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PALM BEACH, FLORIDA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump gave a bullish Thanksgiving address to troops overseas on Thursday, hailing progress in Afghanistan and against ISIS, and telling them they were fighting for “something real,” including a stock market at record highs and his promised “big, beautiful fat tax cuts.” Speaking in a live video teleconference from Palm Beach, Florida, with military personnel serving in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, Trump told them they were “very, very special people.” He called troops in Afghanistan “brave, incredible fighters” who had “turned it around” in the past three to four months. “We opened it up; we said go ahead, we’re going to fight to win,” he said. “We’re not fighting any more to just walk around, we are fighting to win.” Trump said the Marines were inflicting “defeat after defeat” on Islamic State, and again credited his change of approach compared to that of the Obama administration. “They weren’t letting you win before; they were letting you break even. ... They weren’t letting you win,” he said. Trump told the troops they could look forward at home to the benefits of “big, beautiful fat tax cuts,” a stock market at record highs, jobs and economic growth. “We’re doing well at home, the economy is doing great,” Trump said. “You’re fighting for something real, you’re fighting for something good.” Trump took one of his trademark swipes at the news media as he spoke from a lavishly decorated room at his Mar-a-Lago resort, telling the military personnel he was addressing that journalists were in the room, and adding: “Better me than you; believe me fellas, better me than you.” Later, Trump and his wife, Melania, handed out sandwiches and shook hands at a Coast Guard station in nearby Riviera Beach and told personnel his administration was building up wealth so it could protect the country through military acquisitions. Talking about his plans for boosting military spending, he said contractors saved the best equipment for U.S. troops. “When we sell to other countries - you never know about an ally - an ally can turn,” he said. Trump said he had told the troops overseas the country was “doing great,” thanks to his cuts in “regulation and all the waste and all the abuse.” “I told them ... you folks are fighting so hard and working so hard, and it’s nice that you’re working for something that’s really starting to work.” While optimism about a major tax overhaul has helped push the U.S. stock market up for most of this year, Trump is still seeking his first major legislative win after almost a year in office. According to a majority of economists in a recent Reuters poll, U.S. Republicans are not expected to push the tax cuts through Congress this year. Economists are also skeptical that the legislation would provide a significant boost to the economy.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday that Syrian Christians will be given priority when it comes to applying for refugee status in the United States. “If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. Pew Research Center said last October 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the United States in fiscal year 2016 from all countries - almost the same number of Christian refugees, 37,521. Trump was expected to sign an executive order on Friday that would temporarily halt refugees from some Muslim-majority nations, a White House official said.

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said in remarks broadcast on Sunday that he would put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of a commission to probe what he believes was voter fraud in last November’s election. There is an overwhelming consensus among state officials, election experts, and politicians that voter fraud is rare in the United States, but Trump has repeatedly said he thinks perhaps millions of votes cast in the Nov. 8 election were fraudulent. “I’m going to set up a commission to be headed by Vice President Pence and we’re going to look at it very, very carefully,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly in an interview taped on Friday. Trump, who was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, captured the presidency by winning enough of the state-by-state Electoral College votes to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Still, Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, piling up an overwhelming majority in deeply Democratic states like California. This has irked Trump and as a result he has claimed voter fraud without evidence. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that election fraud does occur but that “there is no evidence that it occurred in such a significant number that would have changed the presidential election.” “And I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that. I think the states can take a look at this issue,” he said.

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NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga called for calm on Sunday as he visited a slum in the capital that was hit by violence when a political stand-off over a repeat presidential election fed into rising ethnic tensions. Clashes in Kawangware and in a village in western Kenya following Thursday s vote were the first signs that face-offs between Odinga supporters and the police might eventually morph into neighbors turning against each other. A country cannot be ruled by the gun. Standing here in this church we want to condemn the militarization of politics in this country, Odinga told residents in the Nairobi slum. The veteran opposition leader had boycotted the re-run of an August presidential election that was nullified by Kenya s Supreme Court on procedural grounds, leaving President Uhuru Kenyatta with an almost free run against six minor candidates. On Friday, a day after the repeat vote was held in most of the country, ethnic violence in Kawangware saw dozens of homes and shops torched and one man killed. Most of buildings torched belonged to residents from the Kenyatta s Kikuyu tribe. One man from Odinga s Luo group was killed overnight near Koguta village in the west of the country, after residents from two ethnic groups backing different candidates armed themselves. If such isolated incidents become a trend, it could ignite large swathes of Kenya, as happened after a 2007 presidential election when weeks of violence left 1,200 dead. That sent ripples throughout East Africa, which relies on Kenya as a trade and diplomatic hub. In his speech, Odinga condemned violence generally and did not single out any particular attack. We have come here to give consolation to those who were beaten and killed. We as NASA condemn what happened, he told worshippers at a church in Kawangware, referring to his National Super Alliance, an opposition coalition. Odinga boycotted Thursday s vote because he said the contest would not be fair. Instead, he wanted the Oct. 26 contest dismissed and fresh elections held within 90 days. His withdrawal means Kenyans are watching the turnout, rather than the result, for an indication of Kenyatta s popularity for a second, five-year term. Results published on Sunday by the election commission showed that Kenyatta had won slightly more than 98 percent of the vote with results in from 244 out of 291 constituencies. Turnout for the constituencies counted so far was 43 percent. That figure is likely to decrease when it includes returns of 0 from least 23 constituencies where authorities were unable to open even a single polling station because of protests by Odinga s supporters. The election board planned to try to hold elections there on Saturday, but postponed the plan amid fears of further violence.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Large U.S. companies and their executives helped President Donald Trump raise a record-setting $106.7 million for inauguration festivities in January, according to a U.S. government filing released on Wednesday. That tally more than doubled the prior 2009 record of $53.2 million for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, which had topped the previous 2005 record of $42.3 million for President George W. Bush, government records showed. The biggest donor by far to Trump’s inauguration was Sheldon Adelson, casino magnate and founder of Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS.N). He gave $5 million, according to the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee’s filing with the Federal Election Commission. Adelson declined comment. Many of the companies that donated to Trump, a Republican, have significant matters pending before the U.S. government or have been invited to White House events. Many of the companies which made donations to the 2017 event also donated to Obama’s prior inauguration. For example, aerospace and defense groups Boeing Co (BA.N) and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, the filing said. Boeing had donated $1 million to the 2013 Obama inauguration, according to the OpenSecrets website run by the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog. Money donated to the Trump inaugural committee falls into two categories, said Larry Sabato, political analyst at the University of Virginia. “It’s either make-up money or it’s a continuation of support by people who are invested in Trump. You don’t give this kind of money to get a few tickets to inaugural balls,” he said. Trump publicly criticized both Boeing and Lockheed Martin before his inauguration. In Twitter messages he said costs on Boeing’s new Air Force One plane were “out of control” and urged the federal government to “Cancel order!” Trump in December sent a Twitter message saying the cost of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet was also “out of control.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Wednesday that inaugurations have “pretty much been a nonpartisan activity ... This is a time-honored tradition, and I think a lot of Americans and companies and entities are proud to support the inaugural.” Financial services companies and executives were among the $1-million donors to Trump’s big festivities, including Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW.N), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), financier Henry Kravis and Cantor Fitzgerald Chairman Howard Lutnick. Their industry is eager for Trump to roll back regulatory reforms put in place after the 2008 financial crisis. Coal and oil companies were also prominent donors. Clifford Forrest, owner of the Rosebud Mining Co, gave $1 million. AT&T (T.N) gave nearly $2.1 million in cash and services. It is seeking approval from the Trump administration to acquire Time Warner Inc (TWX.N). AT&T donated $4.6 million to the 2013 Obama inauguration, according to OpenSecrets. “For many years, AT&T has contributed to our nation’s presidential inaugural celebrations,” said AT&T spokesman Mike Balmoris. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Kravis declined comment. Bank of America, Charles Schwab, Forrest and Lutnick did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s tax reform plan came under new criticism on Tuesday from two towering Wall Street figures, including billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who called into question a Republican drive to slash the U.S. corporate rate. With the White House and top Republicans in Congress already on the defensive over claims the plan would not cut taxes for many middle-class Americans, Buffett and BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) Chief Executive Larry Fink suggested in separate interviews that the corporate rate may not have to be cut as deeply as proposed. “We have a lot of businesses... I don’t think any of them are non-competitive in the world because of the corporate tax rate,” Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), told CNBC. Fink said a corporate rate as high as 27 percent could satisfy U.S. businesses’ need for tax relief, while avoiding an increase in the federal deficit. “What is being proposed is a pretty large expansion of our deficits,” Fink told Bloomberg TV. The Republican tax plan unveiled last month calls for slashing the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from the current level of 35 percent, which many multinationals already avoid paying by taking advantage of abundant tax loopholes. The plan contains up to $6 trillion in tax cuts, according to independent analysts, which Trump and top Republicans say they would offset by eliminating loopholes, deductions and tax breaks and boosting annual economic growth. Hungry for legislative victory after repeated failures in their push to overturn Obamacare, many Republicans are now willing to accept a tax plan that raises the federal deficit, a fact that bothers some deficit hawks. “I feel like in some ways, since Election Day, we’ve moved into a party atmosphere. And that concerns me,” said Republican Senator Bob Corker, who has vowed not to vote for a tax bill that increases the deficit. Republicans also insist that cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent will help workers by increasing jobs and raising salaries, though this claim is disputed by Democrats. Senator Ron Wyden, the top Senate Democrat on tax policy, accused the Trump administration on Tuesday of removing a research paper from the U.S. Treasury’s website that showed workers would benefit only marginally from a corporate rate cut. “Apparently that mainstream economic analysis had to be purged because it basically didn’t jibe with the Trump team’s patter,” Wyden said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing. A Treasury spokeswoman said the document was a dated analysis from the Obama administration that “does not represent our current thinking and analysis.” An analyst who testified at the Senate hearing said only about 20 percent of the benefits of a corporate tax cut would directly help workers. Buffett and Fink also criticized other Republican tax initiatives. Buffett said a proposal to repeal the estate tax would be “a terrible mistake” that would benefit the wealthiest Americans unnecessarily. Fink predicted tax legislation would not pass if it includes a proposal to eliminate a popular deduction for state and local tax payments. “I don’t believe we’re going to get tax reform if there is the elimination of deductibility of state and local taxes,” he said. Eliminating the state and local tax deduction would raise about one-quarter of the $4 trillion in revenues that some Republicans say they need to prevent tax cuts from creating a massive increase in the federal budget deficit. But eliminating that deduction is already opposed by Republican lawmakers from high-tax states such as New York and California, who say it helps their state governments pay for social programs, including public education. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady discussed the state and local tax deduction at dinner on Monday evening with about a dozen other House Republicans, including some New York lawmakers. At least one came away predicting there would be a compromise. “We kicked around six or eight or 10 different types of options,” Republican Representative Chris Collins, a staunch Trump ally from New York, told reporters.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - By U.S. President Donald Trump’s math, renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and other deals will largely pay for the massive tax cuts his cabinet laid out earlier in the week. He is likely off by a factor of close to 10 - or more - according to trade and tax economists who say it does not make sense to think of the world in the two-dimensional, money-in-my-pocket or money-in-yours way that Trump did in a Thursday interview with Reuters. The president, for example, said that given the current $61 billion annual trade deficit with Mexico, the United States would be better off if the two countries did not trade at all, saying “You’ll save yourself a hell of a lot of money.” The former real estate developer’s economic assessment appeared to overlook the ways in which a total halt to trade between the two neighbors would ripple through both nations - changing prices, currency values, jobs and wages, arguably helping some industries but damaging others. The net impact of Trump’s calculations, which run counter to most widely accepted views of the benefits of trade, are hard to predict, said Claude Barfield, a trade expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “These views about the trade deficit and its alleged negative impact...are nonsense, and are views he has held since the 1980s,” said Barfield. “It could happen,” he said of a hypothetical severing of ties between the United States and Mexico, “but the things you would do to make it happen would be hugely disruptive. You’d have to think what are the first- and second-order effects,” as industries reorganize and consumers adapt. In the case of Mexico, the American companies that exported a quarter of a trillion dollars of goods and services to that country last year would be out a customer, and likely cut jobs. Those American companies that tried to replace the $323 billion in Mexican imports would likely do so at a higher cost — assuming they are in the United States to begin with. There is no guarantee that if Trump were to seal the border with Mexico that it would “save” the United States any money, said Marcus Noland, a trade economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. It may simply reduce consumption through higher prices charged by domestic suppliers, or lead to increased imports from a different country. “Americans seem to really like guacamole,” Noland said, “but the idea that we are going to have giant greenhouses and lots of avocados and limes - the fact that we are purchasing them from the Mexicans rather than producing them at home tells you producing them at home is more expensive. We can stop trading with the Mexicans, and have $60 billion less in consumption.” Since consumption accounts for a large part of the U.S. economy, that is not an outcome Trump would want, though it would be one way, economists note, to achieve the trade balance the president and his advisers regard as important. Trump told Reuters: “There is no such thing as a trade war when you have a deficit.” Most economists disagree with the notion that the trade deficit matters much to a country as large and self-sufficient as the United States. Trade at that scale in particular is shaped by global savings and investment patterns that in recent years have favored the United States. By the statistics most widely accepted among economists, the U.S. position with the rest of the world has been steadily improving as investment flows into the country from abroad and supports millions of jobs. The current account deficit – which includes trade flows, investment, and other financial transfers across borders – has been shrinking for more than a decade and is now less than 2 percent of gross domestic product. As far as the impact of trade on the federal deficit - a separate concept reflecting how much the government spends and how much it collects from businesses and households - Trump said that he was not worried that his plan to cut taxes will result in a sea of red ink “because we will do trade deals that are going to make up for a tremendous amount of the deficits.” Economists, however, say any connection is circuitous, felt through channels like an increase in tax payments from new job holders or stronger corporate profits — but hard to estimate and likely small. Even if Trump achieved his wildest success, and eliminated the United States’ $500 billion trade deficit solely through increased exports that boosted gross domestic product on a dollar-for-dollar basis, it would do little to dent the estimated $7 trillion in government deficits his tax plan is projected to generate over the next decade. Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation, said that every dollar of gross domestic product generates about 17.6 cents in federal government revenue, meaning the $500 billion trade shortfall would translate into just $88 billion in new taxes. Even that, he said, is wildly generous. “You have to say where is the new production coming from, which people, which places?” Cole said. “Will it be new factories being built, and if so why haven’t they been built already?”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday they had reached an agreement that would allow them to see memos written by former FBI Director James Comey about his meetings with President Donald Trump. Comey’s relationship with Trump has been central to ongoing investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Moscow. Lawmakers have raised questions about whether Trump fired Comey on May 9 in order to interfere with the Russia probe. Russia has denied such assertions. Trump, a Republican, has dismissed them as sour grapes voiced by Democrats disappointed by his victory and called them a “witch hunt.” “We have a commitment to get appropriate access to the Comey memos,” Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat, told reporters at the Senate. “I’m pleased. I think it’s critical information that we have to have as part of our review process.” He said he expected to have the memos “soon.” Warner declined to say much about the progress of the investigation or provide a timeline for when it might be concluded. “I would have thought we would have been further along, but I would never have expected the administration to fire Jim Comey. You can’t make this stuff up,” he said. When asked, he said he expected that Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, would appear before the committee as promised despite having recently hired a lawyer. Politico first reported that Richard Burr, the committee’s Republican chairman, said the panel would be obtaining memos Comey wrote documenting his conversations with Trump. Comey testified to the intelligence committee this month that he decided to keep detailed records because he felt so uncomfortable after meetings with the president that he feared Trump might lie about them. The Russia investigations, by Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees, have dogged the first months of Trump’s presidency and distracted from his policy goals such as repealing President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Trump has also faced criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats over his administration’s failure to do more to investigate charges that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election and concerns that it might do so again. “Russia’s our most dangerous adversary in the world today, and if he continues to refuse to act, it’s a dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country,” Nicholas Burns, an undersecretary of state under Republican President George W. Bush, testified to the Senate panel on Wednesday. At a hearing last week that focused on the U.S. election, a Homeland Security official testified that Russian hackers targeted 21 U.S. state election systems in the 2016 presidential race and that a small number were breached. Warner said the panel had asked officials in 21 states to release information about the hacking. “I do not see how Americans are made safer when they do not know which state elections systems Russia tried to hack,” he said. The probes have at times come up against Republican concerns about leaks of classified information and unproven assertions by Trump and others that Obama’s administration improperly spied on Trump associates. On Wednesday, Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham asked the FBI and Justice Department for copies of applications to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for permission to conduct surveillance related to the election, including any related to the FBI’s ongoing Russia investigation.

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LIMA (Reuters) - Peru s opposition-controlled Congress ousted center-right President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski s cabinet in a vote of no-confidence early on Friday, pitching the copper-producing Andean country into its worst political crisis in years. In a gamble that will likely force him to scrap his plans to travel abroad later in the day, Kuczynski had dared Congress on Wednesday to revoke its confidence in his cabinet if it insisted on forcing out his second education minister. Under Peru s constitution, if Congress does not deliver a president a vote of confidence for his cabinets twice, the president can summon new legislative elections. But the rightwing populist opposition party Popular Force, led by Kuczynski s defeated electoral rival, Keiko Fujimori, answered Prime Minister Fernando Zavala s request on Thursday to back his cabinet with a resounding no. Peru s single-chamber Congress, where Popular Force has an absolute majority, voted 77-22 to dismiss Zavala s cabinet. Kuczynski now has 72 hours to swear in a new cabinet. While he cannot name Zavala as prime minister again, Kuczynski can reappoint other ministers in his cabinet. Going forward, Kuczynski might have a freer hand to govern in the remaining four years of his term if the opposition steers clear of a fresh confrontation out of fear of losing its majority. But several opposition lawmakers said they would welcome taking the battle to the ballot box. If they close Congress, we re not afraid, said Hector Becerril, a hard-line Popular Force lawmaker. We re willing to seek the people s support again. And it won t be 13 seats we win, or 73. There ll be 100 of us! The vote came on the eve of Kuczynski s 8-day trip abroad, which includes plans for dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican. Kuczynski, a 78-year-old former Wall Street banker who has vowed to modernize Peru and revive economic growth, took office a year ago with one of the weakest mandates of any president, having beat Fujimori by a razor-thin margin while his party only secured a small portion of seats in Congress. In a plenary debate that stretched on for more than seven hours, opposition lawmakers portrayed Kuczynski as an out-of-touch lobbyist who lacks authority and poses a danger to Peru. Congress has forced Kuczynski s former education and finance ministers to resign amid allegations of ethical breaches, while a third minister quit to avoid being censured. Popular Force announced this week that it planned to propose censuring Education Minister Marilu Martens over her handling of a teachers 2-month strike, which her supporters alleged was fueled by an alliance between Popular Force and extremists. We can t deliver the head of a minister as a trophy, Zavala told lawmakers after walking to Congress with the rest of the cabinet in a show of union. It s clear to us that the country can t make progress like this.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Thousands of Somalis prayed in Mogadishu on Friday at a symbolic funeral for more than 300 people killed by the country s deadliest truck bombing. The truck detonated next to a fuel tanker on Saturday, creating a huge fireball that incinerated multi-story buildings. Around half the dead were burned beyond recognition, said authorities. The government conducted mass burials soon after the blast, in keeping with the Muslim practice of interring the dead as quickly as possible. Religious leader Abdi Hayi said mourners had decided to conduct a symbolic funeral six days on, as it had not been possible to give so many of the victims a proper send-off with prayers at a mosque. Since we have not seen many bodies we came to conduct the funeral at the spot of the blast, he said. The bomb attack was the deadliest since Islamist militant group al Shabaab began an insurgency in 2007. Al Shabaab has not claimed responsibility, but the al Qaeda-linked organization has increasingly used truck bombs. Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator then turned on each other. One of the poorest countries in Africa relies on foreign donors to support its institutions and basic services. The battle-scarred coastal city is on edge after the bombing. A central road in the city emptied quickly after locals suspected a minivan loaded with vegetables was carrying a bomb. As police checked the van, shopkeepers and residents fled the scene. I closed my shop and ran away, said shopkeeper Abdullahi Omar. We have much fear and still the shock ... persisting in our minds.

