WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday took aim at Democrats and Republicans alike in his final appearance headlining the star-studded White House correspondents’ dinner, but saved his sharpest barbs for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. “The Republican establishment is incredulous that he’s their most likely nominee,” Obama told attendees at the black-tie event, which brought together journalists and media moguls with Hollywood stars and power brokers from Capitol Hill and beyond. “They say Donald lacks the foreign policy experience to be president. But in fairness he has spent years meeting with leaders from around the world: Miss Sweden, Miss Argentina, Miss Azerbaijan,” the president said to howls of laughter, referring to contestants on the Miss Universe pageant that Trump formerly co-owned. Obama made fun of the angst many in the Republican establishment have expressed at the prospect that Trump or Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz could win the party’s nomination to run in the Nov. 8 presidential election. “Guests were asked to check whether they wanted steak or fish, but instead a whole bunch of you wrote in Paul Ryan,” Obama said, referring to the top Republican in the House of Representatives, who many have hoped could be lured into running for president. “That’s not an option people,” Obama said, displaying comedic chops perfected through seven previous appearances at the annual dinner. “You may not like steak or fish, but that’s your choice.” In his remarks, Obama looked back on his presidency and jokingly predicted the country may be nearing its doom. “The end of the republic has never looked better,” the tuxedo-clad president said looking out at the well-groomed crowd as he blasted Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus. “Congratulations on all your success,” Obama told Priebus, while wearing a sarcastic grin. “The Republican party, the nomination process – it’s all going great.” Larry Wilmore, the host of a show on cable outlet Comedy Central, took his own shots at Trump when he took the podium after Obama, joking that next year the dinner will be called: “Donald Trump presents a luxurious evening paid for by Mexico.” Trump has famously promised to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to prevent illegal immigration, and he has said he would force Mexico to pay for it. With a bit of nostalgia, Obama reflected on his more than seven years in office, saying he had been a young man of idealism and vigor before he became president. “Eight years ago I said it was time to change the tone of our politics,” Obama said. “In hindsight, I clearly should have been more specific.”

Summary: ओबामा ने अपने अंतिम वाशिंगटन संवाददाताओं के रात्रिभोज में ट्रम्प को आग लगा दी


MADRID (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the U.S. government has to improve its cyber security practices for the modern age of smart phones and other technology, saying that hackers had targeted the White House. “I am concerned about it, I don’t think we have it perfect. We have to do better, we have to learn from mistakes,” Obama told a news conference in Madrid. “We know that we have had hackers in the White House,” he added.  Concerns have been raised about the security of government information after the head of the FBI said presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email servers may have been accessed by foreign actors when she was Secretary of State.

Summary: ओबामा ने कहा कि अमेरिकी सरकार को साइबर सुरक्षा में सुधार करना चाहिए


STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden s center-right opposition no longer plans to bring a vote of no confidence in Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist over a botched IT outsourcing deal, after new information came to light, the alliance said.  Losing Hultqvist, one of the government s most popular ministers, would have been a blow to Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, with Sweden due to hold elections in just a year s time. Other parties can still go ahead with a vote, but they would not get the majority necessary to oust him.  Lofven has already replaced two ministers in his minority center-left government over the IT deal, and the opposition had also demanded the removal of Hultqvist, who has maintained he has done nothing wrong.  However, the Liberals and the Center Party have now changed their minds, saying new information showed Hultqvist s involvement was not as serious as previously thought.   This new information means that we can t support a vote of no confidence,  Liberal Party Leader Jan Bjorklund told a news conference. Votes of no confidence are not common in Sweden. Since 1980, only seven have taken place and none of them has been successful.

Summary: स्वीडन के विपक्षी दलों ने रक्षा मंत्री पर अविश्वास प्रस्ताव खारिज किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Without action by Congress to help Puerto Rico deal with its debt, the need for a bailout of the U.S. territory will become more likely, the White House said on Tuesday. Spokesman Josh Earnest made the comment at a regular White House briefing.

Summary: कांग्रेस ने कार्रवाई नहीं की तो प्यूर्टो रिको के बेलआउट की अधिक संभावनाः व्हाइट हाउस


(Reuters) - The state of Hawaii on Thursday asked a federal judge in Honolulu to clarify a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week which reinstated parts of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban. In a court filing, the state of Hawaii said the U.S. government intended to violate the Supreme Court’s instructions by improperly excluding from the United States people who actually have a close family relationship to U.S. persons.

Summary: हवाई राज्य ने न्यायाधीश से ट्रम्प के यात्रा प्रतिबंध के फैसले को स्पष्ट करने को कहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said on Monday he intended to make a “representative sampling” of Facebook Inc political ads believed to have been purchased by Russia available to the public later this month and that he hoped to make them all public eventually. Representative Adam Schiff confirmed that his committee, which is investigating Russian interference in last year’s presidential election, had received from Facebook more than 3,000 politically divisive ads the social media company found on its network that it said appeared in the months before and after the November 2016 U.S. election.

Summary: शीर्ष सदन खुफिया डेमोक्रेट रूस से खरीदे गए फेसबुक विज्ञापनों के नमूने को सार्वजनिक करने का इरादा रखता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Friday it carried out airstrikes on Nov. 20 in Yemen s al Bayda province that killed five militants from al Qaeda s affiliate there, including Mujahid al-Adani, whom it described as one of the group s leaders.  Al-Adani maintained a significant influence within AQAP as well as close ties to other AQAP senior leaders,  the U.S. military s Central Command said in a statement, using an acronym for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Summary: अमेरिकी सेना का कहना है कि यमन में हवाई हमलों में अल कायदा के पांच आतंकवादी मारे गए


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim said on Thursday that if  President-elect Donald Trump succeeds in office, it will be good news for Mexico, and that he would be more worried as an American than a Mexican about the next U.S. government. Slim, a telecoms tycoon who spent several years as the world’s richest man, says he has never met Trump, but the two businessmen traded barbs during a bruising U.S. election campaign in which Trump vowed to build a wall along the southern border to keep out Mexican immigrants. In October, Trump accused Slim, the top shareholder in The New York Times Co, of trying to help Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, even though Slim’s shares have limited voting rights. Then, a few days before the Nov. 8 election, Slim said Trump’s plans could “destroy” the United States economy.     In his first public comments since Republican Trump’s stunning victory, Slim said that Trump’s plans could risk the international leadership role the United States plays. “I’d be more worried if I were American,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “If he’s going to close the economy ... if he’s going out of the NATO and other international (bodies).” But Slim added that Trump’s potential success would also be Mexico’s, arguing that a 4 percent U.S. growth rate and the creation of millions of jobs would benefit Latin America’s second biggest economy. “That’s fantastic for Mexico,” Slim said at a Bloomberg event in Mexico City. Mexico should turn its attention inward and invest to spur growth, Slim said. He said Trump’s win had not affected any of his own investment plans. Still, Slim also warned the audience about the effects of some of the protectionist measures Trump has threatened to impose, including steep tariffs on Mexican-made goods. “To put a tax of 35 percent on our exports will be paid by (U.S.) consumers,” he said while speaking on a panel alongside Bloomberg founder and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Trump has said he would renegotiate or scrap a trade deal with Mexico. Trump attacked U.S. companies investing south of the border, battering Mexico’s peso. “It’s not easy to build a wall, anyway they build tunnels and most people arrive by plane,” Slim joked in comments before the election, referring to drug cartels digging tunnels to smuggle their products into the United States.

Summary: मेक्सिको का स्लिमः अगर ट्रम्प सफल होते हैं, तो मेक्सिको भी करता है


BEIRUT (Reuters) - The head of an Iran-backed Iraqi Shi ite militia has visited Lebanon s border with Israel accompanied by Hezbollah fighters, a video released on Saturday showed, in a show of Iranian influence that Lebanon s prime minister called illegal. Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Iraqi paramilitary group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, declared his readiness  to stand together with the Lebanese people and the Palestinian cause , in the video footage widely circulating on social media. His appearance at the frontier is likely to be seen in the Middle East as an example of Tehran demonstrating its reach, and could add to tension in Lebanon, caught in a regional tussle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri issued a statement saying the border visit by a paramilitary in uniform violated Lebanese law. He had instructed security chiefs to  prevent any person from carrying out activities of a military nature on the country s territory and to prevent any illegal actions , and barred Khazali from entering the country, it said.     Lebanon is still recovering from a crisis triggered a month ago, when Hariri announced his resignation while visiting Saudi Arabia, accusing Iran and Hezbollah of meddling in regional conflicts in violation of Lebanon s policy of non-intervention. Hariri returned to Lebanon two weeks later and withdrew his resignation last week, while his government restated its non-intervention policy. Hezbollah, a heavily armed Shi ite group that fights openly in Syria as an ally of Iran, serves in the power-sharing government with Hariri, a Sunni Muslim politician with deep business and political ties to Saudi Arabia. A commander in an alliance between Hezbollah, Iran and Russia, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said al-Khazali was accompanied by officers from Asaib Ahl al-Haq and visited the entire border with  occupied Palestine . The commander did not say when the visit took place. In the video, an unidentified commander, presumably from Hezbollah, gestures toward military outposts in northern Israel and explains to Khazali that they were hit by Hezbollah missiles in previous confrontations between the group and Israel.  We are now on the border separating southern Lebanon with occupied Palestine with our brothers in Hezbollah, and announce our full preparedness to stand united...against the Israeli occupier,  Khazali says in the video.  Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in June that any future war waged by Israel against Syria or Lebanon could draw in fighters from countries including Iran and Iraq. Iran s Revolutionary Guards, who established Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982, have mobilized Shi ite militias from around the region in recent years. They have fought Islamic State in Iraq and helped President Bashar al-Assad in the war in Syria.

