RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is celebrating the 87th anniversary of its foundation this weekend with a big program of concerts and performances, including a pageant operetta on Saturday evening which allowed women to enter the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh for the first time.     The festivities are part of a government move to boost national pride and improve quality of life for Saudis.      Also on offer is a concert in the Red Sea city of Jeddah featuring 11 Arab musicians, plus fireworks, air acrobatics and traditional folk dance shows.      It is the first time I have come to the stadium and I feel like more of a Saudi citizen. Now I can go everywhere in my country,  said 25-year-old Sultana, green and white flags painted on both cheeks as she entered the complex with her girlfriends.      God willing, tomorrow women will be permitted bigger and better things like driving and travel.      Several thousand families entered the stadium - where top football matches are held - through a separate gate from single men. They cheered, flashed peace signs and waved green Saudi flags.     A toddler wore a shirt that said in English  I (heart) Saudi Arabia  while a little girl donned a green dress with the faces of King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed, printed on it. A young man recited a poem praising the 82-year-old monarch.     The events are the latest entertainment sponsored by the government as part of the Vision 2030 reform program launched two years ago to diversify the economy away from oil, create whole new sectors to employ young citizens and open up Saudis  cloistered lifestyles.     However in a country that adheres to the austere Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam, which bans gender mixing, concerts and cinemas, the plan s seemingly anodyne goals to empower women, promote sports and invest in entertainment have been criticized.    Saudi rulers are also starting to reform areas once the exclusive domain of the clergy, such as education and the law, and have promoted elements of national identity that have no religious component or pre-date Islam.     They have increased National Day celebrations that were previously attacked by clerics as undermining religious feeling, and are promoting heritage sites, like Nabatean rock temples, once seen as embarrassing in the land of Islam.     King Salman marked the holiday on Twitter, writing:  The  kingdom will remain a bulwark for those who love benevolence, their religion and their country.          The operetta on Saturday told the story of the founding of the modern Saudi state by Ibn Saud, King Salman s father, following a series of territorial conquests and eight years before the discovery of oil opened the way to making the new kingdom the world s top oil exporter.     The performance, which praised the kingdom s religious and martial past while looking ahead to more development, featured horses, camels and hundreds of men dancing with swords and drums. An unveiled woman and two dozen girls joined them onstage.     Pyrotechnics, dancing fountains and lasers elicited cheers from the crowd which snapped photos on their smartphones.     The final segment featured pictures of Crown Prince Mohammed - visiting troops, meeting world leaders, watching a football match - whose face has become nearly as ubiquitous as his father s since he became heir to the throne in June.     There is widespread speculation, denied by officials, that King Salman intends to abdicate to his son, who already dominates economic, diplomatic and domestic policy.     Saudi flags and green billboards, often bearing the faces of both men, have gone up across Riyadh this week, and at night skyscrapers are flooded in green light - the national color.     Companies from telecoms operators to furniture stores have launched patriotic-themed marketing campaigns offering discounts for the holiday weekend.     Um Abdulrahm al-Shihri, who traveled 1100 km (685 miles) from the northwestern city of Tabuk, to enter the stadium, said she hoped in the future women would be able to attend football matches and other public festivities which are traditionally the reserve of men.      You cannot imagine how happy we are today ... We feel that there is openness towards us,  she said, wearing the black niqab covering all but her eyes.     Women are at all levels now - women are now (representatives) in the Shura council, women are now doctors, women are now in big positions. So why shouldn t we join the men in things that matter to our nation?      The General Entertainment Authority, the government agency organizing the National Day festivities, expects some 1.5 million Saudis to attend events in 17 cities over four days.     Vision 2030 reforms are intended to capture up to a quarter of the $20 billion currently spent overseas by Saudis, who are accustomed to traveling abroad to see shows and visit amusement parks in nearby tourist hub Dubai or further afield.    This weekend s events, though, are free to the public.     Issa Daghiri, attending the operetta in Riyadh with his wife and children, said he was encouraged by the acceptance of families at the stadium, which holds about 40,000 spectators.      We had hoped for this for a while and now the opportunity has come,  he said.  Each year that passes, the kingdom develops.

Summary: राष्ट्रीय समारोहों ने पहली बार महिलाओं के लिए सऊदी खेल स्टेडियम खोला


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO promised on Wednesday to defend all allies despite election victor Donald Trump’s call to set conditions for U.S. help, as the alliance braced for a more impulsive leader some fear could withdraw funding to deter Russia. During the presidential election campaign Trump threatened to abandon U.S. allies in Europe if they do not spend enough on defence, comments that were particularly unnerving for the ex-Soviet Baltic states on Russia’s border which fear Moscow might try a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO’s promise to defend any ally under attack was an unconditional guarantee set out in the Western alliance’s founding treaty in 1949. “All allies have made a solemn commitment to defend each other and this is something which is absolute and unconditioned,” Stoltenberg told a news conference, saying he would try to speak to Trump by telephone as soon as possible and would welcome him to a NATO summit in Brussels next year. “The U.S. commitment to NATO and the collective defence of Europe has been rock solid for almost 70 years and I am absolutely confident that it will still be the case,” Stoltenberg said, noting that two world wars had shown the importance of stability in Europe to the United States. Trump’s suggestion of making the United States’ defence of its Western allies conditional was the first time a leading presidential candidate had raised the idea, putting him directly at odds with NATO’s 27 other member states.   Diplomats questioned how long NATO’s chief would be able to maintain a “business as usual” tone with a new U.S. leader who has expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, condemned by the West for his actions in Ukraine. “The idea that Trump’s presidency is not going to create problems for NATO is delusional,” said Dana Allin, a U.S. foreign policy expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded around the central promise that an armed attack against one ally is an attack against all, whether it be on land, in the air or on the seas. NATO leaders in July added the area of cyberspace to that list of war fighting domains, although allies have to request NATO’s help and decisions are on a case-by-case basis. Trump, a Republican who had never previously run for office, assumes the presidency on Jan. 20 after defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s U.S. election. In one demonstration that not all U.S. Republicans share Trump’s scepticism about NATO, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday he believes the NATO alliance “is every bit as important today as it ever was.” “I think Article 5 (of the NATO treaty) means something: you attack any member of NATO, you have us to deal with. I want the Russians to understand that fully,” McConnell said in Washington when a reporter asked him if he shared Trump’s attitude toward the alliance and Russia.  One of NATO’s top commanders stressed that the debate about the alliance’s role was not a theoretical one, given the powerful Russian air defence systems in the Baltic region, in Crimea and in Syria that could limit NATO’s freedom of movement. Allies need to build up a sophisticated air deterrent that can counter Russian long-range missiles, said General Denise Mercer, whose brief is to focus on future threats.  After the fall of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago, NATO’s European allies cut defence spending to historic lows, leaving the United States to make up around three quarters of the alliance’s military expenditure.  A newly assertive Russia under Putin has begun to change that and Europe is again spending more on defence. But Britain, Poland, Greece and Estonia are the only European nations to meet a NATO goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defence. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, spends far less than 2 percent of its GDP on defence. Asked if she would now seek more funding for Germany’s military, Defence Minister Ursula von derv Leyden told Reuters: “I have to make it clear (to German lawmakers) what our posture is, what we need and that is the right way to proceed.” Stoltenberg said he expected an overall 3 percent real increase in European defence spending in 2016. He said if all European allies and Canada reached the 2 percent spending target it would generate an additional $100 billion for NATO.  On financial markets, shares in European defence companies rose as investors bet arms spending would rise in response to Trump’s calls for Europe to pay more for its security. A first sign of Trump’s tough stance could come as early as next year, when the United States is due to deploy troops and heavy combat equipment to eastern Europe under a $3.4 billion U.S. spending plan for Europe to deter Russia. Trump could scale back President Barack Obama’s plan to quadruple funding under the European Reassurance Initiative (ERR) from just under $800 million - a significant investment in Europe after decades of cutting its presence in Europe.  France saw an opportunity to strengthen European defence. “Donald Trump said he wanted to ... stop paying for NATO, so countries like Poland need to ask themselves (what this means),” Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Assault said. “Rather than lowering our heads, we must rise to the challenge.” Trump has also threatened to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe if allies fail to pay more for U.S. protection, although U.S. ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute sought to reassure allies, saying: “NATO has always been a bipartisan venture for the United States.” Trump has said NATO could become obsolete if it does not focus more on Isla mist militant groups hostile to the West, an area that is not traditionally a core focus of the alliance. Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister whose own country borders Russia, sought to remind the new president-elect that the only time NATO has activated its Article 5 commitment was following the Septa. 11 attacks in 2001.

