NAIROBI (Reuters) - At least five people were killed on Friday as Kenyan police tried to disperse supporters accompanying opposition leader Raila Odinga from the airport to central Nairobi, police said.     Police fired tear gas at the convoy in which Odinga was traveling and used water cannon as they tried to stop it reaching the capital s main business district. Some protesters threw stones at police. Two vehicles, including a police truck, were set on fire. A Reuters photographer saw two bodies with gunshot wounds as police and protesters fought on one of the main roads leading to the business district. Police said five people were stoned to death by angry mobs after they were caught stealing and denied they had used excessive force against the opposition supporters.  These incidences occurred before the police arrived at the various scenes,  the police service said in a statement. Police retreated several times along the route after the protesters were unmoved by the teargas and water cannon spray. They finally held their ground near the city s main park, where Odinga, just returned from the United States, intended to address a rally that had been banned. He blamed President Uhuru Kenyatta for the violence.  My anger is with that guy called Uhuru Kenyatta. I went abroad... After you welcomed me well, he sent policemen to teargas you, to beat my people, to fire bullets at them. Isn t this barbaric?,  he told his supporters after driving to safety. Odinga has called for a  National Resistance Movement  to protest against the outcome of a repeat presidential election last month which saw Kenyatta win a second, five-year term with 98 percent of the vote after Odinga boycotted the contest. Only 39 percent of registered voters took part. The repeat poll was ordered by the Supreme Court after it annulled the results of the August election, won by Kenyatta, over procedural irregularities. The court will rule on Monday on cases that seek to nullify the rerun election.  The political crisis has stirred fears for the stability of Kenya, a regional hub for trade, diplomacy and security.  Earlier on Friday, demonstrators threw up burning barricades on Mombasa Road, the highway that links Nairobi s downtown business district and the airport. Despite a partial police ban on protests in the capital, hundreds of people had gathered in the morning near Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to await Odinga s return. Police fired into the air to disperse them. Once Odinga landed, motorcycle taxi drivers and people on foot shouted their support as the motorcade, which included lawmakers from Odinga s opposition coalition, began moving toward central Nairobi. Dozens of international flights depart and arrive daily at Nairobi s main airport. The national airport authority said on Twitter just before midday that operations were running normally.  Kenya Airways said it had been  impacted  by the disruptions around the airport and offered to book travelers who missed their flights on subsequent ones.   Kenya s prolonged election season has disrupted its economy. Human rights groups say at least 66 people have died in bloodshed surrounding the two elections. Ahead of Monday s Supreme Court ruling, Kenya Airways  chairman told an investor briefing on Friday:  Hopefully we don t have another presidential election so we can get on with life.

Summary: केन्या में विपक्षी नेता की वापसी पर हिंसा, कम से कम पांच लोगों की मौत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Senator Al Franken, facing allegations of sexual misconduct, will resign on Thursday, Minnesota Public Radio reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed Democratic official. A Franken staff member told the Democratic official that the Minnesota senator had gone to his home in Washington to discuss his plans with family, Minnesota Public Radio said. Franken said on Twitter earlier on Wednesday he would make an announcement on Thursday.

Summary: सीनेटर फ्रैंकन गुरुवार को इस्तीफा देंगेः मिनेसोटा पब्लिक रेडियो


ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s industry minister pledged on Tuesday to support business deals with Iran potentially worth billions of dollars, undeterred by fears U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could put slowly thawing international relations back on ice. Iran re-joined the global trading system in January after a multilateral deal between world powers, and Italian firms eagerly started drawing up commercial agreements.     Trump has raised the prospect the United States could pull out of the pact, which lifted many sanctions in exchange for limiting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions, leaving European diplomats fearing the change of leadership at the White House could thwart growing trade. But Italian Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said he would continue to work to strengthen trade ties, and travel to Iran in early 2017 along with Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan.  The issue of funding investment, which Tehran complains has been held up by continued U.S. sanctions restricting Iran’s access to the international banking and financial system, would be high on the agenda, he said.                  “The central issue is to make financing channels work fully, so that all the good projects we have can become reality,” Calenda said at a trade fair in Rome for Iranian companies. Calenda said it was too early to say how the picture could change under Trump’s leadership, but in the interests of the countries involved “I think there is the absolute necessity to implement the (nuclear) agreement and move forward that way”. Asked whether any of the collaboration agreements made so far, which have involved oil services group Saipem (SPMI.MI) and steel firm Danieli (DANI.MI), were at risk, Calenda said: “No, I don’t think so.” Iran denies that its nuclear program has military aims.

Summary: ईरान के साथ व्यापार संबंधों को आगे बढ़ाएगा इटली, ट्रंप ने किया इनकार


SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera said he would court centrist s on Monday in a bid to regain ground in Chile s presidential election after a surprise surge by leftists in Sunday s first-round vote. Pinera faces a tight Dec. 17 runoff against center-left Alejandro Guillier and will also likely have to deal with opposition to his promised tax breaks in the next left-leaning Congress if he triumphs. A former president who ran Chile between 2010 and 2014, Pinera placed first with more than 36 percent of the vote, but his two main left-leaning rivals made a stronger-than-expected showing, garnering a combined 43 percent between them. And after Congressional elections that also took place on Sunday, left-of-center lawmakers will outnumber Pinera s Chile Vamos voting bloc in Congress, complicating his plans to cut the corporate tax rate and slash red tape in the top copper exporter. Markets that had priced in a new four-year term for Pinera sank on Monday. Chile s stock index took its biggest daily dive in six years and the peso currency suffered its sharpest depreciation since 2013.  It s going to be a tight and hard-fought election,  Pinera told foreign media on Monday in capital Santiago.  To boost his chances of winning, Pinera said he would tap some of the more popular lawmakers-elect in his bloc to help guide his campaign.  We re going to appeal to the center, to the kind of people who want moderation,  said Pinera.  We re going to listen with humility to what the majority of Chileans want.  On Monday night, the center-left Christian Democratic party endorsed Guillier  without conditions.  Its presidential candidate, Carolina Goic, who was the most moderate of those running to Pinera s left, garnered about 2 percent of the vote in Sunday s contest. According to the vote tally, many Chileans want change. A new leftist grouping, Frente Amplio, which has criticized Chile s model of free-market provision of services and promised to tax mining companies and the  super-rich , performed much better than expected. The bloc s presidential candidate, Beatriz Sanchez, secured 20 percent of votes in the field of eight, double the support predicted by pollster CEP. The block won its first senate seat and around 20 seats in the lower house of Congress. No single bloc will control Congress. A Pinera victory in December was no longer a sure thing, said election forecaster and political scientist Kenneth Bunker.  It s all up in the air right now,  Bunker said.  We were just dumbfounded when the results started to come in.  In another bad sign for Pinera, Chileans went to polls in bigger numbers than expected on Sunday. Analysts say a low voter turnout favors Pinera because his supporters tend to be better at showing up to vote. Chile, a country of 17 million people with a $250 billion economy, has been one of Latin America s most business-friendly and stable nations since its transition to democracy in 1990. Its economy slowed, however, to an average growth rate of 1.8 percent during outgoing President Michelle Bachelet s term, with lower copper prices dragging on government revenue. Guillier has promised to deepen Bachelet s policies, from expanded access to free university education to protections for striking unions, without departing from Chile s free-market economic model. He has a tricky task ahead to attract the support of Chile s wide-ranging left-of-center voters, in part because he is seen by many as a continuation of Bachelet s unpopular government. Having slammed Pinera as a  step backward  for Chile, Sanchez, a 46-year-old former radio journalist, could rally her  supporters to vote for Guillier, but likely in exchange for policy concessions.  If Mr Guillier wants us to vote for him, he s going to have to give in to Beatriz s proposals,  Sanchez supporter and salesman Hector Mino said. He cited Sanchez  plan to wipe out student debt and overhaul the public-private pension system to ensure bigger payouts as possible offerings. But a too-sharp left turn could push more centrist s to Pinera. As left-leaning blocs weighed possible alliances, far-right Jose Antonio Kast threw his weight behind Pinera. Kast won nearly 8 percent of votes and urged the Chileans who cast them to vote for Pinera in the runoff.  We re not going to demand anything in return,  said Kast, who defended deceased Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the campaign.

Summary: पिनेरा का लक्ष्य चिली के शीर्ष पद के लिए कड़ी लड़ाई में केंद्र के लिए है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela at the White House on June 19, the White House said in a statement on Monday. Trump and Varela will discuss the fight against transnational organized crime, illegal migration and drugs, the statement said. They will also talk about the U.S.-Panama economic partnership and the situation in Venezuela, it said.