Summary: लेबनान के हरीरी ने इराकी शिया अर्धसैनिक बल की सीमा की यात्रा की निंदा की


SYDNEY (Reuters) - A damaged pipeline that resulted in a fuel shortage across New Zealand and grounded hundreds of flights will be restarted on Sunday after repairs were completed, officials said.   This is a significant milestone,  New Zealand Refining Co Ltd  said in a statement on its website on Saturday. It said it expected to be delivering jet fuel to Auckland Airport between Monday and Wednesday. Repairs were completed late on Friday.  More than 100 flights were canceled over the past three days and many more delayed, disrupting the plans of thousands of travelers. The government called in the military to help truck in supplies of fuel just days before a general election.  Damage to the 170 km (105 miles) fuel line, which supplies almost all of the fuel for New Zealand s largest city, was believed to have been caused by a digger. Refining NZ Chief Executive Sjoerd Post later told New Zealand media that full capacity would probably not return until early next year.   We are in a start-up process ... so we re going carefully,  Post told Fairfax Media. He said the pipeline would operate at 80 per cent capacity until further tests were carried out over the next few months. The New Zealand government set up a commission to oversee the response to the crisis amid concerns raised by tourism industry officials about the impact on the international reputation of the South Pacific island nation. Tourism has soared to record levels of more than 3.4 million visitors a year to New Zealand.

Summary: न्यूजीलैंड की क्षतिग्रस्त ईंधन पाइपलाइन रविवार को फिर से शुरू की जाएगीः न्यूजीलैंड रिफाइनिंग


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed cooperation on the Syrian crisis, Middle East issues, and the agreement to bring peace to Ukraine in a meeting on Sunday, Lavrov s spokeswoman said. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said  the meeting was on cooperation in Syria crisis, Middle East issues and Minsk agreement . No other details were immediately available. The top Russian and U.S. diplomats met in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Summary: टिलरसन, रूस के लावरोव ने सीरिया, यूक्रेन, मध्य पूर्व पर चर्चा की


MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Spanish authorities have done enough to discredit and prevent a planned referendum this Sunday on independence in Catalonia, two senior government officials told Reuters on Monday, though they may now let a secession  party  happen.  There may be a party on Sunday at which, on squares and in streets, some voting stalls may be installed and a mock vote may take place. But it will not be a referendum,  one of the officials said on condition of anonymity. The officials said Catalonia lacked a proper election commission, ballots boxes, ballot papers, a transparent census and election material, and other material needed to hold the vote. They also said the result of the vote or a potential unilateral declaration of independence afterwards would not be granted any international recognition or legitimacy.  Not even Venezuela or North Korea will recognize it. And if they do, I am not sure it would help the independence campaign a lot,  the official said.

Summary: स्पेन के अधिकारियों का कहना है कि 'बदनाम' कैटलन जनमत संग्रह के लिए खेल खत्म हो गया है


LONDON (Reuters) - Britain won a vote of confidence from its economically important life sciences sector on Wednesday as several major drug companies committed to invest in the country under the government s industrial strategy plans after Brexit. The move is welcome news for Prime Minister Theresa May, who has struggled to win over large sections of industry as Britain prepares to leave the European Union. Thanks to the strength of UK universities and the presence of two major pharmaceuticals companies in GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, the drugs industry has been a bright spot in the British economy for many years.  But the highly regulated sector faces potential obstacles to trade as a result of Brexit unless London and Brussels manage to align regulatory regimes for medicines. In a bid to soften the blow, the government has backed a report by immunologist and geneticist John Bell designed to boost the pharmaceutical sector via fresh public-private collaborations. That has paved the way for the Life Sciences Sector Deal, which will see GSK invest 40 million pounds ($54 million) of new money in genomic research, including a plan to sequence DNA from all 500,000 volunteer participants enrolled in UK Biobank, the world s most detailed biomedical database. GSK s head of research Patrick Vallance said the deal showed Britain remained an attractive place for drug discovery, but he cautioned:  The UK needs to recognize going forward that science is an international endeavor, not a parochial endeavor.  Other investments by pharma companies include plans by Johnson & Johnson and the Medicines Co to work on new clinical trials and genetic research by AstraZeneca. U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co had already announced plans to expand UK research operations under the deal last week. In all, the government said the deal brought together existing and future commitments by 25 global organizations. Other companies in discussions with the government about investments include Philips, Roche Diagnostics, Siemens, GE Healthcare and Toshiba Medical Systems. As a key part of the deal, the government said it was committed to increasing investment in R&D to 2.4 percent of GDP by 2027 and 3 percent over the longer term.

Summary: जीएसके, अन्य दवा निर्माता ब्रेक्सिट के बाद ब्रिटेन के विज्ञान पर दांव लगाते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday to congratulate her on securing the delegates needed to become the Democratic presidential nominee, the White House said. “Her historic campaign inspired millions and is an extension of her lifelong fight for middle-class families and children,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. Obama also spoke to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, and will meet with him on Thursday at Sanders’ request, Earnest said. “The president thanked Senator Sanders for energizing millions of Americans with his commitment to issues like fighting economic inequality and special interests’ influence on our politics,” Earnest said.

Summary: ओबामा ने क्लिंटन को बधाई दी, सैंडर्स से मुलाकात करेंगेः व्हाइट हाउस


ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish and Russian officials will meet to finalize Turkey s S-400 surface-to-air missile systems deal in the coming week, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Turkey has been negotiating with Russia to buy the system for more than a year. Washington and some of its NATO allies see the decision as a snub because the weapons cannot be integrated into the alliance s defenses. Turkey expects to receive its first such system in 2019, defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said in November adding that the deal includes two S-400 systems while one was optional.  Our officials will come together in the coming week to finalize the S-400 issue,  Erdogan said during a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Turkey has been working to develop its own defense systems and equipment and has lined up several projects for the coming years including combat helicopters, tanks, drones and more. Erdogan also said Ankara and Moscow were on the same page regarding the U.S. move on Jerusalem and added that two leaders would keep in contact on the issue.

Summary: तुर्की और रूस आने वाले सप्ताह में एस-400 रक्षा समझौते को अंतिम रूप देने के लिए मिलेंगे


STRASBOURG/PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron defended new security legislation on Tuesday, saying Islamist militants still posed a serious threat to France as a two-year state of emergency comes to an end. The anti-terrorism law, which critics say undermines civil liberties, takes effect on Wednesday, replacing the state of emergency that was imposed in November 2015, when militants killed 130 people in coordinated attacks across Paris. The law gives the police greater powers to search properties, conduct electronic eavesdropping and shut down mosques suspected of preaching hatred than they had prior to the state of emergency. Speaking to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, eastern France, Macron said  jihadist terrorism  remained the biggest security threat to France.  Terrorism targets European society and values just as it targets government and state. We are being attacked because of what we stand for,  said Macron, who took office in May.  More than 240 people have been killed on French soil in Islamist-inspired attacks in almost three years. Dozens more have been killed in similar attacks elsewhere in Europe, primarily in Britain and Belgium. The government says the state of emergency has helped intelligence agencies to thwart more than 30 attacks. Many of those emergency powers will now be enshrined in law, drawing criticism from human rights groups.  France has become so addicted to the state of emergency that it is now injecting several of these abusive measures into ordinary law,  Human Rights Watch said before parliament backed the legislation. Macron said the new legislation would be reviewed and adapted as needed two years from now.  We re fighting terrorism with determination and we will continue to do so within the bounds of the law and with the oversight of judges,  Macron said.

Summary: फ्रांस में आपातकाल समाप्त होने के बाद मैक्रों ने नए आतंकवाद विरोधी कानून का बचाव किया


LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom could happen around June, the outgoing chief of London’s Metropolitan Police said on Thursday. Speaking on an LBC radio show, police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe said: “I think President Trump is coming around June.” The police chief added that there was concern about protests during the visit. Prime Minister Theresa May, seeking closer ties to Washington as Britain withdraws from the European Union, invited Trump to make a state visit to Britain. A state visit involves lavish displays of royal pageantry and a banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth.  May’s invitation prompted criticism in Britain with over 1.8 million people signing a petition calling for the visit to be scrapped. The speaker of the lower house of Britain’s parliament said he did not support the idea of Trump addressing parliament during the visit. “The invitation has only relatively recently been extended and accepted,” May’s spokesman told reporters. “The details surrounding that trip are yet to be firmed up.”

