BELGRADE (Reuters) - When a court on the Dutch North Sea coast issues its final verdict this week, it will signal the end of an experiment that has reverberated around the world, from the killing fields of Rwanda to the CIA s secret cells in Europe. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up by the United Nations in 1993, marked the biggest leap in the field of international criminal law since the Allies tried the Nazis in Nuremberg. Created in answer to the worst war crimes in Europe since World War Two, it set a precedent of accountability that has since put the Khmer Rouge and Liberia s Charles Taylor in the dock and paved the way for a court with global ambition. Almost 25 years later, its legacy is under threat. The International Criminal Court (ICC), opened in 2002, is undermined by renewed West-Russia rivalry, stone-walling and revolt in Africa, barrel bombs in Syria and a boycott by three of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Supporters of the Yugoslav tribunal say it will remain a beacon inspiring a growing demand for justice and creativeness in delivering it   from ad hoc tribunals in Africa to the conviction in one country of a dictator from another and that of a Syrian in Sweden after a post on Facebook. The glass is either half full or half empty, said Alex Whiting, professor of practice at Harvard Law School.  You can say we haven t come far enough and the new institutions, particularly the ICC, have not replicated the success of the ICTY, but you can just as easily say it s remarkable how far we ve come in just 25 years,  he said.  The ICTY is the North Star.  The Yugoslav tribunal owes a debt to history, born as it was between the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks on the United States, when Russia was weak and the West was united in collective action. For decades before, conflicts from Vietnam to Algeria, Afghanistan to Sri Lanka escaped major judicial scrutiny. Backed by the arrest-power of Western peacekeepers and the readiness of the European Union to condition integration with Yugoslavia s successor states on their cooperation, the tribunal issued 161 indictments and secured 83 convictions. Wednesday s verdict in the trial of Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic will be its last, bar appeals. The Yugoslav court was the first to indict a sitting head of state in Serbia s Slobodan Milosevic, recognized sexual violence as a crime of war and advanced the definition of genocide. With the U.N. tribunal for Rwanda, it assembled the hybrid case law used by tribunals in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon and ultimately the ICC. Its 2.5 million pages of transcripts offer a forensic and often harrowing account of a state s dissolution that dispels the fog of wartime propaganda. More than 4,500 witnesses took the stand.  I committed myself to speak on behalf of those who did not survive,  said Nusreta Sivac, a former judge in Bosnia who testified to her rape by Bosnian Serb captors.  The tribunal rulings will write history.  Detractors say the court was slow, expensive and damaged by a number of high-profile acquittals. Milosevic died in 2006 while still on trial, while some cases were plagued by witness intimidation. The tribunal was supposed to help with reconciliation, but revisionism is rife and convicted war criminals often feted as heroes. Critics argue the indictment of Milosevic, at the height of NATO air strikes against him, only complicated the conflict and encouraged him to cling on, which he did for another 17 months. Similar arguments have been made against the ICC s pursuit of some African leaders. Established by treaty and boycotted by the United States, China and Russia, the ICC has little of the clout of the ICTY. With only one Arab member, it has found the bulk of its work in Africa. Alleging bias, Burundi quit the court last month. Kenya and South Africa have threatened to follow. The court s credibility has already been tested by the collapse in 2014 of a case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir s eight-year evasion of arrest. Most glaring is its impotence in the face of nearly half a million dead in Syria, its hands tied by Russian and Chinese vetoes in the Security Council, which can refer a case to the court in a non-member state such as Syria. The ICC denies any bias against Africa and is at various stages of investigation in Georgia, Iraq, Ukraine, Colombia and Palestine, though it can expect to make little progress in investigating conflicts involving Russia or the United States. In a watershed moment, prosecutors this month called for a formal investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, including the mistreatment of detainees by U.S. forces in the country and at CIA  dark sites  in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Experts say the move is symbolic of the court s ambition, but also of its limitations, given the unlikelihood of any cooperation from the Trump administration. The Yugoslav tribunal demonstrated that,  with strong political and diplomatic support from the international community, justice can be achieved , its chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz told Reuters.  But without that support, the obstacles can be almost insurmountable.  Kevin Jon Heller, law professor at the University of Amsterdam, said of the ICC:  I strongly doubt it is ever going to fulfill the aspirations of the people in the states that created it.  Nevertheless, demands for accountability are multiplying, along with avenues to pursue them. Experts point to the 2016 conviction of Chad ex-dictator, Hissene Habre, in a Senegalese court, the first time universal jurisdiction was used to prosecute the former ruler of one country by a court in another for human rights crimes. The same principle saw a Syrian soldier convicted by a Swedish court last month, partly on the basis of social media posts, while authorities in Sweden and Germany are each investigating more than a dozen individuals for crimes in Syria and Iraq. With the Security Council paralyzed, the U.N. General Assembly has launched its own ad hoc mechanism to investigate war crimes in Syria. A hybrid tribunal is in the works in Central African Republic and another mooted for South Sudan.  What has not ebbed in the last five to seven years, and in fact what has only increased, is the demand for justice, and an expectation that it will translate into action,  said Param-Preet Singh, an associate director at Human Rights Watch. The ICTY and efforts since have  changed the conversation , said Whiting.  It is for that reason this project will never die,  he said.  It will go into dormancy, but it will never die.

Summary: न्याय की मांगः यूगोस्लाव अदालत ने वैश्विक विरासत छोड़ी


SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea s defense ministry said in a parliament hearing on Monday it was still seeing signs that North Korea planned to stage more ballistic missile launches, possibly including an intercontinental ballistic missile.  We have continued to see signs of possibly more ballistic missile launches. We also forecast North Korea could fire an intercontinental ballistic missile,  said Chang Kyung-soo, a defense ministry official.  The defense ministry was called by parliament on Monday to answer questions about North Korea s sixth and largest nuclear test that was carried out a day earlier.

Summary: दक्षिण कोरिया ने उत्तर कोरिया के और अधिक संभावित बैलिस्टिक मिसाइल परीक्षणों को देखाः रक्षा मंत्रालय


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow hopes that the United States and North Korea will start a dialogue, Russian state-run RIA news agency reported on Monday. Ryabkov said Washington and Pyongyang should start actual talks instead of discussing conditions for such talks.

Summary: मास्को का कहना है कि अमेरिका और उत्तर कोरिया को बातचीत शुरू करनी चाहिएः आर. आई. ए.


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and the United States agreed to set up a working group to try to mend their battered ties on Wednesday after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held lengthy talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and the Russian foreign minister. It was not clear until the last minute whether Putin would grant Tillerson an audience, but the fact that he did is likely to be seen as a sign that Moscow has not given up on the new U.S. administration and wants to try to improve ties which both sides agree are languishing at a post Cold War low. A joint news conference between Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Tillerson showed how much work there is to do though as the Russian used many of his speaking opportunities to lambast Washington over its actions in Syria and what he said was its unhelpful foreign interference in the past. Tillerson, on his first visit to Russia in his current role, struck a more conciliatory stance, but said ties and trust levels were at a low point and restated Washington’s position that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must eventually relinquish power, a position starkly at odds with Russia. “There is a low level of trust between our two countries,” Tillerson said. “The world’s two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship.” Lavrov said that while Russia was not placing its hopes in Assad or any other individual in Syria, toppling the Syrian government was not an option and that a political process had to be allowed to play out.  “We discussed Assad today,” said Lavrov. “I don’t remember any positive examples of how a dictator was overthrown and everything was just fine afterwards.” Differences over a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base last week also bubbled to the surface.  Washington says it acted to punish the Syrian government for what it said was a devastating nerve gas attack Damascus launched against its own people that killed scores. Russia said the U.S. strike was illegal though and Lavrov repeated Moscow’s stance on Wednesday, saying an international investigation should be left to determine who was to blame and what happened.  It was wrong to blame Assad without knowing the facts, he said.  Tillerson said the United States was confident that Assad’s forces were behind the gas attack, but said there was “no firm information” to indicate Russian forces were involved in the same attack. In a move that slightly softened the atmosphere, Lavrov said Putin had agreed to restore a U.S.-Russia air safety agreement covering Syria which Moscow suspended in retaliation for the U.S. missile strikes. The agreement would be reactivated with immediate effect, Viktor Ozerov, the head of the Russian upper house of parliament’s defense committee told the RIA news agency.

