CARACAS/WASHINGTON/ (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company on Friday in an effort to halt financing that the White House said fuels President Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship.” Maduro, who has frequently blamed the United States for waging an “economic war” on Venezuela, said the United States was seeking to force Venezuela to default — but he said it would not succeed. The order is Washington’s biggest sanctions blow to date against Maduro and is intended to punish his leftist government for what Trump has called an erosion of democracy in the oil-rich country, which is already reeling from an economic crisis. It suggests a weakening in already strained relations between the two countries. Just three days ago, Maduro said the relations between Caracas and Washington were at their lowest point ever. “All they’re trying to do to attack Venezuela is crazy,” said Maduro on a TV broadcast on Friday. “With the efforts of our people, it will fail and Venezuela will be stronger, more free, and more independent.” Venezuela faces a severe recession with millions suffering food and medicine shortages and soaring inflation. The South American nation relies on oil for some 95 percent of export revenue. Citgo Petroleum [PDVSAC.UL], the U.S. refiner of Venezuela’s ailing state-run oil company PDVSA, is “practically” being forced to close by the order, warned Maduro, adding that a preliminary analysis showed the sanctions would impede Venezuelan crude exports to the United States. He said he was calling “urgent” meetings with U.S. clients of Venezuelan oil. The new sanctions ban trade in any new issues of U.S.-dollar-denominated debt of the Venezuelan government and PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] because the ban applies to use of the U.S. financial system.  As a result, it will be it tricky for PDVSA to refinance its heavy debt burden. Investors had expected that PDVSA would seek to ease upcoming payments through such an operation, as it did last year, which usually requires that new bonds be issued. Additional financial pressure on PDVSA could push the cash-strapped company closer to a possible default, or bolster its reliance on key allies China and Russia, which have already lent Caracas billions of dollars.  “They want us to fall into default,” said Maduro, adding that just under two-thirds of Venezuelan bond holders are in the United States. Maduro insisted that Venezuela would continue paying its debts. The decision also blocks Citgo Petroleum from sending dividends back to the South American nation, a senior official said, in a further blow to PDVSA’s coffers. However, the order stops short of a major ban on crude trading that could have disrupted Venezuela’s oil industry and worsened the country’s faltering economy. It also protects holders of most existing Venezuelan government and PDVSA bonds, who were relieved the sanctions did not go further. Venezuelan and PDVSA bonds were trading broadly higher on Friday afternoon. “Maduro may no longer take advantage of the American financial system to facilitate the wholesale looting of the Venezuelan economy at the expense of the Venezuelan people,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday. Venezuela’s Oil Ministry and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  PDVSA, the financial engine of Maduro’s government, is already struggling due to low global oil prices, mismanagement, allegations of corruption and a brain drain. Washington last month sanctioned PDVSA’s finance vice president, Simon Zerpa, complicating some of the company’s operations as Americans are now banned from doing business with him. Trump has so far spared Venezuela from broader sanctions against its vital oil industry, but officials have said such actions are under consideration. The Republican president has also warned of a “military option” for Venezuela, although White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Friday that no such actions are anticipated in the “near future.” Venezuela has for months struggled to find financing because of PDVSA’s cash flow problems and corruption scandals have led institutions to tread cautiously, regardless of sanctions. Russia and its state oil company Rosneft have emerged as an increasingly important source of financing for PDVSA, according to a Reuters report.   On at least two occasions, the Venezuelan government has used Russian cash to avoid imminent defaults on payments to bondholders, a high-level PDVSA official told Reuters. “At this point our view is that the country can scrape by without defaulting this year, largely with the help of Chinese and Russian backing and by further squeezing imports. Next year is a tossup,” said Raul Gallegos, an analyst with the consultancy Control Risks. However, China has grown reticent to extend further loans because of payment delays and corruption. Russia has been negotiating financing in exchange for oil assets in Venezuela, sources have told Reuters, but going forward it would be difficult for the OPEC member to provide enough assets to keep up loans destined for bond payments. Venezuela’s government has around $2 billion in available cash to make $1.3 billion in bond payments by the end of the year and to cover the import of food and medicine, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने वेनेज़ुएला पर प्रतिबंध लगाए; मादुरो ने चूक करने के लिए मजबूर करने का प्रयास देखा


(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to meet with representatives of the oil refining industry and their legislative backers to discuss the nation’s biofuels program, according to two sources briefed on the matter. The White House meeting could set the stage for negotiations over possible legislation to overhaul the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard - a 2005 law that requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of biofuels like ethanol into the nation’s gasoline each year, the sources said, asking not to be named. While the regulation would be a boon to the Midwest corn belt, refining companies oppose it because it cuts into their petroleum-based fuel market share, and because they say the blending requirement costs them hundreds of millions of dollars. Lawmakers representing both industries have in recent months threatened to block administration nominations over the White House’s handling of the issue, including most recently Texas Senator Ted Cruz - who said he will hold up the nomination of Bill Northey to a federal agriculture post until he gets a meeting with Trump on biofuels. “The president was briefed, and has agreed on a meeting. Now it is just a matter of finding an hour window,” one of the sources told Reuters. He said he was told by the White House the meeting is likely to be set for the week of Dec. 11. A White House official declined to comment. Cruz and eight other senators from states with oil refineries - including Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania - had requested the meeting with Trump in a letter in October to discuss the regulation. In the letter, the senators asked that the meeting include Midwest lawmakers, biofuels representatives and relevant administration officials, so all sides could “discuss a pathway forward toward a mutually agreeable solution.” It is unlikely Trump would be able to move to reform the biofuels program without buy-in from the corn coalition. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a vocal biofuels backer, has said that such a meeting would be a “waste of time.” His office declined to comment on whether Grassley would attend. “No meeting has been scheduled,” his spokesman Michael Zona said. A spokesman for Senator Cruz did not comment. The Renewable Fuel Standard was introduced more than a decade ago by then-President George W. Bush as a way to boost U.S. agriculture, slash energy imports and cut emissions. A number of independent refiners, like Valero Energy Corp, CVR Energy and PBF Energy have vocally opposed the regulation’s requirement that refiners blend the biofuels, or purchase credits from rivals that do - a rule they say costs them hundreds of millions of dollars each year. CVR’s majority owner, billionaire Carl Icahn, served for months as a top adviser to Trump on regulation. During that time he pushed to shift the responsibility for blending away from refiners to supply terminals or distributors.  But Trump’s administration has so far not budged.  The Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the program, slightly increased biofuels volumes targets for 2018 and has rejected proposals to shift the blending burden, or to allow ethanol exports to count towards volumes targets.

Summary: अमेरिकी जैव ईंधन नीति पर तेल उद्योग के प्रतिनिधियों से मिलने की योजना बना रहे हैं ट्रम्पः सूत्र


WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - Republican leaders in North Carolina on Thursday refused to back down from a law regulating which restrooms can be used by transgender people after the federal government told the state the law violated the U.S. Civil Rights Act.  The state’s leading Republican lawmaker, House Speaker Tim Moore, told reporters in Raleigh that North Carolina would not be “bullied” into meeting the U.S. Justice Department’s Monday deadline to change the law. North Carolina is the first U.S. state to pass a law requiring transgender people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate instead of the gender with which they identify.  Republican legislators in several other states have proposed similar laws, making transgender rights a hot-button social issue in an election year. The Justice Department’s challenge is similarly unprecedented, though the agency has in the past intervened on behalf of transgender individuals who have alleged discrimination. The Republican National Committee urged state legislators in January to resist federal policies that allow transgender people to use restrooms of their choice at public schools. The Justice Department said in letters to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and other state officials on Wednesday that the state had until Monday to decided if it would stop discriminating against transgender state employees. McCrory affirmed his support for the “very common-sense rule” before a group of business leaders on Wednesday night but said he did not know if the state would fight the Justice Department. His office did not respond to questions on Thursday. If McCrory does not stand down from enforcing the law, the Justice Department’s civil rights division could push for a court order. If a federal judge sides with the agency, North Carolina would have to comply or face a reduction in federal funding.  On Thursday, Republican Senate leader Phil Berger’s spokeswoman, Amy Auth, said state lawyers were reviewing the letter. Berger on Wednesday said the department’s position represented “a gross overreach.”  North Carolina’s Secretary of Public Safety and officials at the University of North Carolina also received similar letters on Wednesday. Margaret Spellings, president of the University of North Carolina system, said her office would respond to the department’s letter by the deadline. “We take this determination seriously and will be conferring with the Governor’s Office, legislative leaders, and counsel about next steps,” she said. Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson would not say whether the department would take legal action against the state.  The state law is being challenged in federal court by critics including the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, which advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. “We’ve never before seen a state do something as aggressive as require mandatory discrimination against its own transgender employees,” said Peter Renn, an attorney with Lambda Legal, in a phone interview with Reuters.  Jillian Weiss, an attorney who has argued in federal court for transgender rights, said the Justice Department’s action against North Carolina showed the federal government was willing to intervene when states passed laws reducing rights based on gender identity and sexual orientation.  Weiss predicts Mississippi, where a law allowing businesses to refuse service to gay people takes effect in July, will be the department’s next target.

