WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election will enter a new phase as early as Monday, when the first charges resulting from the probe could be unsealed and a target taken into custody. A federal grand jury approved the indictment on Friday and a federal judge ordered it sealed, a source briefed on the matter has told Reuters, adding it could be unsealed as soon as Monday. The indictment could mark a dramatic turn in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 race and any possible links with officials from President Donald Trump’s campaign. The Russia investigation has cast a shadow over Trump’s 9-month-old presidency and widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her. Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been looking into possible links between Trump aides and foreign governments, as well as potential money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes, according to sources familiar with the probe. He also is exploring whether Trump or his aides have tried to obstruct the investigation. Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation a week after Trump’s May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia. Trump initially said he fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate. In a later interview with NBC, he cited “this Russia thing” as his reason. Trump has denied the allegations of collusion with the Russians and called the probe “a witch hunt.” The Kremlin also has denied the allegations. On Sunday, Trump tried to shift the focus back to Democrats and Clinton, tweeting that the Russia issue was being used to sidetrack the Republican push for tax reform and praising Republican “anger and unity” on the need to look into whether Democrats and the Clinton campaign paid for a portion of a dossier that detailed accusations about Trump’s ties to Russia. Special White House counsel Ty Cobb said the president’s tweets “are unrelated to the activities of the Special Counsel, with whom he continues to cooperate.” Investigators led by Mueller have interviewed former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White House and campaign officials. In July, FBI agents raided the Virginia home of Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, whose financial and real estate dealings and prior work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine are being investigated by Mueller’s team. Mueller also has investigated Michael Flynn, an adviser to Trump’s campaign and later his national security adviser. Flynn was fired from that post in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak last year. The indictment in Mueller’s probe was first reported by CNN, which said the target could be taken into custody on Monday. That possibility spurred some of Trump’s conservative allies to call for Mueller’s firing. Sebastian Gorka, an outspoken former adviser who left the White House in August, said on Twitter that Mueller “should be stripped of his authority” and investigated if he executed warrants in the probe. The White House said in the summer that Trump had no intention of firing Mueller even though he questioned his impartiality. Republicans also criticized leaks to the press about the indictment and raised the possibility that those responsible could be prosecuted. But Republican Senator Rob Portman said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump had been “too defensive” about the Russia probe. He said there should be broad outrage about Russia’s attempted meddling.

Summary: विशेष वकील की रूस जांच पहले आरोपों के साथ नए चरण में प्रवेश कर रही है


NEW YORK (Reuters) - In her first interview since her stunning presidential election defeat by Republican rival Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton on Thursday called for the United States to bomb Syrian air fields.  Clinton, in an interview at the Women in the World Summit in New York, also called Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election a theft more damaging than Watergate.  MORE FROM REUTERS Exclusive: Mexico opens up its heroin fight to U.S., U.N. observers Macau billionaire's aide pleads guilty in U.N. bribe case Slideshow: Top photos of the week Asked whether she now believes that failing to take a tougher stand against Syria was her worst foreign policy mistake as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Clinton said she favored more aggressive action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  “I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad,” Clinton said in the interview, conducted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.  “I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.”  Clinton noted that she had advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria after leaving government, something that Obama opposed.  Her remarks came two days after a poison gas attack in Syria that killed at least 70 people, many of them children. The U.S. government believes the chemical agent sarin was used in the attack. The United States and other Western countries blamed Assad’s armed forces for the worst chemical attack in Syria in more than four years.  Trump said on Thursday that “something should happen” with Assad after the attack, as the Pentagon and the White House studied military options.  When asked about Russian interference in the presidential election she lost as the Democratic candidate in November, Clinton called for a bipartisan investigation.  “I don’t want any Republican candidate to be subjected to what I was subjected to....I don’t want anybody running campaigns to have their communications stolen,” she said.  U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russia provided hacked material from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks through a third party. Russia has denied the hacking allegations.  “It was a more effective theft even than Watergate,” Clinton told Kristof before an audience of about 3,000 people at New York’s Lincoln Center, referring to the U.S. political scandal of the 1970s that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.  “We aren’t going to let somebody sitting in the Kremlin, with bots and trolls, try to mix up our election. We’ve got to end that and we have to make sure that is a bipartisan, American commitment.”  Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican, earlier on Thursday stepped aside from the congressional inquiry into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election because he is under investigation for disclosing classified information. Representative Mike Conaway, the second-ranked Republican on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, will now lead the probe.  Clinton attributed her White House loss to both Wikileaks and FBI Director James Comey’s sending a bombshell letter to Congress only days before the election announcing he was reinstating an investigation into her emails.  Asked whether it was bittersweet to watch the stumbles of the Trump administration in its early days, she declined to agree.  “I don’t take any pleasure in seeing the kind of chaotic functioning,” Clinton said.  Clinton said she has no intention of another run for public office and said she is writing a book that, in part, delves into just what derailed her attempt to become America’s first woman president.  “For people who are interested in this, the nearly 66 million people who voted for me, I want to give as clear and as credible an explanation as I can.”

Summary: हिलेरी क्लिंटन ने अमेरिका से सीरियाई हवाई क्षेत्रों पर बमबारी करने का आह्वान किया


(The story refiles, to fix quote in 14th paragraph to read “middle-aged white guy,” not “middle-aged white man”; read “has seen his world,” not “who’s seen his world”; add dropped word “and”) By Jeff Mason CHICAGO (Reuters) - With a final call of his campaign mantra “Yes We Can,” President Barack Obama urged Americans on Tuesday to stand up for U.S. values and reject discrimination as the United States transitions to the presidency of Republican Donald Trump. In an emotional speech in which he thanked his family and declared his time as president the honor of his life, Obama gently prodded the public to embrace his vision of progress while repudiating some of the policies that Trump promoted during his campaign for the White House. “So just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are,” Obama told a crowd of 18,000 in his hometown of Chicago, where he celebrated his election in 2008 as the first black president of the United States. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, proposed temporarily banning Muslims from entering the country, building a wall on the border with Mexico, upending a global deal to fight climate change and dismantling Obama’s healthcare reform law. Obama made clear his opposition to those positions during fiery campaign speeches for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, but has struck a more conciliatory tone with Trump since the election. In his farewell speech, he made clear his positions had not changed and he said his efforts to end the use of torture and close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were part of a broader move to uphold U.S. values. “That’s why I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans,” he said in a clear reference to Trump that drew applause. He said bold action was needed to fight global warming and said “science and reason” mattered. “If anyone can put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we’ve made to our healthcare system that covers as many people at less cost, I will publicly support it,” he said in another prodding challenge to his successor. Trump has urged the Republican-controlled Congress to repeal the law right away. Obama, who came to office amid high expectations that his election would heal historic racial divides, acknowledged that was an impossible goal. “After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America,” he said. “Such a vision, however well-intended, was never realistic. Race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society.” However, Obama said he remained hopeful about the work that a younger generation would do. “Yes we can,” he said. “Yes we did.” In an indirect reference to the political work the Democratic Party will have to do to recover after Clinton’s loss, Obama urged racial minorities to seek justice not only for themselves but also for “the middle-aged white guy who from the outside may seem like he’s got advantages, but has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change.” Trump won his election in part by appealing to working-class white men. First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, his wife Jill Biden, and many current and former White House staff members and campaign workers attended the speech. Obama wiped his eyes as he addressed his wife and thanked his running mate. They all appeared together on stage after the address. The Chicago visit is Obama’s last scheduled trip as president, and even the final flight on the presidential aircraft was tinged with wistfulness.  It was the president’s 445th “mission” on Air Force One, a perk he has said he will miss when he leaves office, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. All told, Obama will have spent more than 2,800 hours or 116 days on the plane during his presidency. Obama plans to remain in Washington for the next two years while his younger daughter, Sasha, finishes high school. Sasha, who has an exam on Wednesday, did not attend the speech but her older sister Malia was there. The president has indicated he wants to give Trump the same space that his predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush, gave Obama after leaving office by not maintaining a high public profile.