Summary: रूस और अमेरिका, टिलरसन वार्ता के बाद, संबंधों को सुधारने के लिए मामूली कदम उठाने पर सहमत हुए


NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that India shared Myanmar s concern about  extremist violence  in its Rakhine state, where a security force operation against Muslim rebels has sent about 125,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh. Modi spoke after talks with Myanmar s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a visit aimed at expanding commercial ties as part of an  Act East  policy, and pushing back against Chinese influence.  Myanmar has come under international pressure after some 125,000 Rohingya Muslims fled from a surge of violence in Rakhine state, beginning with an Aug. 25 attack by Rohingya insurgents on dozens of police posts and an army base. The rebel attacks triggered a sweep by the Myanmar security forces, in which refugees and right groups say many innocent Rohingya have been targeted. Buddhist-majority Myanmar rejects accusations by refugees and rights groups that its armed forces have violated the rights of the mostly stateless Rohingya, saying the army and police are fighting  terrorists . Mostly Hindu India has faced years of attacks by Islamist militants.  Suu Kyi told a joint news conference at the presidential palace in the capital, Naypyitaw, that Myanmar was grateful for India s stance on the attack on her country and they could work together to face the challenge.  We would like to thank India particularly for its strong that it has taken with regard to terrorist threat that came to our country a couple of weeks ago,  she said in brief remarks.  We believe that together we can work to make sure that terrorism is not allowed to take root on our soil.  Modi said India and Myanmar had similar security interests in the region.    We share your concerns about extremist violence in Rakhine state and specially the violence against security forces and how innocent lives have been affected,  he said.    We hope that all the stakeholders together can find a way out in which the unity and territorial integrity of Myanmar is respected and at the same time we can have peace, justice dignity and democratic values for all.  Modi s government has taken a strong stance on an influx into India of some 40,000 Rohingya from Myanmar over the years, vowing last month to deport them all. That decision has drawn criticism from rights groups and prompted a petition in the Supreme Court to stop the government from doing so.         International concern, in particular from Muslim countries, is growing about the latest exodus of Rohingya. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has pressed world leaders to do more to help the population of roughly 1.1 million, saying they are facing genocide. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday of the risk of ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization. India is trying to boost economic ties with resource-rich Myanmar, with which it shares a 1,600-km (1,000-mile) border, to counter Chinese influence and step up links with a country it considers its gateway to Southeast Asia. Two-way trade has grown to about $2.2 billion as India courts Myanmar following the gradual end of military rule, but Indian-funded projects have moved slowly. India recently started exporting diesel to Myanmar via a land route, in a boost to Modi s pledge to enhance hydrocarbon trade with neighbors..

Summary: मोदी ने कहा कि भारत 'चरमपंथी हिंसा' के बारे में म्यांमार की चिंता को स्वीकार करता है


(Reuters) - Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 11 points in the U.S. presidential race, showing little change after she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee this week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.   The online poll, conducted from Monday to Friday, shows 46 percent of likely voters support Clinton while 34.8 percent back Trump. Another 19.2 percent support neither candidate. Their parties hold conventions in July ahead of a Nov. 8 election. Clinton’s lead was nearly the same a week ago, before she had amassed enough convention delegates to win the nomination and before Trump drew criticism from leaders of both parties for questioning the impartiality of a Mexican-American judge. Trump, 69, enjoyed a bigger boost after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee in May. Having trailed Clinton, 68, for most of the year, Trump briefly erased a double-digit gap and pulled about even with the former secretary of state. Clinton this week defeated party rival Bernie Sanders, 74, in four of six nominating contests, most notably California and New Jersey, and won the endorsements of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other party leaders. Trump this week sparred with party leaders and struggled with questions about his now-defunct Trump University. A lawsuit accuses Trump and the for-profit school of defrauding thousands of people, including many who paid as much as $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate strategies.  A wealthy businessman who asserts the lawsuit is politically motivated, Trump said presiding U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel was biased against him because of Trump’s plans to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Trump later added that Muslim judges could be biased against him also because of his pledge to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. Trump’s comments drew sharp criticism from Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump later said he would no longer talk about the judge. Friday’s results had 1,276 respondents and a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3.2 percentage points. (Reuters/Ipsos polling results: polling.reuters.com/#!poll/TM651Y15_13/filters/LIKELY:1/type/smallest/dates/20160401-20160610/collapsed/true/spotlight/1)

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस की दौड़ में क्लिंटन ट्रम्प से 11 अंकों से आगेः रॉयटर्स/इप्सोस पोल


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday he hoped U.S. missile strikes on Syria would not irreparably damage relations between Moscow and Washington. “This is an act of aggression, on an absolutely made-up pretext,” Lavrov told a news conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. “It reminds me of the situation in 2003 when the United States and Britain, along with some of their allies, attacked Iraq.” He said Russia would demand Washington explain why it conducted the strikes. “I hope this provocation will not lead to irreparable damage (to U.S.-Russian ties),” Lavrov said. No Russian servicemen were known to have been killed in the U.S. strikes, he added.

Summary: रूस के लावरोव का कहना है कि उम्मीद है कि सीरिया के हमलों से अमेरिकी संबंधों को अपूरणीय नुकसान नहीं होगा


BEIJING (Reuters) - China will bring its paramilitary police force, the People s Armed Police, under the control of the Central Military Commission which controls the country s armed forces from Jan. 1, state media said on Wednesday. Since taking power five years ago, President Xi Jinping has overseen a sweeping modernization of the People s Liberation Army, the world s largest military, laying off troops, streamlining its organization and investing in advanced weapons. In a brief report, the official Xinhua news agency said that from midnight on Jan. 1 the People s Armed Police would no longer fall under the purview of the State Council, or cabinet, and instead report to the Central Military Commission. Xi heads the Central Military Commission in his role as armed forces chief and commander in chief. Xi has steadily consolidated his power over the military, and has appointed allies to key positions of power in the armed forces. Xinhua did not provide any details on how the new reporting structure would work or why the government had made the decision. However, the party s official People s Daily, in a commentary for publication on Thursday but reported by Xinhua on Wednesday, said the move was needed to ensure security and promote the aim of having a  strong military . The People s Armed Police will remain separate, carry out its existing functions and not be absorbed into the People s Liberation Army, the People s Daily said. The paramilitary police force serves as a backup for the military in times of war, and domestically has a role in putting down protests and counter-terrorism as well as border defense and fire-fighting. Xi has radically overhauled the old Soviet-era command structure of the military to make the armed forces nimbler and better able to respond to crises at home and abroad. That has included condensing the command structure and giving greater emphasis on new capabilities including cyberspace, electronic and information warfare. China s military has not fought a war in decades, but faces what the government calls a complex security environment, such as nuclear-armed North Korea and territorial disputes in the South China Sea and over self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as its own.

Summary: चीन अर्धसैनिक पुलिस बल को सैन्य शाखा के तहत लाएगा


EDINBURGH/LONDON (Reuters) - Scotland, Wales and London should all benefit from any special deal given to Northern Ireland to smooth access to European Union markets after Brexit, the three regions  most senior politicians said on Monday. Most Scots and Londoners voted to stay in the EU in June 2016 s referendum, unlike their compatriots in the rest of the United Kingdom. Politicians in Scotland, Wales and the British capital have campaigned for Britain as a whole to stay in the EU s single market to smooth trade relations. Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled that out so far, saying Britain needed the freedom to make its own rules and trade deals. But the three regions rallied to the cause again after Irish government sources said on Monday that the British government had agreed to maintain EU  regulatory alignment  for Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK but shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. May said there had been no overall agreement on Monday. Keeping regulations in Northern Ireland similar to those in the rest of the EU make it less likely that the bloc would insist on border checks after Brexit. But making an exception of Northern Ireland could make it difficult for May to argue that others cannot have the same. So far, she has argued that Brexit should follow a one-size-fits-all pattern for the whole of the United Kingdom.  If one part of the United Kingdom can retain regulatory alignment with the European Union and effectively stay in the single market ... there is surely no good practical reason why others can t,  Nicola Sturgeon, the head of Scotland s devolved pro-independence government, said on Twitter. Sturgeon welcomed the outline of a deal that meant no return to a hard border in Ireland, but argued that such an agreement meant something similar for Scotland was even more vital.  For Scotland to find itself outside the single market, while Northern Ireland effectively stays in would place us at a double disadvantage when it comes to jobs and investment.  A large majority of voters in Scotland, one of the UK s four nations with around 5 million people, voted to stay in the EU, as did Northern Ireland. Wales and England, the most populous nation, voted to leave, straining the structure of the UK and complicating negotiations to unwind four decades of political and trading links with the EU.  Huge ramifications for London if Theresa May has conceded that it s possible for part of the UK to remain within the single market and customs union after Brexit,  Sadiq Khan, London s mayor, said on Twitter. Britain s capital, with a population of 8.8 million, voted by a margin of 59.9 percent to remain within the EU. Turnout was high by local standards at nearly 70 percent and Khan, from Britain s main opposition Labour Party, campaigned to stay in the EU. Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones called for Wales to be allowed to continue to participate in the single market if other parts of the UK could. May s government has up to now ruled out any special deal for Scotland, although the Scottish government published a year ago a plan for the northernmost part of the UK to remain in the single market even if Britain as a whole leaves. Its plan was, however, rejected as unworkable by the UK government.