Summary: पनामा के राष्ट्रपति 19 जून को व्हाइट हाउस में ट्रम्प से मिलेंगे


VILLEJUIF, France (Reuters) - Two people were arrested after police found products that can be used to make explosives in a flat south of Paris on Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said. Some of the products found in the flat in Villejuif could  be used to make the unstable explosive TATP, one source close to the investigation said.  TATP has been used by militants in several attacks in western Europe in recent years, including Manchester in May, Brussels in 2016 and Paris in 2015. Gas bottles were also found in the flat, other sources said.  The police raid followed a tip from a craftsman, Collomb said in a statement. One source said it was a locksmith who saw chemical products and tools when looking into the flat. The two people arrested were driving a small van that belongs to the flat s tenant, a police source said. France s counter-terrorism prosecutor is in charge of the investigation, a judicial source said. (This story has been refiled to correct typo in paragraph 2)

Summary: पेरिस के पास फ्रांसीसी आतंकवाद-रोधी छापे के बाद दो गिरफ्तार


(Reuters) - Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, has told his aides to draw up plans for an independent campaign for the U.S. presidency, according to a source familiar with the situation. Bloomberg has advised friends and associates that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his own money on a campaign for the November 2016 election, according to the source, who spoke on condition on anonymity to discuss the former mayor’s thinking.  News of Bloomberg mulling a presidential run was first reported Saturday by the New York Times. Bloomberg, 73, has given himself an early March deadline for entering the race, the source said, after commissioning a poll in December to see how he would fare against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Republican and Democratic frontrunners.  No third-party candidate has ever won a U.S. presidential election. But Bloomberg, who has close Wall Street ties and liberal social views, sees an opening for his candidacy if Republicans nominate Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz and the Democrats nominate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the source said. Bloomberg, who has long privately flirted with the idea of mounting a presidential run, served as mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. He switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent in 2007 and in recent years has spent millions on national campaigns to tighten U.S. gun laws and reform immigration. One unnamed Bloomberg adviser told the Times the former mayor believes voters want “a non-ideological, bipartisan, results-oriented vision” that has not been offered in the 2016 election cycle by either political party. A well-financed presidential run by Bloomberg would likely disrupt the dynamics of the election, but the billionaire would face significant hurdles in a race that has been in full swing for nearly a year. Though no third-party candidate has ever claimed the White House, several previous bids have affected the overall makeup of the race. In 1992 Texas businessman Ross Perot ran as an independent, a decision that some believe helped Democrat Bill Clinton defeat incumbent Republican George H. W. Bush. Bloomberg earned 13 percent support when facing a hypothetical three-way race against Clinton and Trump, according to a poll of 4,060 registered voters conducted January 14-17 by Morning Consult. Trump and Clinton were virtually tied at 37 and 36 percent, respectively, the survey found. Part of Bloomberg’s motivation to enter the race stems from a frustration with Clinton’s campaign, the source said. Clinton has been dogged by questions about her honesty amid an ongoing investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival, has recently surged in polling in key early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire. That development has made Bloomberg increasingly worried about a general election between Sanders, a self-described socialist, and Trump or Cruz, both of whom have staked out far-right positions on issues like immigration. At the New Hampshire Republican Party “First in the Nation Presidential Town Hall” in Nashua, Senator Rand Paul, who is lagging badly in opinion polls, seemed unfazed by the possibility of a Bloomberg third-party run. He even saw a bright side for his party. “If he splits the Democrat vote - those for gun control - that might be good for Republicans,” Paul told reporters. Representatives for Bloomberg declined to comment on the former mayor’s plans for the presidential race.  (Additional reporting by Alana Wise in New Hampshire; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Mary Milliken) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.

Summary: माइकल ब्लूमबर्ग स्वतंत्र अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति पद की बोली शुरू कर सकते हैंः स्रोत


BERLIN (Reuters) - German police arrested a 19-year-old Syrian suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated bomb attack in Germany with the aim of killing as many people as possible, the federal prosecutor s office said on Tuesday. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said security officials had averted a  major terrorist attack .  The man, identified as Yamen A., had been in contact online with jihadists including one who described himself as a  soldier of the caliphate , a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor s office said. Yamen A. was arrested in the early hours in the northeastern town of Schwerin. Police searched his home and also those of other people not suspected of being directly involved.  According to the findings so far, Yamen A. made the decision no later than July 2017 to detonate an explosive device in Germany in order to kill and injure as many people as possible,  the prosecutor s office said in a statement.  As a result, he began to procure components and chemicals needed to make an explosive device. Whether the suspect had already envisaged a specific target for his bomb attack is still unclear,  the office added. He had ordered chemicals over the internet that could be used to make the explosive TATP, short for triacetone triperoxide, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor s office later added. He had also acquired two radios, batteries and a cellphone battery, suggesting he planned a remote-controlled explosion by radio or mobile telephone. There were no indications that he was a member of a terrorist organisation, the office said. It did not say when he arrived in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is trying to form a new coalition government after elections last month, has come under fire for allowing more than one million people to enter Germany over the past two years - many of them refugees from Syria. Her  open door  refugee policy saw her conservatives bleed support in the election to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won seats in the national parliament for the first time. De Maiziere said the raid on the suspect took place  late enough to secure evidence and at the same time early enough to reliably ward off the danger.   The threat situation in Germany remains high. Germany, Europe, the West are in the sights of Islamist terrorism,  he added in a statement.

Summary: जर्मन पुलिस ने सीरियाई संदिग्ध को गिरफ्तार किया, 'बड़ा आतंकवादी हमला' टाला


SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet welcomed more than 60 Syrian refugees to the country s capital of Santiago on Thursday, as Chile joined other Latin American nations in offering safe harbor to families fleeing Syria s civil war. At a ceremony at the country s airport in Santiago, Bachelet  greeted 14 newly arrived Syrian families, who will be resettled in furnished homes with social benefits, including monthly stipends, schooling, healthcare and language classes.  We know you have struggled and what we hope is that, in our country, you will find a place to rebuild your lives,  Bachelet said. More than 2 million people fleeing wars or persecution have joined the ranks of the world s refugees in 2017, according to the United Nations, even as the United States and countries in Europe have begun to implement ever more restrictive asylum policies. The humanitarian crisis has prompted several South American nations, including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia, to begin accepting small numbers of refugees from Syria.

Summary: चिली ने 60 से अधिक सीरियाई शरणार्थियों का स्वागत किया


(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday: Trump endorses Republican legislation to replace the Obamacare healthcare law, but it faces a rebellion by conservative groups and lawmakers who denounce it, complicating its chances for congressional approval. The House Republican health insurance plan suggests post-Obamacare health insurance will be less affordable, investors, insurers and industry sources say, raising questions about future enrollment and insurance company participation. Large U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology company shares sell off after Trump says he is working on a system to reduce drug prices. Senate Democrats, seeking to capitalize on revelations about Trump campaign contacts with Russia, urge a top Republican lawmaker to obtain the president’s tax returns as a matter of national security. The lawyer who will take over an investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, if he wins Senate confirmation to become deputy attorney general, rebuffs Democrats’ demands for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case. The Senate Armed Services Committee overwhelmingly approves Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster as Trump’s second national security adviser, despite concern about his handling of a sexual assault case. White House spokesman Sean Spicer says he has no reason to think Trump does not support FBI Director James Comey after a dispute over the president’s allegation without evidence that he was wiretapped last year. The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee says he has seen no evidence to support Trump’s allegation he was wiretapped by then-President Barack Obama during the 2016 presidential campaign. The Trump administration pledges in a statement to show “great strictness” over restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities imposed by a deal with major powers but gives little indication of what that might mean for the agreement. The United States starts deploying the first elements of its advanced anti-missile defense system in South Korea after North Korea’s test of four ballistic missiles, U.S. Pacific Command says, despite angry opposition from China. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and 11 other Democrats say it is critical that the Trump administration retain new vehicle fuel efficiency rules, arguing that the higher standards are achievable. Trump is to nominate Washington lawyer Noel Francisco for the position of solicitor general, the government’s top advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court, according to two sources familiar with the hiring process.

Summary: हाइलाइट्सः ट्रम्प प्रेसीडेंसी 7 मार्च को शाम 6.19 बजे ईएसटी


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s main opposition party said on Sunday it had asked the High Court to force President Jacob Zuma to disclose how much the state has spent on legal fees to fight corruption allegations against him. Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Council Chairperson James Selfe said in a statement the opposition party had asked the court to direct the President to write to parliament within five days confirming the total amount spent. The DA walked out of a parliamentary session addressed by Zuma on Nov. 2 in protest over the potential cost to the public purse of his legal fees. Zuma had failed to answer a question about how much had been spent since May 1, 2009 to defend 783 corruption charges against him that were dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) before he ran for the presidency.   By avoiding the question, the DA believes that both the President, and the Deputy Speaker, Lechesa Tsenoli, presiding at the time who allowed President Zuma to avoid the question, acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally,  Selfe said.  Given that the taxpayer has most likely footed the bill for the President s legal costs, the full amount spent should be revealed, in the public interest.  South Africa s High Court reinstated the 783 charges last year and the Supreme Court upheld that decision in October, rejecting an appeal by Zuma. The 75-year-old president is still trying to prevent the NPA from filing the charges.