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WELLESLEY, Mass. (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton assailed the man who beat her to the White House, slamming as “unimaginable cruelty” President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut $3.6 trillion in government spending over the next decade in a speech on Friday. The defeated Democratic candidate did not name the Republican president in her remarks to the graduating class at her alma mater, Wellesley College. But she took several veiled swipes at the businessman-turned-politician, whose budget proposal earlier this week proposed sharp cuts in programs for healthcare and food assistance. “Look at the budget that was just proposed in Washington. It is an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us,” Clinton told a crowd at the all-women’s college, located in Boston’s suburbs. “It grossly underfunds public education, mental health and even efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.” White House officials have described the proposed budget as providing tax cuts that they say would stimulate economic growth and create more private-sector jobs. As with all presidential budget proposals, the proposal was more of a wishlist that is unlikely to be approved in its current form by Congress. Clinton, a former secretary of state, warned against an erosion of accepted standards of truth in U.S. public discourse, and also appeared to be attacking Trump on this issue. “You are graduating a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason. Just log on to social media for 10 seconds, it will hit you right in the face,” she said, citing hoax online reports that her campaign was tied to a Washington pizzeria that operated a child sex ring. “When people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,” Clinton said. “This is not hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done.” She also urged graduates of the liberal-leaning school, which is located in one of the most Democratic states in the country, not to retreat into their own partisan echo chambers, saying, “your learning, listening and serving should include people who don’t agree with you politically.” Clinton has had a long public career since graduating in 1969 from Wellesley. She was first lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s two terms in the White House and was later elected to the U.S. Senate representing New York state. She made an unsuccessful presidential run in 2008 before serving as the country’s top diplomat during President Barack Obama’s first term. Clinton, 69, has gradually returned to the public eye since her upset November defeat, saying that she will not run for office again but will serve as an activist citizen.

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SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia s second-largest state on Wednesday took another step towards adopting a law allowing voluntary assisted dying for terminally ill patients. Any resident of Victoria state over 18, with a terminal illness and with less than six months to live can request a lethal dose of medication under the new legislation. Assisted dying will remain illegal in Australia s other five states. In a vote in Victoria s upper house, 22 of 40 senators supported the legislation. The legislation required amendments to pass the upper house, including halving the time frame for eligible patients to access the scheme, reduced from 12 months to live to six months to live. The amendments must be approved by the lower house before becoming law. The legislation is not expected to be opposed. There will be exemptions for sufferers of conditions such as motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis, who can request a lethal dose of medication even if they have been given up to a year to live. Many countries have legalized euthanasia, including Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and some states in the United States. But Australia s federal government has opposed legalizing euthanasia even though the remote Northern Territory, which does not hold Australian statehood, became the first jurisdiction in the world to do so in 1995. The federal government enacted its own legislation to override the Northern Territory law in 1997 under rules allowed by the constitution. State law, however, can not be overridden.

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WASHINGTON/OSLO (Reuters) - The United States remains committed to the “principles and goals” of the global transparency initiative to fight corruption in managing revenues from oil, gas and mineral extraction, it said on Wednesday. There were doubts about U.S. participation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) after Congress killed the “resource extraction rule” that required companies such as Exxon Mobil to disclose taxes and other fees paid to foreign governments, such as Russia. The EITI, which was founded in 2003, and which the U.S. joined in 2014, sets a global standard for governments to disclose their revenues from oil, gas, and mining assets, and for companies to report payments made to obtain access to publicly owned resources, as well as other donations. “The (U.S. Interior) Department remains committed to the principles and goals of EITI including transparency and good governance of the extractive sectors...,” Heather Swift, a spokesperson for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, said in an email to Reuters. Industry sources familiar with EITI implementation said the United States was already pulling out in all but name, but could formally remain a member until its progress assessment scheduled to start in April 2018. Azerbaijan left the group in March after the EITI board, chaired by Sweden’s former prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, suspended its membership over concerns about limits on civic freedoms. The EITI initiative was primarily aimed at developing nations and most of its members are in Africa. But Britain, Germany and Norway also joined, while France and Australia have also expressed interest. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin and former Republican Senator Richard Lugar, authors of legislation encouraging U.S. participation in EITI, said withdrawal would harm national interests. “Such a retreat is a retreat from our values, which give America its strength and its moral leadership in the world,” they said in a joint statement. Jonas Moberg, head of EITI’s secretariat in Oslo, said the United States continued to be the part of the global initiative, but if it decided to leave, it wouldn’t be the end of the initiative, now being implemented in 51 countries. “Should the administration of President Trump decide to bring an end to EITI implementation, we are not concerned that it would be a decision followed elsewhere,” he added in an email to Reuters. The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), which represents 23 leading mining companies, has said companies that work in EITI member countries will still have to abide by strict disclosure rules, despite the recent U.S. legal changes.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump s expected move to de-certify the international nuclear deal with Iran is driving a wedge between Europe and the United States and bringing Europeans closer to Russia and China, Germany said on Thursday. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has spoken out repeatedly against Trump s likely step, but his latest comments aimed to spell out the impact it would have in starker terms. It s imperative that Europe sticks together on this issue, Gabriel, a Social Democrat, told the RND German newspaper group. We also have to tell the Americans that their behavior on the Iran issue will drive us Europeans into a common position with Russia and China against the USA. Trump is seen unveiling a broad strategy on confronting Iran this week, likely on Friday, including a move to de-certify Iran s compliance with the 2015 accord, which he has called an embarrassment and the worst deal ever negotiated. Senior U.S. officials, European allies and prominent U.S. lawmakers have told Trump that refusing to certify the deal would leave the U.S. isolated, concede the diplomatic high ground to Tehran, and ultimately risk the unraveling of the agreement. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has repeatedly certified that Iran is adhering to restrictions on its nuclear energy program mandated by the deal to help ensure it cannot be put to developing atomic bombs. Signed by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union and Iran, the deal lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear work. Germany has close economic and business ties with Russia, although relations have soured since Moscow s annexation of Ukraine s Crimea region. Berlin is also working to expand ties with China. Gabriel is expected to leave his post in coming months since his Social Democrats have vowed to go into opposition after slumping badly in the Sept. 24 election, opting not to reprise an awkward grand coalition with Merkel s conservatives. Gabriel on Monday urged the White House not to jeopardize the nuclear agreement, saying such a move would worsen instability in the Middle East and could make it more difficult to halt nuclear arms programs in other countries. In the interview released on Thursday, he said the nuclear agreement was being treated like a football in U.S. domestic politics, but the issue could have serious consequences. He said Russia was watching developments closely, including the divisions between Europe and the United States. That doesn t exactly strengthen our position in Europe. Ultimately, Gabriel told the newspaper group, there were only three countries - the United States, Russia and China - that could avert a new nuclear arms race. But those countries mistrust each other so much at the moment that they are not working together sufficiently. It must be in our interest to press for more trust.

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security services on Monday to protect citizens being threatened and coerced in the autonomous Kurdish region where a referendum on independence is under way. Abadi s order was announced in statement from his office. Abadi has said the vote is against the constitution and asked the Kurdish authorities to cancel it.

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan will discuss with Tehran their response to the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum when he visits Iran next week with the Turkish chief of staff, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Monday. Yildirim s comments, in an interview broadcast on multiple Turkish television channels, came after Erdogan spoke by phone on Sunday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and voiced concern that the referendum will cause regional chaos. Erdogan is due to visit Iran on Oct. 4.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s director defended himself in Congress on Wednesday against a barrage of Republican criticism over everything from the agency’s handling of the Wells Fargo accounts scandal to the way he has personally managed his job. Appearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Richard Cordray, got coy when asked whether he would finish his term, which expires in July 2018. Republicans on the committee and elsewhere have pushed for President Trump to fire him, and Cordray is widely rumored to be a possible Ohio gubernatorial candidate in 2018. Cordray, who has headed the agency since 2012 when he was appointed by former President Barack Obama, has declined to step down since President Donald Trump took office. He did not say whether he will serve out the rest of him term, which expires in July 2018. “I have no insights to provide,” he said in response to a related question. Under the Dodd-Frank law creating the agency, the president could only remove Cordray “for cause.” But longtime Republican critics say Cordray’s decisions as a regulator provide ample evidence to fire him. “For all of the harm caused to consumers, Richard Cordray should be dismissed by the president,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling. Hensarling noted that the CFPB has failed to finalize regulatory projects mandated by Congress, such as writing rules directing financial institutions to collect data about credit applications by minority and women-owned businesses. Republicans claimed the agency failed to detect wrongdoing at Wells Fargo & Co, relying on outside investigators and news reports to point out widespread problems with improper account creation. “The CFPB was asleep at the wheel!” said Ann Wagner, a Missouri Republican. The earliest the committee could determine the CFPB began to examine Wells Fargo was in May 2015, after the bank notified the regulator that the Los Angeles City Attorney was already pursuing a civil case, she said. Yet the CFPB was front and center in September 2016 when the high-profile $185 million multi-agency settlement was announced. Cordray said Wagner was “conflating” issues and said the oversight work “became exponential over time.” The CFPB levied a $100 million fine against the bank in an enforcement action with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the City and County of Los Angeles. The probe began after a 2013 Los Angeles Times investigative story.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In less than three months, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch, is already staking out ground on the court’s right, adding his voice to the biggest controversies including Trump’s travel ban targeted at six Muslim-majority countries, gun control, religious rights and gay rights. In a flurry of activity at the court on Monday, Gorsuch showed his inclination to rule from a spot occupied by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. At a minimum, he is so far living up to Trump’s claim that he would be a conservative in the mold of the man he replaced, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year. Thomas, appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, is seen by legal experts as the most conservative of the nine justices and is known for his idiosyncratic views of some legal issues. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority. Two of the conservative majority, Anthony Kennedy, and to a lesser extent Chief Justice John Roberts, sometimes side with the liberals. Liberal groups and Democratic senators had vociferously opposed Gorsuch’s appointment, with the evidence so far suggesting their depiction of him as a dogged conservative was largely correct. “Justice Gorsuch has shown himself to be the conservative ideologue many predicted he would be and not the moderating check on the executive branch as others suggested he would be,” said Michele Jawando, a lawyer with the liberal Center for American Progress. Conservatives, meanwhile, are delighted. Their hope that Gorsuch, 49, would be a solid vote on the right, would appear to be well founded. “Gorsuch is rapidly becoming my favorite justice,” said Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the libertarian Cato Institute. The new justice, formerly an appeals court judge in Colorado, was sworn in on April 10 after Democrats made a concerted effort to block his confirmation by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. Gorsuch has not been shy to make his voice heard since day one on the bench when, during three one-hour arguments, he sparred with attorneys no fewer than eight times. “I’m sorry for taking up so much time, I apologize,” he said, smiling, after one such lengthy exchange. Gorsuch has asserted himself on paper as well. His one opinion for the court, in a case about debt collection, was unanimous. But it’s not unusual for new justices to be assigned a first opinion to write where the court is in broad agreement. In the cases where the court has been divided, he has reliably stuck with the conservative wing while showing something of an independent streak similar to Thomas. Gorusch nailed his colors to the mast in a series of written opinions and votes on Monday. In the biggest dispute before the justices, the court handed a partial win to Trump by partly reviving his travel ban that he has said is needed for security reasons but opponents criticize as discriminatory. The ban was blocked by lower courts and the high court agreed to hear oral arguments in its next term starting in October. Gorsuch, with two of the court’s other conservatives, said they would have voted to allow the entire ban to go into effect. When the court also declined to hear what would have been a major gun rights case on whether the constitutional right to keep firearms for self-defense extends outside the home, only two of the nine justices dissented. One was Thomas. The other was Gorsuch. A gay rights case saw a similar pattern, with Thomas, Gorsuch and fellow conservative Samuel Alito the only dissenters as the court threw out an Arkansas court ruling that allowed the state to refuse to list both same-sex spouses on birth certificates. Gorsuch has also showed a willingness to quibble with his colleagues on what might seem minor points. In the court’s big ruling on Monday in a religious rights case, the justices were split 7-2 on allowing a church to apply for state funding to re-pave its school playground. Gorsuch wrote a separate concurring opinion, joined by Thomas, in which he explained in part why he agreed with all of the majority opinion, except for one footnote that limited it. “It could be that he is more similar to Thomas than Scalia. If he continues this pattern it might be significant,” said Ilya Somin, a libertarian law professor at George Mason University.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four Republican members of Congress on Monday urged U.S. auto safety regulators to convene an industry-wide effort to prevent possible attacks on computer systems in vehicles. The lawmakers addressed their concerns in a letter to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While there have been no reported cases of vehicle hacking, researchers have shown they could take remote control of vehicle functions such as car horns, brakes and power steering. The letter cited work published in August by Wired magazine by two researchers who were able to force a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV 2014 Jeep SUV to perform in an “erratic and unsafe manner” after accessing its on-board diagnostics (OBD) port. Automakers have been required to install the port in all vehicles since 1994 to test for emissions compliance. The letter from Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and three others said the port “as it currently exists creates a growing risk to the safety and security of passengers.” Fiat Chrysler said in August the demonstration published by Wired required “a computer to be physically connected into the vehicle’s” port. The company emphasized that owners should “not connect any unknown or untrusted devices to the OBD port.” NHTSA didn’t immediately comment on the letter. The safety agency has said it plans to release cybersecurity guidelines to the auto industry in the coming weeks. The U.S. government is taking the issue seriously. On Friday, the U.S. Justice Department said it has formed a threat analysis team to study potential national security challenges posed by self-driving cars, medical devices and other internet-connected tools. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and NHTSA issued a bulletin in March warning that motor vehicles were “increasingly vulnerable” to hacking.

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ROME/TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Italy wants Libya s coastguard to take responsibility within three years for intercepting migrants across about a tenth of the Mediterranean even as Libyan crews struggle to patrol their own coast and are accused of making deadly mistakes at sea. Six years after the revolution that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is split between rival governments in the east and west while ports and beaches are largely in the hands of armed groups. For a graphic on Italy's handover of sea rescues to Libya, click tmsnrt.rs/2o1wLC6 Migrant smuggling has flourished, with more than 600,000 making the perilous journey across the central Mediterranean in four years. Migrants transiting through Libya often endure appalling conditions, including rape, torture and forced labor. The Italian plan, outlined in a slide presentation seen by Reuters, shows that Italy and the European Union are focusing on rebuilding Libya s navy and coastguard so they can stop boats. But aid groups say the Libyans are poorly trained and accuse them of mishandling a rescue last month in which some 50 people are thought to have died. The Libyans return all migrants, including refugees, to Libya even though the situation on the ground there is far from resolved. Italy has been coordinating rescues off the Libyan coast since 2013. The 30 slides show spending of 44 million euros ($52 million) to expand Libya s capacity by 2020, equipping the coastguard and enabling it to establish its own rescue coordination center as well as a vast maritime search-and-rescue region. It also foresees a pilot project for monitoring Libya s southern border. The project draws on European Union and Italian funds, and needs EU approval. The plan was presented by the Italian coastguard at a conference hosted by the EU s anti-trafficking mission, Sophia, in Rome last month. Representatives from the EU, non-governmental groups and various Mediterranean navies and coastguards attended the closed-door presentation, said a source who was present. Libya s coastguard has already been pushing further into international waters, often firing warning shots or speeding close to charity boats. Over the summer, three charities abandoned rescue operations in part because of fears of the increasing Libyan sea presence. Arrivals to Italy have fallen by two-thirds since July from the same period last year after officials working for the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, Italy s partner, persuaded human smugglers in the city of Sabratha to stop boats leaving. The Libyan coastguard also increased the rate of its interceptions, turning back about 20,000 this year, though it still only stops a portion of the boats. The crisis remains a major issue in Italy. State shelters for asylum seekers are nearly full, and with elections looming politicians across the spectrum insist the flows from North Africa be stopped, which the new scheme is likely to address. Italy s coastguard did not reply to a request for comment. The prime minister s office referred questions to the interior ministry, which is spearheading the effort to fight people smuggling in Libya and also had no comment. Each nation has the right to declare its own search-and-rescue zone, and to carry out search-and-rescue operations, a Defence Ministry spokesman said, citing international law. Ayoub Qassem, a Libyan coastguard spokesman, said he did not have details of the plan, but both sides recognized the need to cooperate in tackling irregular migration. Recently the Italian side has been eager to cooperate with Libya because it s more effective than working without Libya that s natural, he said. Italy has supplied Libya with four refurbished vessels so far, and six more have been promised, while the EU has trained about 220 Libyan coastguards. But rights groups and aid workers say partnering with Libya s unprofessional coastguard risks exposing migrants to drowning during rescues or to further rights abuses if sent back to detention centers inside Libya. From the testimony we hear from the migrants, we know that people intercepted at sea have then re-entered the circle of violence and imprisonment and abuse that they were fleeing, said Nicola Stalla, search-and-rescue chief for SOS Mediterranee, one of the charities still operating off Libya. Activists also point to incidents such as one on Nov. 6, when crew members of the German humanitarian ship Sea Watch 3 witnessed a Libyan naval vessel draw alongside an inflatable migrant boat. When people fell into the water, Sea Watch used small rubber speedboats to pull people from the water while the Libyans looked on. Some migrants who climbed on board the Libyan vessel were whipped with ropes, and the Libyan boat sped off with a man still dangling in the water, according to videos shot by Sea Watch and crew member Gennaro Giudetti, who pulled the body of a lifeless 2 1/2-year-old Nigerian boy named Great from the water. They watched us and shot videos. They even threw potatoes at us. That s not how you save lives, said Giudetti. Libya s naval coastguard accused Sea Watch of obstructing the rescue and trying to lure away migrants who had already boarded their ship. Some migrants jumped into the water to try to reach Sea Watch rescuers. The Libyans said their smaller speedboats, which are mounted on larger patrol vessels and are the safest to use for rescues, were broken. We have only one or two of these boats and they do not work, so how we can put them into the water? Qassem, the coastguard spokesman, told Reuters. The expansion of Libyan patrols has led to confusion and competition over who should take the lead during rescues. Some charity ships say they have been directed to hold off rescues to allow the Libyans to arrive, putting migrants at risk. Libya s search-and-rescue region extends 90 miles from shore in some places, and 200 miles in others, Qassem said. This summer the Libyans notified the International Maritime Organization about plans to take over a large search and rescue region, but withdrew the notification this month, saying it would resubmit a new one soon, an IMO spokeswoman said. It would be the first time Libya has set up a search-and-rescue region, she said. The Italian plan proposes helping Libya formally declare such a zone. It would also provide for training, maintenance, new cars, ambulances and buses, communications equipment and clothing. Full operation capability is seen by the end of 2020.

