KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The battlefield deaths of two leaders of an Islamic State alliance in the southern Philippines could thrust a Malaysian who trained at an Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan as the militant group s new regional  emir , experts and officials say. Intelligence officials describe Malaysian Mahmud Ahmad as a financier and recruiter, who helped put together the coalition of pro-Islamic State (IS) fighters that stormed Marawi City in May.  Isnilon Hapilon, Islamic State s anointed  emir  in Southeast Asia, and Omarkhayam Maute, one of two Middle East-educated brothers at the helm of the militant alliance, were killed in a raid on a building in Marawi and their bodies  recovered on Monday, Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said. Philippine authorities said they were still searching for Mahmud.  Based on our information, there is still one personality, Dr. Mahmud of Malaysia, and he is still in the main battle area with some Indonesians and Malaysians,  military chief, Gen. Eduardo Ano, said on Monday.  But their attitude is now different, they are no longer as aggressive as before.  He did not elaborate. Ano urged the 30 militants remaining in a shrinking combat zone to surrender and free hostages as troops stepped up their fight. Abdullah Maute, the alliance s military commander, was reported killed in August, though no body was found. Intelligence officials in Malaysia believe Mahmud left Marawi months ago. Malaysia s police counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told Reuters in July that Mahmud  managed to sneak out from Marawi city to another safe place with his followers .  The 39-year-old Mahmud, who holds a doctorate in religious studies and was a university lecturer in Kuala Lumpur, was Hapilon s second-in-command in the IS s Southeast Asia  caliphate , according to a July report by Indonesia-based Institute of Policy Analysis and Conflict (IPAC).  Sitting in the inner circle of the Marawi command center, Mahmud controlled recruitment and financing, the IPAC report said. He was the contact for foreigners wanting to join the fight in the Philippines or with IS in the Middle East, it said.  It wasn t just Indonesians and Malaysians contacting Dr. Mahmud ... he was also the contact for Bangladeshis in Malaysia who wanted to join the fighting in Mindanao,  IPAC s director Sidney Jones told Reuters. Rohan Gunaratna, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, described Mahmud as  the most important IS leader in Southeast Asia . Ahmad El-Muhammady, a lecturer at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) and a counter-terrorism advisor to the police, said Mahmud often solicited funds for IS operations.   He s always the one asking people  does anyone have any money they d like to donate? , and he will usually reply when followers in the region ask him about the situation in the Philippines,  Ahmad said. Mahmud grew up in Batu Caves, a crowded Kuala Lumpur suburb, famous for a Hindu temple housed in a large complex of caverns.  Mahmud s wife and three children were last known to be living there, although Reuters could not locate them. Before leaving Malaysia in 2014, Mahmud taught young Muslim students at a tahfiz, a school to memorise the Koran, in Nakhoda, a village near Batu Caves, residents said.   When he (Mahmud) started the school, he did stay there for the first one or two years, but then he just disappeared,  said 50-year-old Zainon Mat Arshad, a Nakhoda resident who went to the mosque where Mahmud prayed.    When he was at the tahfiz school, he kept mostly to himself and if he had come over to pray on Friday, I don t think anyone would have recognized him,  said Zainon.  He didn t mingle with the local community.  Security experts say Mahmud studied at Pakistan s Islamabad Islamic University in the late 1990s before going to Afghanistan where he learned to make improvised explosive devices at an al Qaeda camp.  In 2000, he returned to Malaysia to get a doctorate, which earned him a post as a lecturer in the Islamic Studies faculty at the University of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. Former students described Mahmud as a quiet person who kept to himself.  He wasn t the kind of lecturer who hung out at cafes with his students as some others did,  said one former student, who declined to be identified. The few signs of his militant beliefs were discovered later, including a book he wrote on jihad under his nom de guerre, Abu Handzalah, said Ahmad, the IIUM lecturer.       He was put on Malaysia s most-wanted list in April 2014 after leaving the country with several others, including his aide, a Malaysian bomb maker named Mohammad Najib Husen, to work with the Abu Sayyaf group, notorious for violent kidnappings and beheadings in the southern Philippines, Ahmad said.  Mahmud received funding for the Marawi operation directly from IS headquarters, through the group s Southeast Asian unit led by Syrian-based Indonesian militant Bahrumsyah, the IPAC report said.    In a video released by the Philippines army in June, Mahmud is seen alongside Hapilon as well as Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute - the pair of brothers who orchestrated the Marawi siege. (For a graphic on 'Pro Islamic State groups in the Philippine south' click tmsnrt.rs/2qVpzH5) (For a graphic on 'Battle for Marawi interactive' click tmsnrt.rs/2rhRPEa)

Summary: न्यूज़मेकरः मलेशियाई शिक्षक को इस्लामिक स्टेट समर्थक आतंकवादियों के नए 'अमीर' के रूप में देखा जाता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators plans to introduce legislation on Tuesday seeking to boost the cyber defenses of state election systems, after warnings from senior U.S. officials that future elections may be vulnerable to foreign interference. The Securing America’s Voting Equipment, or SAVE, Act is the latest attempt by lawmakers to respond to what U.S. intelligence agencies say was a multi-pronged cyber operation, including hacking and online propaganda by Russia during the 2016 presidential election aimed at helping President Donald Trump. Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations. The bill will be introduced by Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich and Republican Senator Susan Collins, a Heinrich spokeswoman said. It does not currently have other co-sponsors. “Until we set up stronger protections of our election systems and take the necessary steps to prevent future foreign influence campaigns, our nation’s democratic institutions will remain vulnerable,” Heinrich said in a statement. The SAVE Act would authorize the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to grant security clearance to the top election official in each state in addition to one other designee. It would also allow the DNI to share some classified information with the states about threats to their voting systems. Several state election officials have complained that they were left in the dark about Russia’s attempts to probe their voting systems during the 2016 campaign. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not notify 21 states it said had been targeted by Russian until last month, in part due to confidentiality and classification restrictions.  The DHS in January designated voting systems as a critical part of the nation’s infrastructure, making state elections eligible for more federal protections. The legislation would write that designation into law, and also create a grant program for states to upgrade their systems to better fend off physical and cyber threats. It was not clear whether the bill would gain momentum in an otherwise gridlocked Congress.

Summary: मतदान प्रणालियों की साइबर सुरक्षा को बढ़ावा देने के लिए सीनेटर विधेयक पेश करेंगे


(Reuters) - A federal court judge on Wednesday threw out a Texas voter identification law that was supported by the Trump administration, but the state’s attorney general said his office would appeal the ruling. The judge’s ruling said changes to the law passed earlier this year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature that were meant to be less discriminatory than an earlier one did not accomplish that. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the Southern District of Texas said the state did not allow enough types of photo IDs for voters, “even though the (5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) was clearly critical of Texas having the most restrictive list in the country.” President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting voter fraud, picking up a theme of fellow Republicans across the country. Critics have said the Texas law and similar statutes enacted in other Republican-governed states are an effort to suppress voting, including among blacks and Hispanics who tend to favor Democrats. Trump has made unsubstantiated allegations that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November’s election, in which Clinton won the  popular vote but lost the decisive Electoral College count. “Today’s ruling is outrageous,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. Paxton, a Republican, added that changes to the law passed by the legislature included all those asked for by the 5th Circuit. The Justice Department filed a brief last month asking the court to halt action against the Texas voter ID law, saying the state’s new law fixed discriminatory issues of the state’s 2011 voter ID law.       Texas Democrats welcomed Ramos’ ruling. “Jim Crow-era tactics have kept Texas Republicans in power,” said state Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa. “From discriminatory gerrymandering to discriminatory voter ID laws, it has become entirely clear that Texas Republicans are rigging our election system.” Ramos wrote in a 27-page ruling that voters with little education, or simply a lack of confidence, may forfeit their legitimate right to vote because of fear of being charged with perjury. She said Texas was overreaching by “threatening severe penalties for perjury,” and noted that the state’s “history of voter intimidation” led her not to accept the new voter ID law as a solution for the “purposeful discrimination” in the one it attempted to improve upon.