Summary: उत्तरी कैरोलिना के सांसद ने बाथरूम कानून को बदलने के लिए अमेरिकी समय सीमा को खारिज कर दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate’s main investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is equipped with a much smaller staff than previous high-profile intelligence and scandal probes in Congress, which could potentially affect its progress, according to sources and a Reuters review of public records.  With only seven staff members initially assigned to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s three-month-old investigation, progress has been sluggish and minimal, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity.  A committee aide, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said two more staff members were being added and a few others were involved less formally.  “We need to pick up the pace,” Senator Martin Heinrich, a committee Democrat, told Reuters on Monday. “It is incumbent on us to have the resources to do this right and expeditiously, and I think we need additional staff.”  While some directly involved in the investigation disputed characterizations of the probe as off track, the appearance of a weak Senate investigation could renew calls by some Democrats and other Trump critics for a commission independent of the Republican-led Congress to investigate the allegations.  The intelligence committees of the Senate and House of Representatives have taken the lead in Congress in examining whether Russia tried to influence the election in Republican Trump's favor, mostly by hacking Democratic operatives' emails and releasing embarrassing information, or possibly by colluding with Trump associates. Russia has denied such meddling.   With the House intelligence panel’s investigation for weeks stymied by partisan squabbles, the Senate committee’s parallel probe had appeared to be the more serious of the two, with Republican Chairman Richard Burr and top Democrat Mark Warner promising a thorough and bipartisan effort.  Burr, a member of Congress since 1995, last month called the Russia probe one of the biggest investigations undertaken in Congress during his tenure.  Previous investigations of national security matters have been much larger in terms of staffing than the one Burr is overseeing, according to a review of official reports produced by those inquiries, which traditionally name every staff member involved.   A House committee formed to investigate the 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans had 46 staffers and eight interns.  The Senate Intelligence Committee’s years-long study of the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation techniques during President George W. Bush’s administration had 20 staff members, according to the panel’s official report.  A special commission separate from Congress that reviewed the intelligence that wrongly concluded former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq involved 88 staffers.  A special Senate committee’s 1970s investigation into Watergate-era surveillance practices tapped 133 staffers.  A joint House-Senate probe of the 1980s Iran-Contra affair during Ronald Reagan’s presidency involving secret sales of arms to Iran to try to win the release of American hostages, with proceeds going to Nicaraguan rebels, had 181 staffers.  Spokeswomen for Burr and for Warner declined to comment on the staffing levels.  The listed sizes of various investigations may be an imperfect comparison because not all staffers listed may have actually had a substantial role, congressional sources said. Investigations often grow in size over time, and a committee aide said the panel had secured $1.2 million in additional funding for the Russia election investigation.  But the numbers are still broadly “relevant as indicators of a commitment to an investigation,” said Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists.  “For this investigation to be successful, the committee must recognize the enormity of the job and provide the resources to tackle it,” Senator Ron Wyden, another committee Democrat, said in a statement.  Wyden sent a letter last month to Burr and Warner requesting that the probe include a thorough review of any financial ties between Russia and Trump and his associates.  None of the staffers possess substantial investigative experience or a background in Russian affairs, two of the sources said.  The investigation has not yet conducted interviews with Trump associates suspected of having links to Russian intelligence services, two sources and the aide said.  The investigators have focused on reviewing thousands of pages of documents supporting a previous U.S. intelligence agency finding that Russia interfered to help Trump, and have spoken with intelligence officials in preparation for interviewing key witnesses, they said.  The House intelligence panel’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, who was a member of Trump’s presidential transition team, on April 6 stepped aside from leading that probe because he was under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegedly disclosing classified information.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also conducting a wide ranging counter-intelligence investigation into alleged Russian interference and potential collusion with Trump associates, though its findings may never become public.

Summary: सीनेट ने रूस के चुनाव में हस्तक्षेप की जांच के लिए सीमित संसाधन दिए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump s chief of staff said on Thursday that Washington believes Havana could put a halt to the mysterious incidents that have sickened nearly two dozen American diplomats and some tourists in Cuba.  We believe that the Cuban government could stop the attacks on our diplomats,  White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters when asked about the situation at a White House briefing. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said later she thought Kelly was referring to the fact that the Vienna Conventions dealing with diplomatic relations between countries require the host nation to provide for the safety and security of diplomatic personnel. Nauert told a briefing at the State Department that the investigation into the attacks was  still under way  and the department did not know  who or what is responsible for it.  She also suggested the United States believes Cuba might know more than it has divulged about the incidents.  In a small country like Cuba where the government is going to know a lot of things that take place within its borders, they may have more information than we are aware of right now,  she said. The Trump administration last week expelled 15 Cuban diplomats to protest Havana s failure to protect staff at the U.S. embassy in the communist country. Washington also has recalled more than half its diplomatic personnel from Cuba. At least 22 U.S. diplomatic personnel have reported having health issues after being subjected to the apparent attacks. They have suffered hearing loss, dizziness, fatigue, cognitive problems and other health issues. The Associated Press obtained what it said on Thursday was an audio recording of the sound that Americans heard during the incidents in Cuba. The audio was of a high-pitched, electronic squeaking noise.

Summary: क्यूबा अमेरिकियों के खिलाफ 'हमलों' को रोक सकता हैः व्हाइट हाउस


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Sunday it had recovered the bodies of five Palestinians who were killed when it blew up a tunnel last week that was dug by militants under the Gaza Strip border, and hopes they can be used to effect the return of Israelis held in Gaza.   The bodies of seven other militants were recovered on the Gaza side of the frontier last Monday when Israel destroyed the cross-border tunnel, raising the death toll to 12. A military statement said that since the tunnel was blown up, forces had worked in Israeli territory to complete its  uncovering and destruction and that  during the ongoing work in the area, the bodies of five terrorists were uncovered.  On Friday, the Islamic Jihad militant group said that five of its militants were missing.  Israel said this year it would withhold the bodies of Palestinian militants killed in attacks against its citizens in order to pressure the larger Islamist Hamas faction to return the remains of soldiers and hand back missing Israeli civilians. Hamas says it is holding two Israeli soldiers whom the army declared dead after they were lost in action in the 2014 Gaza war. The group also says it is holding two Israeli civilians who strayed into the territory. Simha Goldin, the father of one of the two Israeli soldiers, on Sunday urged the Israeli government to live up to its promise and said:  Pressure will make Hamas understand that holding Israeli soldiers in not an asset but a burden.  Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas have refused to discuss any deal with Israel. Dawoud Shehab, an Islamic Jihad spokesman in Gaza said on Sunday:  We are committed to regaining the bodies of our comrades and we will find a way to compel the enemy to do this.  During the 2014 Gaza war, Hamas fighters used dozens of tunnels to blindside Israel s superior forces and threaten civilian communities near the frontier, a counterpoint to the Iron Dome anti-missile system that largely protected the country s heartland from militant rocket barrages. Neither Israel nor militants in Gaza have appeared eager to seek escalation. Israel has been constructing a sensor-equipped underground wall along the 60-km (36-mile) Gaza border, aiming to complete the $1.1 billion project by mid-2019. Israel and the United States have called for Hamas to be disarmed as part of the pact between Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, so Israeli peace efforts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which collapsed in 2014, can be renewed. Hamas has rejected the demand. Hamas said Israel had made a  futile attempt to sabotage efforts to repair Palestinian unity,  a reference to the reconciliation agreement it reached with Abbas last month in which his forces have take over administration of the enclave.

Summary: इजराइल को सुरंग विध्वंस में मारे गए गाजा के पांच आतंकवादियों के शव मिले


BERLIN (Reuters) - The premiers of two regions where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made big gains in Sunday s national election warned that Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives must change course to stop the former East Germany s rightward drift. Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered big losses across much of Germany in the election, in which the AfD, with its anti-immigration message, became the first far-right party in the national parliament in over half a century. The calls for a rightward shift add to the challenge Merkel faces as she tries to assemble an already tricky three-party coalition including the left-wing Greens, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and her own increasingly fractious party. Prospects for a three-way pact nonetheless improved on Saturday when the Greens voted at a special congress to start exploratory talks on a deal despite reservations about the other parties  harder-line immigration policies. The AfD s surge prompted soul-searching within the conservative camp, with many blaming Merkel s 2015 decision to open the doors to over a million migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa for the far-right s surge. The conservative premiers of Saxony, where the AfD topped polls, and of Saxony Anhalt called for the CDU to move to the right to stem the losses.  People want Germany to stay Germany,  said Stanislaw Tillich, premier of Saxony, in an interview with the Funke newspaper network.  They don t want parallel societies and rising criminality.  Rainer Haseloff, premier of Saxony-Anhalt, echoed this, telling newspaper Die Welt:  People want to know how Germany will preserve its identity.  These calls align the two influential state leaders more closely with the CDU s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which wants a hard immigration ceiling. While both premiers stuck to Merkel s line that a firm upper limit would be impractical, their calls for the state to take a firmer hand with immigrants could strengthen the CSU s hand as the sister parties attempt to thrash out a common position ahead of coalition talks with the FDP and Greens. Some warn that a black (CDU)-yellow (FDP)-Green  Jamaica coalition , risks heightening a sense of alienation among voters in the former East Germany. Given the losses all three parties had suffered in the East,  a Jamaica coalition would be seen as a West German coalition in the east,  Green MP Canan Bayram said. But Merkel, in a podcast released on Saturday, warned against treating Germany s poorer east as a homogenous bloc.  We see these fears of globalisation, of anonymity, about old-age care everywhere, including in the west,  she said.  We have to get people listening, to win people over by solving their problems. That s my task.