Summary: अटल रक्षा का वादा करते हुए नाटो ने ट्रम्प के लिए कमर कस ली


BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Hezbollah-run media unit said on Friday Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reported to have been in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal during the Syrian army and its allies  operation to clear it. The military unit did not say what had happened to Baghdadi, give further details or identify its sources. The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said on Friday it had no  releasable information  on Baghdadi s whereabouts.  Syria s army declared victory over Islamic State on Thursday, saying its capture of the jihadists  last town in the country marked the collapse of their three-year rule in the region. But the army and its allies are still fighting Islamic State in desert areas close to Albu Kamal near the border with Iraq, the Syrian army said on Thursday. On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said  Islamic State has taken back control of half of Albu Kamal. The capture of the border town had sealed  the fall of the terrorist Daesh organization s project in the region , an army statement said on Thursday, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. An audio message purported to be from Baghdadi was released in September. Baghdadi declared himself caliph and heir to Islam s historic leaders from the great medieval mosque in Iraq s Mosul in 2014. (This version of the story was refiled to clarify source in headline)

Summary: हिज़्बुल्लाह मीडिया इकाईः सीरिया के शहर में इस्लामिक स्टेट के नेता की सूचना मिली


TAIPEI (Reuters) - The wife and mother of detained Taiwanese rights activist Lee Ming-che were due to arrive in China on Sunday to attend his subversion trial on Monday, Taiwan s Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement, calling for Lee s safe return home. Lee, a community college teacher and pro-democracy and human rights activist, went missing during a March visit to China. Authorities later confirmed he had been detained, straining already-tense ties between the mainland and the self-ruling island. Authorities at the Intermediate People s Court of Yueyang city, in the central province of Hunan, said Monday s trial on suspicion of subversion of state power would be an open hearing. Chinese courts have video-streamed or live-blogged increasing numbers of proceedings in recent years as part of a push towards judicial transparency However, rights activists say that in sensitive cases, holding  open  hearings is a tool for authorities to demonstrate state power and that usually the defendant has agreed to an outcome. On Saturday, Lee s wife, Lee Ching-yu, asked during a news conference that supporters forgive her husband if he says something in court which disappoints them, as he might be required to give testimony against his own free will. On Sunday she declined to comment to a large media contingent as she checked into her flight at Taipei Songshan Airport, where she was to fly to Changsha, in Hunan province, via Shanghai.  Taiwan s Mainland Affairs Council said it would do everything in its power to facilitate Lee s safe return.  Our government s approach to this case has been predicated on preserving our country s dignity while ensuring Lee Ming-che s safety,  it said. Lee s case has strained relations between Taipei and Beijing, which have been particularly tense since President Tsai Ing-wen, leader of Taiwan s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, took office last year. Beijing regards the island as a breakaway province and it has never renounced the use of force to bring it back under mainland control.

Summary: हिरासत में लिए गए ताइवान के कार्यकर्ता की पत्नी चीन में उसके मुकदमे में भाग लेंगी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House budget director Mick Mulvaney has disclosed that the entire Trump administration is now on board with a “clean” debt ceiling increase, without spending cuts, a CNBC reporter said on Thursday in a tweet. The reporter, John Harwood, also tweeted that Mulvaney said the administration will not raise taxes on wealthy individuals.

Summary: ट्रम्प प्रशासन ऋण सीमा में वृद्धि चाहता हैः सी. एन. बी. सी.


BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing police investigating alleged child abuse at a kindergarten run by RYB Education Inc said on Saturday they had detained a teacher, in the latest scandal to hit China s booming childcare industry. Police in the Chaoyang district said it will further investigate claims of abuse after China s official Xinhua news agency reported this week they were checking allegations that children at the nursery were  reportedly sexually molested, pierced by needles and given unidentified pills . Chaoyang district police said in an online posting on Saturday they had detained a 22-year-old teacher, surnamed Liu from the Hebei province adjacent to Beijing. Police have also arrested another person, also surnamed Liu, for allegedly disrupting social order by spreading false information about the alleged kindergarten abuse, it said in a separate posting. RYB s New York-listed shares plunged 38.4 percent on Friday as the scandal sparked outrage among parents and the public.      The second woman, 31, and a Beijing native, was arrested on Thursday, police said. Parents said their children, some as young as three, gave accounts of a naked adult male conducting purported  medical check-ups  on unclothed students, other media said.  RYB provides early education services in China and at the end of June was operating 80 kindergartens and had franchised an additional 175, covering 130 cities and towns in China.   Meanwhile, Beijing city authorities have urged RYB to remove the head of the kindergarten, Xinhua reported. The Chaoyang district has launched an investigation into all childcare facilities in its area, the report said.

Summary: चीनी पुलिस ने बालवाड़ी दुर्व्यवहार जांच में शिक्षक को हिरासत में लिया


(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear Ohio’s appeal of a lower court ruling that blocked the Republican-led state’s policy of purging people from voter-registration lists if they do not regularly cast ballots because it violated federal law. Civil liberties advocates who challenged Ohio’s policy said it illegally erased voters from registration rolls and unlawfully disenfranchised minorities and poor people who tend to back Democratic candidates. The justices will review a U.S. appeals court ruling that Ohio’s policy ran afoul of a 1993 law called the National Voter Registration Act, which Congress passed to make it easier for Americans to register to vote. A Reuters analysis last year found that in Ohio’s three largest counties, which include Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, voters were struck from the rolls in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at roughly twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods under the policy. Ohio officials argued that canceling registrations for voters deemed inactive for six years helped keep voting rolls current and accurate, clearing out those who have moved away or died. In September 2016, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that the policy was unlawful. Democrats have accused Republicans of taking steps at the state level, including laws imposing new requirements on voters such as presenting certain types of government-issued identification, intended to suppress the vote of minorities, the poor and others who generally favor Democratic candidates. The American Civil Liberties Union last year sued Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, arguing that the state was violating the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from striking registered voters “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” The 6th Circuit agreed. Under Ohio’s policy, if registered voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years, they are removed from the rolls. Husted has said Ohio’s policy has been in place since the 1990s under both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. The suit said the policy led to the removal of tens of thousands of people from the voter rolls in 2015, including one of the lead plaintiffs, Larry Harmon, a software engineer and U.S. Navy veteran who was blocked from voting in a state marijuana initiative in 2015.  Republican Donald Trump won Ohio in last November’s presidential election. The National Voter Registration Act, dubbed the “Motor-Voter” law when it was enacted, required states to permit registration by mail or when eligible people apply for or renew a driver’s license, or visiting certain government agencies or military recruiting offices. (Corrects spelling of first name of Ohio secretary of state Husted in 6th paragraph, Jon instead of John.)

Summary: अमेरिकी सुप्रीम कोर्ट मतदाता शुद्धिकरण नीति को पुनर्जीवित करने के लिए ओहियो की बोली पर सुनवाई करेगा


LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - A centre-left party that has no seats in Slovenia s parliament and is led by a former comedian topped an opinion poll published by daily newspaper Delo on Monday, about six months ahead of an expected general election. The Lista Marjana Sarca (LMS) under Marjan Sarec, mayor of the city of Kamnik, drew the support of 15.7 percent with a junior governing coalition party, the Social Democrats, in second place with 12.6 percent and the leading opposition party, the centre-left Slovenian Democratic Party, with 12.2 percent. The Party of Modern Centre led by Prime Minister Miro Cerar came in sixth with 5.5 percent. Last month, the Social Democrats led the same poll with 19.8 percent while the LMS was not yet included in the survey. Sarec surprised many last month when he was narrowly beaten in a presidential run-off election, gathering about 47 percent to incumbent Borut Pahor s 53 percent. Analysts said Sarec s party, which has so far been active only at local level, could win a parliamentary vote amid general dissatisfaction with the centre-left government, above all its inability to improve the inefficient national health system. The government of the southeast European country is also under heavy pressure from various public sector unions demanding wage hikes at a time of strong economic growth, expected to be 4.4 percent this year, up from 3.1 percent in 2016. Pahor will call a general election in the coming months and it is expected to be held in the first half of June.

Summary: स्लोवेनिया जनमत सर्वेक्षण में बिना संसदीय सीटों वाली पार्टी आगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin urged Congress on Wednesday to pass a law that would let him respond more quickly to employee misconduct, such as the case of a psychiatrist who was caught watching pornography on an iPad while seeing a patient. Shulkin, in a briefing on the state of the department, said that veterans’ access to medical care had improved significantly since a scandal over wait times three years ago prompted the resignation of a VA secretary and forced major reforms.   But Shulkin, who served as undersecretary of Veterans Affairs for Health in the Obama administration, said a review of 137 studies and assessments identified 13 areas of “significant risk,” including rules that keep the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from moving quickly to fire employees for misconduct. “We currently have 1,500 disciplinary actions that are pending, meaning people that either need to be fired, demoted (or) suspended without pay for violating our core values,” Shulkin told reporters. “Our accountability processes are clearly broken. We have to wait more than a month to fire a psychiatrist who was caught on camera watching pornography using his iPad while seeing a veteran,” Shulkin said. A VA news release on March 31 said an internal review recommended that the person be dismissed, but the law requires a  30-day waiting period before a final decision can be carried out. It said the psychiatrist was removed from patient care and placed on administrative duties. “We need new accountability legislation, and we need that now,” Shulkin said. In a case in Puerto Rico, he said, the department was forced to take back an employee who had been convicted of driving under the influence several times and had served a 60-day jail term. Shulkin also warned that Veterans Affairs buildings were falling into disrepair and needed more than $18 billion worth of repairs. VA buildings on average are 60 years old and include 449 from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. He said 591 others are from the First World War era. The VA spends $25 million a year maintaining 400 vacant buildings and 735 underutilized facilities, Shulkin said. Shulkin said the department’s computer systems also needed modernization. He said he planned to make major decisions on upgrading the systems by July this year.

