OTTAWA/TORONTO (Reuters) - A U.S.-Canadian couple freed in Pakistan this week, nearly five years after being abducted in Afghanistan, returned to Canada on Friday where the husband said one of his children had been murdered and his wife had been raped. American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. They arrived in Canada with three of their children.  Obviously, it will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home,  Boyle told reporters after arriving at Toronto s Pearson International Airport, wearing a black sweatshirt and sporting a beard. Pakistani troops rescued the family in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border, this week. The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Taliban-allied Haqqani network.   The stupidity and the evil of the Haqqani network in the kidnapping of a pilgrim ... was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter,  Boyle said, reading from a statement, in a calm voice.  And the stupidity and evil of the subsequent rape of my wife, not as a lone action, but by one guard, but assisted by the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant.  He did not elaborate on what he meant by  pilgrim , or on the murder or rape. Coleman was not at the news conference. Boyle said the Taliban, who he referred to by their official name - the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - had carried out an investigation last year and conceded that the crimes against his family were perpetrated by the Haqqani network. He called on the Taliban  to provide my family with the justice we are owed .  God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network,  said an exhausted-looking Boyle. He did not take questions form reporters. The family traveled from Pakistan to London and then to Toronto. Boyle provided a written statement to the Associated Press on one of their flights  saying his family had  unparalleled resilience and determination.  AP reported that Coleman wore a tan-colored headscarf and sat with the two older children in the business class cabin. Boyle sat with their youngest child on his lap. U.S. State Department officials were on the plane with them, AP added. One of the children was in poor health and had to be force-fed by their Pakistani rescuers, Boyle told AP. Reuters could not independently confirm the details. They are expected to travel to Boyle s family home in Smiths Falls, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Ottawa, to be reunited with his parents. Canada has been actively engaged with Boyle s case at all levels and would continue to support the family, the Canadian government said in a statement.  At this time, we ask that the privacy of Mr Boyle s family be respected,  it said. The journey home was complicated by Boyle s refusal to board a U.S. military aircraft in Pakistan, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Boyle instead asked to be flown to Canada.  But Boyle said he never refused to board any mode of transportation that would bring him closer to home. Boyle had once been married to the sister of an inmate at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The marriage ended and the inmate was later released to Canada. The families of the captives have been asked repeatedly why Boyle and Coleman had been backpacking in such a dangerous region. Coleman was pregnant at the time.  Boyle told the news conference he had been in Afghanistan helping  villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where no NGO, no aid worker, and no government  had been able to reach. The Taliban and Haqqani network share the same goals of forcing out foreign troops and ousting the U.S.-backed government in Kabul but they are distinct organizations with separate command structures.

Summary: कनाडाई का कहना है कि बच्चे की हत्या कर दी गई, अमेरिकी पत्नी ने अफगान अपहरण के दौरान बलात्कार किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans’ refusal to consider any Supreme Court nominee by President Barack Obama this year could jeopardize the party’s control of the Senate, as Democrats use the standoff to challenge vulnerable opponents in an election year. Congressional leaders met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday about replacing recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s stance opposing any nomination by Obama. Neither side gave ground. The showdown over the issue is already being used by Democrats to target Republican senators in states including Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, even though elections are not until November. The Democrats have two goals. One is opening a new line of attack on Republicans in states that tend to vote Democratic in presidential election years. The other is chipping away at McConnell’s position, which may be hard to maintain over time. The Democrats’ strategy will not work, said Republicans, who maintain the Supreme Court showdown actually helps them in some races and that other issues are much more important. Voters worry more about economic and national security issues than the Supreme Court, Tom Ridge, former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. The court fight “may have an impact, but at best, I think it’s marginal.” The issue has a long way to play out. Obama has yet to name a nominee. Also, the Supreme Court has not yet deadlocked 4-4 since Scalia’s death on a high-profile issue, so there has been no stalemate to test the public’s reaction. But by haranguing vulnerable incumbents, such as Illinois Republican Mark Kirk, Democrats hope to convince swing voters that stone-walling on any Obama nominee is a dereliction of duty. Faced with this attack, Kirk last week broke ranks with McConnell and said hearings should be held on a nominee. His possible general election opponent, Democratic Representative Tammy Duckworth, told Reuters she has hammered away at Kirk on the Senate confirmation process. “He would not have said anything if I had not pushed so hard,” she said. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, three-quarters of those polled said the Senate should at least see whom Obama nominates before deciding whether or not to confirm the nominee, according to Public Policy Polling surveys conducted Feb. 19-21. Former Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Ed Rendell told Reuters the Supreme Court battle will be trouble for Republicans. “This will bring into dramatic focus, with crystal clarity, the importance of the presidential election concerning the Supreme Court,” Rendell said. Liberal activist group Moveon.org last week sponsored a 30-second cable television spot urging Senate Republicans to “Do your job” and consider an Obama appointee. At the same time, conservative group Judicial Crisis Network launched a 30-second video thanking Senator Patrick Toomey, who supports McConnell’s position, for “letting the people decide” on replacing Scalia. Republicans must defend 24 Senate seats in November. Democrats have only 10 to defend. Senator Rob Portman, a first-term Republican who faces a tough re-election in Ohio, has also sided with McConnell. Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who was swept into office in 2010 by the Tea Party movement, is running 11 points behind Democrat Russ Feingold, the former senator he beat six years ago, a Marquette Law School Poll last week showed. To win, analysts said, Johnson must garner support from a different, presidential-year electorate that is likely to be younger, racially more diverse and with a potentially greater interest in moving forward with a Supreme Court nominee. So far the court debate has helped Johnson solidify support among Republicans, two-thirds of whom support McConnell’s stand.

Summary: रिपब्लिकनों के सीनेट बचाव को लेकर सुप्रीम कोर्ट में गतिरोध बरकरार


GENEVA (Reuters) - The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) is closing most of its 37 cholera treatment centers in Yemen, saying the epidemic appears to have peaked. Some 884,368 suspected cholera cases have been recorded in the war-torn country in the past six months, including 2,184 deaths, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). The case fatality rate is now 0.25 percent.  The number of cholera cases reported in MSF treatment centers has significantly decreased since the peak of the outbreak. As a result, the medical organization is closing the majority of its cholera treatment centers or reducing their capacity,  MSF said in a statement late on Monday. Some 567 new patients sought treatment for suspected cholera at MSF s centers in nine governorates of Yemen during the second week of October, down from 11,139 at the peak in the third week in June, it said.   Only 9 percent of patients admitted by MSF last week needed to be hospitalized and a limited number of patients have symptoms that correspond with the cholera case definition (acute watery diarrhea with or without vomiting),  it said.  The remaining cases are believed to be due to other pathogens.  Ghassan Abou Chaar, MSF head of mission in Yemen, said:  The cholera outbreak is not over but it is no longer our medical priority in Yemen. However, this should not eclipse the dire health situation of millions of Yemenis who are unable to access basic primary healthcare.  Civil war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 people since it began in March 2015. Yemen s war pits the armed Houthi movement that controls the capital against the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition that has launched thousands of air strikes to restore him to power. Cholera epidemics usually subside once the disease passes through a population, but aid agencies say the Yemen epidemic lasted longer and spread wider than they initially expected because of the war s toll on health care. U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said on Sunday that an aid effort by the World Health Organization, United Nations Children s Fund UNICEF, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and other agencies had managed to  largely contain the devastating cholera epidemic , but warned it could flare up again without urgent investment in health, water and sanitation. ICRC said last month that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is a  catastrophe , and cholera cases could reach a million by the end of the year. Alexandre Faite, head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen, said at the time that the  health sector is really on its knees in Yemen ... the health staff is on its knees as well because they are not paid.   Preventable illnesses and deaths are increasing in Yemen, and this can be partly attributed to the salary crisis,  MSF said, noting that doctors, nurses and other public health workers had not been paid in 13 months.

Summary: एम. एस. एफ. का कहना है कि यमन में अधिकांश हैजा केंद्रों को बंद कर दिया गया है क्योंकि महामारी कम हो रही है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Michael Caputo, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, said on Thursday he would testify on Friday to a U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating possible Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Caputo, a political consultant, issued a statement saying he would testify on Friday at a closed meeting of the House Intelligence Committee. The committee does not comment on people it plans to interview or when. Caputo resigned from the Trump campaign last year after writing: “Ding Dong the witch is dead!” on Twitter after Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in June 2016.

Summary: ट्रम्प के पूर्व सलाहकार का साक्षात्कार लेगा हाउस पैनल


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently visiting the United States, will separately meet U.S. presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Sunday, campaign sources and Israeli officials said. The meetings will take place a day before Clinton and Trump face off in a first presidential debate but no details of where or when the meetings will take place were immediately available. Netanyahu traveled to the United States this week to address the U.N. General Assembly and met U.S. President Barack Obama and a number of other world leaders. Earlier this week, Clinton met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who also addressed the U.N. General Assembly. Trump also met Sisi.