Summary: ओबामा ने मूल्यों पर जोर दिया और अंतिम भावनात्मक संबोधन में ट्रम्प को प्रोत्साहित किया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee said on Monday legislation to address Puerto Rico’s growing debt and humanitarian crisis will be introduced for discussion on Wednesday, with a committee vote a week later. Earlier attempts at introducing a bill out of the committee failed to gain enough attention or understanding among lawmakers, prompting its chairman, Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican, to delay and rework the bill. The basic premise of installing an independent oversight board to lead the restructuring of the U.S. commonwealth’s credit and work with the local government to develop an economic reform plan remains in place. “What we are seeing in Puerto Rico is if you push it off, the situation gets worse, the debt gets worse, the humanitarian crisis gets worse. If you don’t want a bailout and you put it off long enough, you probably will be forced into a position of being in a bailout and I’m not going to vote for that,” Bishop said. Puerto Rico has already defaulted on some of its debt and faces an overall bill of $70 billion it cannot pay. A staggering 45 percent poverty rate and increased migration of citizens to the U.S. mainland drains economic activity. Bishop said the changes to the bill were relatively small and that the U.S. Treasury has been “marvelous” to work with in developing the plan. “Obviously the relationship between the Obama administration and this Congress has not been warm and fuzzy. So this is unusual in the amount of help they have given us,” Bishop said, adding: “At the same time I want it finished. I want them to actually sign off and in some of the small areas, I think they have been dragging their feet.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew visited a Puerto Rican school and hospital on Monday where teachers, nurses and doctors described and showed dire conditions due to the lack of funding. Lew later told reporters he had not seen the latest language in the draft bill, but that the Treasury has provided technical advice. He said it was up to the committee to decide when to release the legislation. “I hope Congress does not, as it sometimes does, try to find that last possible moment and miss it,” Lew said. Puerto Rico defaulted on May 1 for a third time on some of its debt, missing a roughly $400 million payment owed by the Government Development Bank, the island’s main fiscal agent. However, some of the GDB’s major creditors are forgoing lawsuits for at least a month after reaching a tentative restructuring deal with the bank. “If we don’t get a bill passed, then lawsuits are going to be coming fast and furiously,” Bishop said. The May 1 default and the nearly $2 billion July 1 debt payments have spurred congressional activity. “The goal being that everyone eventually gets paid. And who is first in the line is maybe not as important as the fact that at the end of the day everyone has the chance to be treated fairly and will get their investment back,” Bishop said. Lew, in his remarks, added that the bill will have to take into account many stakeholders, not just bondholders. “The interests of retirees on the island have to be balanced, not treated necessarily equally, but balanced,” Lew said, adding that television advertisements calling the legislation a bailout “crossed the line and are deceptive.” Puerto Rico’s government has said it has not asked for a taxpayer-led bailout, nor has one been offered. While the legislation will include bankruptcy language, it is not a stealthy way around a prohibition for Puerto Rico to use the U.S. bankruptcy code to restructure its debt, Bishop said. “We are putting this language in the code that deals specifically with the territories. So everything we do has got to have that firewall between that which will have an impact on the states versus what is there in the territory.”

Summary: सदन बुधवार को प्यूर्टो रिको संकट विधेयक पेश करेगाः प्रतिनिधि बिशप


WASHINGTON/CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration approved TransCanada Corp’s (TRP.TO) Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, cheering the oil industry and angering environmentalists even as further hurdles for the controversial project loom. The approval reverses a decision by former President Barack Obama to reject the project, but the company still needs to win financing, acquire local permits, and fend off likely legal challenges for the pipeline to be built. “TransCanada will finally be allowed to complete this long-overdue project with efficiency and with speed,” Trump said in the Oval Office before turning to ask TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Russell Girling when construction would start. “We’ve got some work to do in Nebraska to get our permits there,” Girling replied. “Nebraska?” Trump said. “I’ll call Nebraska.” Trump announced the presidential permit for Keystone XL at the White House with Girling and Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, standing nearby. He said the project would lower consumer fuel prices, create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The pipeline linking Canadian oil sands to U.S. refiners had been blocked by Obama, who said it would do nothing to reduce fuel prices for U.S. motorists and would contribute to emissions linked to global warming. Trump, however, campaigned on a promise to approve it, and he signed an executive order soon after taking office in January to advance the project. TransCanada’s U.S.-listed shares (TRP.N) dipped 5 cents to close at $46.21 on Friday.  Trump has claimed the project would create 28,000 jobs in the United States. But a 2014 State Department study predicted just 3,900 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs.  The president said he would get in touch with Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts later in the day. TransCanada applied to the Nebraska Public Service Commission in February for approval of the pipeline’s route through the state. The company said it expects that process to conclude this year. Ricketts said in a statement posted on Twitter that the project would help his state.  “I have full confidence that the Public Service Commission will conduct a thorough and fair review of the application,” he said. The White House has said the pipeline is exempt from a Trump executive order requiring new pipelines to be made from U.S. steel, because much of the pipe for the project has already been built and stockpiled. “As we move forward, we’ll continue to look to buy the rest of the materials we need from ... American manufacturers. We’ll put American workers to work,” Girling told reporters.   Environmental groups vowed to fight it.  Greenpeace said it would pressure banks to withhold financing for the multibillion-dollar project, and others said they would fight the pipeline in court. “We’ll use every tool in the kit,” said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.     Since Obama had nixed the pipeline based on an environmental assessment commissioned by the State Department in early 2014, opponents will likely argue in court that Trump cannot reverse the decision without conducting a new assessment. Fred Jauss, partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney and a former attorney with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said local permitting would also be a challenge. “The Presidential Permit is only one part of a web of federal, state, and local permits that must be obtained prior to starting construction,” he said. “Other federal agencies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, state regulatory commissions, and even local planning boards may have requirements that need to be fulfilled by Keystone prior to construction.” “In addition, TransCanada may still need to reach deals with hundreds of potentially affected landowners on the pipeline’s route. There is a lot of work ahead for TransCanada.” The Keystone XL pipeline would bring more than 800,000 barrels per day of heavy crude from Canada’s oil sands in Alberta into Nebraska, linking to an existing pipeline network feeding U.S. refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico.  The project could be a boon for Canada, which has struggled to bring its vast oil reserves to market. “Our government has always been supportive of the Keystone XL pipeline and we are pleased with the U.S. decision,” said a spokesman for Canada’s minister of natural resources. “The importance of a common, continental energy market cannot be overstated.” The president of the American Petroleum Institute, Jack Gerard, said the approval was “welcome news” and would bolster U.S. energy security. Expedited approval of projects is part of Trump’s approach to a 10-year, $1 trillion infrastructure package he promised on the campaign trail. The White House is looking for ways to speed up approvals and permits for other infrastructure projects, which can sometimes take years to go through a regulatory maze. TransCanada tried for more than five years to build the 1,179-mile (1,897-km) pipeline, until Obama rejected it in 2015. The company resubmitted its application for the project in January, after Trump signed the executive order smoothing its path.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने कीस्टोन एक्स. एल. पाइपलाइन को हरी झंडी दिखाई, लेकिन इसमें बाधाएं आईं


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - When Theresa May visits Brussels on Friday, EU negotiators will be listening intently for signs the British prime minister is preparing to risk a domestic backlash and raise her offer to secure a Brexit deal in December. European Union officials and diplomats from the other 27 member states involved in the process hope that within a week to 10 days of meeting European Council President Donald Tusk, during a summit with ex-Soviet neighbors, May will deliver movement on three key conditions so that her EU peers can launch a new phase of Brexit negotiations when they meet on Dec. 14-15.  I don t know what room for maneuver May has, but what we can see is a willingness to act,  one senior EU official told Reuters. Another spoke of efforts to arrange the  choreography  of a deal over the next three weeks, including an EU-UK  joint report  pinning down interim accords to unlock talks on trade.  I feel the tectonic plates moving now,  a diplomat handling Brexit for an EU government said.  Time is running out and a failure in the December Council would serve nobody s purpose.  There has been only a day of top-level talks between the two lead negotiators since a mid-October summit that dismissed May s call for immediate talks on a future trade agreement.  But talks are continuing apace behind the scenes, ahead of a deadline of early December to strike a deal which can then be formalized by the 27 government leaders at the summit.  Everyone is talking to everyone already, at all levels,  the European Commission s chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters on Thursday when he confirmed that May would meet Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Monday, Dec. 4. That is two days before envoys from the 27 meet on Dec. 6 to discuss a first draft of the Dec. 14-15 summit conclusions, including, crucially, whether the leaders should accept Britain has made  sufficient progress  to merit opening trade talks.  Hopes in Brussels have been raised by reports in British media that May has secured backing from pro-Brexit hardliners in her cabinet to increase the amount of a financial settlement of what Britain owes to the Union when it leaves in March 2019.   If there is a political willingness in Britain, we should be ready,  a senior EU official said, while warning that nothing was being taken for granted.  May s room for maneuver to cut a deal that would please business while irritating Britons who want a sharper break with Brussels is limited. And Germany and France, the Union s lead powers, have taken a tough line so far. With German Chancellor Angela Merkel distracted at home by a search for a new coalition, May can expect little focus from her to help smooth a deal, several diplomats said.  Some in Britain have suggested May could take advantage of Merkel s weakness at home to drive a harder bargain. But EU diplomats argue that Merkel s troubles make it harder for her, and so for the 27, to water down their existing demands. So any brinkmanship around the summit could mean no deal in December.  That would create some kind of crisis in negotiations,  the second EU official said, noting that time was already short to complete a treaty by late next year to ensure an orderly Brexit.  But maybe that is necessary.  The sides already believe they are quite close on agreeing the scope of rights for expatriate citizens in Britain and on the continent, though the EU will be particularly looking to pin Britain down to accepting its demands that any agreement be subject to enforcement through the Union s legal system. The third key criterion for moving to Phase Two, an outline agreement on how to avoid the new EU-UK land border disrupting the peace in Northern Ireland, remains a potential stumbling block. Differences of opinion between London and Dublin have been marked this month, worrying EU officials. However, it is the financial settlement that has been the most concerning for the past few months. Officials believe that  could be resolved by a combination of May stating clearly that Britain will pay a share after leaving of two major EU budget lines, staff pensions and agreed but undisbursed spending. British press reports, seen in Brussels as planted leaks from May, suggesting she might offer to pay something like 40 billion pounds ($53 billion) have encouraged EU negotiators.  While that is well short of the 60 billion euros ($71 billion) the European Commission has mentioned, that was always seen by EU officials as a maximum demand. And they are willing, they say, to help May massage the public messaging of the amount in order to limit the political flak she takes at home.  On presentational issues, Barnier is ready to help, not to call things by their real name,  an EU official said.