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WINDHAM, N.H. (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump on Saturday ended a tough week for his campaign in the state that launched him toward the presidential nomination and he did what Republicans have been urging him to do: Keep the focus on Democrat Hillary Clinton. “Her greatest achievement is getting out of trouble,” Trump told supporters. Trump’s victory in the Feb. 10 Republican primary in New Hampshire put him in position to win the party’s nomination, but he trails Clinton in the state by 15 points in the latest WBUR/MassINC poll, 47 percent to 32 percent. Trump came to New Hampshire after a troubled week in which he tangled with fellow Republican leaders and sparred verbally with the parents of a Muslim soldier who died fighting for the United States in Iraq in 2004. Clinton, getting a lift from the Democratic National Convention, took advantage of Trump’s stumbles to surge into the lead in national polls and in many battleground states. Now Trump has begun heeding the advice of Republican officials who say he needs to take the fight to Clinton to give the party a chance to win the White House on Nov. 8. Trump seized on Clinton’s comments Friday that she had “short-circuited” when she said a week ago that FBI Director James Comey had said she had been truthful to the American people in her use of a private email server while U.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. In fact, Comey had concluded that Clinton was “extremely careless” with classified emails. He directly contradicted many of the statements Clinton had made about her use of the server. Trump spent the lion’s share of a campaign speech in a crowded high school gymnasium to go after Clinton on the subject in trying to raise questions about her trustworthiness. “I think the people of this country don’t want somebody who is going to short circuit,” Trump said. Trump also sought to turn the tables on Clinton, who has consistently accused the New York developer of being temperamentally unfit to be president. “She is a totally unhinged person,” Trump said.

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ARDEUIL ET MONTFAUXELLES, France (Reuters) - In a half-forgotten field in France stands a worn monument to a regiment of U.S. soldiers who faced down racism at home and in their ranks to become World War One s most decorated unit of African American soldiers. In the run up to Veterans Day on Nov. 11, campaigners say the record of the 371st infantry regiment needs to be fully recognized. One man is trying to have one of the unit s soldiers finally decorated with the Medal of Honor the U.S. military s highest award a century after his death. The 371st was largely made up of poor black laborers from segregated South Carolina. They were drafted into the army by a military machine keen to keep them away from potential frontline glory by putting them in support roles. But they soon found themselves in the heat of battle under the command of the French army, which was desperate for manpower in the dying days of the war. You had these African Americans in the early 1900s who were subject to Jim Crow, racism was rampant, the military was segregated, said Gerald Torrence of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), a government agency that serves as guardian of U.S. military memorials and cemeteries overseas. These men were victimized in their daily life in the United States, yet they were not victims in their minds, said Torrence, who is co-author of Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War . Until 2015, when President Barack Obama posthumously decorated a soldier from another regiment, the 371st contained the war s only African American winner of the Medal of Honor. But now Jeff Gusky, a campaigner, explorer and photographer, has dug through the records and believes it deserves another. Private Burton Holmes was in his early twenties on Sept. 28, 1918 when he was badly injured during an assault on a ridge in Champagne, eastern France. In the face of heavy machinegun fire, he returned to headquarters to re-arm and fought on, rallying the troops before being killed. He was recommended for the Medal of Honor but it was downgraded to a lesser award, a decision Gusky believes was down to institutional racism. An African American comrade of Holmes, Freddie Stowers, was also recommended for the Medal of Honor during the war but his paperwork was misplaced for decades and he was only recognized in 1991, 73 years after his death. Now veterans organizations say the case of Holmes needs to be reviewed too. I think the burden is on the present day U.S. army to tell us why he wouldn t deserve the Medal of Honor, Gusky said. In the tiny village of Ardeuil et Montfauxelles in eastern France (population 86), the residents have not forgotten the sacrifice of the soldiers. Local man Frank Lesjean treks through a field after work to tend to their memorial, accessible only by a muddy track. He touches up the names of those who died with red paint and looks after the roses around the chipped granite. Restoring this monument helps their memory to endure, he told Reuters. Without it, they d be even more forgotten.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, the widely followed investor who runs DoubleLine Capital, foresees a “global growth scare” between now and the end of the summer, triggered by a presidential nomination of Donald Trump. “That is where I see the vulnerabilities,” Gundlach said in a telephone interview on Monday. Trump’s protectionist policies could mean negative global growth, Gundlach warned. “As he gets the nomination, the markets and investors are going to worry about it more. You will see a downgrading of global growth based on geopolitical risks. You must factor this into your risk-management.” Trump has blamed currency devaluations around the world for hurting the U.S. economy and costing American jobs, and has called for a tougher U.S. stance on trade. “We just sit back and do nothing,” Trump said earlier this month. “That’s getting to be very dangerous as far as I’m concerned.” A more effective economic move than devaluations would be charging a tax on products made abroad and sold in the United States, particularly those from China, Trump said. Gundlach, who oversees $93 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital, said it isn’t premature to think about a Trump nomination. “You have to entertain the hypothetical.” Phone calls and emails to Trump’s spokeswoman were not returned. For its part, stock markets, which moved into positive territory after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s dovish move last week, will continue to track oil prices, Gundlach said, who was prescient in his call for $40 per barrel. “I think oil will have a hard time moving up to $45,” Gundlach said. The risk-reward proposition is “so bad right now because you had this easy rally” in risk markets, Gundlach said. He added: “No way I would buy junk bonds at this level.” Gundlach also criticized Fed officials for changing their stance on interest rates. “They’ve been flip-flopping like crazy over the past few months,” he said. Just three days after the Fed held interest rates and cautioned “global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks,” Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said on Monday that the United States may be in line for an interest rate hike as soon as April given “sufficient momentum” in U.S. growth. Gundlach said it’s become obvious Fed officials are seeking guidance from markets. “If it is going to be about the markets, they should just come out and say, ‘If the S&P hits 2,100 we will tighten - and if it goes to 1,900 we will ease,” Gundlach said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Manafort, who served as Donald Trump’s campaign manager for several months last year, has started providing documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee in its investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, the head of the panel said on Tuesday. “Faced with issuance of a subpoena, we are happy that Mr. Manafort has started producing documents to the Committee and we have agreed to continue negotiating over a transcribed interview,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the panel, said in a statement.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp is being awarded a U.S. defense contract worth up to $582 million for delivery of F-35 spares, the Pentagon said on Friday.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - No firm date has been set yet for a Congress of Syria s peoples proposed by Russia, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, stressing that such a forum should be as inclusive as possible. There is no clarity yet (on the date), no one is setting a task for himself to adjust this event to the New Year holidays or after them, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. The main thing is to properly prepare and agree the lists (of the participants) - this is precisely the hardest part of it.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has picked former U.N. spokesman Richard Grenell as U.S. ambassador to Germany, a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Thursday. Grenell served as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations from 2001 to 2008, during the administration of Republican President George W. Bush. Currently, Grenell is a contributor to Fox News. His nomination as envoy to NATO ally Germany must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Trump has scolded Germany for not reaching NATO’s target for defense spending and complained about its trade surplus with the United States. Grenell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Monday Washington was very concerned by reports of violence around the Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk, which was seized by Baghdad s forces from Kurds. We are monitoring the situation closely and call on all parties to coordinate military activities and restore calm, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

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KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital near a meeting of supporters of an influential regional leader on Thursday killed at least nine people and wounded many, the interior ministry said. Islamic State claimed responsibility, according to Amaq, its official news agency. The Taliban denied involvement. Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the northern province of Balkh and a leader of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami party, was not at the meeting at the time of the attack, members of the party said. Political tensions are rising as politicians have begun jockeying for position ahead of presidential elections expected in 2019 and thousands of civilians have been killed in attacks this year. The bomber approached the hotel hosting the gathering on foot but was spotted by a police official, Sayed Basam Padshah, as he neared a security checkpoint, an interior ministry spokesman said. The attacker triggered his explosives vest before he could get any further, Kabul police chief Basir Mujahid told Reuters. Padshah was among the seven policemen and two civilians killed. He saved many lives by sacrificing his life, Mujahid said. The northern-based Jamiat-i-Islami was for years the main opponent of the Taliban, who draw their support largely from the southern-based ethnic Pashtun community. A witness to Thursday s bombing said: We are proud to be martyred because of our country and our rights. This gathering was for the sake of our country to raise our voice. In June, a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of Jamiat-i-Islami leaders, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Abdullah, who is supported by ethnic minority leaders including Noor who fought against the Taliban s hard-line Islamist regime in the 1990s, formed a coalition government with President Ashraf Ghani after a disputed 2014 presidential election. Ghani on Wednesday sacked the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, raising doubts over whether parliamentary and council ballots scheduled for next year will take place as planned.

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Karachi, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan has appointed an economist, who was recently chairman of the board of investment, to take charge of the finance ministry after the former minister was relieved of his duties amid accusations of corruption. Miftah Ismail has been made an adviser to the prime minister for finance, with the status of a federal minister, the government said in a notification. Although I will have stewardship of the Ministry of Finance for only 5 months, the prime minister has tasked me to help him implement a very ambitious agenda, Ismail said in a post on Twitter. He was referring to general election due next year and widely expected in May, though no date has been fixed. The former fiance minister, Ishaq Dar, was relieved of his portfolio on Nov. 22 amid mounting headwinds for the $300 billion economy battling to stave off balance of payments pressures due to dwindling foreign currency reserves and a widening current account deficit. Dar, who was widely credited with navigating Pakistan out of a 2013 balance of payments crisis, is facing corruption charges in connection with accusations he amassed wealth beyond his known sources of income. Dar has denied all charges. He is receiving treatment in London for a heart condition. Ismail is a member of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif s political party, which is still the ruling party even though Sharif was ousted amid corruption allegations in July. Sharif has also denied any wrongdoing. The party has been reluctant to allow the rupee to weaken ahead of elections as it may stoke inflation, though many investors and economists say a weaker rupee is needed to shore up lagging exports. Samiullah Tariq, director of research at Arif Habib Limited, said he expected Ismail would let the rupee soften if he though it necessary. Basically, he s pro-business, if he feels that a stronger rupee is hindering exports, he will let it weaken, Tariq told Reuters. He has plans to introduce tax reforms, rationalize tax rates, create a scheme to release refunds and initiate a scheme to bring back and declare foreign assets owned by Pakistanis, Tariq added.

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PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will set out plans for reforming the European Union on Tuesday, including proposals for a separate eurozone budget, despite a German election result that is likely to complicate his far-reaching ambitions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives saw their support slide in Sunday s election, though they remain the biggest parliamentary bloc. She is expected to seek a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) - who have criticized Macron s ideas for Europe - and the Greens. Elysee officials said Macron, who has promised sweeping reforms to Europe s monetary union in coordination with Merkel, hoped the issues to be raised in his speech would be taken into account in Germany s coalition negotiations. One Elysee official said a eurozone budget, one of Macron s most contentious ideas, would be necessary in due course and that the president would therefore raise the issue in his speech, to be delivered at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Since his election in May, Macron has made the overhaul of the EU and its institutions one of his major themes. As well as his eurozone budget idea, he wants to see the appointment of a eurozone finance minister and the creation of a rescue fund that would preemptively help countries facing economic trouble. Ahead of Sunday s election, Merkel had indicated her willingness to work with Macron on a reform agenda, even if her own ideas may not reach as far as his. But the election results have left Merkel facing a difficult coalition-building task which is in turn likely to limit her flexibility on Europe. A coalition of Merkel s CDU/CSU bloc, the FDP and the Greens is unprecedented at the national level - and any attempt by the chancellor and Macron to press for greater EU integration will face opposition from the new German lower house Bundestag. The FDP has called for a phasing out of Europe s ESM bailout fund and changes to EU treaties that would allow countries to leave the euro zone. And the far-right, eurosceptic Alternative for Germany is now the third biggest party in the Bundestag, further curbing Merkel s room for maneuver. But Elysee officials noted that the FDP had reaffirmed its attachment to the EU and to strong Franco-German relations, a point Macron was likely to emphasize in his speech while at the same time not seeking to impose anything on his partners. Macron, the sources said, would propose that the whole EU move forward together, and that those who did not want to should not stand in the way of those that did. Coming just two days after the German election, Macron s speech is likely to be interpreted in Germany as an attempt to shape the debate before the coalition talks begin in earnest. German coalition agreements are strict, with the contours set out in them limiting the government s room for maneuver. In that respect, Merkel s ability to work with Macron on EU reform will be pre-determined by whatever coalition deal is struck. FDP leader Christian Lindner said on Monday he would not agree to any coalition that did not promise a change in the German government s direction. While that appeared to set the stage for tough talks, he also offered hope for Macron, saying when asked about the French president s eurozone budget ideas that the FDP had a strong interest in the strength of France.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department called on Tuesday for the immediate release of two Reuters journalists who have been detained for about a week in Myanmar and whose whereabouts have not been reported to their families. We ve been ... following the cases of the two reporters, the Reuters reporters, very closely. We re deeply concerned about their detention. We do not know their whereabouts. That is of concern also, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a news briefing. Today I want to make it clear that we re calling for their immediate release.

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WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish lawmakers from the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party initially approved on Friday a bill changing the electoral system that the opposition denounced as threatening the fairness of elections. The bill, which would replace all current members of a body responsible for conducting and overseeing elections, will now be sent to a parliamentary committee for further works.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday asked the High Court to set aside a report by the anti-corruption watchdog on alleged influence-peddling in his government, saying he would instead set up a commission of inquiry into the allegations. The court has been hearing a case brought by Zuma who had challenged the right of the report s author, South Africa s anti-graft agency known as Public Protector, to call for a judicial inquiry to investigate the allegations. Zuma, 75, who previously described the State of Capture report as unfair in parliament, said setting up such an inquiry was his prerogative. The report published a year ago recommended a judicial investigation into allegations of systemic corruption by Zuma, some of his ministers and heads of state-owned companies. The report focused on allegations that Zuma s friends, the businessmen and brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, had influenced the appointment of ministers. Zuma and the Guptas have denied the accusations. In a fresh application on Tuesday, Zuma s lawyers argued that the entire report by former Public Protector head Thuli Madonsela should be set aside. Should the court grant his application, Zuma would set up a separate commission of inquiry himself within 30 days of the date of the order, court papers presented by his lawyers said. The main opposition Democratic Alliance party opposes Zuma s application, saying it is unconstitutional. It says it wants the court to support Madonsela s recommendation for a judicial inquiry.

