PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Sweden said on Tuesday it was stopping new aid for Cambodia, except in education and research, and would no longer support a reform programme after the main opposition party was outlawed by the Supreme Court at the government s request. The announcement marked the first concrete action by a European Union country in protest at a political crackdown in which veteran Prime Minister Hun Sen s main rival has also been arrested and civil rights groups and independent media attacked. The United States cut election funding and said it would take more punitive steps after last week s ban on the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). The European Union has also threatened action. Sweden s embassy in Phnom Penh said the country was reviewing its engagement with Cambodia.   We will not initiate any new government-to-government development cooperation agreements, except in the areas of education and research,  it said in a statement. As a consequence, it would be unable to support decentralisation reform in its current form. That reform aims to strengthen lower levels of government, such as local communes. The CNRP won control of more than 40 percent of the communes in elections in June, but has now had to give them up to the ruling Cambodian People s Party (CPP). The CNRP was banned after its leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested for alleged treason. The government says he sought to take power with American help. He rejects that allegation as politically motivated, to allow Hun Sen to extend his more than three decades in power in next year s general election. Responding to the Swedish statement, a senior official said Cambodia welcomed friendship with Sweden or other countries, but said they must understand the CNRP had been banned because the courts found it had committed treason.      People should respect the Cambodian people s decision in accordance with the principle of democracy and the rule of law,  said Huy Vannak, undersecretary of state at the Interior Ministry. Sweden, which has given Cambodia an estimated $100 million in aid over five years, ranked third among individual EU member states in Cambodia s database of donors last year, after France and Germany. Swedish fashion group H&M is also a key buyer from Cambodia s garment factories - the country s main export earner. But Western donors have less sway than they once did since China has emerged as Cambodia s biggest aid donor and investor. Meeting on Monday on the sidelines of a meeting of Asia-Europe foreign ministers in Myanmar, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhon that China supported the government s actions. China has repeatedly expressed its support for Cambodia, making no criticism of the government led by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, who is one of Beijing s most important allies in Southeast Asia.    (The story adds dropped word  after  in paragraph 1)

Summary: स्वीडन ने कार्रवाई के विरोध में कंबोडिया के लिए कुछ नई सहायता रोक दी


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres  counts on the Security Council to remain united and take appropriate action  on North Korea, his political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, said on Monday after Pyongyang conducted its sixth nuclear test.  Feltman warned the 15-member Security Council that  as tensions rise, so does the risk of misunderstanding, miscalculation and escalation.   The latest serious developments require a comprehensive response in order to break the cycle of provocations from (North Korea). Such a response must include wise and bold diplomacy to be effective,  Feltman told the council.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र प्रमुख ने उत्तर कोरिया पर एकजुट, 'उचित कार्रवाई' का आह्वान किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in U.S. House of Representatives began staking out their positions on final tax legislation on Tuesday, days ahead of talks with the Senate to shape the tax package lawmakers hope to send to President Donald Trump by year end. While lawmakers expect a smooth reconciliation of rival House and Senate tax bills, House Republicans have taken issue with several items in the Senate’s legislation - from a one-year delay in cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent to the sunsetting of individual tax cuts after 2025. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said lawmakers are determined to eliminate the alternative minimum taxes (AMTs) on corporations and individuals that the Senate bill retained.  “House members ... feel strongly that the House position should be to repeal permanently both the individual and the corporate,” said Brady, who is expected to chair the House-Senate negotiations that could begin next week. The corporate and individual AMTs are designed to limit the ability of corporations and wealthy individuals to reduce their payments through tax breaks and credits. But jettisoning them could require tough decisions on how to keep the legislation below a $1.5 trillion ceiling on revenue losses. Republicans must also bridge differences on taxes for corporate and pass-through businesses, top earners, inheritances, individual tax brackets and repeal of the Obamacare individual health insurance mandate. Republicans hope to approve a final bill and deliver it to Trump’s desk before Christmas. If they succeed, it will be the first major U.S. tax overhaul in 31 years and the first big Republican legislative victory since Trump took office in January.   The House voted to go to conference with the Senate on Monday, and Republicans named nine conference delegates. Senate Republicans could name delegates as early as Wednesday. “My hope is that we’re done with this within 10 days to two weeks,” said Representative Kristi Noem, a Republican conference delegate and member of Brady’s committee. House Republicans are also considering a new approach to the deduction for state and local taxes. Both the House and Senate bills eliminate deductions for income and sales taxes but retain one for $10,000 in property taxes.  Republicans from high-tax states, including New York and New Jersey, have been angered by the change. But Brady said Republicans are considering the possibility of giving taxpayers an option to deduct $10,000 in state and local property taxes, income taxes or sales taxes.

Summary: सीनेट के साथ बातचीत से पहले हाउस टैक्स पदों का उभरना शुरू हो गया है


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has suspended its diplomatic presence in Yemen and all its staff have left the country due to the situation in the capital Sanaa, the RIA news agency cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying on Tuesday. The Russian ambassador to Yemen and some diplomatic staff will be working temporarily out of the Saudi capital Riyadh, the Interfax news agency cited the ministry as saying. Yemen s conflict, pitting the Houthi movement against a Saudi-led military alliance which backs a government based in the south, has unleashed what the United Nations calls the world s worst humanitarian crisis. A Russian plane evacuated embassy staff and some Russian nationals from Sanaa earlier on Tuesday, Saudi state news agency SPA said, citing the Saudi-led military coalition fighting against the Houthi movement that controls the Yemeni capital. The agency quoted an official source in the coalition as saying it had received a request for permission for a Russian plane to evacuate the personnel, and that the plane had left Sanaa airport.

Summary: रूस ने यमन में राजनयिक उपस्थिति निलंबित की, राजदूत को रियाद भेजाः एजेंसियां


BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is strongly committed to working with the European Union toward common objectives of peace and prosperity, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday. “Today is my privilege on behalf of President Trump to express the strong commitment of the United States to continue cooperation and partnership with the European Union,” Pence said in a statement read out after his meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk. “Whatever our differences, our two continents share the same heritage, the same values and above all, the same purpose to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy and the rule of law. And to those objectives we will remain committed,” he continued.

Summary: ट्रम्प यूरोपीय संघ के साथ साझेदारी के लिए दृढ़ता से प्रतिबद्ध हैंः उपराष्ट्रपति पेंस


Over the course of the U.S. presidential campaign, Donald Trump changed his mind on many issues. But he’s been consistent on one foreign policy question: he wants to end American support for Syrian opposition groups fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Trump argues that the United States should expend all of its efforts on fighting Islamic State instead.  "I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 11, in his first interview after he won the White House. “My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria. … Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.”  Even if Trump goes ahead with his threat to cut off aid to Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime – especially those supported by a covert CIA program which provides training and anti-tank missiles – the president-elect will face another major test of his Syria policy soon after he’s inaugurated on Jan. 20. The United States is supporting two military campaigns simultaneously in Syria: one against Assad’s government and the other against Islamic State. Trump has made clear that he doesn’t view the fight against Assad as a U.S. priority. But will Trump continue a separate Pentagon support and training program for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of rebel groups, which is leading a ground offensive to oust Islamic State from the city of Raqqa, capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate?  That campaign started on Nov. 6 with a mobilization of about 30,000 rebels to encircle Raqqa and cut it off from all sides, to deny Islamic State the ability to resupply weapons and fighters. The battle to push the jihadists out of Raqqa could take months. If it falters under a fledging Trump administration, Islamic State would have a safe base from which it would unleash new attacks in Syria and Iraq, and against the West.  U.S. military planners pushed for the Raqqa offensive to start soon after the long-awaited invasion to recapture Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, from the militants began in mid-October. Pentagon officials say they fear that Islamic State operatives, including some who fled the Mosul offensive, will use Raqqa to plot attacks against Western targets. “There’s a sense of urgency about what we have to do here because we’re just not sure what they’re [jihadists] up to, and where, and when,” the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Lt. General Stephen Townsend, said at a news conference on Oct. 26  in Baghdad. “But we know that this plot planning is emanating from Raqqa.”  Trump says he wants to avoid direct U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict, which has expanded into a regional proxy war. Russia and Iran, along with allied militias like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are helping Assad consolidate control and recapture territory he lost to the rebels and jihadist groups. Assad and his backers have rarely fought directly against Islamic State, which controls Raqqa and other parts of eastern Syria. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States are backing various rebel factions that are fighting Assad and his allies, and, at times, Islamic State.  Under Barack Obama’s administration, the CIA has funneled up to $1 billion a year in weapons, including light arms, ammunition and anti-tank missiles, to Syrian rebel groups fighting the Assad regime that were deemed moderate by U.S. officials. But some of these rebels have been forced into battlefield alliances with jihadists, including al Qaeda affiliated groups.  While the offensive against Islamic State in Raqqa began in the waning days of the Obama administration, it needs support from the incoming Trump administration to bear fruit. But the Raqqa operation is already alienating American allies, especially Turkey, which is critical of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF is a coalition of Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Christian and Turkmen rebel groups that is anchored by the People’s Protection Units (known by its Kurdish acronym, YPG), which includes thousands of Syrian Kurdish fighters.  Turkish leaders view the YPG and other Syrian Kurdish groups as allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (known as the PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish government since the 1980s, seeking autonomy for Kurdish areas. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that Washington must not allow the YPG to take a leading role in expelling Islamic State from Raqqa, a largely Sunni Arab city.  During the presidential campaign, Trump argued the United States should arm and help Kurdish factions, both in Iraq and Syria. “I’m a big fan of the Kurdish forces,” he said in July. If Trump follows through on his praise of the Kurds, that would be good news for the SDF and its largest militia, the YPG.  But once in office, Trump would also have to balance the objections of allies like Turkey and Erdogan, its increasingly autocratic president. Among his first top appointments, Trump named Michael Flynn, a retired general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as his national security adviser. Flynn, who once worked as a paid lobbyist for a prominent Turkish businessman, has expressed strong support for Erdogan’s government and argued that Washington should be more sympathetic to its concerns.  In late August, Turkey sent several hundred of its special forces into Syria, and began carrying out air strikes to help rebel factions allied with Ankara consolidate control of territory near the Turkish-Syrian border. The Turkish-backed rebels have fought both Islamic State jihadists and occasionally the U.S.-backed YPG militia.  In October, Erdogan said he told Obama in a phone call that Turkey was capable of ousting Islamic State from Raqqa on its own. Other Turkish officials argued that the campaign to retake Raqqa should not begin until Iraqi forces complete their offensive against Islamic State in Mosul, which has slowed in recent weeks.  But U.S. officials are keen to isolate Raqqa and use Syrian forces to encircle it, mainly because of worries about Islamic State operatives fleeing from Mosul and plotting new attacks against the West. That concern is genuine because the jihadist group – even as it was weakened over the past year, after intensive U.S.-led bombing and defeats by its opponents in Iraq and Syria – has shown a significant ability to adapt and inflict new terror.  In the coming months, Islamic State will find new ways to endure an American-orchestrated offensive on Raqqa. It will try to take advantage of the change in U.S. administration. And once he’s in office, Trump will discover that fighting and containing Islamic State inevitably means wading into Syria’s complicated war.