Summary: वी. ए. प्रमुख ने कांग्रेस पर दुर्व्यवहार के लिए कर्मचारियों को निकालना आसान बनाने का दबाव डाला


LONDON (Reuters) - A 20-year-old man appeared in court on Wednesday accused of plotting to kill British Prime Minister Theresa May by first detonating an explosive device to get into her Downing Street office. Naa imur Rahman, of north London, has been charged with preparing to commit acts of terrorism. He was remanded in custody after a brief appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court. Prosecutor Mark Carroll told the court Rahman planned to detonate an improvised explosive device at the gates of Downing Street and gain access to May s office in the ensuing chaos and kill her.  The secondary attack was to be carried out with a suicide vest, pepper spray and a knife,  he told the court. Rahman was carrying two inert explosive devices when he was arrested last week, the court heard.  His purpose was to attack, kill and cause explosions,  Carroll said. Rahman appeared with a co-defendant, 21-year-old Mohammed Imran, from Birmingham, who is also charged with preparing to commit acts of terrorism. Carroll said Imran was accused of trying to join the Islamic State militant group in Libya. Rahman and Imran gave no indication as to their plea so a not guilty plea was entered on their behalf. There was no application for bail. The men will appear at London s Old Bailey central criminal court on Dec. 20. No. 10 Downing Street is the official residence of British prime ministers. It is heavily guarded and there is a gate at the end of the street preventing members of the public from getting close to the house. In 1991, Irish Republican Army (IRA) militants launched a mortar bomb attack on No. 10. John Major, the prime minister at the time, was inside but not hurt. A Downing Street spokesman declined immediate comment on the case.

Summary: ब्रिटेन के प्रधानमंत्री मे की हत्या की कोशिश के आरोप में एक व्यक्ति अदालत में पेश हुआ


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Visa consultations in U.S. consulates in Russia could be resumed in the near future, TASS news agency cited U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman as saying on Monday.  I believe that in the near future they (visa consultations) may be resumed,  the agency quoted him as saying.  We are trying to do everything possible, and I hope that in coming weeks we will be able to effectively issues visas.  In August, the United States began to scale back its visa services in Russia, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow three weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff. The U.S. consulates are located in St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg in the Urals and Vladivostok in Russia s far east.

Summary: रूस में अमेरिकी राजदूतः वाणिज्य दूतावासों में वीजा परामर्श जल्द ही फिर से शुरू हो सकता है-टीएएसएस


SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Saturday it has opened an investigation into fake mobile phone alerts and social media messages advising U.S. military personnel and their families to evacuate the Korean Peninsula.   The phony messages, which were spread on Thursday, came at a sensitive time, with tensions high after North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3.  The test and a series of missile launches have triggered a war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea s leader Kim Jong Un.  U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) was not yet aware of how many people received the hoax messages or who was behind them, a spokesman for the USFK told Reuters.  The USFK posted a statement on its official Facebook page on Thursday making clear that the U.S. military did not issue any evacuation-related alerts.  It has also instructed all U.S. Department of Defense personnel and their family to confirm any evacuation-related communications before acting.   The USFK conducts regular biannual noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) exercises in the spring and fall to rehearse for possible evacuation. The second NEO exercise of the year is scheduled to take place in October.

Summary: अमेरिकी सेना ने दक्षिण कोरिया में अमेरिकी सेना, परिवारों को भेजे गए नकली निकासी आदेशों की जांच की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. House Democrats on Monday asked the Federal Communications Commission inspector general to probe whether  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was biased in favor of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is seeking approval of a $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co. Representatives Frank Pallone and Elijah Cummings cited FCC decisions that benefited Sinclair, the largest U.S. television broadcast group, and a media report last year that the election campaign of President Donald Trump struck a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage. “All of these actions – when taken in context with reported meetings between the Trump administration, Sinclair, and Chairman Pai’s office – have raised serious concerns about whether Chairman Pai’s actions comply with the FCC’s mandate to be independent,” the pair wrote. Advocacy group Free Press said in an FCC filing in August that Sinclair forces its stations to “air pro-Trump propaganda and then seeks favors from the Trump administration.”  A spokeswoman for Pai said the “request appears to be part of many Democrats’ attempt to target one particular company because of its perceived political views ... Any claim that Chairman Pai is modifying the rules now to benefit one particular company is completely baseless.” Politico, citing unnamed sources, reported in December that Trump’s campaign made a deal with Sinclair to get favorable coverage in exchange for more access to Trump.  Sinclair did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, told a congressional committee last month, “All of our media policy decisions seem to be custom-built for this one company.”  Sinclair announced plans in May to acquire Tribune’s 42 TV stations in 33 markets as well as cable network WGN America, extending its reach to 72 percent of American households.    The FCC is set to vote Thursday on Pai’s plan to eliminate the ban on cross-ownership of a newspaper and TV station in a major market and make it easier for media companies to buy additional TV stations in the same market. Approval would make it easier for Sinclair to acquire more TV stations. The FCC will also vote Thursday on Pai’s proposal to allow broadcasters to use new technology to improve picture quality and allow better reception on mobile phones, but it could force consumers to eventually buy new equipment. Sinclair holds some patents for the TV technology and Rosenworcel said Sinclair and others could profit.

Summary: हाउस डेमोक्रेट्स ने सिनक्लेयर के साथ एफसीसी अध्यक्ष के व्यवहार की जांच की मांग की


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A nonprofit watchdog expanded a lawsuit accusing U.S. President Donald Trump of violating the Constitution by letting his hotels and restaurants accept payments from foreign governments. The amended complaint filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan adds a restaurant trade group, whose members include nationally known chefs Tom Colicchio and Alice Waters, and a hotel events booker in Washington, D.C. as plaintiffs. It is intended to address concern over whether the watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was itself harmed by Trump and had standing to sue at all. Trump is expected to respond by April 21, and had said the original lawsuit filed on Jan. 23 had no merit. Spokesmen for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. The amended complaint said Trump violates the Constitution’s “emoluments” clause, which bars him from accepting various gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, by maintaining ownership over his business empire despite ceding day-to-day control to his sons, Eric and Donald Jr. It said members of Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United Inc, which represents more than 200 restaurants and nearly 25,000 workers, have improperly lost business, wages and tips to Trump’s competing businesses. Jill Phaneuf, the other new plaintiff, works for a hospitality company that books events in hotels near Washington’s “Embassy Row,” which house foreign diplomats, and claimed that Trump is costing her commissions. The complaint said such plaintiffs are injured when foreign governments try to “curry favor” with Trump by favoring his businesses. It said this has even occurred since Trump took office, when China granted him trademark rights after he pledged to honor the “One China” policy of his White House predecessors. "When asked why defendant changed his position on the One China policy, and whether he had gotten something in exchange from China, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer answered: 'The President always gets something,'" the complaint said. (here) U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, oversees the litigation. The lawsuit seeks to “uphold one of the most basic aspects of the rule of law: no one, including the president, is above the law,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Irvine’s law school and one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said in a statement. The case is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington et al v. Trump, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 17-00458.

