EVERGLADES CITY, Fla. (Reuters) - As Hurricane Irma raged through Everglades City, a tiny fishing village in a vast alligator-infested swamp, Howie Grimm hunkered down inside his house with his 88-year-old mother, a useless cell phone and a new job title. He had been acting mayor for less than a week. When the winds started to wane, he jumped in his truck and moved his mother to a higher perch   a trailer on stilts   because he knew a storm surge would follow the eye of the storm. He watched from the trailer as the surge swallowed his truck.  And that s how it all started, my   what do you call it?   mayorism?  he recalled with a laugh on Monday, as he leaned on a flooded forklift in front of his business, Grimm s Seafood. While most of South Florida was spared the worst of the dangerous storm, this remote hamlet of about 400 residents in the southwest part of the state, felt the full wrath of Irma s winds and waves. And yet residents here seemed to take it in stride, surveying the damage with a good humor and a shrug of the shoulders. Little help had arrived from the outside world the day after the storm, but no one here seemed to be asking for much help, either. In a town surrounded by marshlands, storms and floods are part of the deal.  The few residents that remained in this outpost for Irma s landfall on Sunday watched a surge up to eight feet high inundate roughly half of the homes and businesses - all the ones that were not up on stilts - and cake the town in gray swamp slime. Sammy Hamilton, 83, the city s mayor for 22 years until last week, lost two buildings housing tourism businesses, along with several vessels. One of his 55-foot tour boats ended up in a tree   an ornament of sorts.  That s how we decorate here for Christmas,  said Hamilton, who stepped down over his handling of the town s sewer plant, which had fallen out of compliance with state environmental regulations and faces a major overhaul.  The Florida Department of Environmental Protection sued the city in 2015, after inspectors caught the plant pumping sewage into nearby mangroves. Few residents expressed much anger with Hamilton over the sewer plant or his resignation days before a major flood.  I love the old mayor,  said Grimm, the acting mayor, who had criticized Hamilton s handling of the sewer debacle.  He s done a lot of good. He just decided he d had enough.  Everglades City is isolated geographically and culturally from the rest of South Florida by 1.5 million aces of preserved wetlands. Founded in the late 1800s, it later became the last stop on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Its historic Rod and Gun Club, which has hosted a half dozen U.S. presidents, including Harry Truman when he dedicated the swampland surrounding the city as a national park in 1947. Today, the city s economy rests on three main commodities: stone crabs, alligators and airboats. The commercial catch of stone crabs once played a bigger role than tourism - which primarily involves scouting alligators on airboats - but that mix is changing, said Vicky Wells, a fifth-generation resident. Her brother was among those who happily made the switch from processing crabs to toting tourists around on airboats.  It was a lot more money for a lot easier work,  Wells said.   People here do whatever they need to do to feed their family.  And many do whatever is needed to protect their family from wind and water. Having weathered many storms, the Wells family built their home a decade ago to withstand a major hurricane. Vicky s husband, Bob Wells, 72, drove pilings 23 feet into the ground and used rebar to reinforce a concrete foundation every two feet. He encased the windows in concrete, too.  We built this thing to stay. It stayed,  Bob said.  Across the street from the Wells  home, Ricky Collins, a 68-year-old Everglades City native, washed muck from his driveway as his grandson pushed it out of his house with a broom. The flood didn t rattle him, and he didn t think it would change how his neighbors, even the newer arrivals, viewed living there.  The difference in this town now is that we have a lot of foreigners   I mean, people from out of state,  he said.  But they ll stay, too. They ll probably do better than we will, because they have better insurance and everything.  Among the newcomers is Marlene Sassaman, 69, who moved here four years ago. She stayed for the storm and spent the next day mopping the mud out of her first floor.  If you have a strong house, you re fine,  Sassaman said As for the departure of the old mayor, she said she preferred to steer clear of any controversy.  Let s just say he  retired.  I don t want to go there,  she said.  He was born and bred here, and his pappy was born and bred here   I really love this place, because it s one of the last small towns in the country.

Summary: दलदल को निकालनाः इरमा के बाद कठिन रूप से प्रभावित एवरग्लेड्स शहर की सफाई


(Reuters) - New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Tuesday he had opened an inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation to ensure the Republican presidential nominee’s charity was complying with state laws governing nonprofits. Schneiderman, a supporter of Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton, sued the real estate mogul and his now defunct Trump University for fraud in 2013, seeking $40 million in restitution plus penalties and other costs. In a CNN interview on Tuesday, Schneiderman said his office had now brought Trump’s charitable foundation under scrutiny. “My interest in this issue really is in my capacity as regulator of nonprofits in New York state. And we have been concerned that the Trump Foundation may have engaged in some impropriety from that point of view,” the elected Democratic official said. He added: “We have been looking into the Trump Foundation to make sure it’s complying with the laws that govern charities in New York.” He did not elaborate on what wrongdoing Trump’s nonprofit might have committed. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung dismissed Schneiderman’s assertions as entirely motivated by presidential politics, calling the attorney general a “partisan hack who has turned a blind eye to the Clinton Foundation for years.” Cheung called Schneiderman’s comments “nothing more than another left-wing hit job designed to distract” attention from Clinton’s recent missteps on the campaign trail. Trump has accused Clinton of being corrupted by donors to the Clinton Foundation global charity founded by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, while she was U.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Clinton has dismissed Trump’s allegation as a political smear. There has been no evidence that foreign donors to the foundation obtained favors from the State Department while Clinton headed the agency. Schneiderman made his remarks when asked on CNN about calls from Democrats in Congress for a federal investigation of a $25,000 donation in 2013 from the Trump Foundation to a political committee supporting Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi.  Democrats have cited an Associated Press report that Bondi solicited the donation personally, around the time her office was debating whether to join New York state’s investigation into Trump’s real estate training school in Florida. According to the AP, Bondi, who was seeking re-election at the time, broke off the lawsuit deliberations after the check arrived. Bondi, who has endorsed Trump, has called the AP report misleading.

Summary: न्यूयॉर्क के अटॉर्नी जनरल ने ट्रम्प फाउंडेशन की जांच शुरू की


OSLO (Reuters) - Following is the text of the Nobel Peace Prize award on Friday to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).  The organization is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons. We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time. Some states are modernizing their nuclear arsenals, and there is a real danger that more countries will try to procure nuclear weapons, as exemplified by North Korea.  Nuclear weapons pose a constant threat to humanity and all life on earth. Through binding international agreements, the international community has previously adopted prohibitions against land mines, cluster munitions and biological and chemical weapons. Nuclear weapons are even more destructive, but have not yet been made the object of a similar international legal prohibition. Through its work, ICAN has helped to fill this legal gap. An important argument in the rationale for prohibiting nuclear weapons is the unacceptable human suffering that a nuclear war will cause. ICAN is a coalition of non-governmental organizations from around 100 different countries around the globe. The coalition has been a driving force in prevailing upon the world s nations to pledge to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. To date, 108 states have made such a commitment, known as the Humanitarian Pledge. Furthermore, ICAN has been the leading civil society actor in the endeavor to achieve a prohibition of nuclear weapons under international law. On 7 July 2017, 122 of the UN member states acceded to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  As soon as the treaty has been ratified by 50 states, the ban on nuclear weapons will enter into force and will be binding under international law for all the countries that are party to the treaty. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is aware that an international legal prohibition will not in itself eliminate a single nuclear weapon, and that so far neither the states that already have nuclear weapons nor their closest allies support the nuclear weapon ban treaty.  The Committee wishes to emphasize that the next steps towards attaining a world free of nuclear weapons must involve the nuclear-armed states. This year s Peace Prize is therefore also a call upon these states to initiate serious negotiations with a view to the gradual, balanced and carefully monitored elimination of the almost 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Five of the states that currently have nuclear weapons   the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China   have already committed to this objective through their accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1970. The Non-Proliferation Treaty will remain the primary international legal instrument for promoting nuclear disarmament and preventing the further spread of such weapons. It is now 71 years since the UN General Assembly, in its very first resolution, advocated the importance of nuclear disarmament and a nuclear weapon-free world. With this year s award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to pay tribute to ICAN for giving new momentum to the efforts to achieve this goal. The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has a solid grounding in Alfred Nobel s will.  The will specifies three different criteria for awarding the Peace Prize: the promotion of fraternity between nations, the advancement of disarmament and arms control and the holding and promotion of peace congresses. ICAN works vigorously to achieve nuclear disarmament.  ICAN and a majority of UN member states have contributed to fraternity between nations by supporting the Humanitarian Pledge. And through its inspiring and innovative support for the UN negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons, ICAN has played a major part in bringing about what in our day and age is equivalent to an international peace congress. It is the firm conviction of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that ICAN, more than anyone else, has in the past year given the efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons a new direction and new vigor.