Summary: दक्षिण अफ्रीका के विपक्ष ने अदालत से जुमा की कानूनी लागत का खुलासा करने के लिए कहा


ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Jalal Talabani, whose presidency of post-Saddam Iraq symbolized the resurgence of the country s long-oppressed Kurdish people, was brought home on Friday and borne to his burial through streets crowded with tens of thousands of mourners.  Iraqi and Kurdish TV showed the Iraqi Airways plane which carried Talabani s coffin from Germany, where he died on Tuesday at the age of 83, landing in Sulaimaniya, his home city in northern Iraq. A 21-gunshot salute was given for the coffin, draped in the red, white and green Kurdish flag stamped with a golden sun. A military band played the Iraqi national anthem,  Mawtini  (my nation), and Chopin s funeral march. The Kurdish flag on the coffin triggered a wave of protests on media close to Shi ite political groups which support the Iraqi government. Al-Etejah TV interrupted its broadcast  because the coffin was not draped by the Iraqi flag . The plane that brought the body home was given special exemption from a ban on international flights to the Kurdish region imposed a week ago by the Iraqi government, in retaliation for a Kurdish referendum on independence. Talabani, a veteran leader of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination, became Iraq s president in 2005, the first person to hold the job after the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein in a U.S.-led invasion. Although the presidency has few real powers, the decision to give it to a member of the Kurdish minority symbolized unity for Iraq under a constitution intended to share power among ethnic and religious groups. Executive authority lies in the hands of a prime minister from the Shi ite Arab majority. Talabani stepped down as president in 2014 after a long period of treatment following a stroke in 2012. His successor, Fuad Musam, also a Kurd, presided over the ceremony at the airport on Friday. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is demanding that the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cancels the outcome of last week s independence vote, did not come to the funeral. Interior Minister Qasim al-Araji represented the central government.  The government delegation protested strongly because the Iraqi flag wasn t put on Mam Jalal s coffin, even though the national anthem was played,  said a government spokesman in a statement. Talabani is affectionately known as Mam, the Kurdish for  uncle . Holding pictures of Talabani and waving the green flags of his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, tens of thousands gathered along the airport road and around Sulaimaniya Grand Mosque, where the prayer for the dead was held.  The funeral procession of a dozen SUVs struggled to make its way through the dense crowd from the mosque to his grave on a hill overlooking Sulaimaniya, near the Talabani family home. The Dabashan hill was covered with people as he was laid to rest in early evening.  At the airport ceremony, Kurdish regional government leader Masoud Barzani, Talabani s rival for decades in the movement for self-rule, sat between President Masum and Talabani s widow Hero. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the highest-ranking foreign official in attendance, repeated Tehran s assertion that the independence vote was a  strategic mistake , Iranian media said.  Talabani had been too ill to express his views about the independence referendum. His PUK party gave it only lukewarm support.  Unlike Barzani, Talabani had good ties with Iran and the Iranian-backed Shi ite groups that effectively rule in Baghdad. The Baghdad government, Iran and Turkey all strongly opposed the referendum. Washington, an ally of the Kurds for decades, had also urged them not to hold it. Kurdish media and social media were rife with complaints about the flight ban imposed by Baghdad, which, they said, had prevented larger international participation at the funeral. Born in 1933 in what was then a monarchy ruled under the British mandate, Talabani studied law at Baghdad University, joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in 1946 and by his mid-twenties was a lieutenant to the independence movement s patriarch, Mullah Mustafa Barzani, Masoud Barzani s father. He split from the KDP and formed the PUK in 1974, drawing support from the urban elite and from the small Kurdish Shi ite community. He regarded himself as a modern, socialist, urban alternative to the tribal authority wielded by the elder Barzani. Talabani s harshest lesson came in 1988 when Iraq gassed Kurdish towns near the Iranian border during an Iranian-PUK offensive in the waning days of the Iran-Iraq war. In a brutal campaign, Iraqi forces killed tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians and uprooted many more from their homes. Talabani s PUK has remained the most powerful political force in his home city of Sulaimaniya, while Barzani s KDP dominates the regional capital Erbil. One of Talabani s sons, Qubad, is deputy prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government.

Summary: पूर्व इराकी राष्ट्रपति तालाबानी को कुर्द गृह क्षेत्र में दफनाया गया


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said on Tuesday he was confident the EU and Britain could reach a Brexit deal in talks this week.  We re very confident that we will be able to move this forward,  Hammond said on arrival at a meeting of EU finance ministers.  Discussions are going on right now and will go on throughout the day.

Summary: ब्रिटेन के हैमंड ने कहा कि ब्रेक्सिट वार्ता पर समझौते को लेकर 'बहुत आश्वस्त' हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress taking office on Tuesday remains almost as overwhelmingly Christian as it was in the 1960s even while the share of American adults who call themselves Christians has dropped, according to Pew Research Center analysis.  A report from the nonpartisan group said that 91 percent of lawmakers in the Republican-dominated 115th Congress described themselves as Christians, down slightly from 95 percent in the 87th Congress in 1961 and 1962, the earliest years for comparable data.  By contrast, the portion of American adults who call themselves Christian fell to 71 percent in 2014, the Pew report said. While Pew did not have numbers for the early 1960s, a Gallup survey from that time found that 93 percent of Americans described themselves as Christian.  “The most interesting thing is how little Congress has changed over the past several decades, especially in comparison with the general public,” Aleksandra Sandstrom, the report’s lead author, said in a telephone interview.  The biggest gap between Congress and other Americans was among those who said they have no religion. Only one lawmaker, Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, called herself religiously unaffiliated. The Pew survey found that 23 percent of Americans described themselves the same way.  The percentage of Americans who have no religion has grown, but the portion of voters who said in exit polls that they have no religion is lower than the share of the general public, said Greg Smith, a Pew expert on the U.S. religious landscape.  “The political power of that group might lag their growth in the overall population,” he said.  Among the 293 Republicans elected to the new Congress, all but two identify as Christians. The two Jewish Republicans – Lee Zeldin of New York and David Kustoff of Tennessee – serve in the House.  The 242 Democrats in Congress are 80 percent Christian, but that side of the aisle includes 28 Jews, three Buddhists, three Hindus, two Muslims and one Unitarian Universalist.  The share of Protestants in Congress has dropped to 56 percent today from 75 percent in 1961, while the portion of Catholics in Congress has risen to 31 percent from 19 percent.  The U.S. population in 2014 was 46.5 percent Protestant and 21 percent Catholic, the Pew survey showed.  The survey was based on data gathered by CQ Roll Call through questionnaires and phone calls to members of congress and candidates’ offices.

Summary: अमेरिकी बदलावों के कारण कांग्रेस भारी रूप से ईसाई बनी हुई है-सर्वेक्षण


(Reuters) - When former President Bill Clinton called parts of Obamacare “crazy,” he put his wife Hillary Clinton on the defensive and gave much-needed ammunition to her Republican rival for the presidency, Donald Trump, who wants to scrap it. Bill Clinton said this month that while millions more Americans now have insurance coverage under President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law, small businesses and some families are still “getting killed” by surging healthcare costs. He later clarified that he was not criticizing the entire  initiative, he was just making an argument for fixing it.  Still, Clinton’s comments may not have been so crazy. He put a spotlight on an uncomfortable truth: after six years, billions of dollars and a sweeping reform that stands as Obama’s single biggest domestic policy achievement, health care is still unaffordable for many Americans. Americans are growing increasingly anxious about rising healthcare costs, and critics of the law have said it is not living up to its promises. Two of the nation’s largest health insurers, Aetna and United Healthcare, are also pulling out of the state-based health insurance exchanges that are the best-known creations of Obamacare. Clinton says she wants to save the best of Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, while reducing costs. Trump says it is an expensive “disaster” that is on track to implode in 2017. He wants to replace it with something cheaper. Whoever wins the presidency on Nov. 8 will likely face pressure to move quickly to reshape a healthcare initiative that affects millions of Americans. Republicans opposed Obamacare from the start, labeling it a government intrusion into the healthcare market. Some of them say the individual exchanges where Americans shop online for coverage are already in a “death spiral.” They warn that with fewer consumers using the exchanges, more health insurers will exit them, sending premiums even higher, and further deterring people from signing up. As the U.S. population ages, U.S. spending on healthcare - $2.9 trillion in 2014 - is projected to rise to more than one-fifth of the nation’s gross domestic product. Spending rates under Obamacare did slow for a time, but they are on the rise again. Trump has proposed getting rid of the exchanges and setting up tax-free health savings accounts for people with high-deductible insurance plans. He has also said he would set up state-based high-risk pools for people with medical conditions that make it hard to get coverage on their own. He also wants to allow companies to sell insurance across state lines to boost competition and drive down prices. His advisers say he would draw on a plan proposed by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, which includes a refundable tax credit to help Americans buy individual plans. Republicans, like Trump, also want to change how they fund Medicaid, which serves poor families. Obamacare increased federal funding to states that expanded the program to more people with low incomes. Now Trump wants to limit funding by switching to pre-set, block grants. Health policy experts are skeptical selling insurance across state lines would do much to rein in health insurance costs. And health wonks on both sides of the aisle said Republicans would likely balk at any proposals that threatened to yank health insurance away from 20 million people. “Even Republican members of the House and the Senate are going to end up resisting rolling back the Medicaid expansion if that means that lots of people in their states would go uninsured,” said Jim Capretta, a health policy expert at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.  Liberals like former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders haven’t called Obamacare crazy, but Sanders does believe it doesn’t go nearly far enough. During his campaign, he proposed replacing it with a single-payer insurance system he called “Medicare for all,” based on the government plan for elderly and disabled Americans. Hillary Clinton’s plan doesn’t go that far, but she would build on Obamacare by expanding tax credits for people shopping on the individual marketplaces, letting Americans buy into Medicare at a younger age, and adding a “public option,” or a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers on the exchanges.  She has also proposed reducing Americans’ out-of-pocket expenses outside their private insurance by offering a new refundable tax credit, and she would give states more federal funding to expand Medicaid for low-income people. Two-thirds of states expanded Medicaid under the 2010 law, and that’s where most of the newly insured people got coverage. Policy experts said that after Obama leaves office, more Republican-led states that objected to a plan so closely identified with Obama might be willing to expand Medicaid too.  Clinton’s ability to expand tax incentives likely depends on which party controls the U.S. Congress. And while some states could act independently to launch public plans on their exchanges, many Republicans view the idea as wildly expensive and would strongly resist any effort by Clinton to require them nationwide. Obamacare did little to deal with soaring drug prices for lifesaving treatments like Mylan NV’s EpiPen. Democrats and Republicans say that’s a problem for the next president, even though it’s getting little attention on the campaign trail. Trump and Clinton both want Americans to be allowed to buy cheaper drugs from overseas (Americans pay the highest prices in the world for drugs). Former Democratic U.S. Representative Henry Waxman made a similar proposal in 2009, but he was defeated by pressure from drug companies, which would likely oppose it again.  Clinton says Medicare should negotiate drug prices with companies, using its 55 million users to get a better deal. Trump made a similar call during the Republican primaries but it does not appear on his campaign website now. Some health policy experts believe drug companies would respond to lower prices for Medicare patients by raising prices for everyone else. And to negotiate better prices, Medicare would have to be willing to stop covering certain drugs, which would be unpopular, they say. Clinton has also suggested creating a commission that would watch for sudden spikes in prices of older life-saving drugs, a proposal that health policy experts said is achievable through rule making rather than legislation. She has also proposed a cap on drug co-payments. Clinton has already put Wall Street on watch. Her tweets have brought down shares of Mylan and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, which helped push many institutional investors out of healthcare stocks. Drug companies are already responding to political pressure. Botox maker Allergan Inc, for example, recently committed to keeping price increases below 10 percent.