Summary: मर्केल के सहयोगी पूर्व पूर्वी जर्मनी के दक्षिण की ओर बढ़ने पर चिंतित हैं


HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday challenged Congress to raise the government’s debt limit in order to free up relief spending for Hurricane Harvey, a disaster that the governor of Texas said had caused up to $180 billion in damage. Harvey, which came ashore on Aug. 25 as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years, has killed an estimated 50 people, displaced more than 1 million and damaged some 200,000 homes in a path of destruction stretching for more than 300 miles (480 km).     As the city of Houston and the region’s critical energy infrastructure began to recover nine days after the storm hit, the debate over how to pay for the disaster played out in Washington.   Texas Governor Greg Abbott estimated damage at $150 billion to $180 billion, calling it more costly than Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and New York in 2012. The administration of President Donald Trump has asked Congress for an initial $7.85 billion for recovery efforts, a fraction of what will eventually be needed. Even that amount could be delayed unless Congress quickly increases the government’s debt ceiling, Mnuchin said, as the United States is on track to hit its mandated borrowing limit by the end of the month unless Congress increases it.  “Without raising the debt limit, I am not comfortable that we will get money to Texas this month to rebuild,” Mnuchin told Fox News. Republican lawmakers, who control both houses of Congress, have traditionally resisted raising the debt ceiling, but linking the issue to Harvey aid could force their hand with people suffering and large areas of the fourth-largest U.S. city under water. Beyond the immediate funding, any massive aid package faces budget pressures at a time when Trump is advocating for tax reform or tax cuts, leading some on Capitol Hill to suggest aid may be released in a series of appropriations.  Katrina set the record by costing U.S. taxpayers more than $110 billion. In advocating for funds to help rebuild his state, Abbott said damage from Harvey would exceed that. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city expected most public services and businesses to be restored by Tuesday, the first day after Monday’s Labor Day holiday. “Over 95 percent of the city is now dry. And I’m encouraging people to get up and let’s get going,” Turner told NBC News. Even so, Houston mandated the evacuation of thousands of people on the western side of town on Sunday to accommodate the release of water from two reservoirs that otherwise might sustain damage. The storm stalled over Houston, dumping more than 50 inches (1.3 m) on the region. Houston cut off power to homes on Sunday to encourage evacuations. The area was closed off on Sunday and military vehicles were stationed on the periphery to take people out.  Karen Waltmon, 58, who was returning to her home in one of the neighborhoods, said she wondered if parts of the city would have to be razed. “I feel a lot of Houston is drying out, and I don’t want them to forget about us,” she said. About 37,000 refugees stayed overnight in 270 shelters in Texas plus another 2,000 in seven Louisiana shelters, the highest number reported by the American Red Cross. Some 84,700 homes and businesses were without power on Sunday, down from a peak of around 300,000, according to the region’s major electric companies. In Crosby, Texas, an Arkema (AKE.PA) chemical plant that ran out of electricity needed to keep volatile organic peroxide refrigerated will burn the remaining containers as a “proactive measure,” company and Harris County fire officials said in a statement. Officials last week evacuated residents and set up a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) perimeter around the area. Energy disruptions pushed up gasoline futures to a two-year high ahead of the holiday weekend, but major refineries started to come back online on Friday. Colonial Pipeline, the biggest U.S. fuel system, expects to reopen a Texas segment of its network on Monday, when it will resume transporting distillates from Houston to Hebert, Texas, the company said on Sunday, adding that it would be ready to start moving gasoline on Tuesday. Those repairs would restore to normal Colonial’s entire pipeline from Houston to Linden, New Jersey, relieving shortages between Texas and the U.S. Northeast.

Summary: टेक्सास में हार्वे को 180 अरब डॉलर तक का नुकसान


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As Republican leaders desperately seek ways to derail the presidential campaign of billionaire Donald Trump, many of the party’s 31 state governors are staying out of the fray.  New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez endorsed Marco Rubio on Friday, making her only the 10th governor to back one of the four Republican presidential rivals left in the race. Much more typical is Governor Rick Scott of Florida, who said on Thursday he would not endorse a candidate before his state’s hotly contested March 15 primary. Such reluctance to commit contrasts sharply with previous elections, when governors lined up solidly behind eventual nominees, helping to winnow the field of candidates early on. The 2016 election differs because a chaotic race has divided Republicans, convincing many to keep a low profile in hopes of avoiding a possible backlash from voters who are increasingly contemptuous of party leaders, Republican officials say. “It’s a lose-lose political situation,” said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie last week took a risk, after dropping out of the presidential contest himself, and endorsed Trump, the billionaire businessman. That decision has done little for either of them, according to a new poll. Almost two-thirds of 1,372 adults polled, both Republicans and Democrats, said Christie’s endorsement made no difference in their feelings toward Trump, the Republican front-runner. The nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted Feb 29-March 4. Christie has faced relentless criticism since he announced his support for Trump last week. Six newspapers in his home state have called on him to resign. In past elections, a governor’s endorsement could produce a burst of positive news coverage and the support of well-connected local leaders for a presidential contender. That would encourage other elected officials to endorse the candidate as well, creating an impression that the candidate was a favorite of those who knew best and encouraging others to drop out of the race, said David Karol, a University of Maryland political science professor who has found that endorsements were a strong predictor of electoral success between 1980 and 2004. “The absence of most of the governors this late in the process really indicates the paralysis and division in Republican elite circles,” Karol said. Ahead of Election Day on Nov. 8, many governors did not want to talk about Trump, who has unnerved his party’s establishment with his abrasive tone and policy positions, including plans to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, deport 11 million illegal immigrants and temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country. Eighteen undecided Republican governors, contacted by Reuters, declined to be interviewed on their views of the race.  National Republican leaders are struggling for a strategy to stop Trump from becoming the nominee, as Democrats revel in the chaos they hope will boost their chances of keeping the White House. George W. Bush, elected president in 2000, had the support of 26 of the party’s 30 Republican governors before primary voting even started, according to figures compiled by James Madison University political science professor Martin Cohen, who with Karol is a co-author of “The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform.”  In 2012, 10 of 29 Republican governors had endorsed Mitt Romney by the time he clinched the presidential nomination. This year, governors are not sending a clear signal to voters. Five have endorsed Rubio, a senator from Florida who has won one nominating contest so far. Two have endorsed John Kasich of Ohio, the only governor left in the race, who has won no contests. Two have Trump. One has backed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Three others endorsed candidates who have since dropped out of the race. The governors who have made endorsements so far have had little impact. Rubio lost in Tennessee, South Carolina and Arkansas, despite the backing of governors in those states. Kasich got only 4 percent of the vote in Alabama on Tuesday after that state’s Governor Robert Bentley endorsed him.  Iowa Governor Terry Branstad called on voters in his state to reject Cruz before the state’s February caucuses. Cruz won. So far, only Texas Governor Greg Abbott has picked a winner. He endorsed Cruz, who won Texas on Tuesday. Trump has put many governors in a difficult position. The real estate developer is expected to easily win Mississippi’s Republican primary next Tuesday, for example, but his support for Planned Parenthood and government-backed health insurance, among other policies, put him at odds with the conservative positions backed by Governor Phil Bryant. Bryant will support Trump should he end up being the party’s nominee, but he has not decided whether to endorse a candidate before the primary, an aide told Reuters.  In theory, governors should be in a position to shape the outcome of this year’s nominating contests. Republicans at the state level have delivered tax cuts, abortion restrictions and other conservative victories from Maine to Arizona, while their counterparts in charge of Congress have been locked in a stalemate with Democratic President Barack Obama. But the plethora of establishment-minded candidates this year has made it more difficult for governors and other senior officials to decide who to back, let alone try to shape the outcome with an endorsement.  Republican governors in Maryland, Florida, Wyoming, Indiana, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, Nebraska and Michigan declined to say whether they would back Trump if he were the party’s nominee.  Governors in Utah, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Georgia have yet to endorse a candidate but would back Trump if he won the nomination, aides said.     Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker told reporters this week he would not vote for Trump in November.  (Additional reporting by Nick Carey, Sharon Bernstein, Ian Simpson, Alex Dobuzinskis and Scott Malone; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Howard Goller and Alistair Bell) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन गवर्नरों ने 'डंप-ट्रम्प' दबाव से दूरी बनाई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some Republican foreign policy veterans who came out against Donald Trump during the presidential campaign said on Wednesday they were sticking to their guns following his election victory, but a few others signaled that objections to serving in his new administration were softening. Trump’s stunning upset over Democrat Hillary Clinton has created a new dilemma for the Republican national security establishment, much of which had publicly distanced itself from their own party’s candidate, declaring him unfit to lead. They must now decide whether to return to the fold. Some career diplomats, intelligence officials and military officers are also facing a choice of whether to quit their posts because of concern that a Trump presidency would violate their principles, or else stay and try to influence policy from the inside. However, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, “I wouldn’t expect a mass exodus.” About 150 of the Republican party’s most prominent national security specialists signed open letters in March and August in outright opposition to Trump’s candidacy. One said he was “utterly” unqualified for the White House. The other warned that he would be “the most reckless president in American history.” While neither letter said the former officials would never work for Trump, their scathing critique was clearly intended to discourage fellow Republicans from supporting him. Trump responded at the time by deriding them as members of “the failed Washington elite” who “deserve the blame for making the world such a dangerous place.” A number of the signatories contacted by Reuters on Wednesday made clear that they were unswayed from their negative view of Trump and would not work for him. However, they stopped short of urging others to also shun the next administration, which is widely seen as having limited foreign policy expertise at a time when the next president will face the challenges of Syria’s civil war, the fight against Islamic State, a newly assertive Russia and the rise of China. “I don’t expect to be asked. I wouldn’t serve. But there are others who will. It will be a matter of individual conscience,” said Eliot Cohen, who served as counselor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and helped spearhead the March letter, which was posted on a blog called War on the Rocks and created a stir among Republicans. “I’m concerned about his ignorance, the belligerence, the misunderstanding of how the world works,” Cohen said of Trump, a wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV host who rode to victory on a wave of voter anger toward Washington insiders. Max Boot, a foreign policy adviser to Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and a supporter of the U.S.-led Iraq invasion in 2003, said: “I won’t have anything to do with Trump, but I don’t know about others. I hope good people go into the government.” But others appeared to waver, with some saying decisions on whether to join the Trump administration could depend on how the president-elect behaves during the transition and who he appoints to senior posts. Among the Trump allies said to be in consideration are former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and one-time United Nations ambassador John Bolton for secretary of state, and General Michael Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, for national security adviser. Dov Zakheim, a former Pentagon undersecretary who signed one of the dissent letters, said Trump would have to reach out beyond his circle of supporters to find enough qualified people to fill many important jobs. “He will want to show that he is not dividing the Republican party, so he will extend an olive branch to those in the party who opposed him,” Zakheim said. Asked whether he expected to be offered a post, he said: “I have no idea, as it’s not up to me.” Bryan McGrath, a retired US Navy officer and co-organizer of the War on the Rocks letter, said he did not expect that those who signed it “were signing away employment rights, that they weren’t going to work in a Trump administration.” If the president asks for your service, he said, “you have to take that request seriously.” Patrick Cronin, an Asia expert and former third-ranking official at USAID under President George W. Bush, said that despite his earlier opposition to Trump, he eventually briefed his transition team and would continue to provide advice. But he said he was not interested in joining the administration. Michael McFaul, President Barack Obama’s former ambassador to Moscow and a Clinton supporter in the election,  said the Republicans had a “deep bench of experience” for enlisting foreign policy experts. Even as Trump prepares to form his foreign policy team, some career diplomats, intelligence officials and military officers are facing a post-election quandary. Some said privately before Tuesday’s vote they would consider retiring or quitting rather than working under Trump, who alarmed them during the campaign by questioning U.S.-led alliances, praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting that Japan and South Korea should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and threatening to order the resumption of interrogation methods condemned as torture. Other officials suggested they would wait to see how he acts once in office and who he names to senior posts, saying the responsibility for government service transcended any one president. “If he keeps some of his campaign promises, about the use of torture, for example, many of us have discussed whether we are honor-bound to resign or to stay and try to have some influence from the inside. It’s too early to say,” one CIA officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन विदेश नीति के दिग्गज नेता ट्रम्प को लेकर असमंजस में


LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has not seen any evidence of successful direct interference in its electoral system, which is one of the most robust in the world, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday. In a speech on Monday, May took aim at Russia, accusing the country of  meddling in elections .  We have been clear that we believe our own electoral system is amongst the most robust in the world,  the spokesman told reporters.  I don t think we ve seen any evidence of any successful direct interference in UK democratic processes.

Summary: ब्रिटेन ने चुनावों में सफल हस्तक्षेप का कोई सबूत नहीं देखा है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. money managers with reinsurance companies in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands could lose a valuable loophole under Republican proposals to overhaul the tax code unveiled on Thursday.    The plan includes a 20 percent excise payment on payments from domestic firms to foreign affiliates that could affect private equity firms and hedge funds that have overseas reinsurance operations. The proposal would effectively kill the so-called Bermuda reinsurance loophole under which money managers are able to invest the premiums they raise as reinsurers in their funds without paying any tax on the gains. The plan is part of a 429-page bill that would represent the largest overhaul of the U.S. tax system since the 1980s, and many analysts have raised doubts about the likelihood of it being passed. [nL2N1N80E2] “Our base call is that this tax package will fail. That would remove the immediate threat to the Bermuda reinsurance loophole,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Cowen Washington Research Group.     “We cannot, however, say there is no risk here. This is because we do expect a smaller bill that deficit-finances temporary tax cuts that extend through the next presidential election. It is possible that there could be a few revenue offsets in that bill.” Shares in private equity firm Apollo (APO.N) ended down 3 percent on Thursday while its Bermuda-based division Athene Holding (ATH.N) closed nearly 7 percent weaker. Athene reinsures retirement savings products for people and institutions and has helped drive profits at Apollo.  Third Point Re (TPRE.N), the Bermuda-based reinsurance arm of hedge fund Third Point, finished 0.6 percent weaker while Greenlight Re (GLRE.O), a Caymans reinsurer run by hedge fund Greenlight ended down 0.23 percent.     Representatives of Greenlight and Third Point were not immediately available to comment. Included in the draft is also a proposal that would exclude non-traditional insurers based overseas, including hedge funds and other investors, from qualifying for favorable tax rates if certain insurance-related assets, such as some types of reserves and unearned premiums, represent less than 25 percent of their business. “The threshold in the bill is too high,” said Bradley Kading, president and executive director of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers. “These alternative capital vehicles took real losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria,” Kading said.

Summary: अमेरिकी कर योजना ने वॉल स्ट्रीट की बरमूडा मूर्खता को खतरे में डाला


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is best suited to host a new NATO military logistics command, the top U.S. Army general in Europe said on Tuesday. NATO allies this month backed plans for two new military headquarters - an Atlantic command and a logistics command - to help protect Europe in the event of a future conflict. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges told the Berlin Security Conference that Germany - already host to many U.S. troops - was well-placed to take on the logistics role given its geographical location in the heart of Europe, and its existing capabilities.  I can t imagine any other country being better suited than Germany to take on that responsibility, from a geographical standpoint, a capability standpoint,  Hodges said. Diplomats have said that Germany is eager to host the logistics command but no decisions have been made. Hodges, who is due to retire next month, has repeatedly pushed for increased focus on improving the ability to move troops and equipment across Europe in the event of a future conflict. NATO began beefing up its defenses after the 2014 annexation by Russia of Ukraine s Crimea peninsula, deploying troops to the Baltic states and Poland, strengthening its presence in the Black Sea and starting to modernizing its forces. The Kremlin, which denies harboring any aggressive intentions toward Europe, has condemned the moves as an attempt to encircle Russia.

Summary: अमेरिकी जनरल ने नाटो के नए संचालन कमान की मेजबानी के लिए जर्मनी का समर्थन किया


ASPEN, Colorado (Reuters) - The Trump administration is developing the first comprehensive strategy to defend the United States against disease pandemics and biological attacks by terrorists, the top White House homeland security official said on Thursday. “We have not had as a country a comprehensive bio-defense strategy ever,” White House homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert told the annual Aspen Security Forum, in Aspen, Colorado. “It’s high time we had a bio-defense strategy.” The effort involves retired Admiral Tim Ziemer, who oversaw the Obama administration’s initiative to fight malaria in Africa, and the White House hopes to publish the new strategy “as soon as we can,” said Bossert, who provided no further details. Bossert noted that the Bush and Obama administrations took steps to address biological threats after letters containing anthrax spores were sent to two Democratic senators and several news organizations in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The spores infected 22 people, five of whom died. But, he added, “There have been a lot of fits and starts in our investments.” “At this point, we need to look clear eyed at the fact that we may have a devastating pandemic influenza or an intentional anthrax attack,” said Bossert. He noted recent news reports that scientists in Canada used commercially available genetic material to construct the extinct horse pox virus, a relative of the small pox virus, which claimed tens of millions of lives before being wiped out. “That’s (horsepox) not going to kill any of us, but that suggests that somebody might now in the future possess the ability to produce synthetic small pox without a live virus and that scares me to death,” he said. The threat of disease pandemics demands global attention, he said. Some experts have criticized the Trump administration for seeking reductions in funding for global health programs that they contend would hurt the country’s ability to prevent and respond to biological threats like pandemics. Bossert, however, said that the administration plans to give “full-throated support” to the Global Health Security Agenda, a partnership of more than 50 nations and international organizations that works to build countries’ capacities to prevent and fight infectious diseases.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस व्यापक जैव सुरक्षा रणनीति बना रहा हैः अधिकारी


LONDON (Reuters) - Outgoing CIA Director John Brennan has said it would be the “height of folly” for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to tear up Washington’s deal with Tehran because it would make it more likely that Iran and others would acquire nuclear weapons. “It could lead to a weapons program inside of Iran that could lead other states in the region to embark on their own programs,” Brennan said in an interview with the BBC aired on Wednesday.  “So I think it would be the height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement.” Brennan also said that in dealing with the Syrian crisis, Trump should be cautious in trying to work with Russia. “I hope there is going to be an improvement in relations between Washington and Moscow,” he said. “President-elect Trump and the new administration need to be wary of Russian promises. Russian promises in my mind have not given us what it is that they have pledged.”