Summary: परमाणु विरोधी अभियान आईसीएएन को नोबेल शांति पुरस्कार का पाठ


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Thursday denounced the murder of innocent women and children as the  horrid face  of war as he presided at a special prayer service for peace in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Francis had planned to go later this year to South Sudan, which has been hit by civil war, famine and a refugee crisis, but had to scrap the project for security reasons. During the service, which was punctuated by African singing in English, French, Italian and Swahili, Francis asked God to  break down the walls of hostility that today divide brothers and sisters, especially in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.   May he protect children who suffer from conflicts in which they have no part, but which rob them of their childhood and at times of life itself,  he said in his brief homily.  How hypocritical it is to deny the mass murder of women and children! Here war shows its most horrid face,  he said. St. Peter s Basilica was decked out with photographs of African children. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after protracted bloodshed, then fell into civil war in late 2013, with troops loyal to President Salva Kiir fighting those backing Riek Machar, a former vice president Kiir had sacked. Both sides have targeted civilians, human rights groups say.  Right now, we are moving into the lean season, and by July of 2018, many thousands of people across South Sudan   not just isolated pockets of the country   will be dying from hunger,  said Jerry Farrell, country representative in South Sudan for  Catholic Relief Services.  What is most tragic is there absolutely shouldn t be hunger in South Sudan,  he said in an email, adding that people of different tribes inter-marry and work together but that the conflict is instigated and fanned by politicians. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, dozens of people have died in protests against President Joseph Kabila s refusal to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last December. Unrest sparked by the uncertainty surrounding the polls has raised fears Congo could witness a repeat of the kind of violence that killed millions around the turn of the last century, mostly from hunger and disease.

Summary: अफ्रीका की सेवा में पोप ने महिलाओं और बच्चों की हत्या की निंदा की


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Catalonia s separatist leader Carles Puigdemont called on Spain s government on Saturday to allow him to return home in time for the opening session of the Catalan parliament so that he can become the region s next president. Puigdemont, who ruled in Catalonia until October and faces arrest in Spain for his role in organizing an illegal referendum on independence and proclaiming a Catalan republic, is currently in self-imposed exile in Belgium. Separatist parties secured a parliamentary majority in a regional election on Thursday, though it is still unclear whether Puigdemont and other jailed leaders of the movement will be able to attend assembly sessions.   I want to come back to Catalonia as soon as possible. I would like to come back right now. It would be good news for Spain,  Puigdemont told Reuters in an interview. Asked if he would be back in time for the opening session which has to take place at the latest on January 23, he said:  It would be natural. If I am not allowed to be sworn in as president, it would be a major abnormality for the Spanish democratic system.   I am the president of the regional government and I will remain the president if the Spanish state respects the results of the vote,  he also said. Puigdemont, who has called for dialogue with the Spanish government to resolve the current tensions between the turbulent region and the authorities in Madrid, said he was ready to listen to any proposal from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy even if this offer fell short of an offer of independence.  If the Spanish state has a proposal for Catalonia, we should listen,  Puigdemont said, asking for a dialogue of equals. Rajoy on Friday said he was open to dialogue but implicitly rejected Puigdemont s demand to meet soon, saying he would talk with whoever was Catalonia s president only once they have been elected by the new regional parliament.  Before that, his first interlocutor should be Ines Arrimadas, whose centrist, anti-independence party scored most votes on Thursday, he said. Arrimadas does not have enough seats or allies to form a government, while separatist parties put together have a narrow majority. Past calls for dialogue on both the separatist and unionist side in the past have failed to yield concrete results and the crisis is likely to keep haunting Madrid, as well as EU leaders, for a long time. Negotiations to form a government in Catalonia are likely to open after Jan. 6 following the holiday break. Parliament must vote by Feb. 8 on putting a new government into place.

Summary: कैटलन नेता ने स्पेन से कहा, मुझे वापस आने दो


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday said the Justice Department was reviewing its options after a federal judge denied a request by President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce his ban on transgender troops while the government appeals an order blocking it. “The Department of Justice is currently reviewing the legal options to ensure the president’s directive is implemented,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

Summary: ट्रांसजेंडर भर्तियों पर फैसले के बाद न्याय विभाग विकल्पों की समीक्षा कर रहा हैः व्हाइट हाउस


(Reuters) - A business group said on Monday it was asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a lower-court ruling tossing out its challenge of part of Seattle’s law to increase the minimum wage. The International Franchise Association, which brought its lawsuit against the city in June 2014, says the law favors independent businesses because it requires franchises like McDonald’s and Burger King to phase in the new $15 minimum wage more quickly.  “Our appeal has never sought to prevent the City of Seattle’s wage law from going into effect,” association President Robert Cresanti said in a statement.  “Our appeal to the Supreme Court will be focused solely on the discriminatory treatment of franchisees under Seattle’s wage law and the motivation to discriminate against interstate commerce,” he said. The association’s lawsuit challenges the law’s treatment of franchises as subsidiaries of parent companies, rather than completely separate businesses. Representatives for the city could not be immediately reached for comment. Commenting on the lawsuit last year, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a Democrat who championed the wage hike, said: “Rather than investing in lawyers to prevent workers from earning higher wages, it is time for these large businesses to begin investing in a higher minimum wage for their employees.”  A federal judge last March denied the group’s lawsuit, saying it failed to back up its discrimination claims. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in September. The law, which took effect on April 1 last year, requires businesses in Seattle with more than 500 employees nationwide to raise their minimum wage to $15 by 2018. Smaller companies have until 2021. Seattle is among a number of large U.S. cities to pass laws raising the minimum wage above $10 an hour. The franchise association’s lawsuit could have an impact in cities like Chicago and San Francisco. The association said it expected the Supreme Court to say in the spring whether it would take the case.

Summary: फ्रेंचाइजी ने सिएटल न्यूनतम मजदूरी मामले को यू. एस. सुप्रीम कोर्ट में अपील की


SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia, concerned about rising Chinese influence, will ban foreign political donations as part of a crackdown aimed at preventing external interference in domestic politics, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Tuesday. Turnbull told reporters in Canberra that foreign powers were making  unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process  in Australia and the world. He cited  disturbing reports about Chinese influence . Australia and neighbouring New Zealand are among roughly a third of countries worldwide that allow foreign donations to political parties. Such donations are prohibited in the United States, Britain and several European countries. Australia s new laws, modelled in part on the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, would criminalise foreign interference and require the registration of lobbyists working for nation states, Turnbull said. The announcement came as concern grows that Beijing may be extending its influence and as relationships between Australian politicians and Chinese government interests have become increasingly contentious. Fairfax Media and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in June on a concerted campaign by China to  infiltrate  Australian politics to promote Chinese interests. China denies the claims.  In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had no intention of interfering with Australia s internal affairs or using political funding to influence them.    At the same time, we want to again urge Australia to remove their biases and take an objective and positive attitude to assess China and its relations with Australia,  he added. However, leading opposition Senator Sam Dastyari quit some senior Labor Party positions last week after a tape surfaced of him appearing to endorse China s contentious expansion in disputed areas of the South China Sea, against his party s platform. The tape, which showed him standing next to property developer Huang Xiangmo, a major Chinese political donor, was leaked to the media.  I take those reports, as do my colleagues, very seriously,  Turnbull said. However, the new laws  are not about any one country , he said.  Foreign interference is a global issue ... for example, we re all familiar with very credible reports that Russia sought to actively undermine the United States  election ... the threat is real,  Turnbull said. The new laws, should they pass parliament, would ban foreign donations to political parties or any political group that has spent more than A$100,000 ($76,350) campaigning in the past four years - a rule that could also likely affect environmental and other campaign groups. Australia expressed deep concern last month over a crackdown on pro-democracy groups in Cambodia. Despite that, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said foreign donations to activist group GetUp!, a non-partisan but vocal critic of the centre-right government, would be banned under Australia s new laws. GetUp! said in a statement only 0.5 percent of its donations come from overseas. It criticised the proposed laws as an attempt to avoid scrutiny of government policies and for failing to curtail donations from multinational corporations. The definitions of treason and espionage would also be broadened under the new laws to include possessing or receiving sensitive information, rather than just transmitting it. Since the controversial sale of the port of Darwin to a Chinese company in 2015, the government has been at pains to demonstrate limits to its ties to China, its biggest export partner, blocking sales of Australia s biggest cattle station and biggest power grid to Chinese interests.  ($1 = 1.3098 Australian dollars)

Summary: ऑस्ट्रेलिया, चीन पर चिंताओं का हवाला देते हुए, विदेशी राजनीतिक प्रभाव पर नकेल कसता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday he remained confident about the future of the U.S.-Philippines relationship despite “a difference here or there” and that he hoped to visit Manila again before leaving office. New Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has thrown Manila’s long-standing alliance with Washington into question since taking office in June with a series of insults and threats to cut ties with the former colonial power. Speaking at a swearing-in ceremony for the new U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, Kerry called the alliance between the two peoples “indelible.” Kerry recalled shared resistance to Japan in World War Two and noted that nearly 4 million people of Philippine descent live in the United States while almost a quarter of a million Americans live in the Philippines. “I am confident about the future of our bilateral relations, notwithstanding a difference here or there about one thing or another,” he said. Kerry did not mention Duterte by name but said all needed to have the wisdom to adjust to change brought about by democratic elections. He noted that Sung Kim had tackled “some really tough, complex challenges” in the past, given his previous assignments dealing with North Korea. Kerry said the United States and the Philippines would “continue to consult openly and honestly” and added: “I very much hope to visit there before leaving my term of office as secretary of state.” Kerry’s term officially ends on Jan. 20 after Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, although he could be asked to stay on temporarily under the future administration.  He said he told Duterte on a visit to the Philippines in July of Washington’s “ironclad commitment to the sovereignty and independence and security of the Philippines.” “We will continue to cooperate in efforts to maintain peace and stability and to promote shared prosperity in the Asia Pacific,” Kerry said, adding that Washington would continue to help the Philippines in the event of national emergencies. Daniel Russel, the senior U.S. diplomat for East Asia, who visited the Philippines last month, conceded that the relationship was “going through a bit of a rough patch - some growing pains. “There been some name-calling coming out of Manila; some questions raised about what the future holds,” he told a news briefing. “But ... the deep, deep roots between the United States and the Philippines ... will over the long term ensure stability in the relationship.” Russel, an assistant secretary of state, said all the senior officials he met in Manila told him they saw value in continued defense cooperation and he was not aware of any action that had “significantly affected our ability to cooperate.” “I am not saying that can’t happen, but I hope it doesn’t,” he said. In his latest outburst, Duterte chided the United States on Wednesday for the halt of a planned sale of 26,000 rifles to his country, calling those behind the decision “fools” and “monkeys” and indicating he might turn to Russia and China instead.

