WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin vowed on Sunday to help unseat Paul Ryan, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, because of the his refusal to endorse presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Palin, the former Alaska governor and Trump supporter, endorsed conservative businessman Paul Nehlen, who is challenging Ryan, the House speaker, for his congressional seat in the Wisconsin Republican nominating contest on Aug. 9. “I will do whatever I can for Paul Nehlen,” Palin said in an interview with CNN. “This man is a hardworking guy, so in touch with the people.” Though Ryan is heavily favored to win the primary race against Nehlen, Palin predicted an upset in a race she said would shock Washington’s political class. Palin’s comments underscore the deep divisions within the party over Trump, who effectively locked up his party’s nomination for president last week when his two remaining rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, dropped out of the race. Palin said she believed Ryan would get “Cantored,” comparing him to former Eric Cantor, the former No. 2 Republican in the House who was defeated in a 2014 primary by conservative Dave Brat, now a Virginia congressman. Ryan said last week he was not ready to support Trump yet, saying that the New York real estate mogul needed to do more to unify the Republican party. “Paul Ryan and his ilk, their problem is that they become so disconnected from the people they are elected to represent, as evidenced by Paul Ryan’s refusal to support the GOP front runner, that we just said, ‘He’s our man,’” Palin said. A poll in March by Marquette University Law School showed Ryan with more than an 80 percent approval rating among Wisconsin Republicans. Seen as an intellectual leader of the party’s conservative values, many inside the party believe he may mount his own White House run in the next presidential cycle. Nehlen, like Trump, wants to secure the southern border with Mexico and withdraw from global trade deals. He told Reuters in April that Cantor’s defeat in 2014 “reinforced in my mind” that he could defeat Ryan. Asked if she would be willing to be vetted as a potential vice presidential candidate, Palin said she recognizes many voters might not want her on the ticket and that she “wouldn’t want to be a burden” to Trump’s candidacy. Palin, who is popular with the Tea Party wing of the Republican party, was tapped in 2008 to be the running mate for  former Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Summary: पॉलिन ने ट्रम्प का समर्थन करने से इनकार करने पर रयान को हराने में मदद करने की कसम खाई


ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday the United States has isolated itself by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel s capital and accused it of threatening countries that might vote against it on the matter at an emergency U.N. General Assembly session. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country has led Muslim opposition to Washington s stance on Jerusalem, was speaking before leaving Istanbul with the Palestinian foreign minister to attend Thursday s gathering in New York.  With his Dec. 6 decision, President Donald Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy, and upset an international consensus enshrined in U.N. resolutions, that treated Jerusalem s status as unresolved. Israel captured East Jerusalem in a 1967 war and Palestinians want it as the capital of a future state they seek.  Trump s move stirred outrage among Palestinians and in the Arab world, and concern among Washington s Western allies. On Monday, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution calling on it to withdraw its declaration. Thel 14 other council members, including close U.S. allies such as Japan and four European Union countries, backed the draft.  On Thursday there ll be a vote criticizing our choice,  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Twitter.  The U.S. will be taking names.   Cavusoglu said that was a threat, and called on Washington - a NATO ally of Turkey - to change course.  We expect strong support at the UN vote, but we see that the United States, which was left alone, is now resorting to threats. No honorable, dignified country would bow down to this pressure,  Cavusoglu told a news conference held together with his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.   We want America to turn back from this wrong and unacceptable decision,  Cavusoglu said earlier in the Azeri capital Baku, where he met Iranian and Azeri ministers.  God willing, we will push through the General Assembly a resolution in favor of Palestine and Jerusalem,  he said. The rare emergency session of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly was called at the request of Arab and Muslim states. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour has said the General Assembly would vote on a draft resolution calling for the U.S. declaration to be withdrawn. Such a vote is non-binding, but carries political weight.  Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has lambasted Trump s move, and hosted a summit of Muslim leaders last week which called for East Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of Palestine. Israel calls Jerusalem its indivisible and eternal capital.  From now on we will be more active in defending the rights of Palestinians. We will work harder for the international recognition of an independent Palestinian state,  Cavusoglu told reporters in Baku.

Summary: तुर्की का कहना है कि अमेरिका ने येरुशलम पर अलग-थलग कर दिया है, धमकी जारी कर रहा है


TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan authorities are processing a request from Britain to extradite the brother of the bomber who killed 22 people in Manchester in May, but no decision has been taken yet, a government spokesman said on Thursday. The armed group holding the brother said that if the attorney general s office agreed to the request, the force would be  ready for the next step . Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton born to Libyan parents, blew himself up at the end of a show by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in the deadliest militant attack in Britain for 12 years. His victims included seven children. More than 500 people were injured. On Wednesday, British police said they had issued an arrest warrant for his brother, Hashem Abedi, for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion, and prosecutors had asked Libya to extradite him.  An official request has been received through the Libyan ministry of foreign affairs and the Libyan authorities are cooperating to process (the request) in accordance with Libyan legal procedures,  said Hassan al-Houni, a spokesman for the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.   No decision has been taken yet.  Days after the attack, the Special Deterrence Force (Rada), a counter-terrorism and anti-crime group aligned with the government, arrested Hashem Abedi and the brothers  father Ramadan. The father was released in August. Various armed factions in Tripoli have aligned themselves with the government, some with semi-official status for law enforcement. However, the government, which struggles to impose its authority, has limited power over them. Rada initially said it would not extradite Hashem, but then said it was ready to cooperate.  If there is agreement between the attorney general and the British authorities, we are ready for the next step,  spokesman Ahmad Ben Salim said. The Libyan attorney general s office could not be reached for comment. Islamic State said it was responsible in the immediate aftermath of the bombing but security services have always treated the claim with scepticism. In June, Rada said Hashem Abedi had told them his brother had been radicalised in Britain in 2015. They had both flown from Britain to Libya in April and Hashem said he had helped buy the equipment necessary for the attack although he had not known that Salman was planning a bombing, Rada said. British police say Salman Abedi returned to Manchester on May 18, four days before his attack. The family had emigrated to Britain during the rule of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The brothers  parents returned to Libya during the 2011 revolution. Police have previously said they believed Salman Abedi had built the bomb himself and CCTV showed him buying nuts from a hardware store that were used as shrapnel as well as the tin that was believed to contain the explosives.

Summary: मैनचेस्टर बम हमलावर के भाई के लिए ब्रिटेन के प्रत्यर्पण अनुरोध पर विचार कर रहा है लीबिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump’s shortlist of candidates to lead the U.S. Department of Interior has employees and environmental advocates fearful of a shift in the agency’s direction, from one focused on preserving public lands to one that would open them up to more drilling and mining. The outcome will have implications for industry access to millions of acres of national parks, reserves and tribal territories stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico and the viability of President Barack Obama’s efforts to keep the United States in line with international agreements to reduce the impacts of climate change. Republican Trump, a New York real estate businessman who has never previously held public office, has leaned toward right-wing loyalists for the Cabinet since winning the Nov. 8 election. He is considering oil drilling advocates like Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, Alaska’s former governor Sarah Palin and Lucas Oil co-founder Forrest Lucas to run the Interior Department, media reports and Reuters sources said. Other contenders are several politicians from Western states who favor easier development of public lands. Any of those picks could trigger battles with environmental groups and cause internal strife at an agency where many workers see themselves as land stewards after nearly eight years of conservation-minded policies under Democrat Obama. “Public lands have been set aside to ‘preserve and protect’ cultural and scientific resources for future generations,” said Geoff Goins, a National Park Service ranger at the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, adding that with Trump coming in, “people are concerned about their jobs.”   Other Interior Department employees interviewed by Reuters said they were worried the agency’s environmental mandate would be weakened under Trump, and green advocates said they were bracing to resist those changes. “Climate change is a major focus of conservation concern for national parks,” said one National Park Service employee in the Northwest who asked not to be identified. “If (Trump’s administration) gets in the way of scientists...we are all in deep trouble.” During the election campaign, Trump tweeted that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive” - a view that is at odds with most but a few scientists who study the impacts of rising global temperatures and extreme weather.        Maureen Finnerty, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, an organization of more than 1,200 current and former National Parks employees, said it was ready to launch a public relations campaign against Trump if he pursues an anti-environmental agenda. “We will be vigilant and hope for the best,” she said. The Interior Department employs more than 70,000 people across the United States and oversees over 20 percent of federal land. Under Obama, the Interior Department played a big role in efforts to curb the effects of climate change by limiting fossil fuel development in some areas. Outgoing Interior Secretary Sally Jewell banned coal mining on public lands, canceled leases for drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic coasts, expanded wildlife protection and cracked down on industry methane emissions. The Obama administration planned on using forest restoration on federal lands as a way to help the United States meet its long-term goals under the 2015 Paris agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The agreement outlines how countries will deal with lowering greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2020.  Trump has given mixed messages on his plans for Interior. In an interview with Field and Stream magazine in January, Trump said: “I want to keep the lands great... We have to be great stewards of this land.” But he has advocated strongly for boosting energy development on federal lands and has criticized Obama’s use of environmental regulation to check oil and gas development. He picked renowned climate change skeptic Myron Ebell to run his transition at the Environmental Protection Agency. U.S. Representative Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said Trump could consider hiring as his energy secretary Harold Hamm, an oil and gas driller and a pioneer of developing shale oil resources. One potential Interior Department head is Oklahoma Governor Fallin, who met with Trump on Monday. She has been an ardent supporter of Oklahoma’s drilling industry and has blocked attempts to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial drilling technology. Fallin’s spokesman confirmed she is being considered for the post, but said there has been “no offer given.” Also on the shortlist is Palin, who made famous the motto “Drill, Baby, Drill” when she was the vice presidential running-mate to Republican John McCain in 2008, and former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Trump supporter without experience in public lands policy. Governor Butch Otter of Idaho, venture capitalist Robert Grady and U.S. Representatives Cynthia Lummis and Rob Bishop of Wyoming and Utah are also potential candidates for the job. All declined comment. (Refiles to correct typographical error National Park Service instead of National Parks Service.)