Summary: नेतन्याहू अमेरिकी यात्रा के दौरान क्लिंटन और ट्रम्प से मिलेंगेः सूत्र


LIMA (Reuters) - Peru s former President Alberto Fujimori was rushed from prison to a local hospital by ambulance late on Saturday after suffering a severe drop in blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm that put him at risk of dying, Fujimori s doctor said. Cardiologists recommended that he be removed from prison immediately, Alejandro Aguinaga said.  It looks complicated,  he told journalists gathered outside the hospital. Fujimori, 79, is serving a 25-year sentence for graft and human rights crimes. He is a deeply divisive figure in Peru. While many consider him a corrupt dictator, others credit him with ending an economic crisis and bloody leftist insurgency during his 1990-2000 term. The medical emergency will likely heap pressure on center-right President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to free the former  leader, a move that could rewrite political alliances and spark protests in one of Latin America s most stable economies. Three days earlier, a faction of Fujimori s supporters in Congress unexpectedly saved Kuczynski from a motion that would have forced him from office less than two years into his five-year-term. The opposition said Kuczynski only survived the vote by promising 10 lawmakers that he would free Fujimori if they backed him. Kuczynski s government denies the allegations. Fujimori fled Peru for his parent s native Japan as his government imploded in a graft scandal at the turn of the century. He was eventually extradited to Peru and was convicted for leading death squads that massacred civilians. Despite Fujimori s downfall, the rightwing populist movement Fujimori started in the 1990s remains one of the country s most potent political forces. His two adult children, Keiko and Kenji, lead rival factions of the rightwing party, Popular Force, that controls a majority of seats in Congress and pushed to oust Kuczynski this week. Over the past year, Kenji has challenged his sister Keiko s leadership and he has led calls for his release, which could give him a boost if he is freed. TV images showed Kenji, who led the faction that backed Kuczynski, riding in the ambulance that drove Fujimori to the Peruvian-Japanese Centenario Clinic for treatment.  If a (presidential) pardon happens now, it s because there was a pact,  Congresswoman Marisa Glave said on Twitter.  A pardon can t be decided in an under-the-table deal.  Glave is one of about 10 leftist lawmakers who - despite criticizing Kuczynski as a lobbyist - opted not to support the bid to oust him out of fear it would empower Popular Force. Fujimori s well-organized foes were key to Kuczynski s razor-thin victory over Keiko in last year s presidential election, and to keeping Keiko s followers from ousting him this week. Fujimori s supporters dismissed suggestions that his health troubles were a ruse to pave the way for a pardon.  There s no circus,  Luisa Maria Cuculiza, a former ruling party lawmaker during his government, said on local broadcaster RPP.

Summary: पेरू के फुजीमोरी को जेल से अस्पताल ले जाया गया, जान को खतराः डॉक्टर


TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduran police fired tear gas at rock-hurling protesters on Thursday after a contentious presidential election that looks set to drag on for two more days without a clear winner, deepening the political crisis in the Central American nation.  Both center-right President Juan Orlando Hernandez and his rival Salvador Nasralla, a television game show host allied with leftists, claimed victory after Sunday s election. The vote tally at first favored Nasralla, but then swung in favor of the incumbent after hold-ups in the count, fueling talk of irregularities. International concern has grown about the crisis in the poor coffee-producing nation of more than 9 million, which experienced a military-backed coup in 2009 and suffers from drug gangs and one of the world s highest murder rates. The delays have already led to violence, and observers fear they could risk undermining the eventual winner s legitimacy. One of the four magistrates on the Honduran electoral tribunal flagged  serious doubts  about the process on Thursday. Marcos Ramiro Lobo called for an independent external auditor to review the results, but was non-committal on whether there was evidence of electoral fraud.  We can t be sure of one thing or the other,  Lobo told Reuters, expressing concern about the vote count breaking down.  What I do know is that serious doubts are being raised.  David Matamoros, who chairs the electoral tribunal, on Thursday evening heeded calls from international election observers and Honduras  top business group, and said the tribunal would hand-count some 1,031 outstanding ballots, or roughly 6 percent of the total, that had irregularities. That fresh count would be completed in up to two days, and would allow the tribunal to declare a definitive winner with 100 percent of ballots counted, Matamoros said.   The tribunal s latest tally showed that with 94.31 percent of ballots counted, Hernandez had secured 42.92 percent of the vote, with Nasralla at 41.42 percent. The Organization of American States (OAS) appeared to have salvaged the credibility of the election on Wednesday by eliciting signed statements from both candidates who vowed to respect the final result once disputed votes had been checked. But a few hours later, Nasralla rejected the accord, saying his opponents were trying to rob him. He urged supporters to take to the streets to defend his triumph.  They take us for idiots and want to steal our victory,  said Nasralla, who heads a center-left coalition. Nasralla is one of Honduras  best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist who was ousted in the 2009 coup after he proposed a referendum on his re-election.  On Thursday, Nasralla s coalition issued a statement signed by Zelaya, in which the former president asked for more transparency in the vote count, and said the coalition could not currently accept any decision issued by the tribunal. Luis Larach, the president of COHEP, a powerful business lobby, told Reuters that given the slim difference between the candidates, the hand-count of irregular ballots would be crucial in deciding the winner.  For me, it s still up in the air,  he said. Nasralla s followers took to the streets, protesting throughout Honduras on Thursday. At least nine people were injured in protests in the capital, Tegucigalpa, as well as two police officers and a soldier, emergency services said. Six of the nine had been shot.  There were also reports of a police station and highway toll booths set alight in other parts of Honduras.  We re going to keep protesting and won t let them steal this victory,  said university student Josue Valladares, 20, as he battled with security forces, who were guarding a vote-count center in Tegucigalpa. The sporadic way in which results have been published, and the reversal of Nasralla s lead, have led the opposition to say Hernandez may have influenced the election tribunal, an allegation Hernandez denies. Opinion polls before the election indicated that Hernandez was favored to win. On Thursday, the OAS urged the tribunal to process all of the ballots before declaring a winner, as did a European Union election monitor.  On Monday, the tribunal published more than half the results, showing Nasralla with a five point lead, but then published nothing more for 36 hours. When the count started again, Hernandez began to catch Nasralla. The count has started and stopped ever since. The tribunal blamed a five-hour delay on Wednesday on computer glitches.

Summary: होंडुरास में बढ़ते चुनावी संकट के बीच प्रदर्शनकारियों और पुलिस के बीच झड़प


(Reuters) - Wall Street’s predilection for a glass-half-full view of President Donald Trump was on full display Friday as investors backed off fears that a failure to repeal Obamacare would endanger Trump’s entire agenda in favor of optimism that he would simply get on with tax cuts and infrastructure spending. As the clock ticked down to a close vote in the House of Representatives set tentatively for Friday afternoon, U.S. stocks were little changed even as it appeared that the Republican leadership had yet to secure the support needed to pass the measure.  That was in stark contrast with earlier in the week when equities suffered their biggest one-day drop since the November election on grounds that the shaky prospects for a successful repeal of the Affordable Care Act - known popularly as Obamacare - was a litmus test for everything championed by Trump. “I think investors are of the belief that Trump is just going to pivot to taxes,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. “I think it’s a pivot from what we saw on Tuesday.” Indeed, Trump delivered lawmakers an ultimatum late Thursday, saying the time for negotiation had ended and that he was willing to leave the ACA in place and get on with his other priorities. S&P E-mini futures rallied about 0.25 percent in overnight trading following the statement. “If this goes on the back burner, and they start addressing corporate tax rates or infrastructure, that would be a positive for the market because the administration is not going to look at this and say, ‘Hey, this thing is going to take a while.’ They want to win,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.  “So they will go on to something that they could get through more quickly, which will be beneficial to the market,” Hellwig said. U.S. stocks have rallied hard since Trump was elected on Nov. 8, with the benchmark S&P 500 gaining around 10 percent in that span. Most of the gains have come as investors embraced prospects for the pro-growth and pro-business agenda Trump touted during his campaign. But more recently, doubts have arisen over Trump’s ability to deliver on the agenda as the effort to repeal Obamacare grew more rancorous. Stocks have drifted sideways for the last several weeks. Even amid the more sanguine mood on Friday as the vote approached, not all investors were ready to embrace the notion that a failure to repeal Obamacare could be so readily overlooked given how far the market has come since the election. “If the Republicans cannot settle their own conservative-moderate division on healthcare then that divide will be exacerbated for any other issue they attempt,” said Joseph Trevisani, chief market strategist at Worldwide Markets in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. Still, with less than about 90 minutes to go to the House vote, there was little evidence of the angst evident earlier in the week when investors saw the vote as a clear pass-fail test for Trump’s agenda.	 “I think what Trump did by saying that they are going to take a vote and if it doesn’t go they will move on to the next item is kind of a positive thing, because I think the more important things are fiscal stimulus and tax reform,” Tom Tucci, head of Treasuries trading at CIBC in New York said. “I know a lot of people are saying this will foreshadow the battle there, but I think there’s a lot more support on that end.”

Summary: ओबामाकेयर से आगे बढ़ने के लिए ट्रम्प की तैयारी से निवेशक उत्साहित हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday the Iran nuclear agreement must be changed or the United States could not remain part of the pact. Tillerson, in an interview on Fox News, said the so-called sunset clauses, under which some of the 2015 deal s restrictions on Iran s nuclear program expire over time, were of particular concern.  If we re going to stick with the Iran deal there has to be changes made to it. The sunset provisions simply is not a sensible way forward,  Tillerson said.  It s just simply ... kicking the can down the road again for someone in the future to have to deal with.

