WICHITA, Kansas (Reuters) - After moving to Kansas, Tad Stricker visited a state motor vehicle office to perform what he thought was the routine task of getting a new driver’s license and registering to vote. It was a familiar procedure for Stricker, 37, who has moved from state to state frequently in his work as a hotel manager. He filled out a voter registration form and got his driver’s license. He was not asked for more documents, he said. So he was stunned when he tried to cast a ballot in November 2014 and was told he was not on the voter rolls. A month later, a letter from the state said why: His registration had been placed “in suspense” because he had failed to meet a state requirement he did not know about - proving he was an American. Spurred by Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a national leader in pushing for anti-immigration and voting changes, more than 36,000 Kansas residents have joined Stricker in limbo since early 2013 under a state law that raises a new and higher barrier to voting in the United States: proof of citizenship. While you must be a U.S. citizen to vote in American elections, most states allow those wishing to register to simply sign a statement affirming they are citizens and provide a driver’s license number, Social Security number, or other proof of residency.  A Reuters analysis of the Kansas suspense list shows the law disproportionately hits young voters, who often do not have ready access to the needed documents, as well as unaffiliated and Democratic voters in the Republican-controlled state. “What a shock,” said Stricker, who was born in Missouri and moved to Kansas with his wife from Illinois. “I was under the impression I had registered to vote, I had done everything I needed to. I just thought, ‘This can’t be happening.’” While the law won’t affect its status as a safe Republican state in November’s presidential election, it thrusts Kansas into a national debate over voting restrictions that has accelerated since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, a signature legislative achievement of the 1960s civil rights movement. Kobach’s involvement has raised the stakes in the fight against the Kansas law. Democrats and voting rights advocates say his influence with conservatives could help spread the concept to other states. His critics scored a victory on May 17 when a federal judge weakened the law. Kobach quickly appealed. The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, and Stricker was a plaintiff in the case. Photo identification laws and other voting measures have proliferated in recent years in Republican-held states, but “the one that gets me most nervous” is the proof of citizenship requirement in Kansas, said Pratt Wiley, director of voter expansion for the Democratic National Committee. “What you will see is that what is learned in one state, or doesn’t work in one state, there is a small adjustment and then it’s applied in a different state,” Wiley said, calling Kansas “patient zero” in that process. Kobach has gained a national reputation for pushing a series of voting and anti-immigration measures across the country, leading one Democratic congressman to dub him “the dark lord” of the anti-immigration movement - a label he wears proudly. “I don’t know if I would call it a badge of honor but it reflects that I’m moving the ball in what I think is the right direction,” Kobach said in an interview in his Topeka office across from the state Capitol. Three other states have adopted proof of citizenship laws championed by Kobach, although officials said two of them had not implemented them. Bills have been introduced in at least nine other states to create a similar law since 2012, although none have advanced very far, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The law Kobach spearheaded in Kansas requires registrants to prove their citizenship by providing one of a series of documents, including birth certificates and passports. They are placed on the suspense list if they can’t. Since late last year, those who did not complete the requirements for registration have been purged from the voter rolls after 90 days and had to begin the process over again. About 14 percent of Kansans who tried to register between the law’s onset in 2013 and late 2015 failed to meet the requirement and went on the suspense list, according to documents filed in a lawsuit challenging the requirement. “It’s created a system that is needlessly complex and very discouraging, particularly for young people,” said Steve Lopes, head of the Johnson County Voting Coalition, which helps register voters. “Now people just say, ‘Forget it, I’m not going to vote’.” Kobach rejects accusations the law is designed to suppress voter turnout, particularly among minority and low-income voters who tend to back Democrats. He says it is aimed at stopping what he describes as a rampant problem of non-citizens voting in U.S. elections - even though there is little evidence of the problem. “Every time an alien votes, it cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen. That’s real disenfranchisement, it’s happening every election and it’s happening in every state,” Kobach said, estimating thousands of non-citizens are on voting rolls in big states with large immigrant populations. Citing that threat, Kobach convinced the Kansas legislature in 2015 to give him the power to prosecute voter fraud. But he has won just four misdemeanor illegal voting convictions, mostly involving people who owned at least two properties and cast votes in both locations. None involved non-citizens voting, although Kobach said more complaints will be filed. U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson, who issued a May 17 order that Kansas begin to register more than 18,000 voters kept off the rolls by the proof of citizenship law, noted Kansas could identify only three non-citizens who voted between 2003 and the onset of the law in 2013. “The court cannot find that the state’s interest in preventing non-citizens from voting in Kansas outweighs the risk of disenfranchising thousands of qualified voters,” she wrote. Of the 16,775 people on a late-April suspense list obtained by Reuters, more than half were ages 17 through 21, and more than 60 percent were age 25 or under. They were clustered in the high-population areas of Wichita, Topeka and the Kansas City suburbs, and the college towns of Lawrence and Manhattan. About 41 percent were unaffiliated, more than the approximately 30 percent of registered Kansas voters who are unaffiliated. About 35 percent of those on the list were Democrats, compared to 24 percent of registered voters. Twenty-three percent were Republicans, compared to 45 percent of registered voters, according to a Reuters analysis of the data. Younger voters, who are more likely to register as unaffiliated or Democrats, have a harder time getting the documents needed and have less patience with what has become an unwieldy process, said Michael Smith, a professor at Emporia State University who has studied the Kansas suspense list. Kobach said it was “natural” that young people were heavily represented on the suspense list because they are the majority of new registrants. He rejected criticism that a proof of citizenship requirement created a higher barrier for registrants. “If you define a barrier to voting as just having to do something before you vote, every state has that barrier, virtually every state requires proof of address,” he said.  In her court ruling, Robinson said the Kansas requirement conflicted with a federal law designed to make it easier to register while getting a driver’s license. She ordered Kansas on June 14 to begin registering Stricker and other residents who had submitted voter applications through state motor vehicle offices but failed to provide proof of citizenship. They will be able to vote in federal elections for the presidency and U.S. Congress.   But Robinson’s ruling did not end the proof of citizenship requirement for Kansans who register by mail or at locations other than motor vehicle offices, and it left even those registering while getting a driver’s license ineligible to vote for state and local offices. For now, that has created a chaotic two-tier system where some Kansans can vote in state elections and some cannot, some need to provide proof of citizenship and others do not, and many county election officials are uncertain how to proceed. “It’s a complete mess,” said Marge Ahrens, co-president of the nonpartisan Kansas League of Women Voters.

Summary: कंसास में हजारों मतदाताओं ने अमेरिकी होने का सबूत मांगा


LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal s parliament on Monday approved in the final reading the minority Socialist government s 2018 budget bill that aims to trim the deficit to a new low in the country s democratic history thanks to continuing, if slower, economic growth. The budget was approved by the Socialists and their far-left allies in parliament - the Communists and Left Bloc - who together hold 122 seats in the 230-seat house. The remaining lawmakers voted against the document that set the deficit at 1.1 percent of gross domestic product. The allies have already reversed many of the austerity policies of the previous center-right administration introduced under an international bailout program in 2011-14, and next year s plan carries more measures like tax cuts for low to medium incomes and higher pensions.   The Socialist administration has debunked the myth that to have balanced accounts it is necessary to sacrifice the economy, jobs and well-being of Portuguese,  Pedro Nuno Santos, secretary of state for parliament affairs, told lawmakers. The budget envisages that Portugal s strongest economic performance in at least a decade will extend into next year, with investment, tourism and exports remaining robust. But growth will slow to 2.2 percent from 2017 s 2.6 percent.  Despite the approval, some analysts say that during the budget discussions pressure has been building on Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who came to power exactly two years ago, from the left and the unions for more state spending. That could make it more difficult to maintain the budget cuts down the road.  As the 2019 electoral period approaches, there will be more serious pressure on the government, and the trend is no longer that of accelerating growth,  said political scientist Antonio Costa Pinto of the University of Lisbon.   They ve had good growth and deficit numbers in the first two years but those will be difficult to replicate,  he said, adding though that potential tensions between the government and its allies were unlikely to result in any political crisis.  The projected deficit is higher than the initial 1 percent plan due to hundreds of millions of euros added to expenditure on aid and reconstruction after devastating fires in June and October this year, which killed over 100 people and were an embarrassment to the government. Still, the gap is poised to narrow from this year s projected 1.4 percent - the lowest since Portugal returned to democracy in 1974 - as the economy is expected to grow for the fifth consecutive year. Nevertheless, Brussels has warned Portugal, along with several other countries, that their budgeted structural deficit cuts in 2018 fell short of EU requirements while some government spending also caused concerns.  The European Commission has also put Portugal s overall 2018 budget gap at 1.4 percent, the same as this year.  Costa argues that his government will allay Brussels  concerns  with each month that passes , citing his record of beating deficit-busting targets in 2016 and 2017.