Summary: ट्रम्प के आंतरिक विभाग ने वेक्स कर्मचारियों, ग्रीन समूहों को चुना


ROME (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May should make a proposal over what legal rights European Union citizens will have in Britain after it leaves the bloc, the EU s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday. Barnier was addressing the Italian parliament ahead of a speech by May in Florence on Friday when she is expected to explain her vision of Britain s future relationship with the EU.  I am waiting for a proposal on the legal rights of EU citizens in Britain,  said Barnier, who was speaking in French through an Italian translator. He added that the issue of financial compensation between Britain and the EU was outside the terms of the main Brexit negotiations.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ के बार्नियर का कहना है कि वे ब्रिटेन में यूरोपीय संघ के नागरिकों के अधिकारों पर मई से प्रस्ताव चाहते हैं


NUREMBERG, Germany (Reuters) - A right-wing extremist member of a group that claims allegiance to Adolf Hitler s World War Two-era German Reich was convicted of murder on Monday for shooting and killing a police officer and sentenced to life in prison. The conviction was handed down amid growing concern in Germany at homegrown right-wing movements that contest the country s post-World War Two democratic order and follows the arrival in parliament this month of the first far-right party in decades. The man, known only as Wolfgang P. because of German court rules, fired through a glazed door on policemen who had arrived to search his flat last October for illegal weapons. One of the officers was killed. The district court in the southern city of Nuremberg found that the shooting had been premeditated, a spokesman said, describing the suspect as  malicious .  He knew that a police officer was stationed in front of this door and wanted to kill him,  said spokesman Friedrich Weitner, describing the court s conclusions. Throughout the trial, P. declined to identify himself to the court, in order to signify his rejection of the German state. The murder led Germany s domestic intelligence agency to start monitoring the Reichsbuerger (Reich Citizens) movement for suspected extremist and unconstitutional activities. The movement, which authorities believe may have up to 900 members, regards the modern German state as illegitimate. Its members say they owe allegiance only to the German Reich, or state, despite its abolition in 1945.

Summary: जर्मन 'रीच' चरमपंथी को पुलिसकर्मी की हत्या के लिए जीवनदान दिया गया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and 11 other Democrats said on Tuesday it was “critical” that the Trump administration leave in place new vehicle fuel efficiency rules, saying the higher standards were achievable.  Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is expected to announce as early as this week the reopening of a review of the rules that were set by the Obama administration for the 2022-2025 period. Automakers say the changes, which would raise the fleet average fuel efficiency to more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025 from 27.5 mpg in 2010, will impose significant costs and are out of step with consumer preferences. They argue they need more flexibility to meet the rules amid low gas prices. Environmentalists, who favor the new standards, say they would reduce fuel costs and greenhouse gases and have vowed to sue if the Trump administration weakens them. “These automobile emissions standards are economically feasible and technologically achievable for the auto industry,” the Democratic senators, including Edward Markey of Massachusetts and former presidential candidate Bernard Sanders of Vermont, wrote in a letter to Pruitt. “It is critical that they remain in place.” EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn declined to comment on the letter “since the agency has not announced how it will proceed on the vehicle emission standards.” The White House also declined to comment. Trade groups representing automakers, including General Motors Co (GM.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), have asked the EPA to withdraw the rules, which stem from a 2011 deal the industry reached with the U.S. government. The chief executives of GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI), along with the top North American executives at Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) and others separately have urged President Donald Trump to revisit the decision. The Obama administration in 2011 said the changes would save motorists $1.7 trillion in fuel costs over the life of the vehicles and cost the auto industry about $200 billion over 13 years. In July, the EPA estimated the fleet would average 50.8-52.6 mpg in 2025 because Americans were buying more SUVs and trucks. It had until April 2018 to decide whether the standards were feasible under a “midterm review,” but moved up its decision to a week before President Barack Obama left office. The EPA is also considering taking steps to reverse California’s waiver under the Clean Air Act that allows it to set its own vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards. California has repeatedly vowed to vigorously contest any efforts to withdraw its authority, and in January the state hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to represent it. At the Geneva auto show, Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne told reporters he opposed the Obama administration’s decision to finalize the rules. “We have simply asked that the case be reopened to understand what the consequences would be of the norms introduced five years ago,” Marchionne said, adding that he expects to “see a positive reply in the coming days” from the Trump administration.

Summary: डेमोक्रेट्स ने ई. पी. ए. से वाहन ईंधन दक्षता नियमों को फिर से नहीं खोलने का आग्रह किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump would sign a stop-gap spending measure funding the government through Dec. 22 that is being considered by the House of Representatives, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday. Trump and Congress are facing a deadline of Friday at midnight to pass fresh spending legislation. If they cannot agree on the terms, parts of the federal government could shut down.

Summary: ट्रंप 22 दिसंबर तक सरकार को धन देने वाले विधेयक पर करेंगे हस्ताक्षरः बयान


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s prospects of winning the Republican nomination for the White House have slid sharply in online wagering venues, and bets that Republicans could have a fractured convention or that Trump may run as a third-party candidate were increasing. Chances of Trump claiming the Republican mantle have fallen hard to 69 percent after cresting at 86 percent this week following his winning seven of 11 states in Super Tuesday voting, according to PredictWise, which aggregates betting on multiple venues into an implied probability. The billionaire businessman is still the prohibitive favorite, but it was the steepest slide in his imputed chances since his second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.  Trump faces withering attacks from rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and from 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who labeled him a danger to the Republican party and the United States. On PredictIt, a site aggregated into PredictWise probability, Trump’s chances were 70 percent early Friday, up slightly from late Thursday when they fell to 68 percent, their lowest since Feb. 23. PredictIt is operated by Victoria University in New Zealand.  Online wagering venues such as Ireland’s PaddyPower, which express candidates’ prospects as traditional sports-betting odds, show Trump losing luster as Rubio and Cruz gain steam. PaddyPower’s odds show Trump as a 2-to-5 favorite compared with a 1-to-7 favorite right after Super Tuesday. Odds on Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida, narrowed to 4-to-1 from 5-to-1 on Tuesday, and odds for Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, were 9-to-1 from 12-to-1 earlier this week. Intense squabbling among Republican candidates and efforts by establishment Republicans to block a Trump nomination at this summer’s Republican National Convention boosted bets that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the favorite for the Democratic nomination, would win the Nov. 8 general election. Clinton’s prospects of winning a head-to-head contest against Trump shot to above 60 percent earlier this week and stood at 57 percent on Friday, according to PredictIt. Trump’s chances of trouncing Clinton sank to 27 percent on Friday from  39 percent in late February.  Republican infighting is fueling betting that Republicans will have a so-called brokered convention, which occurs when no candidate wins a majority of delegates before the convention, or that Trump will run as a third-party candidate. Chances for a brokered convention closed at 40 percent on Thursday on record volume in betting on PredictIt after starting the week at 23 percent. They were 39 percent early on Friday. The last brokered U.S. major-party convention was in 1952 when Democrats nominated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson on the third ballot. The last brokered Republican convention was in 1948, when New York Governor Thomas Dewey won in three ballots. Neither candidate won the presidential election. Chances that Trump would run as a third-party candidate have ticked higher, but it remains a long-shot in betting circles. PredictIt put the chances of him running as an independent at 17 percent on Friday, from 14 percent on Thursday and 10 percent a week ago.  (Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Toni Reinhold) 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: ऑनलाइन सट्टेबाजी में ट्रम्प के नामांकन की संभावनाएं घटीं, तीसरे पक्ष ने बाजी मारी


DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani activist hunted by the Taliban vowed on Tuesday to keep up his struggle against militancy in the northern Swat Valley, just a day after he narrowly escaped a car blast that killed his father and a passenger.  Pakistani Taliban insurgents took partial control of the valley in 2007, before being ousted two years later in a major military operation hailed as a telling blow against Islamist violence. The group has since carried out revenge attacks against anti-Taliban activists and attempted to extort money from  businessmen in a region where Pakistan has stationed more than 4,000 soldiers.   I lost my father, and my uncle and cousin are critically wounded, but we will fight until we have rid the area of militants,  Ahmed Zeb, a member of a peace panel in the region, told Reuters. Police officials say a remote-controlled roadside blast that targeted Zeb s vehicle killed two people and injured two, although he escaped, as he was not in the vehicle at the time.  The attack was claimed by a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, citing the peace committee s support for the  disbelievers . The term refers to Pakistan s security forces who have been fighting Taliban militants since 2001.   I believe the militants who escaped from here after the military operation are behind these attacks,  Zeb said.  It s possible they have informants in the region who help them identify targets. Zeb s peace panel groups councils headed by regional leaders, working with security officials to identify militants operating in the area and provide assistance during search operations.   We will continue our work for peace and law and order in the area,  Zeb said, adding that the government needed to take seriously the threat of more attacks on other peace panel members and their families. A spokesman for the country s interior ministry made no immediate comment on Zeb s remarks. More than 50 peace panel volunteers have been killed since 2009, with the last attack in May 2016, Zeb added.  Swat was the first sizeable region outside Pakistan s lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan to fall to the militants. More than 2,000 Taliban fighters have been driven out of the region, government officials say.  Since 2010, attacks have been a part of life there, such as an attempt in 2012 to assassinate Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai, although murders have stopped in the past year, following a series of arrests by police.

