said, gaining a strategic foothold in the north of the country as they push toward the town of Hawija. Iraq launched an offensive on September 21 to dislodge Islamic State from Hawija, which lies west of the oil city of Kirkuk and is one of two areas of the country still under the control of the militant group. Iraqi army commanders said the Rashad air base, which is around 30 km (20 miles) south of Hawija, was used by the militants as a training camp and logistic base.  Militants took control of the air base after the Iraqi army collapsed in 2014 in the face of the Islamic State offensive.  After quick rehabilitation works, the air base will play a key role for Iraqi forces by allowing helicopters to transport soldiers and arms in any future operation to maintain security in the north,  said army Lieutenant Colonel Salih Yaseen.    The air base will help to put an end to the terrorists  pockets hiding in mountainous areas near Kirkuk and remove any possible threat to the energy facilities and oilfields.   Hawija, north of Baghdad, and a stretch of land along the Syrian border, west of the Iraqi capital, are the last stretches of territory in Iraq still in the hands of Islamic State. Islamic State s self-declared caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, after a grueling nine-month battle.

Summary: इराकी बलों ने हवीजा के पास इस्लामिक स्टेट के हवाई अड्डे पर कब्जा कर लिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told staff in an email - seen by Reuters on Friday - that everyone must stand up and condemn hate, as President Donald Trump faces a backlash for his response to violence at a protest by white nationalists. Trump blamed both sides for clashes in the southern college town of Charlottesville in Virginia last weekend, where white nationalists were protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. A woman was killed when a suspected white nationalist plowed his car into a crowd.  “Those who march spewing hate are few, but loud. We must denounce them at every turn, and make them feel like they are on an island and isolate them the same way they wish to isolate others,” wrote Haley, a member of Trump’s cabinet, in the email sent Thursday to staff at the U.S. mission to the United Nations. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, said the “horrible acts” seen in Charlottesville “took me back to sad days dealing with the Charleston tragedy in 2015.”  Haley attracted national attention when she secured the removal of the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina’s capitol grounds after a white supremacist killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston. “People aren’t born with hate. We all have a responsibility to stand up and condemn it,” Haley wrote in the email to staff, which did not refer to Trump.  “While we should respect diversity of viewpoints, it is incumbent on us to challenge hate with the values we cherish.  And it is incumbent on us to never, ever countenance violence as we do so,” she said.  Trump has alienated Republicans, corporate leaders and U.S. allies, rattled markets and prompted speculation about possible White House resignations with his comments since the violence in Charlottesville.   On Monday, Trump bowed to political pressure and denounced neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan by name, but on Tuesday he again inflamed tensions by insisting counter-protesters were also to blame and that there were “very fine people” among both groups. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and several top U.S. military officers have since broadly condemned racism.  United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a Twitter post on Tuesday said that racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia were “poisoning our societies,” adding: “We must stand up against them. Every time. Everywhere.”

Summary: ट्रम्प की प्रतिक्रिया के बीच, उनके संयुक्त राष्ट्र दूत ने कहा कि खड़े हो जाओ, नफरत को अलग करो


HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong will try to enact a law penalizing people who boo the Chinese national anthem  as soon as possible , an official said on Wednesday, in a move that critics say undermines the Chinese-ruled city s autonomy and freedoms. In the past few years, some Hong Kong football fans have booed the national anthem during World Cup qualifiers and other games, mirroring a more recent protest in the United States with football players kneeling during the national anthem, a practice  denounced by U.S. President Donald Trump. The Asian Football Confederation warned the Hong Kong Football Association on Tuesday over the conduct of fans who booed the Chinese national anthem in a match in October. China has passed a law stating that disrespecting the anthem could result in imprisonment. The law has come into force in China but has yet to be extended to Hong Kong.  Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Patrick Nip said the city had a constitutional obligation to follow up the move by China s largely rubber-stamp parliament. The law will now be added to the annex of Hong Kong s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and put to the city s 70-strong legislature.  We will do it as soon as possible,  Nip told lawmakers, while saying there would be a consultation process. Hong Kong is a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a so-called  one country, two systems  formula that promises the city a high degree of autonomy, including an independent judiciary. China s growing reach into Hong Kong s affairs has, however, stoked tensions and mass protests including the 2014  Occupy  civil disobedience movement that blocked major roads in the city for 79 days to pressure China to allow full democracy. Nip said no decision had been made on jail terms, but the government would make reference to existing laws concerning the desecration of China s national flag that carry a maximum sentence of three years. Some critics said this move would further erode Hong Kong s autonomy and was another instance of China s tightening iron grip.   If a country (China) wasn t using totalitarian and autocratic ways to make people feel under pressure, I believe many more Hong Kong people would respect the national anthem,  said Dennis Kwok, a lawmaker with the Civic Party. Over the past few years, Hong Kong fans have booed the national anthem at several football matches involving the Hong Kong team, with an upcoming Asian Cup qualifier between Hong Kong and Lebanon another potential flashpoint.   Some inappropriate behavior...must be addressed,  Nip said, without giving specifics. Chinese authorities have strived to instill greater patriotism into Hong Kong, while condemning a push from democracy activists to distance Hong Kong from Beijing by embracing the city s culture and core values, with some even advocating independence from China.   In recent years, incidents of disrespecting the national anthem have occurred in Hong Kong, challenging the bottom line ... and triggering rage,  said Zhang Rongshun, who leads a legislative affairs commission of China s parliament, the National People s Congress, according to the official Xinhua news agency.  It is urgent and important to apply the National Anthem Law in Hong Kong in a bid to prevent and handle such offences.

Summary: हांगकांग ने चीन के राष्ट्रगान की हूटिंग पर प्रतिबंध लगाने के लिए कानून की मांग की


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed regret during a phone call with his U.S. counterpart Rex Tillerson about Washington s move to close down Moscow s San Francisco consulate and two other annexes, his ministry said.   Moscow will closely study the new measures announced by the Americans, after which our reaction will be conveyed,  Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Summary: रूस ने वाणिज्य दूतावास बंद करने के अमेरिकी कदम पर खेद व्यक्त किया


SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has ratcheted up international tension and fear with its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sunday, but South Koreans feel increasingly doubtful it would start a war, a poll showed on Friday. A Gallup Korea survey found that 58 percent of South Koreans felt there was no possibility North Korea will cause a war, while 37 percent said they thought it would. Gallup Korea began asking South Koreans the question in 1992, and the percentage of respondents this time who thought the North would not start a war was the second highest since then. In the first poll in 1992, 69 percent of those questioned thought the North would start a war while only 24 percent thought it would not. The survey released on Friday showed South Koreans were considerably less concerned about war compared with June 2007, nine months after North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, in September 2006. In 2007, 51 percent of respondents said they expected a war, while 45 percent did not. North Korea says it needs to develop weapons to protect itself against U.S. aggression. It has been steadily pursuing its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of international condemnation and has threatened more action in response to any new U.N. sanctions and U.S. pressure. Despite the North s fiery rhetoric, South Koreans are generally calm, going about their lives with no sign of panic.  The survey results show South Koreans have likely grown accustomed to its repeated threats of provocation after over 60 years in a ceasefire state,  Gallup Korea said in a statement. South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty. The poll also found that 60 percent of those surveyed believed South Korea should arm itself with nuclear weapons while 35 percent disagreed.  Those in their twenties were most opposed to the idea of acquiring nuclear weapons, while respondents 50 and above said the South should have them. Gallup also said 59 percent of respondents were against the idea of the United States attacking North Korea first should North Korean provocations continue, while 33 percent said it should. Gallup Korea said the poll was carried out from Sept. 5 to 7. A total of 1,004 South Koreans over the age of 19 were polled by telephone, it said.  The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

Summary: अधिकांश दक्षिण कोरियाई लोगों को संदेह है कि उत्तर कोरिया युद्ध शुरू कर देगाः सर्वेक्षण