Summary: कैसे ट्रम्प, क्लिंटन 'पागल' अमेरिकी स्वास्थ्य प्रणाली को ठीक करेंगे


WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Friday picked a prominent climate change skeptic to help him craft his energy policy and pushed back against renewed calls that he release his income tax returns - saying his tax rate is “none of your business.” The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is seeking to build out his policy proposals as he pivots from campaigning for his party’s nomination to a likely general election matchup with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Among those he has asked for help is U.S. Republican Representative Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, one of the country’s most ardent oil and gas drilling advocates and climate change skeptics. North Dakota has been at the forefront of the U.S. shale oil and gas boom.  Trump’s team asked Cramer, who has endorsed Trump, to write a white paper, or detailed report, on his energy policy ideas, according to Cramer and sources familiar with the matter. Cramer said in an interview that his white paper would emphasize the dangers of foreign ownership of U.S. energy assets, as well as what he characterized as burdensome taxes and over-regulation. Trump will have an opportunity to float some of the ideas at an energy summit in Bismarck, North Dakota on May 26, Cramer said.     The senator was also among a group of Trump advisers who recently met with lawmakers from Western energy states, who hope Trump will open more federal land for drilling, a lawmaker who took part in the meeting said. A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign did not comment. Environmental groups, and Clinton’s campaign, quickly attacked Trump for tapping Cramer. “Kevin Cramer has consistently backed reckless and dangerous schemes to put the profits of fossil fuel executives before the health of the public, so he and Trump are a match made in polluter heaven,” Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce said in an emailed statement. The Clinton campaign also criticized the move.     “Donald Trump’s choice of outspoken climate (change) denier Kevin Cramer to advise him on energy policy is just the latest piece of evidence that letting him get near the White House would put our children’s health and futures at risk,” said campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson. Trump has been light on the details of his energy policy, though he recently told supporters in West Virginia that the coal industry would thrive if he were president. He has also claimed global warming is a concept “created by and for the Chinese” to hurt U.S. business. Clinton, meanwhile, has advocated shifting the country to 50 percent clean energy by 2030, promised heavy regulation of fracking, and said her prospective administration would put coal companies “out of business.” Trump also took heat on Friday for not releasing his tax returns, something that American presidential candidates have done for decades. Clinton and her rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have both released their returns. Trump has said the Internal Revenue Service was auditing his returns and he wanted to wait until the review was over before making them public. “It should be, and I hope it’s before the election,” Trump told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Pressed on what tax rate he pays, Trump refused to say. “It’s none of your business,” he said. The candidate has said there is nothing voters can learn from his tax filings.  Tax filings show sources of income, both from within the United States and other countries, as well as charitable giving, investments, deductions and other financial information. The IRS declined to comment on whether Trump or any other presidential candidates were being audited. However, the Trump campaign earlier this year released a letter from his attorneys saying his personal tax returns have been under “continuous examination” from the IRS. This week, Clinton began calling on her probable Republican rival to release his returns. Last August, the former U.S. secretary of state posted the past eight years of tax returns for her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on her website. Sanders released his 2014 return in April.  Presidential candidates have a long history in the modern era of releasing their tax returns. “In 1976, Gerald Ford did not release his returns, but he did release some information about his taxes,” said Joseph Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that provides tax news and analysis. “That was the last time that a major party nominee hasn’t done it,” he said.  (Refiling to change dateline, previous WASHINGTON.)

Summary: ट्रम्प ने ऊर्जा सलाहकार के रूप में जलवायु परिवर्तन पर संदेह व्यक्त किया, करों पर पीछे हट गए


BEIJING (Reuters) - A senior military officer who sits on China s powerful Central Military Commission, which is headed by President Xi Jinping, is being questioned on suspicion of corruption, three sources familiar with the situation said. Fang Fenghui had been chief of the Joint Staff Department of the People s Liberation Army until he was replaced late last month, with no official word on what had happened to him, whether he had taken up another post, or had retired.  Fang Fenghui was questioned regarding economic problems,  a source with ties to the leadership told Reuters.  Economic problems  is often used as a euphemism for corruption in China. Another source familiar with the situation said:  They ve detained him.   It s on suspicion of corruption,  said the second source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.  The third source also confirmed Fang was being questioned. It was not clear if the questioning would lead to a formal indictment. Chinese officials are sometimes questioned informally and then released. China s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on whether Fang had been detained or was being questioned. It was also not possible to reach Fang or a representative for comment and it was unclear if he had been allowed to retain a lawyer. Fighting corruption in the military has been a focus of Xi s broader crackdown on deep-seated graft, a problem he has warned is so serious that it could affect the ruling Communist Party s grip on power. Dozens of officers have been investigated and jailed, including Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both former vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission. Guo was jailed for life last year. Xu died of cancer in 2015 before he could face trial. The 11-man Central Military Commission is in overall charge of China s military, headed by Xi and made up of the most senior military officers. At a monthly news conference last week, defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang declined to comment on where Fang was or if he had been given another position. Wen asked about Fang, Ren said:  we are not aware of it.  Fang turns 67 next year, an age at which many Chinese officials retire. His last public appearance was on Aug. 21, when he met a senior Thai military officer in Beijing. He also met Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Aug. 15. Fang was also part of Xi s delegation that met U.S. President Donald Trump at Trump s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in April. The questioning of Fang comes ahead of next month s once-every-five-years Communist Party Congress, at which Xi will look to further cement his tight grip on power. The party has already begun a military reshuffle connected with the Congress, announcing last week new chiefs for the army and the air force. The official People s Liberation Army Daily said last month the military needed to be on its guard against corruption rearing its head again, warning that  the arrow cannot be put back in the quiver . Serving and retired officers have said graft in the armed forces is so pervasive it could undermine China s ability to wage war. The anti-graft drive comes as Xi steps up efforts to modernize forces that are projecting power across the disputed waters of the East and South China Seas, although China has not fought a war in decades.

Summary: चीन के वरिष्ठ सैन्य अधिकारी से भ्रष्टाचार के संदेह में पूछताछः सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A budget proposal to be released by President Donald Trump on Thursday will call for spending cuts of up to 31 percent for the U.S. State Department and 28 percent for foreign aid, congressional aides said on Wednesday. The reduction in the State Department budget, while steep, is below the 37 percent cut some officials in recent weeks had said was possible.

Summary: ट्रम्प के बजट से राज्य के बजट में 31 प्रतिशत तक की कटौती होगीः कांग्रेस के सहयोगी


BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Islamic State evacuation convoy trying to reach IS territory in east Syria has split in two, with some buses remaining in the open desert after others turned back into government-held areas, a U.S.-led coalition fighting the group said on Sunday.  The Syrian government and Lebanon s Hezbollah group offered the convoy of about 300 lightly armed fighters and about 300 family members safe passage a week ago in return for Islamic State surrendering an enclave on the Syria-Lebanon border.  However, the coalition has blocked the convoy from entering Islamic State territory in east Syria, near the border with Iraq, by cratering roads and destroying bridges, saying it opposes the evacuation deal as being  not a lasting solution .   One group remains in the open desert to the north west of Al-Bukamal and the other group has headed west towards Palmyra,  the coalition said in an emailed statement. On Saturday Hezbollah said all but six of the buses had safely crossed out of Syrian government territory and were no longer the responsibility of it or the Syrian government. It warned the United States that the buses in the desert included elderly people, pregnant women and casualties, and accused it of stopping humanitarian aid reaching the convoy. The coalition said it had contacted Russia to deliver a message to the Syrian government that it would still not let the convoy pass, and that it had offered suggestions on how to save the civilians in it from suffering.   Food and water have been provided to the convoy,  it said, without giving further details.  The coalition has said it will not target the convoy directly while it contains civilians, but said in its statement it had struck about 85 IS fighters near the convoy.  It had also struck about 40 IS vehicles near the convoy including a tank, an artillery system, armed vehicles and transport vehicles seeking to help move the fighters in the convoy into its territory, it said.