Summary: अमेरिकी न्यायाधीश ने ट्रम्प द्वारा समर्थित टेक्सास मतदाता पहचान पत्र कानून को खारिज कर दिया


BELGRADE (Reuters) - Catalonia s president has no choice but to suspend secession since it is unlikely anyone will recognize the Spanish region on the basis of a disputed referendum, a former British diplomat who has advised the Catalans and other secessionist movements said. Carne Ross, who as founder of the diplomatic consultancy Independent Diplomat has worked with Kosovo, South Sudan, Western Sahara and Catalonia on their respective bids for sovereignty, said there would be no solution to the crisis without a legal plebiscite agreed to by Madrid.  To get there would require pressure from Spain s European Union partners, Ross told Reuters in a telephone interview.  A full declaration of independence would have been very problematic, would have led to obvious confrontation with Madrid and he (Catalan President Carles Puigdemont) was under enormous pressure not to declare independence, including I assume from the countries that Catalonia would look to for recognition,  said Ross.   At the end of the day, if you re to be independent, you need to be recognized as such.   I think they are only likely to get international recognition if there is a legal referendum that Madrid accepts.  Puigdemont declared on Tuesday that Catalonia had the mandate for independence but proposed suspending sovereignty to allow for talks with Madrid on an agreed solution. On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called for clarity as to whether or not Catalonia had declared independence and raised the specter of Madrid suspending the region s autonomy. Catalonia s Oct. 1 referendum was declared illegal by a Spanish high court and mustered only 43 percent turnout as many independence opponents stayed at home. Hundreds of people were injured by baton-wielding police as they intervened to close polling stations. Ross said many Catalans had been  radicalized  by Madrid s resistance and police behavior.  Fuel has been added to the fire,  he said.  In my view, legitimate independence can only be legitimately declared when it has a clear majority of the population. I don t think it is right to declare independence when you don t have that clear majority. And as things currently stand, Catalonia does not have that clear majority.  Ross formerly headed the Middle East section of the British mission to the United Nations but resigned from the civil service in 2004 over the invasion of Iraq. His work with Independent Diplomat was the subject of the documentary Accidental Anarchist that was broadcast in July on the BBC. Ross, who advised the Catalan government between July 2013 and September 2015 and is a committed advocate of self-determination, said it was  unrealistic  to expect a mediated solution resulting in, for instance, greater autonomy for Catalonia.  He cited the examples of Montenegro and Scotland, in which referendums were held on the basis of negotiated terms in 2006 and 2014 respectively. Montenegro narrowly voted to leave a state union with Serbia, while a majority of Scots opted to remain with Britain.  I think that the international community should be calling for Madrid to do what Britain did with Scotland, which is to allow a legal referendum to resolve this once and for all.  French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected a call by Puigdemont for EU mediation, but Ross said the bloc should state clearly to Madrid  that it needs to find a more consensual solution . Asked if the Catalans had erred in holding a referendum that Madrid did not agree to, Ross replied:  They had no other option to build up the pressure for that dialogue.

Summary: पूर्व सलाहकार का कहना है कि कैटेलन के लोगों के पास देरी करने के अलावा कोई विकल्प नहीं है


LONDON (Reuters) - Russia, the only major power that has not called on Iraq s Kurds to cancel a referendum on independence next week, has swiftly become the top funder of Kurdish oil and gas deals, with as much as $4 billion pledged in less than a year, industry sources say. Washington, European countries, Turkey and Iran have all lined up to oppose a move by Iraq s Kurds to hold a Sept. 25 independence referendum, which the Kurds consider the culmination of decades of struggle for a state of their own, but Iraq calls a violation of its constitution. This week, the White House issued a statement calling the planned vote  provocative and destabilizing , noting that it will take place not only within the autonomous Kurdish region itself but on territory that is disputed. But Moscow has issued no such call to cancel the vote. Instead, with the planned referendum just days away, Russian state oil giant Rosneft announced its latest investment last week, to help Iraqi Kurdistan develop its natural gas industry, for domestic supplies and eventual export. The full value of the deal has not been disclosed officially, but according to industry sources familiar with it, it is worth more than $1 billion.  It is Rosneft s third giant venture in the Kurdish region since February, transforming Moscow from an outsider with little profile in Kurdistan into the region s biggest source of cash. According to the industry sources, Rosneft s deals since it first arrived in Kurdistan last December are worth around $4 billion in total. That exceeds the $2 billion in financing the Kurdish region has previously received for oil sales from international trading firms that pre-pay for its exports, and  $1.5 billion it has received from neighbor Turkey. It also marks a big change in focus for the Iraqi Kurds, who have had close ties with Washington since 1991 when the United States offered them protection from Saddam Hussein, the dictator later toppled by U.S. forces in 2003.  Moscow has been effectively filling the gap as the United States has been pulling back from Iraq,  said a senior source in Erbil, capital of the Iraqi Kurdish region. Publicly, Moscow says it supports Iraq s territorial integrity while also recognizing the aspirations of the Kurds for a homeland. The 35 million Kurds are spread over Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.  We are interested that the Kurdish people like any other nation on the planet can fulfill its hopes and aspirations,  Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in July.  We start from the fact that the legitimate aspirations of the Kurds, like other peoples, need to be fulfilled within the framework of existing international legal norms.  But unlike other powers, Moscow has avoided giving a verdict on the legality or wisdom of holding the referendum itself. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said it had nothing to add to Lavrov s comments on the matter from July.  The Russian position is:  Let s wait and see the outcome of the referendum,  said Hoshiyar Zebari, one of Iraq s pre-eminent Kurdish politicians, who served as foreign minister, deputy prime minister and finance minister in Baghdad from 2003 until last year and now advises Kurdistan s regional government.  They seem to understand our situation,  Zebari told Reuters, adding that Moscow expected the Kurds would use the outcome of the referendum as part of a process of negotiation with Baghdad. According to a diplomatic source, the Kurds took notice in June when Lavrov signaled to a Kurdish delegation at a meeting in St Petersburg that Russia would not oppose the referendum.  During previous meetings, Lavrov always focused on Iraq s territorial integrity,  said the source, who was present at the meeting on the sidelines of Russia s economic forum in St Petersburg.   This time, he said that Russia understands the ambitions of Kurdish people for independence. And even though he added that it needed to be done carefully, it was a big signal.  At around the same time as that meeting took place, Rosneft was signing its second of this year s three major oil investment deals with Kurdish officials. Days later, the Kurds announced the date of their referendum. The Russians are not the first foreigners to come to Kurdistan looking for oil. The Kurds have long argued that as an autonomous region of Iraq they have the authority to make agreements with foreign companies about pumping the oil on their territory. Iraq s central government, meanwhile, says any deals to export oil from Kurdistan are illegal without Baghdad s blessing. For several years, American companies were at the forefront of negotiating deals with the Kurds, on the assumption that Baghdad would eventually authorize them. The highest-profile deal was announced by Exxon Mobil, then under the leadership of CEO Rex Tillerson, now U.S. Secretary of State. But after signing a landmark deal to develop Kurdish oil fields in 2011, Exxon did little exploration, and has since handed some of the blocs back to the Kurdish government. While Washington remains friendly with the Kurds and sees them as a bulwark against Islamic State, it is concerned about their independence bid leading to the breakup of Iraq or a rupture with Turkey. The United States has long encouraged the Kurds to avoid unilateral steps, such as the referendum, that might destabilize the Baghdad government or antagonize Ankara. Russia, meanwhile, is looking for more friends in the Middle East after returning in force to the region with a decisive military intervention in Syria. Its main regional allies are Iran and the Syria of President Bashar al-Assad, and having friends in Kurdish territory, located between Syria, Iran and Turkey, would be geopolitically useful. Kurdistan has estimated recoverable reserves at 45 billion barrels of oil and 5.66 trillion cubic meters of gas, which could rise further with exploration. For Rosneft, run by Igor Sechin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, it potentially offers a cheap source of crude supplies to refineries in Europe, and a big boost to Rosneft s gas ambitions. In 2014, Erbil started oil sales via a pipeline through Turkey. It has generally conducted those deals with pre-financing, obtaining money in advance from international trading firms and Turkey before the oil is delivered. Rosneft began its involvement with a small pre-finance deal at the end of last year along the lines of deals the Kurds had previously reached with global traders. The Russian firm loaned the Kurds around $280 million, guaranteed by future oil sales, according to industry sources. In February 2017, Rosneft ramped up its cooperation by agreeing to lend the semi-autonomous region $1.2 billion, becoming the first big foreign oil company to publicly commit to pre-financing Kurdish exports. Kurdistan s minister of natural resources Ashti Hawrami called the deal a ground-breaker for the region that would help its economic independence - a crucial condition for seeking political independence. By that point, Turkey had invested some $1.5 billion and international trading houses such as Vitol, Petraco, Trafigura and Glencore had collectively loaned the Kurds some $2 billion. Russia became the Kurds  single biggest financer with its next deal in June this year to lend money and help search for more oil, bringing its total investments close to $2.8 billion. This week s Russian pledge to invest more than $1 billion in Kurdistan s gas infrastructure could help the region become a major gas exporter to Turkey and Europe one day, Rosneft says. The independence referendum won t be a problem.  Holding the referendum will not affect our work. We are doing business in an autonomous region in Iraq that has been recognized by law,  Rosneft spokesman Mikhail Leontev said this week.  This place is run by Iraqi Kurdistan s nation and it is the people of Iraqi Kurdistan who live there. That is why we don t think we are embarking on an adventure.