Summary: विस्फोट के निशाने पर आए पाकिस्तानी कार्यकर्ता ने तालिबान पर लगाम लगाने के प्रयास जारी रखने की कसम खाई


LONDON (Reuters) - Russian Twitter accounts posted almost 45,000 messages about Brexit in the 48 hours around last year s referendum in an attempt to sow discord during the vote on whether to leave the European Union, the Times newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Times cited research from an upcoming paper by data scientists at Swansea University and the University of California, Berkeley, which it said showed accounts based in Russia had tweeted about Brexit in the days leading up to the June 23 vote. The Times said most of the tweets seen by the newspaper encouraged people to vote for Brexit, although a number advocated remaining in the EU. It quoted Tho Pham, one of the paper s authors, as saying  the main conclusion is that bots were used on purpose and had influence . The research tracked 156,252 Russian accounts that mentioned #Brexit, including one, Svetal1972 which posted 92 tweets between June 20 and 24, including one calling for Britain to  make June the 23rd our Independence Day .  It said many of the messages appear to have come from automated accounts known as bots or from cyborg accounts which are heavily automated but have some human involvement.  In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million votes, or 51.9 percent of votes cast, backed leaving the EU while 16.1 million votes, or 48.1 percent of votes cast, backed staying. Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in Brexit. Russian officials say the West is whipping up anti-Russian hysteria around Moscow s alleged involvement in both the U.S. presidential election and Brexit. In Britain, a parliamentary committee has written to Facebook s Mark Zuckerberg asking for information on any paid-for activity by Russian-linked Facebook accounts around the EU referendum and the 2017 national election.  British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday accused Russia of meddling in elections and said the government would maintain its commitment to protecting Europe after Brexit.  We will take the necessary actions to counter Russian activity,  she said.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ के जनमत संग्रह से पहले रूसी ट्विटर खातों ने ब्रेक्सिट को बढ़ावा दियाः टाइम्स अखबार


PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday reaffirmed that he wanted the euro zone to have its own budget and finance minister, adding that it was key to ensure the stability of the single currency union and to weather economic shocks.  The fundamental issue at stake is not a mechanism which will magically solve all our problems,  Macron said in a speech on the future of Europe.  What is at stake is to reduce unemployment which affects one in five European youths.  He added that his idea was not about  mutualizing past debts  or about trying to  resolve the public finance problems of one state or another .

Summary: फ्रांस के मैक्रों का कहना है कि यूरो क्षेत्र को अपने स्वयं के बजट की आवश्यकता है, एक वित्त मंत्री


NEW YORK (Reuters) - An estimated 37 million Americans watched the U.S. vice presidential debate between Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine on television, according to Nielsen data on Wednesday, less than half the number who tuned in to Donald Trump’s first matchup with Hillary Clinton last week. The figure represented the average audience across nine channels during Tuesday’s 90-minute encounter. Broadcaster NBC pulled in the biggest audience with 7 million viewers. Fox News Channel led cable networks with 6.1 million.   Last week’s first debate between the presidential candidates for the Nov. 8 election, Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton, was watched by a record 84 million TV viewers. Vice presidential debates have traditionally attracted smaller TV audiences, with the exception of the 2008 encounter between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin, which set a record for a VP debate of 69.9 million viewers. The 2012 vice presidential encounter between Biden and Republican Paul Ryan was watched by 51.4 million Americans. None of the figures for the debates include those who watched online, through social media, or in bars and restaurants.  Tuesday’s 90-minute face-off between Pence, governor of Indiana, and Kaine, a U.S. senator from Virginia, was the only debate between the vice presidential contenders before the election next month. NBC is a unit of Comcast Corp. Fox News Channel is owned by 21st Century Fox.

Summary: अमेरिकी उपराष्ट्रपति की बहस को टीवी पर 37 मिलियन लोगों ने देखा


VIENNA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration pledged on Tuesday to show “great strictness” over restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities imposed by a deal with major powers, but gave little indication of what that might mean for the agreement.   The 2015 deal between Iran and six major powers restricts Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.  Trump has called the agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated”. His administration is now carrying out a review of the accord which could take months, but it has said little about where it stands on specific issues. The Trump administration also gave few clues about any potential policy shift on Tuesday in a statement to a quarterly meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors. “The United States will approach questions of JCPOA interpretation, implementation, and enforcement with great strictness indeed,” the statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-nation board said, citing the deal’s full name: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But the U.S. statement, the first to the Board of Governors since Trump took office in January, also repeated language used by the administration of former U.S. president Barack Obama, for whom the deal was a legacy achievement. “Iran must strictly and fully adhere to all commitments and technical measures for their duration,” it said - wording identical to that used in the U.S. statement to the previous Board of Governors meeting in November. The IAEA, which polices the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities under the deal, last month produced a quarterly report saying that Iran’s stock of enriched uranium had halved after coming close to a limit imposed by the agreement. That report was the first to specify how much enriched uranium Iran has, thanks to a series of agreements between Tehran and major powers clarifying items that would not count toward the stock. Some major powers had criticized previous reports for not being specific enough on items such as the size of the enriched uranium stock, and the U.S. statement called for future reports to be as detailed. “We welcome inclusion of the additional level of detail, and expect it will continue in the future,” it said.

Summary: ट्रम्प प्रशासन ने ईरान परमाणु समझौते पर 'बड़ी सख्ती' का वादा किया


KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has appointed Nabeel al-Amudi, the head of the Saudi Ports Authority as transport minister, state TV reported on Wednesday, citing a royal decree. Amudi replaces Sulaiman al-Hamdan, who has been named as  the minister for civil service. Prior to being the president of the Saudi Ports Authority, Amudi held various posts at state oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Summary: सऊदी अरब ने नबील अल-अमूदी को परिवहन मंत्री नामित किया


ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders on Monday and urged them to “redouble” their efforts to rein in militants accused of using the country as a base to carry out attacks in neighboring Afghanistan. Mattis, on a one-day visit to Pakistan, said the South Asian nation had made progress in the fight against militancy inside its borders but needed to make more. More than 100 days since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a South Asia strategy that calls for a firmer line toward Islamabad, U.S. officials and analysts say there has been only limited success and it is not clear how progress will be made. U.S. officials have long been frustrated by what they see as Pakistan’s reluctance to act against groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network that they believe exploit safe haven on Pakistani soil to launch attacks in Afghanistan. “The Secretary reiterated that Pakistan must redouble its efforts to confront militants and terrorists operating within the country,” the Pentagon said in a statement. Mattis, who visited Pakistan for the first time as defense secretary, said before the trip that the goal for his meetings with Pakistani officials would be to find “common ground”. In his discussion with Mattis, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the two allies shared objectives. “We’re committed (to) the war against terror,” he said. “Nobody wants peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan.” Mattis also met with high-ranking officials from Pakistan’s powerful military, including army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Lieutenant-General Naveed Mukhtar, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency that U.S. officials say has links with Haqqani and Taliban militants. A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mattis’ conversations had been “straightforward” and specific. The official said one of the topics of conversation was getting Pakistan to help bring the Taliban to the negotiating table   In August, Trump outlined a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, chastising Pakistan over its alleged support for Afghan militants. But beyond that, the Trump administration has done little to articulate its strategy, experts say.  U.S. officials say they have not seen a change in Pakistan’s support for militants, despite visits by senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “We have been very direct and very clear with the Pakistanis ... we have not seen those changes implemented yet,” General John Nicholson, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, said last week. Pakistani officials have pushed back on the U.S. accusations and say they have done a great deal to help the United States in tracking down militants. U.S. official expressed hope relations could improve after a U.S.-Canadian couple kidnapped in Afghanistan were freed in Pakistan in October with their three children. While the Trump administration has used tougher words with Pakistan, it is has yet to change Islamabad’s calculus. Some experts say the United States loses clout in Pakistan when it is seen as bullying. While Mattis traveled to the region earlier this year, he did not stop in Pakistan, but visited its arch rival, India, a relationship that has grown under the Trump administration.  “There is not an effective stick anymore because Pakistan doesn’t really care about U.S aid, it has been dwindling anyway and it is getting the money it needs elsewhere ... treat it with respect and actually reward it when it does do something good,” said Madiha Afzal, with the Brookings Institution. Mattis’ brief visit to Islamabad comes a week after a hardline Pakistani Islamist group called off nationwide protests after the government met its demand that a minister accused of blasphemy resign. Separately, a Pakistani Islamist accused of masterminding a bloody 2008 assault in the Indian city of Mumbai was freed from house arrest. The White House said the release could have repercussions for U.S.-Pakistan relations. “I think for Pakistan, the timing is very bad. There is talk about progress being made against extremists and here you have a situation where religious hardliners have basically been handed everything they wanted on a silver platter,” said Michael Kugelman, with the Woodrow Wilson think tank in Washington.