Summary: टिप्पणीः ट्रम्प सीरिया के युद्ध में शामिल हुए बिना इस्लामिक स्टेट से नहीं लड़ सकते


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland by phone on Wednesday that Republicans will not act on his nomination or meet with him, a McConnell spokesman said.”Rather than put Judge Garland through more unnecessary political routines orchestrated by the White House, the leader decided it would be more considerate of the nominee’s time to speak with him today by phone,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said in a statement.  McConnell told the appellate court judge that “since the Senate will not be acting on this nomination, he would not be holding a perfunctory meeting, but he wished Judge Garland well,” Stewart added.

Summary: शीर्ष सीनेट रिपब्लिकन ने सुप्रीम कोर्ट के उम्मीदवार से कहाः सीनेट कार्रवाई नहीं करेगी


(Reuters) - A Michigan judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against a former state representative, while ruling another lawmaker should stand trial after he tried to hide their extramarital affair, according to a prosecutor’s office spokeswoman. Ingham County District Judge Hugh Clarke ruled that former State Representative Todd Courser should stand trial for perjury  and one count of misconduct for his attempted cover-up of the affair with fellow lawmaker Cindy Gamrat, said Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for the Michigan attorney general’s office. Prosecutors originally charged Courser with three counts of misconduct while in office and perjury, but the judge dismissed two of the misconduct charges. Clarke also dismissed the two criminal misconduct-in-office charges against Gamrat due to insufficient evidence that she knowingly lied to House investigators about an email that Courser sent to distract from their affair, Bitely said. Prosecutors will not appeal the dismissed charges against Gamrat, but they are reviewing their options regarding the charges against Courser that were not sent to trial, Bitely said.  An attorney for Courser, Matthew DePerno, maintained his client is not guilty, and said he believed there was not enough evidence to support the perjury or misconduct charge. Courser is due back in court in late June.      A lawyer for Gamrat, Mike Nichols, said the charges against his client stem from a house investigation that arose from a political dispute. The former legislators faced charges of misconduct related to Courser’s failed attempt to cover up their affair. He had devised a plan to distribute an email falsely claiming he had sex with a male prostitute in a move meant to blunt the political impact of the actual affair if it was ever revealed, according to the Detroit News.  The two former lawmakers also were charged with misconduct for allowing their employees to forge their signature on proposed legislation.

Summary: मिशिगन के पूर्व विधायक पर मुकदमा चलेगा; एक अन्य के खिलाफ आरोप खारिज


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan Airlines Co (9201.T) said on Monday it has begun screening passengers from the seven Muslim-majority countries affected by the President Donald Trump’s travel ban before their departure for the United States. Officials at Japan’s second biggest carrier will contact the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency when passengers from those countries check in at the airport before departure to confirm whether they will be allowed entry, a spokesman for the airline said.

Summary: जे. ए. एल. अमेरिका के लिए प्रस्थान करने से पहले बहुसंख्यक-मुस्लिम देश के यात्रियों की जांच करेगा


GENEVA (Reuters) - President Joseph Kabila has agreed to help aid reach a region of the Democratic Republic of Congo where ethnic conflict has spawned a humanitarian emergency, the head of the U.N. s World Food Programme said on Monday. WFP Executive Director David Beasley said he had also asked Congo s Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala to waive $9 million in administrative fees the organization had paid to the government, saying the sum could feed tens of thousands of people.  This country is destabilizing and it needs attention because if we don t give the attention now it could impact the entire region,  Beasley told reporters by phone from Kinshasa.  The conflict in Kasai region turned Congo into the world s biggest displacement crisis this year. Although many people have started going home, Beasley said Congo still had about 600,000 children on the brink of starvation and 7.7 million severely malnourished people. While visiting Kasai, where WFP has 1 percent of the $135 million needed for the next eight months, he said he saw horror in the eyes of women and children as they told of beheadings and brutality.   The Kasai region, it was rather appalling, in ways that are truly hard to explain, in ways you actually don t want to explain,  he said. Beasley said he met Kabila for about 45 minutes before meeting ministers and explained that the trust of aid donors needed to be rebuilt and that the government must provide access, safety and visas.   He gave me his assurances that he would do everything possible to address any and all needs that we brought to his attention,  Beasley said. Beasley, a former governor of the U.S. state of South Carolina, told Congo s prime minister that WFP had paid the government $9 million in administrative fees  just for access, just for being here , and asked him to scrap the fees.  As I told the government, the prime minister, and the ministers, if you take that $9 million and I m feeding people at 31 cents a day, you can do the math - that s 75,000 people, give or take, that we can feed in an entire year,  he said. Asked about the $9 million, government spokesman Lambert Mende said:  That s the first time I ve heard of anything like that.   We know that we have humanitarian needs because many people (in Kasai) are returning to their homes and we are working with our partners on that,  Mende said. Beasley said there was donor fatigue but addressing the Kasai situation immediately would save lives and money.

Summary: डब्ल्यू. एफ. पी. प्रमुख को खाद्य सहायता पहुँच पर कांगो के राष्ट्रपति से प्रतिज्ञा मिली


FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - Republican candidate Donald Trump on Friday won the surprise endorsement of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the most prominent mainstream Republican to get behind the former reality TV star’s White House campaign. Christie said the billionaire front-runner has the best chance of beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election - although Clinton has yet to secure her party’s nomination.  The endorsement gives Trump a further lift before next week’s Super Tuesday nominating contests. It comes just a day after he took a battering from his two main rivals at a televised Republican debate.  Trump’s unorthodox candidacy has stirred controversy and shaken the Republican Party at its roots, but an increasing number of senior Republicans are becoming resigned to the idea he will be their candidate in November.      Trump is “rewriting the playbook,” said Christie, 53, who until two weeks ago was himself a rival for the Republican nomination. Christie dropped out after failing to muster much support for his candidacy.     Trump, 69, who has never held public office, has campaigned as a political outsider. He is riding a wave of voter anger at the slow economic recovery, illegal immigration and what he says is America’s diminishing role in the world.     “The best person to beat Hillary Clinton in November on that stage last night is undoubtedly Donald Trump,” Christie told a news conference on Friday, a day after the last Republican candidates’ debate before Super Tuesday. The debate marked a new, more aggressive approach for U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, 44, who has emerged as the Republican establishment’s challenger to Trump. The other main challenger at the debate was U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Trump has unsettled mainstream Republicans by winning three straight nominating contests - in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Polls show he is likely to win big in key primaries on Tuesday. “Since I started this whole thing I’ve been practically Number 1,” Trump said on Friday at a rally in Texas.  The 11 Republican nominating contests on Tuesday have a total of almost 600 delegates at stake, and could set Trump up to clinch the presidential nomination. Reuters/Ipsos polling data on Friday showed Trump ahead nationally in the Republican race with support at 44.2 percent, followed by Cruz at 20.7 percent and Rubio in third place at 14 percent.     On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Clinton is battling U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Clinton and Sanders have been in a dead head over the past week, the Reuters/Ipsos data shows. Trump has vowed to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border to halt illegal immigration, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and promised to take a tough stance on trade against China.   He was combative at a rally on Friday. He mocked Rubio, referred to violent Islamist militants as “these animals” and promised to defend Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms. “We’re going to build up our military, we’re going to knock out ISIS. We’re going to knock out ISIS fast,” he said, referring to the Islamic State militant group.  Wielding a water bottle as a prop, Trump made fun of Rubio for an awkward incident in which the senator grabbed for a drink of water off camera during an important televised speech in 2013.  Rubio and Cruz ganged up on Trump at Thursday’s debate in Houston in a last-ditch bid to keep him from winning in states on Super Tuesday.      Rubio on Friday again took aim at Trump. “He’s a con man who’s taking advantage of people’s fears and anxieties about the future, portraying himself as some sort of strong guy,” Rubio told reporters in Oklahoma. “He’s not a strong guy. He’s never faced real adversity before.” PredictWise, a research project that analyzes opinion polls and betting markets, said Trump would comfortably win among Republicans in all but one of the 11 Super Tuesday states that it measured. Cruz, 45, is likely to win in his home state of Texas, PredictWise said. Rubio’s home state of Florida is not part of the Super Tuesday contests. PredictIt, based out of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, on Friday gave Trump a 73 percent chance of winning the nomination compared with a peak 75 percent chance two days earlier.      Trump’s swipes at rival candidates and heated exchanges with journalists and others have for months bolstered his standing in nominating contests and opinion polls.  In a post on Twitter, Trump took aim at Rubio, a first-term senator, for his debate performance. “Lightweight Marco Rubio was working hard last night. The problem is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a chocker (sic)! Mr. Meltdown.”   Republican strategist Doug Heye said Christie may have opened the door for more mainstream Republican endorsements of a man whose chances of winning the White House were seen as next to nil a year ago.     “If you’re the Trump campaign this is obviously very good news and it gives permission for others to endorse. But it also makes it hard (for Trump) to make the outsider argument,” he said.   Glenn Hubbard, who had been an adviser to the campaign of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the George H.W. Bush administration, said he planned to keep up steady criticism of Trump on economic issues.  “I think it is time for serious people to stand up and be counted. The next few weeks come very quickly,” said Hubbard, who published a column in the Boston Globe on Friday criticizing Trump.  Hubbard, now dean of the business school at Columbia University, told Reuters he worried Trump’s comments already hurt the country’s image abroad and would hobble his ability to govern if elected.  (Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Clarece Polke, Howard Schneider and Susan Heavey in Washington and Melissa Fares and Chris Kahn in New York; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Howard Goller and Leslie Adler) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने क्रिस्टी का समर्थन जीता, सुपर मंगलवार की ओर बढ़े


COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Iceland will hold a snap parliamentary election on Oct. 28, President Gudni Johannesson said on Monday, after the current government collapsed last week due to a scandal involving the prime minister s father. Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson had called for the vote after one party in the ruling coalition quit the government formed less than nine months ago. The outgoing government would be the shortest-living in Iceland s history. The previous government was felled by the Panama Papers scandal over offshore tax havens.

Summary: आइसलैंड में 28 अक्टूबर को मध्यावधि चुनावः राष्ट्रपति


KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine says it will review a request from Georgia to arrest and extradite former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, one of the most colorful and divisive figures in the politics of both countries, if he re-enters Ukraine in the next few days. Brought in to help drive reforms after the 2014 Ukrainian uprising that ousted a pro-Russian leader, Saakashvili has been at loggerheads with the Kiev authorities since quitting as governor of the Odessa region last year and accusing President Petro Poroshenko of abetting corruption. Stripped of Ukrainian citizenship while on a trip abroad, he  will try to re-enter Ukraine via the Polish border on Sunday, his staff and lawyers say, and expects to be greeted by supporters and lawmakers sympathetic to his cause. It is unclear how Ukrainian border guards will respond.  The justice ministry is sending the request from Georgia ... to Ukraine s general prosecutor for an extradition review,  Deputy Justice Minister Serhiy Petukhov told a news conference. Saakashvili s representative Olena Galabala said:  If there are any questions regarding the extradition of Saakashvili, then firstly they need to let him into Ukraine and then resolve this issue. Otherwise it looks like intimidation.  Saakashvili took power in Georgia after a peaceful pro-Western uprising, known as the Rose Revolution, in 2003. He was president at the time of a short and disastrous five-day war with Russia in 2008, a conflict that his critics argued was the result of his own miscalculations. The 49-year-old is now wanted on four separate criminal charges in Georgia, including abuse of office, which he says were trumped up for political reasons. Loathed by the Kremlin, Saakashvili was once a natural ally for Poroshenko after Moscow annexed Ukraine s Crimea region in 2014. But he has become one of the president s most vocal critics casting doubt on the Western-backed authorities  commitment to tackle entrenched corruption. Saakashvili has accused the Ukrainian authorities of using pressure tactics to deter him from returning to Kiev, where he has launched a campaign to unseat his former ally Poroshenko. Saakashvili s spokeswoman and his brother, David, were both questioned by authorities at the weekend.    In this way they re trying to influence me to change my mind about coming back,  Saakashvili said in a post on Facebook.  You know me very badly - this just further strengthens my resolve to defend Ukraine and Ukrainians from the dirty dealers and their lawlessness.  Interior ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko said David Saakashvili s permission to reside in Ukraine had been annulled because his work permit had been withdrawn.  We didn t detain him. The Kiev police ensured the delivery of the Georgian citizen to the migration services,  he told news agency Interfax Ukraine. Poroshenko s office says Saakashvili failed to deliver change while governor of Odessa. They have also said his citizenship was withdrawn because he allegedly put false information on his registration form. Saakashvili says the decision was politically motivated. Saakashvili last year founded a party called the  Movement of New Forces, whose support is in the low single digits and  which has been seeking to unite reformist opposition forces.

Summary: यूक्रेन लौटने पर जॉर्जिया के पूर्व नेता के प्रत्यर्पण का खतरा


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Dr. Linda Liau works with the precision of a master, peering into a patient’s head with magnifying loupes as she removes a brain tumor. When Liau was called into an emergency room as a surgeon more than 20 years ago to help treat a car crash victim, another member of the medical team assumed she was a nurse. Even today, the 49-year-old neurosurgeon sometimes gets a surprised reaction from new patients who were expecting a man.  Such an assumption is common in career fields dominated by men. Neurosurgery, welding, venture capitalism, construction, film directing and the electrical trade - these are six jobs where U.S. women have made inroads but are still vastly outnumbered. And one position, U.S. president, has never been filled by a woman. With presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton seeking to become the first to break that barrier, several women in career fields made up mostly of men told Reuters that they saw her candidacy as significant. “I think ultimately the goal would be to be gender-blind completely, so the fact that we’re even talking about having a female president as a novelty is, in a way, sad,” Liau said. On a construction site, Joundi White, 31, has often been reminded of her gender. Early in her career, the reminders were pet names such as “sweetheart” and “honey.” Now, she can rarely shake the sense that she is outnumbered. “I eat lunch alone,” White said. “I don’t have people to relate to at work.  “Don’t get me wrong, I identify more with the guys, but to them, ultimately, I’m just a girl.” Wearing a hard hat, White passes under heavy steel beams, walking along the commuter train tracks she is helping build in her working-class neighborhood in southern Los Angeles.  Welder Darlene Thompson, 45, is also no stranger to the construction site, or to the hostility that she says women often encounter in the field. These days, she teaches others as an instructor at Los Angeles Trade Technical College.  In a heavy coat and blue gloves, she looks from under her helmet at the white-hot flame of a welding torch.  It was a fight to learn these skills. More than a decade ago, when she began receiving job training as a welfare recipient, Thompson had to argue for the chance to study welding. Public assistance administrators wanted to push her toward cosmetology or culinary arts, she said.  Thompson did not say how she would cast her ballot in November but said she would not vote for Clinton just because the candidate is a woman. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s slogan has resonated with her. “When they talk about ‘Let’s make America great again,’” Thompson said, “what I think of is the companies in Detroit, the automotive industry going back to Detroit and giving back jobs.” A well-paid job as an electrician has opened up opportunities for Hannah Cooper, 28. For one thing, she was able to buy a house in the expensive Los Angeles real estate market. Sometimes, she will encounter someone on a construction site who knows her mother, Kelly Cooper, who also was an electrician.  “Everyone remembers her because there’s only a few women,” Cooper said. Kelly Cooper began as an apprentice in 1975. “You have to have thick skin to be anyone in the trade,”she said. “To be a woman in the trade, you have to have a particularly thick skin.”  She is now director of construction for the Los Angeles Department of General Services. Eva Ho, 44, is a woman working in the technology field, which is unusual enough. But she is also a venture capitalist, which is rarer still. “In some ways the V.C. career has really been an old boys club, and it’s been dominated by white men for the last three or four decades,” Ho said.  A graduate of Harvard and Cornell, Ho said she was drawn to work in technology because of its ability to drive social change. But she came late to it, never having used a computer until college. For the Burtons, who work together as filmmakers through their company Five Sisters Productions, their career had its seeds in their childhood as the daughters of a writer and a former professional musician.  Both parents were feminists who thought their five daughters could do anything, said Ursula Burton, a director, producer and actor.  Now the possibility of a female president could help create more opportunities for women, she said.  “Having a woman president opens up the presidency for girls,” Burton said, “and it will shift the perception for boys of what girls can do.”