Summary: मई का इंतजार कर रहे ब्रसेल्स की नजर दिसंबर के ब्रेक्सिट समझौते पर


BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Islamic State car bomb killed 20 people and injured 30 others at a site where displaced families are located in eastern Syria near the city of Deir al-Zor, Syria s SANA state news agency reported on Friday.  It said the bombing took place near the al-Jafra area, which is located south of the city and is controlled by the Syrian government.

Summary: पूर्वी सीरिया में आईएस के कार बम विस्फोट में 20 लोगों की मौत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with the foreign ministers of Southeast Asian countries on May 4 in Washington ahead of planned regional summits in November, a State Department official said on Thursday. The foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations requested the meeting with Tillerson in an effort to engage with the new U.S. administration, said Patrick Murphy, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for southeast Asia. Tillerson and the ministers are likely to discuss trade, territorial claims in the South China Sea, trafficking, crime and other issues.

Summary: टिलरसन मई में दक्षिण पूर्व एशियाई विदेश मंत्रियों से मिलेंगे


BERLIN (Reuters) - Politicians from four German parties seeking to form a coalition government agreed on Tuesday to stick to the policy of balanced budget, a document seen by Reuters showed. Chancellor Angela Merkel s Christian Democrats, their Christian Social Union Bavarian allies, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats also agreed to explore at later talks what fiscal flexibility they have to fund investments and tax cuts.

Summary: गठबंधन वार्ता में जर्मन दल संतुलित बजट पर टिके रहने पर सहमत हुए


(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will target a handful of Obama-era green regulations, including a federal coal mining ban and an initiative forcing states to cut carbon emissions, in an executive order as soon as next week, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress are seeking to unravel former Democratic President Barack Obama’s initiatives to combat global climate change, which they say are costly for U.S. business and have hampered drilling and mining without providing any clear benefits. “Rescinding the federal coal leasing moratorium is part of that executive order, which has lots of different components, including the Clean Power Plan,” the White House official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. The official said the order was scheduled to come next week. The Clean Power Plan is Obama’s centerpiece initiative to combat climate change, requiring states to slash emissions of carbon dioxide, but it was never implemented due to legal challenges launched by several Republican states. Legal experts have said Trump could begin the process of killing the regulation by having the Environmental Protection Agency ask the courts to return it to the agency for review, effectively ending its legal defense. Killing the coal mining ban would be easier. Trump could reverse the ban by asking the Department of Interior to lift it and resume its coal leasing program. Obama’s administration imposed the temporary ban on new federal coal leases in January 2016 as part of a broad environmental and economic review of the program aimed at ensuring lease deals account for coal’s contribution to global climate change and yield fair returns to taxpayers. But it angered some Western state lawmakers and people in the mining industry, who said it stymied development. Trump has already rolled back some Obama-era green regulations, including the Stream Protection Rule limiting coal mining waste dumping, and the Waters of the U.S. rule that expands the waterways under federal protection. (This version of the story was refiled to fix punctuation in paragraph one)

Summary: ट्रम्प संघीय कोयला प्रतिबंध और अन्य हरित नियमों को हटाने के लिए तैयार हैंः व्हाइट हाउस


BERLIN (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday that he would work to implement a rapid exchange of prisoners held on both sides of the line of conflict in eastern Ukraine, a spokesman for Merkel said on Friday. Merkel spoke by telephone with Poroshenko on Friday, a day after she spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Merkel s deputy spokesman Georg Streiter. Merkel and Poroshenko welcomed a decision by the parties to recommit to a ceasefire agreement signed in 2015 ahead of the Christmas holiday, and both agreed it should lead to a longer-term improvement of the security situation in the region. A Russian-backed separatist insurgency erupted in 2014 and  bloodshed has continued despite the ceasefire. More than 10,000 people have been killed, with casualties reported on a near-daily basis. Poroshenko and Merkel underscored the importance of an agreement by the parties to exchange prisoners, calling it  an important step toward implementation of the Minsk agreements,  Streiter said.  President Poroshenko stressed that he would push to ensure that this exchange happened as soon as possible,  he added. The two leaders also discussed the withdrawal of Russian officers from the Joint Center for Control and Coordination that plays an important role in supporting the observer mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. They agreed that the Russian officers should return to the center quickly, and said German and French experts could get involved in a mediating role in coming days. Merkel also welcomed Poroshenko s plan to submit a draft law to set up an independent anti-corruption court, the spokesman said.

Summary: यूक्रेन के पोरोशेंको ने कैदियों के त्वरित आदान-प्रदान के लिए काम करने का संकल्प लियाः जर्मनी


PARIS (Reuters) - During his rapid rise to the presidency, France s Emmanuel Macron was sometimes referred to as a  lucky general    a leader with the right skills for the job but also a generous dose of the good fortune needed to win the day.  The 39-year-old certainly took advantage of a string of lucky breaks, especially a corruption scandal that derailed the campaign of front-running, center-right rival Francois Fillon. But six months into his occupation of the Elysee Palace, there are niggling signs Macron s luck could be starting to turn. In particular, the uncertain political picture in Germany has complicated his ambition to reform Europe s single currency zone, something he has put at the heart of his presidency and that stands or falls on Franco-German cooperation. And while changes he introduced early on to France s employment rules provoked less unrest than expected, the impact on the economy has so far been muted. His plans to amend the  pensions and benefits system may not be so readily accepted.  From a fiscal point of view, one of his main objectives is to bring the national deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product for the first time in a decade. Yet current indications are that he will struggle with that goal, leaving France at odds with the EU s executive Commission. And within his own party   En Marche, formed as a grassroots movement a little over a year ago   there is unease among some members about a top-down structure that goes against the ethos that propelled him to a five-year term in May. Some breaks continue to fall in Macron s favor. France last week won the right to host the European Banking Agency in a lucky dip against Dublin, and domestically he faces little serious opposition from either the left or right. But his biggest ambitions rely on a deep and sustained relationship with Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose position after 12 years as Germany s leader has been weakened over two months of so-far fruitless talks to form a governing coalition.  We are naturally paying close attention to everything that might help stabilize the political situation (in Germany),  Benjamin Griveaux, a close Macron ally who was recently named the government s new spokesman, said on Monday.   Without a strong partner it will obviously be more difficult to carry out the president s ambitious European project.   At one level, the fact that Merkel is now talking to Germany s Social Democrats (SPD) about a  grand coalition , after overtures to the Liberals and Greens failed, is positive for Macron since the SPD is more avowedly pro-EU. But there s no guarantee the SPD will sign up to Macron s agenda, even if its leader, Martin Schulz, is a former European Parliament president who is committed to the project. Schulz has only gone as far as to say Macron s ideas need to be discussed in coalition talks with Merkel, while other SPD officials say domestic reforms to health insurance and pensions are a more pressing consideration.  Europe is not a theme where we can simply push things through,  said Johannes Kahrs, a budget expert for the SPD in parliament and leader of the party s conservative wing. Macron s ideas for overhauling the euro zone, including the creation of a region-wide budget, finance minister and separate parliament, may be just too ambitious for Germany to swallow.  It would be nice if the conservatives went along with the idea of a budget for the euro zone, but they need to want it,  said Kahrs.  It would make no sense to try to bully them.     Even as he focuses on his grand ambitions, Macron and his finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, must battle to get the state s historically overstretched finances in order, while hoping that France s currently steady growth rate doesn t falter. The budget deficit has been falling and should dip just below 3 percent next year, but from the European Commission s point of view that is insufficient. It wants more done on the structural deficit, which strips out the business cycle.  If Macron and Le Maire are to achieve more, it will likely mean cutting deeper into regional budgets, where planned reductions have already provoked anger among mayors.  Unemployment figures show job creation is at a record high but the jobless rate still ticked higher in the third quarter, rising to 9.7 percent. While it is forecast to decline again, the French rate remains way above Germany s of 5.6 percent. Jean Pisani-Ferry, a leading economist and former adviser to Macron, believes perhaps the biggest risk Macron faces is ensuring his European strategy pays off, because his domestic agenda will in large part be influenced by it in turn. Yet that depends a lot on Germany, and the wider EU.  He s making a huge political investment (in Europe),  said Pisani-Ferry, a professor of economics and public management at Sciences Po university.  And if you re making a huge political investment, you want at some point some pay-off.    If there is no pay-off whatsoever, then obviously there will be domestic political consequences. It will be a setback for him.

Summary: क्या सबसे अच्छा 'भाग्यशाली जनरल' मैक्रों का सौभाग्य उसके पीछे है?