Summary: U.S.-led गठबंधन का कहना है कि इस्लामिक स्टेट सीरिया का काफिला दो हिस्सों में विभाजित हो गया है


PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his support for Spain s constitutional unity in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a source in the president s office said on Monday.  Hundreds were injured on Sunday when police tried to disrupt a referendum on Catalonian independence that Madrid has deemed illegal.  The president underlined his support for Spain s constitutional unity,  the source said. The source made no reference to the tactics used by Spanish police.

Summary: फ्रांस के मैक्रों ने प्रधानमंत्री राजॉय से अपील में स्पेन की संवैधानिक एकता का समर्थन किया


CIUDAD JUAREZ/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gang violence and poverty have for years pushed Mexicans and Central Americans north to the United States, but recently a new driver has emerged: the anti-immigrant tone of leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. From the slums of Central America to close-knit migrant communities in U.S. cities, Trump’s rise to the front of the Republican pack has not gone unnoticed and is partly behind a spike in the numbers of migrants trying to enter the country, including children traveling without guardians. Interviews with migrants, people smugglers and officials show many migrants are trying to cross now instead of facing tighter policing and new policies to halt illegal immigration if Trump or another Republican wins the Nov. 8 election. “If Trump wins, we’re all screwed and all Latinos are screwed,” Isaias Franco, a 46-year-old from El Salvador who was deported from the United States late last year and is now trying to get back, said at a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows 150,304 migrants were detained trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border between October and February, up 24 percent from the same period last year.  Similar data for “unaccompanied” child migrants - those traveling without a guardian - is not yet available, but between October and January, 20,455 kids were apprehended on the southwest border, up over 100 percent from a year ago.  (For a graphic, click on tmsnrt.rs/1TM7iDF) The numbers of migrants typically rise as summer approaches. Like other migrants, Franco is aware of the U.S. presidential race and Trump’s vow, matched by fellow Republican candidate Ted Cruz, to deport all the illegal immigrants in the United States, estimated at more than 11 million. “You watch the news ... There’s a lot of fear among Latinos,” Franco said, adding that a Republican victory would spell the end for proposed reforms to give many immigrants greater legal security. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, said migrants understand his policies. “It seems they agree Mr. Trump will be tough, build the wall and stop illegal immigration.”  Blanca Rivera, who manages the Ciudad Juarez migrant shelter, said she had noticed a recent surge in the numbers of migrants and also blamed the inflammatory rhetoric.  “They think they need to take advantage while they can.” Trump has built a strong lead in the race for the Republican nomination in part by taking a tough stance on immigration.  He says Mexico is “killing” the United States with cheap labor and has sent “criminals” and “rapists” across the border. He is also promising to build a huge border wall and proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. Although Trump has been the most outspoken candidate, his main rivals also say the government must stop the flow of illegal migrants into the country, mainly from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Trump, Cruz and Florida Senator Marco Rubio all say they would overturn President Barack Obama’s executive orders that shield some illegal immigrants from deportation.  In 2014, tens of thousands of child migrants traveling without family members overwhelmed the southern U.S. border, sparking a political crisis. The flow then fell in most of 2015 but has surged again in recent months. Brenda Barrios, a 30-year-old Guatemalan based in Silver Spring, Maryland, crossed illegally into the United States in 2003 with her parents and two sisters.  Her parents were later deported back to Guatemala, and they think it is too dangerous to return but Brenda is encouraging them to come before the end of the year in case Trump wins.  “He’s one of the reasons why people are crossing the border. They think he looks like a dictator,” she said. “It’s very dangerous for them to cross. But it will be worse if Trump is president ... Life will be very difficult for us. He doesn’t want us here.” Still, Barrios and other migrants interviewed said the United States, even under an administration seeking to halt illegal immigration, would still be better than the poverty and violence of their home countries. Since 2014, the murder rate in El Salvador has risen dramatically amid an escalation of gang violence and a regional drought has forced thousands of people, particularly from Guatemala, to head north.  But there are also signs that human smugglers, or “coyotes”, are taking advantage of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and peddling the idea that now is the time to go.  Victoria Cordova and her 11-year-old daughter Genesis were deported back to Honduras in 2014, after hiking through Mexico and being detained trying to cross into Texas.  She said coyotes in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa - who charge about $7,000 per person - have been telling people now is the time to leave. “Lots of the women here were talking about it, and asked me if I was going to go,” she said. “People here were saying that in June of this year they were going to give new entry permits.” Ruben Garcia, the director of the Annunciation House migrant shelter in El Paso said the next U.S. president, whoever it is, will face the same challenge of migration flows. “Things in Central America are terrible,” he said. “People are going to continue to flee because it’s just really hard for people to survive right now.”  (Additional reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador and Anna Yukhananov in Mexico City; Editing by Kieran Murray) 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: अब या कभी नहींः ट्रम्प की 'दीवार' वार्ता ने U.S.-Mexico सीमा पर प्रवासियों की भीड़ को भड़काया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump s characterization of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as  Rocket Man  during a speech to the United Nations was  risky.   If I were giving the president advice, I would have said avoid using  Rocket Man,  Schumer said during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol.  We know the leader of North Korea is erratic, to put it kindly. That kind of language I think is risky.

Summary: डेमोक्रेटिक सीनेट के नेता ने संयुक्त राष्ट्र में ट्रम्प की 'रॉकेट मैन' टिप्पणी को 'जोखिम भरा' बताया


DUBAI (Reuters) - Five Bahraini policemen were lightly injured in a  terrorist explosion  outside the capital Manama on Monday, the state news agency reported. The agency said the blast occurred in the village of Daih on Budaiya road while the policemen were guarding a procession by Shi ite Muslims marking the annual Ashura festival, which commemorates the death of Prophet Mohammad s grandson Imam Hussein some 1400 years ago. The agency quoted the interior ministry as saying on its Twitter account that  the necessary steps  were being taken, without giving any details. The explosion was the latest in a series of attacks targeting policemen in the Western-allied country, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based.  The government blames the attacks on Shi ite militants it says are backed by Iran to destabilize the country, a charge Tehran denies. In June, a member of Bahrain s security forces was killed in an explosion in the village of Diraz, the hometown of the spiritual leader of the country s Shi ite community Ayatollah Isa Qassim. The interior ministry blamed  terrorists  for the attack.

Summary: विस्फोट में बहरीन के पांच पुलिसकर्मी घायलः एजेंसी


BEIJING (Reuters) - War must never be allowed to take place on the Korean peninsula and the issue must be resolved via talks, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in on Thursday, state television reported. Xi and Moon were meeting in Beijing.

Summary: कोरियाई प्रायद्वीप में युद्ध की अनुमति नहीं दी जा सकतीः चीनी राष्ट्रपति शी जिनपिंग


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are pressing the nation’s top intelligence official to estimate the number of Americans ensnared in email surveillance and other such spying on foreign targets, saying the information was needed to gauge possible reforms to the controversial programs. Eight Democrats and six Republicans made the request to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday, reflecting the continued bipartisan concerns over the scope of U.S. data espionage.  “You have willingly shared information with us about the important and actionable intelligence obtained under these surveillance programs,” wrote the lawmakers, all members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee.  “Now we require your assistance in making a determination that the privacy protections in place are functioning as designed.” They requested that Clapper provide the information about data collected under a statute, known as Section 702, by May 6. That law, set to expire at the end of 2017, enables an Internet surveillance program called Prism that was first disclosed in a series of leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden some three years ago.   Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and other major tech companies that is sent to and from a foreign target under surveillance. Intelligence officials say data about Americans are “incidentally” collected during communication with a target reasonably believed to be living overseas. Critics see it as “back-door” surveillance on Americans without a warrant. A recently declassified November opinion from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secretive body that oversees the legality of U.S. spy programs, rejected a constitutional challenge to rules permitting the FBI to access foreign intelligence data for use in domestic criminal investigations. The Republican-controlled House has voted overwhelmingly since the Snowden leaks to require U.S. agencies obtain a warrant before searching collected foreign intelligence for data belonging to Americans, but those proposals have gained minimal traction in the Senate. Civil liberties groups and Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, have previously requested information on the extent of  U.S. data caught up in the foreign surveillance program. The Obama administration, however, has said it cannot provide a precise answer and that any estimate would require reviewing communications in a manner that would raise privacy concerns. In their letter to Clapper, the lawmakers said officials have demonstrated the feasibility of providing an estimate and that any one-time privacy concerns were acceptable in light of the importance of the information. James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Jim Jordan, Ted Poe, Jason Chaffetz, and Blake Farenthold were the Republicans to sign the letter. Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hank Johnson, Ted Deutch, Cedric Richmond, Suzan DelBene, David Cicilline and John Conyers signed for the Democrats. Conyers is the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Summary: जासूसी प्रमुख ने डेटा जासूसी में फंसे कई अमेरिकियों के लिए दबाव डाला


MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian submarine on Tuesday fired cruise missiles at Islamic State targets in Syria s Deir al-Zor province, the RIA news agency cited Russia s defense ministry as saying. The submarine,  Veliky Novgorod , launched three  Kalibr  missiles from the eastern Mediterranean, the agency reported.