Summary: केरी ने फिलीपींस संबंधों पर भरोसा जताया, फिर से यात्रा करने की उम्मीद जताई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday said a shifting landscape will lead him to work with Democrats on immigration and financial regulation early in the new year, following a year of acrimony and partisan legislation. In an end-of-year news conference, McConnell touted a list of Republican accomplishments since President Donald Trump took office in January. It started with the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and ended with an overhaul of the  U.S. tax code. But in January, McConnell’s already razor-thin 52-48 Republican majority will shrink to 51-49 with the swearing in of Senator-elect Doug Jones, the Democrat who surprised the political world with a win in a special election in the deeply Republican state of Alabama. Adding to McConnell’s difficulties, special Senate procedures are fading that allowed him to pass a tax bill and try to repeal the Affordable Care Act this year without any Democratic support. That means that McConnell’s victories - if he has them - will require more collaboration and less confrontation. The pivot was the centerpiece of his news conference remarks.  “There are areas where I think we can get bipartisan agreement,” McConnell said. First on his list was legislation to change Dodd-Frank banking regulations that he said would help smaller financial institutions. The Kentucky senator noted that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo has advanced legislation that is co-sponsored by several Democrats. McConnell also pointed to bipartisan efforts to help undocumented immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who were brought into the United States when they were children. If negotiators from both parties can come to a deal for the Dreamers that Trump’s administration can support, “we’ll spend floor time on that in January,” McConnell said. On Thursday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer complained that throughout 2017 Republicans “have been hell-bent on pursuing a partisan agenda.” When asked by a reporter of possible bipartisan successes in 2018, Schumer pointed to the need for infrastructure improvements but said that Trump has been “all over the lot” on how to accomplish road, airport and other construction projects. With the November 2018 congressional elections approaching, Democrats might have less incentive to cooperate with Republicans, especially after Schumer’s party won decisive victories in special elections this month and last in Alabama and Virginia. McConnell hinted it would be tougher to find agreement with Democrats on some other legislative issues, including welfare reform, which Trump says he wants to push ahead with in 2018. McConnell said he would consult with Trump and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan in January over prospects for welfare reform.

Summary: सीनेट के नेता मैककॉनेल ने 2018 को अधिक कॉलेजियल माना


PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron s initiative in bringing Lebanon s Saad al-Hariri to Paris puts France at the center of a power struggle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran and will test a policy of neutrality that critics doubt can be sustained.  While the move eased regional tensions that spiked after the prime minister s resignation on Nov. 4, it also exposed the difficulty of Macron s stated position of taking no sides in the Middle East.  Macron has put his neck out on Lebanon,  said a European diplomat who didn t want to be named talking about an ally s policies.  It s a bit like his moment of truth.  Hariri, a Saudi ally, arrived in France on Saturday days after announcing his resignation while in Riyadh, accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of creating strife. Many Lebanese believe the Saudis made him quit. President Michel Aoun has not accepted the resignation and Hariri is expected to return to Beirut on Wednesday, when Lebanon celebrates the end of France s colonial mandate in 1943. Macron s maneuver, which came after a visit to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a flurry of calls, appears to have taken the foreign ministry by surprise, an example of his penchant for bypassing state organs to show he s in charge, much like former leader Nicolas Sarkozy.  So far it s a symbolic victory for French diplomacy that has enabled a reduction in tensions,  said Stephane Malsagne, a lecturer at Sciences Po University in Paris, adding it was a  risky gamble  that could antagonize all sides.  Macron set out his foreign policy objectives for the region in his first speech to the diplomatic corps in August, saying he wanted France to maintain a balanced position.  We will achieve our goal of fighting terrorism only if we do not make the mistake that would impose a choice between Shi ites and Sunnis, and in a sense, force us to lock ourselves in one camp,  he said at the time. Some French diplomats say Macron will find it difficult to appease everyone, however.  Lebanon maintains a delicate sectarian balance after Sunnis, Shi ites, Christians and Druze fought a civil war between 1975 and 1990, with factions often backed by regional rivals. Hariri is Sunni Muslim and President Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, is Christian. Hariri s government, a power-sharing coalition formed last year, includes Shi ite Hezbollah.  This mediation is an introduction for a new French political role in Lebanon ... (and) a French attempt to find a foothold starting from Lebanon into the region,  said a senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity.  But in the shadow of big players (U.S., Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia) in the region, the French will face difficulties.   Since Hariri announced his resignation, Saudi Arabia has accused Lebanon of declaring war on it, citing Hezbollah s role in fighting in other Arab countries.     France has a long history of commercial, political and social links with Iran that even saw Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei exiled near Paris in 1979, but it was arguably the most demanding of the six powers negotiating the 2015 nuclear accord. Under Presidents Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, who aligned themselves with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, respectively, there was a hawkish shift toward Tehran. Since the deal, Paris has been quick to restore trade ties, with planemaker Airbus, oil major Total and automobile manufacturers Peugeot and Renault all signing deals. That rapprochement annoyed Riyadh, which has been moving closer to the United States under President Donald Trump.  We had to reassure the Saudis ... and rebalance things. Prince Salman has gone into overdrive and that s dangerous for  everyone so he needs some love from us,  said one French diplomat, who asked not to be identified.  Tehran is now chafing in turn over France s warming Saudi ties and what appears to be a good relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due in Paris on Dec. 10 for the second time since Macron took office in May. Recent rhetoric has reflected the tensions. At a news conference on Friday, Macron said Iran should clarify what is going on with its ballistic missile program which  seems to be uncontrolled . That followed a news conference in Riyadh on Thursday at which Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian denounced Tehran s  hegemonic temptations . On Saturday Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran s supreme leader, told Macron to stay out of its affairs. Le Drian has pushed back a planned visit to Tehran and talk that Macron may visit next year has become more muted.   Speaking to all sides is noble, but this policy in the region will come tumbling down if Le Drian and Macron do not go to Tehran. Our credibility depends on it,  said a second French diplomat. Some hardline politicians in Iran have criticized President Hassan Rouhani for trying to strengthen ties with Paris, saying Europeans will not endanger their interests in the face of U.S. pressure. A senior Iranian official said Macron s policy of  balance  ultimately just offered mixed signals.  He talks about curbing Iran s defensive missile work and criticizes Iran s regional policy and then he wants to build closer ties?  the official said.   France should clearly announce which side Paris is taking.... we like to expand our relations but Paris sends mixed signals and cannot be trusted.

Summary: मैक्रों ने लेबनान पर राजनयिक तख्तापलट किया लेकिन संतुलन बनाने का काम परीक्षण के दायरे में है


PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday  ended his ban on press credentials for some news outlets seeking to cover his campaign events, including The Washington Post and Buzzfeed, a policy that had drawn strong criticism from press freedom advocates. Trump’s ban at times also included Politico and The Huffington Post, following coverage that was critical of him. The banned organizations had continued covering his campaign, but they could not get credentials to formally attend his events, including sitting in the media section at rallies.  Those outlets now will be able to obtain media credentials, as well as travel with other reporters covering the Republican candidate, campaign spokesman Hope Hicks confirmed. Press freedom advocates strongly condemned such bans. Reporters without Borders said when the Post was banned in June that it was an “act of hostility” toward the media and a serious violation of press freedom. “Revoking press credentials was imprudent, pointless and offensive from the start. We’re pleased to see the ban come to a long-overdue end,” Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron said in a statement on Wednesday. Sam Stein, senior politics editor for the Huffington Post, said on Twitter the outlet was no longer blacklisted. “They even returned my email to confirm it,” he said of the Trump campaign. Reporters from the banned organizations had often gained access to Trump campaign events by waiting in the same lines as the general public, but they could be tossed out by members of his security team if discovered. Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, said last month that the campaign was discussing reversing the ban, but no change had been announced before Wednesday. “I figure they can’t treat me any worse,” Trump, a New York businessman, told CNN in a statement declaring the ban over. Trump is running against Democrat Hillary Clinton for the Nov. 8 election.