Summary: पुर्तगाल ने 2018 के बजट को मंजूरी दी, घाटे को और कम करना चाहता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump would favor Senate Republicans changing voting rules to allow a simple majority of the Senate to approve his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court if Democrats block his choice, he said in an interview airing on Thursday. “I would. We have obstructionists,” Trump told Fox News, referring to possible use of the so-called nuclear option that would overturn Senate rules requiring 60 votes to overcome a procedural hurdle, or filibuster, for Supreme Court nominees. There are currently 52 Republican senators in the 100-seat chamber. Trump plans next week to announce his choice to fill the vacancy caused by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016. His nominee could restore the decades-long conservative majority on the court. Democrats are seething over the Republican-led Senate’s refusal last year to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nomination of appeals court Judge Merrick Garland for the lifetime post, an action with little precedent in U.S. history. Trump told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity that he had made his choice. “I have made my decision pretty much in my mind, yes. That’s subject to change at the last moment.” Among the front-runners are three conservative jurists: Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and William Pryor, on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Tuesday, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he told Trump that Democrats would fight any nominee they consider to be outside the mainstream. Assuming all 52 Senate Republicans back Trump’s nominee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would either need to lure eight Democrats to his side or change the rules and ban the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations. Despite the nuclear option threat, Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, which tracks judicial nominations, said in an email to Reuters that a Democratic filibuster “would still be far better than what Republicans did to Merrick Garland.” More than three years ago, Democrats used their then-majority in the Senate to ban filibusters against presidential nominees other than for the Supreme Court. The move came after Republicans blocked several key Obama nominees. Vice President Mike Pence told Republican lawmakers on Thursday that Trump would nominate a “strict constructionist” to the court, referring to the literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s text without regard to changes in American society.

Summary: सुप्रीम कोर्ट के फैसले पर रोक लगे तो ट्रंप सीनेट के नियम में बदलाव के पक्ष में होंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden on Wednesday announced plans as part of the administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, aimed at speeding development of treatments by cutting bureaucracy and easing collaboration between scientists, industry, patients and government. Speaking at a cancer summit at Howard University in Washington, Biden made an impassioned plea for increased urgency in the fight against cancer. The event was part of a national day of action involving hundreds of researchers, patient advocates and data experts across the country. Biden’s son Beau died last year at age 46 from brain cancer, something Biden said helps inform his passion for the project.  “I believe we can do in the next five years what would normally take 10 years,” he said. “Time matters, days matter, minutes matter.” Among proposals intended to bypass inefficiency at the federal level, he announced the formation of an Oncology Center of Excellence at the Food and Drug Administration, which will coordinate and review all of FDA cancer treatments. It comes as scientific advances in diagnostics allow for greater tailoring of drugs to an individual’s genetic profile. It is the first of four potential centers proposed under a bill moving through Congress. Under the existing review system, companies submit products to different divisions of the agency depending on whether it is a drug, device or biologic, a drug made from living cells. A treatment that combines a drug and a diagnostic device could get reviewed on different timelines. “We are moving into a very complicated area in oncology where drugs and devices and biologics are going to be used in combination or sequentially,” Dr. Richard Pazdur, the FDA’s cancer drug director, said in an interview. Pazdur will oversee the establishment of the center and act as its director for the next 120 days, with the potential for the position to be renewed. He will report directly to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. The “Cancer Moonshot” initiative was announced by President Barack Obama at his State of the Union address in January. Biden outlined a slew of other collaborations and initiatives, including making it easier for patients to find and enter clinical trials through the creation of a cancer trials website and making it easier for scientists to focus on research and less on raising money. “We have to change the culture that turns scientists into grant writers,” he said. “We have to reward teamwork.”

Summary: बाइडन ने कैंसर से लड़ने के लिए 'मूनशॉट' पहल की रूपरेखा तैयार की


TIELT, Belgium (Reuters) - Sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont s Belgian lawyer pledged on Tuesday to fight a Spanish state which he said had abused courts for political ends but which he had defeated in previous extradition cases involving Basques. Puigdemont, who travelled to Belgium after the Spanish state ousted him as head of Catalonia, said he had come to bring his case for independence to the EU, not to seek asylum. But he has engaged Paul Bekaert, a veteran human rights advocate who has represented Basques, Kurds and others in the past.  I know the Spanish reaction very well. I know their psychology and their mentality,  Bekaert told Reuters at the law office where he met Puigdemont on Monday.  Spain is using the courts in Spain and in Belgium to make political statements,  he said.  You cannot use courts in Belgium or in Spain for politics. And that s the case in Spain.  Spain s constitutional court ruled that an independence referendum which Puigdemont s regional government organised on Oct. 1 was illegal. Madrid has since taken direct control of Catalonia and the public prosecutor has accused Puigdemont of rebellion and sedition, crimes carrying up to 30 years in jail.  Puigdemont was considering seeking asylum but it was not certain, Bekaert said.   We have a lot of time to decide,  he said, adding that he could also take on as clients other Catalan leaders, some of whom were with Puigdemont in Belgium.  We will see in the coming weeks what we are doing.  While Belgium has an unusual track record in refusing to extradite Europeans wanted by other EU states, the main reason Puigdemont had come was to address a wider audience for Catalonia s grievances against Madrid, the lawyer said.  He comes to Belgium first of all because it is the capital of Europe. He is here completely legally. He has the right to come here. He is not hiding,  he said.  Bekaert said he was not acting out of political sympathy for the Catalan cause. Puigdemont sought him out in the small town of Tielt in western Flanders for of his 40 years of experience in human rights law, not for any connection to the Flemish separatist movement which gives Belgium a particular interest in Spain s struggles with Basque and Catalan separatists. Since the 1970s, he has travelled as an observer to the Basque country, Northern Ireland and the Palestinian Territories, as well as defending people seeking leave to remain in Belgium.  He said, however, that the increasing use of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), first introduced in 2004, would make it harder to block extraditions of the kind he had fought for Basques in the 1990s.  While Belgium extradited people suspected of violence and terrorist offences it rejected some cases its judges viewed as  political crimes . But the EAW, which reflects EU assumptions that all member states offer full democratic legal protections, makes the situation today different, Bekaert said.  Since the European warrant, you can make an extradition for a political crime. The exception is no more in the law.

Summary: कैटलन का बेल्जियम का वकील स्पेनिश 'मानसिकता' से लड़ेगा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on Friday he would make lifting tax and regulatory burdens a priority if elected president and protect the small banks he said were being hurt by stricter bank regulations. Cruz, who is running to become the party’s 2016 nominee in the Nov. 8 presidential election, targeted the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law as enabling the nation’s large banks. “The big banks have all gotten bigger,” Cruz said in a CNBC interview. Cruz has said he would not bail out big banks if they failed again, as the did during the 2007-8 financial crisis triggered by faulty mortgage lending practices. “The people that have been hammered are the little guys,” he said. “It’s the community banks, it’s the small financial institutions that are going out of business at a record pace.” The lawyers and lobbyist for giant banks were “in the room” with the Democratic senators who wrote Dodd-Frank because they could absorb the cost of that while the little banks could not, Cruz said. Cruz said the nation’s tax structure is helping strangle U.S. economic growth and he would try to scale back taxes including corporate and death taxes. Cruz has advocated a flat tax rate, which he acknowledged would be difficult to enact. Cruz said he would also try to achieve monetary stability and end the “roller coaster” with the U.S. dollar. The U.S. senator from Texas told CNBC that a higher minimum wage would cost U.S. jobs and that setting minimum wage should be left up to states. Raising the federal minimum wage has been a cornerstone of the Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, although the two disagree on how much it should be raised from the current $7.25. Republicans generally do not embrace a high minimum wage and front-runner Donald Trump has embraced a lower federal rate.

Summary: क्रूज़ का कहना है कि अगर वे चुने गए तो करों, बैंक विनियमन को लक्षित करेंगेः सी. एन. बी. सी. साक्षात्कार