Summary: अमेरिका के समझौते में बने रहने के लिए ईरान परमाणु समझौते को बदलना होगाः टिलरसन


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Energy, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has promised to renew America’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Perry’s rise to America’s top energy official came against opposition from Democrats worried about his ties to oil companies, his doubts about the science of climate change, and the fact that he once called for the department’s total elimination – a comment he has since said he regrets. The Senate voted 62 to 37 in support of Perry. Perry, 66, was governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015, making him the longest-serving governor of the oil-producing state in its history.   As energy secretary, Perry would lead a vast scientific research operation credited with helping trigger a U.S. drilling boom and advancements in energy efficiency and renewables technology, and would oversee America’s nuclear arsenal. In his Senate confirmation hearing, Perry said much of his focus running the department would be in renewing the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Trump wants to ensure the arsenal is at “the top of the pack” and said the United States had fallen behind in its nuclear weapons capacity. Democratic lawmakers expressed worry Perry would weaken the department’s functions and potentially target its army of scientists focused on climate and clean energy research. Perry sought to reassure them saying he would protect scientists and the growing renewable energy industry. Democratic Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, a senior Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Perry had failed to persuade him he would push back against Trump administration plans to cut the department’s budget and focus on clean energy R&D. “As Trump is threatening to slash DOE’s budget, Gov. Perry hasn’t convinced me he’s up to the task of creating those jobs and putting points on the board in the fight against climate change,” Wyden said. Republican Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, chair of the energy committee, said Perry would be “a strong partner as we focus on everything from reducing rural energy costs to advancing the Alaska gasline project.”

Summary: सीनेट ने पुष्टि की कि ट्रम्प ने पेरी को ऊर्जा सचिव के रूप में चुना है


BOSTON (Reuters) - Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who has spent more than $140 million on fighting climate change, said on Tuesday he will spend whatever it takes to fight President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-drilling and anti-regulation agenda. The former hedge fund manager from California is putting together a strategy that will “engage voters and citizens to fight back” once Trump takes the White House in January, he told Reuters in an interview. However, he stressed he was not planning to fight Trump through the courts. Instead, he would focus on “trying to present an opposite point of view and trying to get that point of view expressed, and communicated to citizens.” Steyer’s pledge to fight Trump suggests an intensifying battle for U.S. public opinion on global climate change, an issue that has already divided many Americans, lawmakers, and companies between those who consider it a major global threat and those who doubt its existence. Other U.S. environmental groups are also preparing to resist Trump’s agenda, with some vowing street protests and more established organizations that helped draft some of President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations preparing to defend them in court. “We have always been willing to do whatever is necessary,” Steyer said, when asked how much money he was willing to spend to oppose Trump’s agenda. Trump campaigned on a promise to drastically reduce environmental regulation and ease permitting for infrastructure, moves he said would breathe life into an oil and gas industry ailing from low prices, without harming U.S. air and water quality.  He has also called climate change a hoax and has promised to “cancel” the Paris Climate Accord between nearly 200 nations to slow global warming, a deal he said would cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars and put it at a disadvantage. While the approach has cheered the industry, it has sent shockwaves through the environmental movement, which is confronting the prospect of losing all progress it made during the Obama administration. Steyer, who had endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, called Trump’s policies dangerous. “Every single one of these things, whether it was getting rid of Paris or cutting back the EPA, we think are extremely dangerous to the security of every American,” Steyer said. “We think it is based on willful ignorance of the facts and flies in the face of the realities facing the world.” Steyer’s main political vehicle, NextGen Climate, on Tuesday called on the Obama administration to defy Trump’s pro-drilling agenda by issuing an order permanently blocking all new drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  Trump has also promised to ask Canadian oil pipeline company, TransCanada Corp, to resubmit its application to build a pipeline into the United States that would link Alberta’s vast oil sands to American refineries and ports on the Gulf Coast. The project, Keystone XL, had been rejected by the Obama administration after years of mass protests and lobbying by environmental organizations. Steyer said the project may no longer make sense since a slump in oil prices has reduced the profitability of oil sands production. Steyer, who four years ago left the hedge fund firm he co-founded to devote himself full-time to environmental activism, said young voter turnout in areas where NextGen focused its mobilization efforts during the 2016 campaign was up more than 20 percent from the last presidential election in 2012. “Did we get the president we want, absolutely not. Did we get a majority of clean energy supporters in the senate, no,” Steyer said. “But in terms of what we did, and the strategy we took, we wouldn’t do anything differently.”  NextGen poured nearly $69 million into its elections related programs during the presidential campaign, according to federal records compiled by OpenSecrets.org, slightly lower than the $74 million it spent during the mid-term congressional elections in 2014, when only two of the six candidates it supported won.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः अरबपति हरित कार्यकर्ता स्टेयर ने ट्रम्प से लड़ने की कसम खाई, कहा कि पैसा कोई मुद्दा नहीं है


CHICAGO (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of 30 Illinois House members on Tuesday threw their support behind efforts in the Senate to craft a bill package aimed at ending the state’s historic budget impasse. “We ask the senators from both parties to pass the best negotiated package they can, and then we will take up their work in the House,” the group said in a statement.  The package, which includes tax hikes, pension changes and a local property tax freeze, stalled in the Democratic-led Senate in March, when most Republicans withdrew their support. John Patterson, a spokesman for Senate President John Cullerton, said on Tuesday both sides are “trading ideas in trying to find agreement.” Illinois is limping toward the June 30 end of a second-straight fiscal year without a complete budget due to a standoff between its Republican governor and Democrats who control the legislature. Lawmakers face a May 31 deadline to pass budget bills with simple majority votes. The bipartisan House statement surfaced after House Speaker Michael Madigan on Monday urged Governor Bruce Rauner to restart budget negotiations and appointed four top Democrats from his chamber to work on a deal. Meanwhile, the Chicago-based Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government finance watchdog, released a report on Tuesday calling for an end to piecemeal funding that has kept the nation’s fifth-largest state operating. “The governor and General Assembly need to end this unacceptable stalemate by passing and enacting a comprehensive plan,” Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said in a statement. “Cherry-picking certain areas of government to fund while pledging to work toward a complete budget sometime in the abstract future has not and will not end the crisis and in fact is making it worse.” Illinois’ reliance on continuing appropriations, court-ordered spending and partial budgets has ballooned an unpaid bill backlog from $9.1 billion at the end of fiscal 2016 to more than $13 billion in fiscal 2017. Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza told a Senate committee on Tuesday that late payment penalties owed to vendors total about $800 million. Eleni Demertzis, a Rauner spokeswoman, said the governor continues to push for “a truly balanced budget with structural reforms.”  Major rating agencies, which have pushed Illinois down the credit scale six times since Rauner took office in January 2015, have indicated the state’s triple-B bond ratings could fall closer to junk in the absence of a fiscal fix.

Summary: द्विदलीय इलिनोइस हाउस समूह ने सीनेट से बजट तय करने का आग्रह किया


COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh Reuters) - Until late last month, Syed Karim grew rice and sugarcane on a strip of unclaimed land along the international border where Myanmar ends and Bangladesh begins.  On Aug. 25, the 26-year-old Rohingya Muslim man abandoned his home in a nearby Myanmar village and moved to the no-man s land, fleeing a crackdown by the military against his community in response to militant attacks. An estimated 370,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since that day. But Karim and thousands of his neighbors from Rohingya villages near the border face a unique predicament. They have fled to the safety of the buffer zone along the border and are now stuck. Bangladesh security forces have instructions to not let them in, said Monzurul Hassan Khan, a Bangladesh border guard officer.  Some of the Rohingya there said they are too afraid to go back to their homes but not ready to abandon them altogether and become refugees in Bangladesh.  I can see my house but can t go there,  said Karim, whose Taung Pyo Let Yar village could be seen from his shack in the no-man s land. The top U.N. human rights official has called Myanmar s operations against the Rohingya as  a textbook example of ethnic cleansing  and the Security Council is to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss the situation. The 40-acre (16.2-hectare) buffer zone, about the size of 40 soccer pitches, is strung along the border, with a barbed wire fence on the Myanmar side and a creek on the other.  Hundreds of tarpaulin bamboo shacks have come up on what used to be a paddy field, with hills in the south. Khan said 8,000 to 10,000 Rohingya had camped there. The UN refugee agency, which runs camps in Bangladesh, doesn t go there because of security reasons, said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for UNHCR. Tan said that they work with some NGOs to provide people in the area with plastic sheets and clothing.  Myanmar has laid landmines on its side of the border, which have wounded at least four people, Bangladesh authorities and Rohingya refugees said.     Buddhist-majority Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against  terrorists  it blames for the attacks on the security forces.        Several Bangladesh officials said they suspected that about 100 fighters from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the insurgents who attacked Myanmar police posts and an army base on Aug. 25, have also been spotted in the border area. Bangladeshi security officials said they learned from informers that suspected ARSA fighters were in the area early last week, after the Eid al-Adha festival.  The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said 11 suspected fighters were also being treated in a hospital in Chittagong city, north of Cox s Bazar, which is close to the border.                         An ARSA spokesman denied that any of its fighters were using the no-man s land to launch attacks and said none of its fighters were in Bangladesh. Mostafa Kamal Uddin, Bangladesh s home secretary, said he did not have information about the presence of Rohingya militants in Bangladesh.  Karim and other Rohingya people, mostly from the border villages, said they started fleeing to the buffer zone after the Aug. 25 attacks.           Khan, the border guard officer, said their numbers swelled on Aug. 27.  We kept hearing gunshots and also saw a fire and smoke on their side of the border,  Khan said.  He pointed to two brown patches of burned trees in Taung Pyo Let Yar village from his operations base on a hilltop in Bangladesh s Gundum village near the border.  His men with automatic rifles kept watch as Rohingya children waded across the creek to fetch fresh water in aluminum pots and plastic bottles from a hand-pump on Bangladeshi soil.  A toddler, with the knee-deep waters rising to his neck, struggled with three plastic bottles, dropping one before turning around and picking it up and pressing forward. In interviews at the buffer zone, where Reuters was taken by Khan, residents of three villages - Taung Pyo Let Yar, Mee Taik and Kun Thee Pin   said they were spared in the previous big military crackdown in October last year. But things changed on Aug. 25.  Mohammed Arif, a Rohingya man from Taung Pyo Let Yar village, said he fled into the woods near the village to hide when the army came. From there, he watched a mortar shell hit his two-storey house, burning it down.  He crossed over the fence on Aug. 26 with his family. Arif said he had not seen any ARSA fighters in the no-man s land.  In our country, Buddha worshippers treat us like a virus that needs to be eliminated. We have heard them saying,  No Rohingya in Myanmar.  But we will go back,  Arif said.