Summary: ट्रम्प की ब्रिटेन यात्रा जून के आसपास हो सकती हैः लंदन पुलिस प्रमुख


CAIRO (Reuters) - The  Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) never intended to engage in a war with the Iraqi army, minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the KRG department of foreign relations, told broadcaster CNN in an interview.      There is a need for dialogue between KRG and Iraq so as to reach a common understanding, Bakir said, according to a transcript of the interview published on KRG s website, adding the dispute was not about oil or the national flag but about the future of two nations. Kurdish Peshmerga forces have retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after a Kurdish independence referendum, a senior Iraqi commander said on Wednesday. The Baghdad central government considers the Sept. 25 Kurdish independence referendum illegal, especially as it was held not just in the autonomous KRG region but in Kirkuk and other adjacent areas that Peshmerga forces held after driving out Islamic State militants in 2014.

Summary: कुर्दिस्तान का कभी भी इराक के साथ युद्ध करने का इरादा नहीं थाः केआरजी


KABUL/JAKARTA (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters in Muslim-majority countries in Asia rallied on Friday to condemn the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, as authorities tightened security outside U.S. embassies. Leaders in Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan have joined a global chorus of condemnation of President Donald Trump s decision. Hundreds of protesters gathered in Afghanistan s capital with placards, effigies of Trump and at least one burning U.S. flag.   Death to America! Death to Trump and Israel!  the crowds chanted. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, a staunch U.S. ally, has not commented on the Trump decision. In Indonesia, a few hundred demonstrators mostly clad in white rallied outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, capital of the world s biggest Muslim-majority country.  Some wore checkered scarves and waved Palestinian flags.  We re standing here in the name of justice and humanity. We ve gathered to defend our Palestinian brothers and sisters,  said one rally leader in Jakarta. Trump said on Wednesday the United States would move its embassy to Jerusalem in the coming years.  Protests have erupted in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as the Islamist group Hamas urged Palestinians to launch a fresh uprising against Israel.     The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest barriers to a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Its eastern sector was captured by Israel in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state they seek. In Malaysia, protesters gathered in front of the American embassy in the capital, Kuala Lumpur.  Mr President, this is an illegal announcement. Jerusalem is an occupied territory,  Minister for Youth and Sports Khairy Jamaluddin said through a loudspeaker towards the embassy. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday called on Muslims worldwide to strongly oppose any recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital. About 3,000 people in Bangladesh gathered in front of the main mosque in the capital, Dhaka, to protest.  In Pakistan s major cities, hundreds of Islamists hardliners rallied in small groups.  Down with America, down with Israel and no to Israel occupation,  chanted protesters in the cities of Lahore and Peshawar. Controversial Pakistani cleric Hafiz Saeed promised bigger protests over Jerusalem and urged the government to convene a conference of Muslim-majority states.  Pakistan should take the lead, being the only nuclear state of the Islamic world,  said Saeed, who was released from house arrest last month by a Pakistani court.  The United States and India blame Saeed as the mastermind of the attacks that killed 166 people in India s financial capital, Mumbai.  In Kashmir, small groups of people protested in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian portion of the divided Muslim-majority region that is claimed by both India and Pakistan.  We condemn the idiot Trump s decision,  said a placard on an effigy of the U.S. president.

Summary: ट्रम्प की जेरूसलम योजना के खिलाफ एशिया में मुसलमानों का विरोध प्रदर्शन


CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt s security forces suffered one of their heaviest attacks after militants firing rockets and detonating explosives hit a police operation on Friday in the western desert, authorities and security sources said on Saturday. Three security sources said at least 52 police officers and conscripts had been killed in gun battles that erupted in the remote desert, but Egyptian authorities said only 16 men had died when their patrol came under attack.  Egyptian authorities on Saturday said two police operations were moving in on a suspected militant hideout on Friday when one of the patrols came under fire from heavy weapons in a remote area around 135 km southwest of Cairo. The interior ministry said 16 police were killed in that part of the operation, and 13 more were wounded. At least 15 militants were also killed in the gun fight. The statement did not give details on any casualties in the other police patrol.  As soon as the first mission approached the location of the terrorist elements, they sensed the arrival of the forces and targeted them using heavy weapons from all directions,  the interior ministry said in a statement. One security source said the convoy was attacked from higher ground by militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and detonating explosive devices on the ground. Security has been a key point for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former military commander who presents himself as a bulwark against terrorism after leading the ouster of president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Sisi was elected on a landslide a year later. Though he has yet to declare his intentions, Sisi is widely expected to run for re-election in April next year with little opposition. But critics say his popularity has been dimmed because of security and economic austerity policies.   No group made any claim or statement about Friday s operation not far from the capital. But most of the fighting so far between militants and security forces has been in northern Sinai, where an Islamic State affiliate operates. Security sources earlier said the police had been hunting hideout of the Hasm Movement, an Islamist militant group blamed for attacks on judges and police around the capital. That group has in the past only carried out mostly small operations since it emerged last year. Egyptian authorities say it is the armed militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group it outlawed in 2013. Most of its leadership has been jailed in a crackdown under Sisi. Since Sisi came to power, hundreds of troops and police have been killed in often sophisticated attacks by militants in the northern Sinai region, where Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014. Last Sunday, at least 24 militants and six soldiers were killed in attacks on military outposts in North Sinai, when more than 100 militants repeatedly attacked security outposts south of the border town of Sheikh Zuweid. Attacks have mostly hit police and armed forces, but militants have also extended their campaign outside the Sinai, targeting Egypt s Christians with bomb attacks on churches in Cairo and other cities.

Summary: मिस्र में आतंकवादियों ने पुलिस पर किया हमला, दर्जनों मारे गएः सूत्र


AMES, Iowa (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday expanded her plan to tax the wealthiest Americans by saying she would close tax-avoidance “loopholes” that allow investments to be routed through low-tax countries and put in tax-deferred retirement accounts. “My plan is kind of simple: we go after the wealthy to pay for what the middle-class working people and poor people need,” Clinton said at a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa on Tuesday.  “I think that’s a smart way to help fund some of our priorities,” Clinton added. Clinton said she would end the “Bermuda reinsurance loophole” that allows hedge fund managers to route investments through an insurance company in a low-tax country such as Bermuda to avoid paying a higher tax rate.  Clinton also said she would close what she calls the “Romney loophole,” which allows wealthy individuals to shield large sums of money in individual retirement accounts from taxation. Her proposals come after a plan announced Monday to add a 4.0 percent income-tax surcharge on earners of more than $5 million per year.  Clinton has reiterated her support for the Buffett rule, named after billionaire investor and Clinton endorser Warren Buffett, which would institute a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on those earning more than $1 million per year.  Clinton, long the Democratic party’s front-runner for the nomination, is unveiling her plan to tax the wealthy amid slipping poll numbers in the key early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire as her chief rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, has wooed supporters with his plan to address income inequality. On Tuesday, a Quinnipiac poll saw Sanders win a five-point lead over Clinton among likely Iowa caucus-goers.  In New Hampshire, Sanders outpaced the former secretary of state by 14 points, securing 53 percent of the party’s support, a Monmouth University survey said. The polls had an error margin of 4.4 and 4.8 points, respectively. Iowa voters will kick off the nation’s nominating race with caucuses held on Feb. 1, and New Hampshire voters will cast ballots in the first-in-the-nation primaries on Feb. 9.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने चुनाव में सैंडर्स के लाभ के साथ अमीरों पर कर लगाने की योजना का विस्तार किया


(Reuters) - A pastor from Idaho who was among five American prisoners released by Iran over the weekend will return to the United States on Thursday from Germany, his wife said on Wednesday. “Saeed will be landing on American soil Thursday evening,” Naghmeh Abedini said in a Facebook posting.  Saeed Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was detained in 2012. He was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2013 after being accused of harming Iran’s national security by setting up home-based churches in his native country. “He will spend a few days with his parents and then the kids and I will join him on Monday,” his wife said. The couple have two young children. The Americans’ release coincided with the implementation of a nuclear deal under which international economic sanctions against Iran were lifted in return for curbs on Iran’s atomic program. The White House offered clemency to seven Iranians who were convicted or facing trial in the United States. Abedini, along with Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and former Marine Amir Hekmati, arrived at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, on Sunday. Also released by Iran were Iranian-American Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, who stayed behind, and American student Matthew Trevithick.

Summary: ईरान में जेल से रिहा पादरी गुरुवार को अमेरिका लौटेंगेः पत्नी


SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is considering levying its own sanctions on North Korea as the isolated state ramps up tension with its missile and nuclear provocations, the South s vice foreign minister said on Wednesday, but no decision had been made yet.  Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam made the remarks at a news conference in Seoul with Deputy U.S. Secretary of State John J. Sullivan and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama.