Summary: ट्रम्प अभियान ने कुछ मीडिया आउटलेट्स के लिए क्रेडेंशियल्स पर प्रतिबंध को उलट दिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, taking on Republican presidential candidates for stirring up anxiety among Americans, told leaders at Washington’s national prayer breakfast on Thursday that faith could conquer fear brought on by war, technology, and economic troubles. “It is a primal emotion, fear, one that we all experience.  And it can be contagious, spreading through societies, and through nations,” Obama said. “For me, and I know for so many of you, faith is the great cure for fear. Jesus is a good cure for fear. God gives believers the power, the love, the sound mind required to conquer any fear. And what more important moment for that faith than right now?” he said. Obama’s remarks came a day after his first visit to a U.S. mosque, where he sought to allay fears of Americans accustomed to pop-culture portrayals of Muslims as terrorists and to reassure Muslim American youth about their identity. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.  Obama, a Christian, said his faith had helped him deal with the challenges of being president and was bolstering him as his children grew up and prepared for adulthood. “It helps me deal with the common, everyday fears that we all share. The main one I’m feeling right now is that our children grow up too fast. They’re leaving!” he said to laughter.  The president said he had drawn on his faith when comforting the parents of children killed by gun violence, a subtle reference to his failed effort to sharpen U.S. gun control laws. He said that people of faith had helped take in Syrian refugees, a subtle jab at Republicans who oppose allowing them into the country.

Summary: ओबामा ने विश्वास को युद्ध और कठिन समय से उपजे डर का इलाज बताया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States is trying to promote a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela by imposing new sanctions, Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza said on Friday after the sanctions were announced by the White House. Speaking at the U.N. headquarters in New York, Arreaza said “threats” and “supposed sanctions” from the United States are “uncivilized politics.” He said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will not attend the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N., scheduled for next month.

Summary: अमेरिका वेनेजुएला में संकट को बढ़ावा देने की कोशिश कर रहा हैः विदेश मंत्री


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam on Thursday endorsed U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida for the Republican party’s presidential nomination. “With Marco standing next to Hillary Clinton on a debate stage, the choice between the future and the past will be clear to every American. Marco has the innovative policy agenda to reclaim the American Dream for all our people, and his conservative ideas will bring the Republican Party – and America – into the future,” Haslam, a popular second-term Republican governor, said in a statement. Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have been trailing real estate billionaire Donald Trump in most polls in the race to represent the party in the Nov. 8 presidential election.    (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Susan Heavey) 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: टेनेसी के गवर्नर ने रिपब्लिकन राष्ट्रपति पद की दावेदारी में रूबियो का समर्थन किया


BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday rejected a total ban on arms exports to NATO partner Turkey, saying that such sales had already been restricted somewhat, but Turkey remained a key ally in the fight against Islamic State. Merkel s comments came a day after Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Berlin had put most arms exports to Turkey on hold due to the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and increasingly strained ties. Merkel told broadcaster NDR that Germany would decide on arms sales requests from Turkey on a case-by-case basis. She also said she saw no reason to impose a travel warning for Germans traveling to Turkey, but said Berlin would keep its options open.

Summary: जर्मनी की मर्केल ने तुर्की को हथियारों के निर्यात पर पूर्ण प्रतिबंध को खारिज कियाः एन. डी. आर.


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s NB Publishers said on Friday it had received a letter from the State Security Agency (SSA) ordering it to pull a new book on President Jacob Zuma off the shelves as it contravened the Intelligence Service Act. The publishers said they stood by  The President s Keepers - Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison , and its lawyers would respond to the letter sent by the SSA. The book by journalist Jacques Pauw alleges millions of dollars in taxpayers  money flowed into the bank accounts of spies and Zuma s government and details the actions of law-enforcement agencies. It alleges Zuma failed to submit tax returns for the first five years of his presidency. The president s office has issued a statement rejecting the accusations contained in the book, adding that Zuma had declared all income received to tax authorities.  The SSA warns NB Publishers in a letter seen by Reuters that it will launch criminal charges if the book is not withdrawn.   Noting your admission that you did not seek the views of the people apparently implicated, it is not surprising that this book is replete with inaccuracies,  the SSA said in the letter sent to NB Publishers by its lawyers Kgoroeadira Mudau Inc. The letter said the book contained elements in contravention of the country s Intelligence Service Act. No SSA spokesperson was available for further comment. A spokeswoman for NB publishers said its lawyers were handling the matter.  We have received the letter but have not pulled the book yet because our attorneys have been given time to respond,  Jean Pieters, NB Publisher s spokeswoman said.

Summary: दक्षिण अफ्रीका की सरकारी एजेंसी चाहती है कि ज़ूमा की किताब दुकानों से हटाई जाए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmakers called on Wednesday for a congressional committee to issue subpoenas to the White House and three companies for documents about fired national security adviser Michael Flynn.     In a letter to Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, the panel’s Democratic members said the committee should demand documents the White House has refused to hand over despite a bipartisan request in March. Some of the documents are related to work on a proposal to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East with the involvement of Russian firms.     Three companies - Flynn’s consultancy and two companies he advised on the nuclear project — have not produced documents and communications the committee’s minority members requested on September 15, and should be compelled to cooperate, the Democratic members said. Flynn, a former national security adviser under President Donald Trump, is a central figure in a federal probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into whether Trump aides colluded with Russia to boost his presidential campaign. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and Trump has said there was no collusion. In response to the Democrats’ request on Wednesday, Gowdy referred the matter to Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, saying those kinds of allegations against Flynn should be handled by the justice department. “Much of what is sought by my Democratic colleagues - if properly investigated, charged and proven beyond a reasonable doubt - would carry criminal penalties. Congress does not, and cannot, prosecute crimes,” Gowdy said in the letter. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, declined to comment.     The committee has been probing whether Flynn fully disclosed payments from foreign sources and overseas trips when he renewed his Top Secret security clearance last year.     One focus of the probe is a June 2015 trip Flynn, a former  general, took to Israel and Egypt to gauge interest in a plan floated by a group of scientists, consultants, and former military officers to build and provide security for dozens of nuclear power plants in the Middle East. A promotional slide indicates that Rosoboron, a Russian state-owned arms exporter that is under U.S. sanctions, was to be part of the multi-billion dollar project.     Trump fired Flynn in February after a top Justice Department official warned that the former Defense Intelligence Agency director could be blackmailed because Moscow knew he made misleading statements about his contacts with Russian officials. In the letter, Democratic lawmakers argued that subpoenas were needed to determine whether Flynn was promoting the project while he was in the White House.      “We believe the paper trail must be pursued to answer the gravest question of all - did General Flynn seek to change the course of our country’s national security to benefit the same private interests he previously promoted,” the letter said. The Democrats also pointed to a discrepancy between Flynn’s financial disclosures and statements to the committee by the counsel for IronBridge Group, Inc. and IP3 Corp., two companies set up by former Navy Rear Admiral Michael Hewitt and which are promoting one of two competing plans by U.S.-based consortiums for building nuclear reactors in the Middle East.     In an amended disclosure in August, Flynn said he served as an advisor to IronBridge from June 2016 to December 2016, a period that overlapped with his work on Trump’s presidential campaign and the post-election transition.     In contrast, the counsel for IP3 and IronBridge told the committee that the company tried to hire Flynn, but he never accepted the offer. The counsel said IP3 and IronBridge had split with members of another company — ACU Strategic Partners — and does not involve Russian entities in its nuclear plan. A spokesperson for IP3 declined to comment. ACU, which is promoting a plan that envisions the participation of government and private sector entities from Russia, Ukraine and Israel, among other countries, did not respond to a request for comment.

Summary: हाउस डेमोक्रेट्स ने ट्रम्प के पूर्व सहयोगी माइकल फ्लिन पर दस्तावेज मांगे


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani has arrived in Iraq s Kurdistan region for talks about the escalating crisis between the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi government following the Kurdish independence referendum, a Kurdish official said on Sunday. Soleimani is the commander of foreign operations for Iran s elite Revolutionary Guards, a military corp providing training and weapons to Iraqi paramilitary groups backing the Shi ite-led government in Baghdad.

Summary: ईरान के सुलेमानी बगदाद के साथ संकट पर बातचीत के लिए कुर्द क्षेत्र पहुंचे


KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday the EU s decision to extend economic sanctions on Russia was  an important political decision  on behalf of his country. The EU announced the six-month extension earlier in the day of the sanctions imposed in retaliation for Russia s annexation of Ukraine s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backing of separatist rebels in Ukraine s eastern Donbass region.  (It is) an important political decision by the leaders of the European Union to continue economic sanctions against Russia for violating Ukraine s territorial integrity and unwillingness to stop hybrid aggression against our country,  Poroshenko wrote on his official Facebook page.