Summary: रूस इराक के कुर्दों का शीर्ष वित्तपोषणकर्ता बना, स्वतंत्रता मतदान के बारे में चुप रहा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican efforts to overhaul or repeal Obamacare collapsed in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, dealing a sharp setback to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s seven-year quest to kill former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. The disarray in the Republican-controlled Senate rattled financial markets as it cast doubt on the chances of getting Trump’s other domestic policy priorities, such as tax reform, through a divided Congress. Trump said he was disappointed by the failure and suggested he might let the insurance markets created under Obamacare go under and then, potentially, work with Democrats on a rescue. “We’re probably in that position where we’ll just let Obamacare fail,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We will let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us.” U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced a vote on a straight repeal of Obamacare, which would take effect in two years, after it became clear on Monday night that he did not have enough support to pass an overhaul of the healthcare law. He said on Tuesday that the vote would take place “early next week.” But prospects for the repeal vote appeared doomed with at least three Republican senators voicing opposition. Moderate Republican Senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska quickly announced they would not back repeal. With Democrats united in opposition, Republicans can only afford to lose two votes to pass the measure in the Senate, where they have a slim 52-48 majority. “I do not think that it’s going to be constructive to repeal a law that at this point is so interwoven within our healthcare system and then hope that over the next two years we will come up with some kind of replacement,” Collins told reporters. The failed effort to replace Obamacare raised new concerns for U.S. health insurers over whether the government would continue to fund billions of dollars in medical benefit subsidies. Obamacare has boosted the number of Americans with health insurance through mandates on individuals and employers, and income-based subsidies. About 20 million Americans gained insurance coverage through the law. “This has been a very, very challenging experience for all of us,” McConnell said, adding that the chamber needed to move on to issues like tax reform and a spending package to bolster the country’s infrastructure. As the healthcare bill collapsed in the Senate, leaders in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives unveiled a budget plan putting a proposed tax code overhaul on the same partisan procedural path that led to the anti-Obamacare initiative’s chaotic downfall. Republicans had hoped to finish with healthcare before an upcoming August recess so they could tackle a wide-ranging rewrite of the U.S. tax code in September. Separate talks on taxes appear unlikely to reach Trump’s pledge to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent.     But their failure exposed the sharp divide within Republicans’ own ranks, with moderates concerned the healthcare bill’s Medicaid cuts would take insurance away from millions of low-income Americans while conservatives backed the cuts and wanted even more dramatic changes to Obamacare. The U.S. dollar stumbled to a 10-month low against a basket of currencies and U.S. Treasury yields fell after the fresh setback to the healthcare bill raised investors’ doubts about Trump’s ability to enact tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Reaction in the stock market was muted, and analysts said the expectation for business-friendly legislation out of Washington is all but priced out of the stock market. “The healthcare hurdle pushes everything in Trump’s agenda to 2018,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York.  Trump vowed that the healthcare effort was not dead. In an early morning Twitter message, he said, “We were let down by all of the Democrats and a few Republicans. Most Republicans were loyal, terrific & worked really hard. We will return!” Trump had pushed hard to get a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare through the U.S. House of Representatives in May and celebrated the victory with lawmakers on the White House lawn. But with polls showing the Republican bill was unpopular, he later called it “mean” and did little to convince Republican senators to get a deal. Vice President Mike Pence said Trump supported the move to vote on a straight repeal of Obamacare. “Inaction is not an option,” Pence said at the National Retail Federation Conference in Washington. “Congress needs to step up, Congress needs to do their job, and Congress needs to do their job now.” In crafting a replacement, Republicans ran up against Obamacare’s growing popularity. A Washington Post-ABC News poll published on Sunday showed Americans preferred it over the Republican alternative by a 2-1 margin.   Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to start over and work with Democrats. Democratic Senator Patty Murray, the leading Democrat on the Senate health committee, said in an interview with Reuters that a bipartisan effort could help stabilize insurance markets. She said a bipartisan effort to fund cost-sharing subsidies that help cover premiums, deductibles and other medical expenses for about 7 million people who purchase health insurance on the individual market would “send a strong message to the market” and “create some stabilization that is much needed.” Within hours of the bill’s failure, Republican Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander said he will set hearings in the next few weeks on how to stabilize the individual insurance markets. Orrin Hatch, the Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said on the Senate floor that the failure could mean Congress will have to bail out insurance markets “probably before the end of 2017.” For hospitals, shelving the bill relieves the near-term pressure of massive Medicaid reform, but the long-term plan for federal spending for states’ Medicaid expansion is now murky.

Summary: ओबामाकेयर को समाप्त करने के लिए रिपब्लिकन दबाव सीनेट में गिर गया


RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of Brazilian soldiers poured into Rio de Janeiro s Rocinha slum on Friday in a bid to help the cash-strapped state government quell the drug-related violence that authorities blamed for at least four deaths and several injuries there this week. The army deployed 950 troops in the sprawling favela, responding to a request from the Rio state government, Defense Minister Raul Jungmann told local television. In the past week, 60 criminals are believed to have launched an effort to dominate the drug trade in the area, not far from some of the city s most expensive real estate, and shootings were reported there on Friday morning, according to local media. The violence in Rocinha is one more sign of the backsliding since the launch of a  pacification  program in 2008 to reduce violence by pushing out drug gangs and setting up permanent outposts in the city s more than 1,000 favelas. Police struggled to maintain security gains in favelas in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio and have continued to lose ground as a fiscal crisis in the city and state lead to cutbacks in spending on police and other essential services. The military operation in Rocinha on Friday disrupted transportation and businesses in the area, with some schools closing or paring back operations.  I was going to work and suddenly the police closed off the tunnel in Rocinha and started to patrol with guns. There was a panic at the mouth of the tunnel and I saw people running and heard gunfire,  one witness told Reuters, requesting anonymity.  I m still shaking now.   The outbreak of violence is happening in the midst of the Rock in Rio music festival at the far south end of the city, which has drawn thousands of people with musical acts including Fergie and Aerosmith. Broadcaster GloboNews on Friday showed relatively calm scenes of matte green military trucks filing down roads into the favela, including soldiers riding on trucks and motorcycles holding assault rifles. There are up to 10,000 troops in Rio de Janeiro who could be mobilized if needed, the defense ministry said.   We re not going to back off in Rocinha,  the governor of Rio state Luiz Fernando Pezao told journalists.

Summary: ब्राजील की सेना रियो की झुग्गी बस्ती में तैनात, नशीली दवाओं से जुड़ी हिंसा बढ़ी


CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has exhorted followers across the world to wage attacks against the West and to keep fighting in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The message released on Thursday was his first purported audio communication in almost a year during which his jihadist group lost much of its self-proclaimed  caliphate . The audio, partly dedicated to religious scriptures, came after several reports Baghdadi had been killed. His last recording was in November 2016, two weeks after the start of the  battle to recapture the city of Mosul from Islamic State (IS).  Oh Soldiers of the Caliphate, fan the flames of war on your enemies, take it to them and besiege them in every corner, and stand fast and courageous.   Beware of retreat, or the feeling of defeat, beware of negotiations or surrender. Do not lay down your arms,  Baghdadi said, referring to followers in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, North Africa and elsewhere in Africa. The date of the 46-minute recording, released via the Al-Furqan news organization, was not clear. But in it, Baghdadi makes an apparent reference to recent events including North Korean threats against Japan and United States and the recapture two months ago of Mosul by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces. Since Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria in 2014, Iraqi forces have retaken a string of cities in western and northern Iraq including Mosul, where Baghdadi made his announcement from the city s El Nuri mosque. Western-backed Syrian forces are also thrusting into the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, Islamic State s operational headquarters from where it plotted many of the attacks that have killed hundreds of people around the world. Baghdadi also called for attacks on Western media, saying:  Oh soldiers of Islam in every location, increase blow after  blow, and make the media centers of the infidels, from where they wage their intellectual wars, among the targets.   Continue your Jihad and your blessed operations and do not let the crusaders rest in their homes and enjoy life and stability while your brethren are being shelled and killed.  The fall of Mosul in July effectively marked the end of the Iraqi half of Baghdadi s  caliphate  even though Islamic State continues to fight in some territory outside of Mosul, the largest city they came to control in both Iraq and Syria. An IS branch in Libya was also defeated last year in the city of Sirte, where they had set up a North African beachhead in 2014. In Egypt s northern Sinai, another affiliated militant group is still fighting Egyptian military forces.  With God s will and his strength, we are staying determined, patient...The abundance of killing will not stop us,  Baghdadi said in the audio recording.  Officials have said they believed it could take years to capture or kill Baghdadi as he is thought to be hiding in a vast swathe of sparsely-populated desert between Mosul and Raqqa, where attacking drones are easy to spot. The United States has offered a $25 million bounty for information that would locate Baghdadi. Russia s defense ministry said earlier this year it might have killed Baghdadi in an air strike on a gathering of IS commanders on the outskirts of Raqqa. But U.S. officials said they could not corroborate the death and other Western as well as Iraqi officials were skeptical.