Summary: सियोल ने उत्तर कोरिया के खिलाफ एकतरफा प्रतिबंधों पर विचार किया


MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) - When he saw his commander holding the severed head of one of his neighbors, teenage Islamist fighter Jalil knew it was time to escape from Marawi City. Churches and homes had been ransacked, people had been shot or taken hostage, and now Philippines government troops, planes and helicopters were pounding the Islamic State loyalists who had taken over large parts of the town on May 23. Six days into the occupation, 17-year-old Jalil said he came across a crowd of fellow fighters led by rebel chief Abdullah Maute, including a boy who looked about 10. They were cheering the beheading of a Christian from Jalil s neighborhood who was accused of being a spy.  Abdullah Maute was holding a man s head, he was shouting  Allahu akbar  (God is Greatest),  said Jalil, who spoke on condition his identity was not revealed to protect him from reprisals.  They chanted with him. At that point, I realized I had to get away. I wanted no part in this.  Jalil s story could not be independently verified. Authorities have placed him in protective custody and say he has helped identify militants fighting in Marawi.  Jalil is one of hundreds of Muslim youths lured by Islamic State followers in Mindanao, a poverty-plagued southern island of the Philippines that governments in Southeast Asia fear could become a regional stronghold for the ultra-radical group as it loses territory in Syria and Iraq. Rommel Banlaoi, executive director of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR), says foreign recruiters have been active in Mindanao for years but Islamic State s powerful propaganda and the rise of the local Maute clan of militants have brought a surge in followers.  The recruitment is now happening very, very rapidly,  said Banlaoi, who monitors mobilization in Mindanao via informants and police interrogation reports of militants.  They re very sophisticated. They are serious community organizers and serious recruiters.  Schools, madrassas (Islamic schools) and even day-care centers with extremist leanings have been identified as recruiting grounds.  Authorities are working with religious teachers to keep radical ideas out of mosques and off curriculums, according to army spokesman Colonel Romeo Brawner. But provincial leaders and some military officers say the efforts are weak, partly because militants have plenty of money to reel youths into their ranks. (For graphic on pro Islamic State groups in the Philippine south, click tmsnrt.rs/2qVpzH5) (For graphic on the battle for Marawi, click tmsnrt.rs/2rhRPEa) (For graphic on how main Islamic militant groups in Mindanao evolved, click tmsnrt.rs/2rUSOfc)  Jalil said his involvement began when he was 11 at a mosque in Piagapo, a rustic municipality 20 km (12 miles) from Marawi, where an imam convinced him to join 40 youngsters at a training camp in return for meals and 15,000 pesos ($294) per month. He underwent daily weapons and combat training, and teachings from the Koran. He was expelled from the program after only three months, he said, when he revealed details about his network during a mock interrogation. Jalil heard nothing from his recruiters for six years, but the day before the Marawi siege began, there was a knock at his door. Outside was a teenager, and behind him a pickup truck with 10 other youngsters on board.  I knew them, they were my classmates in training,  he said.     They told me  you re now back in service.  The ubiquitous villages with tattered mosques, wooden homes and dirt-track roads carved into the jungles and mountains of Mindanao are fertile ground for recruiting unschooled youngsters and turning them into militants in camps far off the radar. The army discovered one such training ground in Piagapo, after a three-day battle that killed 36 Maute fighters, among them foreigners and an imam. That was one month before the Marawi siege. [nL3N1HW00E] Reuters spoke to two teenagers from that camp, who said they were lured by promises of money, marriage and paradise after death.  They spoke on condition their full identities be withheld because authorities were not aware of their involvement, which they said ceased when the imam was killed. Their accounts could not be independently verified.  We were trained how to evade checkpoints. We were trained how to ambush, to move silently,  said 18-year-old Abdul, who described how he and others learned to dismantle rifles, make bombs and engage in hand-to-hand combat.  Faisal, 19, said the imam held Koran classes in small jungle huts, while foreigners, whose nationalities he did not know, trained them to fight non-believers.   The imam told us we would be rewarded with marriage to any beautiful girl we want,  he said. The government says poor and uneducated males like Abdul and Faisal are easy prey in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which comprises five of Mindanao s 27 provinces. In 2015-2016, the ARMM had the lowest secondary-school enrolment and the highest dropout rate, according to the education ministry, with just 32.4 percent of ARMM youth in school compared to the national average of 68 percent. Nearly half of ARMM families live in poverty, under the government s monthly income threshold of 9,064 pesos ($177), according to official data, compared to the national average of 16.5 percent. In Lanao del Sur, where Marawi is located, 66.3 percent of families live in poverty. But not all targets are poor, rural and uneducated.  Urban youth and students are also on the radar of recruiters who have infiltrated schools and universities and mastered social media, both to spread propaganda and to spot candidates for radicalization among Mindanao Muslims, known as Moros. Prime targets, said Banlaoi, are those posting on social media about economic and social exclusion, or historical injustice. A hot topic is the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front s (MILF) peace deal with the government, which promised to make ARMM a self-governing region called Bangsamoro (nation of Moros) but has been dogged by delays, breakdowns and mistrust. Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF s top negotiator, said extremists  exploit disillusionment with the Bangsamoro plan and promote violence by teaching only selected verses of the Koran.  We monitor them, but because the recruitment is so secretive, we cannot manage to do everything,  he told Reuters. Banlaoi said extremists had access to technology used in the Middle East by Islamic State to track chatter on platforms like Facebook and Telegram, find suitable candidates and probe their friend networks. These recruiters included Indonesians and Malaysian militants who were  very persistent . The government s fight is as much about winning hearts and minds among the Bangsamoro people as it is the battle for Marawi that has now ground on for nearly four months. Militants try to sway public opinion with slick videos celebrating their triumph over  crusaders  they say are destroying Muslim homes and businesses in Marawi with artillery and air strikes.  The military says its focus groups have shown some displaced Marawi children  idolise  the militants. It has sent female soldiers to counsel children in evacuation camps and identify those already radicalized. Jalil, the teen fighter said he was at first inspired by the rousing speeches of Abdullah Maute and his brother, Omarkhayam. But he was appalled by the bloodletting that ensued.  I can t forget what I saw. Every street corner there were dead bodies, Christians and Muslims,  he said. On the night of the execution he witnesses, Jalil abandoned his post guarding a bridge and rode a motorcycle for 50 km (31 miles) to evade army checkpoints. He turned himself in to police two weeks later. A former military intelligence officer who has tracked the Maute clan said the military under-estimated them as a  ragtag group . But the Mautes have demonstrated a capacity to regroup and, thanks to deep pockets and the respect they command among local youth, would probably strengthen after Marawi is retaken by  filling vacancies  left by hundreds of dead fighters. The worst-case scenario, the officer said, was if the Maute brothers survive.  Recruitment will be massive,  he said.  There are lots of students idolizing them.

Summary: इस्लामवादी फिलीपींस में युवाओं को पैसे देने, स्वर्ग का वादा करने का लालच देते हैं


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - France made a new plea on Monday for the United States to preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and suggested its provisions expiring after a decade could be strengthened, as U.S. President Donald Trump again criticized the agreement as  deeply flawed.  The pact between Tehran and six world powers, which calls for Iran to curb its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions, is under threat as Trump must decide by Oct. 15 whether to certify Iran is keeping its end of the bargain. If Trump, who as recently as Thursday accused Iran of violating  the spirit  of the deal, chooses not to certify, the pact could unravel, possibly triggering a regional arms race. The Republican president, who has called the agreement struck under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama,  the worst deal ever negotiated,  made no secret of his views during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.  The president believes that the JCPOA is deeply flawed, and he did share his views with President Macron about how he believes the deal is flawed,  Brian Hook, director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, told reporters. The pact is formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.  The president was very candid with him about what he thinks are the shortcomings. ... He told him that it is under review and that they are taking a hard look at the Oct. 15th decision and more broadly how to fix the Iran deal,  Hook said. Hook said the two also discussed an integrated strategy against Iran that would take into account what he described as Iran s support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, its destabilization in the Middle East and other aggressions. Asked if he planned to stick with the pact, Trump earlier told reporters as he began a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday:  You ll be seeing very soon. Israeli officials have said changes Israel wants in the JCPOA include lengthening the 10-year freeze on Iran s nuclear development program or even making that suspension permanent and destroying centrifuges rather than just halting their operation.  The deal was negotiated with Iran by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France. The six will meet with Iran at the ministerial level on Wednesday.          The prospect of Washington reneging on the agreement has worried some of the U.S. allies that helped negotiate it, especially as the world grapples with another nuclear crisis, North Korea s nuclear and ballistic missile development.  It is essential to maintain it to avoid proliferation. In this period when we see the risks with North Korea, we must maintain this line,  French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters.  France will try to convince President Trump of the pertinence of this choice (keeping the accord), even if work can be done to complement the accord after 2025,  he said. A senior French official said Trump had not given Macron an indication on whether he had made up his mind during their Monday bilateral.  However, the official said Macron had put on the table the prospect of new nuclear negotiations after 2025 during his bilateral with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani and warned him that Tehran should stop provoking the United States with its regional activities.  We feel the post 2025 subject is a red line, but our president put it on the table because it s a concern and a legitimate request that we must make,  the official said.  2025 will arrive quickly and we have to be ready before Jan 1. 2025, so he asked that we think together how to work on this question.   If Trump does not certify that Iran is complying with the agreement, the U.S. Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions waived under the deal. Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Sunday that Tehran would react strongly to any  wrong move  by Washington on the nuclear deal. Paris took one of the hardest lines against Tehran in the negotiations, but has been quick to restore trade ties and Macron has said repeatedly there is no alternative to the deal.  French officials say Iran is respecting the JCPOA and that, were the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to say otherwise, a mechanism exists to reimpose sanctions. The IAEA is the body ensuring the accord is carried out, but the United States and Iran quarreled over how Tehran s nuclear activities should be policed at an IAEA meeting on Monday after a U.S. call last month for wider inspections. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson argued on Friday that Washington must consider the full threat it says Iran poses to the Middle East when crafting its new policy toward Tehran. A senior French diplomat underlined that the nuclear deal was achieved in large part because it was not linked to all the other grievances the United States may have had with Iran. With Europeans not on the same page as the Trump administration, Iranian officials say they have an opportunity to divide the P5+1 group that negotiated the deal with Iran. A senior Iranian diplomat and a former nuclear negotiator said he believed the Europeans had no intention of following Trump s overtly aggressive Iran policy.  They are wise. Look at the region. Crisis everywhere. From Iraq to Lebanon. Iran is a reliable regional partner for Europe, not only a trade partner but a political one as well,  the diplomat said.  European powers have been committed to the deal. The IAEA has repeatedly confirmed Iran s commitment to the deal. Trump s insistence on his hostile policy towards Iran will further deepen the gap among the P5+1 countries,  the diplomat said.