Summary: स्कॉटलैंड, वेल्स और लंदन चाहते हैं कि अगर उत्तरी आयरलैंड को एक विशेष ब्रेक्सिट सौदा मिल जाए


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge will hear arguments on Thursday over whether to grant final approval to a $25 million settlement of fraud lawsuits against President Donald Trump over his Trump University real estate investment seminars, with at least one former student objecting to the deal. Sherri Simpson of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who paid $19,000 to learn Trump’s investing “secrets,” filed court papers earlier this month arguing the class action settlement should not have contained a provision barring her and other students from opting out and suing Trump on their own.   The objection raises the possibility the litigation could continue to dog Trump’s presidency. During the campaign, Trump vowed to fight the fraud claims but agreed to the settlement soon after the election. Under the deal, Trump admitted no wrongdoing. Lawyers for Trump and those representing thousands of other students in two class actions will urge U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego to overrule the objection and approve the deal.  The students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, are expected to recover more than 80 percent of the money they paid.  Though Simpson’s lawyer, Gary Friedman, called the settlement “laudable,” he said his client wanted to press for a full recovery, as well as punitive damages and other relief. He is planning to argue the deal should be rejected unless she is allowed to do so. “What Ms. Simpson seeks is her day in court,” Friedman said in court papers. Simpson and other students claim they were lured into the seminars by false promises that they would learn Trump’s investment strategies from his “hand-picked” instructors. Trump admitted he did not personally select the instructors but said the claim was sales “puffery.” Rachel Jensen, a class action lawyer for the students, said in a court filing that some 3,730 students submitted claim forms. Two filed objections but only Simpson’s lawyers are expected at the hearing.  In court papers, both Jensen and Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Trump, suggested Simpson’s objection might be politically motivated. They noted she appeared in an anti-Trump political ad  in February 2016. “Defendants paid $25 million to avoid the uncertainty that political opponents might solicit opt-outs to force a high-profile trial,” Jensen said. Friedman denied any political motive and said he would appeal if the judge overruled the objection.  Trump accused Curiel of bias last year based on the Indiana-born judge’s Mexican ancestry.

Summary: अमेरिकी न्यायाधीश ट्रम्प विश्वविद्यालय के समझौते पर आपत्ति पर विचार करेंगे


WASHINGTON/CARMEL, Ind. (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton met with coal and steel workers in the Appalachian region on Monday in an effort to win over blue-collar voters in a part of the country with strong support for Republican Donald Trump. The real estate mogul made his own pitch on Monday to voters in areas struggling from the loss of industry, telling a crowd in Indiana he would create “clean coal” jobs. Clinton has increasingly turned her attention beyond the Democratic Party nomination fight with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and is making early moves to try to siphon support from Trump ahead of a possible match-up in the Nov. 8 election. On Monday, she met union leaders and some of the 600 workers who were laid off last year when AK Steel Holding Corp announced it would idle a furnace in eastern Kentucky. She said jobs losses in manufacturing and the coal industry in the area had been a heavy blow. “Talk about a ripple effect. It’s just devastating communities,” Clinton told workers around a table at an Italian restaurant in the town of Ashland.  While the Republican presidential candidates focus on Tuesday’s primary contest in Indiana, Clinton launched a trip to Appalachia this week that will include events in Ohio and West Virginia.     She has a large lead over Sanders for the Democratic nomination. Unions typically back Democratic candidates, and union leaders have endorsed both Clinton and Sanders in the 2016 presidential race.  But Trump’s pro-coal, anti-trade message and outsider status has resonated with some blue collar union members frustrated with Washington politicians. He and other Republicans also accuse President Barack Obama’s administration of waging a “war on coal” by imposing strict environmental regulations. “I’m a free-market guy, but not when you’re getting killed,” Trump said at a rally in Carmel, Indiana. “Look at steel, it’s being wiped out. Your coal industry is wiped out, and China is taking our coal.”     The New York businessman won the Republican nominating contest in Kentucky in March, sweeping most of the counties in the economically struggling east of the state. Parts of Appalachia, a region that spans multiple states across the eastern United States, have struggled with poverty and job losses. West Virginia’s unemployment rate of 6.5 percent in March was well above the national rate of 5 percent, according to Labor Department data. Ohio’s unemployment rate was 5.1 percent, while the figure in Kentucky was 5.6 percent. It will be an uphill struggle for Clinton there if she wins the nomination. She has pledged more than $30 billion to help regions that depend on coal, but her promise was overshadowed when she said in March that the country would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” And her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned on Sunday in West Virginia, encountering protests from Trump supporters.   West Virginia last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for his second four-year term. He is the only Democrat who has won Kentucky since 1980. Trump will take a leap toward winning the Republican nomination if he comes out ahead in Tuesday’s Indiana primary. His success in the race for the White House may well ride on the support of Republican evangelicals. Top rival Ted Cruz planned stops to greet voters across the state on Monday, running into a group of Trump supporters in Marion, Indiana who berated him. He deployed his wife, Heidi, and Carly Fiorina, the ex-candidate who Cruz has chosen as his running mate if he gets the Republican nomination, to a coffee shop and art gallery in Carmel, Indiana. Cruz, who lags Trump in delegates to the Republican National Convention in July, told reporters on Monday he would stay in the race “as long as we have a viable path to victory.” Republicans plan to tie Clinton to what they say is an anemic economy under President Barack Obama. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Monday cited data released last week that showed economic growth slipped in the first quarter to its slowest pace in two years. “Struggling Americans will never get ahead under Hillary Clinton. They are going to keep getting taken to the cleaners,” Priebus said in an opinion piece for RealClearPolitics.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने व्यापार पर ट्रम्प का मुकाबला करने के लिए एपलाचियन मतदाताओं को अदालत में पेश किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford and Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Center for Counterterrorism, will hold a classified briefing for the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, a senior Senate aide said. The briefing will take place one day after three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers opened fire and blew themselves up in Istanbul’s main airport, killing 41 people and wounding 239.

Summary: ओबामा प्रशासन के शीर्ष अधिकारी आईएस पर सीनेट को जानकारी देंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday denounced an attack in London when a blast hit a packed commuter train, and urged authorities and others to take more  proactive  steps such as better policing of internet use by terrorist groups.  Another attack in London by a loser terrorist. These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive!  Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.  Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner. The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!

Summary: ट्रम्प ने लंदन में हमले की निंदा की, 'सक्रिय' कदम उठाने का आग्रह किया


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny held a political rally on Sunday, hours after being released from jail and pledged to continue his presidential campaign despite the authorities saying he is ineligible to stand.  Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was detained by police in late September and sentenced to 20 days in jail on charges of repeatedly violating laws by organizing public meeting and rallies. It was the third time he had been jailed this year, part of what he says is a pattern of Kremlin harassment designed to thwart his political ambitions. Russia s central election commission has declared him ineligible to run for president next year due to a suspended prison sentence, which he says was politically-motivated. Shrugging off that ban, the 41-year-old lawyer held a campaign rally in the provincial town of Astrakhan in southern Russia on Sunday evening, hours after walking free from jail.  He said after the rally he would continue to campaign and had the right to take part in next year s election.  We have more right to take part in the elections than all the other candidates combined,  Navalny wrote on his website.  Putin, 65, has for months declined to say whether he will run for what would be his fourth stint in the Kremlin, but is  widely expected to do so. Opinion polls suggest he would comfortably win.  One candidate who has declared her hand is TV personality Ksenia Sobchak who said last week she planned to run, offering liberal voters unhappy with Putin s rule someone to back, though she has little prospect of winning. Some opposition activists fret she is a Kremlin project designed to split the opposition, something she denies. Last month, commenting on rumors that Sobchak would run, Navalny complained she was being used by the Kremlin as a safe lightning conductor for voters  dissatisfaction. But he struck a more conciliatory note on Sunday with TV Rain citing him as saying that everyone, including Sobchak, had the right to take part in the March election.

Summary: जेल से रिहा हुए पुतिन के आलोचक नवलनी ने फिर शुरू किया राष्ट्रपति चुनाव अभियान


NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than a dozen state prosecutors urged President Donald Trump in a letter on Tuesday not to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which commits the United States, along with 200 other countries, to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to slow global warming.  With the letter, attorneys general from 12 states as well as the District of Columbia and American Samoa have joined a chorus of voices, including major fossil fuel energy companies as well as environmental advocates, condemning the idea of exiting the agreement, which the Republican president has criticized in the past.  “Climate change, if left unchecked, will lead to global environmental dislocation and disaster on a scale we likely cannot imagine,” the prosecutors wrote, urging the president to “maintain and reconfirm the United States’ commitment to this groundbreaking agreement.” The Paris accord, reached by nearly 200 countries in 2015, seeks to limit global warming by slashing carbon dioxide and other emissions from burning fossil fuels. As part of the deal, the United States committed to reducing its emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. In an April 14 appearance on television show “Fox & Friends,” Scott Pruitt, a former attorney general for Oklahoma whom Trump appointed to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, called for an “exit” from the Paris Accord while Energy Secretary Rick Perry, speaking at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York on Tuesday, said Washington should “renegotiate it.”  Pruitt and Perry were among the administration officials scheduled to meet last week to discuss the U.S. position on the accord, but the meeting was canceled. Sources told Reuters on April 5 a group of coal producers told White House officials that remaining in the global deal to combat climate change would give U.S. negotiators a chance to advocate for coal in the future of the global energy mix. Tuesday’s letter was signed by top prosecutors from Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Summary: राज्य के अभियोजकों ने ट्रम्प से पेरिस समझौते से पीछे नहीं हटने का आग्रह किया


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) called for a peaceful return to constitutional democracy on Wednesday after an overnight military coup against 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. The MDC, the main political challenger to Mugabe s ZANU-PF party for the last two decades, also said it hoped the military intervention would lead to the  establishment of a stable, democratic and progressive nation state .