Summary: इस्लामिक स्टेट के बगदादी ने दिनांकित ऑडियो में आतंकवादियों से लड़ाई जारी रखने का आग्रह किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is proposing to shift oversight of the U.S. air traffic control from the federal government to an independent group, according to budget documents released on Thursday. Trump, who called the U.S. air traffic control system “obsolete” in a meeting with airline executives last month, is proposing $16.2 billion for the Department of Transportation’s discretionary budget for fiscal year 2018, a reduction of 13 percent. Some Transportation Department budget items are paid through the highway gas tax fund. The document says Trump’s plan “initiates a multi-year reauthorization proposal to shift the air traffic control function of the Federal Aviation Administration to an independent, non-governmental organization.” Privatization advocates argue that spinning off air traffic control into a non-government entity would allow for a more efficient system and rapid, cost-effective improvements of technology, in part by avoiding the government procurement process. Opponents, including some airlines, say the U.S. system is so large that privatization would not save money, and would drive up ticket costs and could create a national security risk. There also are concerns that airlines would dominate the private-company board and limit access to airports by business jets. The budget would eliminate $175 million in annual funding for the Essential Air Service, a program to support commercial air service to rural airports and end subsidies for Amtrak to operate long-distance train service. Amtrak would then “focus on better managing” state-supported lines and service in the busy Northeast corridor, the budget document said. The Trump budget would also eliminate the Obama administration’s “TIGER” grant program, saving $499 million. That program has been used to fund a variety of transportation projects, including high-speed and intracity rail, highway construction and transit bus systems. The budget calls for cutting the budget of U.S. space agency NASA by 0.8 percent to $19.1 billion. The budget proposes cancelling the multi-billion-dollar Asteroid Redirect Mission, but funds development of the Orion crew vehicle and Space Launch System.  The budget calls for expanding public private partnerships. NASA has partnerships with Space Exploration Technologies and other companies.  The budget funds a mission to fly by Jupiter moon Europa, but cancels a multi-billion mission to land on the moon. It would also fund a Mars rover mission in 2020. The FAA is spending billions to implement “NextGen,” a system that would utilize satellites to monitor aircraft instead of radar and make other changes and has faced implementation challenges. The FAA said it has spent $7.5 billion on NextGen over the past seven years, which “has resulted in $2.7 billion in benefits to passengers and the airlines to date, and is expected to yield more than $160 billion in benefits through 2030.” Last month, Trump criticized spending on NextGen, saying the system was “totally out of whack,” over budget and behind schedule. The FAA handles more than 50,000 flights a day and more than 700 million passengers each year. It spends nearly $10 billion a year on air traffic control funded largely through passenger user fees, and has about 28,000 air traffic control personnel. Since 1987, several countries have moved responsibility for air traffic control from national civil aviation authorities to independent self-financed providers. The Government Accountability Office said in a 2016 report that the United States “is generally considered to have the busiest, most complex and safest ATC system in the world.”

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने हवाई यातायात नियंत्रण का निजीकरण करने का प्रस्ताव रखा


(Reuters) - The wife of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Tuesday apologized for sniping at a critic on social media site Instagram who called her “deplorable” for a post highlighting her expensive clothing as she exited a government plane. The flap erupted after Mnuchin’s wife, Scottish-born actress Louise Linton, posted a photo of herself emerging from the aircraft wearing a white outfit and sunglasses, using the hashtags “#tomford,” “#hermesscarf” and “#valentino,” according to images of the Monday evening post on social media. In her initially vitriolic response to the “deplorable” criticism, Linton had lashed out about how much she and her husband contribute to the economy and pay in taxes.  On Tuesday, she scrolled back. “I apologize for my post on social media yesterday as well as my response. It was inappropriate and highly insensitive,” Linton said in a statement released through a publicist. Linton has since made her Instagram account private. Jenni Miller, who identified herself as a mother of three from Portland, Oregon, had said of Linton’s original post on Instagram: “Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable.”  Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during her unsuccessful presidential run that some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s supporters were a “basket of deplorables.” Linton shot back at Miller. “Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol,” she said, according to images of the response posted online. “Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did.” The U.S. Treasury did not respond to requests for comment. The high-end fashions Linton called out in her post carry hefty price tags, with Hermes scarves retailing from $300 to more than $2,300. Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) executive and Hollywood film financier. Linton has been at the center of controversy before. Last year she withdrew a self-published book in which she claimed to have been caught up in violence in Zambia. African leaders and aid workers said the book was filled with factual errors. Trump ran on a populist campaign platform, vowing to improve the lives of working Americans and has surrounded himself with a cabinet heavy on corporate titans, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), and financier Wilbur Ross, now the commerce secretary.

Summary: ट्रेजरी सेक्रेटरी की पत्नी ने इंस्टाग्राम पर जासूसी के लिए मांगी माफी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to run the government health program for the elderly, poor and disabled on Monday, filling a critical role as Republicans fight to repeal and replace Obamacare.      The Senate voted 55-43 to approve Seema Verma to run the $1 trillion Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Verma is the owner of SVC Inc, a healthcare consulting firm, and has helped redesign Medicaid programs in several states, including Indiana when Vice President Mike Pence was governor.     Verma will report to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Price and Verma are expected to make changes to many of the Medicaid and Medicare programs that were implemented under the signature legislation of former Democratic President Barack Obama, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.     Republicans unveiled their plan to repeal and replace much of Obamacare last week. The proposal would roll back an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and replace Obamacare’s income-based tax credits with flat, age-based credits. The bill passed two House committees last week and goes to the House Budget Committee this week. A study of the Republican healthcare measure released on Monday by the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office found that 14 million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year if the program is approved. It said 24 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 under the program. Price told reporters at the White House that the administration strongly disagreed with the findings, saying the CBO had not looked at the full plan to reform Obamacare.     If the Republican healthcare bill passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by Trump, Verma will play a major role in implementing the law, called the American Health Care Act.     Verma worked in Indiana to expand Medicaid to include thousands of additional low-income residents. Those residents are required to make small monthly payments toward their care through health savings accounts.      Verma’s confirmation was not without controversy early on. In an initial committee hearing, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said that while helping manage the state of Indiana’s health program, her firm was being paid by companies that were providing services and products to the program.     Verma has denied wrongdoing and said she would divest her financial interest in SVC within 90 days of confirmation.

Summary: सीनेट ने मेडिकेयर, मेडिकेड चलाने के लिए ट्रम्प के चयन की पुष्टि की


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran s military chief met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday during a visit to Damascus to set out a joint military strategy, Syria s state news agency reported, a sign of deepening Iranian influence that has alarmed Israel. General Mohammad Baqeri said Iran was determined to continue supporting the Syrian leadership and people  until security and safety are returned to them  and would help with reconstruction, the state news agency SANA said. Israel has voiced deep concern over Tehran s widening influence in Syria, where Iranian forces and Iran-backed militias including Lebanon s Hezbollah have played a critical role helping Assad in the six-year-long war.     On Tuesday, Baqeri, speaking from Damascus, warned Israel against breaching Syrian airspace and territory and pledged to increase cooperation with Syria s military to fight both Israel and Sunni jihadist militants. Israel s air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Hezbollah nearly 100 times during the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran was strengthening its foothold in Syria and that Israel would  do whatever it takes  to protect its security. Tensions have risen this year between Lebanon s Hezbollah and Israel, which have avoided a major conflict since 2006.     In the meeting with Baqeri, Assad said the Iranian people and armed forces were a key partner in victories  against terrorism in Syria , SANA reported.   Military support from Iran and Russia has helped Assad regain swathes of Syria from rebels and Islamic State militants.

Summary: ईरानी जनरल और असद ने संयुक्त सैन्य रणनीति पर चर्चा कीः रिपोर्ट


(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon did not support Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, yet some Trump advisers want America’s most famous banker to become Treasury Secretary to calm nerves on Wall Street. A member of Trump’s transition team contacted Dimon recently to see if he would be interested in the role, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. It was not clear whether Dimon had responded, though he has said emphatically multiple times that he was not interested in the role. JPMorgan spokesman Andrew Gray declined to comment, and Dimon, who is traveling outside the United States, could not be reached. Trump’s close circle of advisers includes several with Wall Street ties. His campaign finance manager, Steven Mnuchin, is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker. Fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci is a hedge fund executive. A person familiar with Trump’s personnel efforts said the transition team’s list included Dimon, Mnuchin and Rep. Jeb Hensarling. The person said that Mnuchin was a more likely choice given his proximity to Trump. Trump’s controversial rhetoric and behavior during the campaign concerning immigrants, women, minorities, the disabled, Muslims and China, among other things, were offensive to many senior Wall Street executives who have tried to embrace inclusion, diversity and globalization. Trump also criticized Wall Street on the trail, saying the industry “got away with murder” and would not be let off the hook. Since being elected on Tuesday, Trump has softened his tone and tried to bridge gaps by meeting with President Obama and taking calls from foreign officials. Bringing Dimon on board could help him mend fences with the financial industry, which appears to be coming around to the idea of Trump in the White House. At an event on Thursday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc CEO Lloyd Blankfein said Trump could be good for the economy and Dimon would be an excellent choice for Treasury Secretary, while hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said Trump’s advisers would get “the best and brightest” to run the economy. Hensarling’s office indicated in a statement that he did not want the job. “Serving in his Cabinet is not something I’ve indicated an interest in and it’s not something I am pursuing,” the statement said. He said he looked forward to working in Congress to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act which tightened regulations on Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis. Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, has been floated as a possible candidate for roles like Treasury Secretary in the past. However, resentment toward bankers following the 2007-2009 financial crisis made his candidacy much less likely, as did JPMorgan-specific scandals related to a costly derivatives trade and bad mortgages. A $13 billion mortgage settlement JPMorgan reached with the federal government in 2013 prompted Trump then to call Dimon “the worst banker in the United States.” However, Dimon has managed to retain a reputation within the banking industry as a distinguished leader, in part by the way he handled those scandals and the way he talks about JPMorgan’s role in society as the largest U.S. bank. For instance, Dimon decided to have JPMorgan make big investments in Detroit, calling it a civic duty to turn around an economically challenged city. His memos, speeches and letters to shareholders are often sprinkled with patriotic language. “America is best when we come together with clear leadership, expertise and the political will to take on difficult challenges and get things done,” the 60-year-old chairman and CEO said in a memo to JPMorgan Chase employees following Tuesday’s election. “No one should ever doubt the strength and resilience of our country and our democracy.” However, Dimon has said as recently as September that he would not want a role as Treasury Secretary. If he holds to that, it could put him and JPMorgan in an awkward position. Saying “no” to a presidential request to join the cabinet is unusual, and the bank would then be overseen by appointees from an administration Dimon rejected. Even so, his associates do not expect Dimon to say “yes.”  Dimon has said his determination to act would make it hard to make political compromises. Talking before an audience in September, he said the only job in government he would want is the one Trump is about to get. “I would love to be president of the United States of America,” Dimon told the Economic Club of Washington. “Until Donald Trump got to where he was, they said you’ll never see a rich businessman who’s never been in politics be president. I clearly was wrong about that.”

