MOSCOW (Reuters) - North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile which it believes can reach the west coast of the United States, a Russian lawmaker just returned from a visit to Pyongyang was quoted as saying on Friday. Anton Morozov, a member of the Russian lower house of parliament s international affairs committee, and two other Russian lawmakers visited Pyongyang on Oct. 2-6, Russia s RIA news agency reported.  They are preparing for new tests of a long-range missile. They even gave us mathematical calculations that they believe prove that their missile can hit the west coast of the United States,  RIA quoted Morozov as saying.  As far as we understand, they intend to launch one more long-range missile in the near future. And in general, their mood is rather belligerent.  Tensions have risen in recent weeks over North Korea s nuclear weapons and missile programs as Pyongyang has test-fired several missiles and conducted what it said was a test explosion of a hydrogen bomb as it advances toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. Morozov s comments drove up the price of U.S. Treasury bonds, as investors, worried about the prospect of new North Korean missile tests, moved into assets the market views as a safe haven in times of uncertainty. Reuters was not able to independently verify Morozov s account, and he did not specify which North Korean officials had given him the information about the planned test. In Washington, a U.S. official said that there had been indications that North Korea could be preparing for a missile test on or around Oct. 10, the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Korean Workers Party and a day after the Columbus Day holiday in the United States. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not disclose the type of missile that could be tested and cautioned that North Korea in the past has not staged launches despite indications that it would. A senior CIA analyst, speaking at a conference in Washington this week, said the North Korean government likely would stage some kind of provocation on Oct. 10 but did not elaborate on what form it might take.  There is a clarity of purpose in what (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un is doing. I don t think he s done,  said Yong Suk Lee, the deputy assistant director of the CIA s Korea Mission Center, which was set up this year.  In fact, I told my own staff (that) October 10th is the Korean Workers Party founding day. That s Tuesday in North Korea, but Monday   the Columbus Day holiday - in the United States. So stand by your phones.  Morozov s delegation had  high-level  meetings in Pyongyang, RIA news agency said, citing the Russian embassy in the North Korean capital. Tensions over North Korea s nuclear program have been running high in recent weeks since Pyongyang staged a series of missile tests, and conducted a text explosion on Sept. 3 of what it said was a hydrogen bomb. There has also been an exchange of tough rhetoric between Pyongyang and Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to  totally destroy  North Korea if it threatens the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded by calling Trump deranged and saying he would pay dearly for his threat. China, North Korea s main ally, has backed sanctions against Pyongyang and on Saturday in response to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said it backed a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons.  China has always supported a complete and total ban on nuclear weapons, but also believes that the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament cannot be achieved overnight and must advance gradually within the existing disarmament mechanism. China is willing to work with all parties to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world,  said China s foreign ministry. Morozov is a member of the LDPR, a right-wing populist party. It casts itself as an opposition party, but hews close to the Kremlin line on matters of international affairs. Describing meetings with North Korean officials, Morozov said they  displayed serious determination and bellicose rhetoric,  RIA reported.  The situation, of course, demands the swiftest intervention of all interested states, particularly those represented in the region, in order to prevent wide-scale military action,  the agency quoted him as saying. Russia has closer relations with Pyongyang than many other world powers, linked in part to Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the current leader s grand-father, having lived for a time in the Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin has joined other world powers in condemning North Korea s weapons program, but has taken a softer line than Western governments. Putin has said that Pyongyang will not be cowed into giving up its weapons program. He has accused Washington of trying to effect regime change in North Korea, and predicted that would unleash chaos. U.S. Treasury prices surged on the report of a possible new missile test, pulling yields lower, as investors cut risk out of their portfolios and sought the safety of Treasuries. Treasury prices move inversely to their yields. Benchmark 10 year U.S. Treasury yields fell from the session high 2.40 percent mark US10YT=TWEB to 2.35 percent around midday (1600 GMT) in New York.  It has just been risk-off buying into the long (Columbus Day) weekend ... You look at the charts, it has really been a one-way trade of lower yields,  said Justin Lederer, Treasury analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया लंबी दूरी की मिसाइल परीक्षण की तैयारी कर रहा हैः आर. आई. ए. ने रूसी सांसद का हवाला दिया


(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma knocked out power to nearly 4 million homes and businesses in Florida on Sunday, threatening millions more as it crept up the state s west coast, and full restoration of service could take weeks, local electric utilities said.  Irma hit Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, but by afternoon as it barreled up the west coast, it weakened to a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour (177 kph). So far, the brunt of the storm has affected Florida Power & Light s customers in the states  southern and eastern sections, and its own operations were not immune, either.  We are not subject to any special treatment from Hurricane Irma. We just experienced a power outage at our command center.  We do have backup generation,  FPL spokesman Rob Gould said on Sunday.  FPL, the biggest power company in Florida, said more than 3.2 million of its customers were without power by 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Monday), mostly in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. More than 200,000 had electricity restored, mostly by automated devices. The company s system will need to be rebuilt, particularly in the western part of the state, Gould said.  That restoration process will be measured in weeks, not days.  FPL is a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc.  Large utilities that serve other parts of the state, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, were seeing their outage figures grow as the storm pushed north.  Duke s outages soared to 390,000 from 60,000 in a span of four hours on Sunday evening, and the company warned its 1.8 million customers in northern and central Florida that outages could ultimately exceed 1 million.  The company updated its website on Sunday evening with a warning to customers that outages may last a week or longer. Emera s Tampa Electric utility said the storm could affect up to 500,000 of the 730,000 homes and businesses it serves, and over 180,000 had already lost power. The utilities had thousands of workers, some from as far away as California, ready to help restore power once Irma s high winds pass their service areas. About 17,000 were assisting FPL, nearly 8,000 at Duke and more than 1,300 at Emera. Tampa Electric told customers on Sunday, however, that response crews were halting work because of the high winds.       FPL said on Friday that Irma could affect about 4.1 million customers, but that was before the storm track shifted away from the eastern side of the state. Its customers are concentrated in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The utility said its two nuclear plants were safe. It shut only one of the two reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear plant about 30 miles (48 km) south of Miami on Saturday, rather than both, because the storm shifted. It plans to leave both reactors in service at the St. Lucie plant about 120 miles (193 km )north of Miami because hurricane-force winds are no longer expected to hit the sites. There is also spent nuclear fuel at Duke s Crystal River plant, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Tampa. The plant, on Irma s current forecast track, stopped operating in 2009 and was retired in 2013. In a worst-case scenario, the spent fuel could release radiation if exposed to the air, but a federal nuclear official said that was extremely unlikely.  That fuel is so cold, relatively speaking, it would take weeks before there would be any concern,  said Scott Burnell of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  As the storm has come ashore, gasoline stations have struggled to keep up. In the Atlanta metro area, about 496 stations, or 12.2 percent, were out of gasoline, according to information service Gas Buddy.

Summary: इरमा ने फ्लोरिडा में लगभग चालीस लाख तक बिजली काट दीः उपयोगिताएँ


(Reuters) - A Colorado lawmaker is trying to outlaw marijuana-laced gummy candies that resemble children’s treats, the latest effort by a U.S. state to address the complexities and unintended consequences of pot legalization. In 2014 Colorado became the first state to allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use, and it has grown to be a billion dollar industry in the state. The measure by State Representative Dan Pabon, a Democrat from Denver, would prohibit edible marijuana to be sold in the form of an animal, human or fruit, common shapes for gummy candies favored by young children. “Right now in Colorado, there are no distinguishing characteristics between the gummy bear that contains marijuana and one that does not,” Palon said. The appeal of edible marijuana products to children has become a concern in the few U.S. states that have legalized pot in recent years. In Washington state, where legal pot has been on sale for about 18 months, regulators recently tightened the rules on edible products made with cannabis, said Rick Garza, director of the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis board. The new restrictions outlawed brightly colored marijuana lollipops and other sweets deemed to be particularly attractive to children, Gar said. Numerous children in Colorado were hospitalized after becoming critically ill as a result of ingesting edible marijuana products after pot became legal there in 2014, and lawmakers have already moved once to toughen the rules. But Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has urged the legislature to do more, saying in his State of the State address in January that pot-laced edibles look too much like “products kids can find in the candy aisle.” “Back in the day, candy cigarettes desensitized kids to the dangers of tobacco - and today, pot-infused gummy bears send the wrong message to our kids about marijuana,” Hickenlooper said. Pabon’s bill, submitted on Thursday, directs the state’s marijuana regulatory agency to develop more detailed guidelines on how enforcing the ban on marijuana candies shaped like humans, animals or fruit would work.     Voters in four U.S. states and the District of Columbia approved ballot measures to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults in recent years. Numerous others allow medicinal use. Advocates have pushed for similar referendums in a half-dozen other states, including California, Massachusetts and Maine. In Maine, a proposed legalization referendum advanced on Friday when a judge overruled a state official’s decision invalidating some of the signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot.

Summary: कोलोराडो के विधायक का उद्देश्य बर्तन से बने चिपचिपे भालू को प्रतिबंधित करना है


MADRID (Reuters) - Catalan police declared a false alarm on Tuesday following a bomb scare that had led agents to cordon off Barcelona s Sagrada Familia church and send in a bomb squad to check a parked van. Police said on Twitter that there had been no arrests as a result of the incident and that the area had returned to normal.