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे विपक्ष ने लोकतंत्र में शांतिपूर्ण वापसी का आह्वान किया


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is quietly boosting economic support for North Korea to try to stymie any U.S.-led push to oust Kim Jong Un as Moscow fears his fall would sap its regional clout and allow U.S. troops to deploy on Russia s eastern border. Though Moscow wants to try to improve battered U.S.-Russia relations in the increasingly slim hope of relief from Western sanctions over Ukraine, it remains strongly opposed to what it sees as Washington s meddling in other countries  affairs, according to Russian diplomats and analysts familiar with the Kremlin s thinking. Russia is already angry about a build-up of U.S.-led NATO forces on its western borders in Europe and does not want any replication on its Asian flank, the sources added. Yet while Russia has an interest in protecting North Korea, which started life as a Soviet satellite state, it is not giving Pyongyang a free pass: it backed tougher United Nations sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear tests last month. At the same time Moscow is playing a fraught double game, by quietly offering North Korea a slender lifeline to help insulate it from U.S.-led efforts to isolate it economically. A Russian company began routing North Korean internet traffic this month, giving Pyongyang a second connection with the outside world besides China. Bilateral trade more than doubled to $31.4 million in the first quarter of 2017, due mainly to what Moscow said was higher oil product exports, according to Russia s ministry for the development of the Far East. At least eight North Korean ships that left Russia with fuel cargoes this year have returned home despite officially declaring other destinations, a ploy U.S. officials say is often used to undermine sanctions against Pyongyang. And Russia, which shares a short land border with North Korea, has also resisted U.S.-led efforts to repatriate tens of thousands of North Korean workers whose remittances help keep the country s hard line leadership afloat.  The Kremlin really believes the North Korean leadership should get additional assurances and confidence that the United States is not in the regime change business,  Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Reuters.  The prospect of regime change is a serious concern. The Kremlin understands that (U.S. President Donald) Trump is unpredictable. They felt more secure with Barack Obama that he would not take any action that would explode the situation, but with Trump they don t know.  Trump, who mocks North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a  rocket man  on a suicide mission, told the United Nations General Assembly last month he would  totally destroy  the country if necessary. He has also said Kim Jong Un and his foreign minister  won t be around much longer  if they made good on a threat to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States. To be sure, Beijing s economic ties to Pyongyang still dwarf Moscow s and China remains a more powerful player in the unfolding nuclear crisis. But while Beijing is cutting back trade as it toughens its line on its neighbor s ballistic missile and nuclear program, Russia is increasing its support. People familiar with elements of Kremlin thinking say that is because Russia flatly opposes regime change in North Korea. Russian politicians have repeatedly accused the United States of plotting so-called color revolutions across the former Soviet Union and any U.S. talk of unseating any leader for whatever reason is politically toxic in Moscow. Russia s joint military exercises with neighboring Belarus last month gamed a scenario where Russian forces put down a Western-backed attempt for part of Belarus to break away. With Russia due to hold a presidential election in March, politicians are again starting to fret about Western meddling.   In 2011, President Vladimir Putin accused then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of trying to stir up unrest in Russia and he has made clear that he wants the United States to leave Kim Jong Un alone. While condemning Pyongyang for what he called provocative nuclear tests, Putin told a forum last month in the eastern Russian port of Vladivostok that he understood North Korea s security concerns about the United States and South Korea. Vladivostok, a strategic port city of 600,000 people and headquarters to Russia s Pacific Fleet, is only about 100 km (60 miles) from Russia s border with North Korea. Russia would be fiercely opposed to any U.S. forces deploying nearby in a reunited Korea.  (The North Koreans) know exactly how the situation developed in Iraq,  Putin told the economic forum, saying Washington had used the false pretext that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction to destroy the country and its leadership.   They know all that and see the possession of nuclear weapons and missile technology as their only form of self-defense. Do you think they re going to give that up?  Analysts say Russia s view is that North Korea s transformation into a nuclear state, though incomplete, is permanent and irreversible and the best the West can hope for is for Pyongyang to freeze elements of its program.        Kortunov, the think-tank chief close to the Russian Foreign Ministry, said he did not think the Kremlin s defense of Kim Jong Un was based on any personal affection or support for North Korea s leadership, likening Moscow s pragmatic backing to that it has given Syria s President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow s position was motivated by a belief the status quo made Russia a powerful geopolitical player in the crisis because of its close ties to Pyongyang, Kortunov said, just as Russia s support for Assad has gifted it greater Middle East clout. He said Moscow knew it would lose regional leverage if Kim Jong Un fell, much as its Middle East influence was threatened when Islamist militants looked like they might overthrow Assad in 2015.   It s a very delicate balancing act,  said Kortunov.   On the one hand, Russia doesn t want to deviate from the line of its partners and mostly from China s position on North Korea which is getting tougher. But on the other hand, politicians in Moscow understand that the current situation and level of interaction between Moscow and Pyongyang puts Russia in a league of its own compared to China.  If the United States were to remove Kim Jong Un by force, he said Russia could face a refugee and humanitarian crisis on its border, while the weapons and technology Pyongyang is developing could fall into even more dangerous non-state hands. So despite Russia giving lukewarm backing to tighter sanctions on Pyongyang, Putin wants to help its economy grow and is advocating bringing it into joint projects with other countries in the region.  We need to gradually integrate North Korea into regional cooperation,  Putin told the Vladivostok summit last month.

Summary: रूस ने शासन परिवर्तन को रोकने के लिए उत्तर कोरिया को जीवन रेखा दी


LONDON (Reuters) - A project looking at links between mental health and terrorism in three English cities has been expanded nationwide after it found a significant number of people referred to counter-radicalization programs suffer some form of mental illness. Studies have suggested the prevalence of mental health issues among militants working together on major strikes is very low but a string of killings by so-called lone wolves has fueled concerns mental illness could be a factor behind some attacks. Authorities say some of those involved in four attacks in Britain this year blamed on Islamist militants appeared to people who had self-radicalized via the internet and whose mental state had been questioned. To look more closely at the issue, British police launched pilot programs in April last year in England s three biggest urban areas - London, Birmingham and Manchester - to embed mental health experts with counter-terrorism officers. The aim was to give psychiatrists the chance to identify people referred to Britain s counter-radicalization program Prevent who had mental health issues, and treat them.  Anecdotally, I am surprised that there appears to be a much higher prevalence of people with mental health problems than you would expect,  said Professor Jennifer Shaw, the mental health lead for Greater Manchester Police, referring to the people her team had dealt with since the pilot was launched. The hubs are considered so successful by the government they have been expanded nationwide, Shaw, professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Manchester, told Reuters. But such is the secrecy around the work of Prevent and Channel - a de-radicalization program within the overall project - there are few details about its successes or failings and Shaw s work has not previously been discussed in the media. Some psychiatrists argue that no scientific link between mental health issues and terrorist attacks has yet been established and they worry the programs risk stigmatizing people suffering from mental illnesses. Another psychiatrist gathering data under the pilot programs told Reuters that Britain s Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism had told them not to disclose any details of their findings ahead of a final report. Those findings are expected to be among a raft of data about people referred to Prevent due to be released this week. Britain s interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Dr Adrian James, registrar at Britain s Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), said the link between mental health problems and terrorist acts had not been established.  He said a lack of evidence, partly because militant attacks were so rare, was at the heart of the problem, adding that an unnecessary level of secrecy about Prevent also meant many psychiatrists viewed the program with suspicion.  If it is true that there is a link, we need to know and then need to look at the causes of that and what we can do about them,  James told Reuters.  We just want the facts.  Past studies have disagreed about the significance of mental health issues among lone wolf attackers, with some academics concluding that such illnesses are blamed to try to explain often complex reasons for attacks. British police decided to launch the pilot programs because they believed that roughly half the 7,500 people referred to Prevent each year had a broad range of mental health and psychological difficulties. Those working on the pilot projects hope the information being gathered will now help experts assess any possible links between mental health issues and attacks. Shaw said determining who might be a potential attacker from mental health problems alone was not really feasible and fraught with problems, but she said it might be possible to ascertain the characteristics of people most likely to be at risk and ensure they got appropriate help.  That doesn t mean you can t manage the risks. Trying to nip it in the bud, that s all you can do. But that s good if you can achieve that, it s going a long way,  said Shaw. Police officers say they have struggled in the past to reach medical practitioners when they had concerns about some people and Shaw said the pilot was designed to address those worries. According to one of Shaw s case studies, a man went to a hospital saying he monitored Islamic State websites, had been walking around the city center working out how many people he could kill in a gun attack, and wanted to behead his mother. Shaw s team discovered the man had no contact with mental health services and no diagnosis of any illness. An urgent assessment concluded his anger stemmed from experiences in his childhood and safeguarding measures were put in place.  British police have no doubts about the importance of the work, especially given the global shift from carefully planned spectacular attacks by militant networks to unsophisticated, strikes by individuals using cars and knives as weapons. Mark Rowley, Britain s most senior counter-terrorism officer, told the British Medical Journal in April that a disproportionate number of suspects in 13 attacks foiled by British police since 2013 had mental health issues.  If part of the terrorist methodology is to prey on the vulnerable ... then it stands to reason that there will be people with certain mental health conditions who will be ... susceptible to that,  he said.  Radicalizing and inciting someone who is vulnerable to go and carry out some ghastly attack seems to be part of their tactics, and that has brought in a whole load of vulnerability issues, including mental health, that we now have to wrestle with,  said Rowley. A study by University College London s (UCL) Department of Security and Crime Science looked at 55 attacks involving 76 individuals between May 2014 and September 2016 where reports had shown the perpetrators may have been influenced by IS. The study found 34 percent of those involved in attacks inspired by Islamic State - rather than actually directed by the militant group - had mental health issues. Health experts estimate about one in four people will suffer some form of mental health issue and those with mental illnesses are generally less likely to commit violent crimes than the overall population. Shaw said those with mental health issues and developmental disorders referred to her team at Prevent were more likely to be suffering from psychosis and autism, adding that people with serious mental illnesses often had tiny social networks.  They can therefore, when unwell, be influenced by messages that go out that say come and belong to our group. It can be quite compelling. The same for people with autism. The internet kind of way of getting the message out makes those people, particularly vulnerable. So I think that s a big issue.  Psychiatrists worry that all people with mental health issues could be stigmatized and considered potential militants, possibly deterring them from seeking help. Prevent, one of the four strands of Britain s counter-terrorism strategy known as Contest launched in 2003, has also been dogged by claims it is used to spy on Muslim communities. A government edict in 2015 instructing public bodies such as schools, health workers and universities to raise any concerns they have about individuals with the authorities has exacerbated those concerns. Shaw acknowledged more work was needed on the outcomes of their mental health interventions under the Prevent pilot programs to determine what made a difference. Asked if people her team had treated might have committed violent acts if their conditions had not been addressed, she said:  That is the obvious question. You can t say that in any kind of scientific way.  We re attempting to try and get at that. Is it completely to do with their mental illness, half to do with it, or not at all?  said Shaw.  We have had cases where people have had ideologies, they have also had a mental health problem, and they are not linked at all. The last thing we need is  all these bombers are nutters . We don t want that going on.