Summary: ट्रेजरी नौकरी के लिए डिमोन से संपर्क करने की ट्रम्प की कोशिशों पर कोई सुनवाई नहीं हो सकती है


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday there could be an opportunity for talks between North Korea and the United States if Pyongyang stopped testing and developing its nuclear and missile programs.  So long as they stop testing, stop developing, they don t export their weapons, there would be opportunity for talks,  Mattis told reporters on a military plane. While Washington has said that all options, including military, are on the table in dealing with North Korea, it has stressed its preference is for a diplomatic solution. Visiting Seoul last week, U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea he was prepared to use the full range of American military power to stop any attack, but also urged Pyongyang to  make a deal.   Trump, who had previously called negotiations with North Korea a waste of time, has offered no clear path to talks. Pyongyang has made clear it has little interest in negotiations, at least until it has developed a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. The last North Korean missile test was carried out almost two months ago, but U.S. officials say they have seen no signs that Pyongyang has stopped development. Mattis said the U.S. military was closely watching why there had been no missile launches recently, but declined to give potential reasons for it.  There are concerns in South Korea that any potential U.S. strikes against North Korea s nuclear and missile programs could provoke devastating North Korean retaliation against South Korea. Earlier this week, a senior South Korean official said Trump should  under no circumstances  take military action against North Korea without the consent of the government in Seoul. In Colorado, Mattis will visit the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which are responsible for homeland defense, including tracking and potentially intercepting North Korean missiles.

Summary: मैटिस को लगता है कि अगर उत्तर कोरिया मिसाइल परीक्षण, विकास रोकता है तो बातचीत का अवसर मिलेगा


DORTMUND (Reuters) - A German-Russian man suspected of detonating three bombs targeting the Borussia Dortmund soccer team bus in a plan to profit from a plunging share price appeared in a German court on Thursday charged with 28 counts of attempted murder. The team was heading to the club s stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco on April 11 when the explosions went off, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day. Letters left at the scene had initially suggested Islamist militants were behind the bomb attack, but prosecutors later said the 28-year old suspect, a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V., was motivated by greed. The attack near the Signal Iduna Park stadium, the largest in Germany, holding more than 80,000 fans, nonetheless revived memories at the time of the November 2015 attacks in Paris that targeted entertainment venues including the Stade de France where France were playing Germany in a soccer friendly. The start of the trial also comes only days after the anniversary of a deadly truck attack at a Berlin Christmas market, which killed 12 people and put the issue of security at the heart of political debate in Germany. Sergei V., who was led into a courtroom at the Dortmund regional court in handcuffs on Thursday, may face a life sentence in prison if he is found guilty. No plea was entered. In addition to the attempted murder charges, he is accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm and of causing an explosion. Prosecutors have said that he bought about 44,000 euros ($52,000) worth of options on the day of the attack entitling him to sell shares in Borussia Dortmund at a pre-determined price.  His goal was allegedly to push the price of the shares down through the attack and earn a high profit of around 500,000 euros through the options,  a spokesman for the regional court in Dortmund said. But shares in BVB rose after the attack and are up 16 percent so far this year.     Defence lawyer Carl Heydenreich declined to comment on the allegations against his client on Thursday, saying the matter was complicated by what he said was a  smear campaign  ahead of the trial. The Dortmund court has set trial dates through March for now.

Summary: बोरुसिया डॉर्टमंड बम संदिग्ध पर हत्या के प्रयास का मुकदमा चलाया गया


NEWARK, N.J. (Reuters) - Closing arguments in New Jersey’s “Bridgegate” trial were unexpectedly postponed by a day on Thursday because of an unspecified “legal issue” that must be resolved, the trial judge said.  U.S. prosecutors in Newark had been scheduled to begin summing up the evidence against two former allies of Governor Chris Christie who are accused of orchestrating lane closures at the busy George Washington Bridge to New York City in September 2013 in an act of political retribution. U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton told jurors to return on Friday morning for closing arguments, which are now expected to last into Monday. Prosecutors and defense lawyers, who also left for the day, declined to comment on the nature of the issue. Jurors have heard more than a month of testimony in the trial of Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operator of the bridge. Prosecutors say the two conspired with another Port Authority executive, David Wildstein, to create massive gridlock in Fort Lee, New Jersey, to punish the town’s mayor for refusing to back Christie’s 2013 reelection campaign. The scandal damaged Christie’s political standing as he was beginning a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. The governor is a top adviser to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Christie, who has not been charged with wrongdoing, has said he was unaware of the lane closings at the time. But testimony at the trial from several witnesses have contradicted Christie’s claim. Wildstein, who pleaded guilty and testified for the government, said he and Baroni discussed the plot with Christie as it was unfolding. Baroni and Kelly each took the stand and said they spoke with Christie about the lane closures, though they said they believed that the closures were part of a legitimate traffic study. Kelly, who cried several times during her testimony, portrayed Christie as a demanding and bullying boss who once flung a water bottle at her in anger. She was the author of an infamous email sent to Wildstein that said, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” a message prosecutors say set the scheme in motion. But Kelly told jurors that she was simply parroting the language Wildstein had used in describing the potential gridlock caused by what she believed was a Port Authority-approved traffic study.

Summary: न्यू जर्सी 'ब्रिजगेट' के न्यायाधीश ने दलीलें बंद करने में देरी की


LONDON (Reuters) - Outside London s Piccadilly theater where tickets cost up to 110 pounds and a banner advertising the musical  Annie  reads  It s a hard knock life , Bryan and Kevin sleep in small tents on the street.  They are among almost 1,000 people who sleep rough in the British capital, according to official figures, while more than 4,000 are on the streets across the country every night. Bryan, 51, who last year nearly died from pneumonia, became homeless after personal problems led him to drink and drugs.  It s worse than it used to be right now, but I think it s down to a lot of things,  he says.  The way people are now - everything is going up and costing more and then the other stuff, services and care, humanity, it s going down.  There is wide agreement that the problem has become worse in the last seven years, leading to criticism of the Conservative government s approach and accusations that its austerity policies, including changes to welfare payments for housing, are partly to blame. In a report this week, parliament s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) called the extent of homelessness across England  a national crisis .  The latest official figures hammer home the shameful state of homelessness in England and the abject failure of the government s approach to addressing the misery suffered by many thousands of families and individuals,  PAC chairman Meg Hillier said. The charity Shelter estimates more than 300,000 people in Britain are homeless, a figure which has risen by 13,000 in a year. It says one in every 200 people in England are homeless and 128,000 children will be without a home this Christmas. Official figures show that there were 4,134 rough sleepers counted on a single night in autumn 2016, an increase of 134 percent since 2010 when there were fewer than 1,800.  All you really want is a gaff (place) of your own,  says Jimmy, who beds down in a subway near Waterloo Station.  People come from out of town into the city at Christmas - you make more money - so it s harder for us who are here all the time,  said Jimmy, 51, who originally hails from Glasgow in Scotland.     There is both a human and financial cost to the problem. The average age of death of someone who is rough-sleeping is 47 and people living on the street are 17 times more likely to be the victims of violence than those in settled accommodation.  I m getting to a point where I can t do it anymore, I m trying to save my money but it s hard,  said John, 19, one of a small group of men living under Waterloo Bridge.  Andrew, who now has a place to live but returns to hang out with his homeless friends under the bridge, recalls how he was offered drugs on his first night on the streets:  I said  no mate, I m not into that  and he said  It s a free trial, no strings.   While he has escaped the streets, Andrew is pessimistic about John s future.  He won t get himself off the streets, it s almost impossible without help,  he said.    As to the financial impact, the National Audit Office, parliament s spending watchdog, said local authorities had  spent 1.15 billion pounds ($1.54 billion) on homelessness services in 2015-16. NAO head Amyas Morse said in September the government s  recent performance in reducing homelessness therefore cannot be considered value for money.   The government has set a target of halving rough sleeping by 2022 and abolishing it by 2027. Last week, Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers the government would spend 500 million pounds on tackling homelessness and was putting in projects to tackle rough sleeping.  We do not want to see anybody who is homeless or anybody who is sleeping rough on our streets,  May said.  But critics say the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010, have done little to find solutions and warn that the problem could get even worse.  We heard that over the next 10 years, if the current trajectory stays as it is, the 160,000 people who are homeless in a year could increase by 25 percent and the 9,100 people sleeping rough could rise by 76 percent,  the PAC report said. Meanwhile for some of those who have been homeless for a number of years, getting off the streets can be difficult, especially for those battling drug additions. One of those is Bryan outside the Piccadilly Theatre. Despite his problems, he says he refuses to take any money from children, recalling how one girl recently tried to give him her pocket money.   Afterwards I sat and I cried,  he said.