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of Donald Trump’s sons appeared along with a white supremacist while giving an interview on a conservative radio show, adding to concerns that the front-runner in the battle to be the Republican candidate in November’s presidential election is willing to accept support from extremist supporters. Donald Trump Jr., who is actively campaigning for his father, gave an interview on Tuesday on “Liberty Roundtable,” a conservative Utah-based radio show hosted by Sam Bushman. During the show he was questioned by James Edwards, another radio host whose show “The Political Cesspool” is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading U.S. civil rights group, as “racist and anti-Semitic.”  During the interview, conducted over the telephone, Trump Jr. talked about what a good father Donald Trump was and how his campaign is changing the Republican Party. “It’s not a campaign anymore, it’s a movement,” he told his interviewers. (here) Edwards said on his blog on Tuesday he would rebroadcast the 20-minute interview on Saturday on "The Political Cesspool." here The show, founded in 2005 and syndicated by Bushman’s Liberty News Radio organization, has featured such extremists as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Edwards also said on his blog he had attended a Memphis rally for the billionaire candidate as a credentialed media member last Saturday. The Trump campaign, asked about an interview in the presence of the Tennessee-based Edwards, denied any knowledge of it. The campaign also said it did not know about Edwards’ personal views. “The campaign provided media credentials to everyone that requested access to the event on Saturday in Memphis. There were close to 200 reporters in attendance and we do not personally vet each individual. The campaign had no knowledge of his personal views and strongly condemns them.  “Donald Trump Jr. was not in attendance and although he served as a surrogate for his father on several radio programs over the past week, to his knowledge and that of the campaign, he did not participate in an interview with this individual,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email.     Edwards, in an email, directed questions about the interview to Bushman, but said in a statement: “My show, The Political Cesspool, promotes a proud, paleoconservative Christian worldview, and we reject media descriptions of our work as “white supremacist,” “pro-slavery” and other such scare words. “As I clearly wrote in yesterday’s article, in no way should anyone interpret our press credentialing and subsequent interview with Donald Trump, Jr. as any kind of endorsement by the Trump campaign.” Donald Trump won a majority of the states holding nominating contests on Super Tuesday, accelerating his march to the Republican nomination. He has promised to build a wall on the Mexican border, temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States and block Syrian refugees because they might be militants, all policies popular with some U.S. right-wing groups. Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday condemned white supremacist groups after Trump earlier failed to disavow support for former Klan leader Duke, but the leaders declined further comment on Trump’s White House bid. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said any Republican nominee must reject any group “built on bigotry” while Senate leader Mitch McConnell said Senate Republicans condemned groups such as the Klan and “everything they stand for.”       (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प जूनियर रेडियो शो में श्वेत वर्चस्ववादी के साथ दिखाई देते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, a designation that allows the United States to impose more sanctions and risks inflaming tensions over Pyongyang s nuclear weapons and missile programs. The Republican president, who has traded personal insults with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but has not ruled out talks, said the Treasury Department will announce additional sanctions against North Korea on Tuesday. The designation came a week after Trump returned from a 12-day, five-nation trip to Asia in which he made containing North Korea s nuclear ambitions a centerpiece of his discussions.  In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism, including assassinations on foreign soil,  Trump told reporters at the White House.  This designation will impose further sanctions and penalties on North Korea and related persons and supports our maximum pressure campaign to isolate the murderous regime.  Trump, who has often criticized his predecessors  policies toward Pyongyang, said the designation should have been made  a long time ago.   North Korea is pursuing nuclear weapons and missile programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions and has made no secret of its plans to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. It has fired two missiles over Japan and on Sept. 3 fired its sixth and largest nuclear test. South Korea s spy agency said on Monday the North may conduct additional missile tests this year to improve its long-range missile technology and ramp up the threat against the United States. Experts say the designation will be largely symbolic as North Korea is already heavily sanctioned by the United States, a reality that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed to acknowledged while saying it would help dissuade third parties from supporting Pyongyang.  The practical effects may be limited but hopefully we re closing off a few loopholes with this,  he told reporters. The United States has designated only three other countries - Iran, Sudan and Syria - as state sponsors of terrorism.  Some experts think North Korea does not meet the criteria for the designation, which requires evidence that a state has  repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.  In his remarks, Trump remembered Otto Warmbier, the college student from Ohio who died in June shortly after his return from North Korea, where he was held for more than a year.  His death caused outrage in the United States and further inflamed tensions with Pyongyang.  A U.S. intelligence official who follows developments in North Korea expressed concern that Trump s move could backfire, especially given that the basis for the designation is arguable.  Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Kim could respond in a number of ways, including renewing missile or nuclear tests in  a very volatile environment.  The move also could undercut Trump s efforts to solicit greater Chinese cooperation in pressuring North Korea to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, the official said. In any case, it will do little to open the way for U.S. dialogue with North Korea, which China - Pyongyang s main ally -  and others have been pushing for.  I don t see how this helps, and it might just be an important miscalculation,  said Robert Gallucci, the chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis. In February, plans for talks in the United States between former U.S. officials and North Korea were scrapped when the State Department denied a visa for a top envoy from Pyongyang after the murder of Kim s half brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Malaysia. North Korea was put on the U.S. terrorism sponsor list for the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air flight that killed all 115 people aboard. But the administration of former President George W. Bush, a Republican, removed Pyongyang in 2008 in exchange for progress in denuclearization talks. Some members of Congress had been pushing for years for North Korea to be put back on the list, but others questioned whether the reclusive regime met the criteria of actively sponsoring international terrorism. U.S. Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called the decision  an important step in our efforts to apply maximum diplomatic and financial pressure on Kim Jong Un.  Democratic Senator Edward Markey said the designation  ratchets up the rhetoric  but does nothing to hold North Korea  accountable for its weapons program. The designation could prove counterproductive, said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest.  Sadly, this action by the Trump administration just further cements a dangerous game of escalatory brinkmanship where neither side is giving the other any off-ramp,  he said.

Summary: ट्रंप ने उत्तर कोरिया को आतंकवाद का प्रायोजक घोषित किया, प्रतिबंध लगाए


ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek centrists elected politician Fofi Gennimata on Sunday to lead a center-left party alliance, hoping to win back voters disillusioned after seven years of crisis and boost their popularity as the country emerges from bailouts. Past attempts by centrists to form parties and alliances have not fared well and the latest bid is seen as a last-ditch effort to restore unity and attract voters, many of whom defected to the ruling leftist Syriza party over the years of painful bailout reforms. The new alliance includes Greece s once-powerful Socialist PASOK party, which Gennimata already leads, the Democratic Socialist Movement, the Democratic Left and the To Potami party. Gennimata won about 58 percent of the vote.  PASOK ruled Greece for decades but has seen its popularity sliding to single-digit figures since 2010, when it signed up to Greece s first bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund in return for draconian austerity. It has 19 seats in the 300-member parliament. The centre-left Potami, which was founded in 2014 and first entered parliament with 6.1 percent in a 2015 national election  now ranks eighth in opinion polls with 1.5 percent. It has six MPs. Greece s leftist-led Syriza government was catapulted to power in January 2015 promising to end austerity. It was forced to sign up to a new rescue package, the country s third bailout a few months later. That bailout expires in August.  Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras  term ends in 2019 and he says he will seek a new four-year mandate then. But his ratings have been sagging in opinion polls behind the main opposition, the conservative New Democracy party.

Summary: यूनानी मध्यमार्गी लोगों ने लोकप्रियता बढ़ाने के लिए गठबंधन के नेता का चुनाव किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s campaign promise for a $1 trillion infrastructure program will be in focus when U.S. governors gather on Friday in Washington, D.C., with some states making wish lists of projects ranging from a bullet train to statewide broadband internet service. The winter meeting of the National Governors Association running through Monday is expected to showcase rare bipartisan agreement on the need for more federal help in upgrading roads, bridges and airports, said Scott Pattison, the group’s executive director. “There’s just this pent-up demand to deal with, whether it’s a crack in a dam, a bridge, whatever it is,” Pattison said in a telephone interview. Although there is little movement on Capitol Hill to make Trump’s infrastructure vow a reality, governors have sent the White House a list of 428 projects they say are ready to go with some extra federal spending. The National Governors Association has not released the list but checks with some states hinted at the projects. Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown has asked for $120 billion, saying that since the state made up 12 percent of the U.S. economy it deserves 12 percent of Trump’s $1 trillion package. “We’re not talking about a few million, we’re talking about tens of billions,” Brown said of the infrastructure proposal this month as he sought federal aid to deal with a leaking dam and flooding. Among California’s big-ticket items is construction of a high-speed rail system linking San Francisco and Los Angeles. Colorado and Minnesota want help building statewide broadband systems, with Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat, saying his state needs $150 million for its broadband grid. Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s top priority is $122 million for interstate highway repairs. South Carolina and Virginia want federal aid to deepen ports, among other projects. In a letter to Trump, Republican Governor Henry McMaster said South Carolina also needed help replacing roads and bridges. “An appropriation of $5 billion from your infrastructure plan will help us bridge this economic gap,” he wrote. Pattison said governors wanted a “toolbox” of financing options, including municipal bonds, cash, public-private partnerships and federal matching funds. The governors are scheduled to meet with Trump on Sunday evening and again on Monday morning. One of the speakers at the governors’ conference, Leo Hindery, a managing partner at New York’s InterMedia Partners, will tell state executives that creating a federal infrastructure bank is the only way to fund the hundreds of billions of dollars needed for public works. The United States has long been criticized for its lagging public works spending. The American Society of Civil Engineers has graded U.S. infrastructure at D+ and estimated the country needs to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020. During his campaign, Trump said he wanted action on infrastructure in his first 100 days as president. That now seems unlikely. He also talked about creating a tax credit to encourage private sector investment. Trump’s plans to create an infrastructure council have yet to get started. Republican lawmakers have said they expect to get White House infrastructure proposals but have given no details or timing.