Summary: कैटलन पुलिस का कहना है कि सागराडा फैमिलिया बम की धमकी गलत चेतावनी थी


ROME/PALERMO (Reuters) - The death of Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore  Toto  Riina on Friday does not mark the end of Cosa Nostra, but the crime group is unlikely to allow one man such power ever again, a top magistrate and former mobster said. The 87-year-old Riina died in a hospital in Parma, the northern Italian city where he had been serving 26 life sentences for murders committed between 1969 and 1992.  The end of Riina isn t the end of Cosa Nostra,  the chief magistrate in Sicily s capital of Palermo, Francesco Lo Voi, told Reuters.  What remains to be understood is whether the men of Cosa Nostra will seek a direct successor or a new organizational structure,  Lo Voi said.  Gaspare Mutolo, who admits to having strangled some 20 people, agrees. Mutolo, now 77, turned state s witness in the early 1990s at the age of 51, and became a key witness in dozens of mafia cases. He shared a jail cell with Riina in the 1960s, and became his trusted bodyguard and driver afterward. Mutolo, who still wears a balaclava to hide his identity from cameras, felt  pity  when he heard his former friend and cell mate had died, he said.  He was a friend. He helped me. He even saved my life. I saw him a little bit as a father figure,  Mutolo told foreign reporters in Rome. Riina s death changes little in Sicily, he said:  Palermo still has the mafia.  BACK-ROOM DEALS As several recent cases show, the mob still extorts business owners on the island, and it still seeks to win lucrative public contracts through back-room deals with corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.  I can t imagine politics without the mafia,  Mutolo said. But the future of Cosa Nostra without Riina, whose brutality undermined the trustworthiness of the organization by driving mafiosi like Mutolo into the hands of the state, is uncertain.  The Calabrian mob, known as the  Ndrangheta, has had few turncoats and has taken over drug routes once dominated by Cosa Nostra.  The Calabrians now are major importers of cocaine from South America to Europe and to North America. Even politicians are wary of doing deals with the Sicilian mob now, Mutolo said.  Cosa Nostra is not the same as it was in the 1980s mainly because of the turncoats,  Mutolo said.  The Calabresi have taken over because they are more trusted.  Cosa Nostra has always had a military-like structure, but before Riina there was no single  boss of bosses . Power was divvied up by territory, and the local bosses met together in a so-called  Commission  to discuss strategy and settle disputes. But Riina made himself the dictator of Cosa Nostra.  It s not a given that Cosa Nostra will see a charismatic leader as a necessity  in the future, Lo Voi said, returning to  a decentralization of operations and decision making  as there was before Riina took over.

Summary: मजिस्ट्रेट और डकैतों का कहना है कि मालिक मर चुका है लेकिन माफिया जीवित है


IKOM, Nigeria (Reuters) - When soldiers burst into her village in southwest Cameroon last month with guns blazing, small farmer Eta Quinta, 32, raced into the forest with three of her children.  I found a canoe and I used it to cross over with my kids, not knowing where my husband and my (other) two kids are,  she told Reuters across the border in Nigeria, where thousands of English-speaking Cameroonians have fled in past weeks. What began last year as peaceful protests by Anglophone activists against perceived marginalisation by Cameroon s Francophone-dominated elite has become the gravest challenge yet to President Paul Biya, who is expected to seek to renew his 35-years in power in an election next year.   Government repression - including ordering thousands of villagers in the Anglophone southwest to leave their homes - has driven support for a once-fringe secessionist movement, stoking a lethal cycle of violence. The secessionists declared an independent state called Ambazonia on Oct. 1. Since then, 7,500 people have fled to Nigeria, including 2,300 who fled in a single day on Dec. 4 fearing government reprisals after raids by separatists militants killed at least six soldiers and police officers. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR is preparing for up to 40,000 refugees. Quinta and her children walked for three days through the dense forests to reach a border crossing at the Agbokim Waterfalls. They remain without news of the rest of the family.   There are many pregnant women in the forest,  Quinta said as she held her sick two-month-old baby whose head was covered by a white wooly hat.  I have friends in the forest and am not sure if I will get to see them again or their kids.   At the end of World War One, Germany s colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors, laying down the basis for a language split that still persists. English speakers make up less than a fifth of the population of Cameroon, concentrated in former British territory near the Nigerian border that was joined to the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country s politics since. Cameroonian authorities say the English-speaking separatists pose a security threat that justifies their crackdown.   The new arrivals in Nigeria live mainly with host families who have supported them with food, clothing and shelter. The integration, a UNHCR official said, was made easier by the pidgin English spoken on either side of the border. Food and medicine are in limited supply. Four people have died of sicknesses since coming to Nigeria and the refugees sometimes sleep as many as 50 to a five-by-seven meter room. Their anger has grown toward a government they feel no longer represents them, which could provide the separatists with easy recruits.   We were walking for peaceful demonstrations ... but it s because of the killing of our innocent people that is why our own people have started reacting,  said Tiku Michael, a businessman, farmer, father of six and now a refugee.     Even ... God himself, he will not allow things to go (on) like that.

Summary: कैमरून के एंग्लोफोन नाइजीरिया भाग गए क्योंकि कार्रवाई बढ़ रही है


HANOI (Reuters) - A top U.S. envoy began a two-day trip to Vietnam on Monday to gauge its progress in human rights, two weeks ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama in what will be the first by a U.S. leader in a decade. Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, is expected to press Vietnam to release unconditionally political prisoners and reform its laws to comply with its international commitments. Relations between the United States and Vietnam have moved to a new level in the past two years as Washington seeks to make a new ally in Asia, but the communist nation’s zero-tolerance approach to its detractors remains a sticking point. Vietnam has jailed dissidents, bloggers and religious figures in recent years, holding them for long periods without access to family or legal counsel and often subject to torture or other mistreatment, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch. The United States has been intensifying efforts in building stronger ties -  in health, education, environment, energy and recently military - to boost its influence, and offset that of China. The United States and Vietnam, along with 10 others, this year signed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), one of the world’s biggest multinational trade deals. Though the TPP has no requirements for members to reach certain standards in human rights, analysts say Vietnam’s record of arrests, intimidation and oppression of those who speak out against the ruling Communist Party could add to anticipated resistance to the pact among U.S. legislators. The TPP must be ratified by each member country’s parliament. Malinowski said during his visit to Vietnam last year that he had seen signs of progress on human rights but the country needed to make a stronger commitment. Rights groups, however, say those improvements might be short-lived and designed to ensure its smooth accession to multilateral trade agreements, including a pact with the European Union.

Summary: मानवाधिकारों की प्रगति का आकलन करने के लिए शीर्ष अमेरिकी अधिकारी ने वियतनाम का दौरा किया


WASHINGTON/HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army will grant the final permit for the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project despite opposition from Native American tribes and climate activists. In a court filing on Tuesday, the Army said that it would allow the final section of the line to tunnel under North Dakota’s Lake Oahe, part of the Missouri River system. This could enable the $3.8 billion pipeline to begin operation as soon as June.   Energy Transfer Partners (ETP.N) is building the 1,170-mile (1,885 km) line to help move crude from the shale oilfields of North Dakota to Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located. Protests against the project last year drew drew thousands of people to the North Dakota plains including Native American tribes and environmental activists, and protest camps sprung up. The movement attracted high-profile political and celebrity supporters. The permit was the last bureaucratic hurdle to the pipeline’s completion, and Tuesday’s decision drew praise from supporters of the project and outrage from activists, including promises of a legal challenge from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “It’s great to see this new administration following through on their promises and letting projects go forward to the benefit of American consumers and workers,” said John Stoody, spokesman for the Association of Oil Pipe Lines.  The Standing Rock Sioux, which contends the pipeline would desecrate sacred sites and potentially pollute its water source,       vowed to shut pipeline operations down if construction is completed, without elaborating how it would do so. The tribe called on its supporters to protest in Washington on March 10 rather than return to North Dakota. “As Native peoples, we have been knocked down again, but we will get back up,” the tribe said in the statement. “We will rise above the greed and corruption that has plagued our peoples since first contact. We call on the Native Nations of the United States to stand together, unite and fight back.” Former President Barack Obama’s administration last year delayed completion of the pipeline pending a review of tribal concerns and in December ordered an environmental study. Less than two weeks after Trump ordered a review of the permit request, the Army said in a filing in District Court in Washington D.C. it would cancel that study. The final permit, known as an easement, could come in as little as a day, according to the filing. There was no need for the environmental study as there was already enough information on the potential impact of the pipeline to grant the permit, Robert Speer, acting secretary of the U.S. Army, said in a statement. Trump issued an order on Jan. 24 to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline and to revive another controversial multibillion dollar oil artery: Keystone XL. Obama’s administration blocked that project in 2015. At the Dakota Access construction site, law enforcement and protesters clashed violently on several occasions throughout the fall. More than 600 people were arrested, and police were criticized for using water cannons in 25-degree Fahrenheit (minus 4-degree Celsius) weather against activists in late November.  “The granting of an easement, without any environmental review or tribal consultation, is not the end of this fight,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, one of the primary groups protesting the line. “It is the new beginning. Expect mass resistance far beyond what Trump has seen so far.”  Any legal challenge is likely to be a difficult one for pipeline opponents as presidential authority to grant such permits is generally accepted in the courts. The tribe said in a statement the decision “wrongfully terminated” environmental study of the project. Deborah Sivas, professor of environmental law at Stanford and director of Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic, said a challenge by the tribe would likely rely on the reasons the Army Corps itself gave for why more review was needed in December. “The tribe will probably argue that an abrupt reversal without a sufficient explanation for why the additional analysis is not necessary is arbitrary and should, therefore, be set aside,” she said in an email. Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil.   Shares of Energy Transfer Partners finished up 20 cents at $39.20, reversing earlier losses on the news.