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LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo on Monday condemned the arrest of about 30 opposition members amid a crackdown on dissent by President Joseph Kabila s government. The arrests occurred in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi on Sunday when police broke up a meeting by the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party on the eve of a return to the city of opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi, party members told Reuters. Such security incidents are threatening to spiral out of control in Africa s largest copper producer because of Kabila s refusal to hold elections when his presidential mandate expired nearly a year ago. From now, we no longer consider Joseph Kabila as president, Tshisekedi told journalists on Monday in Lubumbashi, where a planned rally was banned by the government. He is usually in the capital, or in Europe. Congo s government has banned opposition demonstrations since last year, when security forces killed dozens of protesters demanding Kabila s departure. The election commission said this month that an election to replace Kabila, who came to power after his father s assassination in 2001, would not be possible before April 2019 at the earliest - raising the prospect of long-term unrest. I urge the Congolese authorities to release immediately and unconditionally those arbitrarily arrested yesterday in Lubumbashi, said Maman Sidikou, head of the U.N. MONUSCO peacekeeping mission. MONUSCO also demanded an end to restrictions imposed on Kyungu wa Kumwanza, president of the National Union of Federalists of the Congo (UNAFEC) party, who has been under de facto house arrest for several months without being charged with a crime. In another sign of discontent with election delays, the Union for the Congolese Nation(UNC)opposition party said in a statement on Monday it was withdrawing its representative in a power-sharing government, Budget Minister Pierre Kangudia. The latter could not immediately be reached for comment. Kabila s political opponents are weak and divided. Many joined a power-sharing government earlier this year following the death of opposition figure, Etienne Tshisekedi, Felix s father, and they enjoy limited credibility with the population. However, an economic crisis that has seen inflation spike to over 50 percent, increased militia activity, and a series of prison breaks have highlighted Kabila s tenuous hold on power.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s three would-be coalition partners went deep into overtime in talks on Saturday as they sought enough common ground in climate and migration policy to form a government and stave off the prospect of a repeat election. Incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel s only realistic hope of securing a fourth term after suffering losses in September s election is an awkward three-way conservative-liberal-Green alliance. But after four weeks of talks, the parties remained far apart as they adjourned for the night. The biggest sticking points are climate change, where the Greens want emissions cuts that the other parties see as economically ruinous, and immigration, where Merkel s arch-conservative allies in Bavaria insist on stricter rules. With the pro-business, tax-cutting Free Democrat (FDP) liberals freshly returned to parliament after four years in the wilderness, and the Greens out of office for 12 years, neither is keen to give ground. A self-imposed deadline of Thursday for wrapping up exploratory talks and starting formal coalition negotiations passed without agreement, forcing the conservatives to promise further concessions on emissions cuts to the Greens. FDP leader Christian Lindner said the talks now had to be wrapped up by 1700 GMT on Sunday. But President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a former foreign minister who now plays an apolitical role, said brinkmanship was to be expected. Before the formal talks start, there are always attempts by parties to drive prices up, he told the weekly Welt am Sonntag. What we ve seen in the past weeks isn t so different from previous coalition negotiations. Greens chairwoman Simone Peter said much that had earlier been agreed on emissions policy had been undone, without giving details. Bavaria s Christian Social Union (CSU) faces regional state elections next year, and fears the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could unseat it after 60 years if it fails to secure tough immigration rules - which are anathema to the left-leaning Greens. Among its demands are a cap of 200,000 per year on the number of refugees Germany will take, and an end to the practice of allowing successful asylum seekers to bring their immediate families to join them. All parties are anxious to avoid a repeat election, which they fear could boost the AfD, which surged into parliament for the first time in September s national election. But the heterogeneous three-way coalition, made necessary after the conservatives and the centre-left suffered punishing election losses, is untested at national level.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu’s first Trump-era Washington visit offers a chance to repair ties to Democrats that frayed during years of chilly relations under the Obama administration, but many party members said they do not expect much improvement given the Israeli prime minister’s close alignment with Republicans. “There’s a lot of mending of fences that has to happen between the Netanyahu government and a lot of Democrats who feel like he unnecessarily politicized the U.S.-Israeli relationship,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, said in a telephone interview. The low point came in March 2015 when Netanyahu sidestepped the White House and State Department to arrange a speech to the Republican-led Congress opposing the international nuclear deal with Iran then being negotiated by President Barack Obama. Led by the Congressional Black Caucus, more than 55 Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives skipped the speech to protest what they viewed as an attack on Obama, the first African-American U.S. president. Tensions between Netanyahu and congressional Democrats have remained despite nearly seven decades of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress, which has used its spending authority to make Israel the largest recipient of annual U.S. military aid. After Trump took office last month, Netanyahu tweeted his applause for Trump’s plan to build a wall to keep out people from Mexico, which Democrats consider an expensive and racially tinged insult to a U.S. neighbor and ally. Many Democrats also are wary of Netanyahu’s support for building new settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians, and worry about statements from some in his government opposing the possibility of a Palestinian state. Democrats faulted congressional Republicans for using Israel as a wedge issue, despite strong Democratic support for initiatives such as a $38 billion military aid package the Obama administration signed in September. “It doesn’t look good or feel right when one party says, ‘Well, we’re better on Israel than the other party,’ or if one party is trying to work in lock-step with Israeli officials,” Representative Eliot Engel, the top House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrat, told Reuters. Israeli officials said Netanyahu’s aides have been aware of the need to re-establish a semblance of bipartisan even-handedness, even as the prime minister works to create a personal bond with Trump. Aides traveling with Netanyahu did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. But as he left for Washington, Netanyahu made a point of saying he would meet with congressional leaders from both parties, signaling something of a rebalancing. “The alliance between Israel and America has always been extremely strong. It’s about to get even stronger,” Netanyahu told reporters.

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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland s Deputy Prime Minister resisted calls to resign in a crisis that has left the country on the brink of a general election, saying on Monday it is up to an ongoing judge-led tribunal to judge her conduct. The Tribunal will objectively judge the appropriateness of my conduct. I look forward to giving my evidence to the Tribunal early in January, Fitzgerald wrote in a statement on Twitter following further calls for her to step down on Monday over her handling of a case involving a police whistleblower.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel has issued a subpoena to force Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager to President Donald Trump, to appear at a hearing on Wednesday as part of its probe into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election. The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, and the top Democrat on the panel, Dianne Feinstein, said the subpoena was issued late on Monday after Manafort did not agree to an interview. “While we were willing to accommodate Mr. Manafort’s request to cooperate with the committee’s investigation without appearing at Wednesday’s hearing, we were unable to reach an agreement for a voluntary transcribed interview with the Judiciary Committee,” they said in a statement on Tuesday. They said Manafort was willing to provide only a single transcribed interview to Congress, which would be available to the Judiciary Committee as well as other panels. “As with other witnesses, we may be willing to excuse him from Wednesday’s hearing if he would be willing to agree to production of documents and a transcribed interview,” they said. The panel leaders also said any Manafort interview would not constitute a waiver of his rights and the committee could require that he testify in the future. Earlier, NBC News reported Manafort would speak with Senate investigators within 48 hours, citing a source close to Manafort. It said he was likely to be questioned about a June 2016 meeting in New York with a Russian lawyer. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, has released emails that showed he welcomed the prospect of receiving damaging information at the meeting about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. The Senate panel is one of several congressional committees investigating alleged Russian efforts to tilt the election in the Republican candidate’s favor and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign. Moscow has denied such efforts, and Trump has denied his campaign colluded.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - More people have registered to vote in California since the last major election in 2012, but the number of Republicans in the Democrat-dominated state continues to drop, according to state data released. Democrats hold all statewide elective offices and large majorities in both houses of the legislature in the most populous U.S. state. There were just under 4.8 million Republicans registered in the state as of Jan. 3, down from nearly 5.2 million in early January 2012, the last presidential election cycle, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Monday. Republicans accounted for 27.62 percent of registered voters in California, down from 30.36 percent in 2012, according to the data, which was posted on Padilla’s state website. Most of that change was reflected in the number of voters registering as independents, which went up by just under 3 percent. In January 2016, the number of Californians indicating that they preferred not to state a party preference was 4.1 million, up from 3.6 million in 2012. Independents accounted for 24 percent of all registered voters in 2016, up from about 21 percent in 2012. The number of Democrats remained about the same at roughly 7.4 million. The number of people registered to vote in California rose by about 231,000 since 2012 to 17.3 million. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) 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.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday that he believed the Paris climate agreement was unfair to the United States but looked forward to discussing the issue further, a U.S. official said. Brian Hook, director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, told reporters in New York that Trump also told Macron the Iran nuclear deal was deeply flawed.

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LONDON (Reuters) - British police hunting those behind a bomb which injured 29 people on a London train on Friday said they had arrested an 18-year-old man in a move described as significant. We have made a significant arrest in our investigation this morning, Neil Basu, Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said in a statement. Although we are pleased with the progress made, this investigation continues and the threat level remains at critical. The man was arrested under the Terrorism Act in the southern port area of Dover.

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CONAKRY (Reuters) - Hundreds of rioters in the Guinean bauxite mining town of Boke burned down a police and a gendarmerie building on Thursday and clashed with security forces wielding batons, leaving 17 people injured, the local Red Cross said. Guinean authorities managed to avoid the bloodshed of previous days by desisting from using live bullets on the demonstrators in the Boke neighborhood of Kolabounyi, Guinean Red Cross member Oumar Kalissa told Reuters by telephone. Rioting by angry youths - who say bauxite mining has brought constant pollution and noise but no jobs or services like water and electricity - has paralyzed Boke for most of the past week. Despite decades of mining, Guinea, Africa s top bauxite producer, remains one of the world s least developed countries. The mines around Boke produce some 15 million tonnes of aluminum ore for the West African nation s largest mining companies Societe Miniere de Boke (SMB) and Companie Bauxite de Guinee (CBG), but their operations have repeatedly halted in the past week and are currently still blocked by demonstrators. CBG is 49 percent owned by the Guinean state and the remainder by Alcoa, Rio Tinto Alcan [RIOXXA.UL] and Dadco. SMB is owned by Guinea, China s Winning Shipping Ltd, Shandong Weiqiao [SDWQP.UL] and UMS International Ltd. The Government strongly condemns these acts which are clearly outside law, government spokesman Damantang Albert Camara said in a statement.

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SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Billionaire conservative Sebastian Pinera will begin a second term as Chile s president in March with a strong mandate after trouncing his center-left opponent in Sunday s election, and local markets soared on hopes of more investor-friendly policies. Still, Pinera will face a divided Congress and an upstart leftist coalition that has promised to fight his plans to lower taxes and refine the progressive policies undertaken by outgoing center-left President Michelle Bachelet. Pinera s previous stint as president, from 2010 to 2014, was marked by huge student protests. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Bachelet on Monday, Pinera struck a tone of unity, saying he would work to form a broad cabinet, of continuity and change. Chile s peso strengthened more than 2 percentage points against the dollar on Monday, while the IPSA stock index hit an all-time high and was up nearly 7 percent, as investors bet on more business-friendly policies under a Pinera administration. Chile is the world s top copper producer and the country s vast mining industry is also counting on Pinera s support. The business magnate has promised to cut red tape and has pledged support and stable funding for state-run miner Codelco, saying the company is reinventing itself and needs investment. Codelco needs strong management and must improve its efficiency, he told reporters. With his nine-percentage point win over center-left senator Alejandro Guillier in Sunday s runoff presidential election, Pinera, 68, won more votes than any presidential candidate since Chile s return to democracy in 1990. It was the biggest ever loss for the center-left coalition that has dominated Chile s politics since the end of Augusto Pinochet s dictatorship. Other South American countries including Argentina, Peru and Brazil have also shifted to the political right in recent years. The results of a first round vote and a congressional election last month pointed to a more divided country, however. Far-left candidate Beatriz Sanchez captured 20 percent of votes, nearly as many as the more moderate Guillier, suggesting some dissatisfaction with Chile s long-standing free-market model. Guillier on Sunday acknowledged the harsh defeat and urged his supporters to defend Bachelet s progressive policies, which have included overhauls of tax, labor and education laws in an effort to fight persistent inequality in one of South America s most developed economies. Pinera said Bachelet had confirmed she plans to present parliament with a bill to recast Chile s dictatorship-era constitution before her term ends in March. Such a change was also a key campaign promise of Guillier. Pinera said he agreed on perfecting it (the constitution) but in a climate of unity. Pinera s Chile Vamos party has 72 of 155 representatives in the lower house, more than any other bloc. Still, without an outright majority in either chamber of the legislature, Pinera s supporters will have to form alliances to pass most laws. Sanchez s coalition earned its first senate seat and around 20 seats in the lower house in November s election. The Frente Amplio commits to continuing to work for a changing Chile, with more rights and more democracy, she wrote in a tweet congratulating Pinera, referring to the leftist Broad Front party. Efforts by Pinera s ideological allies in Brazil and Argentina to reduce fiscal deficits by cutting spending and reforming pension systems have faced political opposition and sparked protests in recent months. What I think he s going to do is perfect Bachelet s reforms, make them more effective, more efficient, maybe help out business a little bit more, said analyst Kenneth Bunker, of political research group Tresquintos. But he ll be cutting around the edges, he s not going to have power in Congress to do everything he would otherwise. Pinera has sought to strike a conciliatory tone. In a speech at his home following his meeting with Bachelet, he said, Yesterday Chileans handed us a great victory. But I will be the president of all the Chileans, both those who voted for me and those who voted for Alejandro Guillier.

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(Reuters) - Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump works to form his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and media reports. Trump has already named a number of people for other top jobs in his administration. Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor Rudy Giuliani, Republican former mayor of New York City Bob Corker, Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee David Petraeus, retired general and former CIA director who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information that he shared with his biographer, who he was having an affair with Jon Huntsman, former Republican Utah governor and ambassador to China under President Barack Obama, ran for Republican presidential nomination in 2012 James Stavridis, retired Navy admiral John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, foreign policy adviser to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney Rex Tillerson, president and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Joe Manchin, Democratic U.S. senator for West Virginia Dana Rohrabacher, Republican U.S. representative of California and senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Alan Mulally, a former CEO at Ford and a former executive vice president at Boeing Kevin Cramer, Republican U.S. representative from North Dakota Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota Joe Manchin, Democratic U.S. senator from West Virginia Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp James Connaughton, CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush Rick Perry, Republican former Texas governor Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in Gryphon Investors Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. representative from Washington state and House Republican Conference chair Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Jan Brewer, former Republican Arizona governor Mary Fallin, Republican Oklahoma governor Ray Washburne, CEO of investment company Charter Holdings Navy Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency Ronald Burgess, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Pete Hoekstra, Republican former U.S. representative from Michigan Rudy Giuliani, Republican former mayor of New York Debra Wong Yang, former U.S. attorney for California’s Central District, appointed by former President George W. Bush Ralph Ferrara, a securities attorney at law firm Proskauer Rose LLP Paul Atkins, a Republican former SEC commissioner who is heading Trump’s transition team for independent financial regulatory agencies, including the SEC Daniel Gallagher, Republican former SEC commissioner John Allison, a former CEO of regional bank BB&T Corp and former CEO of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank Paul Atkins, Republican former SEC commissioner Thomas Hoenig, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp vice chairman Dan DiMicco, former CEO of steel producer Nucor Corp Robert Lighthizer, a Washington trade attorney and former deputy U.S. trade representative during the Republican Reagan administration Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants [APOLOT.UL] Lou Barletta, Republican U.S. representative from Pennsylvania Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission member and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs Group Inc president Mick Mulvaney, Republican U.S. representative from South Carolina David Malpass, former chief economist with investment bank Bear Stearns and a senior Trump adviser who also served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidential administrations Scott Brown, former Republican U.S. senator from Massachusetts Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor Jeff Miller, former Republican U.S. representative from Florida who was chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee The Trump transition team confirmed the president-elect would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that it was up to Britain to determine if there was to be a good deal or no deal in Brexit talks. We have managed to build and maintain unity among the 27, but ahead of us is still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat. We must keep our unity regardless of the direction of the talks. The EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided, Tusk, who chairs summits of EU leaders, told the European Parliament. It is in fact up to London how this will end, with a good deal, no deal or no Brexit but in each of these scenarios we will protect our common interests only by being together, he said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday called on the Senate to pass some kind of healthcare overhaul bill so lawmakers can move forward to repeal and replace Obamacare, one day after Republicans senators’ effort to pass their own plan collapsed. “We’d like to see the Senate move on something” in order to take the next steps in the legislation process, Ryan told reporters at a news conference. Still, he added, the House bill passed earlier this year was “sufficient” and “the best way to go.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, has strong family and community ties and does not pose a serious flight risk, his lawyers argued in a court filing on Thursday. A $10 million unsecured bond “will more than suffice to assure his appearance as required” in any court proceedings, the lawyers said. Manafort and associate Rick Gates have been charged with money laundering, tax fraud and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - A young Chinese climbing enthusiast s fatal fall from a skyscraper while making a selfie video on a $15,000 rooftopping dare has spurred warnings by state media against the perils of livestreaming. Wu Yongning plunged to his death from a 62-storey building in central China on Nov. 8, the day he stopped posting videos of his skyscraper exploits on Weibo, China s equivalent of Twitter. A month later, his girlfriend confirmed the death of the 26-year old in a Weibo post. Wu, who had more than 60,000 followers of his Weibo account, was looking to win a prize of 100,000 yuan ($15,110) for a filmed stunt atop Huayuan Hua Center in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, media said over the weekend. His death was a reminder of the need for stronger supervision of livestreaming apps, the official China Daily said on Tuesday. Some of them try to hype things up with obscene and dangerous things, and their purpose is to attract more eyeballs and make a profit, it said in a commentary. Tens of thousands of Chinese post videos of themselves in a bid for stardom on the livestreaming scene, whose popularity has grown rapidly, particularly in the e-commerce, social networking and gaming sectors. Wu, who used to post videos of himself scaling tall buildings with no safety equipment, hoped to use the prize to pay his mother s medical bills, the Changsha Evening News said. It was unclear which livestreaming platform Wu intended to post on. There should be a bottom line for livestreaming platforms, and supervision should leave no loopholes, ran a comment in the online edition of the People s Daily. Wu s videos on his Weibo microblog had attracted several million views each.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at affecting the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, U.S. Republican Senator John McCain said Monday. McCain’s comment contrasted with an assertion by a senior U.S. intelligence official that American intelligence agencies concluded with “high confidence” that not only did their Russian counterparts direct the hacking of Democratic Party organizations and leaders, but did so to undermine Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said in a Reuters interview. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of the election, and that’s why we need a congressional investigation.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday he would not mount an independent bid for the U.S. presidency because he feared it would increase the chances that Republicans Donald Trump or Ted Cruz could end up in the White House. A billionaire media mogul who combined business-friendly fiscal policies with liberal views on gun control and other social issues, Bloomberg could have potentially appealed to centrist voters in a year when candidates from the far left and right of the political spectrum have gained traction. But Bloomberg, 74, said he had concluded that any candidate would be unlikely to win a clear majority in a three-person race. That would throw the election into the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which would be able to hand the White House to Trump, a real-estate billionaire, or Cruz, a conservative U.S. senator from Texas. “That is not a risk I can take in good conscience,” he wrote on Bloomberg View, an opinion website that is part of his media empire. Bloomberg never received much interest from American voters. About 12 percent of likely voters said they would support him in a three-way race for president with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll conducted from Wednesday to Monday. Among respondents, 41 percent said they would support Clinton and 31 percent would support Trump. The poll of 1,695 likely voters had a credibility interval of 3 percentage points. Bloomberg said Trump, who is leading the battle to win the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election, had backed policies that would undermine religious tolerance and threaten national security. Trump has called for building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, deporting the country’s illegal immigrants and temporarily barring Muslims from entering the country. “He has run the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears,” Bloomberg wrote of Trump. He said Cruz, a favorite of evangelicals and the conservative Tea Party movement, was divisive as well. Bloomberg also hit out at Clinton and her rival for the Democratic nomination, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, for criticizing free trade and the financial industry. “Extremism is on the march, and unless we stop it, our problems at home and abroad will grow worse,” he wrote. Spokespeople for Trump and Cruz did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Bloomberg’s criticism. Bloomberg founded and is majority owner of Bloomberg L.P., a news and financial information provider that competes with Thomson Reuters Corp TRI.TO. The fear of a general election contest between Trump and Sanders, a democratic socialist, had driven Bloomberg to begin seriously exploring an independent run, a senior adviser said on condition of anonymity. But with Clinton pulling away from Sanders in the Democratic race, Bloomberg concluded the path to victory and the rationale for running were gone, the aide said. Clinton reacted to the news with polite praise, saying she had the “greatest respect” for Bloomberg. “He has to make his own decisions, but I look forward to continuing to work with him,” she said on Fox News. Sanders, when asked about Bloomberg’s decision not to run, said election laws should be changed to make it easier for people who are not rich, or not friendly with rich people, to run for office. “I think it’s a bad idea for American democracy that the only people who feel in many ways they can run for president are people who have so much money,” he said on Fox News.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Wheat shipments to Egypt, the world s largest buyer, are being disrupted by a dispute involving government inspectors angered by a ban on the expenses-paid foreign trips they once enjoyed to approve cargoes at their ports of origin. Those trips, funded by exporters, have been canceled as part of Egypt s efforts to streamline imports worth more than $1 billion a year. Traders say the new system has backfired as inspectors are now rejecting cargoes at Egyptian ports on arbitrary and unpredictable grounds. There is more to the problem than erratic policies and red tape, according to interviews with grains traders, agriculture quarantine inspectors, government officials, and a review of inspection documents. According to these sources, difficulties for importers are rather the result of a tug-of-war over the right to inspect cargoes abroad, where until recently government quarantine inspectors enjoyed fully-funded trips, dinners and shopping at the expense of supply companies looking to secure safe passage for their wheat. By applying higher standards to grains upon arrival, inspectors are driving up costs in a bid to undermine inspection companies that replaced them abroad, traders said. Six inspectors who Reuters spoke to denied they are trying to get their foreign trips reinstated and said they are simply upholding quality standards. Suppliers say uncertainty is prompting them to add premiums of up to $500,000 per cargo to hedge against risks. With Egypt expecting to buy around 7 million tonnes of wheat in the fiscal year that began in July, these premiums add millions of dollars to the government s food subsidy bill. The bread supply chain has ground to a halt on several occasions as traders have boycotted tenders. Subsidized bread is a staple for millions of poor Egyptians and the country s leaders are always keen to keep supplies flowing for fear of unrest. Wheat traders say the only way out of the problem is for the government bodies involved to sit down and thrash out standards all sides can agree on. Getting cargoes passed under the old system often came down to keeping government inspectors comfortable, traders said. When a $6 million wheat cargo at a port in Ukraine suddenly stopped loading two years ago, its agent found Egyptian inspectors had halted the process because their hotel would not give them a late breakfast, traders said. The delay cost the supply company $8,000 in port fees. As soon as we arranged for the hotel to give them a later breakfast, everything went smoothly and the shipment was passed. It wasn t a wheat problem. It was a breakfast problem, said a Cairo-based trader responsible for the cargo who asked to remain anonymous. Six other traders described the system in similar terms, saying shopping for electronics and clothes, expensive dinners, and hotel room upgrades were the cost of keeping their grains moving out of ports from Odessa to Dunkirk. One trader said the money paid to inspectors could equal their annual salary. You re talking about four to five people, and you have to take care of them from A to Z, meaning you are taking them shopping and you are paying, said Med Star for Trading President Hesham Soliman. Soliman said the delegations grew more expensive. They began needing more pocket money, the hotels have to be certain hotels, the tickets, the visa, he said. Traders said they would spend about $30,000 on the inspectors, which also typically included a $3,500 pocket money payment per person, according to invoices seen by Reuters. Agricultural quarantine inspectors who Reuters spoke to on condition of anonymity have quoted the same figures for the trips but say the old system was still cheaper for Egypt. I can t deny that I benefited, but the country benefited more. Look how much they re spending now, one inspector said, referring to the high risk premiums traders now put on cargoes offered to Egypt. Traders say the system was a relatively cheap way to win approval for their wheat abroad, which protected a cargo from being rejected at Egyptian ports, something that could mean big losses, or even bankruptcy for smaller firms. If they re making it sound like we were spending too much, you have the figures, compare the numbers. They re spending a lot more now on the inspections, the inspector said. The old arrangement unraveled in late 2015, when a French wheat cargo was rejected in Egypt for containing traces of the common grain fungus ergot despite being approved by government inspectors abroad. As other shipments were rejected and import rules appeared to be tightening, some traders said they no longer found the traveling inspectors a bet worth taking. We got to a point where we couldn t deal with this. You have a fixed cost and you still have no guarantee that the shipment will enter the country, said Soliman. A group of traders, including Soliman, persuaded the government to ban traveling delegations, which Egypt did in a prime ministerial decree in late 2016 that handed inspections abroad to private companies and made the agriculture quarantine inspectors subject to the oversight of a trade ministry authority. In an interview at the offices of the General Organization for Export and Import Control (GOEIC), Ismail Gaber, who heads the agency that now has the final word on wheat inspections, told Reuters the travel regime had raised suspicions of corruption that he would rather keep civil servants away from. There is of course the issue of corruption, I want to take my employee away from this suspicion. I don t want the supplier and the employee to have the same self-interest, he said. If he takes someone with him abroad, the supplier says I ve already taken him with me ... you gave me a government employee and you inspected there so you can t find a problem with it here (in Egypt) after all of this , Gaber said. But having lost their travel benefits, the inspectors are making their presence felt. Since January, when the new inspection regime came online, inspectors in Egypt have subjected nearly all shipments to costly processes before being approved at Egyptian ports, which add tens of thousands of dollars in costs. In June, a group of inspectors won a court case that argued that the new system illegally granted their mandate to GOEIC, which the inspectors said was ill-equipped to protect the country from harmful grain contaminants. The government has appealed and ignored a court order to restore the old inspection regime, including traveling delegations. The inspectors, who are still checking cargoes under the new inspection regime, say they are just trying to stop bad wheat getting into Egypt and deny they are trying to get their overseas trips back. One inspector said checks were now tougher at Egyptian ports because importers were sending poor-quality grains. Traders however said two big state grain purchases halted for containing poppy seeds demonstrated that inspectors were seeking new ways to show that inspection companies abroad are not up to the task. As a result, traders hiked prices or stayed away from a recent state tender. The only way out of the impasse, traders say, is for government agencies to agree on consistent rules. Without that, we are just waiting for the next victim, said one. (For graphic click: here)