BERLIN (Reuters) - A senior German conservative said on Monday that Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble would make an  ideal  president of  parliament, raising the possibility of a change of roles for a man long associated with unflinching austerity in the euro zone. Schaeuble has controlled Germany s powerful finance ministry since 2009 but the outcome of Sunday s federal elections has raised doubts over whether he can hold onto the job. Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives remain the largest bloc in the lower house Bundestag and are expected to seek a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens. The FDP has signaled it would like the finance ministry.  If Chancellor Angela Merkel and Schaeuble agree, he would make an ideal candidate for the post of Bundestag president,  Guenther Oettinger, the European Union s budget commissioner, told the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper. Schaeuble, who has refused to discuss his future after the election, is a hate figure in Greece and other parts of southern Europe for his insistence on tax hikes and spending cuts at a time of deep economic recession in return for euro zone bailout loans.  But Schaeuble, 75, is widely respected in Germany as a responsible steward of the nation s finances and has enjoyed Merkel s strong support during the euro zone debt crisis that almost tore the single currency bloc apart. The current president of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert of Merkel s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is not up for reelection. Under separation of power rules the Bundestag president cannot simultaneously hold a ministerial post.

Summary: जर्मन रूढ़िवादी ने अनुभवी वित्त मंत्री शेयबल के लिए नौकरी बदलने का सुझाव दिया


ANKARA (Reuters) - Germany has no right to block a planned update of Turkey s customs union with the European Union, Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said on Thursday, touching on a simmering row between Ankara and Berlin. Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she did not think it was appropriate to carry out further discussions with Ankara about the customs union. Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Zeybekci said there were no problems in Turkey s accession negotiations with the EU and that the process continued.

Summary: जर्मनी को तुर्की के यूरोपीय संघ सीमा शुल्क संघ के अद्यतन को अवरुद्ध करने का कोई अधिकार नहीं हैः मंत्री


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmental group the Sierra Club sued the U.S. Energy Department on Monday in hopes of forcing it to reveal the groups it has consulted in conducting an eagerly awaited study on the electricity grid. It was the latest push-back on the department’s study from backers of renewable energy such as wind and solar power who fear it could be used by the Trump administration to form policies that could slow growth in the industry.    Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who commissioned the 60-day study in April, ordered his department to see whether “regulatory burdens” by other administrations including former president Barack Obama’s had forced the premature retirements of so-called baseload power plants, fired by nuclear and coal. Perry said those policies potentially put at risk the reliability and security of the national power grid. The Sierra Club, in the suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said the department had ignored a Freedom of Information Act request it filed in May. That request sought the release of communications between staff and outside groups it had consulted, in the belief that the Energy Department had mostly relied on fossil fuel backers. “We want to make sure that when this study is finally released, that the public and policy makers fully understand how it went about doing it, who they were influenced by, and whose views they did not take into consideration,” said Casey Roberts, a Sierra Club lawyer. The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It had initially said the report would be released in July, but the release has been delayed. A draft of the study, conducted by a contractor who included contributions from staff across the department, said that intermittent renewable power has not harmed the grid, was leaked to the media last month.  But an energy department spokeswoman said then that the draft was “outdated” and had not been reviewed by political or career staff, leading Sierra Club and others to believe the final draft could favor coal and nuclear. Several lawmakers with strong renewable power output in their states have said that the Energy Department had already completed long-term studies of renewable power’s impact on the grid that concluded there has been no harm. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, raised concerns in a letter sent to Perry in May that the secretary had commissioned a study that appeared “geared to undermine” the wind energy industry.

Summary: सिएरा क्लब ने बिजली ग्रिड अध्ययन पर अमेरिकी ऊर्जा विभाग पर मुकदमा दायर किया


LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday she would stay on as leader to provide stability after a former chairman of her  Conservative Party said he had garnered the support of 30 lawmakers who wanted her to quit. May is trying to face down a rebellion by some of her own lawmakers just as Britain enters a crucial stage in Brexit talks, 18 months before the country leaves the European Union and must redefine its place in the world. Some Conservative plotters say her authority is shattered beyond repair after a disastrous speech at her party s conference, which comes after she called a snap election and lost her party its majority in parliament. Speaking from her parliamentary constituency of Maidenhead in southern England, May said in a televised statement:  What the country needs is calm leadership and that s what I m providing with the full support of my cabinet.  Senior ministers rallied around May, who has just over a year to agree a divorce deal with the EU ahead of Britain s exit in March 2019. May said she planned to hold a scheduled meeting about Brexit with business leaders on Monday in Downing Street. But former party chairman Grant Shapps told BBC radio:  I think she should call a leadership election.  After May s bungled election, her failure to unite the cabinet and a poor party conference  the writing is on the wall,  he said. May s authority was already diminished by her decision to call a snap election in June that lost her party its majority in parliament days before Brexit talks opened. Though no Conservative ministers have publicly indicated any support for the plot, such a blunt demand for May to quit indicates the extent of her weakness while she attempts to navigate the intricacies of the negotiations to leave the EU. Her survival has so far been dependent on the absence of an obvious successor who could unite the party and the fear of an election that many Conservatives think would let opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn into power. Sterling fell earlier in the day but then rallied by around a quarter of a cent against the U.S. dollar following May s remarks. It later fell after U.S. payrolls data was released. May s speech to activists on Wednesday was ruined by coughing fits, a comedian handing her a bogus employment termination notice and by letters falling off the slogans on the set behind her. She had hoped to use the speech to her party in the northern English city of Manchester to revive her premiership.  Look, I ve had a cold all this week,  May said, adding that she would be updating lawmakers next week on her Brexit plans and introducing a draft bill to cap domestic energy prices. Shapps, who chaired the party between 2012 and 2015, said the plot to remove her existed before this week s party conference and included both supporters and opponents of Brexit. He said the group did not have a unified view on who should replace May. However, grassroots Conservative members did not share his desire for a change in leadership, said James Pearson, Vice President of the National Conservative Convention which represents the party s voluntary wing.  I don t think there s much support in the Conservative Party for Grant Shapps. I don t see this as anything that s really serious to be honest,  Pearson told Reuters.   The general feeling is we don t have the time or the appetite for a lengthy leadership election, nor do we actually want it,  Pearson, who sits on the Conservatives  Board, the party s ultimate decision-making body, added.     To trigger a formal leadership challenge, 48 Conservative lawmakers need to write to the chairman of the party s so-called 1922 committee.  Number 10 must be delighted to learn that it s Grant Shapps leading this alleged coup,  Charles Walker, vice-chairman of the 1922 committee, told BBC radio.  Grant has many talents, but one thing he doesn t have is a following in the party, so really I think this is now just going to fizzle out to be perfectly honest.  If May stays, talks on leaving the European Union will be guided by one of the weakest leaders in recent British history. EU diplomats and officials expressed astonishment about the uncertainty in London.  Supporters, including her most senior ministers, said she should remain in charge to deliver Brexit.     Under the headline  Theresa May will stay as Prime Minister and get the job done,  interior minister Amber Rudd wrote in The Telegraph newspaper that  she should stay . May s de facto deputy Damian Green said she would carry on. Environment Secretary Michael Gove also said he hoped she would continue.  I know that she is as determined as ever to get on with the job, she sees it as her duty to do so and she will carry on and she will make a success of this government,  Green, the first secretary of state, told BBC television. Many Conservative activists fear a leadership contest would exacerbate the divide in the party over Europe, an issue that helped sink the previous three Conservative prime ministers - David Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. A leadership contest could also pave the way for an election that some Conservatives worry could be won by Corbyn, whom they cast as a Marxist who would reverse decades of free market policies.  The Conservatives have no plan for Britain and their posturing will not deliver the change our country is crying out for,  Corbyn said on Friday.

Summary: ब्रिटिश पीएम मे ने पार्टी के साजिशकर्ताओं द्वारा उन्हें अपदस्थ करने के प्रयास के रूप में बने रहने का संकल्प लिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - When lawyers for Donald Trump asked a court to throw out one of the proposed class actions over Trump University, they backed it up with a financial disclosure meant to bolster the Republican presidential candidate’s credentials as a global businessman. But the form they filed with the court was actually that of the man Trump hopes to succeed in the White House, Democratic President Barack Obama. The president’s nine-page disclosure filed before his 2012 re-election was erroneously included as an exhibit to a motion Trump filed in April asking U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel for the Southern District of California to toss the case before trial, according to a person familiar with the case. A corrected exhibit was filed on Tuesday.  Plaintiffs’ lawyer Jason Forge seized on the goof in a court document filed late on Friday opposing Trump’s motion. Forge said the candidate’s filing was meant for a court in “Bizarro world.”  “This is just one example of Trump’s statement’s complete lack of credibility,” Forge said. Julie Fei, a spokeswoman for O’Melveny & Myers, the firm that has been representing Trump in the case, declined to comment. In court filings, Trump’s lawyers said the form supported the “undisputed fact” that Trump is chairman, president and chief executive of the Trump Organization, which conducts business around the world and is affiliated with over 500 companies. Instead, it showed Obama’s royalties from his memoir “Dreams from My Father” and disclosed the first family’s 2011 assets of between $2.6 million and $8.3 million. Trump is facing two lawsuits in California and one in New York over Trump University that allege the series of real estate seminars taught students nothing and defrauded them of as much as $35,000 each in fees. The presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election has raised the litigation on the campaign trail, calling the lawsuits baseless and politically motivated, and accusing the Indiana-born Curiel of being biased against him because of his Mexican ancestry.  Trump’s lawyers intended to file the 92-page financial disclosure form he made public last summer at the time he announced he was running for president. That lists some $1.4 billion in assets, including real estate and other holdings, and $265 million in liabilities. The disclosure does not note his net worth, which he has said is over $10 billion.