Summary: रूसी पनडुब्बी ने सीरिया के देइर अल-ज़ोर में इस्लामिक स्टेट के ठिकानों पर क्रूज मिसाइलें दागींः आरआईए


DUBAI (Reuters) - Gulf Arab states are quietly applauding the arrival in the White House of a hawkish leader opposed to their adversary Iran, even if they suspect Donald Trump’s short temper and abrasive Tweets may at times heighten tensions in the combustible Middle East. While many countries around the world listened with concern to his protectionist inaugural address, Gulf Arab officials appear optimistic. They see in Trump a strong president who will shore up Washington’s role as their main strategic partner in a region central to U.S. security and energy interests. In Gulf Arab eyes, that involves above all checking what they see as a surge of Iranian support for paramilitary allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon and for fellow Shi’ite Muslims in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing Eastern Province. It also means overlooking for now rhetoric about uniting “the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism” in an address that critics said echoed George W. Bush’s “crusade” against terrorism, a phrase which, for Muslims, evokes barbarous campaigns by medieval Christians against Islam. Saudi Arabia in particular appears relieved at the departure of Barack Obama, who it felt considered Riyadh’s alliance with Washington less important than negotiating a deal in 2015 to neutralize Iran’s nuclear program. The relationship is a pillar of the Middle East’s security balance. But it has suffered since Riyadh took issue with what it saw as Obama’s withdrawal from the region, and a perceived inclination towards Iran since the 2011 Arab uprisings. There have been tensions over Syria, where Obama dismissed Gulf Arab urgings to give more aid to rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, who has survived thanks to Iranian and Russian backing. “Perception is important: Trump does not look like the kind of guy who will bend towards Iran or anyone else,” said Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a veteran Saudi commentator. “If he behaves as he says, then we will see another Ronald Reagan, someone all the forces in the region will take seriously. That’s what we have missed in the past eight years, unfortunately.” Some worry that Trump’s Twitter habit - his rapid, unbridled messages of praise or blame - mean he is unsuited to handling the volatility of the Middle East. Faisal al-Yafai, a columnist with The National newspaper of Abu Dhabi, said that while his use of social media could be a problem, Trump was unlikely to change. “At some point down the line something will happen in the world that will require a careful response, a careful policy, and Trump will react emotionally. That is always going to be the worry. But that’s his attitude. That’s who he is. Those who like Trump like that aspect of his personality,” he said. Some Arab commentators see a political resemblance between Trump and Reagan, who also campaigned on the slogan of making America great again. Reagan was also a strong backer of the military, although in the Middle East his 1981-89 presidency was marked by extended crises involving Iran, Lebanon and Libya.  While few in the Gulf expect Trump to repudiate the Iran nuclear deal despite his threats to do so, most want Tehran pressured to roll back what Gulf Arabs see as subversion in fellow Arab states by a revolutionary theocracy. “I think he is going to be very, very tough on Iran. He will be decisive,” said a Gulf Arab businessman, noting he expected the deal-maker Trump would demand something in return. Moments after his speech, the White House website said the Trump administration would make defeating “radical Islamic terror groups” its top foreign policy goal and would develop a “state of the art” missile defense system to protect against attacks from Iran and North Korea.  That will be the job in particular of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, and CIA chief nominee Mike Pompeo, all well known to Saudi officials.  In particular Mattis, a retired Marine general known for distrust of Iran, is a familiar figure to Gulf Arab rulers. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis said in Senate confirmation hearings this month that Iran was “the biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East and its policies are contrary to our interests.” Such views play well with Gulf Arabs. “We hope Trump can correct (Obama’s) policy, and while we are not sure of that yet, his choices to run the administration all sound experienced,” said al-Rashed. On Syria, Yemen, Iran and Bahrain, arenas for a tussle for influence between Riyadh and Tehran, Obama’s preference for dialogue appeared weak to some Gulf Arabs. Trump’s own vision of “peace through strength” may change that perception of a passive Washington, and encourage Gulf Arabs to press on with a military build-up that relies heavily on U.S. and European defense companies. Any number of issues could yet disturb ties - Jerusalem, oil policy, perceived anti-Muslim prejudice, and a U.S. law allowing lawsuits against Riyadh over the Sept. 11 attacks. One of the most explosive appears to be Trump’s vow to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would upend decades of U.S. policy, and his appointment as ambassador a lawyer who raised money for a major Jewish settlement. Israel and the Palestinians, who are seeking a state of their own, both claim Jerusalem as their capital.  “It would create a lot of chaos, a new intifada maybe,” a Gulf source with knowledge of official thinking said, adding Trump would think long and hard about a move that would be “a huge burden on the peace process”.   Another issue is Trump’s policy of seeking to destroy Islamic State. Gulf Arab states agree with him on the goal, but use of polarizing language seen as demonizing Muslims, and reliance solely on military force, would raise objections. Such language could also inflame militancy by hindering the hearts and minds effort needed to counter the thinking behind the violence. “The worst part about the speech is that he will target Islam as a religion in the name of fighting what he called radical Islamic terrorism, a blank label that is meaningless,” Tweeted Daham al-Qahtani, a Kuwaiti political analyst. “If he goes back to the era of Bush, and ‘you are either with us or with the terrorists’, this polarized idea, and then also the idea that military forces can solve it, then I think we will find ourselves in a very difficult situation, with a war that is going to be unwinnable,” al Yafai said. (Corrects in 22nd para to Iraq from Iran)

Summary: ओबामा को जाते देख खुशी हुई, खाड़ी अरबों को उम्मीद है कि ट्रम्प ईरान का मुकाबला करेंगे


LONDON (Reuters) - British interior minister Amber Rudd said on Thursday she hoped Britain’s condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump for retweeting material from a British far-right group would have an impact.  “I think we all listen more carefully, perhaps, to criticism from our friends than from people who we don’t have a relationship with. So, I hope that the prime minister’s comments will have some impact on the president,” Rudd told parliament. British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday that Trump was wrong to have retweeted posts from the Britain First group.

Summary: ब्रिटिश मंत्री को उम्मीद है कि ट्रम्प के ट्वीट की निंदा का प्रभाव पड़ेगा


LONDON (Reuters) - Legislation underpinning the government s plan to leave the European Union passed the latest stage in its journey through parliament on Wednesday, but still faces weeks of scrutiny before it becomes law. After eight days of debate, the legislation completed its  Committee Stage , where lawmakers debate the bill line by line and try to make changes to the government s proposed wording. Formally known as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, the legislation will now face other stages of approval in the lower house of parliament, and must then make its way through a multi-stage process in the upper house.  Both chambers must agree on the wording before it can become law. What is the bill and what does it do? The legislation serves two main functions: 1. Repealing the 1972 European Communities Act which made Britain a member of the European Communities, forerunner to the European Union. This effectively ends Britain s EU membership. 2. Transferring the existing body of EU law into British law. This is designed to provide legal certainty about the complex process of leaving.  Why is it controversial? The bill has faced criticism from opposition lawmakers, campaign groups and members of May s Conservative Party. Brexit is still divisive in Britain after a referendum in June last year, and many people, including some lawmakers, want to retain as much of the country s current EU membership as possible. Others would like to reverse the vote altogether. The most significant objections so far have focused on several different parts of the bill: 1. The power for the government to amend EU laws as they are brought onto the British statute book.  2. The extent to which parliament will be given a say on the final exit deal. 3. The government s intention to fix March 29, 2019 in law as  Exit Day . May runs a minority government, which has a slim 13-seat working majority in the 650-seat parliament thanks to a deal with a small Northern Irish party. Only seven Conservative lawmakers could be required to rebel to defeat the government. What has happened so far? The threat of rebellion has forced the government to make several concessions on its plans, including Wednesday s compromise to allow the date of Brexit to be changed in exceptional circumstances. Ministers also agreed to greater scrutiny in parliament of the process of transposing EU law. May suffered one embarrassing defeat, when 11 Conservatives sided with the opposition to successfully demand stronger guarantees that parliament will have a meaningful vote on the country s final exit agreement. Ministers fought off, or bargained their way out of other disagreements on issues like the powers government will have to change EU laws as they are transposed into British law, and the government s intention not to transfer across the EU s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The bill cleared its first parliamentary hurdle in September when, after two days of debate, lawmakers voted 326 to 290 in favor of the principles of the bill.  What happens next? The debate will continue in the lower house of parliament next year at a date which has yet to be set. This so-called  Report Stage  is a new opportunity to add amendments. Immediately after report stage, the bill is given a  Third Reading . It usually lasts an hour and is a general discussion of the bill followed by a vote. No amendments can be made. If approved, the bill will then pass to the upper chamber of parliament, where the Conservatives do not have a majority. The entire process will take months to complete, and there is no target end date. House of Lords:  Once the bill passes to the unelected upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, Lords can put forward their own amendments, each of which will be discussed and decided on in turn. If the lords agree to any amendments, the bill passes back to the House of Commons for its approval. Ping Pong: If the bill passes back to the commons, they debate and vote on the lords  amendments. No new amendments can be introduced. In theory the bill can continue passing back and forth between the lords and commons until the final bill is agreed upon. Royal assent: Once the bill has been agreed by both houses of parliament, it is given royal assent, when the queen formally agrees to make the bill into an Act of Parliament.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः मे की ब्रेक्सिट योजना ने संसदीय परीक्षा पास की, और भी आने वाले हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday easily passed a bill requiring federal environmental regulators to act faster when lead contamination is found in drinking water.   The bill passed 416-2. It was crafted by Michigan Representatives Dan Kildee, a Democrat, and Fred Upton, a Republican, in the wake of Flint’s drinking water crisis. The measure requires the Environmental Protection Agency to notify the public when concentrations of lead in drinking water rise above mandated levels and to create a plan to improve communication between the agency, utilities, states, and consumers.  In 2014, under a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint, a city of 100,000, switched water supplies to the Flint River, from Detroit’s system as part of a plan to save money in the poverty-stricken city. The more corrosive river water leached lead from aging pipes. Thousands of children are believed to have ingested dangerous levels of lead, a toxin that can harm brains and cause other health problems. The bill “wouldn’t have prevented Flint, but it would have caught it far sooner,” Kildee, who is from Flint, said after the vote. The measure must be passed by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama before becoming law.  Other measures in Congress to provide Flint with millions of dollars in aid to deal with the crisis face an uncertain future. Kildee has also introduced a bill to provide about $700 million in federal aid, with a match in funding from Michigan. That and other measures languished as Democrats and Republicans struggled to agree on where the funds would come from.  The Department of Agriculture said on Thursday it would temporarily allow Michigan to use funds from its Women, Infants and Children program for low income citizens to conduct lead testing. The department estimated some 3,800 people could get tested in this way.