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Wolfgang Schaeuble s decision to step aside as German finance minister has given the Free Democratic Party what it has long craved: the chance to shape policy from the most coveted perch in Chancellor Angela Merkel s next coalition government. However the opportunity also presents the party with a conundrum. FDP leader Christian Lindner has signaled for months that he would prefer to lead the business-friendly party in parliament rather than take a cabinet job under Merkel. If Lindner sticks to his stance then the FDP, which is returning to parliament after a four-year hiatus, must find someone else to fill one of the most important positions in international economic and financial policy. The person who replaces Schaeuble could also carry the prestigious title of vice chancellor. The only party member besides Lindner with that kind of stature is Wolfgang Kubicki, whose political skills are unquestioned but who is also known as a loose cannon, a reputation that may not suit a sensitive job where a few ill-judged words can move global financial markets. If it is not Lindner, then there are not a lot of options, said one senior figure in the party. Kubicki might be the only one with the profile and political weight. The finance ministry seems to be the FDP s for the taking. As the second biggest party in what is expected to be a three-way coalition with Merkel s conservatives and the Greens, it would have first choice of cabinet post. The post has become more influential over the past decade as Germany, the world s fourth largest economy, navigated the global financial crisis and euro zone turmoil. Schaeuble, who is becoming president of the parliament, was known for his budget discipline and tough stance toward struggling euro partners like Greece. Whoever replaces him will play a crucial role in shaping Germany s response to calls from French President Emmanuel Macron for an ambitious overhaul of the EU and euro zone. The finance ministry will be absolutely crucial in the next government in shaping not just Germany s fiscal stance but the future of Europe, said Jens Boysen-Hogrefe of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. No one besides Lindner deserves more credit for the FDP s revival after its disastrous 2013 election result than the 65-year-old Kubicki, a quick-witted lawyer who sails around on his yacht Liberty and is known as one of the most outspoken, colorful figures in German politics. Earlier this year, after Donald Trump announced his travel ban on seven mainly Muslim countries, Kubicki said Berlin should retaliate by barring the U.S. president from entering Germany. He has made clear in the past that he is interested in the finance job. In a 2010 interview with newspaper Die Zeit, he said it was the only position that might lure him from his home in the port of Kiel in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. Only one post would interest me, finance minister, Kubicki said at the time. Finance minister is the key job, and I would like to prove that budget consolidation can work. Asked on Friday by German daily Handelsblatt whether he wanted the job, Kubicki dodged the question, saying policy was more important than cabinet posts. But the interview with Die Zeit showed why the party, and Merkel, might have second thoughts. Explaining why he hadn t yet made a move to Berlin, Kubicki told the paper that if he did, he could turn into a drinker and possibly also a whoremonger . He then painted a hedonistic picture of political life in Berlin, replete with alcohol-soaked receptions and trysts with random women. When asked about these comments today, Kubicki who is married to his third wife, says he has become ethically and morally centered in the intervening years. The names of other FDP politicians are circulating as potential finance ministers. They include Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank (EIB); Carl-Ludwig Thiele of the Bundesbank; Volker Wissing, the former head of the Bundestag finance committee; and Otto Fricke, former head of the budget committee. Two members of the European Parliament, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff and Michael Theurer, have also been mentioned. One cannot completely rule out that Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) will keep the post. If they do, Peter Altmaier, who is expected to replace Schaeuble until the new government is formed, could be a favorite. However, the scenario that several politicians in Berlin said was most likely is that Lindner will be compelled to take the finance ministry, with Kubicki sliding in as parliamentary leader, which is seen as a role more suited to his strengths. Having Lindner, the face of the FDP, outside the government would be frowned upon by Merkel, who will be trying to hold together an unwieldy coalition with the FDP and Greens, a combination that has never been tried at the federal level. There are big differences between the FDP and Greens on economic, environmental and European policy. Add in Merkel s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which is pushing a hard line on immigration, and it is hard to see how the parties will bridge some policy gaps and hold together. Regardless of who takes the job, big changes in fiscal policy are seen as unlikely. The FDP has called for 30 billion euros in tax cuts, but it is unlikely to get its way in the coalition talks and it remains committed to the Schwarze Null balanced budget that Schaeuble defended. You might see new impulses with an FDP finance minister, said Boysen-Hogrefe of the Kiel institute. But don t count on big changes. The Schwarze Null will remain a priority.

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DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - The airport on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali reopened on Wednesday as wind blew away ash spewed out by a volcano, giving airlines a window to get tourists out while authorities stepped up efforts to get thousands of villagers to move to safety. Operations at the airport - the second-busiest in Indonesia - have been disrupted since the weekend when Mount Agung, in east Bali, began belching out huge clouds of smoke and ash, and authorities warned of an imminent threat of a major eruption. Bali s international airport started operating normally, air traffic control provider AirNav said in a statement, adding that operations resumed at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT). The reopening of the airport, which is about 60 km (37 miles) away from Mount Agung, followed a downgrade in an aviation warning to one level below the most serious, with the arrival of more favorable winds. We really hope that we actually get a flight, maybe today or tomorrow, to get back home, said tourist Nathan James, from the Australian city of Brisbane, waiting at the airport. A large plume of white and grey ash and smoke hovered over Agung on Wednesday, after night-time rain partially obscured a fiery glow at its peak. President Joko Widodo begged villagers living in a danger zone around the volcano to move to emergency centers. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho of the disaster mitigation agency said about 43,000 people had heeded advice to take shelter, but an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people were living in the zone. The decision to resume flights followed an emergency meeting at the airport, when authorities weighing up weather conditions, tests and data from AirNav and other groups. Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 later showed there were flights departing and arriving at the airport although its general manager said if the wind changed direction the airport could be closed again at short notice. Agung looms over eastern Bali to a height of just over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). Its last major eruption in 1963 killed more than 1,000 people and razed several villages. Ash coated cars, roofs and roads to the southeast of the crater on Wednesday and children wore masks as they walked to school. Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIAL.SI) said it would resume flights while Australia s Qantas Airways Ltd (QAN.AX) said it and budget arm Jetstar would run 16 flights to Australia on Thursday to ferry home 3,800 stranded customers. Singapore Airlines and SilkAir were seeking approval to operate additional flights on Thursday, while budget offshoot Scoot said it would cease offering land and ferry transport to the city of Surabaya, on Java island, as it resumed flights to Bali. Virgin Australia plans to operate up to four recovery flights to Denpasar on Thursday. As the volcanic activity remains unpredictable, these flights may be canceled at short notice, it said on its website. The head of the weather agency at Bali airport, Bambang Hargiyono, said winds had begun to blow from the north to south, carrying ash toward the neighboring island of Lombok. He said the wind was expected to shift toward the southeast for the next three days , which should allow flights to operate. As many as 430 domestic and international flights had been disrupted on Wednesday. Authorities are urging villagers living up to 10 km (6 miles) from the volcano to move to emergency centers, but some are reluctant to leave homes and livestock. Those in the 8- to 10-km radius must truly take refuge for safety, Widodo told reporters. There must not be any victims. Interactive graphic: 'Mount Agung awakens' click tmsnrt.rs/2AayRVh Graphic: 'Ring of fire' click tmsnrt.rs/2AzR9jv

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(Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Senate were dealt another blow in their effort to repeal Obamacare on Friday when the keeper of the Senate’s rules said certain provisions in their healthcare bill, such as defunding Planned Parenthood, could not be included. The Senate parliamentarian determined some provisions in the Better Care Reconciliation Act violate the Byrd Rule that requires backers to be able to muster 60 votes, according to a memo posted on the Senate Committee on the Budget website. Republicans, who control the Senate with a slim 52-seat majority, are unlikely to be able to round up that many votes for key provisions in the bill to repeal former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. Affected would be the provision to defund Planned Parenthood, two provisions to prevent certain tax credits from being used to purchase health insurance that covers abortion, and a provision stating that beginning in 2020 states no longer have to cover essential health benefits in their Medicaid alternative benefit plans. Some provisions were not subject to the Byrd Rule, according to the parliamentarian, including a provision allowing states the option to impose work requirements on Medicaid enrollees who are not disabled, elderly or pregnant, and a proposal to repeal cost-sharing subsidies. Other provisions were still under review, including a proposal to allow insurers to charge older Americans more than younger people, a provision to allow small businesses to establish “association health plans” that could be sold across state lines and the option for states to receive Medicaid “block grant” lump sums instead of per capita cap payments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is seeking to use procedural rules that would allow Republicans to pass a healthcare bill with a simple majority in the.

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LIMA (Reuters) - Brazilian builder Odebrecht [ODBES.UL] said Saturday that its recently-disclosed business ties to embattled Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski were not part of the corrupt deals it struck with politicians that it has acknowledged to prosecutors. The assertion might strengthen Kuczynski s bid to survive a vote to remove him from office on Thursday in the opposition-ruled Congress over allegations he took bribes from Odebrecht, which is at the center of Latin America s biggest graft scandal. Earlier this week, Odebrecht sent Congress a requested report detailing deposits totaling $4.8 million that it paid to two companies owned by Kuczynski or a close business associate of his for financial and advising services. Kuczynski, who previously denied any links to the company, has resisted calls to resign over the transactions and said there was nothing improper about them. Odebrecht denied accusations by an influential journalist with the newspaper La Republica that the disclosure was an attempt to overthrow Kuczynski in collusion with the right-wing opposition. It was able to disclose the transactions because there was no sign they were part of any of its past criminal activities, which it can only discuss with public prosecutors, Odebrecht said. They were duly paid and officially accounted for, Odebrecht said in a letter to La Republica that it made public on Twitter on Saturday. Odebrecht is obligated by law to send requested information to relevant authorities, including an investigative committee in Congress, the company said. Odebrecht has rocked Latin American politics with its public confession a year ago that it orchestrated sophisticated kickback schemes across a dozen countries for more than a decade - landing elites in jail from Colombia to the Dominican Republic. Late on Friday, lawmakers passed a motion to start presidential vacancy procedures with enough votes to unseat Kuczynski in a vote it scheduled for Thursday. The center-right president s supporters cited Odebrecht s letter to La Republica to argue that his only fault was misleading Peru about his connections to Odebrecht. If Kuczynski is ousted by Congress, he would lose his presidential immunity from prosecution and First Vice President Martin Vizcarra would be authorized to replace him for the rest of his term ending in 2021. Two former presidents in Peru, Ollanta Humala and Alejandro Toledo, have been ensnared in the Odebrecht probe over alleged payments they deny. Humala was jailed in July pending trial and authorities hope to extradite Toledo from the United States.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency on Thursday, stopping short of a national emergency declaration he promised months ago that would have freed up more federal money. Responding to a growing problem, particularly in rural areas, Trump’s declaration will redirect federal resources and loosen regulations to combat opioid abuse, senior administration officials said. But it does not result in more money to combat the crisis. Some critics, including Democratic lawmakers, said the declaration was meaningless without additional funding. Republican lawmakers called the president’s declaration an important step in combating the crisis. “This epidemic is a national health emergency,” Trump, a Republican, said at the White House. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue.” Trump, who also called the epidemic a “national shame” and “human tragedy,” was introduced by his wife, Melania, who said she had made fighting the epidemic one of her top priorities as first lady. “This can happen to any of us,” she said. The president also made a personal reference to addiction in his family by citing his deceased brother Fred, an alcoholic whose advice not to imbibe made an impression on Trump, who does not drink alcohol. The announcement disappointed some advocates and experts in the addiction fight, who said it was inadequate to fight a scourge that played a role in more than 33,000 deaths in 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The death rate has kept rising, estimates show. Opioids, primarily prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, are fueling the drug overdoses. More than 100 Americans die daily from related overdoses, according to the CDC. A White House commission on the drug crisis had urged Trump to declare a national emergency. On Wednesday, the president told Fox Business Network he would do so. Officials told reporters on the conference call that Federal Emergency Management Agency funds that would have been released under a national emergency are already exhausted from recent storms that struck Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida. The administration would have to work with Congress to help provide additional funding to address drug abuse, they added. They said they determined that a public health emergency declaration was most appropriate after an expansive review. Under Thursday’s declaration, treatment would be made more accessible for abusers of prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, while ensuring fewer delays in staffing the Department of Health and Human Services to help states grapple with the crisis. Trump said he would discuss stopping the flow of fentanyl, a drug 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Asia next month. In his remarks, Trump said the U.S. Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security were “strengthening the inspection of packages coming into our country to hold back the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured in China.” In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had always paid a great deal of attention to international cooperation against narcotics and had listed 23 components of fentanyl as controlled substances, despite not having a fentanyl abuse problem. Trump added he would consider bringing lawsuits against “bad actors” in the epidemic. Several states have sued opioid manufacturers for deceptive marketing. Congress is investigating the business practices of manufacturers. The president also said the government should focus on teaching young people not to take drugs. “There is nothing desirable about drugs. They’re bad,” he said. Thursday’s declaration allows the Department of Labor to issue grants to help dislocated workers affected by the crisis. HIV/AIDS health funding would also be prioritized for those who need substance abuse treatment, officials said. As a candidate, Trump promised to address the crisis, including by building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop the flow of illicit drugs, which he touched on in his speech. Additional actions under the move would be announced in coming weeks by various agencies, officials said.