Summary: अमेरिकी रक्षा प्रमुख ने पाकिस्तान से आतंकवादियों के खिलाफ प्रयासों को दोगुना करने का आग्रह किया


The following bullet points are from the U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter accounts (@realDonaldTrump and @POTUS). Reuters has not edited the tweets. @realDonaldTrump : -- Source link: bit.ly/2jpy49U; bit.ly/2jpEXYR

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः ट्विटर पर ट्रम्प (25 जनवरी)-एबीसी साक्षात्कार, मतदाता धोखाधड़ी, सुप्रीम कोर्ट का चयन


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of U.S. congressional defense committees said on Wednesday they supported a plan for $700 billion in defense spending in fiscal year 2018, backing President Donald Trump’s call for a boost for the military.   The House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services committees agreed on the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which would increase troop levels and purchases of fighter jets and ships for the federal fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. The act would increase active troop levels by more than 16,000 and includes plans to buy 90 stealthy F-35 fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin Corp. The spending plan is larger than the $603 billion in spending proposed by Trump in May. Trump wants to pay for a military spending increase by slashing non-defense spending.  The Trump proposal included funding for the Department of Defense as well as nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy and other national defense programs.  Senior staff for the Armed Services committees said the NDAA gives $634 billion for the same programs, with total defense spending, including the Pentagon and defense related programs at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to $699.6 billion.  The Pentagon alone would get $692 billion of that, including $65.7 billion for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  To become law the NDAA must be passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law by Trump. The bill, one of the few pieces of legislation that gets through Congress every year, has passed every year since 1961. The request for defense spending is well beyond last year’s $619 billion, defying “sequestration” spending caps set in the 2011 Budget Control Act. The caps would need to be lifted before the 2018 spending could be approved. In addition to more active-duty troops, the spending plan incorporates additional money recently requested for missile defense.[nL1N1NC20Q] The proposal also gives the Navy authorization for an additional five ships above Trump’s original budget request. The ships include an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer made by General Dynamics Corp and Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc and a total of three Littoral Combat Ships built by Lockheed Martin and Australia’s Austal Ltd.

Summary: कांग्रेस ने 700 अरब डॉलर की रक्षा खर्च योजना को अंतिम रूप दिया


BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan is the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. ties, Chinese President Xi Jinping told visiting U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Trump taking a precedent-breaking call from Taiwan’s president. China considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province and integral part of its territory, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island’s main source of arms. Trump upset China last December by taking a telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, shortly after he won election, the first call between U.S. and Taiwan leaders since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. While there was no public mention of Taiwan in comments Xi and Trump made in front of reporters, the official Chinese foreign ministry statement about their talks did not mince its words. “The Taiwan issue is the most important, most sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations, and concerns the political basis of the China-U.S. relationship,” the ministry paraphrased Xi as telling Trump. China “hopes that the U.S. side continues to scrupulously abide by the ‘one China’ principle, and prevents disturbances to the broader picture of China-U.S. ties”, Xi added. Trump told Xi that the United States government upheld and stuck to the “one China” policy, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported. In Taipei, Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan’s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, said China should respect Taiwan’s people. “We think China should deeply understand and respect Taiwan people’s opinions on the growth of relations across the Taiwan Strait,” Chiu told reporters. “We are also willing to work with the other side to find a new, positive model in cross-straits ties that would use dialogue to resolve differences, and to create a proper path for harmonious relations.” China suspects Tsai wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a red line for Beijing. Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China but will defend Taiwan’s democracy and security.  China has pressured Taiwan since Tsai took office last year, suspending a regular dialogue mechanism and slowly peeling away its few remaining diplomatic allies. China is deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward Taiwan, and was upset when the United States recently allowed Tsai to transit through Hawaii and Guam on her way to and from diplomatic allies of Taiwan’s in the Pacific. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

Summary: चीन के शी ने ट्रम्प से कहा, Sino-U.S संबंधों में ताइवान सबसे महत्वपूर्ण मुद्दा


(Refiles Nov. 30 story to cut extraneous word ‘against’ in 2nd paragraph; corrects garbled sentence in paragraph 17) By Katanga Johnson and Makini Brice WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Charles “Chuck” Johnson is not the kind of foot soldier in the army of lobbyists that House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan warned would descend on Washington to fight the biggest overhaul of the tax code since the 1980s. Johnson, 53, with a degree in social work and another from a  theological seminary, heads the National Council for Adoption, a small organization in Alexandria, Virginia that represents adoption agencies and adoption lawyers. Despite a relative lack of clout, parents of adopted children and adoption advocates beat back a minor change in the tax code that would have removed a tax credit to help cover the costs of adoption. Politics in Washington favors the moneyed and the connected, especially Big Business and special interest groups rich enough to employ legions of lobbyists to advocate on their behalf.  But many of the taxpayers affected by President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul have little or no influence on Congress, where Republicans are looking to end a host of tax credits and deductions for medical expenses, moving expenses and alimony in order to pay for their big tax cuts. The bill will cut corporate tax, provide a tax holiday for corporations’ overseas profits and cut the tax rate for the wealthy. “Everyone in corporate America had an army ready and in place to push for simplifying the tax code,” said Michaela Sims Stewart, president of the lobbying firm Sims Strategies.  In contrast, parents of adopted children “naturally came together” to form a “small but mighty group,” said Stewart.  Stewart also happens to be a spokeswoman for Adoption Tax Credit Working Group, which brought together a host of organizations, some with strong Republican and conservative ties, to pressure the House leadership to drop the change. Part of the tax code since 1998, the adoption tax credit was used by nearly 74,000 people in 2014, according to the Internal Revenue Service.  The adoption advocates started a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter to alert parents of the change. “We expected adoptive families to rally in support, but when groups like Focus on the Family, National Right to Life, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, prominent clergy such as Russell Moore, and even the LGBT community joined, the media took an interest,” said Johnson, of the National Council for Adoption. With the publicity, pro-family Republican politicians were suddenly in the position of having to explain the elimination of what the coalition had successfully cast as a pro-child policy. The House proposal was dropped Nov. 2 and the Senate didn’t even bother to make it part of its version of the tax bill. While adoptive parents were ultimately successful in their fight, others have struggled to be heard. Graduate students staged walkouts on dozens of campuses this week to protest one Republican proposal that would increase their tax burden. It would require graduate students to pay taxes on tuition payments that are waived by their university as if it were income. In other words, the students would be required to pay taxes on money they never had to begin with.      Few of the Republican proposals to end deductions or tax credits will yield a lot of money for a government that spends $4 trillion a year. Ending alimony deductions, a benefit in the tax code since 1954, might raise $8.3 billion over 10 years, according to an analysis by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. No longer letting teachers write off $250 of what they shell out of their own pocket for classroom supplies might yield $2.1 billion over the same period, the committee says. The change affecting adoption might bring in less than $50 million over the next decade. The committee did not break out what ending medical deductions would yield. Even though the stakes are high for them, advocates for people with disabilities and chronic diseases say they lagged in fighting cuts in medical expense deductibility, as well as removing a tax break to companies that make handicap-accessible structural changes, and a tax credit for businesses that hire people with disabilities. The tax breaks were not explicitly for people with disabilities, and the advocates had not expected they would be in Congress’s crosshairs.  These less-than-powerful voices may yet be heard as the Senate prepares to vote on its bill this week. They may get another chance when the House and Senate compromise on a single piece of legislation to vote on and pass to Trump.

Summary: कैसे गोद लिए गए बच्चों के माता-पिता ने अमेरिकी रिपब्लिकन कर प्रस्ताव को विफल कर दिया


BEIJING (Reuters) - China will let the market play a decisive role in resource allocation in the economy, China s President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday at the opening of a key Communist Party congress. Beijing has called for a greater role for market forces in the economy in order to improve efficiency and develop a more sustainable growth model.