Summary: यूक्रेन के नेता ने रूस पर यूरोपीय संघ के प्रतिबंधों के विस्तार का स्वागत किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out on Thursday at Republican conservatives who helped torpedo healthcare legislation he backed, escalating a feud within his party that jeopardizes the new administration’s legislative agenda. Trump threatened to try to defeat members of the Freedom Caucus - a bloc of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives  - in next year’s congressional elections if they continued to defy him. “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning. He later singled out three Freedom Caucus members by name, U.S. Representatives Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan and Raul Labrador. “If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform,” he said in one tweet. “Where are @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador? #RepealANDReplace #Obamacare,” he asked in another. House conservatives fought back. Labrador, one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus, urged Trump in a tweet to “Remember who your real friends are. We’re trying to help you succeed.” “Most people don’t take well to being bullied,” said Representative Justin Amash, who compared Trump’s approach to what a child does when he wants to “get his way.” Trump’s deteriorating relationship with Republican House conservatives could make it harder for him to pass his legislative agenda, which includes rewriting the U.S. tax code, revisiting a healthcare overhaul and funding construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump, a New York businessman who touted his skills as a dealmaker in his bid for the White House, has repeatedly criticized Freedom Caucus members, blaming them for the defeat of legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.  Freedom Caucus members said the bill did not go far enough to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. Asked during a briefing whether Trump’s tweet about the Freedom Caucus was a “divide-and-conquer” strategy, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said: “No, it’s a math strategy, which is to get to 216,” the number of votes currently needed to pass House legislation. The discord following the healthcare debacle was not limited to tensions between Trump and the Freedom Caucus. In recent days, the president has been out of sync with the two highest ranking Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump and his aides have suggested reviving the push for a healthcare bill. While Ryan expressed openness to the idea, McConnell said he thought doing so would be futile. But Ryan publicly disagreed with Trump when the president offered to work with Democrats on new healthcare legislation. “I don’t want that to happen,” the speaker told CBS in an interview aired on Thursday. More than healthcare legislation was at stake. Republican lawmakers still await key details on what Trump’s priorities are in the monumental tax reform effort they want to launch. Passing a budget for next year could also prove challenging. Trump and the Freedom Caucus want to dramatically shrink domestic programs. Moderate Republicans are aghast at proposals to cut popular programs that fund environmental cleanup and meals for senior citizens. Most pressing is an April 28 deadline for approving new funding to keep the government running. “The GOP (Republican) House is riven by factions that are quite ideological. Trump is not,” said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato. “And let’s throw in the fact that Trump is unpopular and weak and has no Democratic support in Congress. “Add all this up. Neither Trump nor congressional Republicans are in an ideal position to govern, and that’s an understatement,” Sabato said. There are about three dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus, comprising about 15 percent of the 237 House Republicans. But their clout is larger, as Trump and Ryan cannot afford to lose too many House Republicans if they want to try to pass bills, like the Obamacare repeal, that attract zero Democratic support. Dan Meyer, a legislative affairs chief to former Republican President George W. Bush, said that with the Freedom Caucus threatening Trump’s agenda, the White House either had to find a way to work with the conservatives, or tack to the left. Some Republicans were so furious they were publicly saying things usually reserved for closed-door meetings. Representative Chris Collins, a Trump ally and part of the “Tuesday Group” of moderate Republicans, told reporters his group was so angry with the Freedom Caucus that it would “never” meet with it. He accused its members of trying to shift blame for the healthcare failure to moderates. Senate Republicans expressed alarm and urged efforts at consensus. Senator John McCain, who ran for president in 2008 and was defeated by Obama, said that if he were sitting in the White House, he would try to ease intraparty tensions rather than stoking them.  “But that’s the president,” said McCain who sometimes is at odds with Trump. He added this advice to Trump: “Sit down with them and say this is an emergency situation.” Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican who served in the House from 2011 to 2014, said his former colleagues needed to quit arguing and come to a consensus “sooner rather than later.” A senior House Republican aide distanced Ryan from Trump’s strategy of upbraiding conservatives. “Ryan ... is never going to intentionally alienate a large swath of his caucus,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Publicly, Ryan said he understood Trump’s frustration.  The speaker also said he was encouraging Republican lawmakers “to keep talking to one another.” Republican Senator Bob Corker chided Ryan, however, for his views about courting Democrats on healthcare reform. “We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem,” Corker wrote on Twitter.

Summary: ट्रम्प के विद्रोही रूढ़िवादियों पर हमलों के बाद रिपब्लिकन अव्यवस्था गहरी हुई


ANKARA (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the de facto conditions needed to end Syria s civil had been achieved.  Putin s comments, which followed talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, come as Russia, Turkey and Iran cooperate on maintaining de-escalation zones in Syria.

Summary: रूस के पुतिन का कहना है कि सीरियाई गृहयुद्ध के अंत के लिए वास्तविक परिस्थितियाँ पैदा की गई हैं


AMMAN (Reuters) - A state security court in Jordan on Monday sentenced one Syrian militant to death and handed life sentences to three others for their role in a suicide bombing attack on a Jordanian military border post that killed seven guards last year. Military judge Colonel Mohammad al-Afif said the men, in their early twenties, were involved in helping the Islamic State militant group stage the suicide bombing that shook the kingdom in June last year. Afif said the four had provided photos and intelligence about the Jordanian military post to an Islamic State leader in the former de facto capital of the militants, Raqqa in Syria. The Islamic state leader then sent the suicide bomber. The military outpost was located a few hundred meters away from Rukban camp in a no-man s land where thousands of Syrian refugees were stranded and near where the frontiers of Iraq, Syria and Jordan meet. The court found the four, who were residents of the camp, guilty of  abetting terrorist acts that led to the death of human beings  and other charges of committing  terrorist acts using automatic weapons . A fifth defendant was acquitted. They had all pleaded not guilty when the trial began last March.  Officials said at the time the suicide bomber drove an explosive laden car at full speed from behind a berm and evaded troops to reach the Jordanian post and detonate his car.  The blast, for which Islamic State claimed responsibility a few days later, also left 15 soldiers wounded, officials said. The area was later declared a closed military zone and the incident disrupted aid to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. Jordan, which has kept tight control of its frontier with Syria since the outbreak of war in its neighbor, is a partner in a U.S.-led coalition fighting militants in Syria and Iraq, and has been the target of attacks before. Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing violence and Russian air strikes in the eastern Homs desert had sought shelter at Rukban, a remote desert camp. King Abdullah had said there were militants among them and Jordan refused to allow them to enter on security grounds.

Summary: जॉर्डन ने सीमा पर हमले के लिए सीरियाई आतंकवादी को मौत की सजा सुनाई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A revised Republican bill to dismantle Obamacare moving through the U.S. House of Representatives would lead to the same number of Americans losing health insurance as under the initial plan, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday. The CBO said the revised bill would raise the number of uninsured in 2026 by 24 million, compared to current law. In an analysis of the initial bill, it had also said 24 million more Americans would end up uninsured. (bit.ly/2mVMHA9)

Summary: संशोधित अमेरिकी स्वास्थ्य बिल में बीमाकृत लोगों की संख्या अपरिवर्तित हैः सी. बी. ओ.


CAIRO (Reuters) - British authorities have lifted a ban on carry-on electronic devices on planes arriving from Cairo airport, Egypt s Ministry of Civil Aviation said on Friday. The United States and Britain in March imposed restrictions banning electronic devices from being carried on planes coming from certain airports in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Authorities lifted the ban  after confirming that security procedures on Egypt s flights meet the requirements of the British Transportation Security Administration,  the ministry said in a statement.

Summary: ब्रिटेन ने काहिरा से उड़ानों पर इलेक्ट्रॉनिक उपकरण प्रतिबंध हटायाः मंत्रालय


HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Reuters) - Inside a sweltering nursing home, a crisis unfolded on Wednesday as 150 centers across Florida still lacked power days after Hurricane Irma ravaged the state. Firefighters and medics responding to an emergency call in Hollywood north of Miami found three people dead inside a building whose second floor the police chief later described as  extremely hot.  Altogether, city officials said eight people between the ages of 71 and 99 had died, but the causes were not yet determined. An investigation of possible criminal negligence has begun, Hollywood Police Chief Tomas Sanchez told reporters. Attempts by Reuters to reach an official of the for-profit Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills home by phone and email were unsuccessful. While Sanchez declined to say what the temperatures were on the second floor of the building, the deaths illustrate the perils that can persist and even increase in the aftermath of a major disaster for the elderly and medically fragile.  Heat is a top killer after hurricanes and disasters cause power outages, said Dr. Thomas Kirsch, director of the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health. Kirsch noted that hundreds of elderly people died in the 1995 Chicago heat wave and when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. The temperatures in Broward County north of Miami have reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) in the three days since Irma smashed into Florida on Sunday.    We often see that injuries and deaths after disaster in the United States are more common than those actually caused by the disaster itself,  Kirsch said. After losing its full air conditioning on Sunday, the facility placed eight portable air coolers throughout the building and fans in the halls, state officials said in an emergency order late on Wednesday. Officials also contacted the power provider, the state said. Efforts to prevent such disasters in nursing facilities have improved in recent years, public health experts said, and that new federal regulations require facilities to have sufficient backup power to maintain reasonable temperatures.  Such capacity is now being tested in Florida, home to among the highest concentrations of senior citizens in the United States with more than 1.6 million people ages 75 years or older, according to the 2015 U.S. Census. The U.S. Senate Aging Committee, citing the Florida deaths, on Wednesday said it would have a hearing next week on disaster planning for the elderly.  At a housing community for senior citizens in Immokalee, Florida, some residents told a Reuters reporter on Tuesday they had nothing to eat in their small apartments that were without power. An office assistant was hunting for bottled water and ice for residents without running water. Among the state s nearly 700 nursing facilities, about 150 lacked power as of Wednesday morning, said the Florida Health Care Association, which represents most of the homes. Early on Wednesday, several calls were placed to emergency services from the Hollywood nursing home. More than 150 people were evacuated, many suffering from respiratory issues, dehydration and heat-related problems, according to Memorial Regional Hospital spokesman Randy Katz. As recently as Tuesday afternoon, the home had told state health officials it had power and access to fans and spot coolers, Florida Governor Rick Scott noted in a statement. An assisted living center that went without power for nearly three days said that its efforts to run fans and keep breezes flowing between open windows could only go so far. Inside temperatures climbed to 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 Celsius), nearing a critical point.  A day you can survive, two days ok,  said Dan Nelson, chief operating officer for Cape Coral Shores assisted living, adding  that after that  things like what happened over in Hollywood unfortunately could happen somewhere else.   The Hollywood center where the deaths occurred had earned a  below average  mark of two out of five stars from the nursing home rating system for Medicare, the U.S. health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, Medicare records showed. Elder care in disaster poses challenges even in the best circumstances, said Kathryn Hyer, a professor in the School of Aging Studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa, whose research shows that evacuations can be deadly for the medically frail who are dependant on equipment and medications.  While sheltering in place can be preferable at times, she said, doing so requires planning to survive the aftermath.  It s just hard,  Hyer said, noting at least nursing centers offered some protections.  I really worry about the people who are in the community alone and how they are doing.