Summary: ट्रंप के वकीलों ने अदालत में दायर याचिका में ओबामा का पक्ष लिया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged on Tuesday he was aware of contact between Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russian intermediaries, again modifying a previous statement about the extent of connections to Moscow. The comment by Sessions to a House of Representatives panel did not reveal any new link between the Trump team and Russia but it was another example of the top U.S. law enforcement official offering a different version of events as lawmakers try to work out if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee that he now recalls a meeting last year with then-candidate Trump where a campaign adviser said he had connections with Moscow and could help arrange a Trump meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I do now recall” the meeting where adviser George Papadopoulos made the proposal, Sessions said, “but I have no clear recollection of the details of what he said during the meeting.” Sessions has previously told Congress he was unaware of any Trump campaign contacts with Russia, leading Democrats on Tuesday to accuse him of lying under oath. “I will not accept and reject accusations that I have ever lied under oath. That is a lie,” Sessions told the panel. Accusations of collusion with Russia during the election campaign have dogged Trump’s first 10 months in office. Sessions’ testimony appears likely to keep the controversy over Russia boiling as Special Counsel Robert Mueller accelerates his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.  Since Mueller’s probe began, numerous Trump advisors have acknowledged interactions with Russian intermediaries. They include Donald Trump Jr., former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russian representatives. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election to help Republican Trump’s campaign.          The Kremlin denies that and Trump says there was no collusion between his campaign and Russian officials. Sessions faced tough questioning from committee Democrats on Tuesday. Representative Hakeem Jeffries accused Sessions of hypocrisy, saying Sessions, while he was a U.S. attorney, had prosecuted a police officer for perjury after the officer corrected his testimony. “The Attorney General of the United States should not be held to a different standard than the young police officer whose life you ruined,” Jefferies said. That prompted an angry backlash from Sessions. “Nobody! Nobody - not you or anyone else, should be prosecuted, not me. . .for answering a question the way I did in this hearing. I have always tried to answer the questions fairly and accurately.” During the March 2016 campaign meeting where Russia was discussed, Sessions shut down Papadopoulos’ idea of engaging with Russian contacts, according to a source familiar with the matter.  Sessions said that was the version of events he recalled. “After reading his account, and to the best of my recollection, I believe that I wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorized to represent the campaign with the Russian government, or any other foreign government, for that matter,” Sessions said on Tuesday. After that meeting, Sessions said, he did not have “any further knowledge” of additional contacts between the campaign and Russian officials. It was not the first time that Sessions, who was a senior Trump campaign aide and Republican senator, has revised his comments about contact between the campaign and Russia.  He said during January’s confirmation hearing that he was unaware of such communications. News reports then emerged showing that Sessions had himself met Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak at least twice in 2016.   Under pressure, Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. He told reporters he was “honest and correct” in his response in the hearing, although he acknowledged he should have mentioned he had met with the ambassador in his role as a senator.  Sessions also said on Tuesday he did not challenge a statement by another campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, that he told Sessions in a brief encounter that he was about to leave for Moscow. But he said he had no memory of that conversation. The hearing was starkly divided. Majority Republicans demanded that Sessions appoint a second special counsel to investigate a series of issues involving Trump’s election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, including the sale of a uranium company to Russia while she was U.S. secretary of state. Sessions was cautious on that score. When Republican Representative Jim Jordan detailed what the controversy “looks like” to him, the attorney general responded: “‘Looks like’ is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel.” Earlier, Sessions confirmed that he has asked senior federal prosecutors to look into the potential appointment of a second special counsel. Democrats say that five congressional committees have looked into the uranium sale and found nothing improper.

Summary: सेशंस ने ट्रम्प अभियान और रूस के बारे में बयान बदला


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The latest U.S. sanctions imposed on five Russians and Chechens  are grotesque and groundless, and Moscow will hit back with tit-for-tat sanctions, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed the new sanctions on the five people, including on Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov, for alleged human rights abuses.

Summary: रूसी विदेश मंत्रालय का कहना है कि नवीनतम अमेरिकी प्रतिबंध 'विचित्र' हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson framed an embarrassing lapse on foreign affairs as simple human error on Thursday after he responded to a question about a flashpoint in the Syrian civil war by asking, “What is Aleppo?” The gaffe came during an MSNBC interview about the continuing battle for Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, which has been divided for years into government and rebel sectors and has been in the news daily in recent weeks. “What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo,” Johnson was asked.  “About Aleppo. And what is Aleppo?” he responded. “You’re kidding?” the MSNBC interviewer said.  “No,” Johnson said. “Aleppo is in Syria. ... It’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis,” the interviewer said.  “OK, got it. Got it,” Johnson said. The embarrassing exchange followed a forum on Wednesday night in which Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump sought to showcase their national security and defense credentials.  Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, has been trying to turn the two major candidates’ low approval ratings to his advantage in the race to win the Nov. 8 election. However, he has just 8.6 support in the current average of opinion polls by website RealClearPolitics in a matchup with Clinton, Trump, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. While the Libertarian Party has long rejected U.S. military intervention abroad, the candidate’s failure to recognize one of the most troubled spots in the Middle East drew ridicule and prompted speculation that his campaign was essentially over.  Clinton, asked at a news conference about Johnson’s remarks, laughed and quipped, “You can look on the map and find Aleppo.” In a statement after the MSNBC interview, Johnson said the mistake showed he was human and explained that, when asked about Aleppo, he was thinking of an acronym and not the Syrian war. “Can I name every city in Syria? No. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes. Do I understand its significance? Yes,” he said. In the 2012 presidential election, Johnson set a record for most votes won by a Libertarian candidate - about 1 percent of the popular vote - and was aiming to attract disaffected Republicans and Democrats to sustain steady growth in the party. The Libertarian agenda promotes civil liberties and a small-government agenda. Johnson has pledged to cut spending, stick to conservative fiscal policies and legalize marijuana. Appearing on ABC’s talk show “The View” later, Johnson reacted mildly to suggestions the gaffe would kill his campaign. “I guess people will have to make that judgment,” he said.

Summary: 'अलेप्पो क्या है?' अमेरिकी लिबर्टेरियन पार्टी के उम्मीदवार ने पूछा


MONROVIA (Reuters) - Former soccer star George Weah was set to win the first round of a presidential election in Liberia after the elections commission said on Sunday he was leading with 39 percent of votes and less than 5 percent of precincts still to be counted. He will face Vice President Joseph Boakai, who was in second place with 29.1 percent, in a second round poll next month.  Boakai was more than 280,000 votes ahead of the third placed candidate, lawyer Charles Brumskine, on 9.8 percent.  The final certified results from Tuesday s poll must be announced by Oct. 25. But with more than 1.5 million votes counted so far and 95.6 percent of polling stations having reported, it was mathematically impossible that Brumskine could move into second place.  Turnout based on votes counted so far was nearly 75 percent.  A total of 20 candidates competed in last week s poll seeking to succeed Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in what would be Liberia s first democratic transfer of power in more than 70 years. Weah and Boakai had both predicted outright victory in the first round. Supporters at Weah s headquarters in the capital Monrovia crowded around cars listening to the results broadcast on the radio and voiced frustration as it became clear that a second round of voting was unavoidable.  We need to be calm. But we are worried that they are going to cheat us. We feel disenchanted from 2005 and 2011. People say  no second round  because of the desire they have,  Weah supporter Luke Harris, 31, said. Weah, a national hero in Liberia, became the first non-European to win European soccer s player of the year award in 1995, the same year he picked up the African and world player of the year awards.  He finished runner-up to Johnson Sirleaf in a 2005 election that helped draw a line under years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. He was the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket with Winston Tubman, who lost to her six years later.  Officials from both Weah and Boakai s campaigns said they would accept the result.  We are disappointed that there is going to be a run off. We had anticipated that we would win in the first round. But we will accept it and go with it,  said Mohammed Ali, spokesman for Boakai s ruling Unity Party. Even before Sunday s results announcement, both campaigns had already begun courting other candidates, seeking their support in the run-off. Ali confirmed that Boakai s campaign had met with fourth placed candidate Alexander Cummings and ex-warlord-turned-senator Prince Johnson, who was in fifth place. Johnson said he had also been contacted by Weah. Brumskine has denounced the vote, claiming it was plagued by fraud and called for a new election though international observers gave the poll a clean bill of health.  The vote will be re-run in two polling places in Nimba County on Tuesday, however, due to irregularities, although that measure only concerns a few thousand votes.