Summary: बारूदी सुरंगों और एक खाड़ी में फँसे रोहिंग्या किसी की भूमि में नहीं हैं


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - South Sudan President Salva Kiir s government is using food as a weapon of war to target civilians by blocking life-saving aid in some areas, United Nations sanctions monitors told the Security Council in a confidential report seen by Reuters on Friday. During 2016 and 2017, the U.N. monitors said a military campaign by government troops in the northwestern town of Wau and surrounding areas in Western Bahr el-Ghazal targeted civilians on ethnic grounds and displaced more than 100,000.  The government has during much of 2017 deliberately prevented life-saving food assistance from reaching some citizens,  the monitors wrote.  These actions amount to using food as a weapon of war with the intent to inflict suffering on civilians the government views as opponents to its agenda.    The denial of aid had caused extreme food insecurity among large sections of the population, with malnutrition and death by starvation the documented outcome, in particular in the Greater Baggari area in Wau County,  they said in the report submitted to the U.N. Security Council s South Sudan sanctions committee. South Sudan s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report.  South Sudan spiraled into civil war in late 2013, two years after gaining independence from Sudan, and a third of the 12 million population has fled their homes. The conflict was sparked by a feud between Kiir, a Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, who is being held in South Africa. The United Nations has warned that the violence in South Sudan was providing  fertile ground  for a genocide. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley visited the Juba late last month, where she told Kiir that the United States had lost trust in his government and risked losing Washington s support if he did not pursue peace. The U.N. monitors reported that the government had regularly denied humanitarian aid access to certain parts of the population, in particular areas outside the town of Wau, which was visited by U.N. Security Council ambassadors in September last year.  One of those areas, Greater Baggari, is noteworthy for the persistent and systematic nature of the government s access denials, and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions that have resulted,  the independent U.N. monitors said. In August, the government eased restrictions, allowing aid groups to distribute food and lifesaving assistance to more than 12,000 people in Greater Baggari. Villages had been looted and burned and crops destroyed, the U.N. monitors wrote.   One humanitarian assessment mission told the U.N. monitors that 164 young children and elderly had died from hunger and disease between January and September 2017. The report by the U.N. monitors found that despite the catastrophic conditions across South Sudan, armed forces, groups and militias - particularly those affiliated with Kiir and Vice President Taban Deng Gai - continued to  actively impede both humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.  U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in South Sudan since 2011. An East African bloc, IGAD, led two rounds of peace talks over two years, culminating in a brief power-sharing agreement signed by Kiir and Machar in 2015. But even as IGAD urges a new ceasefire, the warring parties are preparing for more fighting.  The coming dry season in South Sudan will, absent a change in the current conflict dynamics, see further fighting and civilian suffering as the government continues to pursue military victory over political compromise,  the U.N. monitors wrote.

Summary: अनन्यः दक्षिण सूडान की सरकार भोजन को युद्ध के हथियार के रूप में उपयोग कर रही है-संयुक्त राष्ट्र की रिपोर्ट


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee said on Monday that President Barack Obama must ask Congress for additional funds to pay the deployment of more troops to Iraq, as Congress and the White House debate defense spending amid mandatory budget cuts. “Added to the President’s Afghanistan announcement last week, the United States will now be deploying thousands more troops than we have budgeted for in the President’s budget request,” Representative Mac Thornberry said in a statement. “Those deployments can only be fully supported through a supplemental budget request,” Thornberry said. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Monday that Washington would send 560 additional troops to assist Iraqi forces in an expected push on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul. Obama said on July 6 he would keeping 8,400 troops in Afghanistan through the end of his presidency in January. As the Republican-led Congress and the Democratic administration grapple over spending, Obama has threatened to veto a $602 billion defense policy bill because of its use of special funds for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to avoid mandatory spending limits. Democrats say the Department of Defense should be subject to the same spending restrictions as non-military programs, but Republicans accuse Democrats of stinting on national security in order to fund pet projects.

Summary: ओबामा को इराक के सैनिकों के लिए नए बजट का अनुरोध करना चाहिएः थॉर्नबेरी


GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Seven Palestinian militants were killed on Monday when Israel blew up what it said was a tunnel being dug underneath the Gaza Strip border. Hamas said Israel had made a  futile attempt to sabotage efforts to repair Palestinian unity , a reference to the  reconciliation agreement it reached with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, earlier this month.    However, neither Israel nor Hamas seemed eager to seek escalation. Israel was at pains to point out that its action against the tunnel was carried out on its own side of the border.  The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) does not intend to escalate the situation but stands prepared for a variety of scenarios,  said Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman.  The working assumption is that this is not the only tunnel that Palestinian terrorist organizations are trying to dig.  The tunnel was being dug from the Gaza town of Khan Younis across the border, where it was blown up, Conricus said. A source for the Islamic Jihad militant group said the head of the faction s armed wing in central Gaza was killed along with a senior associate and other gunmen. It vowed revenge saying  all options are open for response.  Hamas s armed wing said two of its gunmen were killed while trying to rescue the Islamic Jihad men working in the tunnel. Gaza health officials said nine people were wounded. It said it would avenge  the blood of the martyrs.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in remarks to legislators of his right-wing Likud party, said  groundbreaking technology  aided the tunnel s discovery, but gave no details. Israel has been constructing a sensor-equipped underground wall along the 60-km (36-mile) Gaza border, aiming to complete the $1.1 billion project by mid-2019. During the last Gaza war, in 2014, Hamas fighters used dozens of tunnels to blindside Israel s superior forces and threaten civilian communities near the frontier, a counterpoint to the Iron Dome anti-missile system that largely protected the country s heartland from militant rocket barrages. Israel and the United States have called for Hamas to be disarmed as part of the pact between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, so Israeli peace efforts with Abbas, which collapsed in 2014, could proceed. Hamas has rejected the demand. On Saturday, UNRWA, the main U.N. welfare agency for Palestinians, said it had discovered  what appeared to be a tunnel  underneath one of its schools in Gaza on Oct. 15 and had sealed the cavity. U.S. Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted on Monday:  Hamas uses the world s generosity to shield terror. Palestinians in Gaza deserve so much better.

Summary: गाजा सीमा के नीचे खोदी गई सुरंग को इजरायल ने नष्ट किया, सात लोगों की मौत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives moved toward a Friday vote to begin dismantling Obamacare despite anxiety among some Republicans they were rushing into a major step without knowing the budget consequences or having a firm idea of how they would replace the healthcare law. The Republican-led Congress, under pressure from President-elect Donald Trump to act quickly, made the first move toward scrapping Obamacare on Thursday as the Senate voted to instruct key committees to draft legislation to repeal it. The House plans to vote on the measure on Friday, Speaker Paul Ryan said. Some Republican lawmakers said on Thursday they were not sure how they would vote. “I don’t want to vote for this and say it’s the first step (toward repeal), and find out that there are some long-term budget consequences,” said Republican Representative Mark Amodei.  The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said earlier this month that repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance law in its entirety would cost roughly $350 billion over the next decade. Republicans say a good Obamacare replacement strategy would reduce government spending, but they have not agreed on a consensus plan. Amodei said he was leaning for now toward voting for the Obamacare repeal resolution. But he added that “listening to the scuttlebutt on the floor ... as of right now, my impression is, they (House leadership) don’t have the votes.” The fate of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, is a high-stakes political showdown between Republicans and Democrats that potentially jeopardizes medical coverage for millions of Americans and risks causing chaos in the health insurance marketplace. Democrats accused Republicans of rushing to scrap Obamacare, a law that has enabled up to 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain health coverage, without yet having a firm replacement plan. The Democrats say Obamacare has allowed growing numbers of Americans to get medical insurance and helped slow the rise in healthcare spending. Republicans have called Obamacare federal government overreach and have sought to undermine it in Congress and the courts since it was passed by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in 2010. Trump, the Republican president-elect who takes office on Jan. 20, called Obamacare a “disaster” during his campaign and pledged to repeal and replace it.  Conservative Republicans as well as moderates expressed concern about launching a repeal before there is clarity about how to replace provisions of the complicated and far-reaching law. Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has about 40 members, said they were undecided about how to vote.  Moderate Republican Representative Charlie Dent has “major concerns” about the process, according to a spokesman, fearing a repeal vote at the start diminishes the leverage that may be needed to get some lawmakers to back a replacement later. The resolution passed by the Senate on Thursday instructs committees of the House and Senate to draft repeal legislation by Jan. 27. Both chambers will then need to approve the resulting legislation before any repeal goes into effect. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi vowed to fight. “I think it’s easier to win a fight when something is going to be taken away from you,” Pelosi said in an appearance with elderly Americans who talked about how they had been helped by the law’s provisions, including lower prescription drug costs. Ryan said while Congress would take some replacement steps, the incoming Trump administration would be able to act on its own on some aspects, which he did not detail. Ryan said lawmakers were working on dismantling Obamacare “in sync” with Trump. “We’re not holding hard deadlines, only because we want to get it right,” Ryan said. Trump put new pressure on congressional Republicans on Wednesday when he said Obamacare repeal and replacement should happen “essentially simultaneously.” An influential conservative group, Heritage Action, late on Wednesday pressed lawmakers to back the repeal resolution. Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said the replacement effort would likely tackle drug pricing.