Summary: दिमाग के लिए लड़ाईः ब्रिटेन ने आतंकवाद में मानसिक स्वास्थ्य पर परियोजना का विस्तार किया


ERBIL, Iraq/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other top officials in unannounced visits to Baghdad and Erbil on Thursday to show support for a government battling Islamic State amid political and economic crises. It was the first visit for Biden, the White House’s point person on Iraq, since U.S. forces withdrew in 2011 after nearly nine years of occupation. He was the third and highest-level U.S. official to visit the country this month. Islamic State, also known as ISIL, seized large portions of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. Iraqi forces have won back some territory, such as the western city of Ramadi, but often after long battles that have left the areas destroyed. Biden’s trip, several months in the planning, is a sign of the progress Washington believes Iraqi forces have made in beating back the militants over the past year and its hope that the northern city of Mosul can be recaptured before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in January. “This is a good indication of the United States’ continued support for Prime Minister Abadi’s efforts to unify the nation of Iraq to confront ISIL,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. The vice president has close relationships with Iraqi leaders and speaks with them about every 10 days. Still, “there’s no substitute for being able to sit down face-to-face,” a U.S. official said. Biden, a longtime U.S. senator before becoming vice president in 2009, said he had been to Iraq almost 30 times during his career. His first stop on Thursday was Baghdad where he met Abadi and Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri to discuss “progress” in the fight against Islamic State, including plans to retake Mosul. “It’s real. It’s serious. It’s committed,” Biden told reporters. Iraqi officials say they will retake Mosul this year but, in private, many question whether that is possible. Biden hopes some progress can be made before the extreme summer heat, a senior administration official said. He later flew to Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, for a 90-minute working dinner with the Kurdistan region’s president, Massoud Barzani, to discuss the Mosul offensive in which Kurdish peshmerga forces are expected to have a critical role. The peshmerga have emerged as a key component of a U.S.-led coalition’s strategy to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State, driving the insurgents back in northern Iraq with the help of air strikes despite a financial crisis that has made it difficult to pay salaries. Biden’s trip also served to counter a “misperception in the region” that Iran, which backs powerful Shi’ite Muslim militias fighting Islamic State in Iraq, has undue influence in the nation, the U.S. official added. But it comes at a turbulent time in Iraqi politics. Abadi has faced resistance to a government overhaul aimed at tackling corruption. He won lawmakers’ approval to replace a handful of ministers on Tuesday after delays and disruptions. The political battle has also sparked populist protests that forced the government to bring back troops from the front lines to secure the capital. U.S. officials have expressed concern that unrest could distract from the war effort. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Baghdad earlier this month to show their support. “It’s been a pretty all-consuming political affair,” a senior U.S. official told reporters, noting recent signs of a “calmer trajectory” in the drama. Obama has said he has seen “momentum” in the efforts of the coalition fighting Islamic State, and recently authorized more U.S. forces to go to Iraq and Syria to help train and assist local fighters. Their goal is to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces retake Mosul by the end of the year. The United States has already redeployed several thousand troops to Iraq to help defeat Islamic State. The White House is concerned that not enough is being spent to rebuild parts of Iraq devastated by the fight, a deficit made worse by the low price of oil, Iraq’s main revenue source. The United Nations is urgently seeking $400 million from Washington and its allies for reconstruction, while Obama asked Gulf Arab leaders to assist during a visit to Riyadh last week. He also discussed the issue with European leaders in London and Hanover, Germany, and told reporters Iraqi reconstruction would be a topic for the G7 meeting in Japan next month and for NATO. Biden, whose late son Beau spent a year in Iraq with the Army, later spoke with U.S. troops and embassy workers. He showed them a daily tally of the number of U.S. troops serving, killed and injured in the line of duty that he carries in his front suit pocket. “The history of this region is a nightmare from which everyone is constantly trying to awake,” he said, adapting a line from Irish novelist James Joyce.

Summary: कई संकटों के बीच समर्थन दिखाने के लिए बाइडन ने इराक का दौरा किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday he is not interested in serving under Democrat Hillary Clinton if she is elected president. “I’ll do anything I can if Hillary’s elected to help her, but I don’t want to remain in the administration,” Biden said in an interview with NBC’s KBJR affiliate in Duluth, Minnesota. On Thursday, Politico reported that Clinton’s campaign was considering Biden for secretary of state if she wins the Nov. 8 election.

Summary: बाइडन ने कहा कि उन्हें क्लिंटन प्रशासन में काम करने में कोई दिलचस्पी नहीं है


KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide attacker rammed a car full of explosives into a bus leaving Afghanistan s top military training center in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 15 soldiers, including cadets and their trainers, officials said. Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a particularly deadly week for Afghanistan s security forces. The bombing was also the second major attack in the capital Kabul in 24 hours after a suicide attack at a Shi ite mosque killed more than 50 worshippers on Friday night.  Army personnel were coming out of Marshal Fahim University when a suicide bomber in a car targeted them. Fifteen soldiers who were there for training were killed and four others were wounded,  Ministry of Defence spokesman Dawlat Wazari said. A statement from President Ashraf Ghani s office said the bus was carrying trainers and cadets from the defense university on the western outskirts of Kabul that is home to the Afghan military s officer training school and other military academies. Afghan security forces have been struggling against the Taliban since most foreign troops left at the end of 2014. U.S. President Donald Trump committed to an open-ended military training and support mission in Afghanistan in August,  despite criticism that it is no closer to peace despite billions of dollars in aid and nearly 16 years of U.S. and allied operations. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for Saturday s car bomb in an email to reporters.  The Taliban have been waging an insurgency for a decade and a half in an attempt to overthrow the Western-backed government in Kabul and re-establish a fundamentalist Islamist regime. The insurgents now control or contest about 40 percent of Afghanistan.  Afghan security forces including police were being killed at a rate of about 600 per month in battles and targeted bombings earlier this year, according to a U.S. report. This week s toll looked to be particularly heavy for Afghan forces after attacks across the country, including Taliban fighters using captured U.S.-provided Humvee vehicles as vehicle bombs to ram into fortified compounds. On Thursday the Taliban stormed a military base in the southern province of Kandahar, killing at least 43 of the 60 soldiers manning the base, which was left in ruins. Two days earlier dozens of security personnel were killed and scores wounded in Taliban attacks on government compounds in Paktia and Ghazni provinces, with a senior provincial police commander among the dead. In addition to the Taliban, Afghanistan has in recent years seen a rise in violence claimed by fighters who have claimed loyalty to the Islamic State s Middle East-based leadership, although the movement controls little territory in Afghanistan. Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Kabul on Friday evening in which a bomber walked into a Shi ite Muslim mosque as people were praying and detonated his explosives. The toll in the attack on Imam Zaman mosque rose to 54 killed, including children, and 55 wounded, a deputy minister for religious affairs, Dai-ul Haq Abid told a news conference on Saturday. Another mosque attack on Friday killed at least 33 people in central Ghor province.