Summary: विदेशी भुगतान को लेकर ट्रंप के खिलाफ मुकदमा बढ़ा


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faced calls on Tuesday to take measures ranging from an economic blockade to military action after Kurds voted in a referendum in support of independence. But he will need to proceed cautiously. Abadi has been trying to unite Iraq since he took office, focusing mainly on sectarian hostilities between Shi ites and Sunnis, which had triggered a civil war, and Islamic State militants who seized a third of his country before their defeat. The Shi ite-led Baghdad government and the Kurdish region in the north have struggled for years to resolve differences over oil and other sensitive issues. But Monday s vote, which is likely to lead to a breakaway state that has been the dream of generations of Kurds, has ratcheted up tensions, posing one of the biggest challenges to Abadi as he tries to keep Iraq together. The Iraqi government ruled out talks on possible secession for Kurdish-held parts of northern Iraq on Tuesday after projections by the Kurdish Rudaw TV channel showed support for a split could be over 90 percent. Neighboring Iran and Turkey also fiercely oppose independence in the north. They say it will cause regional chaos, and they also fear secession will encourage their own restive Kurdish populations to press for self-determination. Now Abadi s Shi ite constituency, as well as Sunni Arabs opposed to Kurdish independence, will be pressing him to take firm action. Disputed areas such as the multi-ethnic oil city of Kirkuk could be a flashpoint for widespread instability.  Kurds have gone too far and government must show them a tougher face. Government forces must go to maintain peace in Kirkuk and all other areas Kurds try to control by force,  said Mohammed Tamim, an Arab Sunni lawmaker from Kirkuk       Parliament has authorized Abadi to safeguard Iraqi unity and such a mandate allows him to send troops.  Mobilizing government troops may not be so easy. The army has spent years fighting Islamic State and the recent battle to drive the group out of Mosul has left many of Iraq s formations exhausted. Those troops that can fight are engaged in operations against Islamic State militants west of Kirkuk and near the Syrian border.  Another option would be to turn to Iranian-backed paramilitary groups. Some, like Asaib ahl al-Haq, have already threatened to march on Kirkuk. Tehran supports Shi ite Muslim groups that have been prominent in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.  Abadi, as the commander of armed forces, must switch the needle of the fighting compass toward Kirkuk,  said Hashim al-Mouasawi, a spokesman for the Shi ite Nujaba group, which has about 10,000 fighters and is loyal to Iran.  We are fully prepared to answer Abadi s orders to liberate Kirkuk and the oilfields from the separatist militias  control before it s too late. We will fight to safeguard the prestige of the state.  While the use of these paramilitary groups against the Kurds would spare the army from having to fight against fellow Iraqis, there are risks for Abadi. Tensions are already high between Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Shi ite paramilitary forces, even though they cooperated in the fight against Islamic State. Now that Islamic State has largely been removed from strategic areas, the ethnic and sectarian battle for land and influence that has dogged Iraq could complicate efforts to create harmony among its many sects and communities. If the Shi ite paramilitaries and Kurds clash, it will mean all-out war between two of the best fighting forces in Iraq, a U.S. ally and OPEC oil producer with an economy shattered by conflict. Vahal Ali, a spokesman for Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said the Kurds would not take further steps toward independence without pursuing peaceful negotiations with the Baghdad government. But, he added, Kurds did not have endless patience.  If we are attacked we will defend ourselves,  he said.  We are not breaking any laws. The Kurdish people were given a chance to vote and they did.  For its part, the Iraqi government gave the KRG three days to hand over  control of its airports in order to avoid an international air embargo, Abadi said, according to state TV. Baghdad asked foreign countries to stop flights to the international airports of Erbil and Sulaimaniya, in KRG territory, but only Iran complied.   Lawmakers called on Abadi to apply economic pressure on the Kurds, who suffered under Saddam for decades and then began building a semi-autonomous zone in the north after his fall. One possibility is a blockade of Kurdish areas, something that Vahal Ali said would also harm the Baghdad government.  The Government must take tough measures to prevent the Kurdish leaders from going too far,  said Shi ite lawmaker Ammar Tuma. He called for  shutting down exits and entrances, controlling the border crossings, chasing the funds Kurdish leaders generated from illegal oil sales, and finally deploying Iraqi forces in areas they try to control by force.  Kurdish oil sales without the consent of the government have angered Iraqi leaders. But placing an economic stranglehold on the Kurds may have only limited success for Baghdad if Turkey continues to trade with the north. Turkey has long been northern Iraq s main link to the outside world and the KRG exports hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day to world markets via Turkey. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Iraqi Kurds would go hungry if his country halts the flow of goods and oil across the border with northern Iraq. And while it sees the referendum as a grave matter for its own national security, Turkey has built good relations with Barzani s Kurdish administration. Iraq, including the Kurdish region, was Turkey s third-largest export market in 2016. Erdogan has repeatedly threatened economic sanctions against the Kurds in response to the referendum, but he has so far given few specifics.

Summary: कुर्दों के खिलाफ कार्रवाई करने के दबाव में इराक के पास सीमित विकल्प हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a moderate Republican from South Florida who has been critical of President Donald Trump, plans to retire when her term is up next year, according to an interview she gave on Sunday to the Miami Herald. The decision by Ros-Lehtinen not to seek re-election could give Democrats a chance to pick up a seat in the 2018 congressional election. Her district has increasingly leaned Democratic, and Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, won it by 20 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election. Ros-Lehtinen, 64, declined to endorse Trump during the White House race and differed with him on issues such as immigration. She balked at supporting the proposed Obamacare replacement legislation that the president backed. Ros-Lehtinen, who was born in Havana, became the first Cuban-American and the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress in 1989.  The veteran Republican congresswoman had fended off a challenge in 2016 from Democrat Scott Fuhrman. Fuhrman has said he plans to run again for the seat in 2018, when all of the members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate will face re-election. Trump’s Republicans currently control both the House and Senate. After the Miami Herald article was published, Fuhrman tweeted that he wished Ros-Lehtinen “all the best in retirement” and thanked her for “decades of public service” to the community. Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper that her decision was motivated by a desire to seek new challenges in her life and did not stem from concern that she would not be re-elected. “There was no epiphany,” she said. “There was no moment, nothing that has happened that I’ve said, ‘I’ve got to move on.’” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Democrats in the House of Representatives, said in a statement that Ros-Lehtinen’s plans to retire were a recognition that she was vulnerable. It is “all but guaranteed” that the seat will go to a Democrat when she leaves, the committee said.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन सांसद रोस-लेह्तीनेन, जो ट्रम्प के आलोचक हैं, सेवानिवृत्त होंगे


PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a bleak assessment on the global fight against climate change to dozens of world leaders and company executives on Tuesday, telling them:  We are losing the battle .  We re not moving quickly enough. We all need to act,  Macron said, seeking to breathe new life into a collective effort that was weakened this summer when President Donald Trump said he was pulling the United States out of an international accord brokered in the French capital two years ago.  Macron, who has worked to establish his role as a global leader since his sweeping election win in May, said modern-day science was revealing with each day the danger that global warming posed to the planet, he said.   We are losing the battle,  he said, urging a new phase in the fight against global warming. France announced a raft of 12 non-binding commitments, from a $300 million pledge to fight desertification to accelerating the transition toward a decarbonized economy. But there was no headline promise likely to reassure poor nations on the sharp end of climate change that they will be better able to cope.     Public and private financial institutions pledged to channel more funds to spur the transition to a green economy and investors said they would pressure corporate giants to shift toward more ecologically friendly strategies. Among the commitments, more than 200 institutional investors with $26 trillion in assets under management said on Tuesday they would step up pressure on the world s biggest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to combat climate change. That, they said, would be more effective than threatening to pull the plug on their investments in companies, which include Coal India (COAL.NS), Gazprom (GAZP.MM), Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (600028.SS). The European Commission, meanwhile, said it was  looking positively  at plans to reduce capital requirements for environmentally-friendly investments by banks in a bid to boost the green economy. Climate change is causing more frequent and severe flooding, droughts, storms and heatwaves as average global temperatures rise to new records, sea ice melts in the Arctic and sea levels rise.  Developing nations say the rich are lagging with a commitment dating back to 2009 to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 - from public and private sources alike - to help them switch from fossil fuels to greener energy sources and adapt to the effects of climate change. On Tuesday, the European Commission announced 9 billion euros worth of investments targeting sustainable cities, sustainable energy and sustainable agriculture for Africa and EU neighborhood countries. Yet the United Nations Environment Programme says the cost of adapting to climate change in developing countries could rise to between $280 billion and $500 billion per year by 2050.  Despite the hype, the One Planet summit is delivering little for the world s people who are the most vulnerable to climate change,  said Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA.  Rich countries continue to pretend that new schemes for businessmen to increase their profits will be the center of the solution for the poor.    Macron used the eve of the summit to award 18 grants to foreign climate scientists, most of whom are currently U.S.-based, to come and work in France.

Summary: दुनिया जलवायु परिवर्तन के खिलाफ लड़ाई हार रही हैः मैक्रों


AUGUSTA, Maine (Reuters) - Maine lawmakers killed a motion on Thursday that would have marked the first step toward impeaching Republican Governor Paul LePage, whose blunt comments have often infuriated adversaries. The motion, presented on Thursday morning by eight Democrats and one independent, called for the creation of a legislative committee to investigate at least eight “allegations of misconduct” against LePage. Lawmakers seeking LePage’s ouster contended he overstepped his authority when he threatened to withhold funds last year from a nonprofit that hired a political rival, among other charges. Legislators, including some of LePage’s critics in the Democratic-controlled state House of Representatives, voted 96-52 to postpone the motion indefinitely. “As I have said all along, this impeachment nonsense was nothing more than a political witch hunt that had absolutely no merit,” LePage said in a statement following the vote.     The vote came a week after LePage drew criticism for saying out-of-state drug dealers were coming to Maine and impregnating “white girls.” Critics called the comments racist, while LePage told reporters he had misspoken. The majority of Democrats who spoke during a three hour-long House debate favored an investigation of LePage’s actions, but Republicans said the allegations against LePage would set the bar for impeachment proceedings too low. “What is going to be the standard, the threshold, next time that someone is disgruntled with the actions of a chief executive?” asked Republican state Representative Ken Fredette. LePage has acknowledged threatening to withhold funding from a charter school for troubled youths, after it hired House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat, as president. LePage said he felt Eves was unqualified and had been offered the job as a political favor.  Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, a Democrat often at odds with LePage, reviewed the charges but found no basis for a criminal investigation. Since taking office in 2011 as a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, LePage has often engaged in a war of words with political opponents. He has called Eves a “hack” and often refers to the legislators as “corrupt.” No Maine governor has ever been impeached. Nationally, state officials are rarely impeached. Most recently, in 2009, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was removed from office for attempting to sell then President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat for cash.

Summary: मेन के सांसदों ने जुझारू गवर्नर पर महाभियोग चलाने का प्रयास छोड़ दिया


HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s first lady Grace Mugabe hit the campaign trail with her husband Robert on Friday, urging discipline in his party two weeks after she faced assault charges in South Africa. Grace, who is seen as a possible successor to her 93-year-old husband, was accused of assaulting a model at an upmarket Johannesburg hotel, but flew home after a minister granted her immunity. The first lady did not refer to the incident in her first speech since returning, instead telling a ZANU-PF party rally that supporters should stand behind Africa s oldest leader in the build-up to next year s elections.      We have a very unique position in Zimbabwe where we have our president who will soon be 94 years because that is what God decreed. No man of flesh can stop that,  Grace said in the speech broadcast on state television. South Africa s main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party is challenging the international relations minister s decision to give her immunity - a move that could in theory affect any future plans to travel to the country. Twenty-year-old model Gabriella Engels accused Grace Mugabe of whipping her with an electric extension cable as she waited with two friends in a luxury hotel suite to meet one of the Mugabes  adult sons.