Summary: फ्लोरिडा के नर्सिंग होम में मौतों ने आपदा के बाद के खतरों को दर्शाया


SEOUL (Reuters) - The billionaire head of South Korea s Samsung Group, Jay Y. Lee, was sentenced to five years in jail for bribery on Friday in a watershed for the country s decades-long economic order dominated by powerful, family-run conglomerates. After a six-month trial over a scandal that brought down the then president, Park Geun-hye, a court ruled that Lee had paid bribes in anticipation of favours from Park. The court also found Lee guilty of hiding assets abroad, embezzlement and perjury. Lee, the 49-year-old heir to one of the world s biggest corporate empires, has been held since February on charges that he bribed Park to help secure control of a conglomerate that owns Samsung Electronics, the world s leading smartphone and chip maker, and has interests ranging from drugs and home appliances to insurance and hotels.  Lee, who emerged stony-faced from the Seoul courtroom in a dark suit, but without a tie, and holding a document envelope, was escorted by justice ministry officials back to his detention centre.   This case is a matter of Lee Jae-yong and Samsung Group executives, who had been steadily preparing for Lee s succession ... bribing the president,  Seoul Central District Court Judge Kim Jin-dong said, using Lee s Korean name. Kim said that as the group s heir apparent, Lee  stood to benefit the most  from any political favours for Samsung. Lee denied wrongdoing, and one of his lawyers, Song Wu-cheol, said he would appeal.  The entire guilty verdict is unacceptable,  Song said, adding he was confident his client s innocence would be affirmed by a higher court. The case is expected to be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, likely next year.   The five year-sentence - one of the longest given to a South Korean business leader - is a landmark for South Korea, where the family-run conglomerates - or chaebols - have long been revered for helping transform the once war-ravaged country into a global economic powerhouse. But they have more recently been criticized for holding back the economy and stifling small businesses and start-ups. Samsung, a symbol of the country s rise from poverty following the 1950-53 Korean War, has come to epitomize the cosy and sometimes corrupt ties between politicians and the chaebols.  The ruling is a turning point for chaebols,  said Chang Sea-jin, a business professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.  In the past, chaebols weren t afraid of laws because they were lenient. Now, Lee s ruling sets a precedent for strict enforcement of laws, and chaebols should be wary.  Under South Korean law, sentences of more than three years cannot be suspended. The third-generation de facto head of the powerful Samsung Group, Lee has effectively directed operations since his father, Lee Kun-hee, was incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014.    Some investors worry a prolonged leadership vacuum could slow decision-making at the group, which has more than five dozen affiliate companies and assets of 363.2 trillion won ($322.13 billion). Its listed companies make up about 30 percent of the market value of South Korea s KOSPI stock index. Many tycoons, including Lee s father, were convicted of crimes in the past, ranging from bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion, only to get presidential pardons, as both the government and the public feared going too hard on them would hurt the economy. But South Korea s new liberal president, Moon Jae-in, who won a May election, has pledged to rein in the chaebols, empower minority shareholders and end the practice of pardoning tycoons convicted of white-collar crime. The presidential Blue House said in a statement that it hopes the ruling will serve as an opportunity to  end the nexus of business and politics that has held back the country.  In a June interview with Reuters, Moon said he did not believe Samsung s operations depended just on Lee.   When Lee was taken into custody, the share prices of Samsung went up,  Moon said.  If we were to succeed in reforming the running of the chaebols and also increasing transparency, I believe this will not only help the economic power of Korea but also help to make the chaebols themselves more competitive.  Investors say shares in chaebol companies trade at lower prices than they would otherwise because of their opaque corporate governance - the so-called Korea Discount. Shares of Samsung Electronics dropped more than 1 percent, and other group companies, including Samsung C&T and Samsung SDS, also turned lower after the verdict. The court said Samsung s financial support of entities backed by a friend of Park s, Choi Soon-sil, constituted bribery, including 7.2 billion won ($6.4 million) in sponsoring the equestrian career of Choi s daughter. In return, prosecutors say, Samsung sought government support for the 2015 merger of two of its affiliates, which helped Lee tighten control of the conglomerate. His lawyers had argued that the merger was done for business reasons. Some criminal lawyers had expected Lee to be found innocent of the major charges, as much of the evidence at the trial has been circumstantial. The appeals court and the Supreme Court might put a greater emphasis on prosecutors to provide direct proof of quid pro quo, the lawyers said. Park, who was forced from office in March, faces her own corruption trial, with a ruling expected later this year. Prosecutors have argued that Park and Lee took part in the same act of bribery - so Lee s conviction would appear ominous  for the former president.  Hundreds of Park s diehard supporters who rallied outside the court on Friday reacted with outrage to the ruling.  Our ultimate goal is Park s acquittal and release,  Kim Won-joon, a 62-year-old former construction worker said.  We worry how today s guilty verdict for Lee would affect Park s ruling.  Such supporters are a minority compared with the huge crowds that turned out in Seoul every week to call for Park s ouster after the bribery scandal surfaced late last year. Public approval of Lee s prosecution may underscore growing frustration in Asia s fourth-largest economy that the wealth amassed by conglomerates has not trickled down.  I think it was difficult for a court to ignore public opinion, given that the scandal rocked the country,  said Chung Sun-sup, chief executive of research firm Chaebul.com.  The five-year sentence was low given that he was found guilty of all the charges. I think the court gave him a lighter sentence, taking into account Samsung s importance to the economy.

Summary: सैमसंग के नेता जे. वाई. ली को रिश्वत के लिए पांच साल की जेल की सजा सुनाई गई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As fellow Republicans labored to repeal Obamacare this week, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly swerved off-topic, escalating concerns in his party about his ability to govern the country six months after taking office. While senators grappled with healthcare, Trump banned transgender people from the military. He regaled a Boy Scout jamboree with a tale from a New York cocktail party. He indulged an obscene tirade by his flamboyant new communications director. In the end, the Senate’s efforts collapsed in a predawn vote on Friday, magnifying the ineffectiveness that often goes with the chaos around Trump, the constant storm of tweets, the White House infighting, the self-inflicted wounds. “We’re seeing clear evidence that all of these distractions are standing in the way of their ability to achieve legislative accomplishments,” said Republican strategist Alice Stewart, a top aide to Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign last year. In the latest twist, Trump late on Friday named U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as his new White House chief of staff, replacing Reince Priebus, who has been in a feud with Trump’s new communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Among some establishment Republicans, there were signs that patience with Trump was wearing thin. His national security team, seen as a bedrock of normality, increasingly is frustrated. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were described by sources as unhappy with their handling by the White House. Defense Secretary James Mattis was coming to grips with Trump’s abrupt decision on Wednesday, via a tweet, to ban transgender individuals from military service. The Pentagon  said it would not execute the order without more guidance. Republican strategist Charlie Black said Trump needs to let an investigation of possible ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign run its course and not keep talking about it. Russia denies meddling, and Trump denies any collusion. The Russia probe has fed public spats with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, quarreling among aides and attacks on Robert Mueller, the special counsel running the investigation. “He should be talking about policy and sticking to issues for a while,” Black said. “There are still some good things that could get done in Congress like tax reform. He can help further those things if that’s what he talks about.” In the Senate healthcare fight, Trump phoned Republican senators and urged them to support repeal of Obamacare, but the effort fizzled, a sign there was little political retribution to fear from a president with a sub-40 percent approval rating. A moderate House Republican said Trump let down the Obamacare rollback effort by not going out and selling a plan. For Trump, a businessman and former reality TV show host, the presidency is his first elected office. “This issue was outsourced to Congress. It was never really sold. I think that was part of the reason why it was a failure,” said Republican Representative Charlie Dent. As the Senate fight was coming to a head, Washington was suddenly mesmerized by a profanity-laced rant from Scaramucci, who tore into Priebus and Trump strategist Steve Bannon in an interview in The New Yorker magazine. Stunned aides stopped what they were doing to read the article online. The rant has so far gone unpunished. Inside the White House, there was a sense of genuine concern and bewilderment about what Scaramucci’s future might portend. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the tensions did not seem to trouble Trump. “The president’s management style seems to be to encourage factionalism among people below him. He seems to place value on watching people fight,” Fleischer said. Aside from sacking Priebus, it was unclear how Trump planned to proceed to regain his footing. With healthcare stalled, Trump has his sights set on tax reform with no consensus on how to proceed. Top aides are split on how deeply to cut taxes. It is the same moderates-versus-conservatives split that doomed the Obamacare rollback.