Summary: फ्रांस ने ईरान परमाणु समझौते का बचाव किया, जिसे ट्रंप ने बेहद त्रुटिपूर्ण बताया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington next month to discuss security and other issues and the Indian leader will be granted the rare honor of addressing both houses of Congress. The White House said Obama and Modi will discuss economic growth, climate change, clean energy, and security and defense cooperation during their June 7 meeting.  It will be Modi’s fourth trip to the United States since he became prime minister in 2014.    “The visit will highlight the deepening of the U.S.-India relationship in key areas,” the White House said in a statement on Friday. The two countries’ partnership is seen as critical in Washington, which is seeking to counterbalance China’s increasing power.  Modi will address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, an opportunity extended to few foreign leaders, the day after the White House meeting, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a tweet. The invitation is a sharp turnaround for Modi, who was once barred from the United States over massacres of Muslims. Last  year there were only two joint addresses to Congress - by Pope Francis and by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, another important U.S. ally in Asia. In 2005, then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration denied Modi a visa, citing a 1998 U.S. law barring entry to foreigners who have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in sectarian riots in Gujarat in 2002 when Modi had just become the state’s chief minister. Modi has denied any wrongdoing, and India’s Supreme Court in 2010 ruled there was no case. Obama, who has adopted a “pivot to Asia” strategy and is keen to encourage a greater Indian military role in East Asia, quickly dismissed the issue by inviting Modi to the White House as soon as he called to congratulate him on winning the 2014 election. The United States is also keen to encourage greater business and trade with India. Progress has been only gradual, but in late March, the chief executive of U.S. nuclear reactor maker Westinghouse Electric said he expected to sign a deal in June to build six  reactors in India after marathon negotiations that began more than a decade ago. The deal would be the first nuclear commercial power project since the United States and India agreed in 2008 to cooperate in the civil nuclear arena. Westinghouse is owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp.

Summary: भारत के मोदी ओबामा से मिलेंगे, अगले महीने कांग्रेस को संबोधित करेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate moved on Tuesday toward ramming through approval of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee this week, as its top Republican said he had the votes to wipe away Democratic roadblocks but vowed to preserve the minority party’s ability to hold up legislation. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to change the Senate’s long-standing rules in order to eliminate the ability to use a procedural hurdle called a filibuster against Supreme Court nominees like Trump’s pick, Neil Gorsuch, if a Democratic filibuster succeeds as expected in blocking a confirmation vote. Senate confirmation of Gorsuch, 49, to the lifetime post would restore the court’s conservative majority and enable Trump to leave a lasting imprint on America’s highest judicial body even as he regularly criticizes the federal judiciary. McConnell said he had the necessary votes to approve the rule change with a simple majority vote, expected on Thursday. Republicans control the Senate 52-48. The rule change has been dubbed the “nuclear option,” and Trump has encouraged McConnell to “go nuclear.” Such a step would threaten to further erode trust between the parties in Congress. “There’s a reason they call it the nuclear option, and that is because there’s fallout. And this fallout will be dangerously and perhaps disastrously radioactive for the Senate for years to come,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters. Republicans were so confident they could use their muscle to pass the rule change that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said flatly that Gorsuch “will be on the Supreme Court Friday night.” Amid a fierce debate over both Gorsuch and the Senate’s rules, McConnell tried to tamp down any speculation that Republicans would stage a monumental power grab by ending the filibuster for legislation. McConnell said that as long as he was the Senate’s majority leader, he would never remove the ability to mount a filibuster against legislation, as opposed to presidential appointments. McConnell fought against many of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s legislative initiatives when Republicans were the minority party in the Senate. “There’s not a single senator in the (Republican) majority who thinks we ought to change the legislative filibuster, not one,” McConnell told reporters. The move to change venerable Senate rules reflects an intensifying of the already-toxic partisanship in Washington since Trump took office in January. McConnell’s promise to keep the ability to filibuster legislation could make it more difficult for Republicans to get key parts of Trump’s legislative agenda through the Senate, considering the expected strong Democratic opposition. A filibuster requires a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate in order to proceed to a simple majority vote on a Supreme Court nominee or legislation. The 60-vote super-majority threshold that gives the minority party power to hold up the majority party has forced the Senate over the decades to try to achieve bipartisanship in legislation and presidential appointments. The Senate on Tuesday kicked off its formal debate on confirming Gorsuch, a Colorado-based appeals court judge, and McConnell said he would get the clock ticking toward a vote expected on Thursday to stop the Democrats’ filibuster. Democrats on Monday amassed the votes needed to sustain the filibuster, prompting Republicans to move toward changing the rules. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley took to the Senate floor on Tuesday evening to rally support for the Gorsuch filibuster. His office said in a statement that he “plans to hold the floor and refuse to yield for as long as he is able to continue speaking.” Merkley’s “talking filibuster” is not expected to affect the Republican timetable for Gorsuch’s confirmation.  The filibuster in one form or another dates back to the 19th century but assumed its current form in the 1970s. The Democrats were the first to use the “nuclear option.” In 2013, when they controlled the Senate, they changed it to bar filibusters for executive branch nominees and federal judges aside from Supreme Court justices. They did so after Republicans filibustered Obama’s appeals court nominees. “Democrats are now being pushed by far-left interest groups into doing something truly detrimental to this body and to our country,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “They seem to be hurtling toward the abyss this time, and trying to take the Senate with them.” Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, leading the filibuster effort, said it was the Republicans who bore responsibility for the crisis and for deciding, as he said, to “break the rules.” He noted that the Senate, under McConnell’s guidance, refused last year to consider Obama’s nomination of appellate judge Merrick Garland to fill the same high court vacancy that Trump elected Gorsuch to fill. “What the majority leader did to Merrick Garland by denying him even a hearing and a vote is even worse than a filibuster,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. Restoring the nine-seat high court’s conservative majority would fulfill one of Trump’s top promises during the 2016 presidential campaign. Republicans say Gorsuch is well qualified for the job and that there is no principled reason to oppose him. Democrats say he is so conservative as to be outside the judicial mainstream, has favored corporate interests over ordinary Americans in legal opinions, and has shown insufficient independence from Trump.

Summary: सीनेट रिपब्लिकन नेता ने गोरसच के प्रदर्शन के लिए घड़ी की टिक टिक शुरू की


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Supreme Court signaled on Monday it may dismiss a challenge to President Donald Trump s controversial travel ban after the White House announced tailored restrictions on eight countries that legal experts said stand a better chance at holding up in court.  The high court canceled oral arguments scheduled for Oct. 10 to decide whether or not a March 6 executive order that temporarily blocked travel from six Muslim-majority countries was discriminatory. That ban expired on Sunday. The president replaced it with a proclamation that indefinitely restricts travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. Certain government officials from Venezuela will also be barred. The new ban, Trump s third, could affect tens of thousands of potential immigrants and visitors.  Trump has been trying for most of the year to create a ban that passes court muster. The Sunday proclamation, which he said is needed to screen out terrorist or public safety threats, could be less vulnerable to legal attack, scholars and other experts said, because it is the result of a months-long analysis of foreign vetting procedures by U.S. officials.  It also might be less easily tied to Trump s campaign-trail statements some courts viewed as biased against Muslims.   The greater the sense that the policy reflects a considered, expert judgment, the less the temptation (by courts) to second-guess the executive,  said Saikrishna Prakash, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, in an email. It looks less like a matter of prejudice or a desire to fulfill a campaign promise.  In its brief order, the high court asked the Trump administration and the ban s challengers, including states and refugee advocacy organizations, to file briefs on whether the case should be dismissed. Trump s March 6 ban sparked international outrage and was quickly blocked by federal courts as unconstitutional discrimination or a violation of immigration law.  In June, the Supreme Court allowed a limited version of the ban to go ahead while the justices prepared to hear arguments over its legality on Oct. 10, a date they have now scrubbed. In 2016, more than 72,000 nonimmigrant and immigrant visas were issued to the countries covered by the new ban, excluding Venezuela, with nearly half of those going to Iran. Only nine North Koreans immigrated to the United States in 2016 and 100 were granted nonimmigrant visas. The new ban is set to go into effect on Oct. 18, but it already applies to five of the six countries covered by the March 6 ban, according to a U.S. State Department cable issued on Sunday and obtained by Reuters. (To read the full cable click here: here)  Sudan was dropped from the list of banned countries after the Sudanese government provided information required under the new criteria set out by the Trump administration earlier this year, a White House official said on Monday. The government has said the president has broad authority in immigration and national security matters, but challengers to the March ban had argued that it ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution s bar on favoring one religion over another.  They cited statements Trump made during his 2016 campaign for president, including his call for a  total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.  Within hours of Sunday s proclamation, representatives for the Hawaii, New York and California attorneys general said their offices were reviewing the new restrictions. Advocacy organizations denounced it as more of the same. If the court does dismiss the case, there remains the separate issue of whether the justices will throw out the sweeping lower court rulings that invalidated the ban. The government would want to erase precedents that constrain its authority while the challengers would want to keep them in place for the same reasons.   This is still a Muslim ban. They simply added three additional countries,  said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, which previously sued to block Trump s travel ban executive orders.   Of those countries, Chad is majority Muslim, travel from North Korea is already basically frozen and the restrictions on Venezuela only affect government officials on certain visas,  Heller said.  Sudan, which was in the March order, is no longer included.  The worldwide review examined each country s ability to issue reliable electronic passports and share security risk data with the United States. Overall, 47 countries had problems, and 40 made improvements, including 11 that agreed to share information on known or suspected terrorists, Trump s proclamation said.  The review  at least arguably attenuates the link between the president s alleged bias and the policy,  said Margo Schlanger, a University of Michigan Law School professor. However, challengers potentially could argue that the expanded ban violates the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which forbids the government from discriminating based on an individual s nationality when issuing immigrant visas.  Congress decided that it didn t want an immigration system that played favorites among countries,  Schlanger said.