Summary: सी. आई. ए. के ब्रेनन ने कहा कि ईरान समझौते को तोड़ना 'मूर्खता' होगी


(Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s efforts to remove Planned Parenthood, a U.S. women’s healthcare and abortion provider, from a government health insurance program for the poor in the state. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson issued the 54-page order for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, ruling the state could not cancel Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, or PPKM, and Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, or PPSLR. “It is uncontroverted that PPKM and PPSLR serve hundreds of underprivileged women in the State of Kansas,” Robinson said in the order. “It is in the public interest to allow these individuals to be treated by the qualified provider of their choice, and to have that provider reimbursed under Medicaid pending a trial on the merits in this case.” The Republican governor ordered state officials to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood and its affiliates through the state Medicaid program in January, saying the state would not fund an industry that disrespected life. A spokeswoman for Brownback said in a statement on Tuesday: “The governor will continue the fight to make Kansas a pro-life state. We will review today’s preliminary ruling and move forward with the litigation.” The state sought to cut funding after the release of videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group that activists said showed that Planned Parenthood officials in some states had discussed the sale of aborted fetal tissue. Neither of the Planned Parenthood affiliates involved in the case participates in fetal tissue donation or sale, court records show. “We are thrilled with the judge’s ruling. We felt strongly that we were going into this on the right side of the law,” said Laura McQuade, chief executive of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, formerly Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. The two organizations, along with three of their patients who are on Medicaid, sued the state in May, arguing Brownback’s order would break federal law and violate the U.S. Constitution. Planned Parenthood has denied taking any illegal payments, calling the videos distortions of fetal-tissue donations. The organization has said it has received only reimbursements for its costs, which are legal under U.S. law. Planned Parenthood said in May that at least two dozen states had cut or tried to slash funding to its clinics since the mid-2015 release of the undercover videos.

Summary: न्यायाधीश ने मेडिकेड से नियोजित पितृत्व में कटौती करने के कान्सास के प्रयास को अवरुद्ध कर दिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - If Hillary Clinton decided to run as an independent for New York City mayor this year, she would open with a sizable lead over incumbent Democrat Bill de Blasio, according to Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday. Clinton led de Blasio 49 percent to 30 percent in the survey of 1,138 city voters. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, meaning results could vary that much either way. Since Democrat Clinton’s loss to Republican President-elect Donald Trump in November, there has been speculation that the former U.S. secretary of state and U.S. senator from New York state might set her sights on the New York City mayoralty this year. Political analysts have dismissed the rumors, saying there is little chance Clinton, 69, would seek de Blasio’s office after coming so close to winning the White House. Clinton’s camp has not denied the possibility outright, though advisers have said they do not expect her to seek public office again. A spokesman for de Blasio’s re-election campaign and a Clinton spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The poll may also be a reflection of de Blasio’s public standing, which has had its ups and downs during his four-year term. Forty-five percent of those surveyed approved of de Blasio, while a nearly identical 46 percent did not. Nevertheless, the poll showed de Blasio ahead of other possible challengers, including former city council speaker Christine Quinn, who lost to de Blasio in the 2013 Democratic primary, and City Comptroller Scott Stringer. “New Yorkers aren’t in love with Mayor Bill de Blasio, but they seem to like him better than other possible choices – except Hillary Clinton, who probably is an impossible choice,” Tim Malloy, the poll’s assistant director, said in a statement. The poll was apparently the first major survey to include Clinton as a potential mayoral candidate. New York City has never had a female mayor. In the Nov. 8 presidential election, Clinton captured more than 80 percent of New York City votes, even though Trump was born and raised in the heavily Democratic city. She moved in 1999 to Chappaqua, New York, about 30 miles north of the city, in order to run for the U.S. Senate.

Summary: न्यूयॉर्क शहर के महापौर पद की काल्पनिक दौड़ में क्लिंटन ने डी ब्लासियो को हरायाः सर्वेक्षण


SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla on Thursday issued an executive order authorizing the suspension of payment on approximately $800 million worth of constitutionally-guaranteed general obligation bonds due on July 1.     The suspension follows U.S. President Barack Obama’s signing into law earlier on Thursday of a plan that gives a federal oversight board authority for negotiating the restructuring of the island’s $70 billion debt and bringing the struggling U.S. territory’s finances under control.

Summary: प्यूर्टो रिको के गवर्नर ने सार्वजनिक ऋण भुगतान के निलंबन को अधिकृत किया


BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias in Syria have detained senior foreign Islamic State leaders in months of fighting for Raqqa, but it is not yet clear if they will be repatriated after facing trial, a spokesman said on Thursday.  We have foreign emirs ... from all around the world,  Talal Silo of the SDF told Reuters.  They were captured in special operations, and some of them turned themselves in to our forces.  The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, declared victory this week in Raqqa, raising flags over the last Islamic State positions in the city.  The fall of Raqqa marked a potent symbol of the jihadist movement s collapsing fortunes. Islamic State militants used the city as a planning and operations center for its warfare in the Middle East and its string of attacks overseas. The United States has said Raqqa served as a hub for attacks abroad. In November 2015, after militants killed more than 130 people in Paris, France said it launched air strikes on Islamic State targets inside Raqqa. Silo declined to say how many high-ranking, foreign Islamic State prisoners were in detention, but said SDF intelligence was interrogating them.   There are prisons dedicated just for Daesh,  he added, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.  We don t put them with the regular prisoners.    They are being investigated, and will be presented to the courts. We have an independent judicial system that will try them, all of them,  he said.  After the trials, it remained unclear if the SDF would hand over the fighters to their countries or whether the foreign states would accept to take them back, he said.   It depends on the situation between us and the (foreign) states,  Silo said.  There may be an agreement ... there may be consent to handing them over, and there may not be.  With air strikes and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition, the Kurdish-led SDF had been fighting since June inside Raqqa, after months of battles to encircle the city. Raqqa was the first major city Islamic State seized in early 2014, before its series of rapid victories in Iraq and Syria brought millions of people under the rule of its self-declared caliphate, which passed laws and issued passports and money.

Summary: U.S.-backed सीरिया में विदेशी इस्लामिक स्टेट नेताओं को पकड़े हुए बल


WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealanders go to the polls on Saturday in the most volatile and hard-fought race in recent history, which could usher in a change in openness to migration and trade and the central bank s approach to monetary policy.  Volatile opinion polls have shown a neck-and-neck race, although the ruling National Party of Prime Minister Bill English has led in recent polls, with two giving it a lead of nearly 10 points. A change in the Labour Party leadership last month turned what had been expected to be a dull campaign into a nail-biting event, with 37-year old Jacinda Ardern vying to become the third woman prime minister and the youngest of recent times.  It s tight,  Ardern, whose popularity prompted media to coin the term  Jacindamania , said on Friday.  It shows that every single vote will count and that turnout will determine this election. Labour hopes to ride a worldwide wave of change that most recently propelled France s Emmanuel Macron to become its youngest head of state since Napoleon. English, a 55-year-old former finance minister who took over after John Key s shock resignation last year, is making his second bid to be elected leader after a failed attempt in 2002.  Both leaders are expected to stay the course in terms of fiscal prudence, but will probably differ on monetary policy, trade and immigration, spelling ramifications for the New Zealand dollar, the world s 11th most traded currency in 2016. Ardern wants to add employment to the central bank s inflation-targeting mandate, which could mean more stimulatory monetary policy. She also wants to cut migration and renegotiate certain trade deals, which some worry could hurt two key sources of growth for New Zealand s small, outward-looking economy. Election uncertainty could have temporarily weighed on the economy, by making firms more cautious over investments and hiring, said Philip Borkin, a senior economist at ANZ. A tight outcome could weigh on the currency as could one foreshadowing a change in government, he added.  If it comes in and shows there is a decent chance of a change in government, I think that could be a factor weighing on the currency, just from an unknown point of view.  Given New Zealand s German-style proportional representation system, it could take weeks to determine the composition of the new government, with minority parties expected to have an outsize impact. About 986,000 ballots have already been cast, says the Electoral Commission, accounting for almost a third of the 3.2 million voters enrolled. In past elections, advanced votes pointed to the final results. But  special votes , from voters overseas and outside their home constituencies, could sway the outcome. This category, which made up 12 percent of votes in 2014, will only be announced on Oct. 7. The new government s make-up will also depend on negotiations between parties that could last weeks, particularly if the results are close.  Winston Peters, leader of the nationalist New Zealand First Party, which is likely to become the kingmaker, has declined to say which bloc of parties will get his support until the results become official on Oct. 12. With a loss in momentum in the Labour campaign, the latest polls suggest it is more likely that Peters will join forces with National, said Oliver Hartwich, executive director at the New Zealand Initiative think tank.       It would be hard for him to argue why he would give it to Labour if they are really 8 to 9 percentage points behind,  he added. For a graphic on New Zealand's parliamentary elections, click: tmsnrt.rs/2joJZGV For a graphic on New Zealand markets react to opinion polls, click: tmsnrt.rs/2faMawe

Summary: न्यूजीलैंड में शनिवार को मतदान होगा, जिससे कड़ी, अस्थिर दौड़ समाप्त हो जाएगी


TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Gunmen fatally shot the mayor of Libya s third-largest city, Misrata, late on Sunday, ambushing his car inside the city, security officials said. The North African oil producer has been in chaos since the 2011 uprising that unseated Muammar Gaddafi, but Misrata, Libya s biggest port, had been relative peaceful until now. Gunmen chased the car of Mayor Mohamed Eshtewi after he left Misrata airport following his arrival on a plane from Turkey, a security official said, adding it was unclear who was behind it. In October, a bomb exploded at the city s court, killing about four people and wounding 40 others in an attack claimed by Islamic state. Misrata, almost 200 km (125 miles) east of Tripoli, is the gateway for food and other imports into Libya and the country s only tax-free zone. It is one of the few places still frequented by foreign business people fearing poor security elsewhere.