Summary: काबुल सैन्य स्कूल के बाहर कार बम विस्फोट में 15 अफगान कैडेट, प्रशिक्षक मारे गए


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After parleying a professional wrestling career as “The Rock” into leading roles in Hollywood, Dwayne Johnson is entertaining the idea of jumping into the political ring, including perhaps even a run for the White House someday. Johnson, 44, who stars in the upcoming Disney animated film “Moana” as the voice of demigod Maui, told Reuters the excitement surrounding last week’s presidential election had renewed public interest in him running for office. “I love my country, I’m extremely patriotic and I also feel, especially now, leadership is so important, great leadership is so important, respected leadership is so important,” said Johnson, star of “The Fast and the Furious” franchise  Asked specifically about a potential White House run, Johnson replied: “If I felt like I could be an effective leader for us, and surround myself with really high-quality leaders, then sure, I would.”  It is not the first time Johnson’s name has been mentioned in political circles. Earlier this year, Johnson took to Instagram to thank a Washington Post journalist who said he had a “weirdly plausible path to a political career” as a mixed-race registered Republican from Florida, a swing state in the presidential election.  While Johnson did not specify which office he might seek, when he might run or which party he would represent, he said he thought that running a business as a producer in Hollywood had given him a discipline he hoped he could apply to politics.  “I’ve found really good success in being able to galvanize people in a positive way and continued to push them, as I’ve pushed myself along the way too, because I walk what I talk, daily, which I think is an important quality,” he said.  If Johnson does take on politics, he would be following another pro wrestler, Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura, who served as governor of Minnesota, and body builder-turned-action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who served two terms as Republican governor of California. Known for his catchphrase: “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking,” Johnson still participates in occasional World Wrestling Entertainment matches, alongside producing and starring in HBO’s sports dramedy “Ballers” and the upcoming “Baywatch” film reboot.

Summary: 'द रॉक' राजनीति में भविष्य की बात करता है, जिसमें संभावित व्हाइट हाउस रन भी शामिल है।


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spate of sexual misconduct accusations against U.S. politicians and other powerful men will force candidates for the November 2018 congressional elections to weigh more carefully than ever whether their past behavior could doom their chances.  Following allegations against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, Democratic U.S. Representative John Conyers and Democratic U.S. Senator Al Franken, campaign operatives from both parties warned that past behavior that might once have been excused may now be disqualifying. “This is a game-changer,” said Democratic strategist Dane Strother. “Every man who wants to run for office needs to give some serious thought to his past.” Politicians have been among a growing number of prominent men, including in the entertainment and media fields, accused of sexual harassment. There will be increased pressure on candidates to undertake “self-vetting,” where, as one Republican strategist said, they are willing to subject themselves to a “trial on what the other side will put them through.” But he cautioned: “A lot of this is still dependent on what the candidate is willing to talk about and how forthcoming they are.” In next year’s elections, Democrats will seek to wrest one or both houses of Congress from Republican control. Thirty-three U.S. Senate seats and all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be contested.  Sex scandals have long been a part of U.S. politics, but in the current environment, operatives are encouraging candidates and office-holders alike to level with advisers about past conduct, even behavior that might in the past have fallen into a gray area. “You may have to press the candidate particularly aggressively to be sure that he confronts what he may have passed off as a failed advance and not have imagined would come back to haunt him,” a veteran Democratic lawyer who advises campaigns told Reuters. Sonia Van Meter, a Democratic opposition researcher, said candidates would have to think carefully about “their demeanor, their offhanded remarks, the way they carried themselves. Everything will be under more scrutiny.” If candidates are not careful about self-vetting, operatives said, researchers working for opposing candidates would do it for them. Verifiable facts - court documents, voting records, speeches and more - usually form the backbone of opposition research conducted by rival campaigns. Such research may expand into behavior that has not been documented, Strother said, adding that might include conversations with former female staffers to find out if there are any issues. Tracy Sefl, a strategist in Chicago who has directed opposition research for the Democratic National Committee, said workplace relationships between a male candidate and women  could now be targeted by opposing campaigns. “In the context of employment: Was a man supervising women? Were those women younger, older, or his peers?” Sefl said. “How long did those women tend to work there? What do they have to say about their experience there and about him, specifically?”  But Alex Conant, a Republican consultant who worked for presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty and Marco Rubio, doubted opposition research would see a dramatic shift, largely because most campaigns cannot afford it and must instead rely on public records, internet searches and news reports.  “Opposition research in early stages of congressional campaigns is not going back and interviewing every single person who has worked with a candidate,” Conant said. There are also limits on the effectiveness of opposition research in identifying potential misconduct.  Rumors surrounding Moore’s alleged interest in teenage girls had circulated in Alabama politics for years, but it took reporters from the Washington Post, not researchers from campaigns, to persuade his accusers to go on the record. Moore, who is running against Democrat Doug Jones in a Dec. 12 special election, has denied the allegations, which Reuters has been unable to independently verify. Republican lawmakers in Washington, including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, have distanced themselves from Moore and urged him to quit the race. Self-vetting is all the more important, operatives said, because the national parties have little capacity to weed out problematic candidates. In 2016, the insurgent White House bids of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders highlighted the limited ability of parties to hand-pick candidates for major public offices. Trump won the presidency despite himself being accused by several women of having in the past made unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate personal remarks about them. Trump denied the allegations, saying they were part of a smear campaign. In the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, Moore prevailed in the Republican primary over Luther Strange, the incumbent backed by the party establishment.  While the parties still vet some candidates for Congress and big-ticket donors, they largely rely on local party officials to screen and refer them. Van Meter said the string of scandals had altered the landscape because victims now felt empowered to go public, which may topple some candidates and keep others from running at all. “What has changed is the culture, the number of women coming forward,” she said. “We’re going to see more of these cases.”

Summary: यौन दुराचार के आरोप 2018 के अमेरिकी कांग्रेस के चुनावों को रौंद सकते हैं


BEIRUT (Reuters) - A top Iranian official and Lebanon s Saad al-Hariri gave conflicting accounts on Tuesday of a key meeting they had held right before Hariri quit as prime minister, a move he attributed to regional meddling by Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. The shock resignation has thrust Lebanon back onto the front line of a power struggle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran - a rivalry that has also buffeted Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain.  Hariri flew to Riyadh on Nov. 3, after meeting in Beirut Ali Akbar Velayati, the top foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.   Hariri claims that in our meeting he asked Iran to stop interfering in the Lebanese affairs, but he did not say such a thing,  Velayati was quoted as saying by Iranian state television s website on Tuesday.  Our meeting was not tense or violent at all. These are all lies,  he said.      Velayati said Iran hoped Hariri would return to Lebanon, accusing Riyadh of fanning the flames of tension as it  could not tolerate the strategic friendship  between Tehran and Beirut. Hariri denied Velayati s account that the Lebanese leader had offered to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Prime Minister Hariri did not offer mediation between any countries,  a statement from his press office said.   He presented to Velayati his point of view about the need to stop Iranian interventions in Yemen as a gateway and a precondition for any improvement in ties between (Iran) and the kingdom,  it said.  A long-time Saudi ally, Hariri had first mentioned the Velayati meeting in a television interview on Sunday night, his first public comments since quitting.  He warned Lebanon was at risk of Gulf Arab sanctions because of regional meddling by Shi ite Hezbollah and said he would return to Lebanon within days. In his resignation speech in a broadcast from Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4, Hariri said he feared assassination and accused Iran along with Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world. Top Lebanese government officials and senior politicians close to Hariri believe Saudi Arabia coerced him into quitting and has been holding him against his will since, though Hariri and Riyadh have denied this.

Summary: ईरान और लेबनान के हरीरी के बीच महत्वपूर्ण बैठक पर मतभेद


HANOI (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that it was possible he could be friends with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un one day and that it would be “very, very nice” but he was not sure that it would happen. Asked at a news conference in Vietnam if he could see himself being friends with Kim, Trump said: “That might be a strange thing to happen but it’s a possibility.  “If it did happen it could be a good thing I can tell you for North Korea, but it could also be good for a lot of other places and be good for the rest the world,” Trump said.  “It could be something that could happen. I don’t know if it will but it would be very, very nice.”

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया के किम जोंग उन के साथ दोस्ती संभवः ट्रम्प


BOSTON (Reuters) - The Washington Post on Wednesday called on Maine Governor Paul LePage to resign, following a series of incidents in which the two-term Republican made racially charged statements and threatened a Democratic lawmaker in an obscenity-laden email. LePage, whose term extends through 2018, last month lashed out at a state lawmaker who criticized his comments blaming black and Hispanic people from out of state for the heroin trade in Maine. In an editorial titled “Maine’s unhinged governor,” the newspaper wrote “LePage threatens to remake his state’s image from a vacation paradise of surreal natural beauty to a hotbed of hatred.” LePage had told reporters he had collected a three-ring binder of people arrested for trafficking drugs in the state and that 90 percent of those in it were black or Hispanic. The governor released the binder this week and a review by local media found that closer to one in three arrestees in it matched LePage’s description. Maine legislative leaders last month briefly considered convening a special session to reprimand LePage for the outburst, but the effort collapsed with the two parties unable to agree on whether they wanted to censure him or pursue impeachment. A spokeswoman for the governor dismissed the editorial as biased. “The Post did not contact anyone from the governor’s office to fact-check this biased piece of propaganda,” spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said in an email. “Clearly, the Post editorial board is exempt from reporting facts.” Asked about what factual inaccuracies in the editorial concerned the governor, Bennett challenged the Post’s description of LePage declining to attend a 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Day event hosted by the state’s NAACP chapter, noting that he had instead attended a Rotary Club event honoring the slain civil rights activist. At the time that he declined the NAACP’s invitation, in his first month as governor, LePage said that critics of his decision could “kiss my butt.”