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LONDON (Reuters) - The number of people arrested in Britain on suspicion of terrorism offences rocketed by 68 percent in the last year to the highest figure on record during a period when the country suffered four deadly attacks, figures showed on Thursday. Statistics from the Home Office (interior ministry) showed there were 379 arrests in the year to June, up from 226 from the 12 previous months, and the most since 2001 when the data began to be collected. Britain is on its second-highest threat level, severe , meaning an attack is highly likely and 36 people were killed in terrorist incidents in the first six months of 2017. Among the arrests, 12 came after an attack in March on London s Westminster Bridge when a man drove a car into pedestrians killing four, before he stabbed a policeman to death outside parliament. Another 23 followed a suicide bombing at a pop concert in Manchester in May, and the following month police arrested 21 suspects after three Islamist militants drove into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people at nearby restaurants and bars, killing eight. One arrest followed an attack in north London when a van was driven into worshippers near a mosque which left one man dead. Britain s most senior counter-terrorism officer Mark Rowley has said police have been arresting a suspect every day. He said this week that there had been a shift in the threat level rather than an isolated spike. In the three years until March this year, police foiled 13 potential attacks but in the next 17 weeks, there were the four attacks while the authorities thwarted six others, Rowley said. The pace has continued to be almost as challenging since then, he told a conference in Israel. The official figures showed that among the 379 arrests, 123 people were charged with an offense, of which 105 were terrorism-related, while 189 were released without charge.

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KABUL (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack near a large Shi ite mosque in the Afghan capital on Friday that killed at least one person and wounded five others. The blast hit the Qala-e Fatehullah area of the city, near the Hussainya mosque, and came as security forces were on alert for possible attacks during Ashura, the holiest celebration in the Shi ite religious calendar. President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement saying that the attackers would not be able to shake the unity of the Afghan people with their inhumane and irreligious attacks. A statement from Islamic State, which has claimed a string of attacks on Shi ite targets over the past two years, said its fighters had carried out the attack. Afghanistan, a mainly Sunni Islamic country, has mostly avoided the sectarian violence that has devastated countries such as Iraq, but there have been increasing numbers of attacks on Shi ite targets in recent years. Security officials said at least two attackers had been killed as they carried out the operation, apparently intended to hit the mosque, just a month after 20 people were killed during prayers at another Shi ite mosque in Kabul. A hospital run by the Italian aid group Emergency said five wounded had been brought in following the blast but a witness at the scene said eight or nine people had been wounded or killed. The local affiliate of Islamic State has claimed several attacks on Shi ite targets in Kabul in recent years and the government has allowed the Shi ite community to place armed guards near mosques ahead of Ashura. No reliable census information exists on the size of the Shi ite community in Afghanistan, but estimates range around 10-20 percent, with most coming from the Persian-speaking Hazara and Tajik ethnic groups.

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RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday demanded a halt to Israeli settlement expansion in occupied territory and said he was committed to a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he could be open to alternatives. Abbas’s office issued a statement after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a news conference in Washington before a meeting. At the news conference, Trump said to Netanyahu: “I’d like to see you pull back on settlements for a little bit.” But Trump also dropped U.S. insistence on a two-state solution, a longstanding bedrock of Middle East policy, upending a position embraced by successive administrations and the international community and a U.S. commitment to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. Abbas said he agreed with Trump’s call for Israel to refrain from settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. “The presidency demands that (Israel) agree to (Trump’s call), and that of the international community, to halt all settlement activities including in occupied East Jerusalem,” the statement said. But the Palestinians stressed that they wanted the two-state option. “The Palestinian presidency stressed its commitment to the two-state solution and to the international law and international legitimacy in the way that secures ending the Israeli occupation and establish the Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Giving a convoluted response to a question on whether he backed a two-state solution, Trump suggested that he could abide by whatever the two parties decided. “I’m looking at two states and one state, and I like the one both parties like,” he said as he stood alongside Netanyahu. “I can live with either one.” Abbas’ statement added that the Palestinians affirmed their “readiness to deal positively with the Trump administration to make peace”. Talks have been frozen since 2014. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the Israeli occupied West Bank, territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war and the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Islamist Hamas, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday that stronger Sino-U.S. ties are good for stability in a complex world, state news agency Xinhua said. The two were meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in the German city of Hamburg.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - There will never again be a border dividing Northern Ireland and the republic, a British minister said days before a summit at which the Irish border issue threatens to derail Britain s Brexit plans. But in the interview with the Rheinische Post newspaper, international trade minister Greg Hands reaffirmed that Britain would quit the European Union s customs union, a move most experts believe would lead to the reimposition of a border. Currently, both parts of the island are members of the same customs union, meaning checks of goods crossing the border are unnecessary. If Britain left the customs union and no new checks were imposed, many experts warn it would create a back-door route to circumvent EU tariffs. As part of its negotiations to quit the European Union, Britain must satisfy the bloc s remaining 27 members that it has settled issues including its financial obligations, citizens rights and maintaining a low-friction border between the two parts of the divided island. Failure to do so could bring a veto from any of the bloc s member states, including the Republic of Ireland, preventing Britain from moving on to a discussion of its future relationship with its much larger neighbor. All sides, the Irish government, my government and the European Commission are committed to the peace deal that ended the Northern Ireland conflict, Hands said. There will never be a border between north and south. Extracts of the interview were published on Thursday. He said he was confident that no veto would be cast at the mid-December summit. The 1998 Good Friday peace agreement between Britain and the Republic of Ireland was the crucial step that brought to an end decades of violence in Northern Ireland, partly by offering extensive provisions to allow residents of the British province to maintain allegiance to both EU member states.

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HABUR, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened on Monday to cut off the pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to the outside world, intensifying pressure on the Kurdish autonomous region over its independence referendum. Erdogan spoke shortly after Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Ankara could take punitive measures involving borders and air space against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the referendum and would not recognize the outcome. Voting began on Monday despite strong opposition from Iraq s central government and neighboring Turkey and Iran - both with significant Kurdish populations - as well as Western warnings the move could aggravate Middle East instability. Erdogan, grappling with a long-standing Kurdish insurgency in Turkey s southeast, which borders northern Iraq, said the separatist referendum was unacceptable and economic, trade and security counter-measures would be taken. He stopped short of saying Turkey had decided to close off the oil flow. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day come through the pipeline in Turkey from northern Iraq, but he made clear the option was on the table. After this, let s see through which channels the northern Iraqi regional government will send its oil, or where it will sell it, he said in a speech. We have the tap. The moment we close the tap, then it s done. Yildirim said Ankara would decide on punitive measures against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) after talks with Iraq s central government. Our energy, interior and customs ministries are working on (measures). We are evaluating steps regarding border gates and air space. We will take these steps quickly, Yildirim told Turkish broadcasters. Iraqi soldiers arrived in Turkey on Monday night to join a drill on the Turkish side of the border near the Habur area in the southeast, Turkey s military said in a statement. Iraq s defense ministry said the two armies started major maneuvers at the border area. Local media said Turkey had blocked access to the KRG via the Habur border crossing with Iraq. Ankara s customs minister denied this, saying Habur remained open but with tight controls on traffic, according to the state-run Anadolu agency. However, Erdogan later said traffic was only being allowed to cross from the Turkish side of the border into Iraq. Maruf Ari, a 50-year-old truck driver, was one of those who had crossed back into Turkey early on Monday morning. He said a closure of the gate would ruin his livelihood. If the border is closed it will harm all of us. I m doing this job for 20 years. I m not making a lot of money. Around 1,000 lira ($285) a month. But if the gate is closed, we will go hungry. The United States and other Western powers also urged authorities in the KRG to cancel the vote, saying it would distract from the fight against Islamic State. Shares of Turkish Airlines, which has direct flights to northern Iraq, tumbled 6.5 percent, underperforming a 1.78 percent decline in the BIST 100 index. Turkey s currency, the lira, also weakened. Turkey took the Kurdish television channel Rudaw off its satellite service TurkSat, a Turkish broadcasting official told Reuters. Turkey has long been northern Iraq s main link to the outside world, but sees the referendum as a grave matter for its own national security. Turkey has the region s largest Kurdish population and has been fighting a three-decade insurgency in its mainly Kurdish southeast. On Saturday, Turkey s parliament voted to extend by a year a mandate authorizing the deployment of troops in Iraq and Syria. Still, Ankara is unlikely to make rash moves when it comes to sanctions against the KRG, said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a professor of political science and international relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. Closing the border gate, cancelling international flights and, at the final step, cutting the pipeline can be discussed, he said. Military pressure can be used directly or indirectly. The Turkish army launched military exercises involving tanks and armored vehicles near the Habur border crossing a week ago and they are expected to continue until at least Sept. 26. Additional units joined the exercises as they entered their second stage Turkey s military said in its statement that the third phase of the drill would be held on Sept. 26, and that Iraqi soldiers who arrived on Monday night would join. The military has also in recent days carried out daily air strikes against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq, where the group s commanders are based. The PKK launched its separatist insurgency in 1984, and more than 40,000 people have been killed since. It is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. Militants in northern Iraq launched a cross-border mortar attack into Turkey s Hakkari province, hitting a temporary residence used by refugees, the interior ministry said. One refugee was killed and several others were injured, it said. In the eastern Agri province, near the border with Iran, individuals thought to be Kurdish militants opened fire on a mini-bus carrying foreign nationals, the ministry said. Three people were killed and four wounded in that attack, it said. ($1 = 3.5153 liras)

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Monday said courtroom proceedings over President Donald Trump’s travel ban should continue in Seattle during an ongoing appeals court review. At a hearing, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle said he was not prepared to slow down the case. Robart directed attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department and Washington state’s attorney general to prepare for further proceedings in Seattle.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prominent Russian political commentator and writer Yulia Latynina has left Russia fearing for her life, she told a Moscow radio station. Latynina s car was set on fire at the beginning of September, weeks after unidentified assailants sprayed a poisonous substance on her house outside Moscow and the car. I m quite scared ... I m terrified that the people who did it were prepared for fatalities, Latynina said of the arson. I m abroad, my parents are also abroad. It s unlikely I ll be going to Russia soon, she told the Echo of Moscow radio station late Saturday. Latynina, who works as a columnist at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, has been critical of the Kremlin s policy in the Chechnya republic in the Caucasus, as well as the local authorities. Last year, Latynina was attacked in the center of Moscow.

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington turned into a virtual fortress on Thursday ahead of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, while thousands of people took to the streets of New York and Washington to express their displeasure with his coming administration. Some 900,000 people, both Trump backers and opponents, are expected to flood Washington for Friday’s inauguration ceremony, according to organizers’ estimates. Events include the swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and a parade to the White House along streets thronged with spectators. The number of planned protests and rallies this year is far above what has been typical at recent presidential inaugurations, with some 30 permits granted in Washington for anti-Trump rallies and sympathy protests planned in cities from Boston to Los Angeles, and outside the U.S. in cities including London and Sydney. The night before the inauguration, thousands of people turned out in New York for a rally at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and then marched a few blocks from the Trump Tower where the businessman lives. The rally featured a lineup of politicians, activists and celebrities including Mayor Bill de Blasio and actor Alec Baldwin, who trotted out the Trump parody he performs on “Saturday Night Live.” “Donald Trump may control Washington, but we control our destiny as Americans,” de Blasio said. “We don’t fear the future. We think the future is bright, if the people’s voices are heard.” In Washington, a group made up of hundreds of protesters clashed with police clad in riot gear who used pepper spray against some of the crowd on Thursday night, according to footage on social media. The confrontation occurred outside the National Press Club building, where inside a so-called “DeploraBall” event was being held in support of Trump, the footage showed. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said police aimed to keep groups separate, using tactics similar to those employed during last year’s political conventions. “The concern is some of these groups are pro-Trump, some of them are con-Trump, and they may not play well together in the same space,” Johnson said on MSNBC. Trump opponents have been angered by his comments during the campaign about women, illegal immigrants and Muslims and his pledges to scrap the Obamacare health reform and build a wall on the Mexican border. The Republican’s supporters admire his experience in business, including as a real estate developer and reality television star, and view him as an outsider who will take a fresh approach to politics. Bikers for Trump, a group that designated itself as security backup during last summer’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, is ready to step in if protesters block access to the inauguration, said Dennis Egbert, one of the group’s organizers. “We’re going to be backing up law enforcement. We’re on the same page,” Egbert, 63, a retired electrician from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. About 28,000 security personnel, miles of fencing, roadblocks, street barricades and dump trucks laden with sand are part of the security cordon around 3 square miles (8 square km) of central Washington. A protest group known as Disrupt J20 has vowed to stage demonstrations at each of 12 security checkpoints and block access to the festivities on the grassy National Mall. Police and security officials have pledged repeatedly to guarantee protesters’ constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. Aaron Hyman, fellow at the National Gallery of Art, said he could feel tension in the streets ahead of Trump’s swearing-in and the heightened security was part of it. “People are watching each other like, ‘You must be a Trump supporter,’ and ‘You must be one of those liberals’,” said Hyman, 32, who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November election. Friday’s crowds are expected to fall well short of the 2 million people who attended Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, and be in line with the 1 million who were at his second in 2013. Forecast rain may also dampen the turnout, though security officials lifted an earlier ban on umbrellas, saying small umbrellas would be permitted.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House expects the U.S. Congress to soon waive a rule known as “Paygo” that could trigger deep spending cuts in areas such as Medicare and agriculture in order to cover the costs of the recently passed tax overhaul, a White House official said on Wednesday. Congress will likely waive the rule, which requires the Senate to find offsets for the large tax cuts in the bill, through the spending resolution it must soon pass in order to keep the government open, the official added. The official said the Internal Revenue Service, the country’s tax agency, can immediately begin implementing changes called for in the $1.5 trillion overhaul of the U.S. tax code and does not need to wait for President Donald Trump to sign the bill into law.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election victory all but dooms major Obama administration initiatives that are already tied up in legal challenges and gives him the chance to appoint a pivotal fifth conservative justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law, his plan to combat climate change, his executive action on immigration, his transgender rights policy and other issues were challenged in court by Republicans and industry groups. (For a graphic on legal challenges to major Obama initiatives click tmsnrt.rs/2eznafM) A Trump administration could decide no longer to defend the policies in court after Trump takes office on Jan. 20. In addition, Trump and the incoming Republican-led Congress could simply repeal or rescind Obama’s policies, as they have promised. Trump’s Supreme Court appointment, possibly the first of multiple picks, would allow him to restore the decades-long conservative majority on the bench, which looked under threat when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died in February. The shorthanded court currently is split with four conservatives and four liberals. Conservative activists may be emboldened to bring cases urging the court to support gun rights, uphold abortion restrictions and rule for religious rights. “If you have a conservative court, you are going to have more conservative decisions,” said Kerri Kupec, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group involved in religious rights cases. One issue the court could take up in the near term is whether business owners who oppose same-sex marriage can object on religious grounds to providing services to gay couples. One dispute concerns a baker in Colorado, while another involves a florist in Washington state. In the labor context, the high court could also revisit whether states can force nonunion workers to pay unions for collective bargaining activities. The court split 4-4 on the issue in March, just after Scalia’s death, in a loss for conservative groups challenging the practice. Liberal hopes of gaining a majority on the Supreme Court for the first time in decades lasted almost nine months, from Scalia’s death on Feb. 13 to Tuesday night. In a vindication of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision, with little precedent in U.S. history, to take no action on Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia, appeals court judge Merrick Garland, Trump is now poised to nominate a new justice as soon as he takes office. His nominee would be considered for confirmation by a Republican-controlled Senate under McConnell. Trump may also be able to make further appointments to the court, with three justices 78 or older, including 83-year-old liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Trump called on to resign in July after she called him a “faker” and speculated about the possibility of moving to New Zealand if he won the White House. Fellow liberal Stephen Breyer is 78, while conservative Anthony Kennedy is 80. If Trump is able to replace Ginsburg or another liberal justice during his presidency, the court’s conservative wing would be further strengthened. Such a majority “could be a threat to important rights that have been protected in the past by the Supreme Court,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal legal group. She cited abortion rights and efforts at ensuring racial equality as examples. A conservative court, as it was with Scalia on the bench, would likely be favorable toward gun rights, skeptical of abortion and supportive of the death penalty. If Democrat Hillary Clinton had won Tuesday’s election, liberals may have been emboldened to challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty and seek gun restrictions and limits on campaign spending, among other things. Trump has already issued a list of 21 judges, mainly federal judges appointed by President George W. Bush and state court judges, he said he would consider to fill Scalia’s vacancy. All have conservative credentials on such issues as abortion, birth control and gun rights. The case that could be affected soonest by Trump’s win involves transgender rights. The court on Oct. 28 took up a case concerning a female-born transgender high school student named Gavin Grimm, who identifies as male and sued in 2015 to win the right to use the school’s boys’ bathroom. Grimm is backed by the Obama administration. No date has been set for the argument in the case. The court could potentially delay acting until it has nine justices. A ruling could resolve similar litigation around the country over an Obama administration directive saying schools should allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choosing. Trump has said he would rescind the Obama directive. He also has said he would rescind Obama’s executive action to protect millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation and give them work permits, which was put on hold by the courts while the administration fights to revive it. Trump would be expected to overturn major regulations put in place under Obama, including the Clean Power Plan to curb greenhouse emissions mainly from coal-fired power plants. That process takes time, meaning the Supreme Court could potentially rule on a legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan before Trump can dump it. The case is pending before an appeals court in Washington. The Republican Congress under Trump could now seek to repeal Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, but even if it does not, a Republican legal challenge that could cripple the law is pending before a federal appeals court in Washington.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday that the United States was seeking to add a five-year sunset provision to the North American Free Trade Agreement to provide a regular, “systematic re-examination” of the trade pact. Ross told a forum hosted by Politico that both he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had agreed on the need for such a sunset provision - which means NAFTA would automatically end after five years unless renewed - and would “put it forward” in the NAFTA modernization talks, but it was unclear whether Canada and Mexico would back it. U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators are set to reconvene for a third round of talks in Ottawa on Sept. 23-27. Ross said a sunset provision was needed because forecasts for U.S. export and job growth when NAFTA took effect in 1994 were “wildly optimistic” and failed to live up to expectations. Canadian and Mexican ambassadors to Washington pushed back at the idea, saying such a provision would add uncertainty to a NAFTA agreement and affect long-term planning by businesses. “I’m a believer in sunset clauses when things are set up to be temporary,” said Canada’s Ambassador David MacNaughton. “We can have that discussion but I really do suspect that it won’t be Mexico and Canada pushing back against the secretary, it will be a lot of Americans too.” Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States Gerónimo Gutiérrez Fernández said a provision “would have very detrimental consequences to the business sector of the United States, Mexico and Canada.” “Let’s look at what they are thinking about in more details but certainty is the key word here,” said Gutierrez. Ross said the termination clause currently in NAFTA, that allows a country to exit after a six-month notice period, has never been triggered, and “it’s the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t be.” Ross and Trump have both talked about quitting NAFTA if it can’t be renegotiated to reduce U.S. trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. “The five-year thing is a real thing, would force a systematic re-examination,” Ross said. “If there were a systematic re-examination after a little experience period, you’d have a forum for trying to fix things that didn’t work out the way you thought they would.”