Summary: शीर्ष अदालत ने सुनवाई रद्द की, अधिक ठोस आधार पर ट्रंप का यात्रा प्रतिबंध


(Reuters) - China and Vietnam avoided conflict over the South China Sea on Sunday when Chinese President Xi Jinping met Vietnam s General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump offered to mediate maritime disputes. Relations between Hanoi and Beijing have been particularly strained since July, when China put pressure on Vietnam to stop oil drilling in a disputed area in the South China Sea. Vietnam s state television said the Chinese president had told the Vietnamese leader he wanted to work with Southeast Asian nations on a code of conduct in the sea. China s Xinhua news agency said China and Vietnam had agreed to properly handle maritime issues and strive to maintain peace and stability. Reefs and islands in the South China Sea are disputed by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan as well as China and Vietnam. Since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has grown closer to China, Vietnam has emerged as China s main challenger in the area. China s move to pressure Vietnam to stop oil drilling in a disputed area in July brought relations between the Communist neighbours to a low. Xi and Trump both held bilateral meetings with Vietnamese officials in the wake of a summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in the Vietnamese city of Danang. Trump told Vietnam s President Tran Dai Quang that he was prepared to mediate between claimants to the South China Sea and said China s position was a problem. Trump and President Quang issued a joint statement underscoring the importance of free and open access to South China Sea, and saying parties should halt escalatory action.  (This story has been refiled to fix reversed word order in paragraph one.)

Summary: वियतनाम, चीन ने यात्रा के दौरान दक्षिण चीन सागर पर विवाद से बचा लिया


BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand s ousted former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was handed a five-year prison sentence on Wednesday after the country s highest court found her guilty of negligence in the management of a rice subsidy scheme. Yingluck was due to hear the verdict on Aug. 25, but failed to show up, surprising hundreds of supporters who had gathered at the court. Aides said she had fled Thailand, fearing a harsh sentence. Last month, Reuters reported that she had escaped to Dubai, where her brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, owns a home. Yingluck, who swept to power in a 2011 general election, introduced a rice subsidy scheme that proved wildly popular with farmers but which the military government says caused billions of dollars in losses. Her government was ousted by the military in 2014.

Summary: थाईलैंड के पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री यिंगलुक को लापरवाही के आरोप में पांच साल की जेल


HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe s own ruling ZANU-PF party wants him to step down and plans to hold a rally in Zimbabwe s capital Harare on Saturday to make the point. Mugabe, at Zimbabwe s helm since independence from Britain in 1980, faces the starkest challenge ever to his rule after the army seized power on Wednesday, saying it was targeting  criminals  around the nonagenarian leader. ZANU-PF called on Friday for Mugabe to resign, the main state newspaper The Herald reported, a clear sign that the aging leader s authority has collapsed after the army takeover. The newspaper said that ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces had met and had also called for Mugabe s wife Grace, whose ambitions to succeed her husband triggered the political crisis, to resign from the party.  A senior member of ZANU-PF earlier told Reuters the party wanted their long-time president gone.   If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,  the source said.  When that is done, it s impeachment on Tuesday.   The Herald reported that ZANU-PF would convene a special Central Committee meeting on Sunday to  realign the revolutionary party with current political developments . Pointedly, the military said it  fully supports  a  solidarity march  - apparently separate from the ZANU-PF event - in Harare on Saturday, part of an apparent groundswell of anti-Mugabe sentiment unleashed by the dramatic events of the past few days. The army said it had been  approached by several private volunteer organizations seeking to freely move and express their desires  and they could do so if they were orderly and peaceful.    Harare has been calm as the coup has unfolded but the armed forces also said in a statement that  people have been warned against looting .  The army appears to want Mugabe to go quietly and allow a transition to Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking last week as vice president sparked the army action. A goal of the generals is to prevent Mugabe handing power to his wife, Grace, 41 years his junior, who appeared on the cusp of power after Mnangagwa was pushed out. Mugabe, 93, who calls himself the grand old man of African politics, looks to be running out of options. The army is camped on his doorstep. Grace Mugabe is under house arrest and her key political allies are in military custody.  All the main pillars of Mugabe s rule have turned on him or have offered no support.  The police have shown no resistance, while Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of Zimbabwe s influential war veterans, said on Friday that Mugabe would not be allowed to resist the military and remain in power. And ZANU-PF, which built a cult of personality around its leader, has now deserted him. Mugabe is revered by some as an elder statesman and independence leader but also reviled by many in Africa and abroad who accuse him of resorting to violence to retain power while running a once promising economy into the ground. The economy collapsed after the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000. Unemployment is now running at nearly 90 percent and chronic shortages of hard currency have triggered inflation, with the prices of imports rising as much as 50 percent a month.

Summary: मुगाबे विरोधी लहर बढ़ने पर जिम्बाब्वे की सत्तारूढ़ पार्टी रैली करेगी


LONDON (Reuters) - A suicide attack at a pop concert in Manchester that killed 22 people in May might have been prevented if the security services had responded differently to intelligence in the months before the attack, a government report has found.  Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton born to Libyan parents, blew himself up at the end of a show by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in the deadliest militant attack in Britain for 12 years. His victims included seven children. A government-commissioned report by David Anderson, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, found security services were passed two pieces of information on the  bomber earlier this year.  The report said security services did not consider the intelligence terror-related at the time, but now says it was  highly relevant .  It is conceivable that the Manchester attack in particular might have been averted had the cards fallen differently,  the report said. The finding follows a review of the roles of the security services in four attacks in London and Manchester between March and June this year that left 36 innocent people dead.  Three of the six attackers were known to the security services, but only person was under active investigation, the report said. Overall, it said Britain s security services had performed well amid a growing threat from Islamist militants.   It is not the purpose of the internal reviews, or of this report, to cast or apportion blame. But though investigative actions were for the most part sound, many learning points have emerged,  the report said. Britain has thwarted nine plots in the last 12 months, Prime Minister Theresa May s spokesman said on Tuesday.  Interior minister Amber Rudd told parliament the intelligence services and counter-terrorism police are currently carrying out over 500 live investigations, up a third since the beginning of the year and are investigating over 3,000 people.     The review found that Abedi was one of a small group of former suspects of interest whom Britain s security services were considering investigating further.  A meeting was due to be held to discuss the potential threat on May 31 - nine days after the attack on the Manchester Arena.