Summary: पूर्व सॉकर स्टार वेह लाइबेरिया में राष्ट्रपति पद के चुनाव के लिए रवाना हुए


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An election-year fight over addressing the spreading Zika virus intensified in the U.S. Congress as the Senate on Thursday approved $1.1 billion in emergency money one day after the House of Representatives voted $622.1 million financed through cuts to existing programs. The two chambers would have to reach agreement on a spending level before they can send it to President Barack Obama, who in February requested $1.9 billion. The White House has called the House measure “woefully inadequate” and has threatened to veto it. Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington State urged Congress to act quickly, saying, “This is a public health emergency and Congress should treat it like one.”  The Senate will enter negotiations with the House with a strong hand: a bipartisan 68-30 vote in favor of the emergency funds to battle Zika, a virus that has been spreading rapidly through the Americas, with more than 100 confirmed cases in the U.S. state of Florida. However, the conservative group Heritage Action is lobbying against any Zika funding bill that is not paid for with an equal amount of spending cuts. The Senate’s funding was attached to an unrelated transportation and housing appropriations bill that also passed the chamber on Thursday. U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies. The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.     Conservative Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah tried unsuccessfully to kill the Senate funding, saying the Obama administration already had enough money to deal with Zika. “What we should not do, however, is allow the Zika virus to be yet another excuse to run up the national debt,” Lee said. But Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, countered that U.S. debt problems were rooted in the rapid growth in the cost of huge programs such as Social Security and Medicare and not so-called “discretionary” spending like on Zika.

Summary: सीनेट ने जीका वायरस से लड़ने के लिए 11 करोड़ डॉलर की मंजूरी दी


TOULON, France (Reuters) - France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against Islamist militants, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term.  France currently has five unarmed Reaper reconnaissance drones positioned in Niger s capital Niamey to support its 4,000-strong Barkhane counter-terrorism operation in Africa, and one in France.   Beyond our borders, the enemy is more furtive, more mobile, disappears into the vast Sahel desert and dissimulates himself amidst the civilian population,  Parly said in a speech to the military.   Facing this, we cannot remain static. Our methods and equipment must adapt. It is with this in mind that I have decided to launch the process to arm our intelligence and surveillance drones.      A further six of 12 Reaper drones, built by U.S. firm General Atomics and ordered after France s 2013 intervention in Mali to eventually replace its EADS-made Harfang drones, are due to be delivered by 2019. The defense ministry said on Tuesday the new drones would be delivered with Hellfire missiles while the existing six would be armed by 2020, possibly with European munitions.   Previous French administrations have shied away from purchasing armed drones, fearing a possible increase in civilian casualties. Al Qaeda s north African wing AQIM and related Islamist groups were largely confined to the Sahara desert until they hijacked a rebellion by ethnic Tuareg separatists in Mali in 2012, and then swept south. French forces intervened the following year to prevent them taking Mali s capital, Bamako, but they have since gradually expanded their reach across the region, launching high-profile attacks in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, as well as much more frequent, smaller attacks on military targets. At the end of July, at the military base in Niger, officers and pilots had told Reuters it was imperative to arm the drones to be more efficient and quick in tackling jihadist groups.  In the future, armed drones will enable us to accompany surveillance ... with the capacity to strike at the opportune moment.  We will be able to gain in efficiency and limit the risk of collateral damage,  Parly said.  France is also working with Germany, Italy and Spain to  develop a European drone, which is expected to be ready by 2025.

Summary: साहेल के आतंकवादियों के खिलाफ लड़ाई में फ्रांस ने सशस्त्र ड्रोन का सहारा लिया


ROME (Reuters) - Rape allegations leveled against foreigners are fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy ahead of elections due early next year, when migration is likely to top the political agenda. Anti-immigration politicians have leapt on the crimes to ram home their message that the center-left government has been lax on border controls, allowing more than 600,000 migrants, mainly Africans, to enter the country over the past four years.  There are too many of them. I will send quite a few home,  Matteo Salvini, the head of the rightist Northern League, wrote on Twitter this week after police said a Bangladeshi man had been arrested in Rome on suspicion of raping a Finnish au pair. The Rome case came two weeks after a young Polish tourist said she was gang raped by four Africans, three of them aged under 18, on a beach in the Adriatic resort of Rimini. The woman s partner was badly beaten by the youths and a Peruvian transsexual said she was raped and assaulted by the same quartet later the same night. The leader of the gang was named as a Congolese asylum-seeker who had been allowed to stay in Italy on humanitarian grounds. The other three were Moroccan brothers aged 15 and 17, who were born in Italy, and a 16-year-old Nigerian.  A gang of Maghreb worms,  said Georgia Meloni, head of the rightist Brothers of Italy party, which is expected to be allied with the Northern League and Silvio Berlusconi s Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party at the election. An opinion poll in la Repubblica newspaper on Wednesday showed 46 percent of Italians thought migrants represented a threat to their personal safety and to public order against 40 percent in the last such survey in February. Five years ago the figure stood at just 26 percent. Opposition parties say the government cannot ignore the issue, pointing to official data showing that in the first seven months of the year 1,534 Italians were arrested or accused of rape compared with 904 foreigners suspected of the same crime.  Some 40 percent of rapes are being committed by foreigners who make up 8 percent of the population. You can t sweep this under a carpet,  said Deborah Bergamini, a lawmaker with Forza Italia.  The influx of migrants is having major consequences.  Though Italy was a colonial power in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries and migrants have come to Italy for decades, the country mainly served as a transit route for the rest of Europe and so remains an overwhelmingly white country. However, EU migration policy means that increasing numbers of would-be asylum seekers are having to stay to secure residency permits, meaning many more Africans and refugees from the Middle East are trying to make Italy their home. Rising public concern over the inflows is starting to affect government policy-making, with the ruling center-left Democratic Party on Tuesday freezing a long-promised bill that would have granted citizenship to the children of immigrants. Some 70 percent of Italians backed the measure earlier this year, but support has now plummeted to just 52 percent, according to the la Repubblica survey. Interior Minister Marco Minniti has also intervened to stem the flow of migrants.  I feared for democracy in this country,  Minniti said last month, explaining why, after months of a de-facto, open-door policy, the government finally introduced measures aimed at preventing people from leaving Libya for Italy. Over the past 2-1/2 months, the number of migrants reaching Italy has fallen 70 percent from the same period a year ago to some 16,500, but the rape cases have ensured that media headlines have remained highly negative about the newcomers.     German media were accused last year of initially ignoring allegations of sex assaults by migrants at New Year festivities in Cologne in order not to fuel anti-foreigner sentiment. The Italian media has no such hesitancy.  First poverty, now they bring us disease,  a front page headline in Libero daily said this month when an Italian child died of malaria just days after she had shared a hospital ward with two African children suffering the same illness. Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes and cannot be passed person-to-person. It was eradicated from Italy in 1970 and doctors do not know how the girl, who had never been abroad, caught the disease. Cecile Kashetu Kyenge, a Congolese-born European parliamentarian with the ruling Democratic Party, says those sorts of headlines show how racism is on the rise.  The newspapers turn migrants into the enemies of Italy and people start to believe this nonsense,  said Kyenge, a former minister who receives regular racist abuse on social media.  Racism is used as a political weapon and the situation is getting worse. The problem is we are living in a perpetual election campaign and politicians play on peoples  fears.  The Northern League has led the anti-migrant charge with its leader, Salvini, regularly denouncing migrants on Facebook. The party has been rewarded by a jump in support from 6 percent in 2014 to more than 15 percent today, making it the third largest political force in Italy in many opinion polls.  The rise of the Northern League can be put down to the party s anti-migrant stance and Salvini s undoubted ability to play the populist card,  said pollster Renato Mannheimer. He predicted that the issue would continue to predominate.  The economy is a much more important issue, but sadly I think it will take a back seat to immigration in the coming election campaign,  he said.