Summary: सेना की मंजूरी के बाद आगे बढ़ेगी विवादास्पद डकोटा पाइपलाइन


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan bill introduced on Thursday would prohibit members of the U.S. Congress from ever working as lobbyists after they leave the Senate or House of Representatives. Republican Senator Cory Gardner with Democratic Senators Michael Bennet and Al Franken in introducing the Senate legislation to stop the lucrative “revolving door” practice that has drawn the ire of watchdog groups for decades. “By banning members of Congress from lobbying when they leave Capitol Hill, we can begin to restore confidence in our national politics,” Gardner said in a statement. Similar legislation has failed in the past. Currently, there are only temporary restrictions on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists. The Center for Responsive Politics has noted that former members often score large-salaried lobbying jobs, sometimes of $1 million or more. The non-partisan group found that just over 51 percent of former members of the 113th Congress (2013-2014) became lobbyists. Besides a lifetime ban on lobbying for current members of Congress, the legislation would require former congressional aides to wait six years instead of one year before engaging in lobbying and require better reporting of lobbying activities.

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेटरों ने पूर्व कांग्रेस सदस्यों की पैरवी पर आजीवन प्रतिबंध लगाने की मांग की


BERLIN (Reuters) - Half a year ago, the political stars seemed perfectly aligned for a deep reform of the European Union and its euro currency. Emmanuel Macron had won the French presidency on a promise to relaunch Europe. And Angela Merkel, on track to win a fourth term as German chancellor, looked ready to embrace his bold vision, telling an audience in Bavaria that it was time for Europe to take its fate into its own hands. Following the collapse of German coalition talks, however, the prospects for a meaningful leap forward in European cooperation, driven by newly minted governments in Berlin and Paris, look dimmer than ever.   Political uncertainty has crossed the Rhine,  said Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist and academic who helped write Macron s election program.  Europe has gotten used to having a strong German government with clear positions. That is something we may not have for some time.  Germany now faces months of political limbo which will narrow an already tight window for agreeing reforms of euro zone governance and EU defense and asylum policies. Should Germany be forced to hold new elections, its partners may have to wait until next summer for a government to take form. By then, Europe will be entering crunch time in its Brexit negotiations with Britain, preparing for sensitive discussions on a long-term EU budget and gearing up for the election of a new European Parliament. Euro zone leaders were due to begin a six-month discussion on closer integration of their 19-nation currency bloc next month at a special summit in Brussels. Now that debate seems likely to be delayed and officials say the chances of reaching any conclusions by June 2018, as proposed by European Council President Donald Tusk, are slim.  Things will go on hold until there is a formal acting German government,  one euro zone official said.  At this stage I don t see what steps the leaders could take in December or June for deepening euro zone integration when there is a German government without a mandate.  Another casualty could be the completion of an EU pact on closer defense cooperation, known as PESCO.  Berlin and Paris had hoped to sign it into law at a regular EU summit next month. Now diplomats involved in EU foreign policy say that may be overly ambitious. Germany has also been a driving force behind EU efforts to reform its asylum policies in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis. Those discussions, pitting countries like Italy and Greece against Poland and Hungary, were already bogged down. Without a new government in Berlin, there is next to no hope of a breakthrough.  We have so many things we need to do urgently that slowing us down is not good for Europe as a whole,  Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister who is deputy head of the European Commission, told CNN.  He played down the risks, however, saying:  It might slow us down a little bit but I don t think it would take Europe off course, whatever happens.  Perhaps the only pressing issue which will not be significantly affected by the political uncertainty in Germany is Brexit, where there is a broad political consensus among German parties. That means that Merkel, who will remain in place in a caretaker capacity until a new coalition is formed, should have sufficient room to maneuver in talks that, in any case, are being led by the European Commission and its chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Still, hopes that the two political earthquakes of 2016   Britain s decision to leave the EU and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump   might shock European capitals into bold reforms, once elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Austria were out of the way, are fading. Even before the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) walked out of coalition negotiations with Merkel s conservatives and the Greens in the early hours of Monday, doubts were rising about whether she would have the flexibility to meet Macron halfway as head of an awkward three-way  Jamaica  alliance. Now that those talks have collapsed, she would appear to have three options: convince the Social Democrats (SPD) to enter another right-left  grand coalition ; form a minority government with the Greens or the FDP; or take the risk of new elections. So far the SPD leadership has shown no signs that it will go back on its pledge to go into opposition. On Monday, Merkel appeared to rule out a minority government. So unless something changes, a new election could be the only way forward. That would probably not take place before March or April, around the same time that Italy is due to hold elections which could also result in a hung parliament. Crucially, polls suggest that a new German election would not give Merkel more coalition options than she had coming out of the Sept. 24 vote. Indeed, if voters blamed her conservatives for failing to form a government the first time around, she could emerge even  weaker than she is now. That would be a further blow to German political stability and to Macron s European ambitions.

Summary: जर्मन राजनीतिक अस्थिरता ने यूरोपीय सुधारों को बढ़ावा देने की धमकी दी


SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean hackers stole a large amount of classified military documents, including South Korea-U.S. wartime operational plans to wipe out the North Korean leadership, a South Korean ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday. Democratic Party representative Rhee Cheol-hee said 235 gigabytes of military documents were taken from the Defense Integrated Data Center in September last year, citing information from unidentified South Korean defense officials. An investigative team inside the defense ministry announced in May the hack had been carried out by North Korea, but did not disclose what kind of information had been taken. Pyongyang has denied responsibility in its state media for the cyber attacks, criticizing Seoul for  fabricating  claims about online attacks. Separately on Wednesday, cyber security firm FireEye said in a statement North Korea-affiliated agents were detected attempting to phish U.S. electric companies through emails sent in mid-September, although those attempts did not lead to a disruption in the power supply. It did not specify when the attempts had been detected or clarify which companies had been affected. Rhee, currently a member of the National Assembly s committee for national defense, said about 80 percent of the hacked data had not yet been identified, but that none of the information was expected to have compromised the South Korean military because it was not top classified intelligence. Some of the hacked data addressed how to identify movements of members of the North Korean leadership, how to seal off their hiding locations, and attack from the air before eliminating them. Rhee said the North could not have taken the entire operation plans from the database because they had not been uploaded in full. These plans had likely not been classified properly but defense ministry officials told Rhee the hacked documents were not of top importance, he said.  Whatever the North Koreans took, we just need to fix the plans,  Rhee later told Reuters by telephone.  I disclosed this because the military hasn t been doing that fast enough.  Rhee said on radio the hack had been made possible by  a simple mistake  after a connector jack linking the military s intranet to the internet had not been eliminated after maintenance work had been done on the system.  The South Korean Defense Ministry s official stance is that they cannot confirm anything the lawmaker said about the hacked content due to the sensitivity of the matter.     In Washington, the Pentagon said it was aware of the media reports but would not comment on the potential breach.  Although I will not comment on intelligence matters or specific incidents related to cyber intrusion, I can assure you that we are confident in the security of our operations plans and our ability to deal with any threat from North Korea,  Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters. FireEye said the phishing attack on the electric companies detected was  early-stage reconnaissance  and did not indicate North Korea was about to stage an  imminent, disruptive  cyber attack. The North has been suspected of carrying out similar cyber attacks on South Korean electric utilities, in addition to other government and financial institutions. Those attempts were likely aimed at creating a means of  deterring potential war or sowing disorder during a time of armed conflict , FireEye said.  North Korea linked hackers are among the most prolific nation-state threats, targeting not only the U.S. and South Korea but the global financial system and nations worldwide,  its statement said.  Their motivations vary from economic enrichment to traditional espionage to sabotage, but all share the hallmark of an ascendant cyber power willing to violate international norms with little regard for potential blowback,  it said.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया के हैकरों ने दक्षिण Korea-U.S चुराया. उत्तर कोरिया के नेतृत्व का सफाया करने की सैन्य योजनाः सांसद


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday it was worried that proposed new U.S. sanctions against Moscow could hurt major investment projects with European partners, but said it was premature to say if and how it would retaliate. The White House said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump was open to signing legislation toughening sanctions on Russia after Senate and House leaders reached agreement on a bill late last week. That has raised concerns in Germany which has already threatened to retaliate against the United States if the new sanctions end up penalising German firms, such as those involved with building Nord Stream 2, a project to build a pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Baltic. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Moscow was worried that U.S. sanctions could hit third countries, as well as Russia, hard. “We are working with our European partners on implementing a number of large-scale projects,” said Peskov, when asked about the possible impact of the new U.S. sanctions on projects like  Nord Stream 2. “It goes without saying that we and our European partners attach great importance to finishing these projects and we will work towards this,” he said. “That is why discussions about ‘sanctions themes’ — which could potentially obstruct these projects — are a cause of concern for us.” Peskov said the Kremlin took “an extremely negative view” of the proposed new sanctions, calling the rhetoric surrounding them counter-productive and damaging to U.S.-Russia ties. But he said Moscow was for now ready to wait and see what the final shape of the sanctions might be. “As for the Washington administration’s stance on sanctions, we have seen some corrections to it,” said Peskov. “We will wait patiently ... until this position has been formulated unambiguously.” Separately, Peskov declined to comment on reports that the European Union might discuss new sanctions against Moscow over its delivery of Siemens turbines to sanctioned Crimea. Reuters on Monday quoted two diplomatic sources in Brussels as saying that Germany was urging the European Union to add up to four more Russian nationals and companies to the bloc’s sanctions blacklist over Siemens gas turbines delivered to Moscow-annexed Crimea.