Summary: बंदूकधारियों ने लीबिया के सबसे बड़े बंदरगाह शहर के महापौर की हत्या कर दी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republicans promising to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law are under “no hard deadlines” for producing an alternate program, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday. Speaking to reporters, Ryan said House Republicans will have an in-depth “conversation” about healthcare legislation during a retreat in Philadelphia at the end of this month, but that the House nonetheless will kick off the complicated process with a vote on Friday on a Senate-passed measure paving the way for Obamacare repeal.

Summary: अमेरिकी सदन के अध्यक्ष रयान ने ओबामाकेयर विधेयक पर कोई समय सीमा निर्धारित नहीं की


BEIJING (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday condemned missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militias on Saudi Arabia, saying they threatened the region’s security and undermined efforts to halt the conflict. Saudi Arabia said its air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from warring Yemen over the capital Riyadh on Saturday. The rocket was brought down near King Khaled Airport on the northern outskirts of the capital. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran’s supply of rockets to militias in Yemen was an act of “direct military aggression” that could be an act of war. “Houthi missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, enabled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, threaten regional security and undermine UN efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict,” the White House said in a statement as U.S. President Donald Trump began a visit to the Chinese capital.  “These missile systems were not present in Yemen before the conflict, and we call upon the United Nations to conduct a thorough examination of evidence that the Iranian regime is perpetuating the war in Yemen to advance its regional ambitions,” the statement added.   It said the United States would continue working with other “like-minded” partners to respond to such attacks and expose what it called Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region. Iran denied it was behind the missile launch. On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said missile attacks from Yemen were a reaction to what he called Saudi aggression. In reaction to the missile, the Saudi-led coalition closed all air, land and sea ports to the impoverished country. It also intensified air strikes on areas controlled by the Houthis including the capital Sanaa. The war has killed more than 10,000 people and triggered one of the worst man-made humanitarian disasters in recent history. The United Nations on Tuesday called on the coalition to re-open an aid lifeline into Yemen, saying food and medicine imports were vital for 7 million people facing famine.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने यमन के हौथियों द्वारा सऊदी पर मिसाइल हमलों की निंदा की


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s refusal to publicly accuse Russia and others in a wave of politically motivated hacking attacks is creating a policy vacuum that security experts fear will encourage more cyber warfare. In the past three months, hackers broke into official websites in Qatar, helping to create a regional crisis; suspected North Korean-backed hackers closed down British hospitals with ransomware; and a cyber attack that researchers attribute to Russia deleted data on thousands of computers in the Ukraine. Yet neither the United States nor the 29-member NATO military alliance have publicly blamed national governments for those attacks. President Donald Trump has also refused to accept conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections using cyber warfare methods to help the New York businessman win. “The White House is currently embroiled in a cyber crisis of existential proportion, and for the moment probably just wants ‘cyber’ to go away, at least as it relates to politics,” said Kenneth Geers, a security researcher who until recently lived in Ukraine and works at NATO’s think tank on cyber defense. “This will have unfortunate side effects for international cyber security.” Without calling out known perpetrators, more hacking attacks are inevitable, former officials said.  “I see no dynamics of deterrence,” said ex-White House cyber security officer Jason Healey, now at Columbia University.  The government retreat is underscored by the departure at the end of July of Chris Painter, the official responsible for coordinating U.S. diplomacy on cyber security. No replacement has been named and the future of the position in the State Department is in flux. Some of Trump’s cyber officials have publicly highlighted a strategy to focus less on building global norms and more on bilateral agreements. Trump and the Kremlin have said Russia and the United States are in discussions on creating a cyber security group. But at the big Black Hat and Def Con security conferences this week in Las Vegas the U.S. government will have an unusually light footprint. Past government speakers have included a head of the National Security Agency and senior Homeland Security officials.  A session featuring U.S. law enforcement officials discussing the purported theft by Russia of hundreds of millions of Yahoo account credentials was pulled at the last minute. A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the presentation was canceled  because the Yahoo expert slated to talk, Deputy Assistant Director Eric Sporre, had been reassigned to run the Tampa FBI office. The policy vacuum left by the United States is also affecting private security firms, which say they have grown more cautious in publicly attributing cyber attacks to nation-states lest they draw fire from the Trump administration.  Trump suggested in an April interview that the security firm CrowdStrike, which worked on investigating the election hack of the Democratic National Committee, might not be trustworthy because he was told it was controlled by a Ukrainian. It is not. Cyber policy veterans are particularly alarmed about the lack of U.S. and NATO response to the destructive attack, dubbed NotPetya, in June that struck computers worldwide but was especially harmful for Ukraine, which is in armed conflict with Russia in the east of the country. Cyber security experts, such as Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a government veteran who advised former President Barack Obama, believe Russia carried out the attack. The Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lewis and others predicted that Trump will not publicly accuse Russia, and NATO has only said it appears to be the work of a government agency somewhere. “If you are not ringing alarm bells in an eloquent way, then I think you’re dropping the ball,” said retired CIA officer Daniel Hoffman, who worked on Russian issues. “When we fail to do enough, that just emboldens them.”

Summary: विनाशकारी हमलों के बढ़ते ही अमेरिका ने साइबर नीति पर पानी फेर दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, will testify on June 6 before a House committee investigating alleged efforts by Russia to influence the U.S. election, ABC News reported on Wednesday. ABC News, which said Page had told it about the scheduled testimony, also cited a letter the former Trump adviser wrote to the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation in which he said witnesses the panel had already heard from had presented “one biased viewpoint.”

Summary: ट्रम्प अभियान के पूर्व सलाहकार पेज 6 जून को रूस की जांच में गवाही देंगेः एबीसी न्यूज


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Tuesday plans to introduce legislation seeking to address vulnerabilities in computing devices embedded in everyday objects - known in the tech industry as the “internet of things” - which experts have long warned poses a threat to global cyber security.     The new bill would require vendors that provide internet-connected equipment to the U.S. government to ensure their products are patchable and conform to industry security standards. It would also prohibit vendors from supplying devices that have unchangeable passwords or possess known security vulnerabilities.  Republicans Cory Gardner and Steve Daines and Democrats Mark Warner and Ron Wyden are sponsoring the legislation, which was drafted with input from technology experts at the Atlantic Council and Harvard University. A Senate aide who helped write the bill said that companion legislation in the House was expected soon. “We’re trying to take the lightest touch possible,” Warner told Reuters in an interview. He added that the legislation was intended to remedy an “obvious market failure” that has left device manufacturers with little incentive to build with security in mind. The legislation would allow federal agencies to ask the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for permission to buy some non-compliant devices if other controls, such as network segmentation, are in place. It would also expand legal protections for cyber researchers working in “good faith” to hack equipment to find vulnerabilities so manufacturers can patch previously unknown flaws.     Security researchers have long said that the ballooning array of online devices including cars, household appliances, speakers and medical equipment are not adequately protected from hackers who might attempt to steal personal information or launch sophisticated cyber attacks. Between 20 billion and 30 billion devices are expected to be connected to the internet by 2020, researchers estimate, with a large percentage of them insecure. Though security for the internet of things has been a known  problem for years, some manufacturers say they are not well equipped to produce cyber secure devices. Hundreds of thousands of insecure webcams, digital records and other everyday devices were hijacked last October to support a major attack on internet infrastructure that temporarily knocked some web services offline, including Twitter, PayPal and Spotify.  The new legislation includes “reasonable security recommendations” that would be important to improve protection of federal government networks, said Ray O’Farrell, chief technology officer at cloud computing firm VMware.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेटर 'इंटरनेट ऑफ थिंग्स' को सुरक्षित करने के लिए विधेयक पेश करेंगे