Summary: बलात्कार के मामलों ने चुनाव से पहले इटली में प्रवासी विरोधी आक्रोश को हवा दी


BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed confidence on Friday that her conservatives can reach a coalition deal with the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), but her would-be partners say the talks could still fail. After bleeding support to the far right in last month s election, and with her former coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), determined to go into opposition, Merkel must bring together three disparate blocs to secure a majority. Party leaders are slated to meet on Monday evening before the larger negotiating teams launch into more detailed talks.  Difficult deliberations lie ahead of us in the coming days,  Merkel told reporters on arrival for a fresh round of exploratory talks.  But I still think we can tie the ends together if we try and work hard.  Failure to forge a coalition would likely result in a new election that could see more gains for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which surged into parliament last month. SPD leader Martin Schulz ruled out any prospect of resuming the outgoing  grand coalition  if Merkel failed to reach agreement with the Greens and FDP.  If Mrs. Merkel can t put a government together, there must be new elections,  he said in an interview to be published Saturday by the RND newspaper chain. Marco Buschmann, head of the FDP parliamentary group and a member of the party s negotiating team, told Saturday editions of Die Welt newspaper that his party was ready to move into opposition if the coalition talks failed.  A new election could strengthen the far-right Alternative for Germany that entered parliament with 13 percent of the vote, but voters might not turn to the AfD as a  protest vote  if the differences among the other parties were more clear, he added. The would-be allies agreed during Friday s talks on the need to relieve the financial burden on families, increase child care options and combat child poverty, negotiators said. They also agreed to support Germany s role in NATO and other multilateral organizations, to strengthen cooperation with France and to maintain  good relations  with Russia. But they remain at odds about immigration caps, whether to end coal production, how to combat climate change and increasing defense spending, among other issues. And the divisive issue of transport was not discussed at all on Friday. Negotiators agreed to  be nicer to each other , FDP deputy leader Wolfgang Kubicki told reporters, adding:  I m willing to try, but everyone has to play along.  The parties will now spend the weekend distilling their priorities before Merkel meets the other party leaders on Monday.  We have all the many ingredients on the table. Now we have to combine them all into a tasty dough,  said Michael Kellner, a top Greens negotiator. Fellow Greens negotiator Juergen Trittin struck a less conciliatory tone, telling ARD television that, after 10 days of debate on 12 topics, the parties still  haven t even managed to agree on what we disagree about . FDP leader Christian Lindner and Buschmann put the odds of a coalition being formed at 50-50. Greens foreign policy expert Omid Nouripour said the talks might fail altogether. Merkel has said she expects a stable government before Christmas, but senior conservatives close to her say it may take until next year for a new government to be formed. Horst Seehofer, embattled head of the CSU, sister party to Merkel s CDU, said he was encouraged by  very constructive, trustworthy discussions  among party leaders in recent days. He urged negotiators to stop airing their conflicts in public.  We can hit the reset button and hope that things change in the next few days,  he said. Seehofer came under fire from his party s youth wing for cancelling a speech to the group, which has called for a more  youthful image  ahead of Bavarian regional elections next year.  Hans Reichhart, head of the CSU youth group, suggested the move could exacerbate debate about Seehofer s future after sharp losses in the Sept. 24 election. Seehofer had urged party members to put off debating the leadership until later this month, arguing that it could weaken his negotiating position in the coalition talks.

Summary: मर्केल का कहना है कि तीन-तरफा गठबंधन काम कर सकता है, ग्रीन्स को संदेह है


NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Tuesday called for pickets and petitions against an election he boycotted last week won by President Uhuru Kenyatta but stopped short of appealing for mass protests or announcing a court challenge to the result. Odinga pulled out of the vote saying it would be unfair because the election board had failed to implement reforms after the Supreme Court cited procedural irregularities and annulled an Aug. 8 vote that had been won by Kenyatta. Odinga said the Oct. 26 result would not stand but did not announce measures likely to overturn it or force the government to negotiate. He said his opposition coalition would form a people s assembly to study issues of governance and issue recommendations to county assemblies.   The resistance movement shall be responsible for implementing a vigorous positive political action program that includes economic boycotts, peaceful processions, picketing and other legitimate protests,  he said.  This election must not stand .... It will make a complete mockery of elections and might well be the end of the ballot as a means of instituting government in Kenya. It will completely destroy public confidence in the vote,  he said. The ruling party controls a majority in both houses of parliament and most of the 47 county governorships, making it difficult for the opposition to implement its proposals. Odinga s proposals left many of his supporters confused.   I don t understand what he wants,  said Felix Wanga, a 25-year-old waiter who listened to the speech in Kisumu, the western city that forms the bedrock of Odinga s support.   I will have to wait until tomorrow to hear from our local leaders.   On Monday, Kenyatta was declared the winner of the repeat presidential election with 98 percent of the vote, handing him a second five-year term at the helm of the region s richest economy.  In a sign of the tensions raised by the election, Odinga s speech was delayed when the media walked out en masse after his supporters assaulted two journalists, whom they accused of bias. Odinga apologized for the incident.  The election crisis had blunted growth in Kenya, a trade and diplomatic hub for east Africa and a headquarters for multinational companies because of its relatively free market, pro-Western diplomacy and stability. The extended electoral season sparked clashes between Odinga s protesters and police, and in recent days fanned an undercurrent of ethnic tensions that frequently surfaces during Kenyan elections. Reuters journalists confirmed two people were killed in ethnic clashes.  Around 50 people died in political violence after the Aug. 8 elections, and another 14 people since Thursday s vote, according to diplomatic sources. A provisional government tally said nine people had been killed since Thursday. Political violence has shaken the nation before, when around 1,200 people were killed after political protests sparked ethnic clashes a decade ago.  Diplomats and civil society leaders have publicly urged the two leaders to meet and engage in post-election  national dialogue . In his acceptance speech, Kenyatta ruled out the possibility of dialogue with Odinga if the opposition lodged any legal cases contesting his victory.

Summary: केन्याई विपक्षी नेता ने केन्याटा द्वारा जीते गए वोट के खिलाफ याचिकाओं का आह्वान किया


WASHINGTON/PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton’s White House transition team, a mix of former advisers of President Barack Obama, close confidants, long-time colleagues and former elected officials, reflects the sense of careful organization the Democratic candidate has aimed to project in her presidential campaign. But her Republican rival, Donald Trump, could seize on the group to make the point that she is part of the establishment he aims to defeat in November’s election, and to reiterate his charge that a Clinton administration would be an Obama “third term.” The group, which the Clinton campaign named on Tuesday and which will lay the groundwork for her to take charge quickly if she wins, is evidence of Clinton’s long experience in Washington as a former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady. Transition teams aim to help the president-elect make key decisions during the period between the election and the inauguration, in this case from Nov. 8 to Jan. 20, so the new White House occupant can fill leadership posts quickly. “They are the names you would expect – people who have been advising her for a long time; people who have worked with her for a long time and people who are peers, who she respects,” Matt Bennett of the moderate Democratic group Third Way said of Clinton’s transition team.  The group will be headed by Ken Salazar, a former interior secretary and U.S. senator. He will lead four co-chairs: former Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon; former Obama aide Neera Tanden, who now leads the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress; former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Maggie Williams, the director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Heather Boushey, the executive director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, will be the chief economist. Two additional policy advisers from Clinton’s campaign, Ed Meier and Ann O’Leary, will also move full-time to the transition team, the campaign said in a statement. The transition team does not necessarily reflect future policy. “The job here is to give options, not just say there is one policy course you want to take,” said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who advised the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry. Clinton would be the first woman elected to the U.S. presidency and Shrum said Clinton’s team “has got to be the first transition team in history where the majority of its members are women.” Shrum added that Clinton is largely following Obama’s template as he prepared for his transition after the 2008 election. Tanden, who played a key role in shaping Obama’s health care overhaul, is a member of Clinton’s tight-knit inner circle, and has also worked for her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Williams was the 1992 transition director for Clinton when she became first lady, and then her chief of staff in the White House. Clinton worked closely with Donilon when she led the State Department from 2009-2013. Granholm, the former governor, is also a former state attorney general and has years of experience in Democratic politics. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee applauded the selection of O’Leary and Boushey, praising their economic positions. The environmental group Greenpeace criticized Salazar for not curbing fracking in his home state of Colorado. The announcement of the team came as Clinton has gained momentum in the opinion polls, with the current RealClearPolitics average of national polls showing her 6.7 points ahead, at 47.7 percent to Trump’s 41 percent.  Trump’s campaign has struggled after he made a string of controversial remarks since formally winning his party’s nomination last month. More establishment Republicans, alarmed by Trump’s inability or unwillingness to rein in his provocative remarks, have distanced themselves from the candidate in recent weeks. The Wall Street Journal, a leading conservative voice, said in an editorial on Monday that he should fix his campaign in the next three weeks or hand over to his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Trump, a New York businessman who has never held elected office, picked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to head his transition team in May.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने करीबी विश्वासपात्रों, ओबामा के दिग्गजों को संक्रमण दल में नामित किया


GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian refugees could again seek to reach Europe in droves if aid programs are not sustained in five neighboring countries hosting the bulk of them, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was giving details of the $4.4 billion appeal to support 5.3 million Syrian refugees in surrounding countries as well as to host communities in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt that have taken them in. The agency, which has received only 53 percent of its $4.63 billion appeal for 2017, needs international support, Amin Awad, director of UNHCR s Middle East and North Africa bureau, told a news briefing. He listed  many reasons , including:  The vast number of refugees that we have in the region, the geopolitical status of that region, the risk that a population of 5.3 million people can bring to an area, a small region already volatile as it is, if there is no assistance.  We had the experience of 2015, we don t want to repeat that,  he said. The lack of funding led to an acute shortage of services that year, when one million refugees fled to Europe, he added. About half were Syrians, UNHCR figures show. An EU-Turkey deal has largely halted the flow, but a UNHCR funding shortfall has led to fresh cutbacks in vital programs providing food, health care, education and shelter to Syrian refugees, Awad said.  That means we re not able to provide stoves, we are not able to deliver kerosene, we are not able to deliver enough thermal blankets, we are not able to winterise tents, we are not able to drain water and snow from camps, we are not able to do engineering work to insulate some of the buildings. People are sitting in cold, open buildings,  he said. Turkey currently hosts 3.3 million Syrian refugees, the largest number, followed by Lebanon with one million.  These are the biggest donors, these are the real donors. They provided space, international protection,  Awad said.   Now the material assistance is left to the donors and international community... And that s not coming through. So we have to be prepared for consequences,  he said. Awad, asked about countries in the region closing their borders to Syrian refugees, replied:  Borders are managed, in some instance are closed.  Host countries have cited concerns over security, economic crises, and xenophobia, but Syrians continue to arrive, he said.  Lebanon is still accepting vulnerable cases, medical cases, so is Turkey,  Awad said. There have been cases of  refoulement , returning refugees to places where they could face war or persecution, in violation of law, he said.  We are seeing expulsion, we are seeing people sent back.  UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards declined to provide specifics on Syrian refugees being expelled.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने चेतावनी दी है कि यदि सहायता सूख गई तो यूरोप में सीरियाई शरणार्थियों की नई लहर आ सकती है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday designated U.S. election infrastructure as critical, widening the options the government has to protect voting machines from cyber attacks. The decision, announced in a statement by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, followed a 2016 presidential campaign marred by concerns that hackers could disrupt the election. Also on Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies released a report accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of directing a campaign to hack Democratic Party computers in an effort to help Republican Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency. U.S. officials determined hackers targeted more than 20 states’ voter registration systems during the election but that there was no evidence tallies were altered when ballots were cast on Nov. 8. Elevating election systems to critical infrastructure puts it on par with other sectors eligible to receive prioritized cyber security assistance from DHS, including communication and transportation systems, the banking industry and the energy grid. Election infrastructure includes polling places, centralized vote tabulations locations, storage facilities and voter registration databases and voting machines, Johnson said. Johnson said he and his staff had consulted with state and local election officials and that he was “aware that many of them are opposed to this designation.” Some conservative states such as Georgia objected when the idea was floated during the  presidential campaign, claiming elections have historically been overseen by local officials. The classification was not “a federal takeover, regulation, oversight or intrusion concerning elections in this country,” Johnson said in a statement. “This designation does nothing to change the role state and local governments have in administering and running elections.”

Summary: अमेरिका ने साइबर हमलों के खिलाफ चुनाव प्रणालियों की सुरक्षा बढ़ाई


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Saad al-Hariri warned on Sunday Lebanon was at risk of Gulf Arab sanctions because of the Shi ite group Hezbollah s regional meddling and said he would return to Lebanon within days to affirm he had resigned as the country s prime minister. In a television interview, the Saudi-allied Hariri held out the possibility he could yet rescind his resignation if Hezbollah agreed to stay out of regional conflicts such as Yemen, his first public comments since he read out his resignation on television from Riyadh eight days ago. He indicated the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese in the Gulf could be at risk, as well as trade, vital to the stability of the Lebanese economy. Hariri said his resignation was intended as a  positive shock  to his country, which he saw in danger. Top Lebanese government officials and senior sources close to Hariri believe Saudi Arabia coerced Hariri into resigning and has put him under effective house arrest since he flew to Saudi Arabia over a week ago.     Ahead of his interview, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Hariri s movements were being restricted in Saudi Arabia, the first time the Lebanese authorities have publicly declared their belief that Riyadh is holding him against his will. Hariri said he was a free man. The resignation and its aftermath have thrust Lebanon back to the forefront of the conflict between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran. Aoun refused to accept Hariri s resignation unless he tendered it in person in Lebanon. Hariri, who has not returned to Lebanon since he declared his shock resignation, said he stepped down for the sake of the Lebanese national interest, repeatedly saying the country must stick by a policy of  disassociation  from regional conflict.  I am freely in the Kingdom, and if I want to travel tomorrow, I will travel,  Hariri said of his presence in Saudi Arabia. He said he would return to Lebanon within two or three days. When he resigned on Nov. 4, he said he feared assassination. His father, a long-serving former prime minister, was killed by a bomb in 2005. Hariri said he must be sure his security had not been penetrated before returning. Hariri s eyes welled up with tears at one point in the interview. Asked by the interviewer if he would take more questions, Hariri said no because he was tired.   We know there are American sanctions (targeting Hezbollah), but (do) we add to them also Arab sanctions? What is our interest (in that) as Lebanese, because we see today interventions in Yemen and Bahrain by Iran and Hezbollah,  said Hariri. He added:  Disassociation is the foundation of Lebanon s interest. Where do we export our goods, is it not to the Arab states? Where do our sons work ...?       We must work to preserve this interest, and this interest was threatened, so for this reason I did what I did,  he said. He singled out Yemen, where a Saudi-led alliance is bogged down in a war with Iran-allied Houthi rebels, asking what a Lebanese group was doing there, in reference to Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia has accused Hezbollah of a role in firing a ballistic missile from Yemen towards Riyadh earlier this month. In order for him to go back on his resignation, Hariri said the  the diassociation (policy)  must be respected and regional interventions by Hezbollah halted.  Lebanon cannot bear them,  he said. Hezbollah is Lebanon s most powerful group thanks to a powerful arsenal. It has deployed fighters to Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad. The group denies a role in the fighting in Yemen but is fiercely supportive of the Houthis in its statements. Hariri s resignation from abroad and the week of silence that followed has destabilized his country, where Sunni, Shi ite, Christian and Druze factions fought a civil war from 1975-1990, often backed by rival powers around the region. After Hariri announced his resignation, Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon of declaring war against it because of Hezbollah. The Hezbollah leader on Friday said it was Saudi Arabia that had declared war on Lebanon. Western countries including the United States and France have reiterated their long-standing policy of support for the Lebanese government since the Saudi declaration that the Beirut government was a hostile party.     Before Hariri s interview, Aoun said Hariri s situation in Saudi Arabia threw doubt over anything that he had said or would say, and his statements could not be considered as an expression of his full free will. Aoun said Hariri was living in  mysterious circumstances  in Riyadh which had  reached the degree of restricting (his) freedom  and  imposing conditions on his residency and on contact with him even by members of his family .     Saudi Arabia has denied Hariri is being held against his will or that he had been forced to resign. It has advised its citizens not to visit Lebanon and those there to leave as soon as possible.

Summary: हरीरी ने लेबनान को अरब प्रतिबंधों के खतरे का सामना करने की चेतावनी दी, कुछ दिनों में लौटेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jared Kushner, adviser and son-in-law to President Donald Trump, was questioned for nearly three hours on Tuesday by members of a House of Representatives intelligence panel investigating possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. “I found him to be straightforward and forthcoming. He wanted to answer every question that we had,” Republican Representative Mike Conaway said. Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said Kushner and his lawyer were receptive to coming back for additional questioning. “It was a very productive session,” Schiff said.

Summary: हाउस इंटेलिजेंस पैनल ने कुशनर का साक्षात्कार लिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s odds at winning the White House improved significantly after his decisive victory in Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire, online betting site Ladbrokes PLC said on Wednesday. Trump’s odds for winning the presidency in the November election are now 9/2, compared to 7/1 following the Iowa caucuses last week. Iowa kicked off the parties’ process of nominating their presidential candidates and in the Republican race, the real estate tycoon placed second. His chances of victory in November are now 18 percent, up from 13 percent, putting him second to Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose odds of winning the presidency were even, or 50/50, on Wednesday. Clinton was roundly beaten by Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, in New Hampshire. Her odds of winning the presidency slipped from 4/5, or a 56 percent chance at the White House, seen immediately after the Iowa caucuses. Clinton, a former secretary of state, has for long been the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination but has been challenged by a surge of support for Sanders. “New Hampshire couldn’t have worked out much better for Trump,” said Matthew Shaddick, head of political odds at Ladbrokes. “This might be bad news for the Republican Party, but it’s not much better for us bookmakers, who are facing some huge payouts on the one-time 100/1 no-hoper.” He was referring to Trump’s 100/1 odds, giving him a 1 percent chance, when he declared his candidacy last June.  Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida whose chances for the Republican nomination improved after he did well in the Iowa caucuses, faces longer odds after his middle of the pack finish in New Hampshire. According to Ladbrokes, Rubio’s odds are now 8/1, giving him an 11 percent chance at becoming president. After Iowa, Rubio’s odds at becoming president had been  11/4, giving him a 26 percent chance.  Ohio Governor John Kasich, who surged to a surprising second place finish in the New Hampshire’s Republican primary, still faces relatively long odds of 33/1, giving him a 3 percent chance at winning the presidency. The candidates have embarked on what can be a months-long state-by-state battle to win party support. The parties formally announce their presidential nominees at summer conventions. Interest in Kasich on social media surged - he received 30,500 mentions on Twitter on Tuesday, more than four times what he got during the Iowa caucuses, according to Brandwatch.  (Reporting by Anjali Athavaley; Editing by Frances Kerry) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.

Summary: राष्ट्रपति पद के लिए ट्रम्प? न्यू हैम्पशायर के बाद लैडब्रोक की संभावनाओं में सुधार