Summary: अमेरिकी प्रतिबंधों से नोर्ड स्ट्रीम 2 जैसी यूरोपीय परियोजनाओं को नुकसान हो सकता है-क्रेमलिन


BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland s main political parties are to continue talks aimed at restoring the British region s devolved government on Wednesday, a British government official said, in an apparent extension of a deadline for a deal.  Representatives of Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ended their second day of talks aimed at re-establishing a power-sharing government that collapsed in January, the official said.  The British government has indicated that if the parties fail to reach agreement in the coming days it will be forced to impose a budget directly for the first time in a decade to ensure essential services are funded.  A budget set by the British government would be a major step towards direct rule from London, which could destabilize a delicate political balance there. On Monday the British government s minister for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, said if there was no progress by the end of talks on Tuesday he would assess whether London needed to move impose a budget. The spokesman declined to comment when asked when that decision would be made.  The DUP and Sinn Fein have shared power for the past decade in a system created following a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence in the province. Sinn Fein pulled out in January, complaining it was not being treated as an equal partner.

Summary: उत्तरी आयरलैंड में सत्ता-साझाकरण वार्ता बुधवार तक जारी रहेगी


BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s Social Democrats (SPD) faced pressure on Wednesday to consider offering coalition talks to Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives to settle the worst political crisis in modern German history. A leader of the smaller Free Democrats (FDP) also raised the possibility of reviving coalition talks with the conservatives and Greens that collapsed at the weekend raising fears across Europe of stalemate in the EU s economic and political powerhouse. But the party chief later appeared to ruled it out.  The signs of possible flexibility came after President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in a move unprecedented for a largely ceremonial position, intervened to promote talks that could avert a disruptive early repeat election. SPD leader Martin Schulz, whose party had governed in coalition under Merkel since 2013, wants to go into opposition after September polls that knocked its support to the lowest levels since formation of the modern German republic in 1949. But the mass-circulation Bild newspaper said 30 members of the SPD s 153-strong parliamentary group questioned that position this week at a meeting of the parliamentary party. SPD lawmaker Johannes Kahrs, spokesman for the Seeheimer Circle, a conservative wing in the party, urged Schulz to keep an open mind when he meets on Thursday with Steinmeier. Kahrs told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper that the collapse of the coalition talks had changed the situation.  We cannot just tell the German president,  Sorry, that s it.  Bild said German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who handed leadership of the SPD to Schulz and became foreign minister earlier this year, also favors a resumed grand coalition. Germany, traditionally a bastion of stability in the EU, could face months of political stagnation, further complicating agreement on reforms of euro zone governance and EU defense and asylum policies. Merkel, who remains acting chancellor until a government is agreed, has said she would prefer to work with the SPD. If that failed, she would favor new elections over an unstable minority government. Merkel s 12-year hold on power was shaken at the September elections partly by the arrival of the anti-immigration AfD party in parliament. Guenther Oettinger, an EU commissioner and member of Merkel s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), urged the SPD to think again about its rejection of coalition talks.  The long process of forming a government is weakening Germany s influence in Brussels,  Oettinger told Der Spiegel newsmagazine in an interview to be published on Thursday. Axel Schaefer, deputy head of the SPD s parliamentary group, urged the three political blocs to try again to reach agreement. But he said his party would also talk with conservatives if asked to do so by Steinmeier, who is meeting with possible coalition partners this week. A top official of the pro-business FDP told broadcaster ntv her party would not rule out reviving the three-way coalition talks if Merkel s conservatives and the Greens offered a  completely new package  of proposals.  If it really was possible to build a modern republic in the coming years, then we are the last ones who would refuse to talk,  FDP Secretary General Nicola Beer said. But FDP chief Christian Lindner told Spiegel magazine:  For the foreseeable future, it is impossible to imagine cooperation with the Greens at the federal level.  Stephan Weil, the SPD premier of Lower Saxony who just completed a coalition agreement with conservatives in his state, has said a new election could leave few options other than a grand coalition anyway, the Sueddeutsche newspaper reported. Joe Kaeser, chief executive of Siemens, told Die Welt newspaper that he hoped new elections could be avoided since the results would likely be little changed from Sept. 24. A new poll released Wednesday showed that half of Germans favor a new election, while a fifth support a minority government. Only 18 percent want a renewal of the SPD-conservative coalition that ruled the past four years.

Summary: जर्मन सोशल डेमोक्रेट्स को गठबंधन वार्ता पर दबाव का सामना करना पड़ रहा है


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Within minutes of Donald Trump saying he would visit Mexico, one of the front-runners to become the country’s next president hit back, saying the brash White House hopeful would not be welcome. That was just a start. Scorn rained down on both Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and the U.S. Republican presidential nominee after the two announced late on Tuesday they would meet during a brief trip by Trump to the country he has repeatedly attacked during his presidential campaign. Before it even took place, the visit was a public relations disaster for Pena Nieto as politicians and diplomats condemned him for inviting a man who has united Mexican like few others in shared disdain. Since launching his White House bid in June last year, Trump has vowed to seal off the country behind a border wall he says Mexico will pay for, tarred its migrants as rapists and drug pushers and threatened to expel millions of them, as well as saying he will revise or tear up a trade deal with Mexico if he wins office in November. Mexican cabinet ministers have called Trump ignorant and racist, and Pena Nieto earlier this year likened Trump’s tilt for the top job to the rise of Adolf Hitler, so the sudden invitation to the real estate mogul was a hard sell to the public. “Mr Trump may have been invited but he knows he’s not welcome,” presidential hopeful Margarita Zavala, wife of former president Felipe Calderon and one of the favorites to succeed Pena Nieto at the next election in 2018, said on Twitter.  “Mexicans have dignity and we reject his hate speech,” she added. A few dozen people gathered beneath a soaring monument to Mexican Independence in central Mexico City on Wednesday to protest the New Yorker’s visit, some holding placards emblazoned with captions such as “You are not Wall-come” and “Trump and Pena out”. “Trump has badmouthed Mexicans, it’s appalling that the president has invited him,” said Abril Marquez, a 23-year-old law student holding a sign saying “Trump, you’re not welcome!” Traditionally bitter political adversaries in Mexico have been united in their rejection of Trump, making Wednesday’s hastily-arranged encounter a gamble with few obvious benefits for Pena Nieto, whose approval ratings are at all-time lows. Gang violence is at the worst levels of his term, anger over political corruption is widespread, the peso currency is near record lows and the centrist president’s personal integrity is in question after a report that he plagiarized his university thesis. A government spokesman played down the accusation, saying there were “style errors” in the paper. Andres Rozental, a former deputy Mexican foreign minister responsible for North America, said he was at a loss to explain the Trump visit, describing it as a “big mistake” by the government. “Unless (Trump) comes out and makes a public statement disavowing all the things that he’s said, which I doubt very much that he will do, I don’t think there’s really anything that Pena Nieto can get out of this,” he said. Miguel Barbosa, Senate leader of the leftist opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution, who worked with Pena Nieto to push through landmark economic reforms earlier in his term, said the president was allowing himself to be used by Trump. “You don’t understand,” Barbosa said, directing a tweet at Pena Nieto, “the presence of (Trump) in Mexico at your invitation is behavior unworthy of the Mexican government.” Even the man Pena Nieto picked a year ago to be his ambassador to the United States did not hold back. “Nobody in the last 50 years has put Mexican-U.S. relations in such danger as Trump,” Miguel Basanez, an old friend of Pena Nieto who was replaced in April as ambassador after seven months in the job, said on Twitter. “I find the invitation deeply regrettable.” Trump has helped stir the bad blood with comments on Twitter during his campaign. Even as he prepared for his quick visit he was in a Twitter spat with a prominent critic south of the border, Vicente Fox, another former Mexican president.

Summary: मेक्सिको के राष्ट्रपति का ट्रंप को न्योता मिलने से झटका लगा


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Thursday that his country had accepted Israel s offer to help it and the United States develop Central America, as Israel and Mexico seek to deepen business ties. Speaking at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pena Nieto added that the two nations had agreed to update their free trade agreement, which was signed in 2000.  We have agreed to establish and begin the ... negotiations to look over this agreement so that the commercial relationship between both nations intensifies and grows,  he said. Netanyahu was joined by a business delegation including representatives from communications firm AudioCodes Ltd, cyber security firm Verint Systems Inc and Mer Group, which specializes in telecommunications and cyber security. In Central America, Pena Nieto said Israel s assistance could bolster the United States and Mexico s efforts in the region, particularly in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. He noted that Israel brings experience from carrying out development projects in Africa. The United States and Mexico have been seeking to encourage investment in infrastructure improvements in Central America s so-called Northern Triangle in an effort to stem migration to the United States. Netanyahu s trip marked the first visit to Mexico by a sitting Israeli prime minister, Pena Nieto said. At the close of the news conference, Netanyahu invited Pena Nieto to Jerusalem. The relationship between the nations was strained earlier this year by a tweet in which Netanyahu appeared to praise U.S. President Donald Trump s plans to build a wall on the Mexican border. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin later issued a statement apologizing for any misunderstanding.