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LONDON (Reuters) - Foreign secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday that a key proviso of a 100-year old British declaration which laid the foundations for Israel had not been fully met, striking a sympathetic tone towards the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to travel to Britain on Thursday to meet his British counterpart Theresa May and Johnson for the anniversary of the Balfour declaration which said Britain viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . Palestinians have long condemned the declaration - named after Arthur Balfour, then the British foreign secretary - as a promise by Britain to hand over land that it did not own. In an article written for the Daily Telegraph newspaper ahead of Netanyahu s visit, Johnson described himself as a friend of Israel , but also said he was deeply moved by the suffering of those affected and dislodged by its birth. The vital caveat in the Balfour Declaration - intended to safeguard other communities - has not been fully realized, he said referring to the clause in the document which said nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities. May met Netanyahu earlier this year to talk about boosting trade after Brexit, but also raised the diplomatic sore point of Israeli settlements in occupied lands on which the Palestinians hope to create an independent state. Johnson also made reference to the settlement issue in his article, saying that a two state solution must include a viable and contiguous Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel , and proposed seeking a peace agreement based on 1967 borders with mutual territorial swaps. A similar call in 2011 by then-U.S. president Barack Obama drew a blunt rebuke from Netanyahu, who said Israel would never pull back to its 1967 borders - something which would mean big concessions of occupied land. Netanyahu contends this would leave Israel with indefensible borders. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Britain last year to apologize for the Balfour Declaration, saying that his people had suffered greatly as a result of it. Earlier this year Britain said it there would be no apology for the declaration, and said it continued to work for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Britain does not classify Palestine as a state, but says it could do so at any time if it believed it would help peace efforts between the Palestinians and Israel.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Homeland Security chief John Kelly told a congressional panel on Tuesday he should have delayed U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries and on all refugees so he could brief Congress on the executive order. The temporary ban ignited international protests as the United States revoked 60,000 visas and detained some travelers who landed in the United States unaware the order had been signed while they were in flight. “The desire was to get it out quick so that potentially people that might be coming here to harm us would not take advantage of some period of time that they could jump on an airplane and get here,” Kelly told the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security. Kelly took the blame for not briefing Congress on the order before it was announced late on Jan. 27. “This is all on me by the way. I should have delayed it just a bit so that I could talk to members of Congress,” he said. Kelly said the confusion at U.S. airports was caused by court orders challenging the ban that went out the day after it went into effect, adding that his team at the Department of Homeland Security acted swiftly to tweak their operations as necessary. The order was signed also with little or no briefing of U.S. government agents responsible for implementing it, contributing to the confusion. There was also no agreement within the administration for several days over whether green card holders - foreign nationals from the seven targeted countries with permanent U.S. residency - should be admitted. The White House reversed itself later and said those with green cards would be granted waivers to enter the country. The ban was suspended by a federal judge last Friday, opening a window for refugees and citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to enter the United States, pending an appeal by the U.S government. Trump’s executive order temporarily barred travelers from the seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees, except refugees from Syria whom he would ban indefinitely. The ban, which Trump says is needed to protect the United States against Islamist militants, sparked condemnation from critics who said it was discriminatory against Muslims and questioned its value as a security measure. All the people who carried out fatal attacks inspired by Islamist militancy in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were U.S. citizens or legal residents, the New America think tank says. None came to the United States or were from a family that emigrated from one of the countries listed in the travel ban, it said. (bit.ly/2keSmUO) The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was due to hear arguments about whether to restore the ban at 3 p.m. PST (2300 GMT). Kelly defended the order, at the hearing, asserting that the seven countries on the list were known to have inadequate systems for sharing information with the United States on their potentially dangerous citizens. He said reports circulated last week that 12 countries could be added to the travel ban were false, adding that no additional countries were being considered. Kelly also said that funding to cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration agents would only be cut on a case-by-case basis. Trump had threatened to cut large amounts of federal funding to about 300 so-called “sanctuary cities” in order to pressure them to cooperate in the apprehension and deportation of illegal immigrants. Kelly said he did not expect to meet Trump’s hiring goals of 5,000 additional U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents within two years. Trump did not specify a timeline when he called for the hiring in his executive action.

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(Reuters) - America must work with all nations to build stronger economies, recognizing the inequalities that globalization can generate but refusing to give in to protectionism, U.S. President Barack Obama wrote in the Economist on Thursday. Months before he leaves the White House in January, Obama wrote that a certain anxiety over globalization had taken hold in the United States, not unlike the discontent leading to Britain’s vote in June to leave the European Union. “The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease,” the Democratic president wrote. “So we have a choice - retreat into old, closed-off economies or press forward, acknowledging the inequality that can come with globalization while committing ourselves to making the global economy work better for all people, not just those at the top.” Calling capitalism the greatest driver of prosperity the world has ever known, Obama argued that trade had helped the U.S. economy much more than hurt it. His enthusiastic advocacy for trade runs counter to the stated policies of both his potential successors, who say many trade deals hurt U.S. workers. The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal championed by the president is opposed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival in the Nov. 8 election, Hillary Clinton, whom Obama has endorsed. Obama listed four major structural challenges facing the United States - “boosting productivity growth, combating rising inequality, ensuring that everyone who wants a job can get one and building a resilient economy that’s primed for future growth.” Trumpeting the achievements of his eight-year presidency, led by preventing the 2007-2009 recession from turning into a depression, Obama said a foundation was laid for a better future. “America must stay committed to working with all nations to build stronger and more prosperous economies for all our citizens for generations to come,” he wrote.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean police are seeking an arrest warrant for Cho Yang-ho, chairman of Hanjin Group, the parent of Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, on charges of breach of trust following their probe into construction work at his house, a police official said on Monday. In July, police raided the headquarters of Korean Air Lines, South Korea s top airline, as part of an investigation into allegations that company funds were used to pay for the renovation work at Cho s home. A Korean Air spokesman declined to comment.

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MIZIARA, Lebanon (Reuters) - Abu Khaled had lived in the Lebanese town of Miziara for almost 20 years until a woman s suspected murder by a Syrian refugee led to his expulsion alongside several hundred other Syrians. They gave us notice to evict at 2 a.m., said Abu Khaled, standing outside a bare building in a nearby village with some of his 13-strong family, who were all forced to leave on the orders of the local authorities. I don t know how we left - we carried our stuff on the road and then found this warehouse and we put ourselves here, he told Reuters. More than six years into the Syrian war, 1.5 million Syrians account for one quarter of Lebanon s population. But patience is wearing thin with their presence and the strain it has placed on local resources. The Lebanese army has previously carried out evictions of Syrian refugees, citing security concerns. At the local level, ill feeling has surfaced intermittently in recent years, with councils imposing curfews, telling Lebanese not to rent houses to Syrians, or outright asking them to leave an area. The Miziara council went a step further by using trucks to move people out, said George Ghali, programs manager at the Lebanese rights group ALEF. The decision was prompted by last week s arrest of a Syrian man for the murder of 26-year-old Rayya Chidiac in Miziara, a wealthy Christian town in north Lebanon. Chidiac had been found dead in a relative s home on Sept. 22 showing signs of bruising, strangling and sexual assault, security forces said. The refugee, in his 20s, had worked as the building s caretaker, and confessed to her murder. While the crime shocked Syrians and Lebanese alike, the locals said they must protect their own and could no longer risk living alongside Syrians. We are giving them food and they are devouring us. We cannot welcome them here any more, priest Yousef Faddoul told Reuters. Let them set up tents for them elsewhere. But the Syrians say they are being punished collectively for one man s crime. If I don t go back to my work, what can I do? In my country there is a war ... two days ago, a rocket exploded near my house, said Sobhi Razzouk, a Syrian from Idlib who had worked in Miziara for 15 years before being expelled. Like Abu Khaled, he was had joined in Lebanon by his family after the war began. We condemn this horrific act ... but the way we were expelled - we never expected this. In response to questions from Reuters, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR called for restraint from collective reprisals against refugees , and said it was in touch with local authorities and refugee families. Miziara s municipal authority said on its Facebook page that Syrians could now only be in town during daytime working hours - if they had work permits. Landlords can only rent accommodation to those with residency permits. Another post from the municipality encouraged Miziara landlords and those who sponsor Syrians to evict them or annul their guarantees. We support evicting Syrians in a legal way and evicting all those who break the law and anyone who has no business being in Miziara, said Maroun Dina, the head of the municipal council, said. This is a problem across Lebanon. If the government doesn t take the necessary steps then the public will and I cannot control the public, Dina said. Many Syrians in Lebanon live in a precarious legal situation, with proper residency and work documentation expensive and hard to obtain. Lebanon has resisted the establishment of organized refugee camps for Syrians, fearing a repeat of its experience with around half a million Palestinians, most still living in refugee camps set up after the creation of Israel almost 70 years ago. That has left Syrians scattered across the country in tented settlements or urban areas - without any clear definition of their rights, and at the mercy of local authorities. Their long-term presence is a particularly sensitive issue for Lebanon, where the addition of so many predominantly Sunni Muslim Syrians would upset the delicate sectarian balance with Christians, Shi ite Muslims and other groups. As the Syrian government regains control of more Syrian territory, calls have increased in Lebanon for Syrians to return home, although Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has said there can be no forced return. Last week, the north Lebanese town of Bsharri cited Chidiac s death as a reason to clamp down on Syrians, saying the situation in Syria had improved to the point where they no longer needed to be in Lebanon. It issued a statement saying Syrians must not gather in public squares, must not go out after 6 p.m., and would be barred from renting properties in the area from Nov. 15.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday offered a stern parting message for Donald Trump days before the Republican U.S. president-elect takes office, cautioning him against loosening sanctions on Russia and warning him to watch what he says. Brennan rebuked Trump for comparing U.S. intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany in comments by the outgoing CIA chief that reflected the extraordinary friction between the incoming president and the 17 intelligence agencies he will begin to command once he takes office on Friday. In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Brennan questioned the message sent to the world if the president-elect broadcasts that he does not have confidence in the United States’ own intelligence agencies. “What I do find outrageous is equating the intelligence community with Nazi Germany. I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly,” Brennan said. Brennan’s criticism followed a tumultuous week of finger-pointing between Trump and intelligence agency leaders over an unsubstantiated report that Russia had collected compromising information about Trump. The unverified dossier was summarized in a U.S. intelligence report presented to Trump and outgoing President Barack Obama this month that concluded Russia tried to sway the outcome of the Nov. 8 election in Trump’s favor by hacking and other means. The report did not make an assessment on whether Russia’s attempts affected the election’s outcome. Trump has accused the intelligence community of leaking the dossier information, which its leaders denied. They said it was their responsibility to inform the president-elect that the allegations were being circulated. Later on Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to berate Brennan and wrote, “Was this the leaker of Fake News?” In a separate posting, Trump scolded “those intelligence chiefs” for presenting the dossier as part of their briefing. “When people make mistakes, they should APOLOGIZE,” he wrote. Brennan also sounded an alarm on U.S. relations with Russia. Trump has vowed to improve relations with Moscow even as he faces criticism that he is too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump does not yet have a full understanding of Russia’s actions, Brennan said, noting its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, its support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war and Moscow’s aggressive activities in the cyber realm. “Mr. Trump has to understand that absolving Russia of various actions it has taken in the past number of years is a road that he, I think, needs to be very, very careful about moving down,” Brennan said. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Trump suggested he might do away with sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on Russia in late December in response to the cyber attacks if Moscow proves helpful in battling terrorists and reaching other U.S. goals. Brennan also said Trump needs to be mindful about his off-the-cuff remarks once he assumes the presidency, alluding to Trump’s penchant for making broad pronouncements on Twitter. “Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests,” Brennan said. “So therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound.” “It’s more than just about Mr. Trump. It’s about the United States of America,” Brennan said. Trump has picked Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House of Representatives and a former U.S. Army officer, to replace Brennan. Trump’s comments about Putin and his reluctance to assign blame to Moscow for the hacking of Democratic political groups has opened him up to criticism that he will be too soft on Russia. For months, Trump had publicly expressed doubt about U.S. intelligence conclusions on the cyber attacks before acknowledging at a news conference on Wednesday that he thought Russia was behind the hacking. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told “Fox News Sunday,” “What the president-elect is determined to do is to explore the possibility of better relations.” Pence did not say whether Trump would undo some of the sanctions and diplomatic expulsions Obama had slapped on Moscow. Pence confirmed that Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, held conversations with the Russian ambassador to Washington around the time the sanctions were imposed, but said the talks “were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats.” However, Pence denied that Trump’s team had any contact with Russian officials during the presidential campaign. “Of course not,” he told Fox. Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Friday they will investigate alleged Russian attempts to influence the election and links between Russia and the political campaigns.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he will ask the Republican-controlled Congress to further speed up its efforts to overhaul the U.S. tax code, citing the potential impact of Hurricane Irma as a reason to hasten reforms. I think now with what s happened with the hurricane, I m going to ask for a speedup. I wanted a speedup anyway, but now we need it even more so, the president said at the outset of a Cabinet meeting at Camp David. The White House released a video of his remarks. Trump urged Congress in a Friday tweet not to wait until the end of September for tax legislation.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian activist who is under criminal investigation for his human rights work on Tuesday dedicated an international rights award to the thousands of Egyptians he said had been tortured or imprisoned since veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. Mohamed Zaree, 37, the Egypt office director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, won the Martin Ennals Award, a prize given each year by a jury of 10 global rights groups. He is banned from traveling abroad so could not collect the award in person in Geneva, but spoke to the audience on Tuesday by video conference. I do not view this honor as recognition of my work alone, Zaree said. Instead, this award belongs to the tens of thousands of Egyptian citizens who have been tortured, imprisoned, disappeared or killed over the last six years for nothing more than standing up to corruption and tyranny through peaceful means. Egyptian rights activists accuse President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of erasing freedoms won in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ended Mubarak s 30-year rule. Last year authorities reopened an investigation into non-governmental organizations that document abuses, which the government accuses of receiving foreign funding to spread chaos Since seizing power in mid-2013 from the Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi has presided over a crackdown on his Islamist opponents that has seen hundreds killed and many thousands jailed. But the dragnet has since widened to include secular and liberal activists at the forefront of the 2011 uprising. Egypt says the measures are necessary for national security and that hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed. Zaree s seat was empty in the audience but his wife, Shymaa Abd El Aziz, and two school-age daughters received the award presented by Kate Gilmore, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, on his behalf. He faces charges that could carry a life in prison sentence for receiving funds from foreign entities to harm national security and has been banned from travel since May 2016. His wife tearfully said the last time he was interrogated they lied to their daughters and said he was going somewhere for work. She said that him winning the award gave them the courage to tell them the truth if he was arrested. Within the context of the renewed crackdown on Egyptian human rights organizations, he has become a leading figure in Egypt s human rights movement, the awards jury said. Government pressure forced the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies to relocate its headquarters to Tunisia in 2014. The runners-up for the Martin Ennals Award were Karla Avelar, who founded El Salvador s first organization of transgender women, and FreeThe5KH, five Cambodian human rights activists who were recently released. The award s first recipient in 1994 was Chinese dissident Harry Wu.