Summary: शी ने कहा कि चीन संसाधन आवंटन में बाजार को निर्णायक भूमिका निभाने देगा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday delayed voting on a Republican tax overhaul as the bill was tripped up by problems with an amendment sought by fiscal hawks to address a large expansion of the federal budget deficit projected to result from the measure. The Senate debated the legislation late into Thursday and adjourned, putting off any votes until Friday morning. It was unclear if a decisive vote on the bill would occur then. The delay underscored nagging concerns among Republican fiscal conservatives about the deficit impact of the bill. That set up the possibility that its deep tax cuts might have to be moderated, that future tax increases might be built in, and that some conservatives might seek to attach spending cuts, all approaches that could throw up new political problems. White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told reporters in the Capitol: “I don’t think tax cuts are going to be scaled back. I think it would still be historic tax relief for corporations and for middle-income families.”  The tax bill is seen by Republicans as crucial to their prospects in the November 2018 elections, when they will fight to keep control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump and  Republicans now in control of Congress have yet to pass major legislation, a fact they hope to change with their proposed tax- code overhaul, which would be the biggest since the 1980s. Democrats, expected to unanimously oppose the tax bill, have dismissed it as a giveaway to the wealthy and corporations. Republican Senator Bob Corker and others had tried to add a provision to the bill to trigger automatic future tax increases if the tax cuts in the bill did not boost the economy and generate revenues sufficient to offset the deficit expansion. But the Senate parliamentarian barred Corker’s “trigger” proposal on procedural grounds. The trigger amendment was needed to win Corker’s vote and those of others worried about the deficit - worries that intensified when congressional analysts said the bill would not boost the economy enough to offset the estimated deficit expansion, as the Trump administration had said it would. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch told reporters in the Capitol that it had not been easy to accommodate Corker, Senator Jeff Flake and other fiscal hawks. “It’s been pretty hard to make them happy so far. We’re going to keep working on it ... and we’re going to do it,” Hatch said. Senate Republicans were considering making a proposed corporate income tax rate cut temporary, instead of permanent, so the rate would rise back to an unknown level after six or seven years, said one Republican senator and an aide. By that time, Trump might no longer be in office and a future Congress might change the law. When asked if the tax bill was in trouble, Republican Senator Mike Rounds told reporters: “No, I don’t think so. It’s just a matter of once again trying to make the bill work.” Optimism had reigned earlier in the day, when the bill won the backing of Republican Senator John McCain. Stocks surged on hopes that a key tax overhaul vote was imminent. The S&P 500 hit a record closing high and the Dow Jones industrial average topped the 24,000 mark for the first time. But the Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, a nonpartisan fiscal analysis unit of Congress, said the bill as passed earlier by the Senate Finance Committee, would generate only $407 billion in new tax revenue from increased economic growth. JCT had earlier estimated the tax bill would balloon the $20 trillion national debt by $1.4 trillion over 10 years. The new estimate, counting “dynamic” economic effects, put the deficit expansion at $1 trillion, far short of assertions by some Republicans that the tax cuts would pay for themselves. House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the new JCT estimate showed “no amount of dynamic scoring fairy dust will fix the catastrophic deficits of the GOP tax scam.” McCain, a key player in July’s collapse of a Republican effort to gut Obamacare, backed the tax bill. While “far from perfect,” the party’s 2008 presidential nominee said it would boost the economy and help all Americans. Republican Senator Susan Collins, who also played a role in the failure of the Obamacare rollback, told reporters she was still not committed to the bill. Several Republicans were withholding support while pushing for including a federal deduction for up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes and bigger tax breaks for “pass-through” companies, including small businesses. As drafted, the Senate bill would cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent after a one-year delay and reduce the tax burden on businesses and individuals, while ending many tax breaks, but would still expand the deficit, Trump wants to enact tax cuts before January. The House approved its own tax bill on Nov. 16. It would have to be merged with the Senate bill, if it is approved, before any final measure could go to Trump for his signature.  Republicans have 52 votes in the 100-member Senate, giving them enough to win if they hold together. With Democrats opposed, Republicans could lose no more than two of their own votes, with Vice President Mike Pence able to break a 50-50 tie. Trump has attacked Corker and Flake on Twitter. Both senators are not seeking re-election. In early October, the president called Corker, “Liddle’ Bob Corker” in a tweet. Corker tweeted that the Trump White House was an “adult daycare center.” Days later, he called Trump a liar who had damaged U.S. standing in the world. Trump tweeted back saying Corker “couldn’t get elected dog catcher.” Trump earlier this month tweeted that Flake’s political career was ‘toast’” In a dramatic Senate speech, Flake said U.S. politics had become inured to “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior from the White House.

Summary: सीनेट कर विधेयक घाटे-केंद्रित 'ट्रिगर' पर रुकता है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the U.S. Congress returns in September from a summer recess, it is expected to consider legislation called the Blue Lives Matter Act that would make killing a police officer a hate crime, a step first taken by Louisiana earlier this year.  Debate in Louisiana over the law enacted in May pitted police unions, which supported tougher hate-crime sentences for police assailants, against civil rights groups, which felt police did not face the historic discrimination hate-crime laws were intended to address.  The Louisiana debate could play out on a national stage with the Blue Lives Matter Act as police shooting deaths this month in Dallas and Baton Rouge stoke momentum for action to combat violence against police and build support for the law.  “Since the Baton Rouge tragedy, we’ve received calls and messages from around the country from individuals asking about the Blue Lives Matter Act, and we’re confident more members of Congress will be co-sponsoring the legislation as soon as they can when Congress reconvenes,” said Kyle Huwa, a spokesman for the bill’s author, Colorado Republican Representative Ken Buck.  Sixteen Republicans in the House of Representatives are co-sponsoring the bill, which was introduced in March and has failed to gain Democratic support. Its title plays off the Black Lives Matter movement that arose in protest against police use of force against minorities, especially black men, and deaths of minorities at the hands of police in recent years.  Fraternal Order of Police Executive Director Jim Pasco said he has in private meetings urged President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to protect police under the federal hate crime statute.  That law covers violence motivated by bias against a victim’s race, gender, national origin, religion or sexual orientation and imposes harsher penalties as a deterrent. But Pasco said he received no confirmation such a move would be supported by the administration. The Justice Department and the White House declined to comment on their positions.  In the shooting deaths of three police officers in Baton Rouge on Sunday, Louisiana prosecutors would have been able to seek hate crime penalties against gunman Gavin Long if he had survived. Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington based advocacy group, said many states have increased penalties for assaults against police and police deaths have been declining. Police shootings overall have been down in recent years. Preliminary Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics released Monday show 41 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2015. That was down almost 20 percent from 51 officers killed in 2014. “We should not use this as a moment to dilute the unique problem of long standing discrimination and violence directed toward groups on the basis of race in our country,” Clarke said.

Summary: अमेरिकी पुलिस की मौतों ने हमलों को घृणा अपराधों के रूप में मानने के लिए कानून के लिए गति बढ़ाई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed new sanctions on five Russians and Chechens, including the head of the Russian republic of Chechnya, for alleged human rights abuses.  The new sanctions blacklisted Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Treasury Department said in a statement.  U.S. authorities accused Kadyrov of overseeing  an administration involved in disappearances and extrajudicial killings . On a conference call with reporters Wednesday, a senior U.S. State Department official said that  one or more of Kadyrov s political opponents were killed at his direction.   Kadyrov reacted to news of the sanctions with his usual defiance.  A sleepless night is waiting for me,  Kadyrov wrote, apparently sarcastically, on his Instagram social media account.  I can be proud that I m out of favor with the special services of the USA. In fact, the USA cannot forgive me for dedicating my whole life to the fight against foreign terrorists among which there are bastards of America s special services.  He also wrote that he would not be visiting the United States. The U.S. Treasury Department imposed the sanctions, which freeze the banks accounts of those targeted, under a 2012 law known as the Magnitsky Act.  The Magnitsky Act imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials linked to the death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian auditor and whistleblower. The act also seeks to hold responsible those U.S. authorities allege orchestrated or benefited from the death of Magnitsky.   Treasury remains committed to holding accountable those involved in the Sergei Magnitsky affair, including those with a role in the criminal conspiracy and fraud scheme that he uncovered,  Director of the Treasury Department s Office of Foreign Assets Control John Smith said in a statement. Magnitsky was arrested and died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after discovering a $230 million tax fraud scheme, according to U.S. authorities. Supporters of Magnitsky say the Russian state murdered him by denying him adequate medical care after he was imprisoned on tax evasion charges. The Kremlin denies the allegation. In addition to Kadyrov and one other Chechen official, the Treasury s action on Wednesday targeted three Russians that U.S. authorities say were involved in the complex tax fraud scheme that Magnitsky exposed. The Magnitsky sanctions have been a point of tension between Moscow and Washington, even before Russia s annexation of Crimea sent relations spiraling. In retaliation for the Magnitsky Act, Putin signed a bill halting U.S. adoptions of Russian children. It had been unclear to sanctions experts whether President Donald Trump s administration, which has signaled a desire to rebuild ties with Moscow, would continue to target people under the law.  The Magnitsky Act attracted greater public attention when it emerged that the president s son Donald Trump Jr., had met with a Russian lawyer and a lobbyist - both strident opponents of the law - in New York ahead of the 2016 U.S. elections. When asked about the June 2016 meeting, Trump Jr. later said they discussed the adoptions issue. On a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, State Department officials said that despite the new sanctions the Trump administration wants a constructive relationship with Moscow.  We believe a Russia that takes care of the human rights of its own citizens will be an even more effective partner,  a senior State Department official said.