Summary: पुरुष प्रधान करियर क्षेत्रों में महिलाओं ने एक अनूठा अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति अभियान देखा


BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday laid out a confident vision for a more prosperous nation and its role in the world, stressing the importance of wiping out corruption and curbing industrial overcapacity, income inequality and pollution.  Opening a critical Communist Party congress, Xi pledged to build a  modern socialist country  for a  new era  that will be proudly Chinese and steadfastly ruled by the party but open to the world.  Although his wide-ranging address made clear there were no plans for political reform, Xi said China s development had entered a  new era , using the phrase 36 times in a speech that ran nearly 3-1/2 hours.   With decades of hard work, socialism with Chinese characteristics has crossed the threshold into a new era,  Xi said.  The twice-a-decade event, a weeklong, mostly closed-door conclave, will culminate in the selection of a new Politburo Standing Committee to rule China s 1.4 billion people for the next five years, with Xi expected to consolidate his control and potentially retain power beyond 2022, when the next congress takes place.  The 64-year-old Xi, widely regarded as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, spoke to more than 2,000 delegates in Beijing's cavernous, red-carpeted Great Hall of the People, including 91-year-old former president Jiang Zemin. Security was tight on a rainy, smoggy day in the capital.  As expected, the speech was heavy on aspiration and short on specific plans.  On the economy, Xi said China would relax market access for foreign investment, expand access to its services sector and deepen market-oriented reform of its exchange rate and financial system, while at the same time strengthening state firms.  During Xi s first term, China disappointed many investors who had expected it to usher in more market-oriented reforms, especially in the debt-laden state sector.   If Xi gets the political mandate that he is expected to out of the congress, then my hope is that the state sector reforms actually get done,  Damien Ma, fellow and associate director at U.S. thinktank the Paulson Institute, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.   If not, then I would also revise my assessment of the state of reforms in China. There have been talks in Beijing that the state sector will be a focus after the 19th party congress, so we need to see.   The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said it welcomed commitments to open wider the door and treat all companies equally, but said European companies operating in China continued to suffer from  promise fatigue .   The only cure for this is promise implementation,  it said in a statement.   In what was probably an indirect reference to U.S. President Donald Trump s  America First  policy, Xi promised that China would be fully engaged with the world, and reiterated pledges to tackle climate change. Trump this year opted to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate pact.   No country can alone address the many challenges facing mankind; no country can afford to retreat into self-isolation,  Xi told the delegates, among them Buddhist monks, Olympic medallists, farmers and at least one astronaut.  Xi set bold long-term goals for China s development, envisioning it as a  basically  modernised socialist country by 2035, and a modern socialist  strong power  with leading influence on the world stage by 2050.  But he signalled there would be no significant political reforms, calling China s system the broadest, most genuine, and most effective way to safeguard the interests of the people.  Xi has overseen a sweeping crackdown on civil society, locking up rights lawyers and dissidents and tightening internet controls as he has sought to revitalise the Communist Party and its place in contemporary China.   We should not just mechanically copy the political systems of other countries,  he said.  We must unwaveringly uphold and improve party leadership and make the party still stronger.   Xi praised the party s successes, particularly his high-profile anti-graft campaign, in which more than a million officials have been punished and dozens of former senior officials jailed, saying it would never end as corruption was the  gravest threat  the party faces.  On self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as its own, Xi said China would never allow the island to separate from China, adding that China would strive to fully transform its armed forces into a world-class military by the mid-21st century.  He made no mention of neighbouring North Korea, which has angered Beijing with repeated nuclear and ballistic missile tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions. Pyongyang sent a congratulatory message ahead of the meeting.  Xi has consolidated power swiftly since assuming the party leadership in 2012, locking up rivals for corruption, restructuring the military and asserting China s rising might on the world stage.  Focus at the congress will be on how Xi plans to use his expanded authority, and moves to enable him to stay on in a leadership capacity after his second term ends in 2022.  That could include resurrecting the position of party chairman, a title that would put him on par with Mao, the founding father of modern China.   In all aspects he is on the right track to be our next Chairman Mao,  Su Shengcheng, a delegate from the northwestern province of Qinghai, told Reuters.  He will lead the party and Central Committee to continue its way to success.   As with other major set-piece events in the capital, Beijing has been blanketed with security in the run-up to the congress, with long queues of passengers at some subway stations waiting to go through metal detectors and be patted down.  Large red banners plastered around Beijing trumpet the congress, while censors have stepped up already tight monitoring of the internet.  Tencent Holdings Ltd s WeChat, China s top social media platform with more than 960 million users, said late on Tuesday that  system maintenance  would render users unable to alter profile pictures, nicknames and tag lines until month-end.  The disabled features are sporadically used to show solidarity for popular social and political causes.

Summary: चीन के शी ने 'अभी भी मजबूत' कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी के नेतृत्व में 'नए युग' के लिए दृष्टिकोण रखा


ROME/TUNIS (Reuters) - A powerful armed group, known for smuggling people from Libya, is seeking legitimacy and state security jobs from the Tripoli government in exchange for stopping migrant boats from leaving the coast of Sabratha for Italy, a senior group member said. The group, the Anas al-Dabbashi brigade, struck a deal with Libya s United Nations-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) this summer to clamp down on trafficking, the senior brigade member, who gave his name as Mohamed, told Reuters. The need for the GNA to strike such a deal would illustrate the power of armed groups in western Libya, which continue to hold the real influence locally as they have since a 2011 uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. The revelation would also throw light on the fragility of the sharp recent reduction in migrant arrivals from Italy, which took over from the Aegean route as the main focus of European concerns in the crisis. The GNA did not respond to requests for comment. Local sources, who declined to be named, said there had been at least one meeting between government officials and Ahmed al-Dabbashi, identified as one of the main  facilitators  of human smuggling in Libya in a U.N. report earlier this year.  Mohamed said there had been a number of such meetings, and that the brigade was also offered the possibility of an amnesty for past smuggling activity. To show it could uphold the deal with Tripoli, the several-hundred-strong brigade has cracked down on departures with the help of the coastguard leading to an 80 percent fall in the arrival of rescued migrants in Italy last month, Mohamed said. With a national election looming in the first half of next year, the government in Rome, which welcomed the sudden decline shown in official data, is under pressure to show it can stop, or at least slow, migration from the oil-producing desert state. Libya remains split between rival political camps and armed alliances. The GNA has struggled to impose its authority on Tripoli and other parts of western Libya, and has been rejected by factions that control the east of the country. Mohamed said the GNA, under pressure from Italy to halt the migrant flows, had exerted pressure on the Dabbashi brigade. The GNA  said that they would gather all the cities west of Tripoli against us, and they would come and fight us.         On the other hand, they have offered to let us join the police, and let us join the military,  Mohamed said.  If this plan goes forward and the (Tripoli) government was telling the truth ... in six months time everybody in this battalion will be like normal police.  A second source in Sabratha spoke to Ahmed al-Dabbashi, who confirmed that Mohamed was a member of the brigade. It is the first time a brigade member has spoken at length about why the group suddenly shifted from smuggling to policing, a change first reported by Reuters last month. Some international media reported that Dabbashi had received five million euros directly from Italy s secret services to stop the migrant boats, but Mohamed denied this. Italy has also denied any direct payments to armed groups. The fragility of the security situation in Sabratha was underscored by territorial clashes that erupted there over the weekend, with Dabbashi s group battling cross-town rivals in some of the heaviest fighting the city has seen in recent years. Explosions could be heard as far away as the port of Zawiya, 22 km (14 miles) away. Both sides in the fighting claim to have the backing of the Tripoli government, and both battled together to drive Islamic State forces out of the area last year.      With Italy and the EU offering millions of euros to local authorities in Libya who can put a cap on trafficking, armed groups have an interest in proving that they are the only ones who can police the territory.  This smuggling thing   everybody knows that Libya is not going to be like this forever,  Mohamed said.  If you are just a little bit smart, you will go with the government.  As a result of the policing by Dabbashi and coastguard interceptions, arrivals of rescued migrants in Italy fell 50 percent in July from a year earlier, and declined more than 80 percent in August   two months that had been peak periods during the previous three years. Overall, there have been more than 100,000 arrivals in Italy this year, a decline of more than 20 percent compared to 2016, official Italian data show. To rein in smuggling, Italy has spearheaded efforts to bolster the Libyan coast guard, and it is dealing directly with local governments to try to offer incentives for them to shut it down, including with Sabratha s mayor, Hussein al-Thwadi. Thwadi sought support directly from Italy, meeting the ambassador earlier this month and Interior Minister Marco Minniti in July.     The Dabbashi brigade, which also guards an oil and gas facility west of Sabratha run jointly by Libya s National Oil Corporation (NOC) and Italian firm Eni, denied any direct contacts with Italy. It is allied to Brigade 48, a group of some 300 soldiers aligned with the GNA.   We only have deals with the (Tripoli) government,  Mohamed said.  They said they might forgive all of what we have done in the past,  he added, referring to people smuggling. But it is unclear if Tripoli can deliver on its promises to integrate Dabbashi s men, or whether any group can hold the line against forces who want to keep smuggling. On Saturday, Libyan coastguard officials said they had turned back more than 1,000 migrants traveling in at least eight boats. On the same day, the Dabbashi brigade intercepted about 3,000 more, said Mohamed. More than 1,500 were rescued at sea and brought to Italy.  A lot of people are pressuring us to stop this,  Mohamed said of Dabbashi s crackdown on departing migrant boats.  They want to start (human trafficking) again.