Summary: हमले के आरोप के बाद ग्रेस मुगाबे जिम्बाब्वे के चुनाव प्रचार अभियान में लौटीं


NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in for second, five-year term on Tuesday, ending months of political turmoil in the east African nation. Kenyatta won a repeat presidential election on Oct. 26 after opposition leader Raila Odinga boycotted the vote, citing concerns over fairness. Police prevented opposition leaders from holding a rival gathering on Tuesday.

Summary: केन्या के राष्ट्रपति उहुरू केन्याटा ने दूसरे, पाँच साल के कार्यकाल के लिए शपथ ली


THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Appeals judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal upheld on Wednesday the convictions of six Bosnian Croats found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1990s, in the court s last verdict before it closes next month. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established by the United Nations in 1993, is due to close when its mandate expires at the end of the year. The six former high-level politicians and defense officials were convicted in 2013 of participating in an  ethnic cleansing  campaign against Bosnian Muslims.  They include Jadranko Prlic, a former defense minister, whose 25 year jail sentence was upheld on Wednesday.  He had been found guilty of being part of a criminal enterprise by the wartime Croatian government of late President Franjo Tudjman, to create an ethnically pure state. Zagreb, which maintained it had  clean hands  in the bloody 1992-95 war in Bosnia, had wanted that finding overturned.      However the appeals chamber concluded that it was not shown that the earlier judges had  misinterpreted relevant evidence  of Tudjman and Zagreb s confirmed Croatia s role in the Bosnian conflict. Several convictions for specific crimes for Prlic and the five others were reversed in the appeal, but president Judge Carmel Agius said  all six remain convicted of numerous and very serious crimes.

Summary: न्यायाधीशों ने यूगोस्लाव युद्ध न्यायाधिकरण के अंतिम फैसले में बोस्नियाई क्रोएशिया की दोषसिद्धि को बरकरार रखा


DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is to buy rice from Myanmar, putting aside worsening relations over the Rohingya refugee crisis as the government races to overcome a shortage of the country s staple food. Normally the world s fourth biggest rice producer, Bangladesh has become a major importer this year after floods hit its crops, sending domestic rice prices to record highs. The government has already secured deals to buy rice from Vietnam and Cambodia as domestic stocks diminished.  We ll buy 100,000 tonnes of white rice from Myanmar at $442 a ton,  its food minister, Qamrul Islam, said on Monday.  It will take some time to complete formalities. Then shipment will start,  he told reporters. Rice is a staple food for Bangladesh s 160 million people and high prices pose a problem for the government which faces a national election next year. The deal with Myanmar is the first state-to-state rice deal between the two countries, and comes amid increasingly strained relations. More than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military offensive in Myanmar have crossed into Bangladesh since Aug. 25. Bangladesh has said all refugees must go home and has also accused Myanmar of repeatedly violating its air space, warning that any more  provocative acts  could have  unwarranted consequences . Bangladesh recently finalised a deal to import 250,000 tonnes of white rice at $453 a ton from Cambodia, following a comparatively cheaper deal with Vietnam. It is also engaged in a second round of discussions with Thailand for rice after its initial talks with Bangkok, and India, suffered a setback over high prices. High demand from Bangladesh could further lift Asian rice prices, which hit multi-year highs in recent months after Bangladesh and other countries in South Asia saw their worst monsoon floods in years. Bangladesh seeks to import 1.5 million tonnes of rice in the year to next June. The government also started selling rice at a subsidized rate on Sunday and last month cut a duty on imports of the grain for the second time in two months. However, prices of rice have not budged, a situation largely blamed on hoarding by middlemen. National police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said on Monday that tough action would be taken against those found hoarding rice in order to later make windfall profits. Bangladesh produces around 34 million tonnes of rice annually but uses almost all its production to feed its population, and often requires imports to cope with shortages caused by floods or droughts.

Summary: बांग्लादेश ने चावल की कमी को कम करने के लिए म्यांमार के साथ मतभेद को दरकिनार किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has approved giving the U.S. military greater ability to accompany and enable Afghan forces battling a resilient Taliban insurgency, in a move to assist them more proactively on the battlefield, a U.S. official told Reuters.  The senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision would also allow greater use of U.S. air power, particularly close air support. However, the official cautioned: “This is not a blanket order to target the Taliban.” Obama’s decision again redefines America’s support role in  Afghanistan’s grinding conflict, more than a year after international forces wrapped up their combat mission and shifted the burden to Afghan troops. It also comes ahead of Obama’s eagerly anticipated decision on whether to forge ahead with a scheduled reduction in the numbers of U.S. troops from about 9,800 currently to 5,500 by the start of 2017. A group of retired generals and senior diplomats urged Obama last week to forgo those plans, warning they could undermine the fight against the Afghan Taliban, whose leader was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan last month. Under the new policy, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, will be able to decide when it is appropriate for American troops to accompany conventional Afghan forces into the field - something they have so far only been doing with Afghan special forces, the official said. The expanded powers are only meant to be employed “in those select instances in which their engagement can enable strategic effects on the battlefield,” the official said. That means that U.S. forces should not be expected to accompany Afghan soldiers on day-to-day missions. “This added flexibility ... is fully supported by the Afghan government and will help the Afghans at an important moment for the country,” the official said. The decision is a departure from current U.S. rules of engagement in Afghanistan, which impose limits on U.S. forces’ ability to strike at insurgents. For example, the U.S. military was previously allowed to take action against the Taliban “in extremis” - moments when their assistance was needed to prevent a significant Afghan military setback. That definition, however, left the U.S. military postured to assist them in more defensive instances. The new policy would allow U.S. forces to accompany Afghans at key moments in their  offensive campaign against the Taliban. “The U.S. forces will more proactively support Afghan conventional forces,” the official said. The Taliban control or contest more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since they were ousted by a U.S.-backed intervention in late 2001, and U.S. officials have acknowledged the uneven performance of Afghan security forces. Large portions of Afghanistan, including the provincial capital of northern Kunduz and multiple districts of southern Helmand province, have fallen, at times briefly, to the Taliban over the past year-and-a-half. Many other districts and provinces are also under varying degrees of Taliban control. The new authorities that Obama has given the U.S. military could give it greater leeway in addressing the shortcomings of Afghan security forces. Still, experts warn that its hard to predict when Afghanistan will be able to stand on its own against the Taliban, not to mention the country’s enormous economic difficulties and fractious political system. The U.S government’s top watchdog on Afghanistan told Reuters that the United States had wasted billions of dollars in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan over the past decade, and now a renewed Taliban insurgency was threatening the gains that had been made.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः ओबामा ने अफगानिस्तान में अमेरिकी बलों की व्यापक भूमिका को मंजूरी दी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump chided Merck & Co Inc’s Kenneth Frazier after the drugmaker’s chief executive resigned from a presidential advisory board earlier on Monday and cited a need for U.S. leaders to denounce bigotry following a violent weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

Summary: राष्ट्रपति परिषद से इस्तीफे के बाद ट्रम्प ने मर्क के सी. ई. ओ. को फटकार लगाई


(Reuters) - The U.S. Geological Survey said on Saturday it could not conclusively confirm whether a magnitude 3.5 earthquake detected in North Korea was manmade or natural. USGS put the epicenter of the quake 22 km (14 miles) east-northeast of Sungjibaegam, North Korea, near the country s main nuclear test site. Chinese earthquake officials earlier said the tremor was a  suspected explosion , while South Korean officials and CTBTO, the nuclear proliferation watchdog, both said they believed it was a natural quake.  The depth is poorly constrained and has been held to 5 km by the seismologist,  USGS said.  The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) is the sole organization in the U.S. federal government whose mission is to detect and report technical data from foreign nuclear explosions.

Summary: यू. एस. जी. एस. का कहना है कि उत्तर कोरिया में भूकंप प्राकृतिक है या मानव निर्मित, इसकी पुष्टि नहीं की जा सकती है।


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has this year registered its highest murder total since modern records began, according to official data, dealing a fresh blow to President Enrique Pena Nieto s pledge to get gang violence under control with presidential elections due in 2018. A total of 23,101 murder investigations were opened in the first 11 months of this year, surpassing the 22,409 registered in the whole of 2011, figures published on Friday night by the interior ministry showed. The figures go back to 1997. Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 pledging to tame the violence that escalated under his predecessor Felipe Calderon. He managed to reduce the murder tally during the first two years of his term, but since then it has risen steadily. At 18.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, the 2017 Mexican murder rate is still lower than it was in 2011, when it reached almost 19.4 per 100,000, the data showed. The rate has also held below levels reported in several other Latin American countries. According to U.N. figures used in the World Bank s online database, Brazil and Colombia both had a murder rate of 27 per 100,000, Venezuela 57, Honduras 64 and El Salvador 109 in 2015, the last year for which data are available. The U.S. rate was 5 per 100,000. Still, Pena Nieto s failure to contain the killings has damaged his credibility and hurt his centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which faces an uphill struggle to hold onto power in the July 2018 presidential election. The law bars Pena Nieto from running again. The current front-runner in the race, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has floated exploring an amnesty with criminal gangs to reduce the violence, without fleshing out the idea. Mexican newspaper Reforma said on Saturday that after a campaign stop in the central state of Hidalgo on Friday, Lopez Obrador again addressed the issue when asked whether talks aimed at stopping the violence could include criminal gangs.  There can be dialogue with everyone. There needs to be dialogue and there needs to be a push to end the war and guarantee peace. Things can t go on as before,  Reforma quoted Lopez Obrador as saying. Such a strategy harbors risks for the former Mexico City mayor. A poll this month showed that two-thirds of Mexicans reject offering an amnesty to members of criminal gangs in a bid to curb violence, with less than a quarter in favor. Separately, Lopez Obrador said on Saturday he would get rid of Mexico s intelligence agency CISEN if he won the July election, calling it an  unnecessary expense.   We re not going to monitor anybody, we re not going to spy, we re not going to listen to phone calls, or hack phones to get files and photos,  he said in the central town of Tezontepec.