Summary: ब्रिटेन का कहना है कि 'संभावित' मैनचेस्टर हमले को रोका जा सकता था


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed senior military officials to top posts in his first cabinet on Friday in what was widely seen as a reward for the army s role in the removal of his predecessor, Robert Mugabe. Sworn in as president a week ago after 93-year-old Mugabe quit in the wake of a de facto military coup, Mnangagwa made Major-General Sibusiso Moyo foreign minister and handed Air Marshal Perrance Shiri the sensitive land portfolio. The new president, who later on Friday spoke publicly about the need to draw on local expertise and skills to put the economy back on robust footing, also brought back Patrick Chinamasa as finance minister despite his chequered record in that post previously. Most Zimbabweans remember Moyo as the khaki-clad general who went on state television in the early hours of Nov. 15 to announce the military takeover that ended Mugabe s 37-year rule. Shiri is feared - and loathed - by many Zimbabweans as the former commander of the North Korean-trained  5 Brigade  that played a central role in the so-called Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland in 1983 in which an estimated 20,000 people were killed. The land portfolio is a sensitive but economically crucial one since land reforms in the early 2000s led to violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms and the collapse of the nation s economy.   For most observers, this (the new cabinet line-up) looks like a reward for the military - or more specifically like the military asserting its authority,  London-based political analyst Alex Magaisa wrote on Twitter. Mnangagwa, a former state security chief known as  The Crocodile , dropped allies of Mugabe s wife, Grace, but brought back many Mugabe loyalists from the ruling ZANU-PF party, disappointing those who had been expecting a break with the past.  Zimbabweans were expecting a sea change from the Mugabe era. After all, had there not been a revolution, or so they thought?  Magaisa said. New information minister Chris Mutsvangwa, leader of the powerful liberation war veterans, was not immediately available for comment. Mnangagwa s opponents from Grace Mugabe s ousted G40 faction derided the line-up as old wine in a khaki bottle.  Even #Nigeria didn t have so many commanders in Cabinet in its coup days!  former information minister and G40 leader Jonathan Moyo, who remains in hiding, said on Twitter. Chinamasa, a lawyer by training, had been finance minister since 2013 until he was shifted to the new ministry of cyber security in a reshuffle this year.  His predecessor and Mugabe ally Ignatius Chombo, is in jail facing corruption charges dating back more than two decades. A high court on Friday postponed Chombo s hearing to next Tuesday.   During Chinamasa s time in charge, though, the economy stagnated, with a lack of exports causing acute dollars shortages that crippled the financial system and led to long queues outside banks. The issuance of billions of dollars of domestic debt to pay for a bloated civil service - a key component of the ZANU-PF patronage machine under Mugabe - also triggered a collapse in the value of Zimbabwe s de facto currency and ignited inflation.  I had expected a more broad-based cabinet,  said economist Anthony Hawkins, adding that Mnangagwa s faith in Chinamasa suggested loyalty trumped ability.  Chinamasa s appointment was to be expected, notwithstanding his appalling record.  With elections due next year, Mnangagwa needs to deliver a quick economic bounce and has made clear he wants to curb wasteful expenditure. His cabinet has 22 ministers compared to Mugabe s 33. One of his most pressing tasks will be to patch up relations with donors and the outside world and work out a deal to clear Zimbabwe s $1.8 billion of arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank. Without that, the new administration will be unable to unlock any new external financing. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told Reuters this week London was thinking about extending a bridging loan to Harare to allow this to happen, although said it depended on  how the democratic process unfolds . Speaking publicly for the first time as president at a graduation ceremony at a university in Chinhoyi, 110 km (68 miles) south of Harare, Mnangagwa, however, appeared to be looking to local expertise to put the economy on a stronger footing.  As we engage the world it is of great importance to have our own home-grown solutions to develop our economy and benchmark ourselves on the best in the global village,  he said.

Summary: मुगाबे के बाद पहली कैबिनेट में जिम्बाब्वे की सैन्य ताकतें


CAIRO (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday and said he was keen to overcome any obstacles in the way of cooperation, just days after the U.S. said it would withhold some financial aid to Egypt. “President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a phone call tonight from U.S. President Donald Trump who affirmed the strength of the friendship between Egypt and the United States and expressed his keenness on continuing to develop the relationship and overcome any obstacles that might affect it,” Sisi’s office said in a statement late on Thursday. On Tuesday, two U.S. sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Washington had decided to deny Egypt $95.7 million in aid and to delay a further $195 million because it had failed to make progress on respecting human rights and democracy. Egypt, an important regional partner for the United States because of its control of the Suez Canal and its border with Israel, receives $1.3 billion in aid annually and was critical of the U.S. decision. Its foreign ministry said on Wednesday that the decision to withhold aid reflected “poor judgment” and that it could have “negative implications” on achieving common goals and interests between the two countries. The decision reflects a U.S. desire to continue security cooperation as well as its frustration with Cairo’s stance on civil liberties. In particular, a new law regulating non-governmental organizations is widely seen as part a growing crackdown on dissent, said the U.S. sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Egyptian rights activists have said they face the worst crackdown in their history under Sisi, accusing him of erasing freedoms won in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Egyptian lawmakers have said the NGO law was needed for national security. The Egyptian government has long accused human rights groups of taking foreign funds to sow chaos, and several are facing investigation regarding their funding. Sisi and his Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner in Cairo on Wednesday but neither the presidency nor the ministry mentioned the aid issue in statements released after the meetings.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने मिस्र के सिसी को फोन किया, कहा कि वे बाधाओं को दूर करने के लिए उत्सुक हैं


MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is a clever man and will quickly understand his new responsibilities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with NTV TV. Putin has spoken previously of his hope that Trump will help restore U.S.-Russia relations, and analysts said he was unlikely to want to dial up anti-Western rhetoric before Trump’s inauguration in January. “Trump was an entrepreneur and a businessman. He is already a statesman, he is the head of the United States of America, one of the world’s leading countries,” NTV quoted Putin as saying in the interview on www.ntv.ru on Sunday. “Because he achieved success in business, it suggests that he is a clever man. And if (he is) a clever man, then he will fully and quite quickly understand another level of responsibility. We assume that he will be acting from these positions,” Putin said. Putin’s comments appeared to address criticism from Trump’s opponents who say his unconventional actions since the election - including railing at the cast of a Broadway show and early-morning invective on Twitter - show Trump is out of his depth. China lodged a diplomatic protest on Saturday after Trump spoke by phone with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, the first by a U.S. president-elect or president since Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of “one China”. Speaking about Russia’s relations with the West, Putin said attempts to create a unipolar world had failed: “The situation is changing. I think it is not a secret to anyone, everyone sees it, that many of our partners already prefer to stick to principles of international law, because the world’s balance is being gradually restored.” Putin said when building relationships with other countries, Russia would respect their interests.

Summary: पुतिन ने कहा, ट्रम्प चतुर हैं, नई जिम्मेदारियों को समझेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of supporters of self-driving cars said on Tuesday that it will run ads this week in social media and Washington newspapers, in an effort to convince the U.S. Congress to adopt sweeping legislation to boost the nascent industry. The ads are being placed by the Coalition for Future Mobility, which was formed in July by trade groups representing major automakers, along with other advocates for self-driving cars, as Congress began serious consideration of bills relating to autonomous vehicles. They want the Senate to pass a bill that would speed up the use of self-driving cars by easing safety regulations, and bar states from blocking such vehicles. The House of Representatives has already unanimously approved a bill. The Senate is considering a similar draft measure, but is divided over whether to include large commercial trucks, a dispute that could prevent the bill from winning approval this year.  The House measure, which only applies to vehicles under 10,000 pounds (4,536 kg), would allow automakers to obtain exemptions to deploy up to 25,000 vehicles without meeting existing auto safety standards in the first year. The cap would rise over three years to 100,000 vehicles annually. As part of the campaign, major automakers will be contacting their employees and retirees, asking them to reach out to their members of Congress, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said. The coalition launched a website and will use targeted Facebook advertising, focusing on groups who could benefit from autonomous vehicles, such as disabled veterans. One of the print ads seen by Reuters features a man dressed in military fatigues sitting in a wheelchair. The ad says: “He fought for our freedom. Let’s give him back his.” That “will only become a reality if Congress acts,” the ad says. The coalition includes trade groups representing automakers General Motors Co, Toyota Motor Corp and Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), as well as organizations including ride sharing firm Lyft Inc, the Telecommunications Industry Association, the American Council of the Blind and a drone industry group.      Senate aides have been negotiating in recent days but have not reached agreement. A Senate panel could take up the issue at an Oct. 4 hearing, aides say. Auto industry leaders say 3 million commercial truck jobs could eventually be at risk if self-driving vehicles replaced human drivers. Self-driving proponents say 94 percent of U.S. car crashes are the result of human error and argue self-driving cars could dramatically cut the 35,000 annual road deaths.

Summary: सेल्फ-ड्राइविंग कार अधिवक्ताओं ने कांग्रेस को बढ़ावा देने के लिए विज्ञापन अभियान शुरू किया


VIENTIANE (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will likely hold talks with Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a leaders’ summit in Laos following a missile test by North Korea, the White House said on Tuesday. The firing of three ballistic missiles by North Korea on Monday highlighted the need for the United States to maintain a sense of urgency within the international community regarding sanctions on North Korea, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया के मिसाइल परीक्षण के बाद जापान के प्रधानमंत्री से मिल सकते हैं ओबामाः व्हाइट हाउस


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chair of the House of Representatives appropriations committee introduced a bill on Wednesday that would channel $1 billion to revitalize battered coal-producing communities. House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers, a long-serving Kentucky Republican, said the RECLAIM Act would provide support to coal-producing communities hit by the decline of the industry to redevelop their economies. Under the bill, which he introduced with both Democrats and Republicans from Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, $1 billion would be released from the government’s Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) program to help communities generate new economic activities.  “Many coal communities in Appalachia simply do not have the resources to reclaim the abandoned mine sites within their borders,” said Rogers, who represents eastern Kentucky’s coal-mining counties. “This bill allows these communities to be proactive in restoring these sites and utilize them to put our people back to work.” The bill comes after months of talks with the Obama administration, which last year proposed the POWER+ Plan, a multibillion-dollar strategy to support the revitalization of coal country using unused funds from the AML, which consists of fees on coal companies collected over the years. Republican lawmakers had initially been reluctant to support the administration’s plan because they blamed its policies, including regulations forcing power plants to cut carbon emissions tied to burning coal, for the contraction in the coal industry that has seen some of its companies go bankrupt. The bill reflects a few modifications to the White House proposal, including measures to compensate Western states. Wyoming pays the most into the AML because it is still an active low-sulfur coal producer, yet most federal money would likely flow to older coal mining regions like Appalachia. A White House official said the RECLAIM Act is consistent with the administration’s proposal. “The legislation introduced today would bring $1 billion in much needed investment to support abandoned mine land reclamation linked with economic development in struggling coal communities that badly need both,” the official said. Representative Matt Cartwright, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said the bill will create new opportunities “for the families that depended on mining jobs, benefits, and pensions that have disappeared as coal companies have closed their operations.” Local communities welcomed the bill and urged its swift passage. “This is what we’ve been waiting on. This bill, and the money that could come from the bill into our local economies, could give us a little more security,” said Kimberly Shepherd, a member of grass-roots group Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.