Summary: शासन करने के लिए संघर्ष करते हुए, ट्रम्प को बढ़ती रिपब्लिकन बेचैनी का सामना करना पड़ रहा है


MOSCOW (Reuters) - A court on Wednesday ruled that Russian airline Aeroflot cannot tell staff what size clothing to wear after a stewardess complained she had been taken off international routes because she did not fit into the regulation-size uniform. The stewardess, Yevgenia Magurina, said she had been transferred to lower paying domestic flights because she exceeded what she said was Aeroflot s maximum uniform size of 48. On Wednesday, Magurina partially won her appeal in a Moscow court against an earlier court decision which had gone against her. The court ordered Aeroflot to pay Magurina the amount she deemed her salary had been docked as a result of the regulation - around 17,000 rubles  ($296.53) - and to pay her compensation for moral suffering of 5,000 roubles, TASS reported.   The court however did not rule that Aeroflot s actions were discriminatory. Magurina said after the decision she was satisfied with what she called  a victory  even though the court had not found Aeroflot guilty of discrimination.  Thank God we have solved this issue inside our country. We were ready to go further and of course it would have been a shame for Russia to expose such things outside of the Russian Federation,  she told reporters.  After the ruling, Aeroflot said it was satisfied that the court did not rule it was discriminating against employees, TASS news agency reported, and would look at amending its staff regulations once it had fully studied the court s decision.

Summary: रूसी अदालत ने एयरोफ़्लोट से कहा कि वह परिचारिकाओं को यह नहीं बता सकती कि किस आकार के कपड़े पहनने हैं


HENNIKER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz’s performance in New Hampshire’s primary election on Tuesday will be a referendum on the Southern evangelical’s appeal to Northern conservatives, a breed he is not used to courting. Cruz is fresh off a victory this week in Iowa, the first contest in the race for the nomination ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election, and the U.S. senator from Texas is betting his undiluted religious conservatism will deliver a strong finish in New Hampshire. Cruz’s campaign does not anticipate a win in New Hampshire. Polling shows national front-runner Donald Trump - who has tighter links with the region as a New Yorker - with a roughly 20 point lead in the state.    But placing second will be crucial if Cruz hopes to keep momentum in a crowded Republican field that includes Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and John Kasich. It could also foretell his appeal in the populous Northeastern states in later contests. “We don’t expect to win here,” Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told Reuters in New Hampshire. “We expect to do well here.” At a town hall event in Windham, New Hampshire, this week, Cruz - wearing jeans with a silver-plated belt and an open-collared shirt - pitched himself to voters as the candidate who could unite disparate groups of conservatives in the mold of former Republican President Ronald Reagan. “What we’re seeing that is so encouraging - it’s what we saw last night in Iowa, but it’s what we’re seeing in New Hampshire and all across the country - is we’re seeing that old Reagan coalition coming back together,” Cruz said. As in Iowa, Cruz in his New Hampshire appearances invoked Bible verses, emphasized religious freedom and closed by asking the crowd to pray that God would “awaken the body of Christ to pull us back from the abyss.” Cruz’s scripture-infused style was well-aimed at Iowa’s evangelicals but could be less suited for one of the least religious states in the country. Some people who have knocked on doors for Cruz in New Hampshire said they had heard complaints about Cruz’s propensity for quoting the Bible, and they instead tried to emphasize his tax plan or defense of their rights to own guns.  Robert Diack, 53, a Cruz supporter from Pelham, New Hampshire, said he appreciated Cruz’s willingness to share his faith but thought other, more liberal voters could be turned off. “It will be interesting to see how he fares here,” he said. Conservative culture-clash has been a problem for other Republican campaigns too. Recent Republican Iowa winners, including former Senator Rick Santorum in 2012 and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in 2008, had weak showings in their New Hampshire contests.     But Cruz’s campaign co-chair in New Hampshire, William O’Brien, said the campaign had made a clear decision not to adjust his approach for New Hampshire. “In this race, the best way to connect with voters is to be genuine. That’s why he’s not tailoring his message here,” he said. “We’ve talked a lot about this since we’ve been together.” This strategy could play into Cruz’s efforts to brand himself an “authentic” conservative in contrast to Trump whom Cruz paints as a political chameleon with “New York values.”     Trump leads the Republican field nationally with 38.4 percent in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. Trump’s second-place finish in Iowa came as a surprise, as did the strong third-place result by U.S. Senator Rubio of Florida. Cruz has also invested in a robust ground game in New Hampshire. His campaign rented a 40-bed dorm in Chester to house some of its 2,000 volunteers, and door-knockers and callers use apps to target potentially receptive voters. “He has a real organization with real money behind it,” said Charlie Arlinghaus, president of New Hampshire free-market think tank Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. Cruz had $19 million on hand at the end of 2015.  But he has also been criticized for making fewer than 20 visits to New Hampshire, less than many rivals. Cruz’s spokesman said the senator is keeping some focus on later primary states, including those where a Southern conservative message may resonate more strongly.   (Additional reporting and editing by Richard Valdmanis in Machester, New Hampshire; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.

Summary: न्यू हैम्पशायर क्रूज़ के दक्षिणी रूढ़िवाद की व्यापक अपील का परीक्षण करेगा


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) on Wednesday said they would not rule out renewed talks on a three-way coalition government if Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives and the Greens offered a  completely new package  of proposals.  If it really was possible to build a modern republic in the coming years, then we are the last ones who would refuse to talk,  FDP Secretary General Nicola Beer told ntv German television. But she added:  I can t imagine that this will work.

Summary: जर्मनी की एफ. डी. पी. गठबंधन वार्ता के नवीनीकरण से इनकार नहीं करतीः बीयर


PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech president s spokesman likened the European Union to the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler on Thursday while criticizing the bloc s executive over a regulation on food safety. Jiri Ovcacek made the comment while citing the case of an ingredient in a Czech potato-based alcohol locally known as  rum  that cannot be labeled that way due to an EU ban which says the term must be reserved for cane-based spirits. The EU s food watchdog, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), has ruled that the ingredient, called rum-ether, should be discontinued and replaced gradually from April 2018 on the grounds that it contains a material that can damage body cells. Ovcacek shared an article from a Czech news website on his Facebook page on the issue, adding the comment:  The Empire has decided that there will be no  tuzemak  (Czech rum) to drink in the protectorate.   Empire  in the Czech context is often understood to refer to Hitler s Third Reich, while the  protectorate  is what the country was called by the Nazi regime during World War Two. When asked about the comment, Ovcacek said his words were warranted because such actions by some in the EU damaged its reputation.  It points to the absolute insensibility of the European Commission,  Ovcacek said. Ovcacek s comments have led to controversy before, such as his outbursts against Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and some of his ministers, and even against the Czech media. Czech President Milos Zeman has portrayed himself as a Europhile and fan of a federal EU. But he has also expressed pro-Russian and anti-immigration views and built up relations with China, in contrast to the pro-Western and human rights-based style of Czech foreign policy established by the late President Vaclav Havel.

Summary: चेक राष्ट्रपति के प्रवक्ता ने स्पिरिट घटक पर भड़ास निकालते हुए यूरोपीय संघ की तुलना थर्ड रीच से की


DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday the choice offered to voters in the U.S. presidential election was between “bad and worse” and that harsh exchanges in the debates pointed to a lack of morality in America, Tehran’s arch adversary. “America claims it has more than 200 years of democracy, and they have had 50 presidential elections, but there is no morality in that country,” Rouhani said in a speech, carried live by state television. “You saw the presidential debates, how they talk..., how they accuse and mock (each other),” Rouhani told a crowd gathered at a stadium during his visit to the central city of Arak. Rouhani said a head of state had asked him during his visit to the United Nations in September about who he preferred between Republican candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. “I said should I prefer bad over worse or worse over bad?,” said Rouhani, a pragmatist politician and cleric who may run for reelection in Iran’s presidential polls in May 2017. He did not say to which candidate his descriptions referred.

Summary: ईरान के राष्ट्रपति का कहना है कि अमेरिकी चुनाव केवल खराब या बदतर विकल्प प्रदान करता है


LONDON (Reuters) - The head of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the British parliament urged the British government on Thursday to institute direct rule of Northern Ireland  in the very near future , saying otherwise its economy would be left to drift. The British government took a step towards imposing direct rule for the first time in a decade on Wednesday by announcing preparations to set Northern Ireland s budget from London after talks on forming a regional executive collapsed. While Prime Minister Theresa May is reluctant to impose full direct rule for fear of antagonizing the Irish government and Northern Ireland s large Irish nationalist minority, her government is dependent on the DUP s 10 votes in parliament to remain in power.  And many fear a move to direct rule for the first time since 2007 would further disturb a political balance between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists, already upset by Britain s vote to leave the European Union. A move to direct rule would sideline the DUP s main rival Sinn Fein, which seeks a united Ireland with no British governing role in the north. The party does not take up its seats in the London parliament.  At some point in the very near future we will need to have ministers, and if they are not Northern Ireland executive ministers ... then it would have to be ministers from here,  Nigel Dodds told the British parliament.   And they will have to take decisions because we cannot allow the economy to drift and we cannot allow Northern Ireland to drift,  he said. The DUP, he said, had been urging the British government to impose a budget. Direct rule would likely create a conflict with Dublin, which says Northern Ireland s Good Friday peace deal gives it the right to a role in the running of Northern Ireland in the event of direct rule.  Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told May in a phone call overnight there could be no return to direct rule  as it existed prior to the Good Friday Agreement,  his office said. May s office did not mention the demand in a statement about the call.  Irish Nationalists Sinn Fein and the pro-British DUP have shared power in Northern Ireland for a decade under the terms of the 1998 peace agreement, which ended three decades of violence that killed 3,600 people. But Sinn Fein pulled out in January, complaining it was not being treated as an equal partner, and on Wednesday blamed the DUP for the collapse of talks on forming a new executive.  Dodds said Sinn Fein was to blame for introducing a series of unacceptable preconditions that were not included in a deal between the parties last year.