Summary: लंदन के खराब नींद लेने वालों के लिए एक कठिन जीवन


KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian prosecutors have ended an inquiry into Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk over alleged tax evasion after failing to find any evidence of wrongdoing, his press service said on Tuesday. The investigation was launched in July at the request of lawmaker Tetiana Chornovol, a member of former Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk s  People s Front  party.  Danylyuk, who became finance minister after Yatseniuk s ouster in April 2016, denied the charges and hinted they were linked to his efforts to crack down on corruption. In a statement his press service said  the case has been closed due to a lack of circumstances constituting a breach of law.  The General Prosecutor s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  Since becoming finance minister, Danylyuk, a former investment manager who has also served as a deputy head of President Petro Poroshenko s administration, has backed reforms required under a $17.5 billion bailout program from the International Monetary Fund.

Summary: यूक्रेन ने वित्त मंत्री की कर जांच हटाईः वित्त मंत्रालय


ALMATY (Reuters) - The sister of the Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight people in New York said her brother might have been brainwashed and appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday to ensure he gets a fair trial. Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was charged in a federal court on Wednesday with driving a rented pickup truck down a riverside bike trail, crushing pedestrians and cyclists, in support of Islamic State. A dozen more people were injured in the city’s bloodiest single attack since Sept. 11, 2001. Trump called for Saipov to receive the death penalty. Speaking from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, Saipov’s sister, Umida Saipova, said she hoped Trump would help ensure her brother was given “more time” and “a fair trial”. She told Reuters by telephone that she and her family had been shocked to see Saipov grow a long beard after he got married in 2013. Umida Saipova told Radio Free Europe (RFE) that her family believed that her brother may have been brainwashed. “We don’t know who has brainwashed him,” Saipova said. “Perhaps he’s become part of some organized group. I don’t know, honestly, how long it will take for his head to get rid of that poison, but I’m sure he will come to his senses, God willing.” She said she had spoken to her brother the day before the attack.  “He was in a good mood. It was a usual, good conversation,” she told RFE. Saipov’s mother, Mukaddas, told Reuters she last saw her son in August when she visited the United States. The attack was a “total shock” to the family, she said. “I was shocked by the news and I have been in hospital (since then) until this afternoon,” she said. Mukaddas said Sayfullo told her in August he missed Tashkent. She wanted to bring him home, but could not do that because his youngest child was only 20 days old, she said. Sayfullo never complained about his life in the United States and was able to support his family and help his parents at the same time, she said. “He was kind with all of his friends,” Mukaddas said. “No, he was not religious and never visited mosques because he was always busy with studying and then working.” Trump has tweeted of Saipov: “should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!” Umida Saipova told RFE she and her family hoped her brother would not be sentenced to death in some rushed show trial. Amid unconfirmed reports that the Uzbek authorities are questioning her family, she added that she did not know where her father and uncle were.

Summary: न्यूयॉर्क हमले के संदिग्ध की बहन का कहना है कि उसका ब्रेनवॉश किया गया होगा; ट्रम्प से अपील


(Reuters) - Ten Republican state attorneys general on Thursday urged federal authorities to rescind a policy set by former U.S. President Barack Obama that protects from deportation nearly 600,000 immigrants brought into the country illegally by their parents, known as “Dreamers.” Obama, a Democrat, had hoped that overhauling the U.S. immigration system and resolving the fate of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally would be part of his presidential legacy. But Republican President Donald Trump has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security earlier this month rescinded a separate Obama-era policy meant to cover illegal immigrant parents that had been blocked by the courts. However, DHS said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy covering “Dreamers” was still in effect. In a letter on Thursday, the Republican attorneys general asked that DHS abolish the DACA program going forward, while noting that the government did not have to rescind permits that had already been issued.  If the federal government does not withdraw DACA, the attorneys general said they would file a legal challenge to the program in federal court in Texas. A DHS representative referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The 10 Republican attorneys general who signed the letter represent the states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Nebraska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, West Virginia and Kansas.  A larger coalition of 26 Republican AGs had challenged the policy covering illegal immigrant parents.  In a statement, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said it took encouragement from the diminished number of attorneys general signing onto the DACA letter, and urged Trump not to “cave in to the toothless threat” of legal action.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन अटॉर्नी जनरल ने ओबामा के 'ड्रीमर' कार्यक्रम पर निशाना साधा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, other military equipment and training, the most of any U.S. administration in the 71-year U.S.-Saudi alliance, a report seen by Reuters has found.  The report, authored by William Hartung of the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, said the offers were made in 42 separate deals, and the majority of the equipment has yet to be delivered. Hartung told Reuters the report would be made available publicly on Sept. 8.  The report said U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia since Obama took office in January 2009 have included everything from small arms and ammunition to tanks, attack helicopters, air-to-ground missiles, missile defense ships, and warships. Washington also provides maintenance and training to Saudi security forces. The Center’s report is based on data from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a Department of Defense body that provides figures on arms sales offers and Foreign Military Sales agreements. Most of the offers, which are reported to Congress, become formal agreements though some are abandoned or amended. The report did not disclose how many of the offers to Saudi Arabia were agreed.  Washington’s arms sales to Riyadh recently have come under fire from rights groups and some members of Congress are disturbed by the rising number of civilian casualties in the war in Yemen, where a coalition led by Saudi Arabia is fighting Iran-allied Houthi rebels. The conflict has killed at least 10,000 people.  Last month the United Nations human rights office said that 3,799 civilians have died in the conflict, with coalition air strikes responsible for an estimated 60 percent of the deaths. The coalition says it does not target civilians and accuses the Houthis of placing military targets in civilian areas. The coalition has created a body to investigate civilian casualties. The outcry over those casualties has led some members of Congress to push for restrictions on arms transfers, and amid the growing outcry, the Pentagon cautioned that its support for Saudi Arabia in its Yemen campaign was not “a blank check”. The Control Arms coalition, a group that campaigns for stricter arms sales controls, said last month that Britain, France and the United States were flouting the 2014 Arms Trade treaty, which bans exports of conventional weapons that fuel human rights violations or war crimes. Nevertheless, the Obama administration last month approved a potential $1.15 billion arms package for Saudi Arabia. Hartung said the level of U.S. arms sales to Riyadh should give it leverage to pressure Saudi Arabia. “It’s time for the Obama administration to use the best leverage it has - Saudi Arabia’s dependence on U.S. weapons and support - to wage the war in Yemen in the first place,” Hartung told Reuters. “Pulling back the current offer of battle tanks or freezing some of the tens of billions in weapons and services in the pipeline would send a strong signal to the Saudi leadership that they need stop their indiscriminate bombing campaign and take real steps to prevent civilian casualties.” Washington has been at pains to prove to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies that it remains committed to their defense against Iran in the wake of a multinational deal last year to restrict the Iranian nuclear program. Sunni Muslim Gulf states accuse Shi’ite Iran of fomenting instability in the region, which the Islamic Republic denies. “The more recent deals that have involved resupplying Saudi Arabia with ammunition, bombs, and tanks to replace weaponry used up or damaged in the war in Yemen are no doubt driven in part by the effort to ‘reassure’ the Saudis that the U.S. will not tilt towards Iran in the wake of the nuclear deal,” Hartung said.

Summary: ओबामा प्रशासन ने सऊदी अरब को 115 अरब डॉलर के हथियारों की बिक्री की पेशकश कीः रिपोर्ट


(Reuters) - Delaware’s governor has signed into law a bill ensuring abortion remains legal in the state, the first such move in the United States since President Donald Trump was elected on a pledge to overturn a landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationally. A spokesman for Democratic Governor John Carney Jr. said on Friday he supported the rights and protections afforded under Roe v. Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court decision protecting a woman’s right to abortion. “For that reason, he signed the bill into law,” said the spokesman, Jonathan Starkey, noting that the law takes effect immediately. Trump, a Republican whose election was backed by anti-abortion groups, has promised to appoint justices to the nation’s top court who would overturn Roe v. Wade and let states decide whether to legalize abortion.  States have responded by seeking to write Roe V. Wade into their own laws, with Delaware the first to do so successfully.  Abortion rights advocates on Friday cheered the Delaware law, which  codifies at the state level provisions of Roe v. Wade. “We applaud Governor Carney for sending a strong message that state policymakers will protect women’s access to critical reproductive health services in the face of threats at the federal level,” said Amanda Allen, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Elizabeth Nash, an analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion policy, said the law makes a statement that women are valued citizens in Delaware.  “It says to women that you are important, you have the ability to decide when to have a child and the state supports you in making the decision that is best for you and your family,” Nash said.  Abortion opponents had lobbied against the legislation. “This abortion law is a tragedy for Delaware,” Delaware Right to Life spokeswoman Moira Sheridan said in an email message. “(Carney) ignored the voices of Delawareans who rallied in opposition to this legislation, which now makes us the First State for Unrestricted Abortion.”    Carney’s signature of the law on Thursday came just days after the state House voted 22 to 16 on Tuesday to pass the bill, which was approved by the state Senate 11-7 on May 9. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats. A bill to support abortion rights was approved by the Illinois legislature in May but the state’s Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has vowed to veto it.  In January, New York’s Assembly adopted legislation similar to Delaware’s, but it has stalled in the Senate.