Summary: अमेरिकी राज्यपालों ने ट्रम्प के बुनियादी ढांचे के वादे के लिए इच्छा सूची तैयार की


NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - China called for a ceasefire in Myanmar s Rakhine State so that Rohingya Muslim refugees can return from Bangladesh, proposing a  three-stage approach to the crisis as diplomats from 51 mostly Asian and European countries gathered in Myanmar on Monday. More than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a military clearance operation in Buddhist majority Myanmar s Rakhine State. Amid a burgeoning humanitarian catastrophe, rights groups have accused the Myanmar military of atrocities, while foreign critics have blasted Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize winner who leads a civilian administration that is less than two years old, for failing to speak out more strongly. On Monday, Suu Kyi opened an Asia-Europe Meeting for foreign ministers that had been scheduled in Myanmar before the outbreak of the crisis. Speaking in the capital of Naypyitaw on Sunday, having arrived from Dhaka, China s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China believed Myanmar and Bangladesh could work out a mutually acceptable way to end the crisis.  The first phase is to effect a ceasefire on the ground, to return to stability and order, so the people can enjoy peace and no longer be forced to flee,  China s foreign ministry said in a statement, citing Wang.  With the hard work of all sides, at present, the first phase s aim has already basically been achieved, and the key is to prevent a flare-up, especially that there is no rekindling the flames of war.  During a meeting on Sunday, the ministry said, Wang told Myanmar President Htin Kyaw,  As a friend of both Myanmar and Bangladesh, China is willing to keep playing a constructive role for the appropriate handling of the Rakhine State issue.   Visiting Myanmar last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made many of the same points, but he also called for a credible investigation into reports of atrocities. Once a ceasefire is seen to be working, Wang said talks between Myanmar and Bangladesh should find a workable solution for the return of refugees, and the final phase should be to work toward a long-term solution based on poverty alleviation. Myanmar and Bangladesh officials began talks last month to settle a repatriation process for Rohingya refugees, which Bangladesh expects to take to the next level in coming days. Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEM meeting, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said,  We believe that stopping the violence, the flow of refugees and guaranteeing full humanitarian access to Rakhine state, and safe, sustainable repatriation of refugees are going to be key.  Mogherini, who also visited Bangladesh over the weekend, said,  There s a real possibility of Myanmar and Bangladesh reaching a memorandum of understanding and agreement for the safe repatriation of refugees to Myanmar.  The European bloc was ready to help with the process, she added. It was unclear, however, whether a safe return was possible, or advisable, for the thousands of Rohingya women and children still stranded on the beaches trying to flee hunger and instability in Rakhine. Myanmar intends to resettle most refugees who return in new  model villages , rather than on the land they previously occupied, an approach the United Nations has criticized in the past as effectively creating permanent camps. Besides restoring peace for Rohingya to return, Myanmar also had to resolve the issue of their citizenship, having treated them as stateless for decades, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told a news conference in Tokyo. The UNHCR was ready to assist both countries with repatriation, he said, adding that it could help Myanmar with the citizenship verification of the Rohingya. Until now it has not been invited to participate in either.  Much as resources are needed in Bangladesh to respond to the crisis, the solutions to this crisis lie in Myanmar,  Grandi said. The crisis erupted after the military launched a brutal counter-insurgency operation against the militants after attacks on an army base and 30 police posts in Rakhine on Aug. 25. Myanmar s military has said that all fighting against the Rohingya militants died out on Sept.5. The group behind those attacks, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), had declared a one-month ceasefire on Sept.10, which was rejected by the Myanmar government. But there have been no serious clashes since. The United States and other Western countries have become more engaged with Myanmar since it began a transition to civilian government after nearly 50 years of military rule. Myanmar s generals retain autonomy over defense, internal security and border issues in the current power-sharing arrangement. China, with close ties to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, has long been a key player in lawless borderlands where rebel ethnic groups have battled Myanmar s government for decades in a conflict driving thousands of refugees to seek shelter in China.

Summary: चीन ने रोहिंग्या संकट के समाधान के लिए म्यांमार, बांग्लादेश के लिए तीन चरणों का रास्ता निकाला


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korea, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, despite U.S. President Donald Trump s public assertion that such talks are a waste of time. Using the so-called  New York channel,  Joseph Yun, U.S. negotiator with North Korea, has been in contact with diplomats at Pyongyang s United Nations mission, the official said, at a time when an exchange of bellicose insults between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fueled fears of military conflict. While U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Oct. 17 said he would continue  diplomatic efforts ... until the first bomb drops,  the official s comments were the clearest sign the United States was directly discussing issues beyond the release of American prisoners, despite Trump having dismissed direct talks as pointless. There is no sign, however, that the behind-the-scenes communications have improved a relationship vexed by North Korea s nuclear and missile tests, the death of U.S. university student Otto Warmbier days after his release by Pyongyang in June and the detention of three other Americans. Word of quiet engagement with Pyongyang comes despite Trump s comments, North Korea s weapons advances and suggestions by some U.S. and South Korean officials that Yun s interactions with North Koreans had been reined in.  It has not been limited at all, both (in) frequency and substance,  said the senior State Department official.     Among the points that Yun has made to his North Korean interlocutors is to  stop testing  nuclear bombs and missiles, the official said. North Korea this year conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation and has test-fired a volley of missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that, if perfected, could in theory reach the United States mainland. The possibility that Pyongyang may be closer to attaching a nuclear warhead to an ICBM has alarmed the Trump administration, which in April unveiled a policy of  maximum pressure and engagement  that has so far failed to deter North Korea. At the start of Trump s presidency, Yun s instructions were limited to seeking the release of U.S. prisoners.      It is (now) a broader mandate than that,  said the State Department official, declining, however, to address whether authority had been given to discuss North Korea s nuclear and missile program. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China welcomed any dialogue between the United States and North Korea.  We encourage North Korea and the United States to carry out engagement and dialogue,  Hua told reporters, adding that she hoped talks could help return the issue to a diplomatic track for resolution.  NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has urged all United Nations members to fully and transparently implement sanctions against North Korea, which he said has emerged as a global threat. Speaking at the United Nations on Sept. 19, Trump vowed to  totally destroy  North Korea if it threatened the United States or its allies, raising anxieties about the possibility of  military conflict. Twelve days later, after Tillerson said Washington was probing for a diplomatic opening, Trump said on Twitter that his chief diplomat was  wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man  - his mocking nickname for the North Korean leader. Democratic U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday they said would prevent Trump from launching a nuclear first strike on North Korea on his own, highlighting the issue days before the Republican s first presidential trip to Asia. A high-ranking North Korean defector said in Washington on Tuesday that he backed the Trump administration s policy of pressuring Pyongyang through sanctions, coupled with  maximum engagement  with the leadership and increased efforts to get information into North Korea to educate its people.   I strongly believe in the use of soft power before taking any military actions,  Thae Yong Ho, chief of mission at Pyongyang s embassy in London until he defected in 2016, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The New York channel is one of the few conduits the United States has for communicating with North Korea, which has itself made clear it has little interest in serious talks before it develops a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the continental United States. The last high-level contact between Yun and the North Koreans was when he traveled to North Korea in June to secure the release of Warmbier, who died shortly after he returned home in a coma, the State Department official said. The Trump administration has demanded North Korea release three other U.S. citizens: missionary Kim Dong Chul and academics Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song.  Warmbier s death was a factor in the chilling of U.S.-North Korean contacts around that time but the biggest impact came from Pyongyang s stepped-up testing, the official said. The official said, however, that  the preferred endpoint is not a war but some kind of diplomatic settlement  and   suggestions that Washington is setting up a binary choice for Pyongyang to capitulate diplomatically or military action were  misleading.  Diplomacy, the official said,  has a lot more room to go.  But Trump s threats against North Korea are believed to have complicated diplomatic efforts.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः ट्रम्प की अस्वीकृति के बावजूद अमेरिका उत्तर कोरिया के साथ प्रत्यक्ष कूटनीति का अनुसरण करता है


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated businessman Donald Trump on his victory in the U.S. presidential election in a telegram on Wednesday, the Kremlin said. “Putin expressed hope for joint work to restore Russian-American relations from their state of crisis, and also to address pressing international issues and search for effective responses to challenges concerning global security,” the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin also said he was sure a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington would serve the interests of both countries, the Kremlin said.