Summary: कुछ अमेरिकी हाउस रिपब्लिकन ओबामाकेयर निरसन शुरू करने के लिए मतदान से पहले संदिग्ध हैं


SIMFEROPOL, Crimea (Reuters) - A man who led protests against Russia s plans to annex Crimea from Ukraine was jailed for eight years in the disputed territory on Monday - a move Ukraine s president called an act of Russian repression. Crimean Tatar leader Ahtem Chiygoz was found guilty of stirring up mass disorder by calling street demonstrations in February 2014 against a referendum which later sealed Russia s seizure of the peninsula. Prosecutors at the court in Simferopol - the capital of Russian-controlled Crimea - said two people died in the unrest. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the jailing of Chiygoz added to the case against Russia which had already been  recognized as an occupier at the highest international level.   One can unlawfully confine someone s freedom, but it s impossible to break the will! You may occupy foreign land, but it will burn under your feet,  Poroshenko said on Twitter. There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities. Chiygoz was deputy head of the Mejlis representative body of Crimean Tatars which also condemned Monday s ruling. Mejlis head Refat Chubarov, who fled Crimea after its annexation, called the sentence  a new attempt to intimidate Crimean Tatars and suppress their will . The Crimean Tatars are a largely Sunni Muslim group who suffered mass deportation under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1944 and make up more than 12 percent of Crimea s largely ethnic Russian population of about 2 million. Many of them were among the strongest critics of Moscow s March 2014 annexation of Crimea, which has drawn sanctions on Russia from the United States and Europe.  Kiev and its Western allies say the seizure was illegal. But Russian President Vladimir Putin justified it, saying he needed to protect its overwhelmingly pro-Moscow population from Ukrainian nationalists.  Chubarov said lawyers would launch an appeal with the Supreme Court of Russia  as the nation that occupied Crimea .  One can already forecast its decision - it will support the decision by Crimea s illegal supreme court. Accordingly, our next step will be the European Court of Human Rights,  he added. Chiygoz s lawyer Nikolai Polozov told Reuters Television the sentence was unlawful, as Chiygoz was a citizen of Ukraine, where the criminal code did not contain such an offense. His team would seek Chiygoz s extradition to Ukraine, he added.

Summary: क्रीमिया के तातार नेता को रूस विरोधी प्रदर्शनों को भड़काने के लिए जेल भेजा गया


WASHINGTON/ANKARA (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Monday it was reviewing  adjustments  in arms for the Syrian Kurdish forces that have angered Turkey, but it stopped short of halting weapons transfers, suggesting such decisions would be based on battlefield requirements.  Turkey said on Friday U.S. President Donald Trump told President Tayyip Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Ankara views as threat.  We are reviewing pending adjustments to the military support provided to our Kurdish partners in as much as the military requirements of our defeat-ISIS and stabilization efforts will allow to prevent ISIS from returning,  said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, referring to Islamic State, which U.S. and U.S.-backed forces are battling in Syria. Earlier on Monday Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said Friday s call between Trump and Erdogan was a turning point in strained ties between the two countries, but Washington must honor a pledge to stop providing weapons to the Syrian Kurds.  The  We will not give weapons  remark from a U.S. president for the first time is important, but it will lose value if it is not implemented. It would be deceiving the world,  Bozdag said. The Syrian Kurdish YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State with the help of a U.S.-led coalition. A spokesperson for the coalition said on Sunday that it was looking at  adjustments  to the support it provides to the SDF, ranging from the number of advisers to training and artillery. Weapons provided to Syrian YPG have been limited and mission specific, the spokesperson added. Ankara has been infuriated by Washington s support for the YPG militia, seen by Turkey as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.

Summary: पेंटागन का कहना है कि सीरियाई कुर्दों के लिए हथियारों में 'समायोजन' की समीक्षा की जा रही है


WASHINGTON/WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - A fight between the Obama administration and North Carolina over a state law limiting public bathroom access for transgender people escalated on Monday as both sides sued each other, trading accusations of civil rights violations and government overreach. The U.S. Justice Department’s complaint asked a federal district court in North Carolina to declare that the state is violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban. Hours earlier, North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, and the state’s secretary of public safety sued the agency in a different federal court in North Carolina, accusing it of “baseless and blatant overreach.” The so-called bathroom law, passed in March and known as HB 2, prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to their biological sex. It has thrust North Carolina into the center of a national debate over equality and privacy, and has now led the state into what could be a long and costly legal battle with the U.S. government. Americans are divided over how public restrooms should be used by transgender people, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with 44 percent saying people should use them according to their biological sex and 39 percent saying they should be used according to the gender with which they identify.       By passing the law, North Carolina became the first state in the country to ban people from using multiple occupancy restrooms or changing rooms in public buildings and schools that do not match the sex on their birth certificate. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Monday the department “retains the option” of curtailing federal funding to North Carolina unless it backs down. “None of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone that they are not,” Lynch said at a news conference, comparing the measure to Jim Crow-era racial discrimination laws and bans on same-sex marriage. Lynch said the department is monitoring other U.S. jurisdictions that have passed or considered laws similar to North Carolina’s but declined to say whether the agency was planning any action against them.      White House spokesman Josh Earnest called the North Carolina law “mean-spirited” but McCrory said in his complaint that it is “common sense privacy policy.” North Carolina Republicans say the law stops men from posing as transgender to gain access to women’s restrooms.     North Carolina stands to lose $4.8 billion in funds, mainly educational grants, if it does not back down, according to an analysis by lawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles Law School. The Justice Department’s complaint named the state of North Carolina, McCrory, the state’s Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina system as defendants. The 17-campus University of North Carolina system says it takes federal non-discrimination laws very seriously but must also adhere to state laws like HB 2.     “In these circumstances, the University is truly caught in the middle,” UNC President Margaret Spellings said. McCrory told reporters that North Carolina had been forced to pass the law after the Charlotte city council passed an ordinance that allowed transgender people access to bathrooms based on gender identity in public and private buildings.   “We’re taking the Obama admin to court. They’re bypassing Congress, attempting to rewrite law & policies for the whole country, not just NC,” McCrory wrote on Twitter.   The Republican leaders of North Carolina’s state legislature also sued the U.S. government over the law on Monday, hours after McCrory’s lawsuit. The law is also being challenged in federal district court by critics including the American Civil Liberties Union.

Summary: अमेरिकी सरकार और उत्तरी कैरोलिना ने ट्रांसजेंडर कानून पर कानूनी लड़ाई तेज कर दी