(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump says he will make a massive budget request for one of the “greatest military buildups in American history” in a feisty, campaign-style speech extolling robust nationalism to eager conservative activists. Trump signs an executive order aimed at repealing or simplifying federal regulations. Trump criticizes the FBI for failing to stop leaks of national security information to the media and directs the agency to find those who pass on classified information. Russian politicians close to the Kremlin say Trump’s declared aim of putting the U.S. nuclear arsenal “at the top of the pack” risks starting a new Cold War-style arms race between Washington and Moscow. China dismisses renewed pressure from Trump over its role in North Korea, saying the crux of the matter is a dispute between Washington and Pyongyang. China says it has no intention of using currency devaluation to its advantage in trade, responding to Trump’s description of China as the “grand champions” of currency manipulation. Mexico does not need U.S. financial aid, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong says, after Trump ordered a report on such assistance given by the United States to its southern neighbor over the last five years. ANTI-TRUMP MOVEMENT Raucous town hall meetings held by Republican Congress members are the latest outburst in a relentless series of rallies, marches and protests that shows no signs of abating more than 30 days into the Trump administration. Germany does not yet have a full picture of the approach Trump’s administration is taking on foreign, security and trade policy but is keen to engage with Washington on these issues, a Foreign Ministry spokesman says. Peru’s Trade Minister Eduardo Ferreyros says he does not think Trump would want to renegotiate the trade agreement between the two countries because it has been beneficial to the United States.

Summary: हाइलाइट्सः 24 फरवरी को सुबह 12:35 EST/17:35 GMT पर ट्रम्प प्रेसीडेंसी


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis visits Myanmar next week, a delicate trip for the world s most senior Christian to a majority Buddhist country accused by Washington of the  ethnic cleansing  of Muslim Rohingya people. He will also visit Bangladesh to where more than 600,000 people have fled from what Amnesty International called  crimes against humanity  including murder, rape torture and forcible displacement, allegations the Myanmar military denies. The trip is so delicate that some of the pope s advisors have warned him against even saying the word  Rohingya,  lest he set off a diplomatic incident that could turn the country s military and government against minority Christians. The most tense moments of the Nov. 26-Dec. 2 trip are likely to be private meetings with army head Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and, separately, civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Myanmar does not recognize Rohingya as citizens nor as a group with its own identity, posing a dilemma for Francis as he visits a country of 51 million people where only around 700,000 are Roman Catholics.  He risks either compromising his moral authority or putting in danger the Christians of that country,  said Father Thomas Reese, a prominent American author and analyst at Religion News Service.  I have great admiration for the pope and his abilities, but someone should have talked him out of making this trip,  he wrote. Vatican sources say some in the Holy See believe the trip was decided too hastily after full diplomatic ties were established in May during a visit by Suu Kyi, whose global esteem as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been tarnished by expressing doubts about the rights abuse allegations and failing to condemn the military.  Pope Francis needs to be firm on all fronts. While the violence cannot stop without the cooperation of security forces, Suu Kyi should not be given a free pass either,  said Lynn Kuok, a fellow of the Brookings Institution s Center for East Asia Policy Studies. In a late addition to his itinerary, Francis will meet Rohingya refugees on the second leg of his trip in the Bangladesi capital Dhaka. His meeting with General Min Aung Hlaing was also a late addition following negotiations with the military by Myanmar s senior churchman, Cardinal Charles Bo.  In a video message sent to Myanmar last week, Francis said he wanted the trip to lead to  reconciliation, forgiveness and peace , to further the Gospel values of  dignity for every man and woman  and encourage harmony and cooperation. The pope has already used the word Rohingya in two appeals from the Vatican this year. Asked if he would say it in Myanmar, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Francis was taking the advice he had been given seriously, but added:  We will find out together during the trip ... it is not a forbidden word . Senior Vatican sources said the pope will be mindful of not doing anything that could imperil Myanmar s transition to democracy.    The Pope is one of the most respected moral voices in the world today, and for that reason his visit will be significant,  said Richard Horsey, a Yangon-based analyst and former senior United Nations official in Myanmar.  But he will be conscious of the fact that popular opinion in Myanmar is firmly behind the government and against the Rohingya, and that the intervention of a Christian leader on this religiously-charged issue could inflame sentiments rather than encourage positive movement,  Horsey said. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday called the operation against the Rohingya  ethnic cleansing  and threatened targeted sanctions for  horrendous atrocities.  Amnesty International said the Rohingya and Muslims generally in Rakhine State had been subjected to  systemic social and political exclusion  for decades and accused the military of  crimes against humanity  in the last two years including murder, rape torture and forcible displacement. Myanmar s government has denied most of the claims, and the army has said its own probe found no evidence of wrongdoing by troops who say their actions were in response to militant attacks on 30 police posts and an army base.  The Vatican has little by way of carrots and sticks that can help,  said Kuok, the Brookings fellow.  That said, the pope s visit can help to raise awareness about the Rohingya community, which may then lead to indirect pressure on governments to do more about the situation there.