Summary: सदन के सांसदों ने संघर्षरत कोयला देश के लिए 1 अरब डॉलर की सहायता का प्रस्ताव रखा


(Reuters) - A Republican tax bill unveiled on Thursday included cuts to renewable energy tax credits considered critical to enabling wind projects to compete with fossil fuel plants, but tax breaks for solar power were left largely intact. The credits, which receive broad bipartisan support, were extended by Congress less than two years ago. The wind industry decried the proposal, saying it put $50 billion in planned investment at risk, while the solar sector expressed relief the bill mostly preserved the timeline laid out in 2015 for its primary tax credit. In the same legislation, Republicans proposed eliminating the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. Greg Wetstone, president of the non-profit American Council on Renewable Energy, said the move was “mystifying.” “Wind has particularly been a boon in rural areas where there aren’t a lot of economic choices,” Wetstone said, noting that wind had strong support in the Senate, which has yet to weigh in on the bill. Of major concern to wind developers, the legislation called for a reduced credit for every kilowatt-hour of energy produced from wind projects.  In 2015 and 2016, the credit was worth 2.4 cents, dropping by 20 percent each year for projects that start construction from 2017 through 2019. In the proposed bill, that credit would drop to 1.5 cents per kwh. In addition, projects must show that there is continuous construction in order to claim the tax credit available on the day construction starts.  The provision would increase tax revenue by $12.3 billion from 2018 to 2027, according to the bill summary. In a statement, the American Wind Energy Association trade group said investors and project developers had banked on the stability of the policy enacted in 2015 in planning billions of dollars of investment in wind energy. “The House proposal would pull the rug out from under 100,000 U.S. wind workers and 500 American factories,” AWEA Chief Executive Tom Kiernan said in a statement. The solar industry’s main trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, said it was encouraged that a tax credit worth 30 percent of the value of a solar project had been left mostly intact. Under current law, that credit is scheduled to step down in value gradually until 2022, when it becomes a permanent 10 percent credit only for utility and commercial projects. The bill unveiled on Thursday would eliminate the 10 percent tax credit, but not until after 2027.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन कर विधेयक ने पवन ऊर्जा को प्रभावित किया, सौर ऊर्जा को काफी हद तक कोई नुकसान नहीं हुआ


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday added his voice to calls for bipartisan cooperation on investigations into Russian hacking aimed at interfering with the American presidential election. “Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” McConnell said at a news conference. “This simply cannot be a partisan issue.”

Summary: मैककॉनेल का कहना है कि रूसी हैकिंग जांच पक्षपातपूर्ण नहीं हो सकती है


BRASILIA (Reuters) - A majority of the judges on Brazil s Supreme Court voted on Wednesday to send new graft charges against President Michel Temer to the lower house of Congress, which must authorize any trial of a sitting president. Last month, Temer s allies in Congress blocked the first corruption charge against the president, saving him from facing a possible Supreme Court trial that could have ousted him from office.

Summary: ब्राजील सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने कांग्रेस को टेमर भ्रष्टाचार के नए आरोप भेजे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey accused President Donald Trump on Thursday of firing him to try to undermine the agency’s investigation of possible collusion by Trump’s campaign with Russia’s alleged efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. In the most eagerly anticipated U.S. congressional hearing in years, Comey told lawmakers the Trump administration had lied and defamed him and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the president dismissed him on May 9.  During more than two hours of testimony, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee he believed Trump had directed him in February to drop an FBI probe into the Republican president’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, as part of the broader Russia investigation. Comey would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice, but added it would be up to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is now investigating the Russia allegations, “to sort that out.” “I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning,” Comey testified. Sitting alone at a small table facing a bank of senators who fired question after question, Comey gave short, deliberative answers. He painted a picture of an overbearing president he did not trust and who pressured him to stop the FBI probe of Flynn. Trump critics say any efforts by the president to hinder an FBI probe could amount to obstruction of justice. Such an offense potentially could lead to Trump being impeached, although his fellow Republicans who control Congress have shown little appetite for such a move. In a speech to supporters across town, Trump vowed to fight on. “We’re under siege ... but we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever,” he said. Comey did not make any major disclosures about any links between Trump or his associates and Russia, an issue that has dogged the president’s first months in office and distracted from his policy goals such as overhauling the U.S. healthcare system and making tax cuts. Russia has denied such interference. The White House has denied any collusion with Moscow. Nevertheless, the Russia matter likely will continue to overshadow Trump’s presidency, especially as the FBI probe has ensnared not only Flynn but Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has had to recuse himself from the investigation. Comey’s testimony drew renewed attention to Sessions and his relationship with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak.  After Trump fired Comey, the administration gave differing reasons for his dismissal. Trump later contradicted his own staff and acknowledged on May 11 he fired Comey because of the Russia matter. Asked why he thought Trump fired him, Comey said he did not know for sure. He added: “Again, I take the president’s words. I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was in some way putting pressure on him, in some way irritating him, and he decided to fire me because of that.” Comey said repeatedly there were details he could not discuss in a public session, making clear he had sensitive information he could disclose only in a closed session with the senators. Comey said Trump’s administration had defamed him in comments made after his firing by saying the FBI was in disarray and that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. “Those were lies, plain and simple,” Comey said. His accusations could further mire Trump’s administration in legal difficulties. Mueller and several congressional committees are investigating what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an effort by Russia to help Trump win the election. “The Russian investigation is going to go on and it’s not going to stop and the president should have known that,” committee member Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein told MSNBC. Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said Comey’s testimony proved the president was not under any investigation and there was no evidence a single vote was changed as a result of Russian interference in last year’s election. Kasowitz denied Trump ever told Comey he needed and expected his loyalty, as Comey said. NBC News reported on Thursday that Kushner was expected to meet with staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee in mid-June.   Comey said he felt he needed to get his account of his conversations with Trump in the public sphere in the hope it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel, which later occurred. Comey said he gave copies of his memo memorializing his talks with Trump to people outside the Justice Department and asked a friend to share its contents with a journalist. Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman confirmed to Reuters he was the friend to whom Comey was referring. Kasowitz said that “we will leave it to the appropriate authorities” to determine whether Comey’s leak “should be investigated.” Legal experts questioned Kasowitz’s contention that Trump’s private encounters with Comey should be considered privileged communications.     Comey said he did not know if there were tapes of his conversations with Trump, but that if so, they should be released. “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said. Republicans on the committee questioned Comey intently but did not attack his integrity or try to treat him roughly, as a witness making accusations against a sitting Republican president might expect. Comey testified he kept notes after meeting with Trump because “I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document.” From Capitol Hill to San Francisco’s Castro district, Comey’s appearance attracted television “watch parties” beckoning politics buffs to taverns, restaurants and living rooms to view an event some likened to the “Super Bowl of Washington.” U.S. stocks closed slightly higher as the market reacted little to Comey’s testimony, viewing his testimony alone as unlikely to mark the end of Trump’s presidency.  Comey said Trump did not attempt to get him to drop the overall Russia investigation, just the part of if that related to Flynn, whom the president fired in February for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations last year with Kislyak. Republican Senator Marco Rubio asked Comey whether he perceived the president’s request to let the Flynn matter go as an order given Trump’s position as president, the setting and the circumstances surrounding the conversation.     “Yes,” Comey replied.     Laura Donohue, a Georgetown University Law Center professor, said if Trump fired Comey to change the course of the Russia investigation, that would constitute obstruction of justice. Both the conversation between Trump and Comey about Flynn and the firing itself were obstructive acts, she said. “He wanted to scuttle the investigation - it is hard to see it any other way,” she said.  Regarding Sessions, Comey said he did not discuss Trump’s pressure to drop the probe into Flynn with the attorney general because the FBI leadership team believed Sessions would later recuse himself from the Russia probe. “We were also aware of facts that I can’t discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic,” Comey said, without giving more details. The Justice Department later issued a statement saying that Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe only because he had been part of Trump’s campaign. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he did not believe Trump had committed a crime even if his personal style was often brash, adding: “I’ll just say it, if being crude, rude and a bull in a china shop was a crime, Trump would get the death penalty.”

Summary: एफ. बी. आई. की रूस जांच को कमजोर करने के लिए ट्रंप ने कोमी को बर्खास्त कियाः कोमी