Summary: अमेरिका ने चेचन नेता और चार अन्य पर मैग्निट्स्की अधिनियम के तहत प्रतिबंध लगाए


RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian women rejoiced at their new freedom to drive on Wednesday, with some taking to the roads even though licenses will not be issued for nine months. Hundreds of others chatted with hiring managers at a Riyadh job fair, factoring in the new element in their career plans: their ability to drive themselves to work.  Saudi Arabia will never be the same again. The rain begins with a single drop,  Manal al-Sharif, who was arrested in 2011 after a driving protest, said in an online statement.      King Salman announced the historic change on Tuesday, ending a conservative tradition which limited women s mobility and was seen by rights activists as an emblem of their suppression. Saudi Arabia was the only remaining country in the world to bar women from driving. At the jobs fair, Sultana, 30, said she had received four job offers since graduating from law school two years ago but turned them down because of transport issues.  My parents don t allow me to use Uber or Careem, so one of my brothers or the driver would need to take me,  she said, referring to dial-a ride companies.  I m so excited to learn how to drive. This will be a big difference for me. I will be independent. I won t need a driver. I can do everything myself.  She plans to start taking driving lessons when her family travels abroad for vacation. Other women weren t waiting. Internet videos showed a handful of women driving cars overnight, even though the ban has not been officially lifted. The move represents a big crack in the laws and social mores governing women in the conservative Muslim kingdom. The guardianship system requires women to have a male relative s approval for most decisions on education, employment, marriage, travel plans and even medical treatment. The new initiative recalls previous modernizing milestones that unnerved conservatives at first but were eventually accepted, such as the 1960s start of state education for girls and the introduction of television. The decree is expected to boost the fortunes of 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has ascended to the heights of power in the kingdom with an ambitious domestic reform program and assertive foreign policy. A muted response from Saudi s clergy, which has long backed the ban, suggested power shared between the Al Saud dynasty and the Wahhabi religious establishment could be shifting decisively in favor of the royals. Many younger Saudis regard Prince Mohammed s ascent as evidence their generation is taking a central place in running a country whose patriarchal traditions have for decades made power the province of the old and blocked women s progress. Sharif, the activist, described the driving ban s removal  as  just the start to end long-standing unjust laws (that) have always considered Saudi women minors who are not trusted to drive their own destiny.  A driving instructor at a government-run center said women called all day to inquire about registering a license, but he had received no instructions yet from the government. Um Faisal, a mother of six, said her daughters would get licenses as soon as possible.  Years ago, there wasn t work outside the house. But today women need to get out and go places. This generation needs to drive,  she said, clad in a long black abaya. The Saudi ambassador to Washington said on Tuesday women would not need their guardians  permission to get a license, nor to have a guardian in the car when driving. In a country where gender segregation has been strictly enforced for decades in keeping with the austere Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam, the decree means women will have regular contact with unrelated men, such as fellow drivers and traffic police. Other rules have loosened recently, with the government sponsoring concerts deemed un-Islamic by clerics, allowing women into a large sports stadium for the first time and permitting them to dance beside men in a central Riyadh street over the weekend. Amnesty International welcomed the decree as  long overdue  but said there was still a range of discriminatory laws and practices that needed to be overturned. That risks inflaming tensions with influential Wahhabi clerics with whom the ruling Al Saud has enjoyed a close strategic alliance since the kingdom s founding.  The state-backed Council of Religious Scholars expressed support for the king s decree. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, who has repeatedly opposed women working and driving and said letting them into politics may mean  opening the door to evil , has yet to comment. Some Islamist clerics are currently in detention in Saudi Arabia following an apparent crackdown on potential opponents of the kingdom s rulers this month. Bernard Haykel, professor of Near East studies at Princeton University, said the driving announcement may help explain that.   They might have raised a storm against the government by mobilizing opposition in the name of religion. They have been stymied,  he said.  Still, some men expressed outrage at the about-face by prominent clerics, who in the past have sometimes justified the driving ban by saying women s brains are too small or that driving endangered their ovaries.  Whoever says this is permitted is a sinner. Women driving means great evils and this makes them especially sinful,  one Twitter user wrote. Kawthar al-Arbash, a member of the Shura Council, a government advisory body, acknowledged that resistance, saying:  That s how things go. Everything new is accompanied by fears.

Summary: 'बारिश की शुरुआत एक बूंद से होती है': सऊदी महिलाओं ने ड्राइविंग प्रतिबंध के अंत में खुशी जताई


ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that as offensive operations against Islamic State in Syria entered their final stages, he expected the focus to move towards holding territory instead of arming Syrian Kurdish fighters. Speaking with reporters on a military plane en route to Cairo, Mattis did not say if there had already been a halt to weapons transfers. U.S. President Donald Trump informed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in a call last week that Washington was adjusting military support to partners on the ground in Syria. The Syrian Kurdish YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State with the help of a U.S.-led coalition. Turkey s presidency had previously reported that the United States would not supply weapons to Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria. Until now, the Pentagon has only gone as far as saying it was reviewing  adjustments  in arms for the Syrian Kurdish forces, which Ankara views as a threat.  The YPG is armed and as the coalition stops offensive (operations) then obviously you don t need that, you need security, you need police forces, that is local forces, that is people who make certain that ISIS doesn t come back,  Mattis said.  When asked if that would specifically mean the U.S. would stop arming the YPG, Mattis said:  Yeah, we are going to go exactly along the lines of what the President announced.  Ankara has been infuriated by Washington s support for the YPG militia, seen by Turkey as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union. The United States expects to recover heavy weapons and larger vehicles from the YPG, but lighter weapons are unlikely to be completely recovered, U.S. officials have said. Earlier this week, the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said more than 400 U.S. Marines and their artillery would be leaving Syria after helping to capture the city of Raqqa from Islamic State. Mattis said that was part of the United States changing the composition of its forces to support diplomats to bring an end to the war.   The troops are changing their stance...that includes with our allies who are now changing their stance as they come to the limits of where they are going,  Mattis said.

Summary: मैटिस की नज़र सीरियाई कुर्द लड़ाकों को हथियार देने से हटने पर


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump stood by unproven claims on Friday that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race and shrugged off a dispute with Britain over the notion their spy agency had a hand in it. British Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman earlier in the day dismissed the charge against Britain’s GCHQ spy agency as “ridiculous” and said the White House had promised not to repeat it. But at a news conference Trump brushed aside a question about whether it was a mistake to accuse British intelligence of eavesdropping. “We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it,” Trump said. He was referring to Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano who on Tuesday accused Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agency of having helped Obama, a Democrat, wiretap Trump, a Republican.  White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Thursday quoted Napolitano’s comments about GCHQ during a testy briefing with reporters. But speaking at the White House news conference, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at his side, Trump distanced himself. “That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox, and so you shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox. OK?” Trump said while standing by his initial charge that the previous U.S. administration eavesdropped on him. “As far as wiretapping, I guess by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps,” he said to Merkel.  U.S. ties with Germany were frayed by news reports in 2013 citing leaked intelligence documents that Washington had bugged Merkel’s mobile phone. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity,  said British officials had voiced concern to senior Trump aides but the official declined to explicitly apologize for Spicer’s citation of the Fox News allegations. The Republican Trump, president since Jan. 20, tweeted this month that his Democratic predecessor had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign. Trump offered no evidence, and an Obama spokesman has said the claim is “simply false”. Leaders of both major parties in Congress have joined a growing chorus disputing it.  On Friday, the U.S. Justice Department said it had responded to a request by committees in Congress for documents that could shed light on Trump’s claim. A government source, who requested anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said an initial examination indicated it contained no evidence to support Trump’s charge.  On the “Fox & Friends” program, Napolitano, a political commentator and former New Jersey judge, said that rather than ordering U.S. agencies to spy on Trump, Obama had obtained transcripts of Trump’s conversations from GCHQ so there were “no American fingerprints” on it. Late on Friday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith said: “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary. Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time in any way, full stop.”  Dominic Grieve, chairman of the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, said a U.S. president cannot task the GCHQ to intercept an individual’s communications. In a rare public statement, the GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency which monitors overseas electronic communications, said the claims should be ignored. Reuters reported earlier this week that an unidentified British security official had denied the allegations about Trump. GCHQ, based in western England, is one of three main British spy agencies alongside the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service and the MI5 Security Service.

Summary: ओबामा के फोन टैप करने के आरोप पर कायम रहे ट्रंप, ब्रिटेन के साथ विवाद को टाला


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif spoke directly during talks at the United Nations on Wednesday in what a European diplomat described as a  very difficult  meeting.   Tillerson and Zarif spoke directly for a relatively long time. There was no real great surprise in the positions expressed,  the diplomat said.  The diplomat said there was unanimity that the nuclear deal was being respected, but the debate had not really focused on its implementation.   There was no real visibility on what the American decision will be in October,  the diplomat said.