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street power brokers may have rolled their eyes in private when ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Steven Mnuchin agreed to be Donald Trump’s national finance chairman, but now they are lining up to meet him. Financial lobbyists and their bosses are hoping that Mnuchin and others Trump has enlisted as advisers will help convey their views and act as interpreters of the president-elect’s so far at times confusing messages. “This is different from a lot of elections in the past where you could say, ‘If so-and-so wins, this will be good for that industry and bad for that one,’” said Scott Bok, chief executive of investment bank Greenhill & Co Inc. “It’s not like Trump laid out a clear set of policies where you can say, ‘This is good for these types of companies and bad for those.’” Bankers and their lobbyists are hoping their path to influence will become clearer in the coming weeks with Trump’s cabinet appointments. “It is a matter now of getting to the people who are coming in and convincing them of the benefits of some moderate deregulation to foster economic growth,” said one industry executive, who declined to speak publicly about Trump. During the presidential campaign, many people on Wall Street had supported his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton viewing her as a pragmatist and a stabilizing force.    Despite castigating hedge fund managers for “getting away with murder” on their taxes and making a vague pledge to strip big banks of their profitable trading arms, Trump has surrounded himself with financiers including Mnuchin and hedge fund firm bosses John Paulson and Anthony Scaramucci. At the time some of their peers thought they were taking an opportunistic punt as they viewed Trump as unpredictable and populist and were vexed by his snipes at the industry. Six months later, government-relations executives for big banks are scrambling to secure meetings with them as well as key staffers on Capitol Hill’s important financial committees, in hopes they can provide a sympathetic ear for the industry. “That work begins immediately,” said one industry lobbyist who was not authorized to speak publicly. Trump’s lack of political experience and his scattershot pronouncements have made him a wild card for big business, making private contacts with his inner circle especially critical.     On bank regulation, Trump has promised to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and implement a new, possibly tougher one, but offered few details on what it would look like. Although Trump’s outsider status helped him win, he has turned to some well-known Washington insiders when looking to fill vacancies at U.S. financial regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Former Republican SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, who founded and heads the regulatory consulting firm Patomak Global Partners LLC, is leading the transition team for financial regulation, according to a person familiar with the matter. Come January, Trump is expected to designate SEC Republican Commissioner Michael Piwowar as acting chair. It is unclear if Trump will make the role permanent or later tap someone new. SEC Chair Mary Jo White, an independent appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013, is expected to leave the agency when Obama’s term is over. Mnuchin is seen as the likely pick for Treasury Secretary. He did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. KBW policy analyst Brian Gardner predicts Vice President-elect Mike Pence will have a major influence on who gets appointed to key roles, and will choose “orthodox Republicans” who are equally familiar as some others in Trump’s circle. In an emailed statement, Scaramucci said Trump’s reputation for unpredictability was undeserved. “While spending time with President-elect Trump during the campaign I got to know a very analytical and compassionate person,” Scaramucci, founder and a co-managing partner of investment firm SkyBridge Capital, said.  Several policy experts predicted Trump and the new Congress will water down some financial reform rules, such as the Durbin amendment that limits bank fees or the Volcker rule against proprietary trading. They uniformly expect diminished power, if not a gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the Trump administration may also propose regulations that are more problematic, such as extremely high capital requirements or a revival of the Depression-era Glass Steagall law that broke up big banks. Mnuchin, however, was cited by many as a ray of hope. Although he has not publicly expressed opinions on financial regulation or fiscal policy, bankers and lobbyists said they felt reassured by his experience on Wall Street. “I can’t imagine that his goal would be to destroy Goldman Sachs,” said the industry executive, “which is better than some.”

Summary: निराशा ने व्यावहारिकता को रास्ता दिया क्योंकि वॉल स्ट्रीट ने ट्रम्प के लिए कमर कस ली है


NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - A Mauritanian blogger condemned to death in 2014 for apostasy in a Facebook post about Islam will be freed because an appeals court on Thursday overturned his sentence, his lawyer said.     Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir has spent nearly four years in jail after a high-profile case surrounding a post in which he criticized the use of religion to justify social discrimination.  The case has highlighted tempestuous social divisions in the desert West African country, often based on ethnicity. Thousands protested in the capital Nouakchott and other cities during the trial demanding Mkhaitir be put to death.  Mauritania has not carried out a death penalty sentence since 1987, but last year a group of influential Muslim clerics urged authorities to apply the harshest punishment.  The court reduced Mkhaitir s sentence to two years in prison and a fine of 60,000 ouguiyas ($170). He will be allowed to go free because of time already served in prison, his lawyer Me Mohamed Ould Moine told Reuters.   This is a great victory for Mauritanian justice,  Moine said after the appeal hearing in the northern city of Nouadhibou.  The judges respected Mauritanian law taking into account his regrets and repentance.  The streets of Nouakchott were calm immediately after the hearing, though there was extra security in place there and in Nouadhibou. His lawyer and rights groups have expressed concerns about Mkhaitir s safety following death threats to him and his friends.

Summary: धर्मत्याग के लिए मौत की सजा का सामना करने वाले मॉरिटानियाई ब्लॉगर को रिहा किया जाएगा


NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s 90 percent cut to Obamacare advertising has U.S. health insurers in many states digging deeper into their pockets to get the word out about 2018 enrollment, which opened last week. Independence Blue Cross, a health insurer in Pennsylvania, has commissioned a tractor trailer truck to bring insurance consultants out to shopping centers and other neighborhood spots around Philadelphia.      Centene Corp (CNC.N), best known for its Medicaid health insurance, is expanding TV and print advertising for Obamacare as it ventures into three new states: Kansas, Missouri and Nevada. Tech-savvy newcomer Oscar Health has four different TV commercials running in six states including Texas and Ohio that espouse “easy health insurance” with video shots of patients text-messaging with Oscar.     Trump cut $90 million in advertising and outreach spending for the 2018 enrollment period, which opened on Nov. 1, part of his promise to let Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law “implode” until Congress can repeal it. Republicans say the Affordable Care Act, the law that created Obamacare, drives up costs for consumers, while Democrats warn that millions of Americans will be left without healthcare if it is dismantled. The advertising serves two roles: It helps draw in the young, healthy customers who keep overall member costs down and it addresses confusion among many people over whether the subsidies that help make coverage affordable to many and Obamacare itself still exist in the wake of Trump’s actions. The government’s advertising budget is now just $10 million for the 39 states that rely on the federal Healthcare.gov website to enroll consumers. The 11 states that run their own exchanges, like California and New York, set their own advertising budgets.      “Our member plans are generally ramping up their efforts to kind of plug that hole,” said Kelley Turek, an executive policy director at industry lobbyist America’s Health Insurance Plans. “A decrease of $90 million is a big hole to plug.” News headlines about changes in the government's support of Obamacare and Trump’s tweets have raised fears that all program subsidies are ending. The government has also cut the enrollment period in half, to six weeks. (tmsnrt.rs/2k1HAlV) Adding to the confusion, insurers like Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) have sharply raised monthly premiums on the most popular Obamacare plans to account for reduced government funding, or pulled out of dozens of U.S. counties. As a result, many Obamacare customers may need to change health plans for 2018, either to work with a different insurer or in response to price increases.     “I still run into people who are wondering, am I still going to have a plan next year?” Independence Blue Cross Chief Executive Officer Daniel Hilferty said in an interview.      Hilferty said the company is increasing its advertising this year in part because of that confusion. In September, the Congressional Budget Office said it expected 2018 enrollment to reach 11 million people versus about 10 million this year. It cut its previous projection by 4 million as Trump threatened the law and later cut the estimated $10 billion in government subsidies to insurers to cover customer out-of-pocket costs in 2018. To make up for the reduced subsidies, which apply to the most common “silver” plans - the middle tier of the plans offered - insurers raised premiums by about 20 percent on those plans.  Others say total sign-ups will drop. Get America Covered, an outreach group founded by former Obama administration officials, predicts 1.1 million fewer people will sign up during the enrollment period.    Lori Lodes, a co-founder of the group, said the effort by insurers focused on local markets could not match the impact of a national campaign.      Various insurers say they are trying. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, the sole Obamacare insurer in most of North Dakota, increased online advertising for 2018, while traditional TV and radio advertising remained about flat, spokeswoman Andrea Dinneen said. Florida Blue, which has about 1 million members in Obamacare plans throughout Florida, is increasing its grass roots efforts this year. It has hired 700 temporary employees to help with enrollment and is planning to take part in more than 1,000 enrollment events, such as county fairs or educational sessions, spokesman Paul Kluding said. On the other hand, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan said it would spend less on wooing customers because of the financial pressures from the lowered subsidies, which went into effect this month. Instead it will focus on helping existing customers select plans that may keep premium costs down, rather than automatically re-enrolling in the silver plans. “We decided to try to be as lean as possible,” said Rick Notter, director of the individual business.

Summary: बीमाकर्ताओं ने ओबामाकेयर के लिए कदम बढ़ाया क्योंकि सरकार ने अपने प्रयासों में कटौती की


ALMATY (Reuters) - An Uzbek dissident who was detained this week on return from exile has been charged with two public security crimes that each carry a possible five-year sentence, news website Gazeta.uz quoted police as saying on Thursday. Nurulloh Muhammad Raufkhon, the first prominent dissident to return to Uzbekistan since the death of its long-time leader Islam Karimov, was detained on arrival on Wednesday, raising questions about the new president s efforts to change the country s image. Doniyor Tashkhojayev, deputy chief of Tashkent police, told local media Raufkhon had been charged in absentia and put on a wanted list after a criminal investigation launched in May. The charges include making public calls for unconstitutional change of the state order and producing and disseminating materials containing threat to public security and public order. Each is punishable by up to five years in prison. The interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Raufkhon was in exile in Turkey after publishing in the spring of 2016 a book critical of Karimov who had run the former Soviet republic with an iron fist since 1989.     The authorities then raided Raufkhon s house and put him on a blacklist of potential extremists and dissidents, which forced him to stay abroad. Karimov died last September and his successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, last month ordered the removal of 16,000 people, including Raufkhon, from the blacklist, as part of a broader liberalisation campaign. But Raufkhon s detention and possible conviction could indicate that Uzbekistan s powerful security apparatus is putting limits on such reforms. According to privately-owned Gazeta.uz, deputy chief of police Tashkhojayev said police would investigate Raufkhon s case and also see if his alleged crimes could fall within the scope of an amnesty.