Summary: डेलावेयर ट्रम्प के तहत गर्भपात अधिकार कानून लागू करने वाला पहला अमेरिकी राज्य है


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A bill to make California a sanctuary state, by preventing police from inquiring about immigration status and curtailing law enforcement cooperation with immigration officers, was signed into law by the governor on Thursday. The signing of the bill by Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, enacts on a state-wide level protections for illegal immigrants that exist in several cities, including Chicago and New York. Illinois approved a similar measure earlier this year. The enhanced protections for illegal immigrants by California, the nation’s most populous state, sets the stage for a political battle with President Donald Trump, who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration one of his main priorities.  Senate Bill 54, which California lawmakers approved last month, bars local governments from forcing undocumented immigrants to spend extra time in jail so that immigration agents can pick them up for deportation. It also prohibits police from asking about the immigration status of people during routine interactions. “These are uncertain times for undocumented Californians and their families, and this bill strikes a balance that will protect public safety, while bringing a measure of comfort to those families who are now living in fear every day,” Brown said in a statement. The law will take effect in January. California leads the nation in its population of illegal immigrants, with more than 2.3 million people lacking legal status, according to Pew Research Center. The U.S. Department of Justice immediately criticized Brown’s action. “The state of California has now codified a commitment to returning criminal aliens back onto our streets, which undermines public safety, national security and law enforcement,” Department of Justice spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement. Attorney General Jeff Sessions this year sought to cut off sanctuary cities from certain federal grants, but judges have blocked that effort. The law will not affect major aspects of U.S. immigration enforcement, Brown noted in his statement. It does not prohibit sheriffs from allowing federal immigration authorities into their jails and does not freeze deportation proceedings for prison inmates, Brown said.

Summary: कैलिफोर्निया के गवर्नर ने 'सेंक्चुरी स्टेट' विधेयक पर हस्ताक्षर किए


ON BOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force may intensify its strikes in Afghanistan and expand training of the Afghan air force following President Donald Trump s decision to forge ahead with the 16-year-old war, its top general told Reuters on Tuesday. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said, however, he was still examining the matter, as the U.S. military s top brass had only begun the process of translating Trump s war strategy into action. Asked whether the Air Force would dedicate more assets to Afghanistan, where the United States has been engaged in its longest military conflict, Goldfein said only:  Possibly.    It s actually too early to tell what this will mean in terms of plus-ups and reductions,  he said in a joint interview with Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. Still, he acknowledged that the Air Force was  absolutely  examining the possibility of increasing air power, including to support U.S. ground forces, following Trump s promise of a stepped-up campaign against Taliban insurgents, who have gained ground against U.S.-backed Afghan government forces.  Goldfein said the same about providing training to Afghan pilots. Wilson, who assumed the Air Force s top civilian job three months ago, noted the Afghan military had made strides thanks to U.S. training and equipment, but added:  I think there is a long way to go there, very honestly.   In a speech on Monday night, Trump appeared to answer a call from the top U.S. commander on the ground for thousands of more troops to break a stalemate with Taliban insurgents, on top of the roughly 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan. Trump said the United States would not disclose troop numbers, but one U.S. official told Reuters they could start moving quickly. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday he would set troop levels following the review by military chiefs. During the administration of Trump s predecessor, Barack Obama, U.S. military officials privately expressed frustration about their inability to strike at many Taliban targets - including training camps -  unless they could show a direct threat to U.S. forces or major impact on the Afghan state. Wilson said Trump appeared to be giving greater flexibility to strike insurgents.     Obviously the Joint Chiefs will work through their plans and make proposals, but I think the guidance was pretty clear from the president last night, and we re going to go on the offensive and destroy these terrorist networks,  Wilson said.  Goldfein said:  I thought that came out very loud and clear in the speech that that s his priority.  Wilson and Goldfein spoke to Reuters while flying back to the United States after a nine-day trip that included a visit to Afghanistan, where the U.S. military has ramped up its firepower against Islamic State in recent months even as it helps Afghan forces battle the Taliban.   Particularly for the U.S. Air Force, the size of the American commitment to Afghanistan far outweighs the number of airmen deployed there. A network of U.S. installations throughout the Middle East supports the Afghan campaign, including in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.  Still, any substantial increase in U.S. targeting of the Taliban and Islamic State militants would likely require dedicating more U.S. military assets to build intelligence, strike insurgent targets and provide support to U.S. forces in the field. Although the U.S. military is stretched, a string of U.S. coalition-backed victories by Iraqi forces against Islamic State might free up some firepower and intelligence assets for Afghanistan, experts say. Air Force spokesman Brigadier General Edward Thomas declined to speculate on operational planning. But he noted that U.S. air power from the region could be deployed, if needed, including fighter aircraft, bombers and spy planes.     With the detailed planning that will follow the president s announcement, the Air Force will be ready to swing any additional airmen and aircraft to the fight as required,   Thomas said.  Trump ran for the presidency calling for a swift U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the United States invaded in October 2001, and he acknowledged on Monday that he was going against his instincts in approving the new campaign plan sought by his military advisers. Wilson said Trump s remarks represented a  strategic correction  in the war effort along with a significant shift in policy on Pakistan. In his speech, Trump delivered a sharp rebuke to Islamabad for allowing Taliban insurgents a safe haven from which launch attacks in Afghanistan, and said it had  much to lose  unless it changed course. Pakistan denies that it harbors militants fighting U.S. and Afghan government forces in Afghanistan. Reuters has reported that the United States has been considering a range of actions, including withholding aid to Pakistan and, perhaps, ramping up drone strikes. Successive U.S. administrations have struggled with how to deal with nuclear-armed Pakistan, and the U.S. military has been dependent in the past on overflight or land routes through Pakistan to resupply its forces in landlocked Afghanistan.   Wilson did not rule out a future U.S. military role against militants in Pakistan should Islamabad fail to act, but she said Trump s focus appeared to be on diplomatic efforts for now.   My assumption is that there will be some intense diplomatic pressure,  she said. Goldfein said he was not aware of any changes to U.S.-Pakistani military ties, but acknowledged the military would take its cues from the State Department.  I can tell you that I have a fairly robust dialogue with the Pakistani air chief. I ve hosted him. He s hosted me,  Goldfein said.  But that dialogue is always supportive of the diplomatic dialogue.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः ट्रम्प का अफगान निर्णय अमेरिकी वायु शक्ति, प्रशिक्षण को बढ़ा सकता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s push for a major military buildup suffered a setback on Thursday when the House of Representatives put plans on hold to fully fund the federal government through next Sept. 30 and instead resorted to temporary measures freezing spending at current levels. With a Dec. 8 deadline rapidly approaching for either extending federal funding in some way or triggering a partial government shutdown, the House next week will advance a temporary patch, according to a senior aide, and try to provide money through Dec. 22. That will give Congress more time to craft a second patch, the aide said, to operate the government through January. While the moves, if successful, would keep the Pentagon running at last year’s levels, they are far from Republican hopes of handing Trump about $634 billion in fiscal 2018 funding for the military’s regular operations, $85 billion above last year. For months, Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have been working behind the scenes to broker a deal on overall spending levels for the current fiscal year, which already is two months old. Democrats are demanding increases in non-defense spending if military budgets are pumped up as Trump has demanded. It is unclear whether Republicans in Congress and Trump will allow unrelated controversial measures to be attached to either of the temporary spending bills. Democrats, whose votes normally are needed in the Republican-controlled Congress to pass spending bills, have been hoping to use their political leverage to win passage of an immigration measure by attaching it to an end-of-year appropriations bill. That bill would provide legal protections to “Dreamers,” the hundreds of thousands of undocumented people who came to the United States as children and have established roots. House Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about the possibility of attaching the immigration provision to a spending bill, said he wanted to resolve the issue. But he noted that Congress is under a March deadline to pass the Dreamers measure, saying “We’ve got other deadlines in front of that,” referring to the spending bills.

Summary: सैन्य निर्माण के लिए ट्रम्प के आह्वान ने कांग्रेस में धक्का मारा


(Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds a five-point lead over Republican Donald Trump in the latest Washington Post-ABC Tracking Poll released early on Sunday. In the Post-ABC poll released on Friday, Clinton led Trump by 47 percent to 44 percent. Clinton had an advantage in affirmative support, the poll said, with 55 percent of backers saying they are mainly supporting her, compared with 43 percent of Trump voters. More Trump voters say they “mainly oppose Clinton.”

Summary: वाशिंगटन पोस्ट-एबीसी ट्रैकिंग पोल में क्लिंटन ने ट्रम्प को 48-43 प्रतिशत से आगे कर दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional leaders are quietly working on a bipartisan deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling within weeks, hoping to prevent the difficult debt issue from snarling a budget fight to come in September, a senior Democratic budget writer said on Friday. John Yarmuth, top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee, told Reuters there is bipartisan interest in raising the debt limit before August. “There is talk going on, there is leadership conversation about this,” said Yarmuth, who added that House Democrats do not plan to demand concessions from Republicans in exchange for supporting a debt limit increase. Unlike most countries, the U.S. government has a statutory limit on how much money it can borrow to cover the budget deficit that results from Washington spending more than it collects in taxes. Only Congress can raise that limit.  The Trump administration has warned the debt limit will need to be raised in the fall. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last month moved the target deadline for action to September from October, saying tax receipts are coming in slower than expected. Senate Republicans remain in contact with the administration on the issue, but don’t have further updates on their plans, a senior aide said. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has said Democrats will support a “clean” debt-limit bill, free of conditions. Conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus have traditionally voted against clean increases and have already indicated they would like to raise the debt limit less than requested by the Trump administration. Congress’s agenda is crowded, with healthcare legislation pending and a deal needed by late September on funding the government. Raising the debt limit adds another obligation. Over the past decade, raising the limit went from a routine job to a politically charged negotiation. In 2011, under former Democratic President Barack Obama, Republicans began demanding concessions in exchange for their votes to raise the limit. As a result, the nation twice went to the brink of busting the debt ceiling before an agreement could be reached. Yarmuth said Democrats are not opposed to attaching a debt ceiling increase to “bipartisan” legislation, but warned against adding “poison pills.”  “I don’t think our side wants to play games with this,” he said. Bipartisan discussions in the Senate on the debt limit have not begun, a leadership aide confirmed.      Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters earlier this week that the responsibility for raising the limit lies with Republicans and warned against tying the debt limit to deficit-creating tax cuts for the rich.