Summary: मेक्सिको ने मध्य अमेरिका के विकास में मदद के लिए इजरायल के प्रस्ताव को स्वीकार किया


PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Tuesday fighting economic espionage was a priority for the Department of Justice. Interviewed by Reuters in Phoenix, she said: “When it comes to economic espionage, this is in fact a tremendous problem because ... be they individuals or be they state actors ... essentially they’re stealing from future generations also. We take these matters very seriously... It is a matter of priority for us.”

Summary: आर्थिक जासूसी एक 'जबरदस्त समस्या': अमेरिकी अटॉर्नी जनरल


(Reuters) - Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton will undergo surgery early next month for prostate cancer, he said in a statement Tuesday.  Staff for Dayton, 70, said last week he was weighing treatment options after saying he had cancer in late January. A day before he announced the diagnosis, Dayton collapsed while delivering his state-of-the-state address in St. Paul, but later said he did not think the fainting episode was related to his illness. Dayton will have surgery to remove his prostate on March 2, he said in the statement. The operation will be done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dayton said he will need to spend one night in the hospital. The cancer has not spread beyond his prostate, Dayton said.    Dayton, a Democrat, served six years as a U.S. senator from Minnesota before he was elected to his first term as governor in 2010. His current term runs until early 2018.

Summary: मिनेसोटा के गवर्नर की मार्च में होगी कैंसर की सर्जरी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two prominent religious conservatives defended U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday after he was widely criticized for blaming both white nationalists and counter-protesters for last weekend’s violence at a Virginia rally organized by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.  Evangelical Christian Jerry Falwell Jr said Trump could be more polished and politically correct but is not racist. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who last week criticized the white nationalists’ “evil, sinful, disgusting behavior,” said unequivocally on Sunday that the faith community stood by Trump. The responses reflect a balancing act by conservative Christians as they try to square the images that emerged from the Virginia city of Charlottesville last weekend - torch-carrying white supremacists and neo-Nazis toting swastika flags - with support for a president that failed to condemn them roundly and immediately. Trump alienated fellow Republicans, corporate leaders and U.S. allies with his comments about the violence that broke out at a white nationalist protest against the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville. He said “many sides” were to blame and that there were “very fine people” on both sides. Trump also decried the removal of Civil War monuments to the Confederacy that several cities have deemed offensive for their connection to slavery.  But the remarks, including those at a fiery Trump news  conference on Tuesday, may not dent support from his political base, where white evangelical Christian voters are a major component.  Many in the evangelical Christian community condemned the neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who marched in the University of Virginia town before one of them plowed through a crowd of counter-protesters and killed a 32-year-old woman. Fewer criticized Trump directly.  Falwell, president of the Christian-based Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, said Trump likely had more detailed information on protesters when he described “fine people” on both sides.  “One of the reasons I supported him is because he doesn’t say what’s politically correct, he says what is in his heart,” Falwell told ABC’s “This Week” program. “But he does not have a racist bone in his body.” National Public Radio reported on Sunday that a number of Liberty University graduates were preparing to return their diplomas to protest his support for Trump. Falwell said they misunderstood that support. Huckabee, a conservative Baptist minister before entering politics, said Trump “has the faith community.” “This is an attempt to discredit and ultimately dislodge Donald Trump from the White House,” Huckabee told Fox Business Network. Huckabee noted that only one person on a faith council that advises Trump had stepped down since the controversy.  New York City megachurch pastor A.R. Bernard said he left Trump’s unofficial evangelical advisory board on Tuesday after having distanced himself for several months as “it became obvious that there was a deepening conflict in values between myself and the administration.” Johnnie Moore, an evangelical adviser to the White House, said in a statement he deeply respects Bernard. “We have every intention to continue to extend invitations to him to contribute his perspective on issues important to all of us,” he said. Pastor Mark Burns, an African-American televangelist who leads a small congregation in South Carolina and serves on the board, said in an interview on MSNBC on Saturday that he stood by Trump.  “I don’t believe he supported neo-Nazis, I don’t believe he’s supporting white supremacists at all,” Burns said in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday. “I would have personally said stronger (things) in reference to the KKK, neo-Nazis, but I don’t have all the information.” Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, denounced bigotry and racism on his Facebook page a day after the Charlottesville violence, but at the same time, he also took aim at politicians who tried to connect Trump to that turmoil. One member of the evangelical community, biblical studies professor Denny Burk of Boyce College in Kentucky, condemned the president’s remarks at Tuesday’s news conference as “more than disappointing.” “They were morally bankrupt and completely unacceptable. People who protest while chanting Nazi slogans are not ‘very fine people,’” Burk wrote in an article posted on his Facebook page.

Summary: प्रमुख अमेरिकी धार्मिक रूढ़िवादियों ने चार्लोट्सविले के बाद ट्रम्प का बचाव किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized Facebook Inc (FB.O) as “anti-Trump” and questioned its role during the 2016 presidential campaign, amid probes into alleged Russian interference in the election and possible collusion by Trump’s associates. His salvo came as the social media giant prepares to hand over 3,000 political ads to congressional investigators that it has said were likely purchased by Russian entities during and after last year’s presidential contest. Trump appeared to embrace the focus on the social media network in his comments on Wednesday, which also took aim at more traditional medial outlets, long targeted by the president as “fake news.” “Facebook was always anti-Trump. The networks were always anti-Trump,” Trump said on Twitter, levelling the same charge against the New York Times and the Washington Post. “Collusion?” Representatives for Facebook and the newspapers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s tweet. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those investigating Russia’s role, said he expected to have the ads by next week and that they should be made public. “You really need to see them ... to recognise how cynical an effort this was by the Kremlin, how they sought to just accentuate those divisions ... and drive American against American,” Schiff told MSNBC, adding that Facebook and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) executives should testify publicly about the issue. “I have concerns about how long it took Facebook to realise the Russians were advertising on their network,” Schiff told MSNBC, adding that he has spoken several times with the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.  Facebook and other technology companies are coming under increased scrutiny amid the Russia investigations. The probes, being conducted by several congressional committees along with the Department of Justice, have clouded Trump’s tenure since taking office in January and threatened his agenda, which has yet to secure a major legislative victory.  Moscow has denied any collusion. Trump himself has previously praised Facebook and credited it with helping him win the November election. His campaign has said it spent some $70 million on Facebook ads, and it also ran  a live Facebook show.  His latest comments did not appear to affect shares of the company, which were up 1.4 percent at $166.50 a share in late morning trading after analysts raised their price target for the stock.

Summary: रूस की जांच के बीच सांसदों को विज्ञापनों का इंतजार, ट्रंप ने फेसबुक की आलोचना की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is unlikely to pick economic adviser Gary Cohn as his nominee for Federal Reserve chairman because Cohn is playing a crucial role in the White House tax reform effort, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. “No decision has been made and no candidate has been ruled out but Gary’s role is too crucial to getting tax reform done. It might be too important for him to continue to be the lead, for him to announce a change at this time,” the official said. The Republican president is looking to announce a Fed chair nominee before leaving on a trip to Asia on Nov. 3, in order to give his choice time to go through the Senate confirmation process. Current Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s term ends in early February. But an announcement is unlikely this week, said another source familiar with the situation. Trump told Republican senators during a private lunch on Tuesday that his focus for a new Fed chair was on Stanford University economist John Taylor, Fed Governor Jerome Powell and Yellen, a source familiar with the meeting said. When Trump asked the senators for a show of hands on whether they would prefer Taylor or Powell, the most support went for Taylor, the source said. Cohn irritated Trump by criticizing the president’s response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August at a white supremacist rally. But the two men in recent weeks seemed to have ironed out their differences, with Trump singling out Cohn for praise for his help in the tax reform effort. Trump is also considering a fifth candidate for the Fed job, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh, sources have said. Trump told Fox Business Network that he admired Yellen but that the decision to pick a new Fed chair was something to which he would like to contribute. “You like to make your own mark, which is maybe one of the things she’s got a little bit against her, but I think she is terrific. We’ve had a great talk and we are obviously doing great together, you look at the markets,” Trump told the network.

Summary: ट्रम्प के फेड के लिए कोहन को चुनने की संभावना नहीं है क्योंकि वह कर सुधार अभियान के लिए महत्वपूर्ण हैः अधिकारी


YANGON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda militants have called for support for Myanmar s Rohingya Muslims, who are facing a security crackdown that has sent about 400,000 of them fleeing to Bangladesh, warning that Myanmar would face  punishment  for its  crimes . The exodus of Muslim refugees from Buddhist-majority Myanmar was sparked by a fierce security force response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks on police and army posts in the country s west on Aug. 25. The Islamist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Untied States issued a statement urging Muslims around the world to support their fellow Muslims in Myanmar with aid, weapons and  military support .  The savage treatment meted out to our Muslim brothers ... shall not pass without punishment,  al Qaeda said in a statement, according to the SITE monitoring group.   The government of Myanmar shall be made to taste what our Muslim brothers have tasted.  Myanmar says its security forces are engaged in a legitimate campaign against  terrorists , whom it blames for attacks on the police and army, and on civilians. The government has warned of bomb attacks in cities, and al Qaeda s call to arms is likely to compound those concerns.  We call upon all mujahid brothers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines to set out for Burma to help their Muslim brothers, and to make the necessary preparations   training and the like - to resist this oppression,  the group said.