Summary: डीयूपी ने 'बहुत निकट भविष्य' में उत्तरी आयरलैंड में प्रत्यक्ष शासन का आह्वान किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump was hit on Friday by embarrassing leaks that a senior adviser was a “person of interest” in a probe of possible collusion with Russia during last year’s election campaign and that Trump had boasted to Russian officials of firing the man heading the investigation. The reports, emerging just as Trump jetted off to Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip as president, were likely to extend the turmoil engulfing his administration since the May 9 firing of former FBI Director James Comey. The Washington Post, citing sources familiar with the matter, did not identify the senior Trump adviser except to say that the person of interest was close to Trump, a Republican who entered the White House four months ago. U.S. law enforcement uses the term “a person of interest” to mean someone who is part of a criminal investigation but not arrested or formally accused of a crime. The person may be cooperating or have information of use to investigators. Separately the New York Times reported that Trump boasted to Russian officials at a White House meeting last week that firing Comey relieved “great pressure” the president faced from a law-enforcement probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said, according to the Times, which cited a document summarizing the meeting and read to it by an unnamed U.S. official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” Trump met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia’s ambassador to Washington in the Oval Office the day after Trump fired Comey, who was in charge of the Russia election probe. The Times said the document was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the accuracy of that account. Comey, who has not spoken publicly in the 10 days since he was fired, will testify in an open session of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  Committee leaders said on Friday he would appear sometime after the U.S. Memorial Day holiday on May 29. “I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media,” the committee chairman, Republican Richard Burr, said in a statement announcing the appearance. Public approval of Trump has dropped to its lowest level since his inauguration, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. The May 14-18 opinion poll found that 38 percent of adults approved of Trump while 56 percent disapproved. The remaining 6 percent had “mixed feelings.” U.S. stocks immediately pared gains after the reports but still closed higher for a second straight day. Earlier this week, investors dumped stocks in response to reports that Trump in February had asked Comey to stop investigating his former national security adviser, prompting accusations the president may have tried to hamper the probe. “As the president has stated before - a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement in response to the Post report. After days of political tumult in Washington, the Justice Department announced the appointment on Thursday of a special counsel to look into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign. The Times report added to the impression given by Trump himself in a television interview last week in which he said the Russia issue was a factor in firing Comey. The White House has given different versions of the reasons for the dismissal. Asked about the Times report, Spicer said of the former FBI chief, “by grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.” “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it,” Spicer said, adding that the real story was the leaks of “private and highly classified conversations.” Democrats, who have compared the widening scandal to the Watergate break-in and cover-up that brought down Republican former President Richard Nixon in 1974, were quick to pounce on the latest reports. Democratic Senator Edward Markey called them “seismic revelations” and questioned whether the United States might be heading into a constitutional crisis.  “This is an inflection point in the entire Russia collusion investigation,” he told MSNBC. “It makes it very clear that what Donald Trump was trying to do was to end the Russian investigation.”  “This is what OBSTRUCTION looks like: ‘I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off,’” Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said on Twitter. Republican Representative Scott Taylor told CNN there was “no question” that Trump had “some stumbles this week.” But he added: “I haven’t lost my confidence in the president to be our president, I just haven’t.” Before the latest reports, the White House had hoped to shift attention away from the political firestorm in Washington to foreign policy as well as the president’s ambitious pro-business economic agenda in Congress. Trump’s trip, which also includes stops in Israel, Italy and Belgium next week, has been billed by the administration as a chance to visit places sacred to three of the world’s major religions while giving him time to meet with Arab, Israeli and European leaders.   Trump, who has embraced what he describes as an “America First” approach to U.S. foreign policy and international trade, is expected to be welcomed warmly by leaders in Saudi Arabia  and Israel. Lingering questions over his views on the Iran nuclear deal, commitment to NATO security and skepticism of the Paris climate agreement, however, could generate tension at meetings with European counterparts in Brussels and Sicily.

Summary: रूस की नई जांच लीक होने से ट्रम्प की विदेश यात्रा पटरी से उतरने की आशंका


BEIJING (Reuters) - Continued stable development of China-U.S. economic ties will be a major contributor to global growth, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during meetings with United States President Donald Trump in Beijing.  China and the United States should face economic issues in a forward-looking and constructive way and resolve problems by expanding economic cooperation, Xi said, according to a statement issued by China s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday. China agreed to further lower market entry barriers to its banking, insurance, and securities industries and will gradually reduce vehicle tariffs, the statement said.  U.S. companies announced a slew of deals on Thursday that could be worth as much as $250 billion during Trump s visit to Beijing.

Summary: चीन के शीः China-U.S का स्थिर विकास. वैश्विक विकास को बढ़ावा देने के लिए आर्थिक संबंध


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s eldest son met with the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday as part of the panel’s investigation into Russia, the 2016 U.S. election and whether his father’s election campaign colluded with Moscow. Donald Trump Jr. arrived at a Senate office building shortly after 10 a.m. Capitol police officers tried to keep journalists from witnessing his arrival, but he was spotted by reporters as he rushed to a room the committee uses for classified briefings. He testified for nine hours, a person familiar with the matter said. U.S. intelligence agencies said after Trump’s victory in the November 2016 presidential election that they had concluded Russia sought to influence the campaign to boost Trump’s chances of defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his Democratic challenger. Moscow has denied any such activity, and Trump has dismissed talk of possible collusion as a “witch hunt” led by Democrats disappointed about his victory. The Senate committee is conducting one of the main congressional investigations. Richard Burr, the panel’s chairman, told reporters on Tuesday he expected its probe to last into 2018, but likely not for many months into the new year. Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller is also investigating the matter. Trump Jr. testified to the House Intelligence Committee last week. Lawmakers are interested in talking to him about a meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York  at which he said he hoped to get information about the “fitness, character and qualifications” of Clinton.

Summary: ट्रम्प के सबसे बड़े बेटे ने रूस की जांच में सीनेट समिति के समक्ष गवाही दी


SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives on Tuesday debated a bill to halt debt payments, while a government official fired back at creditors who suggested the U.S. territory was shirking efforts to hold restructuring talks. Burdened by a $70 billion debt load it says it cannot pay and a 45 percent poverty rate that has led to a steady exodus of its American citizens to the mainland, Puerto Rico faces economic collapse without a solution that either changes laws and/or involves an agreement with creditors. The next key date is May 1 when the Government Development Bank, the island’s primary fiscal agent, is due to pay creditors $422 million. The island’s Senate passed an emergency bill early on Tuesday that would alter GDB’s structure, as well as allow Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla to declare a moratorium on any debt payment he deems necessary. The House was expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday. A group of Puerto Rico’s general obligation bondholders criticized the bill. “It is no coincidence that the governor has abruptly sought overnight adoption of debt moratorium legislation at the very moment large general obligation bondholders were arriving on the island to pursue a consensual restructuring,” the creditors said in a statement on Tuesday. That group, holding about $5 billion debt, then released a proposed restructuring plan that would defer principal repayments and offer new debt, a plan they say would save Puerto Rico from default. GDB President Melba Acosta disputed the notion that officials were blowing off creditors, saying Puerto Rico held meetings with creditors in March, presenting updated restructuring proposals.  “We have not received an actionable, binding financing commitment from anyone, and we have received no offers that would lead Puerto Rico towards a stable and prosperous economy for years to come,” Acosta said in a statement to Reuters. “We sincerely hope that the ‘proposals’ that the advisers to our GO holders speak of are not a public relations stunt that attempts to mislead the public and distract leaders in Congress from the real work at hand,” she added. GDB is also holding consensual restructuring talks with its own creditors. Legislative efforts in the U.S. Congress to fix Puerto Rico’s debt problem are not likely to come to fruition before the GDB’s May 1 debt payment. On Monday, some GDB creditors sued to try to prevent a run on the bank as negotiations play out, asking a court to bar the GDB from paying certain creditors and preventing depositors from withdrawing money.  A source close to the matter told Reuters some government agencies were planning to open new accounts at other banks, but denied those agencies were removing money from the GDB.

Summary: प्यूर्टो रिको, ऋणदाताओं ने ऋण फ्रीज बिल को लेकर तीखी नोकझोंक की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday that President Donald Trump wasn’t making a racial slur when he referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahantas” while speaking with Navajo military veterans who served as code-talkers in World War Two. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Trump had an “extreme amount of value and respect” for the World War Two veterans and “I think what most people find offensive is Senator Warren lying about her heritage to advance her career.”

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने 'पोकाहोंटास' टिप्पणी के साथ ट्रम्प की टिप्पणी का खंडन किया