Summary: रूस के राष्ट्रपति पुतिन ने चुनाव में जीत पर ट्रम्प को बधाई दी


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Theresa May s  constructive spirit  won a cautious welcome from the European Union on Friday, though the British prime minister s keynote Brexit speech raised more questions than answers for some and they want more details next week.  The speech shows a willingness to move forward, as time is of the essence,  the EU s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said in a lengthy statement, adding that May s specially staged event in Renaissance Florence chimed with the spirit of Europe. Echoing reactions from diplomats and officials involved in the negotiations who spoke privately to Reuters, Barnier said it was a  step forward  that May said British courts would protect EU citizens in Britain based directly on a new EU-UK treaty, not on British law, and would take future EU case law into account. But as with vaguer comments about the EU budget, in which May said the other 27 countries would not be left out of pocket over the EU financial cycle ending in December 2020, Barnier stressed that he wants to hear a  precise negotiating position  when he meets his British counterpart on Monday. Similarly, he repeated the EU position on refusing talks on what happens after Brexit in March 2019 until Britain makes  significant progress  in agreeing its divorce terms.  May for the first time spelled out her request for a transition period of about two years after Brexit, during which Britain would stay in the EU s single market. Barnier reiterated that the other 27 could consider the request but again insisted that Britain could not keep all the benefits of EU membership while relinquishing obligations. May s allies in Brussels talked up the significance of a speech she chose to deliver in Florence to drive home a message of future cooperation with Britain s European neighbours.  We can only hope that the EU takes what the prime minister has said seriously, and sees that it is time to move forward,  said the pro-Brexit leader of her Conservative Party s group in the European Parliament, Syed Kamall.  I hope that the clarity provided today will allow for real progress at the next round of negotiations.  However, comments by the German leader of the centre-right group in the EU legislature, an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, demonstrated the scepticism felt toward Britain by some of Europe s main powers:  In substance, May is bringing no more clarity to London s positions. I am even more concerned now.  Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit coordinator for the European Parliament which must ratify any treaty, called May s speech  more realistic  but warned against  cherry picking  EU favours during the transition. His demand that Britain forgo controls on EU immigration during any transition and go on making budget payments beyond 2020 will jar with May s pro-Brexit supporters. Nonetheless, one senior official handling Brexit for an EU government said two phrases from May on expatriates  rights and Britain s financial obligations marked  a real step forward .   That is quite something,  the official said.  Let s see what that means in the concrete negotiations.  Those two elements are among three in which progress toward a deal is a criterion for EU leaders to approve the opening of talks on future trade terms. The third, the new EU-UK land border on Ireland, remains a conundrum and May said nothing new. Another senior official handling Brexit for a big member state said May s speech should help create a  more positive atmosphere  in the negotiations, when Brexit Secretary David Davis arrives in Brussels on Monday for a new week of talks. May will meet the other 27 leaders in Estonia on Thursday and Friday and hopes they could authorise Barnier to launch trade talks as early as an Oct. 19-20 summit in Brussels.  The real problematic issue that remains to be resolved is the financial settlement,  said Konrad Szymanski, the EU affairs minister of Poland, a major beneficiary of EU subsidies that could be hard hit by the loss of Britain s annual contributions. May said other states should not  pay more or receive less over the remainder of the current budget plan . Barnier said he was  ready to discuss the concrete implications of this pledge .  The European Commission has estimated that Britain might owe something like 60 billion euros ($70 billion) on leaving in March 2019. About a third of that, EU officials say, would be down to making Britain pay its roughly 10-billion-euro annual contribution for the remaining two years   2019 and 2020   of the EU s current, seven-year budget programme. However, were Britain to remain in the single market, which would entail payments into EU programmes, that money   some 20 billion euros   would no longer come under the  divorce bill .  Britain has argued that it will owe very little on leaving, countering EU demands that it go on paying for many years after Brexit to cover much longer-term commitments previously made. An EU official told Reuters:  What May said goes further than what the British government has said so far. But ... it is not clear until when they would be willing to pay.

Summary: बंद लेकिन कोई जल्दबाजीः यूरोपीय संघ ने मे ब्रेक्सिट भाषण का स्वागत किया, लेकिन युद्धरत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will nominate U.S. Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said.  Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed the decision to Reuters as he exited a Democratic leadership meeting in the U.S. Capitol. “It’s an excellent choice, a bipartisan choice. If the Republicans can’t support him, who could they support,” said Schumer, who represents New York.

Summary: सीनेट डेमोक्रेट का कहना है कि गारलैंड ओबामा की सर्वोच्च न्यायालय की पसंद है


ISIOLO, Kenya (Reuters) - An expelled student shot dead six of his former schoolmates and a security guard at his school in northern Kenya on Saturday, and was then himself lynched by a furious mob, officials said. The attack took place at a school in the remote town of Lokichogio in Kenya s Turkana region, close to the border with war-torn South Sudan. At least six other students were flown to hospital with bullet wounds. The assailant was a 17-year-old from South Sudan - one of thousands of refugee children who have been living in Kenya and going to school there since civil war broke out in their country in 2013. He was detained in possession of an AK-47, the basic assault rifle of choice in conflicts across Africa and the Middle East.   The school was not attacked by bandits but an errant student on expulsion for disciplinary cases,  regional government official Wanyama Musyambohe told reporters. Security officials said the assailant, whose name has not been disclosed, had been arrested, but then killed by a mob while in police custody.  The attack ... is a painful reminder of the state of insecurity along the border,  tweeted Turkana county governor Josphat Nanok. Close to 2 million people have fled South Sudan since fighting broke out in December 2013, sparking what has become Africa s largest cross-border exodus since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Some 75,000 of them are now in Kenya. Perennial conflicts have left the region awash with arms, which are smuggled across borders with relative ease.

Summary: केन्या के स्कूल में निष्कासित शरणार्थी छात्र ने सात लोगों की हत्या कर दी


CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces have arrested three supporters of presidential hopeful and former prime minister Ahmed Shafik, security sources and members of his party said on Wednesday. The men were charged with spreading false information harmful to national security, two security sources familiar with the incident said, on condition of anonymity. Egypt s interior ministry could not be reached for comment after several attempts to contact it on Wednesday. Shafik announced last month his intention to run against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt s upcoming presidential election early next year. No date has been set for the vote. The former premier and ex-air force commander is seen by Sisi s critics as the most serious potential challenger to the incumbent. Those arrested were all members of Shafik s Egyptian National Movement party. One of them, Hany Fouad, was arrested at his family s home on the outskirts of Cairo, his brother Wael Fouad said.  Hany is very close to (Shafik),  he said. Security forces entered the family home around 3 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) and searched the house, confiscating two mobile phones and giving no reason for the arrest, he said. Sisi has yet to announce that he will seek a second term but is widely expected to do so. Shafik made his announcement from the United Arab Emirates where he has lived in exile since 2012, when he fled Egypt after a narrow electoral defeat to former president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was removed from office in a military takeover led by Sisi in 2013. Shafik returned to Cairo ten days ago and said he was still deciding whether to run. He has not made any public appearances since.

Summary: मिस्र के राष्ट्रपति पद के उम्मीदवार के समर्थक गिरफ्तार, सुरक्षा सूत्रों, परिवार का कहना है


CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s wife Melania, in her first major political speech on Monday, portrayed her husband as a talented, compassionate and unrelenting leader who would unify rather than divide the country if elected to the White House. The Slovenian-born jewelry designer and former model delivered the speech, part of which strongly resembled an address given by current First Lady Michelle Obama in 2008, to a cheering crowd at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland after a one-minute introduction from Trump.  The presumptive Republican nominee made a dramatic entrance, silhouetted against a white background, to the accompaniment of Queen’s 1977 rock anthem, “We Are the Champions.” “I have been with Donald for 18 years and I have been aware of his love for this country since we first met,” the aspiring first lady told the convention. “He’s tough when he has to be, but he’s also kind and fair and caring.” “Donald wants prosperity for all Americans,” she said, reading from a teleprompter, as people applauded.  Her roughly 15-minute speech was a bid to soften the image of the New York businessman-turned-politician, who has been accused of bigotry and callousness for his calls to suspend Muslim immigration and deport millions of undocumented immigrants if elected. He has also been criticized for insults directed at women, political opponents and journalists. Part of the text referring to the values held by her family was strikingly similar to a section of Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention in 2008. A Trump campaign official suggested the similarity was the result of an error by her speech writers. “In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking,” Jason Miller, Trump’s senior communications advisor, said in a statement. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has accused Trump, 70, of lacking the experience and temperament needed to work in the Oval Office. On Monday, Clinton, 68, used an address to a largely black audience to cast Trump as someone who would divide the country along racial, ethnic and religious lines. The convention’s opening night featured a string of emotional speakers attacking Clinton’s record as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, many arguing she had made Americans vulnerable to Islamist militancy. “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” said Pat Smith, the mother of an information management officer who was among the four Americans killed in an attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose administration has been credited with sharply reducing crime in the city during the 1990s and who oversaw the city’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and killed almost 3,000 people, gave a highly charged speech slamming Clinton and making the case for Trump. “What I did for New York, Donald Trump will do for America!” he said. The convention erupted in chaos earlier when Trump opponents inside his party stormed out of the room and others chanted, in a failed attempt to force a vote opposing his candidacy. The turmoil threatened efforts by the Trump campaign to show the party had united behind him and distracted from the day’s theme of “Make America Safe Again”. The anti-Trump forces wanted to change the party’s nominating rules to allow delegates to support alternative Republican candidates over Trump. Party leaders held a voice vote, then declared the opponents lacked enough support, triggering pandemonium on the floor of the Cleveland basketball arena where Trump is due to be formally nominated this week for the Nov. 8 election. “This entire system is rigged to force the vote for Donald Trump,” said Kendal Unruh, a delegate from Colorado. While delivering a jolt to the highly scripted program, the rebellion by the anti-Trump forces was quashed. But the furor, an embarrassment to Trump, put a spotlight on the deep divisions within the party that have emerged over his candidacy. A string of senior Republicans, worried about Trump’s temperament and policies, were already avoiding the convention.  The gathering opened on Monday afternoon in the shadow of racially tinged killings of police officers and black men, and as protesters for and against Trump faced off in a plaza a few blocks from the convention, shouting slogans at each other, separated by a wall of police. The protests were largely peaceful, with law enforcement officers outnumbering demonstrators.  Sunday’s shooting of three policemen in Baton Rouge, Louisiana - a targeted attack that may have been retaliation for a series of police killings of black Americans - hung over the gathering. Trump criticized Obama early on Monday over the shootings, saying the Democratic president “doesn’t have a clue.”   The Baton Rouge shootings happened nearly two weeks after police fatally shot a black man there, and after another such death near St. Paul, Minnesota, both of which sparked nationwide protests.  Five policemen were also killed in an ambush in Dallas this month. Trump has sought to position himself as the law-and-order candidate, in an echo of Republican Richard Nixon’s successful presidential campaign of 1968.          (This story has been corrected to delete paragraph 20 which erroneously cited a parody Twitter account in suggesting Donald Trump Jr. threatened the leaders of the attempted revolt)

Summary: ट्रम्प की पत्नी उग्र रिपब्लिकन सम्मेलन में उनकी छवि को नरम करना चाहती है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said late on Thursday that it cannot lawfully pay subsidies to health insurance companies under the Obamacare health law, prompting howls of protests from Democratic lawmakers. A White House statement said based on guidance from the Justice Department, “the Department of Health and Human Services has concluded that there is no appropriation for cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies under Obamacare.” “In light of this analysis, the Government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments,” the statement said.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस का कहना है कि वह कानूनी रूप से ओबामाकेयर सब्सिडी का भुगतान नहीं कर सकता है


BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States is probing North Korea to see whether it is interested in dialogue and has multiple direct channels of communication with Pyongyang, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday. “We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson told a small group of reporters during a trip to China. “We ask: Would you like to talk? We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation.”