Summary: उज़्बेक असंतुष्ट पर सरकार विरोधी प्रचार का आरोपः रिपोर्ट


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered construction of a U.S.-Mexican border wall and punishment for cities shielding illegal immigrants while mulling restoring a CIA secret detention program as he launched broad but divisive plans to reshape U.S. immigration and national security policy. A draft executive order seen by Reuters that Trump is expected to sign in the coming days would block the entry of refugees from war-torn Syria and suspend the entry of any immigrants from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and African countries Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen while permanent rules are studied. Less than a week into his presidency, Trump has moved aggressively to put his stamp on a range of policies, including steps to gut the healthcare system devised by his predecessor, and make clear that as president he is not turning toward more moderate positions than he took as a candidate. His directives on Wednesday signaled a tough action toward the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, most from Latin America, whom he already has threatened to deport. In a move critics called a slight to the integrity of American democracy, Trump also said on Wednesday he would seek a “major investigation” into what he believes was voter fraud in the November election, despite overwhelming consensus among state officials, election experts and politicians that it is rare in the United States.  “We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States,” Trump told an audience that included relatives of people killed by illegal immigrants at the Department of Homeland Security after signing two executive orders. The directives ordered the construction of a multibillion-dollar wall along the roughly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico border, moved to strip federal funding from “sanctuary” states and cities that harbor illegal immigrants, and expanded  the force of American immigration agents. His plans prompted an outcry from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers who said Trump was jeopardizing the rights and freedoms of millions of people while treating Mexico as an enemy, not an ally, and soiling America’s historic reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants of all stripes. “The border wall is about political theater at the expense of civil liberties,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition immigrant advocacy group. “It is not national security policy. Border communities are among the safest in the nation, and patrolling them with tens of thousands of heavily armed, poorly trained, unaccountable agents puts lives at risks. This will turn these communities into de facto military zones,” Ramirez said. The White House said the wall would stem the flow of drugs, crime and illegal immigration into the United States. “We are in the middle of a crisis on our southern border: The unprecedented surge of illegal migrants from Central America is harming both Mexico and the United States,” Trump said, adding: “A nation without borders is not a nation.” The immigration crackdown has sparked fear among so-called “dreamers,” whose parents brought them to the United States illegally and who received temporary deportation relief and work permits from President Barack Obama. Trump said the dreamers should not fear deportation. “They shouldn’t be very worried,” Trump told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.. “Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried,” he said, adding: “We’ll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks.” House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan also said the “dreamers” should not be worried. “We’re focused on physical security of the border, we’re focused on those who are coming to do us harm from terrorist states and things like that,” he told MSNBC. Trump is also expected to order a review that could lead to bringing back a CIA program for holding terrorism suspects in secret overseas “black site” prisons where interrogation techniques often condemned as torture were used during former Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, two U.S. officials said.  Trump’s actions could further test relations with Mexico. The wall plan has infuriated Mexicans. Trump’s policies, including his demand that the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada be renegotiated or scrapped, have put Mexico’s government on the defensive. Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto are due to meet next week. Pena Nieto said on Wednesday night that he “regrets and disapproves” of the push by Trump to build a new wall along the border. Officials in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, Washington, San Francisco and Seattle offer some forms of protection to illegal immigrants. Billions of dollars in federal aid to those cities, often governed by Democrats, could be at risk under Trump’s move. In the ABC News interview, Trump said construction on the wall would start within months, with planning starting immediately, and that Mexico would pay back to the United States “100 percent” of the costs. Mexican officials have said they will not pay for the wall. The White House said Trump’s goal was to get the wall started as quickly as possible using existing government funds and then work with the Republican-led Congress on further appropriations. Trump made cracking down on illegal immigration a key element of his presidential campaign, with supporters at his rallies often chanting: “Build the wall.” The cost, nature and extent of the wall remain unclear. Trump last year put the cost at “probably $8 billion,” although other estimates are higher, and he said the wall would span 1,000 miles (1,600 km) because of the terrain of the border. Trump’s directives would end the practice known by critics as “catch and release” in which authorities apprehend illegal immigrants on U.S. territory but do not immediately detain or deport them. The directives also include hiring 5,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents used to apprehend people seeking to slip across the border and tripling the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used to arrest and deport immigrants living in the United States illegally. They also create more detention space for illegal immigrants along the southern border to make it easier to detain and deport them. The intent of the proposals regarding refugees and immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority nations is to head off Islamist violence in the United States. The draft directive on immigration also suspends the U.S. refugee program for four months while determining whether permanent changes to the system are needed.

Summary: ट्रम्प दीवार के साथ आगे बढ़ते हैं, अमेरिकी आप्रवासन, सुरक्षा नीति पर मुहर लगाते हैं


CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela accused France on Wednesday of joining an  imperialist  campaign after President Emmanuel Macron portrayed the widely criticized socialist government as dictatorial. Adding to criticism from Washington, the United Nations and major Latin American nations, Macron on Tuesday called President Nicolas Maduro s administration  a dictatorship trying to survive at the cost of unprecedented humanitarian distress.  Many countries are outraged at the Venezuelan government s overriding of the opposition-led congress, crackdown on protests, jailing of hundreds of foes and failure to allow the entry of foreign humanitarian aid to ease a severe economic crisis. Authorities say local opposition leaders want to topple Maduro in a coup with U.S. support, but its new Constituent Assembly will guarantee peace.   Comments like this are an attack on Venezuelan institutions and seem to form part of the permanent imperialist obsession with attacking our people,  the government said in a communique responding to Macron.    The French head-of-state s affirmations show a deep lack of knowledge of the reality of Venezuela, whose people live in complete peace,  the statement said. It added that the assembly and upcoming state elections demonstrated the health of local democracy.   Leaders of the fractious opposition coalition boycotted the July 30 election of the assembly, branding it an affront to democracy. They called for an early presidential election, which Maduro would likely lose as his popularity has sunk along with an economy blighted by triple-digit inflation and food shortages. France s foreign ministry on Wednesday reiterated Macron s comments and said it was studying the best way to accompany all initiatives that would enable credible dialogue that included regional countries.  It is up to the Venezuelan authorities to give quick pledges in terms of respecting rule of law and fundamental freedoms,  spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne told reporters in a daily briefing.  The European Union and France will evaluate their relationship with Venezuela on this basis.

Summary: मैक्रों की 'तानाशाही' की आलोचना से आहत वेनेजुएला ने फ्रांस को लताड़ा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday it supported reviews by Congress of Russian interference into the 2016 U.S. presidential election, saying intelligence agencies have been cooperating closely with lawmakers from both parties. “We certainly have long supported the principle of congressional review of this matter,” spokesman Josh Earnest told a news briefing.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने रूसी हैकिंग की कांग्रेस की समीक्षा का समर्थन किया


MUMBAI (Reuters) - A blaze in a building under construction in a suburb of the Indian city of Mumbai killed at least six people, most of them laborers, and injured nearly a dozen, fire and police officials said on Thursday. The cause of the fire, which broke out late on Wednesday, was being investigated, a fire service officer said. It is likely to compound concern about safety in the financial hub after an old building collapsed last week killing 34 people. Laborers working on the building were living on the ground floor, some with families, and cooking gas canisters were believed to have exploded in the fire, fuelling its spread.  Though the fire was brought under control immediately, all injuries and deaths occurred before the arrival of the fire brigade,  said P.S. Rahangdale, chief officer at the Mumbai Fire Brigade. Eleven people were injured, eight of them critically, he said. Mumbai has endured torrential monsoon rain and serious flooding over recent weeks. The building collapsed last week in a congested neighborhood of the old city after two days of intense downpours.

Summary: भारत के मुंबई में इमारत में आग लगने से कम से कम छह लोगों की मौत हो गई


ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces launched an offensive on Saturday to capture Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic-State control, leaving the group s self-proclaimed caliphate on the verge of complete defeat. The capture of the town would mark the end of Islamic State s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. Syria s army declared victory over the militants on Thursday, after seizing the last substantial town on the border with Iraq. The army and its allies were still fighting Islamic State in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria. Two Iraqi infantry divisions and Sunni tribal forces are participating in the offensive to recapture the small town of Rawa and its surrounding areas along the border with Syria, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.  Last week, Iraqi forces recaptured the larger town of al-Qaim, in what Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called  record time , leaving just a few small pockets of land in Islamic State s hands. Iraq has been carrying out its final campaign to crush the Islamic State caliphate while also mounting a military offensive in the north against the Kurds who held an independence referendum in September.

Summary: इराकी बलों ने इस्लामिक स्टेट के नियंत्रण में अंतिम शहर पर फिर से कब्जा करने के लिए आक्रमण शुरू किया