Summary: कर्ज सीमा बढ़ने पर सदन के नेताओं की नजर द्विदलीय सौदे पर


GENEVA (Reuters) - A round of Syria peace talks that ended on Thursday was a big missed opportunity but there may be more talks next month if ideas can be found to encourage President Bashar al-Assad s government to engage, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said. He said neither side had actually  sabotaged  the latest talks by refusing to attend, but he laid most of the blame for the failure of the round at the feet of the government side.    De Mistura voiced milder disappointment with the Syrian opposition, after they arrived in Geneva ruling out any future role for Assad. But he said that tough public stance had been tempered by a mature position in the closed-door discussions.  The goal we had was to bring about real negotiations,  de Mistura told a news conference.  Let me be frank. We did not achieve, we did not achieve these negotiations. In other words, negotiations in reality did not take place.  I would conclude by saying (it was) a big missed opportunity. A golden opportunity at the end of this year when in fact there is a clear indication by many sides that the military operations are coming to a close,  he added. De Mistura said he was leaving Geneva for consultations in New York with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, followed by a meeting with the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.  I will probably need to come up with new ideas, parameters, about how to move the talks forward, particularly on constitution and elections,  he said, adding that plans for a new round of Geneva talks in January depended on their outcome. Civil war has ravaged Syria for more than six years. Chief opposition negotiator Nasr Hariri said the international community needed to do more to persuade government negotiator Bashar al-Ja afari to come to the table, warning that the talks were in  great danger .  The international community needs to find a new approach, otherwise this stalemate will continue and unfortunately it will be at the expense of Syrians,  he said. One European diplomat said the talks had been a  charade  because of the government s behavior.  Although the regime has presented itself here, that is all that it has done. I would go further: it s not just a kind of disengagement that they ve shown, it s an extraordinary contempt,  he said.  I understand that a large amount of their time here was spent negotiating personal admin matters and expenses, rather than the substance of the talks.  As he left the talks, Ja afari accused the opposition, backed by Western countries and Saudi Arabia, of sabotaging the round. Ja afari said Damascus did not want the talks to fail but the opposition had put down a precondition last month by concluding a conference known as  Riyadh 2  with a declaration that Assad had no role in Syria s political transition. De Mistura said the Damascus government had wanted him to insist that the opposition withdraw the statement.  That was not possible or a logical approach because to me it sounded like a precondition. The government engaged me with only on (discussions about) terrorism. The truth is there is not one single subject they accepted except that one.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने सीरिया वार्ता को 'एक बड़ा चूका हुआ अवसर' कहा, नए विचार चाहता है


ERBIL (Reuters) - There are no winners among Iraq s Kurds, just weeks after Kurdish president Masoud Barzani gambled away his people s autonomy in a defiant independence referendum.   The losing bet has come at a steep price for everyone involved.  Barzani has had to give up the presidency, his Kurdish political foes have angered their popular base, and the Kurdish people, who overwhelmingly voted to break away from Iraq, feel further than ever from their lifelong dream of independence.    The ultimate winner, analysts say, is Iran, widely believed to have backed and orchestrated Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in his Oct. 16 offensive to recapture Kurdish held-areas, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.   The Iranians outwitted the Americans; they were the driving force behind the deal to hand over Kirkuk,  said Hassan Shaaban, a political commentator and rights activist in Baghdad.   The balance of power has been transformed in the north of Iraq, exposing the limited hand the Kurds have to play in future negotiations. It has also exposed the dominant role Iran played in transforming the fate of the Kurdish region.  Iran is poised to exploit the political aftermath, pushing to move the centre of power from the regional capital Erbil, where the Barzanis and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have dominated, to its Kurdish allies in the city of Sulaimaniya.  Iran was always one step ahead on the referendum,  said Renad Mansour, an Iraq expert at the Chatham House think-tank. They knew Barzani was never going to postpone the vote, he said, adding:  The U.S. was left scrambling while the Iranians were plotting.  A senior Iranian official said Tehran had advised Barzani against the referendum but he would not listen.  We tried to stop this referendum because it was not in their interest. But unfortunately Mr Barzani miscalculated his social base among Kurds and went ahead with the vote,  Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran s National Security Council, was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency on Tuesday.   Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani has for years been allied to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the main rival of Barzani s KDP. But the referendum has drawn the powerful Iranian commander even closer to Kurdish politics, and shown how far Iran s reach has extended beyond the central government in Baghdad.   Ahead of the vote, Soleimani warned Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq to withdraw their forces from Kirkuk or face a  fiery  onslaught by Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed fighters, according to Kurdish and Iraqi officials.   The warning prompted Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to withdraw from most areas, and deepened the split between Barzani s power base in Erbil, and the rival Talabani clan in Sulaimaniya, long allied with Iran.  Iraqi politicians have voiced concern about the growing influence of Iran, despite praising Abadi for reining in Kurdish ambitions.   We feel worried seeing the octopus arms stretching deeper in the north,  said Ahmed Asi al-Obeidi, a Sunni tribal sheikh and a member of Kirkuk s tribal council.   We all have seen the problems Iranian meddling has caused in other parts of Iraq, including mainly Sunni areas, and if the same amount of interference is repeated in Kurdish areas, then the worst is coming and instability will prevail.   Addressing his people, demoralized by humiliating territorial defeats, Barzani said on Sunday that he would step down, just one month after the vote he championed in the face of regional and international opposition.   He accused his enemies of committing  high treason  in surrendering Kirkuk to Iraqi forces without a fight, while his rivals have directed the same accusation against him for holding the referendum in the first place.   The vote and its ensuing political and military retribution from Baghdad - backed by Iran and Turkey - demolished the position of relative strength the Kurds had enjoyed for years.   The blame has been placed on Barzani s shoulders, both by his political opponents, notably the rival Talabani clan allied to Iran, and his Western allies, who were angered by his insistence on holding the vote against their advice.   On Sunday, Kurdish lawmakers agreed to divide Barzani s presidential powers between parliament, the judiciary and the government, in the absence of imminent presidential elections and a named successor.   Barzani remains head of the KDP, which dominates parliament and government, and will still sit on the High Political Council, an opaque non-governmental body which emerged after the referendum. He will thus retain his ability to influence policy.    Barzani could therefore mitigate the mounting political chaos. But his position instead highlights the lack of clarity over who is in charge as crucial negotiations with Baghdad get underway over the region s future.   Dominant since he became president in 2005, Barzani has consolidated the power of his office, and boosted his family members  political profiles.   Before the referendum, Barzani s son Masrour was his likely successor, but he has been damaged by his backing for the vote.   Instead, Nechirvan Barzani, Masoud s nephew and the regional prime minister, has moved to the fore. He has gained some of Barzani s newly devolved presidential powers, and maintained ties with the Kurdish opposition, making him a more palatable candidate to mend regional fences. He also enjoys a close relationship with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan.   On Monday, the United States commended Barzani for stepping down and said it would  actively  engage with Nechirvan, and his deputy, Qubad Talabani, a member of the rival political faction with whom he maintains a good relationship.  Who emerges as the next leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government is anything but straightforward. In addition to an intra-Kurdish compromise, the influence of Baghdad and Iran will have to be considered.   Senior Kurdish officials from both the KDP and PUK say their best bet is to present a united front in negotiations with Baghdad. But that now seems all but impossible.   Iraqi forces, including the Iran-backed Shi ite militias, now control border crossings in the north, vital trade routes for the Kurds. The military capitulation in Kirkuk was a crushing blow to the Kurds, both morally and financially, halving the region s oil export revenue overnight.    Now the Talabanis are facing their own succession crisis, following the death of former president Jalal Talabani.   Iran saw the disintegration of their Kurdish ally in Talabani,  said Mansour, who added Iran needed a clear successor to ensure its continued influence.   Another set of sons and nephews are vying for leadership in the aftermath of the referendum. But the PUK base has expressed more widespread disappointment with how their leadership handled the Kirkuk crisis.   We were betrayed by our leaders in Kirkuk, who stopped us from fighting the (Iraqi Shi ite) militias,  said a PUK-allied Peshmerga commander who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.  They sold us to Iran for their own benefit.  For a graphic on Iaq's Kurdish zone, click tmsnrt.rs/2yXRWcI

Summary: इराक के कुर्दों के जनमत संग्रह में हारने के बाद ईरान को विजेता के रूप में देखा गया