Summary: अमेरिका यह देखने के लिए "जांच" कर रहा है कि क्या उत्तर कोरिया वार्ता में रुचि रखता हैः टिलरसन


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved roughly $8 billion in initial emergency aid for relief and rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey, which tore into Texas on Aug. 25. The House-passed measure, which provides $7.4 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $450 million for the Small Business Administration, will now go to the Senate. Barring unexpected setbacks, the aid measure is expected to be sent to the White House by the end of the week. After a White House meeting between President Donald Trump and congressional leaders from both parties, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced that they had reached a deal to tie the Harvey aid to short-term measures to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling through Dec. 15. “Both sides have every intention of avoiding default in December and look forward to working together on the many issues before us,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had favored linking the Harvey aid to a measure to raise the debt ceiling, or the federal government’s borrowing limit, through the 2018 midterm elections, aides said. But many conservative Republicans oppose tying Harvey aid to a debt ceiling measure without related reforms. Republicans at the White House meeting had pressed to raise the debt ceiling for a longer period of time but Trump sided with Democrats, who said earlier on Wednesday they would back a three-month extension, an individual briefed on the meeting said. If passed, the deal would avoid a shutdown of the U.S. government by using a three-month, short-term patch to fund the government at current levels through Dec. 15 while Congress works out a longer-term spending package for fiscal year 2018.

Summary: हाउस ने प्रारंभिक तूफान हार्वे राहत में $8 बिलियन को मंजूरी दी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to reduce military support for groups fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria but that does not mean Washington will stop all aid to those groups, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Monday. Sanders said with Islamic State s territory shrinking  we re in a position to stop providing military equipment to certain groups but that doesn t mean stopping all support of those individual groups.  On Friday, Turkey said President Donald Trump told President Tayyip Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Ankara views as threat.

Summary: इस्लामिक स्टेट से लड़ने वाले कुछ समूहों के लिए सैन्य समर्थन रोकने की स्थिति में अमेरिका


(Reuters) - The U.S. Congress should consider overhauling its system of benefits for disabled people in Puerto Rico, who get almost no government help, according to a new report by a task force addressing the island’s economic crisis. The report, released Tuesday, cited a December 9 Reuters investigation that detailed the scant support for island residents with severe mental and physical problems.  Most get nothing. Those who do get benefits receive an average of $74 a month - about a tenth of what the U.S. gives the disabled in its 50 states. Reuters also revealed wide disparities in support among U.S. territories.  Read the Special Report here: reut.rs/2hg0vDR Sen. Orrin Hatch - a Republican from Utah who heads the bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Economic Growth in Puerto Rico - did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. The task force recommended that Congress consider providing Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories the same Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits it grants to the states.  Four of five U.S. territories - Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands - have been excluded from SSI since the program launched in the 1970s. The fifth territory, the Northern Mariana Islands, gets the same SSI benefits as a state, with an average payment of $560 monthly, in part because it negotiated its territory status at about the same time Congress enacted the SSI program.  Disabled Puerto Ricans, by contrast, receive much less through a nearly forgotten program administered by the Administration of Children and Families (ACF), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Nearly half of Puerto Rico’s disabled residents live in poverty - twice the rate of those in the 50 states. The disabled in Guam receive an average of $164, and in the Virgin Islands, $176. Disabled people in American Samoa get nothing.  SSI offers disabled residents of U.S. states up to $733 each month and pays an average of $540. As an alternative to giving the territories SSI benefits, the task force suggested Congress could increase benefits through ACF. Federal funding for the program has been capped since 1996 and is not indexed for inflation. The panel also recommended that ACF publicly release up-to-date information about the benefits paid to disabled citizens of U.S. territories. When Reuters first requested comment on benefits for the disabled in Puerto Rico, ACF declined to make anyone available because “no one is completely versed in all the details,” said spokesman Pat Fisher.  On Wednesday, Fisher declined to comment on the task force recommendations. “We cannot offer an opinion on proposed policy,” he said. “We only carry out approved policy.” A 2014 study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that if Puerto Rico received SSI, eligibility would expand ten-fold from nearly 34,500 in 2011 to 354,000 people. The federal government’s payments to the island would skyrocket from $24 million to as much as $1.8 billion annually.  The task force also made recommendations about how to improve health care in Puerto Rico, which the group described as “a serious and urgent issue.” For decades, the U.S. offered lower payments to Puerto Rico under the federally sponsored Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs, which cover most people on the island. The Medicaid insurance program for the poor, for example, has had its funding capped by Washington for decades, spurring island officials to borrow heavily through municipal bonds.  That contributed to what is now the largest municipal debt crisis in U.S. history. An estimated one-third of Puerto Rico’s $70 billion of outstanding debt stems from bonds issued to shore up healthcare funding. Reuters reported in October that Puerto Rico’s physicians are fleeing the island’s financially strapped healthcare system for high-paying and more stable jobs in the 50 states. The resulting shortage of doctors has exacerbated waits for appointments on the island to longer than 18 months in some specialties. Read the Special Report here: reut.rs/2e4T00o The most-cited reason for giving Puerto Rico unequal treatment in Medicaid and other programs is because Puerto Ricans do not pay federal income taxes. Some members of the task force believe that may warrant lower allocations for social welfare on the island, according to the report. Other members disagreed.  All members, however, agreed “more equitable treatment should still be considered,” according to the report. That would reduce the incentive for Puerto Rico residents to migrate to U.S. states, as they have in large numbers for decades, leaving behind a more vulnerable population. The panel urged Congress to begin addressing the funding issues early next year, and suggested federal funding of the island’s Medicaid program be “more closely tied to the size and needs of the territory’s low-income population.”

Summary: कांग्रेस को प्यूर्टो रिको के विकलांगों के लिए मदद पर विचार करना चाहिएः कार्य बल


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Getting more Americans to enroll for health insurance under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law known as Obamacare is a top priority of his administration until President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, the White House said on Thursday. “We would be focused on ... maximizing the opportunity that currently is available for millions of Americans to go to healthcare.gov during the open enrollment period and sign up for healthcare,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a news briefing. Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, tweeted on Thursday that Nov. 9 was HealthCare.gov’s best day with 100,000 sign-ups since it began selling the 2017 Obamacare plans on Nov. 1. The government’s goal is for more than 13.8 million sign-ups initially. Trump has said that he plans to repeal Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. Insurers have said that 2017 Obamacare plans will remain in place and that any changes would affect 2018 plans. Earnest said that people should not worry about what could happen to the healthcare exchanges under the Trump administration. “These are benefits that are available to them today. We certainly would encourage people to sign up and capitalize on the good opportunity that’s there,” he said. Obama met with Trump on Thursday for the first time in a one-on-one, 90-minute meeting in the White House Oval Office.    Trump also released a review of his goals to overhaul healthcare on his website, reiterating that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s pledge to repeal Obamacare may not be easy. He does not have the votes in Congress for an outright repeal and will have to cut away at its financing first, health policy experts say.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने ओबामाकेयर में नामांकन को प्राथमिकता दी


BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday there has been no decision on whether President Donald Trump will have formal talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the APEC summit in Vietnam which begins later this week. Tillerson, speaking to reporters in Beijing where he is accompanying Trump on his Asia tour, said the question was whether a Trump-Putin meeting would have sufficient substance.

Summary: टिलरसन ने कहा, ट्रंप-पुतिन की औपचारिक वार्ता पर अभी कोई निर्णय नहीं हुआ


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s military said it was engaging President Robert Mugabe in talks on the way forward for the country and that it would advise the nation on the outcome as soon as possible. The military added in a statement broadcast on Zimbabwean television that it had made  significant progress  in its operation targeting  criminals  around Mugabe.