Summary: वाशिंगटन पोस्ट ने मेन के गवर्नर से इस्तीफे की मांग की


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appeared within striking distance to clinch re-election as leader of America’s second-largest city on Tuesday against 10 lesser-known challengers, most of them lacking significant financial support. Garcetti, 46, a former City Council member and urban planning expert seeking his second term as mayor, needs to win at least 50 percent of the vote plus one in order to avoid a May run-off race with the second-place finisher. A recent Loyola Marymount University poll found Garcetti backed by 50.1 percent of registered voters, compared with 7.9 percent for his closest rival, Mitchell Schwartz, a political operative of former President Barack Obama during his first White House campaign. But the telephone-and-online survey of 950 people, conducted in January and early February, showed 38.5 percent were still undecided. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus just over three percentage points. Schwartz, 55, has seized on the city’s rising crime rate and soaring housing costs, while warning of a looming pension fund crisis, in his bid to unseat Garcetti. The mayor has touted his successful support for a measure to raise the minimum wage in Los Angeles and pointed to the city’s employment gains in the aftermath of a nationwide recession. Garcetti enjoys a significant funding advantage, reporting his campaign has amassed more than $3.8 million as of March 1, while Schwartz, the only other candidate to have raised substantial cash, is expected to have spent $790,000, a spokesman said. Schwartz was previously best known as the California state director of Obama’s presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008. Before that he served as director of communications at the State Department during President Bill Clinton’s first term in office. Garcetti, who defeated then-city Controller Wendy Greuel in a run-off four years ago, is the son of former prosecutor Gil Garcetti, whose office tried O.J. Simpson for murder, and lost, while serving as Los Angeles County district attorney. Drawing almost as much attention, and far more money, in Tuesday’s municipal elections was the highly contested ballot Measure S, aimed at limiting development by halting “spot zoning” amendments to the city’s General Plan for two years. Measure S supporters say spot zoning permits granted to wealthy real estate interests have spurred runaway construction of high-rise office space and other costly developments that increase congestion and drive up housing costs. Opponents say the measure would go too far and actually undermine city efforts to create more affordable housing.

Summary: लॉस एंजिल्स के मेयर फिर से चुनाव जीतने की ओर बढ़ रहे हैं


LONDON (Reuters) - British police released a new image on Wednesday in a fresh bid to trace a male jogger who appeared to push a woman into the path of an oncoming bus on a busy London street four months ago. Video footage of the apparently callous incident on Putney Bridge, southwest London, has been repeatedly screened on British television but the runner has yet to be found. Footage shows him jog past one man on the bridge on May 5 before knocking into the 33-year-old victim. She tumbled head-first into the path of an oncoming bus, which managed to swerve out of her way, missing her by inches. The new CCTV still was taken from the bus, and shows a white man in a gray top and dark shorts. Police said he came back the other way across the bridge 15 minutes later but did not acknowledge the victim when she tried to speak to him.  Images of this alarming incident have been circulated widely and we continue to work through the information received to identify the man responsible,  said Detective Sergeant Chris Griffith.  Two men arrested last month in connection with the incident have both been released without charge.

Summary: ब्रिटेन पुलिस ने लंदन बस रहस्य में जॉगर की नई तस्वीर जारी की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will again meet his Turkish counterpart next week in Europe, the top U.S. general said on Monday, describing regular U.S. efforts to address Turkish concerns over a U.S. decision to arm Kurdish fighters in Syria. U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Mattis also wrote a detailed letter to Turkey last week to provide a “routine update” on U.S. efforts in Syria.

Summary: अमेरिकी रक्षा प्रमुख यूरोप में तुर्की के समकक्ष से मिलेंगे


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican rival Donald Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday, down from nearly eight points on Monday. About 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton, to Trump’s 39 percent, according to the July 31-Aug. 4 online poll of 1,154 likely voters. The poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning that the results suggest the race is roughly even. Among registered voters over the same period, Clinton held a lead of five percentage points, down from eight percentage points on Monday, according to the poll.  The reasons behind the shift were unclear.  Clinton had pulled well ahead of Trump on the heels of the Democratic National Convention last week, where she became the first woman to accept the U.S. presidential nomination from a major political party.  Since then, Trump has engaged in a days-long feud with the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq and squabbled with the Republican leadership over his comments and leadership turmoil within his campaign. Trump, in recent days, however, has sought to refocus. On Friday he announced his economic policy advisory team, said he would deliver an economic policy speech early next week, and was expected to endorse U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top U.S. elected Republican, who is seeking his 10th term in Congress. An average of polls aggregated by Real Clear Politics showed Clinton ahead of Trump by 6.8 percentage points on Friday, up from 3.9 on Aug. 1.

Summary: ट्रम्प पर क्लिंटन की बढ़त तीन अंकों से भी कमः रॉयटर्स/इप्सोस पोल


(Reuters) - Michigan Treasurer Nick Khouri urged state lawmakers on Tuesday to move quickly on legislation to restructure the financially ailing Detroit Public Schools (DPS) before the district runs out of money. “Sometime this spring or early summer, unless legislation passes in some form, the district will not be able to make payroll, will not be able to pay vendors. Essentially they will be out of cash,” Khouri told the Michigan Senate’s Government Operations Committee. The committee has been holding hearings this month on bills supported by Republican Governor Rick Snyder to create two entities - the Detroit Community District to run the schools, and the current Detroit Public Schools to retire debt. Khouri said the legislation presents a better option for DPS and Michigan than a bankruptcy which would “not make sense” given much of the district’s debt is owed to the state. He added that bankruptcy could also take a year at a cost of as much as $100 million. Unlike the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy, a DPS filing would put the state on the hook for $1.45 billion over 11 years to pay off bonds issued for DPS through Michigan’s school bond loan fund, according to written testimony Khouri submitted to the committee.  Under the governor’s plan, the new community school district would be provided with $715 million in additional state funding over 10 years to offset local property taxes, which would be tapped by the old district to pay off debt. Another $240 million in DPS pension debt could be shifted onto other school districts in the state-wide teachers’ retirement system. Detroit exited the biggest-ever municipal bankruptcy in December 2014, shedding about $7 billion of its $18 billion of debt. The Senate committee, which will continue its hearing on the legislation next week, also heard from teachers’ union officials and parents who contended Michigan should be responsible for paying off debt accumulated by DPS since it was placed under state oversight in 2009. They also called for an elected board to be in control of the schools. The legislation would create a financial oversight commission for the district.

Summary: मिशिगन के खजांची ने डेट्रॉइट स्कूल के बिलों पर त्वरित कार्रवाई का आह्वान किया


PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron called for a  complete lifting  of a blockade on Yemen in a telephone call with Saudi Arabia s King Salman on Dec. 24, an Elysee source said on Wednesday.  The president expressed his strong concerns about the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and called on the Saudi king to lift completely the blockade to allow humanitarian aid and commercial goods to enter Yemen,  the source said. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said a week ago that it would keep the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah port - vital for aid - open for a month despite another missile attack against Riyadh, but it has kept up air raids.

Summary: फ्रांस के मैक्रों ने सऊदी राजा पर यमन की नाकाबंदी हटाने के लिए दबाव डालाः एलिसी सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has told Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco and buildings in Washington and New York that house trade missions, the State Department said on Thursday, in retaliation for Moscow cutting the U.S. diplomatic presence in Russia. The announcement was the latest in tit-for-tat measures between the two countries that have helped to drive relations to a new post-Cold War low, thwarting hopes on both sides that they might improve after U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January. Last month, Moscow ordered the United States to cut its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia by more than half, to 455 people to match the number of Russian diplomats in the United States, after Congress overwhelmingly approved new sanctions against Russia. The sanctions were imposed in response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and to punish Russia further for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.  We believe this action was unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our countries,  State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement on Thursday, adding that the United States had completed the reduction.  In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians,  Nauert said, the United States has required the Russian government to close its San Francisco consulate and two annexes in Washington, D.C. and New York by Sept. 2. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of the closures in a phone call on Thursday, a senior Trump administration official said. The two men plan to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September, the official said. Lavrov expressed regret about Washington s decision during the phone call with Tillerson, his ministry said.  Moscow will closely study the new measures announced by the Americans, after which our reaction will be conveyed,  the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. The latest U.S. move caps eight months of back-and-forth retaliatory measures between the two countries spanning two U.S. administrations. In December, the administration of Barack Obama closed two Russian countryside vacation retreats in Maryland and New York, saying the compounds had been used for intelligence-related purposes. The closures were part of a broader response, including the expulsion of 35 suspected Russian spies, to what U.S. officials have called cyber interference by Moscow in the 2016 elections. The Kremlin has denied the allegations. Trump came into office wanting to improve relations with Russia, a desire that was hamstrung by the election interference allegations. The new sanctions passed by Congress conflicted with Trump s goals, but he grudgingly signed them into law this month. The United States said last week that it would have to sharply scale back visa services in Russia, a move that will hit Russian business travelers, tourists and students. The Russian consulate in San Francisco handles work from seven states in the Western United States. There are three other Russian consulates separate from the embassy in Washington. They are in New York, Seattle and Houston. The consulate in San Francisco is the oldest and most established of Russia s consulates in the United States, the senior Trump administration official told reporters. An official residence at the consulate will also be closed. No Russian diplomats are being expelled, and the diplomats assigned to San Francisco can be re-assigned to other posts in the United States, the official said. The Russians can continue to retain ownership of any of the closed facilities, or sell them, but will not be allowed to carry out diplomatic activities there, the official said.  Even after these closures, Russia will still maintain more diplomatic and consular annexes in the United States than we have in Russia,  the official said.  We ve chosen to allow the Russian government to maintain some of its annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral in our relationship.