Summary: म्यांमार यात्रा में पोप को कूटनीतिक दुविधा का सामना करना पड़ रहा है


(Reuters) - Seattle financial worker Harrison Karlewicz had been considering joining an environmental activist group for a while. The day after Donald Trump won the White House, he signed up. “That was a big push for me, kind of a wakeup call,” the 25-year-old said, after joining 350 Seattle, a group that stages mass protests against fossil fuel use. “I thought, ‘I don’t feel involved. I want to get out there.’” During his campaign, Trump said global warming was a hoax and called for the Environmental Protection Agency to be gutted. He promised to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement between the United States and nearly 200 other countries to slow climate change, and he pledged to revive the coal industry. Karlewicz represents what environmental activists say is the silver lining of Trump’s electoral victory: Environmentally minded people angered by the outcome are rallying to their cause. At 350 Seattle, people packed a volunteer drop-in meeting  after news of Trump’s confirmed win, said organizer Emily Johnston. The group blocked a rail line in Washington state that transports oil to Shell and Tesoro refineries earlier this year.      “This was surprising to me, because I personally was so shaken that I felt practically paralyzed, and I know many other people did, too,” Johnston said. “The fact that many others responded by immediately engaging is incredibly heartening.” Jay O’Hara, a Vermont-based climate-change activist with the Climate Disobedience Center and a mastermind behind a coal shipment blockade in 2013 that spurred more radical fossil fuel activism, said Trump’s win represents an opportunity for environmentalists to focus on a clear enemy. “In some ways, it can almost be seen as a relief,” he said of Trump’s win. “We are going to have a real fight here, or maybe an actual argument.” Johnston, of 350 Seattle, who camped for a week at North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux reservation to protest pipeline construction, said that protesters would continue to take advantage of the vulnerability of energy infrastructure. “All these pipelines, all these tankers, all these trains have to go through thousands of miles” and could be potential protest targets, she said. Some of the well established national environmental organizations that helped draft the Obama administration’s environmental initiatives, like the Clean Power Plan to curb carbon dioxide emissions, will be shifting to a defensive posture under Trump’s leadership. “We’ll be in the Congress, in the courts, in the boardrooms and in the streets,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the Washington-based League of Conservation Voters, which backed Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and spent over $45 million to support candidates in the 2016 elections. Karpinski said he expected legal action to prevent Trump from following through on his agenda.  Trump has appointed Myron Ebell, a known climate skeptic, to guide the reshaping of the EPA, and Trump energy adviser Kevin Cramer, a U.S. representative from North Dakota, said Trump is likely to target the Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rules during his first 100 days in office. Dan Farber, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said the best that advocates for climate change action could hope for from  courts is to “play successful defense against an anti-environmental onslaught” from the new administration.     “It’s a fairly grim situation,” he added. Several groups also said they would put a greater focus on state-level environmental initiatives to sidestep Trump’s administration.  The Sierra Club, which is headquartered in California, said it would push ahead with its Beyond Coal campaign, which has led to the retirement of hundreds of coal plants since it was launched more than a decade ago. The campaign mobilizes local activists and lawyers to push utilities and state regulators to shutter older plants and replace them with renewable energy.  “Clearly, we are going to have to fight and resist the worst impulses of the next administration,” said Michael Brune, Sierra Club’s executive director. “But we are also mindful that despite all odds, we were able to make great progress during the Bush administration and we hope to do it again.”

Summary: ट्रम्प की धमकी ने अमेरिकी जलवायु कार्यकर्ताओं को आग लगा दी, और अधिक आकर्षित किया