Summary: सदन ने सीसा युक्त पानी पर ई. पी. ए. कार्रवाई की आवश्यकता वाला विधेयक पारित किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top lawyer for the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has concluded that President Donald Trump has the authority to name its acting director, three sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday, rejecting an effort by her former boss at the agency to name his immediate successor. The office of CFPB General Counsel Mary McLeod has prepared a memo concurring with the opinion of the U.S. Justice Department that Trump has the power to appoint his budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, as temporary leader of the federal watchdog agency, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. One source said the memo would be sent to CFPB staff on Monday. CFPB officials did not respond to requests by email and phone requesting comment. McLeod’s opinion places her against Richard Cordray, who resigned as CFPB director on Friday and elevated his former chief of staff, Leandra English, to replace him on an interim basis until the Senate confirms a permanent successor named by Trump. Hours later, the Republican president named Mulvaney as acting head, plunging the bureau into uncertainty.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः अमेरिकी उपभोक्ता वित्त एजेंसी के वकील ने उत्तराधिकार को लेकर ट्रम्प का पक्ष लिया-सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Rank, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, has left the State Department over the Trump administration’s decision to quit the 2015 Paris agreement to fight climate change, a senior U.S. official said on Monday. A State Department spokeswoman confirmed Rank’s departure, but said she was unable to verify Twitter posts that said he resigned as he felt unable to deliver a formal notification to China of the U.S. decision last week to quit the agreement. “He has retired from the foreign service,” said Anna Richey-Allen, a spokeswoman for the department’s East Asia Bureau. “Mr. Rank has made a personal decision. We appreciate his years of dedicated service to the State Department.” Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, President Donald Trump’s pick as the next U.S. ambassador to Beijing, is expected to take up the post later this month. A tweet from China expert John Pomfret quoted unnamed sources as saying that Rank had resigned as he could not support Trump’s decision last week to withdraw from the Paris agreement. Another tweet from Pomfret said Rank called a town hall meeting to announce his decision to embassy staff and explained that he could not deliver a diplomatic note informing the Chinese government of the U.S. decision. A senior U.S. official confirmed the account given in the tweets but added that after Rank announced his intention to retire on Monday in Beijing, he was told by the State Department to leave his post immediately. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. On June 1, the U.S. State Department accepted the resignation of its top personnel officer, who had been among its  few remaining senior Obama administration political appointees, another U.S. official said. Arnold Chacon had served as the director general of the foreign service and director of human resources. The official said Chacon had tendered his resignation when Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, along with all presidential appointees, who serve at the pleasure of the president and secretary of state. The acceptance of Chacon’s resignation was first reported by the DiploPundit website. It was not immediately clear whether he would be offered another post at the department.  Other than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, his deputy John Sullivan and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, the third-ranking U.S. diplomat, most of the State Department’s senior posts are currently vacant or filled by acting officials. Chacon could not immediately be reached for comment.  Contacted by Reuters for comment, Rank, a career foreign service officer who took over the post of deputy chief of mission in Beijing in January 2016, referred all questions to the U.S. embassy. Jonathan Fritz, the embassy’s economics councilor, would serve as chargé in his place, Richey-Allen said. Rank had been with the department for 27 years and served as the political councilor at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012. Trump’s announcement on Thursday that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, saying it would undermine the U.S. economy and cost jobs, drew anger and condemnation from world leaders and heads of industry. “The world has paid attention to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing on Tuesday, but added that personnel changes were the United States’ “internal affairs”.

Summary: चीन में शीर्ष अमेरिकी राजनयिक ने ट्रम्प की जलवायु नीति पर इस्तीफा दे दिया


SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The company owned by the family of senior White House aide Jared Kushner will skip roadshow events in China this weekend seeking money from local investors for a real estate project in exchange for a shot at U.S. immigrant visas, a company spokesman said. Nicole Kushner Meyer, Jared’s sister, appeared at marketing events last weekend in Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to raise $150 million from Chinese investors through the controversial EB-5 visa-for-investment program. According to marketing materials from one of the organizers of the roadshow, sales events for the project are scheduled in the southern cities of Shenzhen on Saturday and Guangzhou on Sunday. “No one from Kushner Companies will be in China this weekend,” James Yolles, spokesman for the firm, said. The company and KABR Group are raising money for a two-tower apartment complex in New Jersey called One Journal Square, marketing materials showed. Kushner Companies earlier this week apologized for Meyer having mentioned Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, in discussing the project. The company said Meyer had done so only in an attempt to make clear that her brother was not involved. “Kushner Companies apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer’s intention,” it said. In addition to Meyer, Laurent Morali, president of Kushner Companies, was included in marketing materials online for the China road show. Jared Kushner, whose White House portfolio includes relations with China, sold his stake in Kushner Companies to a family trust early this year. The EB-5 program allows wealthy foreigners to, in effect, buy U.S. immigration visas for themselves and families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects. A member of the audience at the marketing event in Shanghai said Meyer spoke for about 10 minutes during last Sunday’s event and described her family’s humble roots. According to the New York Times, in Beijing on Saturday she told the audience of about 100 people the project “means a lot to me and my entire family”.

Summary: कुशनर कॉस का कहना है कि वह इस सप्ताह के अंत में चीन के विपणन अभियान को छोड़ देंगे


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Raqqa will be part of a decentralized federal Syria now the city has been freed from Islamic State, the U.S.-backed militias that captured it said on Friday, tying its political future to Kurdish-led autonomy plans for northern Syria. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said the people of the majority Arab city and surrounding province would decide their own future  within the framework of a decentralized, federal, democratic Syria . In a declaration formally announcing Raqqa s liberation from Islamic State after four months of battles, the SDF pledged  to protect the frontiers of the province against all external threats , and to hand control to a civil council from the city. The U.S.-backed SDF, which is led by Kurdish militia fighters and also includes Arabs, captured the Syrian de-facto capital of Islamic State s self-proclaimed caliphate this week in a decisive defeat for the group that had ruled over millions of people from central Syria to northern Iraq. In Syria, the fight against Islamic State has taken place amid a wider, multi-sided civil war between the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Iran and Russia, and an array of rebel groups supported by other powers. Kurdish-led authorities in other parts of the north say they want a federal system that would allow regions to rule themselves without central control by the center. They have been moving ahead with plans set it up, despite discouragement from their U.S. allies and strong opposition from both Turkey and the Syrian government in Damascus.  Turkey views the rise of Kurdish power in Syria as a threat to its national security, viewing Kurdish groups in northern Syria as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers  Party (PKK), which is fighting a three-decade insurgency in Turkey. Turkey said on Friday that a huge banner of jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan unfurled in central Raqqa by the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces was proof that Washington had been working with terrorists. The Kurdish-led autonomy plans in Syria have advanced as diplomacy has failed to make any progress towards a political solution to the six-year-long war. Assad, who is fast regaining territory in Syria s most populous eastern regions with Iranian and Russian military support, has repeatedly said the state will recover all Syria. Asked about the SDF statement, Ali Haidar, the Syrian government minister responsible for national reconciliation, said Raqqa s future could only be discussed  as part of the final political structure of the Syrian state . The SDF, dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, has established control over swathes of northern Syria in operations backed by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, mostly avoiding conflict with Russian-backed pro-government forces. Spokesman Talal Silo reaffirmed the SDF s plan to hand control of Raqqa to a civil council formed of people from the city, and to hand over internal security to a police force drawn from local recruits. He called Raqqa s liberation  the final chapter  of a struggle that began against Islamic State from the town of Kobani some three years ago, though the SDF is still fighting the jihadist group in Deir al-Zor province. The United States has said it will take the lead in helping to clear rubble and restore basic services to the city. With Islamic State s self-declared  caliphate  crumbling in its last remaining Syrian strongholds, Assad s Russian allies said on Thursday the fight with the jihadist group would soon be over. President Vladimir Putin expressed hope a new peace conference could be convened, though the Kremlin said on Friday it was too early to discuss the timing or venue for the proposed  congress of the peoples of Syria .