Summary: जिम्बाब्वे की सेना का कहना है कि मुगाबे के साथ बातचीत आगे बढ़ने की राह पर है


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s Social Democrats agreed on Friday, under intense pressure, to hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on renewing their outgoing coalition government, but pledged that party members would have the final say on any deal. The about-turn by the center-left SPD, which had said it would go into opposition after suffering its worst result in 70 years in September s election, could help avert a disruptive repeat vote in Europe s economic and political powerhouse. SPD leader Martin Schulz told a news conference the party leadership had reached the decision out of a sense of responsibility to Germany and Europe after Merkel s attempt to form a government with the pro-business Free Democrats and environmental Greens smaller parties collapsed on Sunday.  There is nothing automatic about the direction we are moving in,  Schulz said.  If a discussion results in us deciding to participate, in any form whatsoever, in the formation of a government, we will put it to a vote of party members.  Schulz told 300 members of the party s youth wing - who rejected another  grand coalition  at a conference in Saarbruecken - that nothing had been decided. But he suggested that governing could offer better chances to achieve his primary goal of improving the lives of people in Germany and around the world.  From which position is that best possible? What is more important? The radiance of our decisions, or the improvement of the everyday lives of people?  Schulz told the group. He said he noted the group s position and thanked them for their support in the September election. But he said he expected their loyalty and  constructive cooperation  with whatever path was ultimately decided by the party s leadership. Backing for a new government could mean forming a coalition,  agreeing not to obstruct a Merkel-led minority government, or other options yet to be explored, SPD deputy leader Ralf Stegner told broadcaster ZDF. Rainer Haseloff, the premier of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt and a member of Merkel s center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), told Reuters:  I think opinion is moving in the direction of there being a grand coalition.  He said conservatives would look at the SPD s proposals, but the bloc would not agree to any move to replace Merkel. Juergin Trittin, a senior Greens member, told Germany s RND newspaper group it was  a question of when, not if  the SPD would agree to discuss another coalition with conservatives. Stegner, who is skeptical about another grand coalition, told broadcaster ZDF the SPD would extract a price for any deal.  The SPD won t go cheaply,  he said, without elaborating. Merkel spoke with reporters after an event in Brussels, but declined to answer any questions. A poll conducted on Monday, before the latest SPD comments, showed half of Germans supported the SPD s initial rejection of a new grand coalition, while 44 percent would support renewing the coalition government that has ruled for the past four years. Six out of 10 Germans would support a new election, the poll by infratest dimap for broadcaster ARD showed. Over her 12 years in power, Merkel has embraced a succession of coalition partners who then went on to suffer painful electoral defeats. A cartoon published by Cicero magazine on Friday depicted the SPD as a mouse being enticed out of its hole by a waiting feline Merkel. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will host a meeting with Schulz, Merkel and Horst Seehofer, leader of the CDU s arch-conservative Bavarian sister party, next Thursday. Steinmeier, a former SPD foreign minister, has urged his former party to reverse its pledge to go into opposition, having made clear that he saw fresh elections as a last resort. The crisis has arisen because Merkel s conservatives also lost votes in September as the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany surged into parliament. With the SPD licking its wounds, an unlikely-looking three-way coalition with smaller parties had appeared the only option for the weakened chancellor.

Summary: जर्मन एस. पी. डी. मर्केल को समर्थन देने पर विचार कर रहा है, लेकिन केवल तभी जब सदस्य सहमत हों


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has increased dialogue with American companies to make the case for bilateral economic ties, a senior official said on Thursday, in an effort to counter anti-Mexican rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said Mexico is “killing” U.S. trade, threatening to build a border wall to keep out migrants, block remittances sent home by Mexicans, and raise tariffs against Mexico to protect U.S. jobs. While generally at pains to avoid addressing Trump directly, Mexican government officials have warned that his proposals could do serious damage to both nations’ economies. Paulo Carreno, Mexico’s new deputy foreign minister responsible for North America, was appointed in April to lead a drive to bolster his country’s standing in the United States. Since then, Mexico’s diplomatic network in the United States has stepped up efforts to reach out to business leaders, as well as politicians and academics, Carreno said, keen to stress that his government took no side in the presidential contest. Of the companies Mexico had met, the majority agreed with a model of bilateral economic cooperation based on free trade that did not involve a border wall, or protective tariffs, he said. “They understand the benefit of greater commercial integration, and they live from it in a way,” said Carreno. “They agree that the model we have today is the better one, though of course that’s not to say it can’t be improved.” U.S.-Mexico trade is worth some $500 billion every year and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says roughly 6 million American jobs depend on it. In addition, an estimated 35 million people in the United States are Mexican or of Mexican background. Mexican business leaders say U.S. companies are crucial allies in their battle to counter Trump’s arguments. Carreno did not detail which companies Mexico was meeting, though senior officials have said previously that those with major operations south of the border are key interlocutors. They include firms like General Electric as well as carmakers General Motors and Ford. Both carmakers have been attacked by Trump in the campaign for investing in Mexico.

Summary: मेक्सिको ने अर्थव्यवस्था पर अमेरिकी कंपनियों के साथ बातचीत तेज की-मंत्री


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Republican presidential nominee will endorse Marco Rubio in the race for the party’s presidential nomination, Huffington Post reported on Sunday.  The endorsement came on the heels of Rubio’s second-place finish in Saturday night’s primary in South Carolina, where he edged out rival Ted Cruz for the No. 2 slot, the website reported, citing unidentified Republican sources. Romney will join a list of so-called establishment endorsements to back the first-term U.S. senator from Florida, including South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who endorsed Rubio days before the state’s primary.  (Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Doina Chiacu) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: 2016 की रिपब्लिकन व्हाइट हाउस की दौड़ में रूबियो का समर्थन करेंगे रोमनीः रिपोर्ट


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier assured Ireland s foreign minister on Friday that the EU would defend Dublin s position in talks with Britain over the coming weeks. Barnier said on Twitter that he had updated Simon Coveney on the state of play in negotiations, in which Britain is hoping to clinch a deal with Brussels next month on a range of issues including management of the Northern Irish border in order to launch a second phase of discussions focusing on a trade accord.  Strong solidarity with Ireland,  Barnier wrote.  Irish issues are EU issues.  Coveney tweeted back:  Thank u @MichelBarnier reaffirming EU solidarity with Ireland on #Brexit.  Facing a possible government collapse and new elections just at a crucial point in the Brexit process, the Irish government has sharpened the tone of its demands from London for detail on how the border will be kept open and unhindered. It has warned it will veto moves to trade talks if it is not satisfied.

Summary: बार्नियर ने आयरलैंड को आश्वस्त किया कि यूरोपीय संघ ब्रेक्सिट पर डबलिन के साथ खड़ा है


PARIS (Reuters) - France, Germany and Luxembourg voiced disquiet on Saturday over U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to limit immigration and refugees from some Muslim countries, with Berlin and Paris also reaffirming a firm line on Russian sanctions. Speaking at a joint news conference in Paris with his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said many of Trump’s decisions worried the two U.S. allies, including new immigration restrictions. Trump on Friday signed an executive order that will curb immigration and refugees from some Muslim-majority countries and he separately said he wanted the United States to give priority to Syrian Christians fleeing the civil war there. “This can only worry us, but there are many subjects that worry us,” Ayrault said, adding that he would soon invite his future American counterpart Rex Tillerson to Paris to explain Europe’s interests, values and vision of the world. “Welcoming refugees who flee war and oppression is part of our duty,” Ayrault said. Germany has taken in more than one million refugees and migrants, mainly from the Middle East, since 2015. Although traditionally open to asylum seekers, France has taken in far fewer refugees than Germany since the migrant crisis erupted. Some in the French government, mostly ex-premier Manuel Valls, criticizing Berlin’s open-door policy, as has Trump.  “The United States is a country where Christian traditions have an important meaning. Loving your neighbor is a major Christian value, and that includes helping people,” said Germany’s Gabriel, who was on his first trip abroad since his nomination as foreign minister.  “I think that is what unites us in the West, and I think that is what we want to make clear to the Americans.” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said Trump’s order would have negative consequences. “The American president is dividing the Muslim world into good and evil with this,” Asselborn told the Tagesspiegel German newspaper. “The decision is also bad for Europe because it will increase the Muslim world’s mistrust and hatred of the West.” The two countries also reiterated their position on Russian sanctions, saying they could only be lifted if progress was made in the peace process for eastern Ukraine, where a pro-Russian separatist insurgency began in 2014. They joined British Prime Minister Theresa May in cautioning Trump against premature moves on the issue.  “Let’s not forget there was a war, that Russia sought to take over parts of Ukraine,” Ayrault said. Trump said on Friday he was only in the early stages of considering whether to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia, but insisted he wanted to follow through on his campaign pledge to pursue better relations with Russia. The French and German ministers also said the United Nations remained the best framework to lead peace talks about Syria in the aftermath of Russian-led efforts in the Kazakh capital Astana that some diplomats say might undermine the UN process. Separately, Germany and France are also continuing to work on creating a joint tactical airlift pool of Lockheed Martin Corp C-130J military transport planes, a spokesman for the German defense ministry said on Saturday. He could not confirm a report in Der Spiegel news magazine that the two countries expected to complete work on the deal and present it to U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels next month. The magazine said German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen hoped to present the joint airlift as evidence of Germany’s willingness to contribute more to NATO. Trump has criticized many European countries for not meeting a NATO target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Summary: शरणार्थियों को सीमित करने के ट्रम्प के कदमों से फ्रांस, जर्मनी चिंतित