Summary: टिलरसन, जरीफ ने ईरान परमाणु वार्ता में सीधे बात की


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Diplomatic efforts to tackle the crisis caused by North Korea s nuclear and missile buildup are continuing, U. S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday.  Mattis, who is on a two-day official visit to the Indian capital to strengthen military ties said pressure on North Korea had increased following a United Nations resolution.   We continue to maintain the diplomatically led efforts in the United Nations,  he told reporters.  You have seen unanimous U.N. security council resolutions passed that have increased the pressure...on the North and at the same time we maintain the capability to deter North Korea s most dangerous threats,  he added.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया संकट से निपटने के लिए अमेरिका ने राजनयिक प्रयास जारी रखे


MADRID (Reuters) - Spain is pushing for the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government as a way of encouraging a return to constitutional order in the crisis-hit country, the Spanish foreign ministry said on Tuesday. The head of Venezuela s opposition-led congress, Julio Borges, visited Spain on Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as part of a European tour seeking support against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro s government has been criticized by the United Nations, Washington and other governments for failing to allow the entry of foreign aid to ease an economic crisis, while it overrides congress and jails hundreds of opponents.  Against the progressive worsening of the situation in Venezuela, the Spanish government is pushing ... for the adoption of restrictive, individual and selective measures, which don t hurt the Venezuelan population,  the ministry said in a statement. The Spanish government was working with its partners in the EU on these measures and was in constant contact with other Latin American countries, the ministry said. A foreign ministry spokesman did not say what the measures would be. After the meeting with Borges, the ministry underlined Spain s support for a peaceful, democratic solution and called for the release of all political prisoners. Spain s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, also met representatives of human rights activist Lilian Tintori, the wife of Venezuela s best-known detained political leader, who was barred from flying out of the country to join Borges on the tour. Venezuela s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, criticized the opposition leaders  meeting with Rajoy, saying they were unpatriotic in backing sanctions that he said would hurt the Venezuelan economy.  @marianorajoy assaults Venezuelan dignity, representing the worst colonial past, defeated and expelled by our Liberators,  Arreaza tweeted on Tuesday. The Venezuelan opposition won control of congress in 2015. But Maduro s loyalist Supreme Court has tossed out every major law it has passed as the oil-rich country slips deeper into a recession exacerbated by triple-digit inflation and acute shortages of food and medicines. Maduro has said he faces an  armed insurrection  designed to end socialism in Latin America and let a U.S.-backed business elite get its hands on the OPEC nation s crude reserves.

Summary: स्पेन ने यूरोपीय संघ पर वेनेजुएला के खिलाफ प्रतिबंधात्मक कदम उठाने का दबाव डाला


EDINBURGH (Reuters) - The Spanish region of Catalonia should be allowed to determine its own future, Scotland s devolved pro-independence government said, adding that the strength of Catalan feeling could not be ignored by the international community. The statement came after an independence vote organized by Catalonia s autonomous regional government on Sunday, ruled illegal by Madrid, erupted into violence as police tried to stop it going ahead.  The results of the vote overwhelmingly backed independence, although turnout was 42 percent because those in favor of keeping Spain as one country boycotted it. The autonomous Catalan government has called for international mediation.  Spain will maintain that this vote is not legitimate but the strength of feeling demonstrated cannot be ignored by Spain, nor by the wider European and international community,  Scotland s foreign minister Fiona Hyslop said.  There must now be dialogue to resolve this matter in a way that respects both democracy and the rule of law, and allows the people of Catalonia to determine their own future.  Scotland itself rejected independence from the United Kingdom in a binding 2014 referendum, although nationalists are still the dominant force in Scottish politics.

Summary: कैटेलियनों को अपना भविष्य खुद तय करने की अनुमति दी जानी चाहिए-स्कॉटिश सरकार


PARIS (Reuters) - Marine Le Pen has acted to reassert her authority over France s far-right National Front with the forced departure of her deputy, but still faces a struggle to persuade the party base that she has what it takes to win an election. The exit of Florian Philippot, who quit last week over policy differences with Le Pen since her resounding defeat by Emmanuel Macron in May s presidential election, shows the 49-year-old daughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen can be tough when required. But her past flip-flops over policy, and less-than-assured performance in a TV debate against Macron before the presidential run-off, have raised doubts about whether she can take the National Front from being a major factor in French politics to a party that can hold power.  Le Pen s image has seriously deteriorated,  said Frederic Dabi of polling group Ifop, who carried out a survey on Sept 7-8 that shows only 27 percent of voters think she has the stature of a president, down seven percentage points since March.  Her problem in terms of image is not authority, she is seen as being very firm, but it is competence, stature,  he said.  Can she be seen as an alternative to Emmanuel Macron? It s not looking that way.  Le Pen took a lower-than-expected 33.9 percent of votes in the presidential run-off, while her party won only 8.75 percent in the second round of parliamentary elections that followed. However, support for the European far-right may not have peaked despite setbacks in the Netherlands and Austria too. At the weekend, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany scored 12.6 percent in federal elections, becoming the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag in more than half a century   an outcome Le Pen praised.[nL8N1M6092] [nL5N1M50PJ] A lawyer by training, Le Pen took over the party in 2011 and quickly managed to build a broader following. She succeeded in detoxifying its image, distancing it from the anti-Semitic labels it attracted under her father, and adopting pro-welfare economic policies that appealed to a wider range of voters. Out went her father, the one-eyed former paratrooper who reveled in provocative comments, expelled from the party in 2015. In came the daughter s softer image, with talk of lowering the retirement age and protecting workers. She went on TV to talk about her love of gardening. A lot of that image adjustment was down to Philippot, a graduate of France s elite ENA administrative school who joined the party in 2011 and quickly rose to the top, an architect of Le Pen s 2012 and 2017 campaigns. But having broken with her father and now with Philippot, Le Pen must now show that she can get the policy mix right before another possible presidential bid in 2022.  The dispute with Philippot came to a head over the party s anti-euro stance. For her supporters, Le Pen s willingness to sacrifice her closest aide when he refused to do what he was told underscores her leadership credentials.  It shows that she gives priority to what s good for the party above personal considerations,  Gaetan Dussausaye, the  head of the party s youth group, told Reuters.   She knows what she wants, she s got strong beliefs and she ll do whatever is necessary to defend them,  said Dussausaye, who is a member of the National Front s top political committee.  But others worry about her flashes of aggression and lack of preparedness in the presidential debate, followed by the elections underperformance. They believe this means she has work to do to persuade the grassroots   and beyond them, a big enough number of voters   that she s a winner. A survey by Odoxa pollsters, carried out on Sept 6-7, showed that the biggest danger for Le Pen may come from within   from inside the family as much as the party.  This showed Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Marine s niece, who temporarily stepped away from politics, is the only top official seen as an asset by a majority of party members surveyed. More than half saw Marine Le Pen as a liability. Jerome Riviere, a former conservative lawmaker who joined Le Pen s campaign team, praised her openness to adjustments, including softening her anti-euro stance.  A good party chief needs to be representative of what grassroots activists want,  he said. But Le Pen s handling of the break with Philippot led others to conclude that she no longer knows where she stands.  There is a rise in influence of people who advise her in a way that is not true to her beliefs or good for the party,  Alain Avello, a regional councillor, told Reuters.  Avello, who once described himself a  Marine-ite , is one of several National Front members to have quit the party after Philippot s departure.     A crucial question will be how much Le Pen now allows the party s policies to evolve.  Philippot had long advocated a tough anti-euro and pro-welfare policy, which Le Pen had backed. But others want the party to re-focus on its anti-immigrant, economically liberal roots. It is expected to decide a new strategy and policies at a congress in March. In a letter to National Front members the day Philippot quit, Le Pen said the debate on overhauling the party would continue until the congress. She will tour France to meet supporters, who will be asked in a questionnaire how they want the party to change.   It is important to me that you, National Front members, be the ones to decide,  Le Pen said.

Summary: कोई असहमति नहीं जताते हुए, मरीन ले पेन ने फ्रांसीसी अति-दक्षिणपंथी पर पकड़ बना ली


VIENNA (Reuters) - The OSCE s media watchdog said on Thursday moves by the United States and Russia to force some foreign media to register as  foreign agents  were unacceptable and dangerous. Russia s lower house of parliament this week approved a law allowing Moscow to force foreign media to describe news they provide to Russians as the work of  foreign agents  and to disclose their funding sources. Earlier on Thursday Russia named nine U.S. government-sponsored news outlets likely to be labeled  foreign agents . U.S. intelligence officials accuse the Kremlin of using Russian media organizations it finances to influence U.S. voters. Washington has required Russian state broadcaster RT to register a U.S.-based affiliate company as a  foreign agent .  Branding media entities as  foreign agents  is a dangerous practice, as it can narrow the space for freedom of the media,  said Harlem Desir, media freedom chief of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE, which also oversees election monitoring, is one of the few security forums which brings Russia and the United States to the same table. It has a 700-strong observer mission monitoring the conflict in Ukraine.  I call on both the Unites States and the Russian Federation to reconsider and refrain from requiring media entities to register as  foreign agents , Desir said in a statement, labeling both countries  moves as  not acceptable . The Kremlin denies meddling in the U.S. election and has said the restrictions on Russian broadcasters in the United States amount to an attack on free speech. The new media law in Russia is retaliation, it says.