Summary: सशस्त्र समूह त्रिपोली प्रवासी सौदे के साथ वैधता चाहता हैः सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday moved a step closer to fulfilling his campaign promise to reform the troubled Veterans Affairs department, but some veterans groups are concerned that the administration may be working toward privatizing their healthcare. Trump signed a law extending the pilot “Veterans Choice” program, which allows some veterans to receive healthcare from local doctors and hospitals closer to their homes than the VA’s 150 hospitals and nearly 1,000 outpatient clinics. The law eases procedures for reimbursing private providers and creates a system for sharing medical records with them. “This new law is a good start, but there is still much work to do,” Trump said at a signing ceremony attended by VA Secretary David Shulkin and Florida Governor Rick Scott.  “We will fight each and every day to deliver the long-awaited reforms our veterans deserve.” Trump pledged to hold a news conference next week on “all of the tremendous things that are happening at the VA and what we’ve done in terms of progress and achievement.” Reforming the agency, rocked by a waiting-time scandal in 2014, was one of Trump’s most-repeated campaign trail promises. He has frequently suggested having the government pay outside physicians to provide veteran healthcare. During his confirmation hearings, Shulkin said he supported overhauling the agency but did not believe in privatizing it. Still, on Tuesday the VA announced it was seeking cutting-edge treatments from the healthcare industry for brain injuries, mental health problems and chronic pain. Extension of the “Veterans Choice” program could worry Democrats and other critics that Trump and Shulkin are inching toward sending some of the $65.6 billion the department spends annually on medical care to corporations and private businesses. Conservatives calling for privatization say the VA provides medical services to only about 45 percent of veterans, and they point to delays and inefficiencies dogging the current system.  Some veterans groups and Democrats have warned against moving funds away from healthcare providers with expertise in injuries and illnesses unique to serving in the armed forces. In a March report, the Government Accountability Office said veterans in the Choice program still face long wait times, mostly because cases must be referred to private contractors for scheduling.  Last year a congressionally mandated panel of experts found the Choice program was inefficient, but recommended establishing a community-based healthcare system that would include private doctors.

Summary: ट्रम्प ने कुछ दिग्गजों को स्थानीय डॉक्टरों, अस्पतालों का उपयोग करने की अनुमति देने वाले कार्यक्रम का विस्तार किया


LONDON (Reuters) - British police said a bomb was used during an explosion at a London metro station which injured 18 people in what officers described as a  terrorist incident.   We now assess that this was a detonation of an improvised explosive device,  Britain s top counter-terrorism officer Mark Rowley said on Friday.  London s police is being supported by Britain s MI5 intelligence service, he said.

Summary: लंदन मेट्रो स्टेशन की घटना बम विस्फोट के कारण हुईः ब्रिटेन के शीर्ष पुलिस अधिकारी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved and sent to President Barack Obama legislation preventing government shutdowns at the end of this week by temporarily funding federal agencies through Dec. 9. The bill, which Obama is expected to promptly sign into law, also appropriates $1.1 billion in new money to battle an outbreak of the Zika virus. Final action in Congress came when the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill.

Summary: अमेरिकी कांग्रेस ने वित्तपोषण विधेयक पारित किया; सरकारी बंद को टाला


(Reuters) - New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman intends to sue the federal government if Republican lawmakers pass proposed legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, his office said on Monday. Schneiderman’s office said it has identified “multiple constitutional defects” with the Republican healthcare bills. The U.S. Senate is considering legislation to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, commonly known as Obamacare. However, eight to 10 Republican U.S. senators have serious concerns about the proposals, moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins, who opposes the bill, said on Sunday. Democratic state attorneys general have become a major source of opposition to Republican President Donald Trump’s policies, having successfully forced him to significantly scale back a ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries. A group of Democrats led by Schneiderman and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra earlier this year sought to intervene in a pending lawsuit in order to defend subsidies paid to health insurers under Obamacare. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has not yet ruled on that request.  Among the Republican proposals that raise constitutional issues are one that would defund the Planned Parenthood health group for a year, and another that would shift some Medicaid costs in New York from counties to the state, known as the Collins-Faso amendment, said Amy Spitalnick, a Schneiderman spokeswoman. Critics of the latter provision say it would drastically increase costs in the state budget for the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and disabled. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit threat. A representative for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell could not immediately be reached for comment.

Summary: न्यूयॉर्क के अटॉर्नी जनरल का कहना है कि ओबामाकेयर को निरस्त करने पर मुकदमा करेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump picked a new fight on Thursday with his fellow Republicans, saying congressional leaders could have avoided a “mess” over raising the U.S. debt ceiling if they had taken his advice. In the latest in a stream of criticisms that could undermine his aims to cut taxes, pass a budget and rebuild infrastructure, Trump sought to blame party leaders if Congress fails to agree to raise the cap on how much the federal government may borrow. The Treasury Department has said the ceiling must be raised by Sept. 29. If not, the government would be unable to borrow more money or pay its bills, including its debt payments. That could hurt the United States’ credit rating, cause financial turmoil, harm the U.S. economy and possibly trigger a recession. Trump said he had advised Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan to link passage of legislation raising the debt ceiling to a bill on veterans affairs that he signed into law on Aug. 12.  “They ... didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess!” Trump said in Twitter posts. Recent media reports suggest that Trump’s relationship with McConnell has deteriorated amid repeated attacks by Trump on the Republican Senate majority leader for, among other things, failing to get a healthcare bill passed. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that McConnell and Trump were locked in a political “cold war,” especially after an Aug. 9 phone call that it said devolved into a shouting match. On the 9th and the 10th Trump assailed McConnell via Twitter, angered by a speech in which McConnell said Trump had “excessive expectations” of Congress. Trump’s salvo ran counter to efforts this week by the White House and McConnell’s office to play down reports of discord. A spokesman for McConnell noted the Senate majority leader had said earlier this week, in an appearance with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, that the debt ceiling would be raised.  McConnell was “unequivocal” about it, said spokesman Don Stewart. He said McConnell mentioned it again on Wednesday in a statement the Senate leader issued about his “shared goals” with Trump. Ryan, speaking at a town hall meeting on tax reform at a Boeing plant in Washington state, also said Congress would pass legislation to raise the ceiling in time to ensure debt payment. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders denied there was any need to repair ties between Trump and top Republican lawmakers. “I think the relationships are fine,” she told reporters. “Certainly there are going to be some policy differences, but there are also a lot of shared goals and that’s what we’re focused on.” Raising the debt ceiling is one of the must-pass measures Congress will take up when it returns on Sept. 5. Congress will have about 12 working days from its return to approve spending measures to keep the government open. While the budget and debt cap are separate, they are likely to become entangled, with Republican opponents of a debt ceiling increase expected to demand federal spending cuts. Trump threatened on Tuesday to shut down the government if Congress failed to secure funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. His threat added a new wrinkle to the Republicans’ months-long struggle to reach a budget deal, rattling markets and drawing rebukes from some Republicans. Democrats, solidly opposed to funding the wall, have slammed Trump over his comments. Both the spending and debt ceiling bills could pass the Republican-led House by a simple majority vote, but will need 60 votes to pass the Senate, where Republicans hold 52 of 100 seats, meaning they will need some Democratic support. A respected think tank said in a report on Thursday the  government might not have enough money to pay all its bills on Oct. 2 if Washington does not raise the debt cap. The Treasury  might not have enough money on that day to make a roughly $80 billion payment that will be due to a military retirement fund, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. Moody’s Investors Service said it would consider stripping the United States of its top-notch rating in the event of a default but not over late or skipped payments on non-debt obligations if the government ran short of funds. The warning about a possible U.S. downgrade seemed less dire and narrower in scope than one issued on Wednesday by Fitch Ratings. Trump has often expressed frustration that Congress has not passed significant legislation since he took office in January, particularly its failure to pass a bill to replace Democratic former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law - something that Trump had promised to accomplish. “The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed! That should NEVER have happened!” Trump said in a tweet on Thursday, echoing criticisms he made earlier this month. McConnell offered muted criticism of Trump on Thursday, saying he was “a little concerned about some of the trade rhetoric” by the president, who has repeatedly condemned trade deals he believes are bad for the United States, and by others. “Trade is a winner for America,” McConnell told Kentucky farmers and lawmakers. “The assumption that every free-trade agreement is a loser for America is largely untrue.”