Summary: मेक्सिको में हत्याओं की संख्या रिकॉर्ड स्तर पर, राष्ट्रपति को झटका


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia s foreign ministry plans to hold talks with a representative of North Korea s foreign ministry who is due to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday, the RIA news agency cited the North s embassy to Russia as saying.

Summary: रूस का विदेश मंत्रालय उत्तर कोरिया के राजनयिक से करेगा मुलाकात-आर. आई. ए.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some Republican lawmakers appear to be reassessing whether to make changes to a surveillance law that allows broad snooping of Internet communications, citing concerns over the handling of classified intercepts after leaks of conversations between Russian officials and American associates of President Donald Trump. The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect vast amounts of communications from foreigners, but often incidentally scoops up the communications of Americans. Until recently most Republicans have been quick to defend Section 702 and Congress had been expected to renew it without major changes before it expires at the end of the year. Though long criticized by privacy advocates, a new front of potential opposition to Section 702 has emerged as Republicans sputter about what they view as politically motivated leaks by the agencies amid probes of any collusion between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign.  The tensions burst into full view on Monday at a U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee hearing, during which FBI Director James Comey confirmed his agency was investigating those ties.  Republican Representative Tom Rooney told Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, who also testified, that concern over leaks would undermine support for Section 702, even though it appears to not have led directly to the leaks Republicans are fuming over. “When we try to retain this tool this year and try to convince some of our colleagues that this is really important for national security and somebody in the intelligence community says, ‘You know what, the hell with it, I’m going to release this person’s name because I’m going to get something out of it,’ we’re all going to be hurt by that,” Rooney said as he removed his glasses in apparent exasperation. While Democrats on the committee focused their questioning of Comey and Rogers on whether Trump aides may have suspicious ties to Russian officials, Republicans repeatedly redirected the conversation to focus on whether enough safeguards were in place to prevent leaks about Americans. U.S. intelligence agencies accused Moscow of attempts to influence the election in favor of Republican Trump, in part by hacking emails of Democratic Party operatives. Russia denies the allegations. Trump has criticized the intelligence agencies and has denied he has had anything to do with Russia. Section 702 surveillance is intended to apply only to foreigners living overseas. Elaborate rules govern incidental coverage of Americans, but the information can sometimes be used  nonetheless. Privacy advocates have said that communications belonging to as many as tens of millions of Americans could be caught up in the searches. Despite the concern about leaks, a White House official told Reuters earlier this month that the Trump administration favored a reauthorization this year of the expiring portions of the FISA without any changes to address privacy concerns. On Monday, several Republicans sought to directly link media reports revealing that Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, exchanged calls during the presidential transition with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about sanctions to the debate about Section 702.  Flynn had told Vice President Mike Pence he did not speak to Kislyak about sanctions, an assertion contradicted by news articles, which cited transcripts of surveillance intercepts and led to Flynn’s ouster. Comey and Rogers both said that Section 702 surveillance was unrelated to how intercepts of Flynn’s calls were collected or leaked to the press, and that such information would have most likely been gathered under a different part of FISA or a wholly separate authority. “That is a distinction that doesn’t make a difference to people watching on television,” Representative Trey Gowdy responded, adding that renewal of Section 702 was “in jeopardy if we don’t get this resolved.” The hearing echoed conversations that took place during a closed meeting with senior intelligence officials this month with the House Judiciary Committee, which is expected to take the lead on writing legislation that will seek reform and renewal of Section 702.  Two sources familiar with the meeting said several lawmakers sought clarity on how many intelligence officials had access to classified surveillance information but were frustrated by the lack of clear answers. Rogers said Monday that 20 people at NSA, including himself, possessed the authority to “unmask” Americans whose communications are ensnared via foreign intelligence programs. A select few officials at other agencies also have the authority, including some at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice and the CIA. Section 702 enables sweeping surveillance programs known as Prism and Upstream, which were revealed publicly in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet Inc’s Google , Facebook Inc , Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and other major tech companies that is sent to and from a foreign target under surveillance. Upstream allows the NSA to copy Web traffic flowing along the internet backbone located inside the United States and search that data.

Summary: ट्रम्प की रूसी उलझन ने रिपब्लिकन को निगरानी कानून पर पुनर्विचार करने के लिए प्रेरित किया


(Reuters) - Alabama officials on Thursday certified Democrat Doug Jones the winner of the state’s U.S. Senate race, after a state judge denied a challenge by Republican Roy Moore, whose campaign was derailed by accusations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. Jones won the vacant seat by about 22,000 votes, or 1.6 percentage points, election officials said. That made him the first Democrat in a quarter of a century to win a Senate seat in Alabama.  The seat was previously held by Republican Jeff Sessions, who was tapped by U.S. President Donald Trump as attorney general. A state canvassing board composed of Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall certified the election results. Seating Jones will narrow the Republican majority in the Senate to 51 of 100 seats. In a statement, Jones called his victory “a new chapter” and pledged to work with both parties. Moore declined to concede defeat even after Trump urged him to do so. He stood by claims of a fraudulent election in a statement released after the certification and said he had no regrets, media outlets reported. An Alabama judge denied Moore’s request to block certification of the results of the Dec. 12 election in a decision shortly before the canvassing board met. Moore’s challenge alleged there had been potential voter fraud that denied him a chance of victory. His filing on Wednesday in the Montgomery Circuit Court sought to halt the meeting scheduled to ratify Jones’ win on Thursday. Moore could ask for a recount, in addition to possible other court challenges, Merrill said in an interview with Fox News Channel. He would have to complete paperwork “within a timed period” and show he has the money for a challenge, Merrill said. “We’ve not been notified yet of their intention to do that,” Merrill said. Regarding the claim of voter fraud, Merrill told CNN that more than 100 cases had been reported. “We’ve adjudicated more than 60 of those. We will continue to do that,” he said.  Republican lawmakers in Washington had distanced themselves from Moore and called for him to drop out of the race after several women accused him of sexual assault or misconduct dating back to when they were teenagers and he was in his early 30s.  Moore has denied wrongdoing and Reuters has not been able to independently verify the allegations.

Summary: जोन्स ने मूर की चुनौती के बावजूद अमेरिकी सीनेट विजेता को प्रमाणित किया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a retirement plan for private-sector workers and a new light rail system in his State of the City speech on Thursday, while indicating that social inequality was decreasing under his administration. The Democratic mayor of the United States’ biggest city has been in office for a little over two years. He came to power promising to narrow the inequality gap that he said had created “a tale of two cities” after three four-year terms of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. De Blasio pressed that message again in his keynote speech on Thursday: “We see the ‘Tale of Two Cities’ transforming into ‘One New York,’” he said during the speech at a performing arts center in the Bronx. New York has a glamorous reputation but is home to many poor neighborhoods. Rising real estate prices have made the city less affordable for many residents. A plan to build a $2.5 billion light rail system linking Brooklyn and Queens, leaked to the news media a day earlier, was the boldest element in the speech for a mayor who has tended to favor social policy over infrastructure. The 16-mile (26-km) track would run from the borough of Queens’ Astoria neighborhood, tracing a line along the East River and New York’s Upper Harbor, to link up with Brooklyn’s Sunset Park section. It would pass through popular Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Brooklyn Heights. The mayor also called for the city to develop a retirement system for private-sector employees, addressing the low rate of retirement savings, especially among low-income workers. “We absolutely do not accept a status quo where people work all their lives only to be left with nothing,” said De Blasio, echoing previous calls for a better deal for workers. He also outlined plans to develop Governors Island, an underutilized area of land in the Upper Harbor off the southern tip of Manhattan that had been used as a military base until the city acquired it in 2010. De Blasio highlighted his push for a $15 dollar minimum wage, a movement that has gained traction with Democrats nationally, and called for his initiatives to introduce paid parental and sick leave to be adopted nationally. De Blasio shifted the speech to 7 p.m. (0000 GMT) from its usual daytime spot in the hope of reaching more New Yorkers.