Summary: अल कायदा ने म्यांमार को रोहिंग्याओं पर 'सजा' की चेतावनी दी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday “establishing discipline and accountability in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects,” the White House said in a statement on Monday. Trump, who is visiting his residence at Trump Tower in New York City, will also participate in a discussion on infrastructure and give a statement on the subject at 3:45 p.m. (1945 GMT). The White House did not give additional details on the executive order. Trump, who was a real estate developer before becoming president, made rebuilding the country’s crumbling infrastructure a top campaign issue. He has proposed leveraging $200 billion in government spending into $1 trillion of projects to privatize the air traffic control system, strengthen rural infrastructure and repair bridges, roads and waterways. In June, Trump said one of the biggest obstacles to new infrastructure projects was “the painfully slow, costly and time-consuming process for getting permits and approvals to build.”

Summary: बुनियादी ढांचा परियोजनाओं पर मंगलवार को कार्यकारी आदेश पर हस्ताक्षर करेंगे ट्रंप


DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - Turkish authorities have issued arrest warrants for 25 soldiers across Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus, security sources said, as part of a widening crackdown following last year s failed military coup. The soldiers, on active duty and of varying ranks in Turkey s military, are being sought across 13 provinces and Turkish northern Cyprus, the sources said. Prosecutors in the southeastern province of Mardin ordered the arrest of the soldiers over the  secret military structuring  of the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, the sources said.  Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, is accused by Ankara of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt. He has denied involvement. Since the coup, more than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial over links to Gulen, while 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the military, public and private sectors. Rights groups and some of Turkey s Western allies have voiced concern about the crackdown, fearing the government is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. The government says only such a purge could neutralize the threat represented by Gulen s network, which it says deeply infiltrated institutions such as the army, schools and courts.

Summary: तुर्की ने तख्तापलट के बाद की जांच में 25 सैनिकों के लिए गिरफ्तारी वारंट जारी किया-सूत्र


SKOPJE (Reuters) - A Macedonian court sentenced 33 ethnic Albanians to jail terms on Thursday, including seven given life sentences, after they were found guilty of plotting attacks and clashing with the police in a 2015 shootout in which 22 people were killed. The 33 were accused of being part of a group of Albanian gunmen involved in the May 9, 2015 shootout with police in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo, in which eight police officers were among those killed and dozens were wounded. Some of the defendants were from neighboring Kosovo, while others were from Macedonia s own Albanian minority.  The evidence offered by the prosecutor shows that the accused committed the criminal acts of terrorism and terrorist organization,  the presiding judge said.  The court was under heavy police protection, with helicopters flying overhead. The defendants protested while the verdict was being read, prompting the judge to order 33 of them to leave the courtroom before hearing sentences.  The 2015 shootout occurred during a police raid that followed an attack by armed men on a border post. Some of them were former guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (NLA), an ethnic Albanian militia that had fought an insurgency in 2001 in which scores of people were killed.  The NLA disbanded in 2002 and some of its former leaders entered the government. Naser Raufi, one of the defense lawyers, said the trial was staged and that he did not expect to see such lengthy sentences.   This calls for an independent investigation,  he said.  Macedonia, a small ex-Yugoslav republic of about two million people, declared independence in 1991 and mostly avoided the violence that accompanied the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, until the clashes with ethnic Albanian fighters in 2001. Albanians are believed to make up around 30 percent of Macedonia s population, living mostly in the northwest near the borders with Kosovo and Albania.

Summary: मैसेडोनिया ने 2015 की गोलीबारी के लिए 33 जातीय अल्बानियाई लोगों को जेल भेजा


ZURICH (Reuters) - Nuclear proliferation watchdog CTBTO said on Saturday it had detected two seismic events in North Korea on Saturday but they were probably not deliberate explosions in the isolated country.  Two #Seismic Events! 0829UTC & much smaller @ 0443UTC unlikely Man-made! Similar to  collapse  event 8.5 mins after DPRK6! Analysis ongoing,  CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo said in a Twitter post. China s earthquake administration said it had detected a magnitude 3.4 earthquake in North Korea that was a  suspected explosion , while an official at South Korea s meteorological agency said the initial view was that it was a natural quake.

Summary: उत्तर कोरिया में दो भूकंपीय घटनाओं की मानव निर्मित होने की संभावनाः सीटीबीटीओ


NEW YORK (Reuters) - When former reality television contestant Summer Zervos accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct last fall, she pursued her claims solely in the court of public opinion, since the allegations dated too far back to allow a lawsuit. But last month, she found a fresh approach to fight the former host of “The Apprentice,” who has vehemently denied her allegations that he groped her in 2007. By professing his innocence, the man who is now president of the United States had effectively called her a liar, Servos alleges in a defamation lawsuit. The suit copied a rare legal tactic employed most notably by several women who have accused the actor and comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault: using his denials as the basis for a defamation claim. It is not uncommon for high-profile allegations against celebrities to prompt defamation lawsuits, but they are usually filed by the star against the accuser. In 2014, however, Joseph Cammarata, the attorney for Cosby accuser Tamara Green, realized he could adapt that strategy for his own purposes after Cosby’s lawyer issued a statement calling the allegations “fantastical.” Like many other Cosby accusers, Green was unable to sue for assault because the alleged incident occurred decades ago. “A direct claim for the assault is not available, so I came up with the idea that a defamation claim would be the appropriate vehicle to use to address the underlying harm,” said Cammarata, whose lawsuit now includes seven Cosby accusers as plaintiffs. All told, 10 Cosby accusers filed four defamation lawsuits in three states. In simple terms, the argument is that Trump and Cosby have effectively branded the women as liars by denying the incidents occurred. But the women face a difficult challenge in making their cases, experts say. “Merely saying, ‘I didn’t do it,’ is traditionally not seen in defamation law as calling your accuser a liar, even though logically that’s what it means,” said Rod Smolla, dean of the Delaware Law School and a First Amendment scholar.  “But if you go beyond that – if you go from, ‘I didn’t do it,’ to, ‘She’s a liar,’ now you have arguably made a statement of fact” that could be subject to liability, he added. Trump’s status as president does not shield him from civil liability for actions he took prior to assuming office. In a statement on Tuesday, the attorney defending Trump in the Zervos lawsuit, Marc Kasowitz, said he and Trump’s personal lawyer would soon file a response to the lawsuit. “President Trump continues to deny any allegation of wrongdoing raised in said complaint,” he said. Cosby, 79, who faces allegations of sexual misconduct from approximately 50 women, has also denied any wrongdoing. The Cosby and Trump plaintiffs are taking on a tough double burden, experts said. First, the only way to show the denials by both men are untrue is to prove the incidents took place as described. “The burden is going to be on her to show that Trump is actually saying something that’s false,” Clay Calvert, a First Amendment expert at the University of Florida, said of Zervos. In addition, the women must show Trump and Crosby crossed the line into defamation by deliberately making false statements that seriously harmed the accusers’ reputations. In defamation cases, courts typically examine statements to determine whether they were factual or opinion, as expressing an opinion is generally protected by the First Amendment. Making that distinction can be challenging. In the Cosby cases, for instance, judges have split on whether the lawsuits should proceed, even coming to opposite conclusions regarding the same statement from his attorney. U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni in Massachusetts rejected Cosby’s attempts to have two cases, including Green’s lawsuit, thrown out. In his rulings, the judge found that a November 2014 statement from Cosby’s lawyer calling the allegations “unsubstantiated, fantastical stories” could be reasonably seen as factual, and therefore potentially defamatory. By contrast, a Pittsburgh federal judge, Arthur Schwab, tossed a similar case against Cosby, finding that the same statement was “pure opinion” and thus protected. Unlike Cosby, who has been fairly circumspect in his public statements, Trump has aggressively attacked his accusers, calling the claims “100 percent fabricated and made-up.” His rhetoric could make him more vulnerable to a defamation claim, experts said. Trump has said he never met Zervos at a hotel, despite her allegation that he groped her at a hotel in Beverly Hills, California. That type of specific fact-based assertion can also make it easier to show defamation if it can be proven false, according to Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. “So much depends on the particular statement and the particular context surrounding that statement,” he said.