Summary: ट्रम्प ने ऋण सीमा 'गड़बड़' के लिए साथी रिपब्लिकन नेताओं को दोषी ठहराया


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Saudi Arabia s King Salman for talks at the Kremlin on Thursday, cementing a relationship that is pivotal for world oil prices and could decide the outcome of the conflict in Syria. King Salman, the first sitting Saudi monarch ever to visit Russia, led a delegation to Moscow that agreed joint investment deals worth several billion dollars, providing much-needed investment for a Russian economy battered by low oil prices and Western sanctions. Saudi Arabia said it had signed a memorandum of understanding on the purchase from Russia of S-400 air defense systems. That marked a shift for the kingdom, which buys most of its military kit from the United States and Britain. On the political front, there was no sign of any substantial breakthrough on the issues that have long divided Moscow and Riyadh, including the fact that they back rival sides in Syria s war. However, any discord was eclipsed by mutual expressions of respect, and the pomp and ceremony laid on by Russian officials to greet the Saudi king.  On his journey into central Moscow from Vnukovo airport late on Wednesday, King Salman s limousine passed billboards bearing his photograph and messages in Russian and Arabic welcoming him. On Thursday, Putin received the monarch in the gold-decorated St. Andrew Hall, one of the grandest spaces in the Kremlin, attended by soldiers in ceremonial dress and with an orchestra playing their countries  national anthems.  I am sure that your visit will provide a good impulse for the development of relations between our two states,  Putin told King Salman later as they sat alongside each other in the Kremlin s lavishly-decorated Green Parlour. Russia and Saudi Arabia, despite their differences, have been drawn together by a common interest in propping up flagging world oil prices, and by the fact that Moscow, since its military intervention in Syria, has clout in the Middle East that other players in the region cannot ignore.  The Saudi king invited Putin to visit his country - an offer the Russian leader accepted - and said they planned to keep cooperating to keep world oil prices stable. Moscow and Riyadh worked together to secure a deal between OPEC and other oil producers to cut output until the end of March 2018, helping support prices. Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Saudi Arabia was  flexible  regarding Moscow s suggestion to extend the pact until the end of next year. The message of further joint Saudi-Russia action on output helped push up oil prices on Thursday. Brent crude was up more than 2 percent at $57.12 a barrel by 1615 GMT. In Syria, Riyadh supports rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad s army, while Russian and Iranian forces have sided with Assad. This leaves Moscow aligned with Saudi Arabia s arch-rival Iran, whose influence Riyadh fears is growing in the region. Briefing the media after the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov focused on the common ground, saying the two leaders had agreed on the importance of fighting terrorism, finding peaceful solutions to conflicts in the Middle East, and on the principle of territorial integrity. His Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, said new horizons had opened for Russia-Saudi ties that he could not previously have imagined.   Relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia have reached a historical moment,  said Jubeir, speaking through an interpreter.  We are certain that the further strengthening of Russian-Saudi relations will have a positive impact on strengthening stability and security in the region and the world.  A package of investments announced during the visit will go some way to plugging the vacuum left by sluggish Western investment in Russia that is, in part, a result of sanctions imposed after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. Among the deals was an agreement between Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF and Saudi Arabia s Public Investment Fund to invest up to $100 million in transport projects in Russia. The two countries also signed a deal to set up a $1 billion joint investment fund.  Another memorandum of understanding was signed under which Russian petrochemicals firm Sibur would explore cooperation with Saudi Arabia.  RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev said his fund was interested in partnering with Saudi investors to acquire a minority stake in Russian oilfield services firm Eurasia Drilling. Absent from the slew of deals was any agreement on Saudi Aramco taking a stake in an Arctic liquefied natural gas project run by Russia s Novatek. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said earlier this month that Saudi officials were studying joint gas projects with Novatek. However, Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said such a deal was not being discussed at this stage.

Summary: रूस और सऊदी अरब ने राजा की यात्रा के साथ नई दोस्ती को मजबूत किया


MUNICH (Reuters) - U.S. Republican senators plan to introduce legislation to impose further sanctions on Iran, accusing it of violating U.N. Security Council resolutions by testing ballistic missiles and acting to “destabilise” the Middle East, a U.S. senator said Sunday. “I think it is now time for the Congress to take Iran on directly in terms of what they’ve done outside the nuclear program,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Munich Security Conference. Graham said he and other Republicans would introduce measures to hold Iran accountable for its actions.     Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since an  Iranian ballistic missile test that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to impose sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the country’s Revolutionary Guards. “Iran is a bad actor in the greatest sense of the word when it comes to the region. To Iran, I say, if you want us to treat you differently then stop building missiles, test-firing them in defiance of U.N. resolution and writing ‘Death to Israel’ on the missile. That’s a mixed message,” Graham said. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told the conference earlier on Sunday that Iran did not respond well to sanctions or threats. James Jones, a former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and President Barack Obama’s first national security adviser, told a separate event in Munich that he remained convinced that sanctions had persuaded Iran to negotiate the 2015 landmark deal with six world powers to curb its nuclear program. “The sanctions did work. Iran would never have come to the negotiating table without sanctions,” Jones said. “This is a new form of response that if properly utilized can change behavior and get people to do things that they otherwise wouldn’t do.” Senator Christopher Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the same panel there was nothing preventing Congress from imposing sanctions beyond those that were lifted as a result of the 2016 nuclear agreement with Iran. Murphy, a Democrat, said had backed the nuclear deal in the explicit understanding that it would not prevent Congress from taking actions against Iran outside the nuclear issue. “There’s going to be a conversation about what the proportional response is,” Murphy said, referring to Iran’s missile test. “But I don’t necessarily think there’s going to be partisan division over whether or not we have the ability as a Congress to speak on issues outside of the nuclear agreement.” Murphy said the United States needed to decide whether it wanted to take a broader role in the regional conflict. “We have to make a decision whether we are going to get involved in the emerging proxy war in a bigger way than we are today, between Iran and Saudi,” he said.

Summary: सीनेटर्स मिसाइल विकास के लिए ईरान के खिलाफ नए प्रतिबंधों पर विचार कर रहे हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will honor a U.S. agreement with Australia to accept refugees housed on islands off that country’s coast although he is unhappy about the deal, the White House said on Thursday. “The deal that was cut by the last administration is something that he’s extremely, extremely upset with,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said at a news briefing. “He does not like it.” Spicer said that out of respect for Australia and its prime minister, Trump would allow the process to go forward under  conditions set under by the deal that provide for “extreme vetting” of the refugees.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस ने कहा कि ट्रम्प 'बेहद परेशान' हैं लेकिन ऑस्ट्रेलिया शरणार्थी समझौते को स्वीकार करते हैं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new U.S. administration of President Donald Trump said on Friday its trade strategy to protect American jobs would start with withdrawal from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. A White House statement issued soon after Trump’s inauguration said the United States would also “crack down on those nations that violate trade agreements and harm American workers in the process.” The statement said Trump was committed to renegotiating another trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed in 1994 by the United States, Canada and Mexico. “For too long, Americans have been forced to accept trade deals that put the interests of insiders and the Washington elite over the hard-working men and women of this country,” it said. “As a result, blue-collar towns and cities have watched their factories close and good-paying jobs move overseas, while Americans face a mounting trade deficit and a devastated manufacturing base.” The statement said “tough and fair agreements” on trade could be used to grow the U.S. economy and return millions of jobs to America. “This strategy starts by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and making certain that any new trade deals are in the interests of American workers.” If NAFTA partners refused to give American workers a fair deal in a renegotiated agreement, “the President will give notice of the United States’ intent to withdraw from NAFTA,” the statement added. The TPP, which the United States signed but has not ratified, had been the main economic pillar of the Obama administration’s “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region in the face of a fast-rising China. Proponents of the pact have expressed concerns that abandoning the project, which took years to negotiate, could further strengthen China’s economic hand in the region at the expense of the United States. Australia’s position that a change of heart remains possible in the U.S. and that the trade deal can proceed, is unchanged despite the White House statement, Damon Hunt spokesman for the Australian prime minister, told Reuters on Saturday.   Trump has criticized China’s trade practices and threatened to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. The Chinese government said on Thursday that China and the United States could resolve any trade disputes through talks, while a Chinese newspaper warned that U.S. business could be targets for retaliation in any trade war ushered in by Trump. Trump has sparked worries in Japan and the rest of the Asia-Pacific with his opposition to the TPP and his campaign demands for allies to pay more for their security.  (This version of the story was refiled to correct day of China government comment in 13th paragraph)

Summary: ट्रम्प की व्यापार रणनीति एशिया समझौते से बाहर निकलने के साथ शुरू होती हैः व्हाइट हाउस


ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Khyber Pass border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was closed to all traffic on Tuesday for the return of a Pakistani diplomat who was shot dead in Afghanistan by unknown gunmen.  Pakistan summoned the Afghan charge d affaires in Islamabad to protest against the killing of consular official Nayyar Iqbal Rana on Monday near his residence in the eastern city of Jalalabad, Pakistan s foreign office said in a statement. Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been going through a stormy period with tensions over the latest U.S. strategic plan for the region and disputes over the Torkham border crossing, which Pakistan has closed periodically.   We received the body of late Nayyar Iqbal Rana in Torkham today,  a government official in Torkham who asked not to be identified told Reuters.   The Pakistan-Afghanistan border was closed for all types of traffic.  Afghanistan s ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal, condemned the killing in a message on Twitter and said he had conveyed his government s sympathies to the ministry of foreign affairs in Islamabad. The killing comes around a week after the deputy governor of Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan was kidnapped near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, although there was no immediate indication of any connection between the two.

Summary: अफगानिस्तान में गोली लगने से घायल पाकिस्तानी राजनयिक का शव वापस लौटने पर सीमा पार करना बंद कर दिया गया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A meeting in New York on Thursday between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ended, a Trump transition team official said. The hastily arranged meeting was an attempt to smooth relations following Trump’s campaign rhetoric that cast doubt on long-standing U.S. alliances.