(Reuters) - The rollout of a tax-cut plan being promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump and senior congressional Republicans was delayed on Wednesday as groups of lawmakers and special interests dug in on key provisions, insisting on changes. Here are some of the most contentious issues in the tax debate, which likely will play out over the coming weeks and months before it can garner enough support to pass Congress and be sent to Trump to sign into law. 401(k). Republicans are eyeing new limits on how much money Americans can pump each year into their 401(k) retirement accounts on a pre-tax basis. Lower limits for tax-free contributions would produce new revenue to help Republicans pay for tax cuts they have proposed for high-income earners, corporations and wealthy families’ inheritances. Taxpayers now can channel $18,000 of income tax-free into 401(k)s. Republican tax writers initially proposed lowering that cap to $2,400 and, after pushback, that number has been in flux. Firms that manage 401(k) plans, Wall Street firms that execute trades for them and the 54 million Americans who have 401(k) accounts could be hurt by such a change. Mortgages. Americans can now deduct mortgage interest from their incomes if they itemize deductions. The plan does not call for changing that directly but it does call for doubling the standard deduction, a separate tax return line that determines eligibility for itemizing. Doubling that would mean fewer Americans itemizing - and fewer deducting mortgage interest. Critics say doubling the standard deduction would make the mortgage-interest deduction a benefit for only higher-income taxpayers. The National Association of Home Builders has declared opposition to the Republican plan and proposed creating a new, non-itemized tax credit for mortgage interest. SALT. A proposal to eliminate a popular tax deduction for state and local tax (SALT) payments has threatened to derail the Republican plan. Democratic and Republican lawmakers from high-tax states, such as New York, California and New Jersey, oppose this change because it would hit their constituents hardest. Real estate interests have fought for an exemption of state and local property taxes, which is expected to make it into the bill, with a cap. Some SALT-state Republicans say they would be satisfied with an adequate property-tax deduction; others have said they will push to preserve income-tax deductibility. Pass-throughs. Republicans want to cut the tax rate for “pass-through” businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships, to 25 percent from as high as 39.6 percent. Winners from this would include many pass-throughs that are small mom-and-pop businesses but it would also benefit big enterprises, such as hedge funds and real estate partnerships. Losers would be upper middle-class wage-earners unable to channel their incomes through pass-through structures. Some tax experts warn slashing the pass-through rate could unleash new tax-dodging schemes to enable Americans to do just that: run their personal incomes through pass-through structures such as partnerships, corporations and sole proprietorships. Tax negotiators are examining ways to limit what types of professional partnerships would qualify for a new pass-through rate. They also are weighing a proposal to limit the new rate to only 30 percent of business income. Business interest. Another change being evaluated by Republicans is ending or further restricting tax deductibility of business interest. This would mean business borrowers could no longer write off the interest they pay on debts. Businesses have formed a group, called the BUILD Coalition, to oppose the provision. Members include Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N), Owens-Illinois (OI.N), S&P Global (SPGI.N) and lobbying groups for private equity firms, farmers, mortgage bankers, real estate investment trusts, casinos and equipment leasing groups. Tax writers are looking at ways to exempt small businesses and allow them to continue to deduct business interest on debts. Deficit. Not long ago, most Republicans stood firmly against increasing the federal budget deficit and the national debt but analysts say their tax plan would hugely expand both. Washington was expected to collect $3.3 trillion in taxes in 2017 but spend $4 trillion, leaving a deficit of $700 billion. Previous deficits have piled up a national debt of $20 trillion. The Trump tax-cut plan would reduce federal tax revenues by $2.4 trillion in the first 10 years and by $3.4 trillion in the 10 years after that, adding greatly to the deficit and the debt, according to the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan think tank. The plan would give a small economic boost but soon be overwhelmed by the rising federal debt burden, the center said. Helping the rich. The tax plan has struggled since it was unveiled as a rough framework in September with criticism from Democrats and social activists, who say it is a giveaway to the wealthy and corporations that hurts or neglects others. On that issue, the Tax Policy Center study said, “In 2018, all income groups would see their average taxes fall, but some taxpayers in each group would face tax increases. Those with the very highest incomes would receive the biggest tax cuts.”

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः स्थानीय कर कटौती, 401 (के) पर ट्रम्प कर योजना लड़खड़ाती है


GENEVA/SHAMLAPUR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - The United Nations  top human rights official on Monday slammed Myanmar for conducting a  cruel military operation  against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, branding it  a textbook example of ethnic cleansing . Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein s comments to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva came as the official tally of Rohingya who have fled Myanmar and crossed into southern Bangladesh in just over two weeks soared through 300,000. The surge of refugees - many sick or wounded - has strained the resources of aid agencies already helping hundreds of thousands from previous spasms of bloodletting in Myanmar.  We have received multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages, and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians,  Zeid said.  I call on the government to end its current cruel military operation, with accountability for all violations that have occurred, and to reverse the pattern of severe and widespread discrimination against the Rohingya population,  he added.  The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.  Attacks by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) militants on police posts and an army base in the northwestern state of Rakhine on Aug. 25 provoked a military counter-offensive. Myanmar says its security forces are carrying out clearance operations to defend against ARSA, which the government has declared a terrorist organization. Myanmar on Sunday rebuffed a ceasefire declared by ARSA to enable the delivery of aid to thousands of displaced and hungry people in the north of Rakhine state, declaring simply that it did not negotiate with terrorists. Human rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya accuse the army and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes of mounting a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Rohingya. The government of Myanmar, a majority Buddhist country where the roughly one million Muslim Rohingya are marginalized, has  repeatedly rejected charges of  ethnic cleansing . Officials have blamed insurgents and Rohingya themselves for burning villages to draw global attention to their cause. Zeid said Myanmar should  stop pretending  that Rohingya were torching their own houses and its  complete denial of reality  was damaging the government s international standing. Western critics have accused Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi of failing to speak out for the Rohingya, who are despised by many in the country as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Some have called for the Nobel Peace Prize Suu Kyi won in 1991 as a champion of democracy to be revoked. Monday s estimate of new arrivals in the Cox s Bazar region of Bangladesh since Aug. 25 was 313,000, an increase of 19,000 in just 24 hours.  Large numbers of people are still arriving every day in densely packed sites, looking for space, and there are clear signs that more will cross before the situation stabilises,  the International Organization for Migration said in a statement.  New arrivals in all locations are in urgent need of life-saving assistance, including food, water and sanitation, health and protection.  Thousands of Rohingya refugees are still stranded on the Myanmar side of the River Naf, which separates the two countries, with the biggest gathering south of the town of Maungdaw, monitors and sources in the area told Reuters. About 500 houses south of the town were set on fire on Monday, a villager in the Maungdaw region, Aung Lin, told Reuters by telephone.    We were all running way because the army was firing on our village,  he said.  A lot of people carrying bags are now in the rice fields.   Reuters journalists in Cox s Bazar could see huge blazes and plumes of smokes on the other side.  Those still waiting to cross into Bangladesh - many hungry and exhausted after a days-long march through the mountains and bushes in monsoon rain - have been stopped because of a crackdown on Bangladeshi boatmen charging 10,000 taka ($122) or more per person, sources said. Arshad Zamman, 60, said his family had only 80,000 Burmese kyat ($60) and so he had taken a boat to Cox s Bazar on his own and would return to pick up his wife and two sons when he had enough for their journey.  I will try to find money here. I will beg and hopefully some people will help me,  he said. Elsewhere in Myanmar, communal tension appeared to be rising after more than two weeks of violence in Rakhine state. A mob of about 70 people armed with sticks and swords threatened to attack a mosque in the central town of Taung Dwin Gyi on Sunday evening, shouting,  This is our country, this is our land , according to the mosque s imam, Mufti Sunlaiman.  We shut down the lights in the mosque and sneaked out,  the mufti, who was in the mosque at the time, told Reuters by phone. The government said in a statement the mob dispersed after police with riot shields fired rubber bullets. Rumors have spread on social media that Muslims, who make up represent about 4.3 percent of a population of 51.4 million, would stage attacks on Sept. 11 to avenge violence against the Rohingya.  Tensions between Buddhists and Muslims have simmered since scores were killed and tens of thousands displaced in communal clashes accompanying the onset of Myanmar s democratic transition in 2012 and 2013.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने म्यांमार की हिंसा को जातीय सफाई का 'पाठ्यपुस्तक' उदाहरण बताया


(Reuters) - Results of Baltimore’s primary election were ordered decertified on Thursday by the Maryland elections board, which cited irregularities in the April 26 vote that may have influenced a tight mayoral race. The state panel will begin a precinct-by-precinct review of voting in the overwhelming Democratic city. The Baltimore elections board will pull its certification this evening, state board administrator Linda Lamone said. The state review could cast doubt on the narrow victory by state Senator Catherine Pugh in the mayoral primary, where she defeated former Mayor Sheila Dixon. Pugh had backed law enforcement reform as Baltimore recovers from April 2015 rioting sparked by a black man’s death from an injury in police custody. Three City Council races were determined by a few hundred votes. Lamone said officials had found 80 provisional ballots that had not been checked to see whether they were cast in the right precinct or the voters were registered. Unusually high numbers of voters also checked in at polling places but never cast ballots, she said. That issue was not cleared up when the city board certified the election this week. “There were enough discrepancies in that reconciliation (on the number of voters) that made me determine we need to review everything more,” Lamone said. A group of activists has questioned the fairness of the election. Victory in the Democratic primary means an almost certain win in the November general election.