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Monday on confirming President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, with the political parties potentially entering a standoff requiring Vice President Mike Pence to act as tie-breaker. On Friday morning, the Senate voted 52 to 48 on a procedural measure paving the way to the final confirmation vote, which the education committee chairman, Senator Lamar Alexander, said will happen early in the week. DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist and charter-schools advocate, has faced unusually fierce opposition for a role that rarely receives congressional debate or public notice.  After her confirmation hearing, where DeVos seemed ill-equipped to discuss public education issues and suggested allowing guns at schools to fend off bear attacks, voters flooded Capitol Hill with calls and emails to block her nomination. Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have said they will not vote for her, the first Republicans to break party ranks and vote against one of Trump’s cabinet nominees. If one more Republican sides with Democrats against her nomination, DeVos will become only the 10th cabinet nominee in U.S. history rejected by Congress.  Voting margins are so thin that Pence, as head of the Senate, may have to cast a tie-breaking vote. The Senate’s top Democrat, Charles Schumer, pressed Republicans to consider voting against her over the weekend. “The nominee for the secretary of education is one of the worst nominees that has ever been brought before this body for a cabinet position,” he said on the Senate floor. “Sometimes loyalty to a new president demands a bit too much.” Alexander, a former education secretary, is confident that DeVos will ultimately be approved. On the Senate floor he said she would be excellent in the role. Republicans see DeVos as a champion of low-income children and local control of education. “I would argue that she has been among the forefront of the leaders...for the most successful reform of the last 30 years to change and improve public education, and that would be the public charter schools,” he said. Democrats worry DeVos’ support for charters, which operate  independently of school districts and are frequently run by corporations, means she wants to undermine public schools.  They also have expressed dismay about her refusal to pledge to uphold rules on sexual assault, for-profit colleges and fair access to disabled students, as well as potential conflicts of interest with her investments.

Summary: शिक्षा सचिव को लेकर सीनेट में अगले सप्ताह लड़ाई


(Reuters) - The financially distressed city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, will soon sell its public sewer utility to a subsidiary of American Water Works Company Inc. for $195 million, a city official said on Tuesday. The deal would mark another step forward in the city’s efforts to stabilize its budget. An old steel and coal town known as the Electric City and as the setting for the television series “The Office,” Scranton’s finances have been under state oversight since 1992. The city’s previous administration made headlines in 2012 when it cut police and firefighter pay to minimum wage for two weeks because it could not make payroll.     “Without this deal the city wouldn’t have been able to survive, financially anyway,” Mayor William Courtright said late 9on Monday in televised remarks on the sewer utility sale. The Scranton Sewer Authority’s board authorized the sale to Pennsylvania American Water late on Monday, City Solicitor Jason A. Shrive told Reuters. Before the transaction can close, it needs governmental approvals from state public utility regulators and state and federal environmental protection agencies. The deal is expected to save the city $350 million over 30 years, plus another $140 million the authority must spend on environmental mediation under a consent decree. Ratepayers will likely see their rates increase on average 1.9 percent per year for the next 10 years, Shrive said, compared to 4.5 to 5 percent every year for the next 30 years if there were no sale.  That amounts to $7,600 of savings total for each ratepayer over the next three decades, Shrive said. A spokeswoman for Pennsylvania American Water, which already owns Scranton’s drinking water system, declined to comment. Nationally, American Water expanded its customer base in 2015 by nearly 42,000 customers, with just over half of those coming from acquisitions that closed that year, according to a transcript of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in February. Earlier this month, Scranton city officials also disclosed details of a $31.5 million deal to pay off a long-overdue labor award inherited from the previous administration. The city will pay about $29.3 million in back pay to police and firefighters, including retirees, and put a total of $1.59 million into the city’s public pension funds. These steps, combined with a planned long-term lease of the city’s parking authority that could be finalized by June, could get the city out of the state oversight program for distressed cities by the end of 2017, Shrive said.

Summary: स्क्रैंटन, पेनसिल्वेनिया सीवर उपयोगिता को $19.5 करोड़ में बेचेगा


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vowed to nominate Latinos into key cabinet posts in their administrations if elected, according to their answers to a questionnaire organized by the nation’s largest Latino coalition. The 20-question survey was submitted by the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda to all U.S. presidential candidates on Feb. 25, but received responses only from the two Democratic contenders and none from the Republicans, according to the results reviewed by Reuters. Latinos and African-Americans have emerged as key voting blocs in the Democratic race for the White House nomination so far, and are likely to play a large role in the outcomes of big contests looming in New York and California. “From special assistants to cabinet members, Latinos will play a key role in helping to shape my policy priorities and be effectively represented in our agencies,” former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic front-runner Clinton wrote. U.S. Senator from Vermont Sanders promised to make his administration “reflect the diverse make-up of the country... I can think of no place more vital for such diversity than in the cabinet and the Senior Executive Service of the President of the United States of America.” President Barack Obama has nominated a number of Latinos to cabinet position during his time in office, two of whom are currently serving: Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro. Both Clinton and Sanders have already promised comprehensive immigration reform, appealing to Hispanic voters ahead of presidential nominating contests in minority-heavy states. Leading Republican hopefuls Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, meanwhile, have promised to tighten up the borders and deport undocumented immigrants. The responses come as the Democratic contest for the party’s presidential nomination is poised to roll into a slate of diverse states - including New York later this month and minority-heavy California in June.  The NHLA will use the questionnaires to guide voter engagement ahead of the November election, and to hold the winner to promises made during the campaign, said Hector Sanchez, the chairman of the NHLA. “This is not just a piece of paper that we’re going to put out there,” Sanchez said. “If they want the Latino vote, they must engage with us.”

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः डेमोक्रेट क्लिंटन, सैंडर्स ने लैटिनों को कैबिनेट में शामिल करने का वादा किया


DENMARK, South Carolina (Reuters) - Betty Odom-Bell, a 47-year-old entrepreneur, took a financial risk last year when she opened a restaurant in Denmark, a small town in the middle of a deeply depressed part of rural South Carolina.  So when Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton visited Denmark earlier this month promising to transform the region into a “Corridor of Opportunity,” Odom-Bell felt reassured. “It’s almost like we’re a forgotten town,” she said, describing her surprise at Clinton’s visit to the town of 3,500. “With her, there’s a connection. I don’t have that with Bernie,” she said, referring to Clinton rival Bernie Sanders. Clinton is poised to win big over the U.S. senator from Vermont in South Carolina’s primary contest on Saturday, in part because of her outsized support among the state’s rural black poor - a bloc that Sanders has struggled to impress. Interviews with residents in Bamberg and Allendale counties  show her appeal is not just about the differences in her social policies, or her widespread name recognition. It also results from her up-close campaigning style. Over the past several weeks, she has stumped in parts of the state that are off the beaten-path, reinforcing connections with audiences that stretch back decades, and peppering her speeches with the names of local leaders. Sanders in contrast, has focused his visits on South Carolina’s big cities and universities, rallying large audiences with his self-styled Democratic socialist platform, while relying heavily on surrogates to do his work elsewhere. Plans offered by Sanders to address wealth inequality and improve access to education and healthcare have attracted interest, but many complain they do not feel they know him well enough to vote for him. “Both of them are good candidates, but I’m leaning Hillary,” said Marion Roberts, a 65-year-old retiree having coffee at a fast food restaurant on Allendale’s main street, where many storefronts are shuttered.  “Sanders talks good, but I know more about her.” Allendale County’s 10,000 residents are nearly three-fourths black, and its unemployment rate, at about 9 percent, is nearly double the national average.  About a third of the county’s population lives below the poverty line, making it fertile ground for candidates shopping progressive social policies.  Clinton’s campaign has said South Carolina will act as an early “firewall” against Sanders, who beat her in New Hampshire’s primary and posted strong showings in Iowa and Nevada, but is expected to do worse as the race shifts south.  Nationwide, Sanders has built on his popularity with young and liberal voters to narrow the race to a statistical dead heat. But Clinton still holds a massive 40 percentage point advantage among black Democrats, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Clinton’s advantage results in part from her husband Bill Clinton’s outreach to black voters during his presidency. Some voters also like that Hillary Clinton has promised to build on President Barack Obama’s agenda. Allendale City Mayor Ronnie Jackson, for example, says he is backing Clinton in part because Allendale, a town of about 3,800, depends on money under an Obama administration stimulus program for impoverished communities. He hopes Clinton would continue the support. “That’s the only way we can survive,” he said. But he also points to differences in the way she and Sanders have campaigned. Sanders supporters have contacted him repeatedly by phone, he said, but he saw Clinton in the flesh at Denmark town hall on Feb. 12, just half an hour away. Over the summer, Clinton also hosted a listening session for local leaders, many from rural areas, and she recently won the endorsement of U.S. congressman Jim Clyburn, the only South Carolina Democrat in the House of Representatives. Sanders, meanwhile, has touted his college civil rights activism, met with black civil rights leaders and hosted an event at a historically black college. Some of those efforts have shown signs of success among young blacks. But his campaigning in rural areas has been mainly by proxy - including a visit on Monday to Allendale by campaigners organized by National Nurses United. Sanders himself moved on to other states in the run up to Saturday’s primary, while Clinton continued to campaign daily there. James Fitts, an 80-year-old Allendale resident, said he likes Clinton’s approach. “She’s been in it a long time.”  (Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Steve Orlofsky) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: मुश्किल से काटे गए ग्रामीण दक्षिण कैरोलिना में, कई लोगों ने क्लिंटन के लिए मन बना लिया