Summary: ट्रम्प और जापान के आबे के बीच बैठक समाप्त हो गई हैः ट्रम्प अधिकारी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Party communications director Luis Miranda is expected to leave the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday amid fallout from the party’s email hacking scandal, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Summary: हैकिंग के नतीजों के बीच डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी के संचार निदेशक के डीएनसी छोड़ने की उम्मीद


LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) - Officials for a Kentucky county will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that invalidated its right-to-work law, the county’s lawyer said on Thursday. The ruling came a year after labor organizations sued Hardin County after it passed an ordinance that prohibited unions from mandating its members pay dues in exchange for representation. So-called “right-to-work” laws allow employees at unionized employers to skip joining a union and avoid paying union dues. U.S. District Judge David Hale ruled on Wednesday evening that local regulation of union agreements is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. Hale’s order means that only states can implement such legislation. Democrats, who hold a majority in the state House of Representatives, have blocked repeated bills aiming to make Kentucky the 26th right-to-work state. “These illegal ordinances would have affected all working people, union and non-union, by decreasing wages, lowering median household incomes, increasing poverty and undermining workplace safety,” said Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan. Beginning in late 2014, several Kentucky counties began passing their own laws after advocates claimed Kentucky law granted counties the same abilities as the state. Proponents of right-to-work laws say they can be a tool to attract new businesses. The ruling affects only Hardin County in north-central Kentucky, one of 12 to have passed a right-to-work law. Four others have passed a first reading. Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute, said about 80 of Kentucky’s 120 counties had considered passing a right-to-work law but were waiting for Hale’s decision. John Lovett, a lawyer representing Hardin County, said the case pits the interests of local communities against the nation’s most powerful labor unions. “Few issues are more ‘local’ than what a working person is free to do with his or her own money,” Lovett said.

Summary: केंटकी काउंटी संघीय फैसले के खिलाफ अपील करेगा जो काम करने के अधिकार कानून पर हमला करेगा


THE HAGUE (Reuters) - After blocking U.N. Security Council action against Syria, Russia has proposed changing the rules for inspectors at the world s chemical weapons body in The Hague, a move Western diplomats and experts said would undermine its work. It is the latest confrontation between Russia, a close ally and military backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the West over an international inquiry established to determine who is behind ongoing chemical attacks in Syria s civil war. It came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Assad late on Monday for talks aimed at ending a conflict that has now raged for nearly seven years. [L8N1NR3VO] At the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a draft Russian-Iranian decision circulated among the 41 members of the body s executive council, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, sought to overturn procedures on how  OPCW inspectors work and how their findings are shared. The proposal was to be discussed by the OPCW s decision-making executive council, which was meeting on Tuesday, but had little chance of obtaining sufficient support to pass. Russia s ambassador to the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin, said in an interview that Moscow remained committed to the OPCW and efforts to prosecute perpetrators of attacks. But Russia is  not convinced by some of the findings implicating the Syrian government,  he said, defending the effort to change the mandate. He also questioned the decision not to send OPCW inspectors to Khan Sheikhoun, where nearly 100 people were killed with sarin on April 4,  based on the pretext of the security conditions . The head of the OPCW said at the time the team was not deployed to Khan Sheikhoun due to genuine security risks   they were ambushed and shot at during investigations in 2013 and 2014. The team confirmed sarin poisoning by testing the blood of victims across the border in Turkey. The Russian draft says the OPCW should withhold  findings that are not based on the results of on-site investigations , but experts said this was an attempt to scupper the investigations.  (Russia s) supreme goal is to compromise the ability of the (OPCW) fact-finding mission to do its job professionally and without political interference,  said Gregory Koblentz, a non-proliferation expert at George Mason University, in the U.S. state of Virginia.  This draft resolution has to be seen as part of a Russian strategy to undermine all international investigations into the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government,  he said. Last Friday, Moscow blocked a proposal to extend the mandate of a joint investigation by the United Nations and the OPCW, saying it was seriously flawed. Under a 2013 U.S.-Russian deal, Assad agreed to hand over his toxic stockpile following a sarin attack in a Damascus suburb. Dozens of countries helped to remove and destroy the lethal chemicals, but attacks have continued. Investigators have already concluded that Syrian government forces were behind later attacks with nerve-agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs, while Islamic State militants had used sulfur mustard gas. Syria denied using chemical weapons. Sweden and Uruguay are pushing for the U.N. Security Council to revive an international inquiry, but without the support of Russia, which holds a veto, there can be no further U.N.-backed inquiries.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र के वीटो के बाद रूस ने रासायनिक हथियारों पर नजर रखने वाले संगठन के खिलाफ कदम उठाया


(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump backs a decision by his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to seek immunity in congressional investigations of possible ties between his campaign and Russia, but there is no immediate sign the request will be granted.  The Trump administration slams China on a range of trade issues from its chronic industrial overcapacity to forced technology transfers and longstanding bans on U.S. beef and electronic payment services. Beijing seeks to play down tensions with the United States and put on a positive face ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with Trump next week. Senate Democrats step closer to having enough votes to block a confirmation vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee with three more Democratic senators coming out against Neil Gorsuch for the lifetime job as a justice. Trump seeks to push his plan for fair trade and more manufacturing jobs back to the top of his agenda by ordering a study into the causes of U.S. trade deficits and a clampdown on import duty evasion. Trump has neither a clear White House tax plan nor adequate staff yet to see through a planned tax overhaul, according to interviews with people in the administration, in Congress and among U.S. tax experts. Democrats are trying to counter Trump’s boldest move yet to defang the U.S. consumer financial watchdog, with 40 current and former lawmakers defending the agency in court. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific integrity watchdog is reviewing whether EPA chief Scott Pruitt violated the agency’s policies when he said in a television interview he does not believe carbon dioxide is driving global climate change, according to an email seen by Reuters. Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a meeting on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official says. Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House next week to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants, the Syria crisis and advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House says. A U.S. judge approves a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars.

Summary: हाइलाइट्सः 31 मार्च को शाम 6.19 बजे ईडीटी पर ट्रम्प प्रेसीडेंसी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on Tuesday released her personal financial disclosure form, covering Jan. 1, 2015, to the present, with a call to Republican Donald Trump to make available his income tax returns.    “The true test for Donald Trump is whether he will adhere to the precedent followed by every presidential candidate in the modern era and make his tax returns available, as Hillary Clinton has done,” spokeswoman Christina Reynolds said in a statement. Clinton’s own disclosure form showed more than $5 million in royalties from her memoir “Hard Choices.” Trump earlier in the day announced that he had filed his personal financial disclosure to the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

Summary: क्लिंटन ने व्यक्तिगत वित्तीय खुलासा जारी किया, ट्रम्प से आयकर जारी करने का आह्वान किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday said Republican senators are making “good progress” on their efforts to come to agreement on retooled draft legislation aimed at repealing and replacing the 2010 Affordable Care Act.        U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan separately on Thursday told reporters at a news conference that he expects his chamber to move quickly once the Senate passes its version of healthcare legislation.

Summary: सीनेट के बहुमत के नेता ने स्वास्थ्य सेवा वार्ता पर 'अच्छी प्रगति' का हवाला दिया


LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May raised concerns about illegal settlements on Thursday at a meeting with her Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in London, May s office said.  They discussed the need to overcome obstacles to peace, with the prime minister noting our grave concerns about illegal settlements,  a spokesman from May s office said in a statement.   The prime ministers also discussed the fact settlements are not the only obstacle and that the people of Israel deserve to live free from the scourge of terrorism and anti-Semitic incitement.

Summary: ब्रिटेन ने इजरायल के नेतन्याहू के साथ अवैध बस्तियों के बारे में 'गंभीर चिंता' जताईः मे का कार्यालय


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday seized on the deadly New York City truck attack to step up demands for stricter U.S. immigration laws, asking Congress to end a visa program that let the Uzbek suspect into the country and saying he might send him to Guantanamo Bay. In a day of harsh recriminations over Tuesday’s attack that killed eight people in America’s largest city, Trump appeared to assign some blame for an incident that authorities have labeled as terrorism to top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, who accused Trump of politicizing a national tragedy.  Trump said he would consider sending the suspect, identified by authorities as Sayfullo Saipov, to the military prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama tried but failed to shut. No detainee has been sent to the Guantanamo prison since 2008. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders later told reporters that Trump considers Saipov an “enemy combatant,” a designation that would curtail his legal rights. Trump called the suspect “this animal” and lambasted the U.S. justice system for terrorism suspects as “a joke” and “a laughingstock.” Since taking office in January, Trump has sought to increase deportations of illegal immigrations and limit legal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security said Saipov entered the United States in 2010 through the so-called diversity visa program, designed to provide a path to U.S. residency for citizens from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. Authorities said Saipov drove a rented truck along a bike path in lower Manhattan, mowing down cyclists and pedestrians. Police shot and wounded Saipov before arresting him. Trump reprised what has been his stance as a White House candidate and as president - that tougher immigration laws should be a first line of defense against such attacks. “I’m going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program,” Trump told reporters at the White House.  “We have to get much tougher,” he said. “We have to get much smarter. And we have to get much less politically correct. We’re so politically correct that we’re afraid to do anything.” Schumer helped create the diversity visa program in 1990 when he in the House of Representatives, but he was also part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who crafted an immigration bill in 2013 that would have done away with the program. That bill was passed by the Senate but killed by the Republican-led House. The program, via a lottery, selects up to 50,000 people per year who receive U.S. visas, and eventually permanent residence in the United States. Those selected undergo U.S. security checks before being allowed to immigrate. “The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based,” Trump wrote on Twitter. Sanders said later that Trump does not blame Schumer for the attack and would “love” to work with the senator on tougher immigration laws. Trump on Wednesday also renewed his call for a “merit-based” visa system - which would favor the highly skilled - and for ending “chain migration,” which allows legal immigrants to apply for relatives abroad to come to the United States. Trump said there were “23 people that came in or potentially came in” with Saipov. Asked if legislation to end the visa program would be taken up, No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn told reporters that Congress must first pass legislation to protect illegal immigrants brought into the country as children, “and then the next thing we need to do is turn to our legal immigration system and see how we can change it.” Trump accused congressional Democrats of blocking immigration legislation that would make the nation safer. “We have a lot of good bills in there. We’re being stopped by Democrats because they’re obstructionists. And honestly, they don’t want to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said. Both the Senate and the House are controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham criticized the Trump administration for not declaring Saipov, who remained hospitalized after being shot in the abdomen by a police officer on Tuesday, as an “enemy combatant.” “It’s ridiculous to believe that one day of interviews in a hospital tells us all we need to know about Saipov’s terrorist ties,” Graham said in a statement. The complaint filed against Saipov said he had waived his rights and agreed to speak to investigators without an attorney present. As a presidential candidate, Trump called for a total ban on Muslims entering the country as a counter-terrorism measure. Courts have blocked his latest executive action barring entry into the United States by people from several Muslim-majority countries. Sanders said the White House has not ruled out adding Uzbekistan to the list of countries named in the travel ban. In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said that “instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, (Trump) should be bringing us together and focusing on the real solution, anti-terrorism funding, which he proposed to cut in his most recent budget.”