Summary: ओ. एस. सी. ई. निगरानी संस्था ने "विदेशी एजेंट" मीडिया कानूनों के लिए संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका, रूस की आलोचना की


MOSCOW (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron has accepted an invitation to visit Russia and may fly in next year for an economic forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday, the RIA news agency reported. RIA cited Lavrov as saying Macron might attend the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Summary: फ्रांस के मैक्रों ने रूस की यात्रा का निमंत्रण स्वीकार कियाः आर. आई. ए.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of a House committee with broad investigative powers, said on Thursday that it is possible he could leave office before his term finishes next year, The Wall Street Journal reported. “My future plans are not yet finalized, but I haven’t ruled out the possibility of leaving early,” Chaffetz told the Journal a day after the Utah congressman announced he would not run for re-election in 2018.  Chaffetz’s staff in Washington, D.C., and in Utah did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In Utah, officials have begun running informal scenarios on how and when to hold a special election should Chaffetz resign, but have not been formally notified of the congressman’s intentions, Mark Thomas, the state’s director of elections, told Reuters. Thomas said his department in the office of Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox was basing the informal information-gathering on Chaffetz’s statements to local media that he might leave office early. “We don’t know what he’s planning,” Thomas said. “This is more informal, just wanting to know ourselves and be prepared.” Chaffetz, a conservative Republican who was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2008, gained prominence as head of the committee that investigated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was U.S. secretary of state. Chaffetz’s remarks on a possible early departure from office were first reported by KSL Radio in Salt Lake City.  Chaffetz, 50, in the past had considered running for a U.S. Senate seat. A former Chaffetz aide on Wednesday told Reuters the congressman may run for Utah governor in 2020, though no firm decision had been made yet.

Summary: चैफेट्ज़ अमेरिकी सदन का कार्यकाल पूरा नहीं कर सकते हैंः मीडिया रिपोर्ट


BEIRUT (Reuters) - The party of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who unexpectedly quit a week ago while in Saudi Arabia, denounced on Saturday attacks against the kingdom and Iranian intervention in Arab countries. Hariri s Future Movement political party said it stands by him and was  waiting impatiently for his return to Lebanon to handle his national responsibilities in leading this stage.  Hariri s shock resignation, in a broadcast from Riyadh last week, has plunged Lebanon into crisis and thrust it back into the forefront of regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Summary: हरीरी की पार्टी ने सऊदी अरब के खिलाफ हमलों की निंदा कीः बयान


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s promised “big announcement” next week on overhauling the U.S. tax code, a top campaign pledge, will consist of “broad principles and priorities,” an administration official said on Saturday. The president unexpectedly said on Friday at a Treasury Department event that there would be “a big announcement on Wednesday having to do with tax reform.” In a Twitter message on Saturday, he wrote: “Big TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION will be announced next Wednesday.” Asked for details, the administration official, who asked not to be identified, said, “We will outline our broad principles and priorities” on Wednesday. Trump has struggled as president to advance his domestic policy agenda, including on taxes, even though his Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress. With his 100th day in office only a week away, he has yet to offer any formal legislation or win passage of a major bill he favors. Most recent presidents had legislative wins under their belts by this time in their administrations. Under U.S. law, only Congress can make significant tax law changes, though the president often drives the tax agenda by offering legislation. The administration official said, “We are moving forward on comprehensive tax reform that cuts tax rates for individuals, simplifies our overly complicated system and creates jobs by making American businesses competitive.” As a candidate, Trump raised high expectations in financial markets and the business community for changes in the complex, loophole-riddled tax system. In his “Contract with the American Voter,” he vowed to work with Congress on tax legislation “within the first 100 days of my administration.” The action plan promised large tax cuts for the middle class and businesses, a reduction of tax brackets to three from seven, simplified tax forms and an offshore profits repatriation tax holiday. Since then, no legislation or formal tax plan has been presented by Trump. He has at times expressed support for a plan drawn up by House of Representatives Republicans, but his views are unclear on a section that deals with taxing imports. In February, Trump promised a “phenomenal” tax plan within a few weeks, without offering details. No plan followed. Last month when an attempt supported by Trump to repeal the healthcare law known as Obamacare collapsed in Congress, Trump said he would refocus on taxes. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday he expected Congress to approve a tax plan this year.

Summary: कर पर ट्रम्प की 'बड़ी घोषणा' व्यापक सिद्धांत होंगेः अधिकारी


BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A rap on the knuckles from the EU s top court will not end Hungary s opposition to accommodating asylum seekers, and may even help Prime Minister Viktor Orban in his campaign for re-election next year. Rightwinger Orban has been one of the bloc s most vocal opponents of attempts by Brussels to force member states to take in quotas of mainly Syrian refugees, and the fence that Hungary built on its southern border to keep them out has been criticized by other governments and rights groups. But that unapologetic stance has gone down well with voters at home and, with Orban s Fidesz party already firmly ahead in opinion polls, initial responses from Budapest to Wednesday s ruling suggested the legal setback would help keep the issue of migration high on the domestic political agenda. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the European Court of Justice s dismissal of appeals by Hungary and Slovakia against the migrant quota system the European Union launched in 2015 was  entirely unacceptable .  The real battle only starts today,  he told a news conference.  I want to assure all citizens ... that the Hungarian government will do everything it can to protect Hungary and the Hungarian people.  Hungary argues that the obligatory relocation of asylum seekers arriving in Greece and Italy from the Middle East would undermine its sovereignty and social fabric, and Orban s government held a referendum in 2016 on whether to accept any future EU-wide migrant relocation quotas. More than 3 million Hungarians, an overwhelming majority of participants, rejected the EU initiative then - and Orban would win a third term in office next April with their support alone.  Orban could use a rejection of Hungary s claim (by the court) to fuel his electoral campaign with anti-EU-arguments,  said Professor Hendrik Hansen, an expert on international and European politics at Budapest s Andrassy University.  The migration issue is a winning point for the Orban government independently of what the European court decides,   added Tibor Attila Nagy, of the Centre for Fair Political Analysis said ahead of the court ruling.  The square in front of Budapest s Eastern Railway station was a focus of the world s media when thousands of migrants camped there in September 2015, hoping to scramble on to trains bound for Austria and Germany. On a bright late summer morning two years later its flagstones are eerily quiet, but locals hurrying to work have not forgotten the days when Hungary was the main transit route for hundreds of thousands of refugees from war and poverty en route to richer western states.  Many remain opposed to the country taking in migrants.  The fence is very good (to have) as it protects us from the explosions and violence and everything,  catering worker Ilona Nagy, 55, told Reuters.  I would vote for Fidesz, only Fidesz.    It was only Hungary which did what it had to do and protected the Schengen borders, and this is still the case,  said pensioner Peter Lazar, 73, another Fidesz supporter. But some preferred to focus on other matters.  I believe the whole migration crisis is government propaganda nothing more,  said Karoly Szenasi, 50.  Monika Fenyvesi, 33, out walking with her child in a stroller, said the scenes at the station had been  scary  and it was good that Hungary had imposed controls. But issues such as support for families, healthcare, taxation, and wages would determine which party got her vote.  It will be hard to decide but it will not be the current government.

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ की अदालत का प्रवासी फैसला ऑर्बन पुनर्निर्वाचन बोली के लिए उपहार में लिपटा हुआ आता है


LILONGWE (Reuters) - Three Malawian ministers will testify in court against a former cabinet colleague charged with abuse of office over a maize procurement contract, court documents showed. President Peter Mutharika launched an investigation in January into the government order for 100,000 tonnes of Zambian white maize, after an opposition leader there said he had seen documents showing Malawi had been charged $345 per ton instead of the $215 the consignment was worth. Then agriculture minister George Chaponda was arrested in July, sacked and charged with abuse of office and possession of foreign currency without lawful justification. He pleaded not guilty to both charges and was released on bail pending trial, for which no date has yet been set. Malawi was importing maize to ease food shortages triggered by a severe drought that swept the region in 2016. According to court documents seen by Reuters, Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe, Information Nicoluas Dausi and Trade and Industry Minister Henry Mussa will be called to give evidence against Chaponda. The three ministers, who declined to comment, are expected to testify late this month, local newspapers said. Malawi s Anti-Corruption Bureau also declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Summary: मक्के के भ्रष्टाचार के मुकदमे में कैबिनेट सहयोगी के खिलाफ गवाही देंगे मलावी के मंत्री


ATHENS (Reuters) - Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Greece on Dec. 7-8, Greek sources said on Friday, in the first visit by a Turkish president in decades that have seen ties at times severely strained over issues from Aegean Sea rights to ethnically-split Cyprus. Erdogan is expected to meet his Greek counterpart and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and discuss bilateral relations, security issues and the refugee crisis, following a 2016 EU-Ankara deal aimed at reducing migrant flows to Europe.  He is also expected to visit Thrace in northern Greece, where there is a Muslim minority. Erdogan last visited fellow NAT member Greece in 2010 in his capacity as  prime minister. His visit next week will be the first by a Turkish president to Greece in 65 years.  Greece and Turkey, NATO allies, came to the brink of war in 1996 over the ownership of uninhabited Aegean islets.  Relations have improved since then but they are still at odds over issues from territorial disputes to Cyprus, which remains divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities living on either side of a U.N.-monitored ceasefire line.  Eight Turkish soldiers commandeered a helicopter and flew it to northern Greece as a failed coup unfolded against Erdogan between July 15 and 16, 2016. Turkey has repeatedly demanded Greece hand them over but Greece s highest court has rejected their extradition. Greek police on Tuesday arrested nine Turkish citizens who were later charged with terrorism-related offences. They are accused of hoarding explosives and of links to an outlawed militant organization responsible for suicide bombings in Turkey. They have denied any wrongdoing. [nL8N1NZ39F]

Summary: तुर्की के राष्ट्रपति एर्दोगन अगले सप्ताह ग्रीस की ऐतिहासिक यात्रा करेंगे