Summary: ट्रम्प पर आरोप लगाने वाला मानहानि का मुकदमा चलाकर कॉस्बी प्लेबुक का अनुसरण करता है


ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast will pay thousands of soldiers 15 million CFA francs  ($25,782) each as part of buy-outs aimed at reducing the size of its unruly and mutiny-prone military, documents showed on Monday. Africa s fastest growing economy in 2016, Ivory Coast was hit earlier this year by successive uprisings by low-ranking troops. The costly bonuses paid to end the unrest helped balloon the budget deficit this year, and the episode tarnished its image as one of the continent s rising economic stars. The government said last week that it would retire around 1,000 soldiers by the end of the year as part of efforts to bring the force - estimated at about 25,000 troops - in line with  accepted standards . A spokesman did not say last week how much the soldiers would receive under the voluntary scheme. However, a document obtained by Reuters outlining the plan stated that each retired soldier would receive a payment of 15 million CFA francs. Neither the spokesman nor Ivory Coast s defense minister were available to comment on Monday. Diplomats said the move signaled that the government was beginning to implement a military reform law. According to a copy of the law seen by Reuters, 4,400 troops are to leave the army over four years.  It was not immediately clear if that figure includes soldiers already scheduled to retire during the period. Ivory Coast s army was thrown together from rival loyalist and rebel factions at the end of a 2011 civil war that brought President Alassane Ouattara to power after his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo rejected his defeat in a 2010 run-off election. It remains plagued by internal divisions. Diplomats and analysts say the force is bloated with unqualified personnel and vulnerable to political manipulation. An adviser to Parliament Speaker Guillaume Soro, considered a leading candidate to replace term-limited President Ouattara in 2020, was arrested in October after a secret arms cache at his home helped mutinying soldiers halt a loyalist advance. Soro and his supporters say the charges were politically motivated. ($1 = 581.8000 CFA francs)

Summary: आइवरी कोस्ट ने सेना के आकार को कम करने के लिए 26,000 डॉलर की खरीद की पेशकश कीः दस्तावेज


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s team has canceled an appearance before Congress by his nominee for defense secretary, retired General James Mattis, regarding a waiver he needs for the post, congressional officials said on Wednesday. The U.S. House of Representatives had been due to hear Mattis testify on Thursday and he had agreed to appear. Mattis, who retired from the Marine Corps in 2013, is technically ineligible to be defense secretary since he has not been a civilian for at least seven years. That means Congress would need to grant a waiver, something it has not done since 1950. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said it was his understanding the Trump transition team had blocked Mattis from testifying. Congressional aides also confirmed that Mattis had agreed to testify but the appearance had been blocked. The decision appeared to be part of an effort to keep the attention on Mattis’ confirmation hearing in the Senate, which is scheduled for earlier on Thursday. “This (waiver) is not a minor issue. This is a major issue affecting the principle of civilian control of the military, and Ranking Member (Representative Adam) Smith believes deeply that General Mattis should come speak with the members about it,” said Barron Youngsmith, a spokesman for Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee. A Trump transition team spokeswoman did not speak directly to the House hearing but said Mattis’ current focus was on the Senate confirmation process and “testifying at his confirmation hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.” “If confirmed he looks forward to working with both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, which play critical roles in supporting our forces and ensuring civilian control of the military,” Alleigh Marre said in a statement. Hoyer said Mattis might be the best of the nominees for top administration positions put forward by the Republican Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20. Republicans control the Senate, so Mattis is expected to be confirmed if he receives the appropriate waiver. The Senate and House must both agree to exempt him from a law written when the Department of Defense was created to ensure that the U.S. military is under civilian command. Senators expressed little opposition to Mattis’ appointment at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on civilian control of the military on Tuesday, as the panel considered whether to issue the waiver. Outside experts testified. Senator John McCain, the Senate panel’s chairman, said he would “fully support” the waiver legislation, which is expected to pass Congress.  Mattis, 66, has been warmly received by senior defense figures among both Republicans and Democrats, who believe he will adhere to core alliances and principles, even ones challenged by Trump during his election campaign.

Summary: ट्रम्प की टीम ने पेंटागन द्वारा अमेरिकी हाउस की उपस्थिति को अवरुद्ध कियाः अधिकारी


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain will  maintain full alignment  after Brexit with the European Union s single market and customs union rules that support peace, cooperation and economy on the island of Ireland, an agreement between the bloc and London said on Friday.  It added that Britain  will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.  For the full text of the agreement, please see: here

Summary: ब्रेक्सिट के बाद ब्रिटेन आयरिश शांति का समर्थन करने वाले यूरोपीय संघ के नियमों के साथ तालमेल बनाए रखेगा


DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a  fresh start  to the relationship between the countries after a meeting that saw them agree to work more closely on North Korea. The leaders met on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Vietnamese resort city of Danang. Ties between China and Japan, the world s second- and third-largest economies, have been plagued by a long-running territorial dispute over a cluster of East China Sea islets.  At the end of the meeting, President Xi said this is a meeting that marks a fresh start of relations between Japan and China. I totally feel the same way,  Abe told reporters. Abe said he has proposed visiting China at an appropriate time, which would then be followed by a Xi visit to Japan. At the meeting, the two countries agreed to deepen their cooperation on North Korea and to hold a trilateral summit with South Korea at the earliest possible date.   With the North Korea situation at an important phase, the role China ought to play is very big,  Abe said.  China and Japan have also agreed to accelerate talks for an early implementation of a communication mechanism between their military forces, Abe said. He also proposed that Japan and China cooperate in doing business in third countries. China s statement about the meeting, released by the official Xinhua news agency, cited Xi as telling Abe that stable relations were in both sides  interests, and that they must make unremitting efforts to continue improving ties. The two countries  must take constructive steps to appropriately manage and control disputes that exist between the two countries , Xi added.

Summary: शी की मुलाकात के बाद आबे ने जापान-चीन संबंधों की 'नई शुरुआत' की सराहना की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States wants Pakistan to move quickly to show good faith in supporting efforts to counter militants operating in Afghanistan and in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table, the senior U.S. diplomat for South Asia said on Friday. Speaking after accompanying U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on a visit to the region, including Pakistan, Alice Wells said Washington looked forward to seeing practical steps from Pakistan  over the next few weeks and months.   The secretary stressed the importance of Pakistan moving quickly to demonstrate good faith and efforts to use its influence to create the conditions that will get the Taliban to the negotiating table,  Wells, the acting assistant secretary of state for South Asia, told reporters. Wells said Pakistan s long-standing relationships with militant organizations was a threat to its own stability and said the Taliban leadership and the allied Haqqani network still retained the ability to plan and recuperate and reside with their families in Pakistan. She said Washington wanted Pakistan to show the same commitment it had made to defeat militant groups domestically to those threatening Afghanistan or India.  It s up to them whether or not they want to work with us,  Wells said.  And if they don t ... then we ll adjust accordingly.  Wells declined to elaborate on what action the United States might take or what specific actions it wanted Pakistan to take. Relations between uneasy allies United States and Pakistan have frayed in recent years, with Washington repeatedly accusing Islamabad of helping Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network militants who stage attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies doing so. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to get tough with Pakistan unless it changed its behavior, with U.S. officials threatening further reductions in aid and mooting targeted sanctions against Pakistani officials. On Monday, during a visit to Kabul, Tillerson urged Pakistan to act against safe havens on its soil.  Pakistan needs to, I think, take a clear-eyed view of the situation that they are confronted with in terms of the number of terrorist organizations that find safe haven inside of Pakistan,  he said. Pakistani officials bristle at the idea that the country is not doing enough against militants and say Pakistan has suffered more than 60,000 casualties in the war on terror since the Sept. 11 attacks in United States in 2001.

Summary: अमेरिका चाहता है कि पाकिस्तान आतंकवादियों का मुकाबला करने में समर्थन दिखाने के लिए शीघ्र कार्रवाई करे


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union is launching what it bills as the first grassroots mobilization effort in its nearly 100-year history, as it seeks to harness a surge of energy among left-leaning activists since the November election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president. The campaign, known as PeoplePower, kicks off on Saturday with a town hall-style event in Miami featuring “resistance training” that will be streamed live at more than 2,300 local gatherings nationwide.  It will focus on free speech, reproductive rights and immigration and include presentations from legal experts, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero and “Top Chef” television star Padma Lakshmi. Membership in the civil rights organization, which was founded in 1920, has tripled to more than 1 million since Trump’s election, the group says.  As activists have marched in streets, demonstrated at airports and confronted U.S. lawmakers regularly since election day, progressive groups like MoveOn and the newly formed Indivisible have sought ways to translate that frustration into local action. That is the idea behind PeoplePower, which represents a major strategic shift for an organization that has traditionally focused on courtroom litigation, Romero said in a phone interview on Friday. Approximately 135,000 people have signed up for the campaign. “Before, our membership was largely older and much smaller,” he said. “Our members would provide us with money so we could file the cases and do the advocacy. What’s clear with the Trump election is that our new members are engaged and want to be deployed.” For example, the Miami event will encourage individuals to engage local officials in conversations about immigrant policies in their town or city. The ACLU has prepared “model” ordinances ensuring the protection of immigrant rights that supporters can press legislators to adopt, part of a campaign to create “freedom cities,” according to ACLU political director Faiz Shakir. Suggested tactics, like the use of text messages as a mass mobilization tool, will mirror some of those employed by the insurgent presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who mounted a surprisingly robust challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. “It’s completely unprecedented,” Romero said of the response since Trump’s victory. “People are wide awake right now and have been since the night of the election.”