Summary: एनवाईसी मेयर ने अपने भाषण में सेवानिवृत्ति योजना, प्रकाश-रेल प्रणाली का प्रस्ताव रखा


The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS.  The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy.  @realDonaldTrump : -#PeaceOfficersMemorialDay and #PoliceWeek Proclamation: here [2147 EDT] -Today, I delivered remarks at the 36th Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service.  #NationalPoliceWeek Watch: 45.wh.gov/bLxeyb [1554 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR)

Summary: ट्विटर पर ट्रम्प (15 मई)-राष्ट्रीय शांति अधिकारियों की स्मारक सेवा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted along party lines on Tuesday to repeal a new Labor Department rule on retirement advice after a debate that stretched over the course of the day. The resolution, approved by a vote of 56 to 41, is a largely symbolic move that President Barack Obama has already threatened to veto. The House of Representatives passed a similar version last month. Obama’s administration in April released the rule setting a fiduciary standard for financial brokers who sell retirement products, requiring them to put clients’ best interests ahead of their own bottom lines. Tuesday’s arguments revolved around what is best for middle- and lower-income workers. Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, say the rule will be expensive for brokers and force them to get rid of Main Street clients and small businesses that offer 401(k) plans. They also say the rule does not take into account existing regulations on financial advice.  Democrats say profit-hungry advisers have exploited middle- and lower-class workers by recommending retirement products that mostly serve to line their own pockets. Kicking off the debate, the most powerful Republican in the Senate, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, said blocking the rule would help “smaller savers.”  “I have sincere concerns about what this could mean for the ability of investment advisers to provide quality financial advice, but also for the ability of consumers to seek affordable retirement options,” he said. Nevada’s Harry Reid, the most powerful Democrat in the chamber, countered that there was nothing wrong with “a rule that would require investment advisers to act in the best interest of their investors.” One Republican, Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, described the rule as “a solution in search of a problem,” while fellow party member Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said “we should call this the ‘Only the Rich Retire’ rule.” Democrat Cory Booker of New Jersey said the rule would allow people to “retire with dignity” and without worries that an “adviser will exploit you.” Fellow Democrat Patty Murray of Washington said: “Some financial advisers have lined their own pockets by steering clients toward complicated investments. Some have recommended that retirees make transactions that come with hidden fees. And some get commission when they sell a financial product, even if it doesn’t make sense for a client,” she said.  “We finally have a new protection that would right that wrong.”

Summary: सीनेट ने अमेरिका के नए सेवानिवृत्ति नियम को खारिज किया; ओबामा वीटो करने के लिए तैयार


(Reuters) - Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential campaign has sued Ohio’s secretary of state in federal court over what it calls an unconstitutional attempt to prevent young people from voting in the state’s March 15 primary election. “It is an outrage that the secretary of state in Ohio is going out of his way to keep young people – significantly African-American young people, Latino young people – from participating,” the U.S. senator from Vermont said in a statement released on Tuesday. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus and  joined by six Ohio 17-year-olds, alleged that a directive by Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted would “arbitrarily discriminate” against young voters. Citing U.S. Census figures, it said such voters were more likely to be black or Latino than older groups of voters. Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the Nov. 8 election, has attracted support from young voters but has lagged behind rival Hillary Clinton in winning votes among minorities. Ohio is one of more than 20 states where 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the time of the general election are allowed to vote in primaries, the campaign statement said. Husted ruled last December that those voters would not be allowed to participate in the presidential primary. He denied there had been any changes to voting rules.  “We are following the same rules Ohio has operated under in past primaries, under both Democrat and Republican administrations. There is nothing new here,” Husted said on Twitter. “If you are going to be 18 by the November election, you can vote, just not on every issue.”  He said that 17-year-olds were “not permitted to elect candidates, which is what voters are doing in a primary when they elect delegates to represent them at their political party’s national convention.”         (Reporting by Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney) 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: सैंडर्स अभियान ने प्राथमिक चुनाव में युवाओं को वोट देने की अनुमति नहीं देने के लिए ओहियो पर मुकदमा दायर किया


BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in will unveil an array of TV talent and K-Pop celebrities at events, including a state dinner, in China on Thursday as he attempts to smooth out a year of difficult diplomacy with a star-laden charm offensive.  South Korean celebrities, including some of those accompanying Moon, had been shut out of Chinese television and concert halls as relations cooled between the East Asian neighbors as they faced the threat posed by North Korea s missile and nuclear programs. The thorniest issue was South Korea s deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system that China sees as a threat to its security. Moon is hoping to use his first visit to China since taking office in May to build support for a diplomatic solution to the North Korean crisis that has grown steadily through the year.  Pyongyang tested its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile on Nov. 29, which it said could put all of the United States within range, in defiance of international pressure and U.N. sanctions. Meeting in Beijing s Great Hall of the People, Moon told Chinese President Xi Jinping he would be discussing North Korea with him.  I expect to reaffirm and discuss specific cooperation with President Xi about our common position that we ll address the North Korean nuclear issue, which is threatening peace and security of not only the northeast Asia region but the entire world, in a peaceful manner and establish eternal peace on the Korean peninsula,  Moon said in comments in front of reporters.      Moon also oversaw the signing of a memorandum on follow-up negotiations about services and investments under a South Korea-China Free Trade Agreement. Top South Korean actress Song Hye-kyo, star of 2016 s hit drama  Descendants of the Sun  and the face of many South Korean cosmetics brands, will join Moon and Xi in a state dinner later on Thursday. Song will be joined by married South Korean and Chinese actors, Choo Ja-yeon and Xiaoguang Yu.  Boy band EXO, one of the top-earning artists of major K-Pop talent agency S.M. Entertainment, joined Moon and Song at a bilateral business event earlier on Thursday. The presence of such celebrities reflects Seoul s hope to break the ice after the row over its deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system. China complains that the THAAD system s powerful radar can see far into its territory and does nothing to ease tension with North Korea.  The THAAD deployment cost South Korean firms such as K-Pop businesses dearly as China retaliated. Concerts in China by major K-Pop artists have been halted since the second half of 2016, South Korean celebrities dropped from advertisements and South Korean dramas all but disappeared from Chinese TV channels this year, Korean entertainment industry officials said. Xi told Moon that relations between their countries had experienced  some setbacks  - likely a reference to the THAAD dispute - but that he hoped his visit would be an important opportunity to improve them.  As friendly neighbors and strategic partners, China and South Korea have broad common interests in keeping the region peaceful and promoting mutual developments,  Xi said.  South Korea and China share the goal of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and stop testing its increasingly sophisticated long-range missiles, but the two have not seen eye-to-eye on how to achieve this. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered on Tuesday to begin talks with North Korea at any time and without pre-conditions, but a White House official later said no negotiations could be held until North Korea improved its behavior. Moon, whose trip ends on Saturday, has been accompanied by the largest business delegation ever to accompany a South Korean leader abroad. The THAAD disagreement is estimated to have knocked about 0.4 percentage points off expected economic growth in South Korea this year and resulted in lost revenues of about $6.5 billion from Chinese tourists in the first nine months of 2017, according to the Bank of Korea and Korea Tourism Organisation.

Summary: दक्षिण कोरिया का चंद्रमा चीन के आकर्षण आक्रमण में के-पॉप और टीवी सितारों की कोशिश करता है


YANGON/DHAKA (Reuters) - Myanmar s army unearthed the bodies of 17 Hindu villagers on Monday, taking to 45 the number authorities suspect were killed by Muslim insurgents last month at the onset of a wave of violence that has sent 436,000 refugees fleeing to Bangladesh. The bodies have been found since Sunday buried outside a village in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, where bloodshed erupted on Aug. 25 when Rohingya Muslim insurgents launched coordinated attacks on about 30 police posts and an army camp. The United Nations has described a sweeping military response to those attacks as  ethnic cleansing  aimed at driving Rohingya out of Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Myanmar rejects that, saying it is fighting terrorists.   There is no ethnic cleansing. There is no genocide,  Myanmar s U.N. Ambassador Hau Do Suan told the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Monday.  The leaders of Myanmar who have long been striving for freedom and human rights would not espouse such policies.   We will do everything to prevent ethnic cleansing and genocide,  the diplomat said.  It is the responsibility of every government to fight against terrorism and protect innocent civilians. We condemn all human rights violations and violent acts.  Myanmar said before the mass graves were found that more than 400 people had been killed, most of them insurgents. Members of Myanmar s small Hindu minority appear to have been caught in the middle. Some have fled to Bangladesh, complaining of violence against them by soldiers or Buddhist vigilantes. Others have complained of being attacked by the insurgents on suspicion of being government spies. A search was launched on the weekend after a refugee in Bangladesh contacted a Hindu community leader in Myanmar to say insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) marched about 100 people out of their village on Aug. 25 and killed them, the government said. Twenty-eight bodies were found on Sunday.  This afternoon, a suspicious place was found about 400 meters northeast of the mass grave where the remains of Hindus were found yesterday,  the army said in a statement.  Seventeen bodies of men were retrieved.  The government has not speculated as to why the Hindus were killed. The army said the security forces and Hindu community leaders would continue the search. Access to the area by journalists as well as human rights workers and aid workers is largely restricted. An ARSA spokesman denied his group had killed the Hindus, saying Buddhist nationalists were trying to divide Hindus and Muslims.  ARSA has internationally pledged not to target civilians and that remains unchanged, no matter what,  the spokesman, who is based in a neighboring country and identified himself only as Abdullah, told Reuters through a messaging service. The violence in Rakhine State and the refugee exodus is the biggest crisis the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced since it came to power last year in a transition from nearly 50 years of military rule.     Myanmar regards the Rohingya Muslims as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and communal violence has flared periodically for decades. Most Rohingya are stateless. In Bangladesh, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said the Rohingya seeking shelter from  unimaginable horrors  faced enormous hardship and risked a dramatic deterioration in circumstances unless aid was stepped up.  They (have) seen villages burned down, families shot or hacked to death, women and girls brutalized,  U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a news conference in Dhaka after visiting camps near the border on the weekend.  Solutions to this crisis lie with Myanmar , he said, though for now, the world had to help and aid should be  rapidly stepped up . A Reuters reporter in Bangladesh said refugees were still arriving, with about 50 seen on Monday. The crisis has also threatened to drive a wedge into the Association of South East Asian Nations, with Muslim-majority Malaysia disavowing a statement on the Myanmar situation from the bloc s chairman, the Philippines, on the grounds it misrepresented  the reality  and did not identify the Rohingya as one of the affected communities. Myanmar, which is a member of the regional grouping, objects to the term Rohingya, saying the Muslims of Rakhine State are not a distinct ethnic group. This month, Malaysia summoned Myanmar s ambassador to express its grave concern over  atrocities  there.