Summary: अमेरिका ने रूस के खिलाफ जवाबी कार्रवाई की, वाणिज्य दूतावास, अनुलग्नकों को बंद करने का आदेश दिया


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - The California Senate on Monday confirmed U.S. Congressman Xavier Becerra as attorney general, positioning the majority-Democrat state to challenge conservative policies of new Republican President Donald Trump. Becerra, who represented Los Angeles for 24 years in Congress, was approved by a party line votes of 26 to 9, with Democrats heavily in favor and Republicans arguing that the state should give the new administration a chance rather than picking fights. He will replace former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Democrat who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November. “It’s a role to defend the progress and the values of the people of California,” Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said of Becerra’s new job in an interview after the vote on Monday. “These are extraordinary times and require extraordinary actions.” Becerra, 58, was nominated for the position by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown shortly after Trump’s election. A Stanford-trained attorney who was first elected to Congress in 1993, Becerra is viewed as a reliable progressive with the savvy to navigate the halls of Congress as well as the nation’s courtrooms. “I couldn’t ask for a better job,” said Becerra, to be sworn in by Brown on Tuesday. “It is humbling and exciting to assume responsibility for vigorously advancing the forward-leaning values that make California unique among the many states.” Becerra learned through his long Congressional career to work both sides of the aisle, and he made sure to meet with legislative Republicans before his confirmation hearings began this month. But while the legislature’s minority GOP members made a point to say they liked and respected Becerra, most spoke against his nomination. “Instead of acting like we’re going to be defiant, I’d like to see us extending an olive branch” to the new administration, said state Senator John Moorlach, a Republican who represents part of Orange County south of Los Angeles. In addition to naming Becerra attorney general, the legislature also hired the law firm of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, an Obama appointee, to represent them in cases and negotiations involving the new administration and Republican-controlled Congress.

Summary: कैलिफोर्निया की सीनेट ने डेमोक्रेट बेसेरा के अटॉर्नी जनरल बनने की पुष्टि की


(Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic testimony before Congress on Thursday brought big audiences to U.S. broadcast and cable networks, drawing about 19.5 million viewers, according to data from the Nielsen ratings agency. That is a large audience for a daytime event, though it is short of the 30.6 million who tuned in to President Donald Trump's inauguration in January. (Graphic: Ratings for big televised events tmsnrt.rs/2sLLyPJ) Nielsen’s estimates include people watching on 10 U.S. broadcast and cable television networks, but not those who streamed the congressional hearing on computers or mobile phones. Broadcasters interrupted regular programming to air nearly three hours of live coverage of Comey’s remarks about his dealings with Trump before the president fired him in May. The tally was impressive for an event that aired during the work day, when typically only events like state funerals and royal weddings draw mass viewing, said Jeffrey Jones, director of journalism’s Peabody Awards and a professor at the University of Georgia. Jones was traveling and saw crowds gathered around TVs in Atlanta’s airport to watch the hearing.  “Politics is quite often about theater and drama, and this was a classic showdown,” he said. “People wanted to see it for themselves.” The television ratings do not include the many people who watched the highly anticipated hearing during at bars and restaurants or online through TV network apps or on social media sites.  Alphabet Inc’s YouTube reported nearly 800,000 peak concurrent viewers across streams from 20 news outlets. Twitter Inc. said the average minute audience for its livestream of Bloomberg’s coverage was 129,000 viewers. The year’s most-watched television event is football’s Super Bowl, which attracted 111 million viewers in February. Game Three of basketball’s NBA Finals pulled in about 20 million for its primetime broadcast on Wednesday.  During his appearance, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he believed Trump dismissed him to try to undermine a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign team and Russia. Trump on Friday said Comey’s testimony showed “no obstruction.”

Summary: लगभग 1.5 करोड़ अमेरिकी दर्शकों ने कोमी को ट्रम्प के बारे में गवाही देते देखा


NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump and some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives met at his Manhattan tower on Wednesday, a summit convened to smooth over frictions after both sides made no secret of their disdain for each other during the election campaign. The meeting focused chiefly on economic issues, including job creation, lowering taxes and trade dynamics with China, while largely skirting the many disagreements the tech industry has with Trump on matters ranging from immigration to digital privacy, according to a Trump transition team statement.      Trump proposed reconvening with the tech leaders as often as every quarter, the statement said. Three of Trump’s adult children, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka, sat at the head of a large rectangular table as the meeting began in a conference room on the 25th floor of Trump Tower. Their attendance may fuel further concern about potential conflicts of interests for Trump, who has said he would hand over control of his business empire to his children while he occupies the White House. Vice President-elect Mike Pence was also there. Guests sat in front of paper name plates and bottles of water sporting the Trump brand logo.  The meeting between tech luminaries, including Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, Facebook Inc’s Sheryl Sandberg and Tesla Motors Inc’s Elon Musk, took place as Trump has alarmed some U.S. corporations with his rhetoric challenging long-established policy toward China, a main market for Silicon Valley. A senior Chinese state planning official told the China Daily newspaper Wednesday that Beijing could slap a penalty on a U.S. automaker for monopolistic behavior, a warning delivered  days after Trump questioned acknowledging Taiwan as part of “one China.”  The official did not identify the automaker. “There’s nobody like the people in this room, and anything we can do to help this go along we’re going to do that for you,” Trump told the executives in the presence of reporters. “You call my people, you call me, it doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command.” Trump added: “We’re going to make fair trade deals. We’re going to make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders.” Other participants included Alphabet Inc’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corp’s Satya Nadella, and Ginni Rometty from IBM.      Twitter was not invited to the meeting because it was too small, a transition spokesman told Reuters. Cook and Musk joined Trump for separate meetings after the other technology executives leave, according to a spokesman for Trump’s transition team. Bezos said in a statement the meeting was “very productive” and that he “shared the view that the administration should make innovation one of its key pillars, which would create a huge number of jobs across the whole country, in all sectors, not just tech - agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing -everywhere.” Trump clashed with Silicon Valley on several issues during the election campaign, including immigration, government surveillance and encryption, and his surprise victory last month alarmed many companies that feared he might follow through on his pledges. He has said that many tech companies are overvalued by investors. “You look at some of these tech stocks that are so, so weak as a concept and a company and they’re selling for so much money,” he told Reuters in an interview in May. Those concerns have not been assuaged in recent weeks as Trump has threatened to upset trade relationships with China and appoint officials who favor expanded surveillance programs.   “For some of the companies, there was some hesitation about whether to attend” because of sharp political and personal differences with Trump, one tech industry source said. More than 700 employees of technology companies pledged in an open letter on Tuesday to refuse to help Trump’s administration build a data registry to track people based on their religion or assist in mass deportations. Silicon Valley enjoyed a warm rapport with President Barack Obama and heavily supported Democrat Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign.  Alphabet’s Schmidt was photographed on election night at Clinton headquarters wearing a staff badge, and Musk said in interviews before the election that Trump’s character reflected poorly on the United States. Despite those tensions, Trump named Musk to a business advisory council that will give private-sector input to Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20. The CEOs of Airbnb and Uber were invited but did not attend Wednesday’s gathering. Uber’s Travis Kalanick, traveling in India all week according to a person familiar with his plans, was also appointed to the council. From the employees of the 10 largest Fortune 500 tech companies, Trump raised just $179,400 from 982 campaign donors who contributed more than $200. Clinton raised $4.4 million from the employees of the same companies, with more than 20,400 donations, a Reuters review of contribution data found.  Trump publicly bashed the industry during the campaign. He urged his supporters to boycott Apple products over the company’s refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone associated with last year’s San Bernardino, California, shootings, threatened antitrust action against Amazon and demanded that tech companies build their products in the United States. Trump has also been an opponent of the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” rules barring internet service providers from obstructing or slowing consumer access to web content. Two advisers to his Federal Communications Commission transition team are opponents of the rules, as are the two Republicans on the FCC.  Last week, the two Republicans on the panel urged a quick reversal of many Obama policies and one, Commissioner Ajit Pai, said he believed that net neutrality’s “days are numbered.”

Summary: चुनाव प्रचार में आपसी अविश्वास के बाद सिलिकॉन वैली के अभिजात वर्ग से मिले ट्रंप