Summary: रक्का 'संघीय सीरिया' का हिस्सा होगा, U.S.-backed मिलिशिया का कहना है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia’s government for damages, despite the White House’s threat to veto the measure. The U.S. Senate in May unanimously passed the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” known as JASTA. The bill’s passage in the House by voice vote, two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed about 3,000 people, was greeted with cheers and applause in the chamber. “We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terrorism,” said Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers who crashed airliners in New York, outside Washington and in Pennsylvania were Saudi nationals. The Saudi government, which strongly denies responsibility, has lobbied against the bill. Opponents of the measure said it could strain relations with Saudi Arabia and lead to retaliatory laws that would allow foreign nationals to sue Americans for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks. The White House on Friday reiterated that President Barack Obama would veto the bill. But some members of Congress have become increasingly restive about relations with Saudi Arabia, long an important player in U.S. Middle East policy. On Thursday, four senators introduced a resolution seeking to block a $1.15 billion arms sale to the kingdom, after 64 House members signed a letter in August asking Obama to delay the sale. If Obama carries out the veto threat and the required two-thirds of both the Republican-majority House and Senate still support the bill, it would be the first time since Obama’s presidency began in 2009 that Congress had overridden a veto. The House passed the measure by voice vote, without objections or recorded individual votes. That could make it easier for Obama’s fellow Democrats to uphold his veto later without officially changing their positions. JASTA would remove sovereign immunity, preventing lawsuits against governments, for countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. It also would allow survivors, and relatives of those killed in them to seek damages from other countries. In this case, it would allow suits to proceed in federal court in New York as lawyers try to prove that the Saudis were involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Backers say passage is long overdue. They argue that if Saudi Arabia, or any other government, is innocent of involvement in attacks, they have nothing to fear from the legislation. “If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about,” said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, a vocal advocate for the measure. Previous versions of the bill had stalled in Congress because they provided fewer protections for countries against lawsuits. Lawmakers had been under intense pressure from the Sept. 11 families to pass JASTA before the 15th anniversary of the attacks on Sunday. A member of the French parliament, Pierre Lellouche, said he would consider retaliatory legislation in France, and would anticipate it elsewhere, if the final version of JASTA does not include waivers for countries that are U.S. allies and actively involved in fighting terrorism. “It may trigger similar acts all over the place, and then you enter into a ‘state of jungle’ where everybody sues everybody,” Lellouche, who runs a parliamentary committee on international law, told reporters on a conference call on Friday.

Summary: अमेरिकी सदन ने 11 सितंबर के परिवारों को सऊदी अरब पर मुकदमा करने की अनुमति देने के लिए मतदान किया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday proposed raising payments by 1.35 percent on average next year to the health insurers who offer Medicare Advantage health benefits to elderly and disabled Americans. Payments to insurers will vary under the 2017 Medicare Advantage proposal, based on the region the plans are sold and on the size of bonus payments insurers can receive based on quality ratings, the government said. Shares of health insurers rose in after-hours trade. Analysts said the proposal looked positive for insurers at first glance, but cautioned that they needed to parse it fully. “Looks like the best case scenario has played itself out,”  said Ipsita Smolinski of Capitol Street, a Washington D.C. research firm, who had anticipated about 1 percent increase in payments. Insurers and lawmakers have pressured the government not to cut payments, saying any decrease would hurt older Americans by forcing insurers to cut benefits.  Insurer lobbyist America’s Health Insurance Plans President Marilyn Tavenner said it was important that the final policy ensure the long-term stability of Medicare Advantage. She said in a statement that the group was looking closely at the proposal. About 17 million Americans have healthcare coverage through Medicare Advantage, offered by insurers including UnitedHealth Group Inc, Aetna Inc, and Anthem Inc among others. Another more than 30 million people receive benefits through the government Medicare fee-for-service program. Shares of Anthem Inc rose 1.4 percent in after-hours trading, while UnitedHealth Group gained 1.6 percent.  Some insurers may benefit more than others from the proposal to pay more to insurers who are managing plans for people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid for the poor, said Kim Monk, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners. The 1.35 percent increase is based mostly on anticipated medical cost increases next year. The government expects a 3 percent payment growth rate, which is in line with estimates the government provided to insurers in December.  That 3 percent increase is then reduced to 1.35 percent due to lower payments to insurers for sicker-than-average customers and some medical coding changes, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicare agency said on Friday.  The 1.35 percent also takes into account an increase in how it pays insurers based on quality measures, called star ratings, it said. The final rate for 2017 Medicare Advantage payments is based on this proposed figure and will be released in April.

Summary: अमेरिका ने मेडिकेयर एडवांटेज भुगतान में वृद्धि का प्रस्ताव रखा; बीमाकर्ता के शेयरों में वृद्धि


BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government rejected a report sent to the U.N. Security Council that blamed it for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in April in which dozens of people were killed, state media said on Friday.  Syria rejects in form and substance what was included in the report of the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons  Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) that was announced yesterday,  state news agency SANA reported, citing an official in Syria s foreign ministry. The official said the report had been compiled under instructions from the United States and other Western countries  to place more political pressure  on Syria, SANA reported. The JIM report found Syrian President Bashar al-Assad s government responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 this year. The attack prompted a U.S. missile strike against a Syrian air base which Washington said was used to launch the strike.  (Damascus) condemns the reliance of the Joint Investigative Mechanism on the word of criminals who committed this immoral act in Khan Sheikhoun and those of suspect witnesses, as well as so-called open sources,  a statement by the foreign ministry official said. The official also said Syria renewed its commitment to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and said it had no chemical materials restricted by the agreement. Syria considered the use of chemical weapons  an immoral act, condemned everywhere, at any time, under any circumstance,  SANA reported.

Summary: सीरिया ने अप्रैल सरीन हमले के लिए उसे दोषी ठहराने की रिपोर्ट को खारिज कियाः राज्य मीडिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a brutal week for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton maintained a substantial projected advantage in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the U.S. presidency, according to the latest results from the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday.  If the election were held this week, the project estimates that Clinton’s odds of securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency at more than 95 percent, and by a margin of 118 Electoral College votes. It is the second week in a row that the project has estimated her odds so high.  __________________________ STATES OF THE NATION Check out the state-by-state breakdown and run your own scenarios based on voter turnout The results mirror other Electoral College projections, some of which estimate Clinton’s chance of winning at around 90 percent.  For the Trump campaign there are a handful of states the Republican candidate must win if he is to cobble together enough states to win the White House.  Among them is Florida, but numerous recent visits to the Sunshine State by Trump and his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence did little to dent Clinton’s advantage in the contest for the state’s 29 Electoral College votes. She leads by 6 percentage points, about the same lead she enjoyed last week.  Still, the race tightened in Ohio, another important state for Trump. Both Ohio and Nevada were leaning toward Clinton last week but are now toss-ups.  However, Clinton’s support grew in North Carolina and Colorado, both of which moved from toss-ups to leaning Clinton.  In the last week, the Trump campaign struggled to respond to allegations from several women that Trump had groped them or made unwanted sexual advances over several decades. Trump said the reports were lies and part of a media conspiracy to defeat him.  All of the allegations came after The Washington Post disclosed a video from 2005 of Trump describing how he tried to seduce a married woman and bragged in vulgar terms how his celebrity allowed him to kiss and grope women without permission.  The accusations overshadowed what might otherwise have been a difficult week for Clinton. Her campaign manager’s email account was apparently hacked and thousands of his emails were released by Wikileaks. U.S. officials say the Russian government sanctioned the electronic break-in.  The emails have been trickling out for two weeks. Included in the hacked emails were undisputed comments that Clinton made to banks and big business in a 2014 speech. In those comments, Clinton said she supports open trade and open borders, and takes a conciliatory approach to Wall Street, both positions she later backed away from.  Since that release, waves of other emails have been released, among which were some that suggested Clinton had inappropriately received questions in advance of a debate with Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries.  Without Trump’s own woes, the Clinton emails may well have become the central issue in the campaign. Yet with just over three weeks to go until the Nov. 8 election, Trump does not have much time to turn the race around.  According to the project, Trump trails by double-digits among women and all minority groups. Among black voters he trails by nearly 70 points. To a large extent his support is almost entirely dependent on white voters. And while Trump’s support among white men is strong, among white women his lead is negligible.

Summary: क्लिंटन इलेक्टोरल कॉलेज जीतने के प्रबल पक्षधर थेः सर्वेक्षण