Summary: म्यांमार में सामूहिक कब्र में और शव मिले; संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने त्वरित सहायता बढ़ाने की मांग की


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut’s lawmakers are aiming to pass an austerity budget for the coming financial year on Wednesday that cuts spending by nearly $1 billion as the state struggles with revenues that are falling well short of projections. Details of a deal reached between Governor Dannel Malloy and fellow Democrats were sparse early on Wednesday afternoon as budget staffers rushed to prepare the documents ahead of a vote later in the day. The budget for fiscal year 2016-2017, which starts on July 1, will cut spending by $830 million, divert $100 million from transportation and other funds and sweep $30 million from various agency accounts, said Adam Joseph, a spokesman for Connecticut Senate Democrats. The spending plan is aimed at closing a $960 million hole in next year’s finances that officials have blamed on falling capital gains tax receipts due to a volatile stock market. Malloy proposed an $18.14 billion general fund budget in February that cut discretionary spending but did not raise taxes. Since then the projected revenue shortfall for next year ballooned from $560 million to its current $960 million. The state’s legislative session ends at midnight on Wednesday but the budget vote could keep legislators up until the small hours. Both chambers of Connecticut’s General Assembly are dominated by Democrats.  Connecticut, despite being one of the wealthiest states in the nation on a per capita income basis, has struggled to recover from the financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009. The state also faces a gap of around $260 million in the current fiscal year, despite a series of cuts. Malloy has said 2,000 state employees could be laid off in what he calls a “new economic reality.” The governor has also frozen pay rises for managers in state government.

Summary: कनेक्टिकट ने मितव्ययिता बजट मतदान की तैयारी की, लगभग 1 अरब डॉलर की कटौती का लक्ष्य रखा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - (This May 17 story, in penultimate paragraph, corrects to show that Walter Jones is the only Republican in the House to support the petition, not that Jones and Justin Amash are the only two Republicans in the House to support the petition) Democratic lawmakers said on Wednesday they would try to force a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on forming an independent commission to investigate possible Russian influence on the 2016 election, saying Republicans could not be trusted to thoroughly investigate President Donald Trump. Representatives Elijah Cummings and Eric Swalwell introduced a bill in December 2016 and again in January 2017 seeking to establish a 12-member, bipartisan-appointed, independent commission to investigate. Democrats have been pushing for a special prosecutor or independent investigation of Russia and the election, and possible links between Trump’s associates and Moscow as the Republican campaigned for president. Russia has denied that it sought to meddle in the U.S. vote, and Trump has pushed back against such assertions. The Republican leaders of the House have not allowed the legislation to move forward, forcing Democrats to use a parliamentary procedure known as a “discharge petition” aimed at forcing a vote on legislation that would create the commission. “Speaker (Paul) Ryan has shown he has zero, zero, zero appetite for any investigation of President Trump,” Cummings told a news conference. He charged the White House with obstructing congressional investigations and refusing to provide documents. So far, Representative Walter Jones is the only Republican in the House to support the petition, which would not succeed unless 23 members of the party joined all 193 Democrats in signing it. Democrats have used discharge petitions successfully only twice in recent years, most recently for a vote to preserve the export-import bank in 2015.

Summary: अमेरिकी डेमोक्रेट स्वतंत्र रूस की जांच पर मतदान के लिए मजबूर करने की कोशिश करते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department will not conduct its regular daily press briefing until a new secretary of state is confirmed, leaving the main U.S. agency responsible for dealing with the rest of the world silent amid the uproar over President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration. Trump on Friday announced a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and a temporary bar on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries. The decision provoked a widespread backlash in foreign capitals, documented in cables U.S. embassies sent to Washington. Typically, in the aftermath of a major foreign policy shift, a State Department spokesperson would appear on camera within days to take questions from reporters and defend or explain the U.S. positions on different issues. The State Department has not briefed since the day before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, however, and on Monday a department spokesperson said no one will appear at the podium until the U.S. Senate confirms a new secretary of state. “At that point, we will update the press corps on our posture,” the spokesperson said. Trump’s desire to break with previous U.S. policies on issues including Israel’s construction of settlements, U.S. trade pacts, and cooperation with Russia suggests that State Department officials have not been given guidance on what positions they should articulate.     “Until you know what policy you’re advancing, it doesn’t do you any good to get out there,” said Richard Boucher, a former State Department spokesman who briefed reporters on the first weekday of the George W. Bush administration, in January 2001. “The decision not to brief is a simple admission that they don’t know what to say.” The Senate is due to vote on Monday on moving forward on confirming Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil Corp executive whom Trump has tapped to lead the State Department.   If as expected the Senate votes to advance his nomination, a final confirmation vote would most likely take place late on Tuesday. The lack of briefings this far into a new administration is a departure from the three previous inter-party transitions. In 1993, 2001, and 2009, State Department spokespeople briefed reporters no later than Jan. 23, according to briefing transcripts stored in online archives. In those three transitions, the new secretary of state was confirmed on or just after Jan. 20.

Summary: जैसे ही ट्रम्प ने आप्रवासन और विदेश नीतियों को बदला, विदेश विभाग चुप है


LONDON (Reuters) - Panic erupted among Christmas shopping crowds on London s Oxford Street on Friday evening as armed officers raced to respond to reports of shots being fired in the area, but police said later they had found no evidence of gunfire or casualties. Oxford Street, with its festive window displays and hundreds of overhead lights, was crammed with shoppers taking advantage of the Black Friday sales when the incident happened shortly after dusk. London s Metropolitan Police said in a statement they had found no evidence of gunfire, casualties or any suspects and that the incident, which lasted for just over an hour, had been stood down.  Given the nature of the information received, the Met responded in line with our existing operation as if the incident was terrorism, including the deployment of armed officers,  the police said in a statement. British Transport Police posted CCTV images of two men on Twitter, saying they believed that an altercation had erupted between the two men at the Oxford Circus underground station and said they would like to speak to the men, "who they believe may have information about the incident and the circumstances around the incident." bit.ly/2jkkVNT A Reuters witness said panicked shoppers had fled Oxford Street and the Oxford Circus underground station. The witness saw an elderly lady and a man carrying a child knocked over in the rush.  There were people running in all directions. I didn t know which way to run,  the witness said. The transport police said they had received a report of one woman suffering a minor injury in the panic. The capital s transport operator, Transport for London, said the Oxford Circus and Bond Street stations, which were briefly shut due to the incident, had later reopened.

Summary: गोलीबारी की खबरों के बाद लंदन की ऑक्सफोर्ड स्ट्रीट पर दहशत


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The bodies of six men were found hanging from three different bridges near the Mexican tourist resort of Los Cabos on the Baja California peninsula on Wednesday, local authorities said.  The authorities did not give details on what happened to the men, but drug gangs often hang the bodies of their murdered victims in public to intimidate rivals. Drug gang violence is set to make 2017 Mexico s deadliest year in modern history. Two bodies were found on a bridge in Las Veredas, near Los Cabos International Airport, and two on a different bridge on the highway between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, local prosecutors said in a statement.  In a separate statement, the prosecutors said two further bodies were found on a third bridge near the airport. An official from the prosecutor s office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bodies of the men had been hung from the bridges. Violent crime has spiked in Baja California, particularly around the once peaceful resort of Los Cabos visited by million of foreign tourists every year. Los Cabos police chief Juan Manuel Mayorga was shot dead last week.  Mexico is on track for its most violent year since records began, with the rise of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, now one of the country s most powerful, and disputes between other criminal groups fueling murder rates. On Tuesday, authorities in the northern state of Chihuahua said 12 people were killed in clashes between armed groups. The governor of the state of Baja California Sur, Carlos Mendoza Davis, said that authorities were investigating the incidents near Los Cabos.  I condemn these acts and any expression of violence. Today more than ever in #BCS we should be united,  he said via Twitter, using the hashtag for the state s initials. Homicides have more than doubled in Baja California Sur this year, with 409 people killed through October, from 192 in all of 2016. In June authorities said they had found a mass grave with the bodies of 11 men and three women near Los Cabos. More than 4.4 million passengers, mostly international, have passed through Los Cabos Airport so far this year, according to operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico.

Summary: मेक्सिको के लॉस काबोस पर्यटक रिसॉर्ट के पास पुलों से छह शव लटकाए गए