Summary: बाल्टीमोर प्राथमिक परिणाम अस्वीकृत, अनियमितताओं का हवाला दिया गया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, and he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors delving into the actions of President Donald Trump’s inner circle before he took office. The dramatic turn of events also raised new questions about whether Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had a role in those Russia contacts. Flynn was the first member of Trump’s administration to plead guilty to a crime uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election and potential collusion by Trump aides.  Under a plea bargain deal, Flynn admitted in a Washington court that he lied when asked by FBI investigators about his conversations last December with Russia’s then-ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, just weeks before Trump took office. Prosecutors said the two men discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia and that Flynn also asked Kislyak to help delay a U.N. vote seen as damaging to Israel. On both occasions, he appeared to be undermining the policies of outgoing President Barack Obama. They also said a “very senior member” of Trump’s transition team had told Flynn to contact Russia and other foreign governments to try to influence them ahead of the U.N. vote. Sources told Reuters that the “very senior” official was Kushner, a key member of Trump’s transition team and now the president’s senior adviser. Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He has previously said Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and would continue to do so. Flynn’s decision to cooperate with Mueller’s team marked a major escalation in a probe that has dogged the president since he took office in January. There was nothing in the court hearing that pointed to any evidence against Trump, and the White House said Flynn’s guilty plea implicated him alone.     “Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn,” said Ty Cobb, a White House attorney. Flynn, a retired army lieutenant general, only served as Trump’s national security adviser for 24 days. He was forced to resign after he was found to have misled Vice President Mike Pence about his discussions with Kislyak. But Flynn had been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s election campaign and the president continued to praise him even after he left the administration, saying Flynn had been treated “very, very unfairly” by the news media. A small group of protesters yelled “Lock him up!” as Flynn left the courthouse on Friday, echoing the “Lock her up!” chant that Flynn himself led against Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in vitriolic appearances on the campaign trail. Mueller’s team is also looking at whether members of Trump’s campaign may have sought to ease sanctions on Russia in return for financial gain or because Russian officials held some leverage over them, people familiar with the probe say. Prosecutors said Flynn and Kislyak last December discussed economic sanctions that Obama’s administration had just imposed on Moscow for allegedly interfering in the election. Flynn asked Kislyak to refrain from escalating a diplomatic dispute with Washington over the sanctions, and later falsely told FBI officials that he did not make that request, court documents showed. Prosecutors said Flynn had earlier consulted with a senior member of Trump’s presidential transition team about what to communicate to the Russian ambassador. “Flynn called the Russian ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond to the U.S. sanctions in a reciprocal manner,” the prosecutors said in court documents, adding that Flynn then called the Trump official again to recount the conversation with Kislyak. They did not name the senior official in the Trump team but    U.S. media reports identified former adviser K.T. McFarland as the person. Reuters was unable to verify the reports. On Dec. 28, 2016, the day before prosecutors say the call between the Trump aides took place, Trump had publicly played down the need to sanction Russia for allegedly hacking U.S. Democratic operatives. “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort. Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University Law School, said Flynn’s plea deal shows Mueller is scrutinizing the truthfulness of testimony given to his investigators. Kushner is potentially liable for making false statements if his testimony is contradicted by Flynn, Goodman said. Earlier on Friday, ABC News cited a Flynn confidant as saying Flynn was ready to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with Russians before he became president, initially as a way to work together to fight the Islamic State group in Syria.  Reuters could not immediately verify the ABC News report.    U.S. stocks, the dollar and Treasury yields fell sharply after the ABC report, although they partially rebounded on optimism that a Republican bill to cut taxes will be approved in the U.S. Senate. If Trump directed Flynn to contact Russian officials, that might not necessarily amount to a crime. It would be a crime if it were proven that Trump directed Flynn to lie to the FBI. Moscow has denied what U.S. intelligence agencies say was meddling in the election campaign to try to sway the vote in Trump’s favor. Trump has called Mueller’s probe a witch hunt.                 In May, the president fired FBI Director James Comey, who later accused Trump of trying to hinder his investigation into the Russia allegations. Comey also said he believed Trump had asked him to drop the FBI’s probe into Flynn. Comey on Friday tweeted a cryptic message about justice. “But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, ‘Amos 5:24’,” he wrote, quoting the Biblical book of Amos.     Paul Manafort, who ran Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, was charged in October with conspiring to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as a foreign agent of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.  Manafort, who did not join Trump’s administration, and a business associate who was charged with him both pleaded not guilty.

Summary: फ्लिन ने रूस पर झूठ बोलने का अपराध स्वीकार किया, अमेरिकी जांच में सहयोग किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is confident that defense ties with Britain will continue and U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spoke with his counterpart by phone after Britain voted to leave the European Union, a Pentagon spokesman said on Friday. Speaking with reporters, Peter Cook said the United States was confident that Britain would remain a strong ally in NATO, which “will continue to perform its very important function.”

Summary: ब्रिटेन के साथ मजबूत रक्षा संबंध जारी रहेंगेः पेंटागन प्रवक्ता


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order he said would impose tighter vetting to prevent foreign terrorists from entering the United States. “I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America,” Trump said at Pentagon ceremony. “We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people,” he said. Trump also signed an order he said would begin the rebuilding of the U.S. military by “developing a plan for new planes, new ships, new resources and new tools for our men and women in uniform.”

Summary: ट्रम्प ने आतंकवाद को रोकने के लिए कड़ी जांच के आदेश पर हस्ताक्षर किए


CARACAS (Reuters) - A general appointed at the weekend to run Venezuela s energy sector will name more military officers to senior management posts at state oil company PDVSA as part of a shakeup the government says is aimed at fighting corruption, two company sources told Reuters on Monday.  In a surprise move, unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday tapped Major General Manuel Quevedo to lead PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] and the Oil Ministry, giving the already powerful military control of the OPEC nation s dominant industry.  Besides the corruption scandals, Quevedo will have to tackle an attempted debt restructuring, within the context of a deep recession and debilitating U.S. sanctions. Sources in the sector said Quevedo s appointment could quicken a white-collar exodus from PDVSA and worsen operational problems at a time when production has already tumbled to near 30-year lows of under 2 million barrels per day. About 50 officials at state oil company PDVSA have been arrested since August in what the state prosecutor says is a  crusade  against corruption. Sources within PDVSA and the oil industry said Maduro s administration was using corruption allegations to sideline rivals and deepen its control of the industry, which accounts for over 90 percent of export revenue.       The order given is to militarize PDVSA in key areas,  said a PDVSA employee, asking to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the media.  A second source said he was told military officials would take over key production divisions in Venezuela s east and west. Venezuela s president, a former bus driver and union leader whose popularity has plummeted during the economic crisis, has gradually handed the military more power in his cabinet and in key sectors such as mining. Unlike his popular predecessor Hugo Chavez, Maduro does not hail from the military. The opposition says he has been forced to buy the loyalty of the army, historically a power broker in Venezuela, giving them top posts and juicy business contracts while turning a blind eye to corruption.  PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but an internal company message seen by Reuters called on workers to come to Caracas on Tuesday for Quevedo s swearing in.  Let s all go to Caracas to consolidate the deepening of socialism and the total, absolute transformation of PDVSA,  the message read.  Quevedo, a former housing minister with no known energy experience, is not a heavyweight in Venezuela s political scene, although two sources close to the military told Reuters he was a Maduro ally.  Opposition lawmaker Angel Alvarado predicted the appointment would worsen PDVSA s operations.   They re getting rid of the old executives, who although socialist and working under catastrophic management, at least knew about oil,  he said.  Now we re going to have totally inexperienced hands.    Although military appointees had been on the rise within the oil industry too, Quevedo s appointment is the first time in a decade and a half that a military official has taken the helm of the oil industry.  PDVSA so far had been led by chemist Nelson Martinez and the Oil Ministry by engineer Eulogio Del Pino, both of whom rose in the ranks under previous PDVSA president and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez.  Later demoted to become Venezuela s representative at the United Nations in New York, Ramirez recently criticized Maduro for not reforming Venezuela s flailing economy, in what insiders say is a power struggle between the two rivals.  The opposition has also accused Quevedo of violating human rights during the National Guard s handling of anti-Maduro protests, in which stone-throwing hooded youths regularly clashed with tear gas-firing soldiers.  U.S. Senator Marco Rubio included Quevedo on a 2014 list of Venezuelan officials whom he said should be named in U.S. sanctions, although Quevedo does not appear in the list released by the U.S. Treasury Department. Venezuela s government denies abuses, saying protesters were in fact part of a U.S.-promoted  armed insurrection  designed to sabotage socialism in Latin America.  Quevedo s appointment has worried foreign oil companies in Venezuela, including U.S. major Chevron and Russian state oil giant Rosneft, according to industry sources. Venezuela is also trying to pull off a complex restructuring of foreign debt, including $60 billion in bonds, about half of which have been issued by PDVSA. Bondholders were invited to Caracas for a meeting with the government two weeks ago, but market sources say there has been no concrete progress or proposals since.  PDVSA said on Friday it was making last-minute payments on two bonds close to default, including one backed by shares in U.S.-based Citgo, a Venezuelan-owned refiner and marketer of oil and petrochemical products, due on Monday, and called for  trust  as it seeks to maintain debt service amid the crisis. Quevedo s position on the debt issue is not publicly known.

Summary: वेनेजुएला का नया तेल प्रमुख सेना को और अधिक पी. डी. वी. एस. ए. पद देगा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump met with business leaders on Wednesday including Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk and real estate developers, as the administration seeks partnerships with the private sector to boost infrastructure spending. During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would push for a $1 trillion infrastructure program to rebuild roads, bridges, airports and other public works projects, but he has not presented a specific plan. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said “strong public-private partnerships” would be key to rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges and airports. “Infrastructure used to be a point of American pride, but now an overbearing, ineffective regulatory system can keep projects in limbo for years,” Spicer said. “The government has wasted too much of the taxpayers’ money on inefficient and misguided projects.” The White House sees infrastructure as a potential large job creator but officials have said the federal government cannot shoulder the entire burden. The administration is looking at toll roads, tax credits and other ways to spur private investment. Major real estate and private equity executives attended the meeting, including developer Richard LeFrak, Vornado Realty Trust Chief Executive Officer Steve Roth, and Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris, the White House said.  LeFrak and Roth have been tapped to lead an infrastructure council that Trump plans to create, a spokesman for LeFrak had previously said. The lunch with the CEOs follows his meeting on Tuesday with AFL-CIO union President Rich Trumka to talk infrastructure and other issues. The White House held a meeting of 15 federal agencies last Thursday to begin work on the administration’s infrastructure plan. Last month, Trump touted the infrastructure plan in an address to Congress. “To launch our national rebuilding,” he said, “I will be asking Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure of the United States - financed through both public and private capital - creating millions of new jobs.” Edward Mortimer, a transportation expert at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told a Senate panel on Wednesday that without action, the federal highway trust fund would face a serious shortfall starting in 2020, and policymakers would need to come up with $150 billion over six years to maintain current spending. “This shortfall will likely result in significant uncertainty, with states possibly delaying major transportation projects,” he said. Wednesday’s meeting included Vice President Mike Pence, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, as well as General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford, McKinsey & Co partner Tyler Duvall and Nature Conservancy Managing Director Lynn Scarlett, the White House said. Scarlett said in a statement that any infrastructure package should include “natural” solutions such as reefs, dunes and wetlands. Other participants in the meeting did not comment or respond to requests for comment.   The American Society of Civil Engineers has graded U.S. infrastructure at D+ and estimated the country needs to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020. In January, Trump signed an executive order aimed at expediting environmental reviews and approvals for all infrastructure projects, especially high-priority projects such as improving the U.S. electric grid and telecommunications systems and repairing and upgrading “critical” port facilities, airports, pipelines, bridges, and highways.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने मस्क, डेवलपर्स के साथ बुनियादी ढांचे पर बातचीत की