Summary: एन. वाई. हमले के बाद ट्रम्प ने वीजा कार्यक्रम को समाप्त करने का आह्वान किया, डेमोक्रेट को फटकार लगाई


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. foreign service has seen its top ranks shrink under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, according to a letter written by the head of the union representing U.S. diplomats and seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The number of career ambassadors, the foreign service’s highest personal rank granted to only a handful of U.S. diplomats, has dropped by 60 percent, according to the letter by American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) President Barbara Stephenson. The number of career ambassadors declined to two from five with this year’s retirement of William Brownfield, Kristie Kenney and Victoria Nuland, who held top State Department jobs. The next rung down, with the rank of “career minister,’ has shrunk to 19 from 33, the letter said, and the one beneath, of “minister-counselor,” has dropped to 369 from 431 in early September and continues to decline. “These numbers are hard to square with the stated agenda of making State and the Foreign Service stronger. Were the U.S. military to face such a decapitation of its leadership ranks, I would expect a public outcry,” Stephenson said in the letter to members of the union. Since taking office on Feb. 1, Tillerson has embraced the White House’s proposal - rejected by key members of Congress - to cut the State Department budget by about 30 percent and imposed a hiring freeze while analyzing the agency’s operations and deciding how to reorganize them. The State Department did not dispute the numbers cited in the letter, but an agency spokesman who declined to be identified said that “suggestions that drastic cuts to our foreign service ranks are taking place are simply not accurate.” The spokesman said the 60 percent reduction in the number of career ambassadors was misleading because there were only five at the start of the year and that Tillerson “plans to nominate individuals for this role in the near future.” The spokesman did not provide apples-to-apples comparisons on the number of diplomats with the rank of career minister and minister-counselor, but did give figures for a broader set of senior U.S. diplomats. “As of October 31, 2017, the Senior Foreign Service is comprised of 976 diplomats, with 63 waiting for Congress to attest their promotion into the senior ranks,” he said. “Once these promotions are attested, there will be 1,039 Senior Foreign Service Officers, a number nearly identical to the 1,058 Senior Foreign Service Officers at the same point in 2016.” According to Stephenson’s letter, the U.S. diplomatic corps is also shrinking at the bottom rung. The letter said “intake into the Foreign Service at State will drop from 366 in 2016 to around 100 new entry-level officers joining ... in 2018.” The number of people applying to take the competitive exam to enter the U.S. Foreign Service is projected to be cut by more than half this year from over 17,000 people in 2015, she said. An AFSA spokesman said that figure was for calendar 2015. The State Department spokesman said 9,519 took the exam in fiscal 2017, which ended on Sept. 30, down from 11,886 in fiscal 2016 and 14,480 in fiscal 2015. “This trend corresponds with an improving economy and similar trends have been observed in the past,” he said. In her letter, Stephenson noted congressional support for State Department funding and argued that Tillerson was weakening the U.S. foreign service. “Given this clear congressional intent, we have to ask: Why such a focus on slashing staffing at State? Why such a focus on decapitating leadership? How do these actions serve the stated agenda of making the State Department stronger?” she wrote. “Where then, does the impetus come from to weaken the American Foreign Service?  Where is the mandate to pull the Foreign Service team from the field and forfeit the game to our adversaries?” she added. While not directly addressing those questions, the State Department spokesman said: “The goal of the redesign has always been to find new ways to best leverage our team’s brains, ingenuity, and commitment to serving our nation’s interests.”

Summary: टिलरसन के कार्यकाल में शीर्ष अमेरिकी राजनयिकों की संख्या कमः यूनियन


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel wants to name a train station after Donald Trump to thank him for recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, but the site of the planned building could be as divisive as the U.S. president s declaration. Transport Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday he had chosen a proposed subway stop near the Western Wall in Jerusalem s Old City - right in the middle of the area that the Palestinians want as their own future capital.  I have decided to name the Western Wall station ... after U.S. President Donald Trump for his courageous and historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people and the State of Israel,  Katz said in a statement. The envisaged underground extension of a high-speed rail link between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is still on the drawing board and a transport ministry spokeswoman said other departments still needed to approve it. The announcement was quickly condemned by Palestinian leaders already angered by Trump s Dec. 6 decision to overturn decades of U.S. policy on the city.  The Israeli extremist government is trying to race against time to impose facts on the ground in the city of Jerusalem,  Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization s Executive Committee, told Reuters. Trump has said he was simply acknowledged the reality on the ground by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel s capital - but the Palestinians and most world powers have said he undermined the long-held position that Jerusalem s status must be settled by future negotiations. A ministry spokeswoman said the proposed station and underground extension still required the approval of various governmental planning committees, and gave no date for when a final go-ahead might be given. She said she did not know where funds for the estimated $700-million rail add-on would come from. Israel considers all of Jerusalem its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem - among whose shrines is Islam s third-holiest mosque, Al-Aqsa - as the capital of a state they seek in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Summary: इजरायल पश्चिमी दीवार के पास 'ट्रम्प स्टेशन' बनाना चाहता है


LONDON (Reuters) - Britain s parliament backed a second reading of legislation to sever ties with the European Union early on Tuesday, a reprieve for Prime Minister Theresa May who now faces demands by lawmakers for concessions before it becomes law. After more than 13 hours of speeches for and against the legislation, which May says is essential for Brexit but critics describe as a Conservative government power grab, lawmakers voted 326 to 290 in favor of moving the EU withdrawal bill, or repeal bill, to the next stage of a lengthy lawmaking process. Many fell in step with the government which said a vote against the legislation would force Britain into a chaotic exit from the EU, rather than a smooth departure, as the country would lack laws and a regulatory framework to steer the process. May, weakened by the loss of her majority in a June election, now faces a battle against politicians who want to force amendments to the bill, first in the lower house of parliament and then in Britain s unelected upper chamber.  Earlier this morning parliament took a historic decision to back the will of the British people and vote for a bill which gives certainty and clarity ahead of our withdrawal from the European Union,  May said in a statement.  Although there is more to do, this decision means we can move on with negotiations with solid foundations and we continue to encourage MPs (lawmakers) from all parts of the UK to work together in support of this vital piece of legislation.  Her justice minister urged lawmakers to back the bill and signaled that the government would listen to the concerns of lawmakers despite describing some of their criticism as being  exaggerated up to and beyond the point of hyperbole .  The bill seeks largely to  copy and paste  EU law into British legislation to ensure Britain has functioning laws and the same regulatory framework as the bloc at the moment of Brexit, to offer some reassurance for companies. But the often impassioned debate in the 650-seat parliament underlined the rifts exposed by last year s EU referendum, not only in Britain s main parties, but also in the country. The opposition Labour Party had called on its lawmakers to vote against the bill if the government failed to make concessions. But seven rebelled, with some saying they had to respect the demands of their pro-Brexit voters.  This is a deeply disappointing result,  said Labour s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer.  This bill is an affront to parliamentary democracy and a naked power grab by government ministers ... It will make the Brexit process more uncertain, and lead to division and chaos when we need unity and clarity.  The government has defended the bill by saying it will allow Britain to become  masters of our own laws , but it also gives ministers wide-ranging powers to amend laws to make them work domestically, often by interchanging the word  EU  for Britain. But lawmakers, both in Labour and May s governing Conservative Party, expressed fears the government would make substantial changes to legislation without consulting parliament - a charge the government has denied. Despite the victory for a government now dependent on the support of Northern Ireland s Democratic Unionist Party to secure a working majority, ministers will face attempts by both Conservative and Labour lawmakers to change the bill. Some want assurances that the government will not misuse its power, others want to make sure the protections of certain workers rights are also written into the bill before allowing it to move to the unelected upper house of parliament. The process is expected to take months to complete and both houses should agree the final wording before it can be passed.  Labour will seek to amend and remove the worst aspects from the bill as it passes through parliament,  Starmer said.  But the flaws are so fundamental it s hard to see how this bill could ever be made fit for purpose.

Summary: ब्रेक्सिट कानून ने ब्रिटिश पीएम मे को राहत देने में बाधा डाली