Summary: अमेरिकी नागरिक स्वतंत्रता समूह एसीएलयू ट्रम्प विरोधी ऊर्जा का दोहन करना चाहता है


(Reuters) - Pope Francis’s remarks on Thursday that U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is “not Christian” due to his views on immigration sparked jokes on social media, and the pope quickly trended on Twitter in the United States. The businessman and former reality TV star called the pope’s comments “disgraceful” and said he was proud to be a Christian. Twitter users poked fun at the brouhaha. “Watching Trump fight with the Pope might be the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” tweeted actor Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks). Television comedy writer Wendy Molyneux (@WendyMolyneux) joked about the controversy by attributing a fake quotation to Trump that mocked the presidential candidate’s penchant for bawdy exaggeration. “‘You know, a lot of my friends are Popes, and they love what I’m doing. This one Pope is such a loser. And fat.’ - @realDonaldTrump,” Molyneux wrote Thursday. Paul Begala (@PaulBegala), a political consultant who is an adviser to a Super PAC helping Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said: “How long before realDonaldTrump says the Pope is totally broke. Doesn’t own a single golf course. Never even dated a supermodel. #Loser.” “How dare the pope be concerned with the poor & disenfranchised! I mean Jesus never was!” tweeted actor Rainn Wilson (@rainnwilson). “The Late Show,” hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert, tweeted a poll Thursday in which it asked “How can Donald Trump get back in the Pope’s good graces?” The options listed were “Cabinet position,” “Purchase indulgences,” “Evict Protestants” and “Sensual back rub.” Trump, long the leader in national opinion polls, and five Republican rivals face off on Saturday in South Carolina’s primary. While the pope and Trump are now at odds, the real estate developer had previously praised the pontiff. In 2013, the year Francis began his papacy, Trump compared himself to the pope favorably. On Christmas Day 2013: Trump tweeted, “The new Pope is a humble man, very much like me, which probably explains why I like him so much!”  The pope was not the only powerful figure to run afoul of the Republican candidate on Thursday. Media titan Rupert Murdoch weighed in on Twitter to contest Trump’s claims that Fox News is biased against him after a national poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal showed Senator Ted Cruz inching ahead of Trump. “Trump blames me for WSJ poll, fights FoxNews,” tweeted Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch), executive chairman of both Fox News parent 21st Century Fox Inc (FOXA.O)  and Journal owner News Corp (NWSA.O). “Time to calm down. If I running anti-Trump conspiracy then doing lousy job!”  For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, “Tales from the Trail” (here).

Summary: ट्रम्प के ईसाई धर्म पर पोप की टिप्पणियों ने ट्विटर पर चुटकुलों को जन्म दिया


LONDON (Reuters) - The British Foreign Office said it had summoned the North Korean ambassador to condemn Wednesday s ballistic missile test.  North Korea said it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile in a  breakthrough  that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.  I summoned the North Korean Ambassador to the Foreign Office to make clear to him our condemnation of this latest ballistic missile test,  Minister for Asia and Pacific Mark Field said in a statement.  North Korea claims it wants to bring security and prosperity to its people. But its actions are creating only insecurity and deepening its isolation,  said Field. Britain is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. The latest test was the highest and longest any North Korean missile had flown, and it landed in the sea near Japan.

Summary: मिसाइल परीक्षण पर ब्रिटेन ने उत्तर कोरिया के राजदूत को तलब किया


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO accused Russia on Thursday of misleading the alliance over the scope of its war games last month in violation of rules meant to reduce East-West tensions, but Moscow said NATO was stirring up anti-Russian propaganda.   At a meeting with Russia s ambassador to the U.S.-led alliance, Alexander Grushko, NATO envoys said that Moscow had given conflicting accounts of the exercises known as Zapad, or  West , in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and its Kaliningrad outpost, diplomats said. NATO ambassadors pressed their message home at a meeting with Grushko at the NATO-Russia Council, a forum that was effectively suspended months after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014, but now meets regularly again. Russia s defense ministry said the war games included some 12,700 troops and ran from Sept. 14 to Sept 20, with a fictional scenario focusing on attacks by militants. NATO says there were far more troops than 12,700 and they simulated an attack on the West during August and September.  Saying they are concerned that large-scale, unannounced exercises could accidentally trigger a conflict in eastern Europe between NATO and Russia, Western allies have pressed Moscow to be clear about its military exercises and to invite more observers.  The number of troops participating in the exercises significantly exceeded the number announced before the exercise, the scenario was a different one and the geographical scope was larger than previously announced,  NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after the meeting. Under a Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, which sets out rules for exercises, war games that number more than 13,000 troops should be open to observers who can also fly over the drills and allow them to talk to soldiers. NATO did send one expert to a visitor day in Russia and two experts to a visitor day in Belarus.  NATO diplomats say Moscow massed some 100,000 troops from the Arctic to eastern Ukraine, where Russia backs separatists, and used ballistic missiles and electronic warfare to test its combat capability in Europe.  Grushko said NATO s assessment was wrong and NATO was wrong to lump all the exercises going on in Russia last month under the Zapad name.  NATO countries are counting all the military activities that took place in the Russian Federation and counting them as part of Zapad,  he told a news conference after the meeting.   We don t accept the propaganda about the Russian exercises,  Grushko said.  It was an unprecedented propaganda attack,  he said.         Some western officials have expressed concern that parts of the Baltic states, which have large ethnic Russian minorities, could be seized by Moscow, much as Russia took control of Ukraine s Crimea in 2014. However, Stoltenberg said that Russia had withdrawn its troops from Belarus after the Zapad exercises. Baltic countries had feared Moscow might leave them on NATO s borders.

Summary: नाटो का कहना है कि रूस ने ज़पाद युद्ध खेलों के पैमाने को लेकर पश्चिम को गुमराह किया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bailey White, 13, stood patiently in line with her little brother Keaton at the gift store inside the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, each clutching a stuffed terrier named Charlie that cost $35 per item. The beagle, with a Trump monogram on its white bandana, was modeled on the pet dog of Eric Trump, the son of President-elect Donald Trump. It was one of the few items left on the shelves of the store, which had sold out of that morning’s fresh batch of red “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” t-shirts by noon. Bailey and Keaton, 10, however, were happy with their score. The children, who had traveled to New York from Florida originally for the Thanksgiving Day Parade, told Reuters they were huge fans of Donald Trump, listing at the top of their reasons his commitment to reduce illegal immigration. Or, as the younger brother puts it, “To stop bad guys from getting in our country.” As businesses around the president-elect’s glitzy New York home have had to deal with extra security and crowds reducing foot traffic sales in the lead up to Fifth Avenue’s busiest shopping weekend, Trump souvenirs have been flying off the shelves at the billionaire’s gift store. Trump supporters like the White siblings and their mom Laura have proven to be a boon for at least one of the his businesses in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. presidential election. In just one hour, a Reuters reporter counted at least 100 people crowding the shop located on the lower level of the Tower to buy hats, pins and more. Many were disappointed to find the $30 dollar red “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” hat and all campaign t-shirts out of stock.  Just one door over, a single salesman sat in dim lighting in the middle of the day at a New York City souvenir store, also in Trump Tower, greeting visitors with, “Looking for Trump merchandise?” before redirecting them.  When asked if the number of visitors inside the Trump Tower had increased since the presidential results, a security guard in the building replied: “One hundred percent.”   Outside, where some of the world’s most well-known retailers spend more on rent than in just about any other city, shoppers had to fight through security, crowds and media packs to enter the Gucci store or tony jeweler Tiffany’s. Rosalia Betancourt, 69, first trekked to Trump Tower two days after Trump was elected in search for the eponymous red hat. They were sold out. When Betancourt, who moved to New York from Venezuela more than four decades ago, braved holiday crowds a week later on Wednesday, she had to leave empty-handed once again.  “It’s all right” she said. “I guess I’ll go online. It just has to be red.” Sari Nielsen, 71, was waiting at the Trump Cafe next door to the shop for the crowds to die down.  “I want to buy my nephew Pete a Trump golf hat for Thanksgiving,” said Nielsen, who moved to New York in 1975 from Argentina. Shoppers also had the option of buying Trump cufflinks, blankets, bags, perfume, candy, books authored by members of the family and more. The line shortened somewhat during lunchtime when visitors turned their attention to the Trump Grill, which does not offer reservations but a $25 dollar fixed-price meal. Trisha Williams, 50, of San Jose, California also made the trip to New York for the parade with her son Cayden, 8, who stayed up and watched the election. The two stood outside the Trump Tower with their gold Trump store bags. “We wanted to experience it all and buy some merchandise,” Trisha said. But many of the items she wanted to buy were not available.  “They didn’t really have very much,” Trisha said noting that a saleswoman at the store gave her a card outlining how she can make purchases online and that she’s already followed her advice. “I wanted a jacket with a Trump logo and a t-shirt, but they didn’t really have anything left.”

Summary: ट्रम्प टावर में व्यापार में उछाल, आस-पास के खुदरा विक्रेता सुरक्षा और भीड़ से प्रभावित


CAIRO (Reuters) - A Saudi-led military coalition said on Saturday an air strike that hit a market in Yemen s northern Saadah province was a legitimate military target, the Saudi news agency reported. On Wednesday, medics and a Reuters witness said an air strike carried out by the coalition killed 26 people at a hotel and an adjoining market. The attack, which struck the Sahar district of the vast territory that borders Saudi Arabia, demolished the budget hotel and reduced market stalls outside to a heap of twisted sheet metal. The coalition statement reviewed the incident and quoted its spokesman as saying the target was the gathering point for some armed Houthi militants. The military alliance led by Saudi Arabia has launched thousands of air strikes against Yemen s armed Houthi movement, which hails from Saadah and now controls much of the country.

Summary: सऊदी के नेतृत्व वाले गठबंधन का कहना है कि हमले ने यमन में एक वैध लक्ष्य को निशाना बनाया