WASHINGTON/AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The White House has narrowed its search for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to three federal appeals court judges, Sri Srinivasan, Merrick Garland and Paul Watford, a source familiar with the selection process said on Friday. Srinivasan, an Indian-American who served under presidents of both parties before President Barack Obama named him as an appellate judge, and Garland, considered but passed over for the Supreme Court twice before by Obama, are considered the leading contenders, according to the source and two other sources close to the process. Obama is searching for a replacement for long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. Senate Republicans have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on any nominee picked by the Democratic president for the lifetime position on the court. Senate Republicans, hoping a candidate from their party wins the Nov. 8 presidential election, want the next president, who takes office in January, to make the selection.  A formal announcement could come as soon as Monday. That would give Obama the weekend to think about his final choice and make an announcement before Tuesday’s presidential primary elections in five states including Florida and Ohio. Srinivasan, 49, and Garland, 63, serve together on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That appeals court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court for several justices including Scalia in recent decades. Srinivasan, who was born in India and grew up in Kansas, would be the first Asian-American and first Hindu on the high court. Obama appointed him to the appeals court in 2013. The Senate confirmed him in a 97-0 vote. Srinivasan served in the Justice Department under Democratic and Republican presidents and worked as a clerk to the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, a Republican appointee. Garland, who has earned praise from lawmakers of both parties, is the chief judge of the Washington appeals court, where he has served since being appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997, winning confirmation in a 76-23 vote. Prior to that, he served in the Justice Department under Clinton. Watford, 48, is a judge on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, winning Senate confirmation in a 61-34 vote in 2012. He previously worked as a prosecutor and in private practice. If confirmed, he would be the nation’s third black justice, following current justice Clarence Thomas, appointed in 1991, and Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991 and died in 1993. Obama is the first black U.S. president. It was unclear whether the other two other candidates who had been expected to be interviewed by Obama, federal appeals court judge Jane Kelly and federal trial judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, were now out of the running altogether. Kelly is a judge on the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson is a federal trial judge in Washington. Both were appointed to those positions by Obama. Without Scalia, the Supreme Court is evenly split with four liberals and four conservatives. An Obama appointment could tilt the court to the left for the first time in decades. Obama is traveling in Texas, where he spoke at Austin’s South by Southwest festival on Friday and is appearing at Democratic fundraisers. He returns to Washington late on Saturday.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने सुप्रीम कोर्ट के लिए खोज को तीन तक सीमित किया


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A violent feud between South African meter taxi drivers and ride-hailing services Uber and Taxify escalated with another three vehicles torched using petrol bombs, police said on Thursday. Drivers for Uber [UBER.UL] and Estonian start-up Taxify operating in Johannesburg and capital Pretoria have faced threats and protests from regular taxi operators who accuse the app-based drivers of poaching customers with cheaper fares. One Uber vehicle and two other taxis were torched last week in the upmarket Sandton district and on Wednesday three Taxify vehicles were set alight in the Pretoria suburb of Sunnyside. Police said in one incident on Wednesday a Taxify driver responding to a pick-up request was cornered by a group of eight men who threatened him with violence just as he arrived at the location.  The vehicle was alight after he had alighted from it. Another Taxify vehicle was set on fire at a different location. One of the vehicles was burned out completely, while the second on had slight damages,  said police Captain Daniel Mavimbela. Mavimbela said the identity of the suspects had yet to be  established. More than 6,000 vehicles use the e-hailing Uber application to find customers in South Africa, where the service has grown swiftly as public transport has not kept up with the rising population in sprawling cities.

Summary: दक्षिण अफ्रीका में टैक्सी युद्ध में तीन और कारों को आग लगा दी गई


CAIRO/BEIRUT (Reuters) - A ceasefire deal for a Syrian rebel enclave south of Damascus was reached on Thursday, brokered by Cairo and Moscow, Egyptian state media said. The agreement, which includes the Jaish al-Islam rebel faction, went into effect at midday on Thursday (1000 GMT), Egyptian state television said.   We announced a preliminary agreement over the will to enter into a ceasefire and de-escalation deal for the area,  Jaish al-Islam political leader Mohammad Alloush said in televised comments. Details would be worked out in the near future, he said.  The announcement did not name the exact area or towns covered by the ceasefire, and did not mention the Syrian government. There was no immediate comment from Damascus. Rebel factions hold a small pocket of territory south of Damascus, bordered to the west by an Islamic State enclave and surrounded from the other sides by Syrian troops and allied forces. Backed by Russia, Iran and Shi ite militias, the Syrian government has pushed back rebels over the past year, shoring up its rule over the main urban centers. Through a series of military offensives and evacuation deals, the government has snuffed out several opposition pockets around the Syrian capital of Damascus.  Thousands of rebels and civilians have poured into the insurgent-held Idlib province in northwest Syria, transferred out of towns and cities that the Syrian army retook. In recent months, a string of ceasefire deals has eased some of the fighting between government forces and rebels in western Syria, including a truce in the southwest brokered by Russia and the United States.

Summary: दमिश्क के पास विद्रोहियों के लिए संघर्ष विराम समझौता


SEOUL (Reuters) - Former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that  cavalier  threats to start war on the Korean peninsula were  dangerous and short-sighted , urging the United States to get all parties to the negotiating table. Clinton also called on China to take a  more outfront role  in enforcing sanctions against North Korea aimed at curbing its missile and nuclear development.  There is no need for us to be bellicose and aggressive (over North Korea),  Clinton told the World Knowledge Forum in the South Korean capital of Seoul, stressing the need for more pressure on North Korea and diplomacy to bring Pyongyang to talks. Tension between Pyongyang and Washington has soared following a series of weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.  Picking fights with Kim Jong Un puts a smile on his face,  Clinton said, without mentioning Trump by name. Clinton also indirectly referred to Trump s social media comments on North Korea, saying,  The insults on Twitter have benefited North Korea, I don t think they ve benefited the United States . The war of words has seen Trump call the North Korean leader  little rocket man  on a suicide mission, and vow to destroy the country if it threatens the United States or its allies. In turn, the North called Trump  mentally deranged  and a  mad dog . Talks between the adversaries have long been urged by China in particular, but Washington and its ally Japan have been reluctant while Pyongyang continues to pursue a goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile to hit the United States. On Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said the United States did not rule out the eventual possibility of direct talks with North Korea.  The situation on the Korean peninsula was now touch-and-go point  and a nuclear war may break out any moment , North Korea s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong had told a U.N. General Assembly committee on Monday.     In Seoul, the vice foreign minister said on Wednesday South Korea was considering levying its own sanctions on the North, although no decision has been made yet. Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, said Washington s allies have increasingly been expressing concern over the reliability of the United States, advising Washington to avoid becoming distracted with North Korean threats and be  as forcefully patient  as possible. Regarding China s role in reining in North Korea, Clinton said Beijing would be better off trying to  tighten and absolutely enforce sanctions  against North Korea. North Korea s relationship with its main ally and trading partner China have been strained by its rapid pursuit of weapons programs, with many of Pyongyang s recent tests coinciding with major Chinese events. There had been fears that North Korea would conduct another test to coincide with the start of China s five-yearly party congress on Wednesday. Instead, Pyongyang sent Beijing a congratulatory message. The central committee of the North s ruling Workers  Party of Korea said China had made  great progress in accomplishing the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics  under the guidance of the Communist Party of China.  We are greatly pleased over this,  the party central committee said in the message carried by the official KCNA news agency, adding that it  sincerely wished  the China congress  satisfactory success . Chinese President Xi Jinping did not mention North Korea in his more than three-hour-long address at the opening of a key Communist Party Congress. Clinton said retaliatory actions by China over the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea, which targeting the latter s firms doing business in China, would be unnecessary had Beijing done a better job reining in the North. China says the powerful radar of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system could be used to pierce its territory, and has taken aim at South Korea s businesses. South Korea and the United States have repeatedly told China that THAAD aims only to defend against North Korea s missile threats.  The Chinese can t have it both ways,  Clinton said.  They can t do less than they could to tighten economic pressures on North Korea and same time discount the real threat South Korea and its citizens face.

Summary: हिलेरी क्लिंटन ने कहा कि उत्तर कोरिया के साथ युद्ध की अमेरिकी धमकियां 'खतरनाक, अदूरदर्शी' हैं