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - A British-Iranian charity worker serving a jail sentence in Tehran received a letter from ex-prime minister David Cameron that showed she had ties to the British government, a prosecutor said on Tuesday, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization, is serving a five-year jail sentence after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran s clerical establishment. The prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said the letter demonstrated Zaghari-Ratcliffe s importance to the British authorities but he did not say when it was sent or provide any other details about it. A spokeswoman at the British Foreign Office said she was not immediately able to comment on whether Cameron had written a letter, but confirmed that both he and his successor, Theresa May, had raised the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case with Iranian authorities. We will continue to raise all our dual national detainees, including Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe s case, with the Iranian government at every available opportunity, she added. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested by the elite Revolutionary Guards in April 2016 at a Tehran airport, as she was about to return to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a family visit. Her family and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have both denied the charges against her. Thomson Reuters is a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. Last week her family said Iranian authorities had opened a new case against Zaghari-Ratcliffe, leveling charges that could carry a sentence of 16 additional years in prison. The new charges include joining and receiving money from organizations working to overthrow the Islamic Republic, and attending a demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy in London, the family said. The Foreign Office spokeswoman referred Reuters to a statement it issued last week in which it expressed concern that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was facing additional charges and said it was seeking more information from the Iranian authorities. On Tuesday Jafari Dolatabadi also said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was responsible for teaching online journalism for the BBC Persian language service with the goal of attracting and teaching individuals for propaganda operations against Iran , Mizan reported. Francesca Unsworth, director of the BBC World Service Group, said earlier this year that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had never worked for the BBC s Persian service.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his eldest son as “innocent” following emails that showed Donald Trump Jr. welcomed Russian help against his father’s rival in the 2016 presidential election, deepening the controversy over purported Russian meddling. Trump Jr. released a series of emails on Tuesday that revealed he had eagerly agreed to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as part of Moscow’s official support for his father. Trump Jr., in a Fox News television interview Tuesday, said: “In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently.” The president, after initially releasing a statement calling his son “high-quality,” on Wednesday praised the TV appearance and again condemned news coverage and investigations into his campaign’s alleged links to Russia. “He was open, transparent and innocent. This is the greatest Witch Hunt in political history. Sad!” Trump wrote on Twitter. Christopher Wray, Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday he did not consider special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling to be a “witch hunt.” The emails offered the most concrete evidence to date that Trump campaign officials embraced an offer of Russian help to win the election, a subject that has cast a cloud over Trump’s presidency and spurred multiple investigations. The emails do not appear to provide evidence of illegal activity, but legal experts say Trump Jr. could run into trouble if investigators find he aided a criminal action, such as hacking into Democratic computer networks, or violated campaign-finance laws by accepting gifts from foreign entities. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow sought to help Trump win the election, in part by releasing private emails from Democratic Party officials. The Justice Department and Congress are both investigating alleged Russian interference in the election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia and Moscow has denied meddling. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday it was preposterous that Trump’s eldest son was under attack for meeting the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. “I learned with surprise that a Russian lawyer, a woman, is being blamed and Trump’s son is being blamed for meeting. For me, this is wild,” Lavrov told a news conference in Brussels. The allegations that Russia tried to help Trump win the election has cast a cloud over his presidency. White House aides say the president keenly watches cable TV news, which he often mentions in his tweets. Trump denied that on Wednesday, saying the White House was focused on getting healthcare and tax reforms through Congress. “The W.H. is functioning perfectly, focused on HealthCare, Tax Cuts/Reform & many other things. I have very little time for watching T.V.,” Trump wrote on Twitter. One of the president’s personal attorneys, Jay Sekulow, in a series of TV interviews on Wednesday said Trump Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya was not a violation of the law and that the president was unaware of the meeting and the emails until recently. “There’s no illegality,” he told NBC’s “Today” program. Trump Jr. said that Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, now a top White House adviser, also attended the meeting with Veselnitskaya, who has denied having Kremlin ties.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York and California’s Democratic governors said on Friday residents would face hefty tax increases and some would leave their states under a proposal in the Republican tax plan that would eliminate state and local tax (SALT) deductions on federal income tax. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Jerry Brown of California spoke in a joint conference call a day after the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure that advanced President Donald Trump’s tax plan. Republican leaders have sketched out an outline of the tax measures that would eliminate the tax break, although detailed legislation will not be unveiled until next Wednesday. If the SALT deduction were eliminated the tax package would disproportionately hit residents of states that have high income taxes, many of which are historically Democratic, the governors said. “This is an attack on California, New York and New Jersey, and other states that would not vote for Trump,” Brown said. “It’s a gross manipulation of our tax code.” The SALT deduction allows residents to subtract income taxes paid to states and local governments from the total income taxed by the federal government taxes. Its elimination would be one among a series of measures to offset lost revenues from what are envisaged as sweeping overall cuts on corporate and personal taxes. While analysts say the overall tax package would cut taxes for companies and individuals by up to $6 trillion over the next decade, many residents of high-tax states who use the deduction would pay more, the governors said. In New York, taxpayers would pay an average of an additional $5,300 in federal income taxes a year without the SALT deduction, Cuomo’s office said in a separate statement. That sharp increase in taxes would likely lead to an exodus of residents, starting with high earners, who would see the greatest increases, Cuomo said. “Higher-income people will move,” he said. Some Republican lawmakers from high-tax states voted against the budget measure on Thursday to express opposition to the elimination of the SALT deduction. Republican congressional leaders are working to allay their concerns. “If the SALT is repealed, we would expect some deterioration of credit quality for affected states and localities in the medium term, including some price pressure on housing markets in areas bordering states with lower local taxes (eg, southern New Jersey),” Barclays analysts wrote to clients on Thursday. “However, municipal bonds issued by high tax states and localities would likely become even more valuable to investors, and there could be stronger demand from retail investors, bringing yields and muni-Treasury ratios down,” Barclays said.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, if left unaddressed by the U.S. Congress where legislation has stalled in the House Natural Resources Committee, will result in the need to pay for a humanitarian aid package, Congressman Raul Grijalva said on Thursday. Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the HNRC from Arizona, said in a teleconference with reporters that it is an “either/or” situation as Puerto Rico faces $70 billion in debt it cannot pay off and a growing humanitarian crisis because it cannot afford maintaining basic social services. “Either we begin this process, stabilize, create some carve out opportunities for essential services and/or wait for the crisis to get worse and then have to respond with humanitarian relief,” Grijalva said, adding that a new draft of the bill had not been made available as of Thursday morning. Grijalva visited Puerto Rico this week and met with the island’s leadership and toured its main medical facilities. He said austerity alone is not going to stay the situation of degraded conditions for health, nutrition and education. “People talk about a bailout. Thus far there is no money being talked about extended by the United States government,” Grijalva said, adding: “We are talking about a piece of legislation that provides for a method of restructuring and for some accountability attached to that restructuring.” The Republican chairman of the HNRC, Rob Bishop of Utah, said he wants a bipartisan bill to emerge from committee but canceled an expected release of the legislation on Wednesday while lawmakers hashed out language revolving around the status of the island of Vieques, pensions and minimum wage rates. Puerto Rico defaulted on May 1 for a third time on some of its debt, missing a roughly $400 million payment owed by the Government Development Bank, the island’s main fiscal agent. It faces a near $2 billion July 1 debt payment. The legislation’s basic structure still includes the creation of an independent oversight board to lead the restructuring of the U.S. commonwealth’s credit and work with the local government to develop an economic reform plan. On the issue of Vieques, Democrats are concerned the language regarding the transfer of federal land on the island, which is mainly a nature preserve, could leave it vulnerable to commercial development in the name of recreation. “Our position has been from the beginning that Vieques did not belong in this package of legislation,” said Grijalva.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton led Republican Donald Trump by 6 percentage points among likely voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Wednesday, the same advantage the Democratic presidential nominee held before an FBI announcement that reignited the controversy about her email practices. The Oct. 28-Nov. 1 opinion poll was conducted almost entirely after FBI Director James Comey notified Congress last Friday his agency would examine newly discovered emails that might pertain to Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Comey said he did not know whether the emails were significant and released no information other than that they existed. His announcement drew outrage from Democrats who voiced concern it would unfairly influence voters so close to next week’s election. Trump and other Republicans seized on the news to revive questions about Clinton’s credibility. Among 1,772 people who have either voted already or were identified as likely voters in the Nov. 8 election, 45 percent said they supported Clinton, while 39 percent said they backed Trump. On Thursday, the day before Comey’s announcement, Clinton led Trump by 43 percent to 37 percent. In a four-way poll that included alternative party candidates, Clinton led Trump by 8 percentage points among likely voters. Forty-five percent supported Clinton, while 37 percent backed Trump. Five percent supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and 2 percent backed Jill Stein of the Green Party. Other national polls have shown Clinton’s lead shrinking over the past week. RealClearPolitics, which averages most major opinion polls, showed Clinton’s lead had narrowed to 1.7 points on Wednesday from 4.6 points last Friday. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points.

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PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Critics of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen have grown used to following upstart news service Fresh News to find out what the government s next target might be. From treason accusations against detained opposition leader Kem Sokha to the tax demand against the now-shuttered Cambodia Daily to allegations against the recently expelled U.S. National Democratic Institute, it was on Fresh News first. Its rise, just as pressure is growing on more critical media, reflects a shift in control of information in the run-up to next year s general election at the same time as a crackdown on Hun Sen s opponents. If any news needs to be reported, I may contact the prime minister or the prime minister may contact me, 37-year-old Fresh News chief executive Lim Chea Vutha told Reuters. Lim rejected accusations it publishes unsubstantiated reports to serve the government s interest and said it was just ambitious to break news the same as any major news agency. Cambodia has long had one of Southeast Asia s most open media environments, but journalists with publications critical of the government say work is becoming tougher than during any period of Hun Sen s more than three-decade rule. This means an imbalance of information, said Pa Nguon Teang, head of the partly EU-funded Voice of Democracy radio station, banned from broadcasting to its estimated 7.7 million listeners last month and now trying to publish via Facebook. Eighteen other radio stations were ordered off air while channels were also forbidden from rebroadcasting the U.S.-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. The Cambodia Daily newspaper, whose editor described it as a burr in Hun Sen s side since it was started 24 years ago, was forced to close by a crippling $6.3 million tax bill news of which first appeared on Fresh News. The three-year-old publication also published the video that formed the basis for arresting opposition leader Kem Sokha for treason charges his lawyers dismiss as nonsense. It s not fresh news, it s not even fake news, it s bad news - bad news for the future of Cambodia, said Mu Sochua, a deputy of Kem Sokha in his Cambodia National Rescue Party. Cambodia is not the only Southeast Asian country where the media is under pressure, with journalists and bloggers in Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam facing everything from verbal threats to arrest to violence. Hun Sen has said his attitude to media he does not like is no different to that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has branded some liberal U.S. news organizations fake news and has refused to take questions from their reporters. For Hun Sen, a 65-year-old former Khmer Rouge soldier, critical media are like children challenging their father , said Huy Vannak, president of the partly state-funded Union of Journalist Federations of Cambodia. They only mock his good faith to the nation. That s why he s not tolerant, he said. Praised openly by Hun Sen, Fresh News now has more than 100 employees. At the company s ninth-floor offices near a busy Phnom Penh junction, signs tell journalists the first enemy of success is laziness . Facebook is one of the main channels for Fresh News to publish and has also been embraced by Hun Sen since the opposition almost won the 2013 election, partly with the help of their social media strategy. While declining to give company financial details, Lim said he received no money from the government. A government spokesman said there was no funding for Fresh News or anyone publishing on social media beyond official accounts. Lim said he was supported only by advertising. Flipping through his mobile phone, he showed ads for everything from Range Rover to Coca-Cola to local businesses thriving in an economy growing at around 7 percent a year. But business and government are entwined in Cambodia and the leadership and its family members control many of Cambodia s biggest enterprises - including media businesses. Hun Sen s oldest daughter, Hun Mana, chairs Kampuchea Thmey Daily and Bayon TV and Radio among at least a dozen other firms. Senate president and the deputy leader of the ruling Cambodia People s Party, Say Chhum, owns Rasmei Kampuchea, Cambodia s most popular newspaper. According to a 2015 study, media organizations with politically affiliated owners accounted for 41 percent of print readership and 63 percent of television viewership. Of those owners, eight out of 10 were close to the ruling party. Businesses won t give advertising to media seen as pro-opposition because it won t help them, said Huy Vannak. The government doesn t need to sponsor you when your content is positive. Business will come to you, he said. Despite international awards for its reporting, the Cambodia Daily was not a big commercial success. By the end, it said it was barely breaking even and had no hope of paying a tax bill it disputed before the Sept. 4 deadline set by government. The paper appeared to get limited sympathy from Lim. It s the right of the government to shut it down, he said. As we reported, it s a legal matter.

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The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S. We are removing them fast! [0539 EST] - I will be interviewed on @foxandfriends by @ainsleyearhardt starting at 6:00 A.M. Enjoy! [0548 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR)

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said there was no problem with Turkey s planned purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems and talks have also been held on the S-500 system, Haberturk and other newspapers reported on Friday. His Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted on Monday as saying NATO member Turkey could seek a deal to acquire a missile defense system with another country if Russia does not agree to joint production of the defense shield. Speaking to reporters as he returned on his plane from a trip to Ukraine and Serbia, Erdogan said there would be no joint production in the first stage of S-400 purchases, but in the second stage God willing we will take joint production steps , Haberturk reported. In our talks with (Russia President Vladimir) Putin we are not thinking of stopping with the S-400s. We have had talks on the S-500s too, he added, referring to a missile system currently under development. Ankara s decision to buy the S-400s has been seen in some Western capitals as a snub to NATO, given tensions with Moscow over Ukraine and Syria, while the deal raised concern because the weapons cannot be integrated into the alliance s defenses. However, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this week Turkey was not seeking to antagonize the U.S.-led alliance by purchasing the system and is in talks with France and Italy to buy similar weapons.

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NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - Largely united in their dislike of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, some ultra-wealthy U.S. investors who play in conservative politics are warily weighing their choices, torn between third-party candidates, simply focusing on down-ballot contests or even voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton. As Clinton’s lead over Trump has grown in opinion polls, some hedge fund managers who have traditionally donated big money to Republican presidential candidates see the congressional elections as their best hope. Stanley Druckenmiller, one of the best-performing hedge fund managers of all time, told Reuters he had recently given to Republican candidates for Congress in the hope of creating a “firewall” against Clinton’s economic policies, including more government control of healthcare and what he described as “astronomical disincentives” to invest. Druckenmiller, who invests privately since closing his hedge fund firm in 2010, said Trump had an “unstable personality” that ruled him out as a candidate. “I might just vote on the down ballot part of the ticket and not bother with the top,” he said. Public filings show Druckenmiller donated to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in August and the National Republican Congressional Committee in March. He disavowed long-shot Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, saying he was “out the window” after a couple of high-profile lapses on foreign affairs, including struggling to name an international leader he admired. But some Republican hedge fund managers contacted by Reuters said they planned to vote for Johnson, who is polling in the single digits. Among them is Tiger Management founder Julian Robertson, according to spokesman Fraser Seitel. Robertson previously backed Republicans Jeb Bush and John Kasich. “I’ve heard from a lot of people who say they’ll vote for Johnson or not vote at all because they don’t want to be held responsible for having elected Hillary Clinton,” one hedge fund billionaire said in describing industry views. The person, who requested anonymity because they did not want their political views to be public, plans to vote for Clinton. The person believes Clinton is the lesser of two evils and that no vote, or one for someone else, could help Trump. Other conservative investors focused on congressional races instead of the next president include Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management and Paul Singer of Elliott Management, according to people familiar with the situation. Asness recently gave to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and a political action committee supporting Pennsylvania Senator Patrick Toomey, according to public filings. Singer has also given to the NRSC, in addition to Together Holding Our Majority PAC, which recently sent money to two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and Richard Burr of North Carolina. Asness and Singer declined to comment. Spokespersons for Trump, Clinton and Johnson did not respond to a request for comment. To be sure, Trump retains a band of loyal hedge fund industry boosters. They include Robert Mercer of Renaissance Technologies and economic advisers Anthony Scaramucci of SkyBridge Capital, John Paulson of Paulson & Co, Stephen Feinberg of Cerberus Capital Management and Steven Mnuchin of Dune Capital Management. Mercer and Scaramucci have re-affirmed their support of Trump in public statements over the last week. Other investors have moved firmly into the Democratic camp: Billionaire Seth Klarman of Baupost Group and Boaz Weinstein of Saba Capital Management are among investors who recently gave Clinton money after years of donations to candidates from both parties. Weinstein declined to comment and Klarman told Reuters in August that Trump is “completely unqualified for the highest office in the land.” Attitudes against Trump have hardened since multiple women have accused him of groping them and the release of a 2005 video in which he boasts about such behavior. Trump has denied the accusations and has said his comments were just “locker room talk.” One Republican hedge fund industry veteran said that his peers’ revulsion with Trump has become so strong that they feel they have to vote for Clinton - if only to prevent the Republican nominee from winning. “She at least represents predictability and seasoning,” the person said. “The difference between her and Trump is no contest.”

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - A number of U.S. cities are introducing proposals to mandate community oversight of police use of digital surveillance technology as evidence mounts that black or poor neighborhoods are being more heavily scrutinized than others, civil rights activists said on Wednesday. The legislative measures are being introduced by lawmakers in 11 cities from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and are backed by a coalition of 17 groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “(We need) to build the legislative power of local communities to prevent high-tech racial profiling and policing from turning our neighborhoods into open-air prisons,” Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, told reporters on a conference call during which the proposals were announced on Wednesday. The coalition said the proposals stemmed from the growing use by departments across the country of high-tech equipment or software, some of which was developed for battlefields, to surreptitiously monitor poor or predominately black neighborhoods, Muslims, or the street-level movements of activists within the Black Lives Matter movement. The proposed bills would mandate city council approval of the use and purchase of surveillance equipment, and input and oversight from communities on how it is used. “We want to give municipalities the ability to say ‘no,’” Cyril said. Proposals were introduced on Wednesday in Miami Beach and Pensacola, Florida, and others were expected in the coming weeks in New York City, Milwaukee, Muskegon, Michigan, and other localities, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said. Palo Alto, California, will vote on its proposal later in September, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is introducing legislation in October, the ACLU said. Police departments across the United States are facing intense scrutiny over the use of excessive force especially against black people, accountability and accusations of racial bias. Police officials have said digital surveillance tools are needed for crime prevention and pointed to reduced crime in some areas where they are used. The coalition said blacks have been disproportionately targeted by automatic license plate readers in Oakland, California, closed-circuit television surveillance in Lansing, Michigan, a ‘stingray’ that mimics cell phone towers to track a phone user’s location in Baltimore, Maryland, and social media monitoring software.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack outside the offices of the Yemeni finance ministry in the southern port city of Aden, the group s news agency Amaq said on Wednesday. Hospital officials said at least two people were killed in the explosion.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday urged President Donald Trump’s eldest son to testify to a congressional committee about alleged links between Trump’s team and Russia in the 2016 presidential election campaign. “I think any witness who’s been asked to testify in Congress should do that,” Ryan said at a news conference. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, a Republican, plans to send a letter on Thursday to Donald Trump Jr. to ask him to testify before his committee in a public session, CNN reported. If he appeared before the panel, Trump’s son would be the highest member of the Republican president’s inner circle of relatives and White House aides to testify in Congress about the Russia allegations. Accusations that Moscow interfered in the election and colluded with the Trump campaign have dominated Trump’s first months in office. Russia denies meddling in the campaign, and Trump says there was no collusion. Trump Jr. disclosed this week that he had met with a Russian lawyer last year who was said to be offering damaging information on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. eagerly agreed to meet the lawyer, who he was told was part of Moscow’s official support for his father’s campaign, according to emails the son released this week. The emails were the most concrete evidence that Trump’s campaign might have been willing to accept Russian help to win the election, a subject that has prompted investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and Congress. Trump said in Paris on Thursday that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was a private attorney and not a Russian government lawyer, and that nothing of substance came of the meeting. “My son is a wonderful young man. He took a meeting with a Russian lawyer, not a government lawyer but a Russian lawyer. It was a short meeting. It was a meeting that went very, very quickly, very fast,” he said at a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. U.S intelligence agencies said earlier this year that Russia sought to help Trump win the election by hacking private emails from Democratic Party officials and disseminating false information online.

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(Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday was dealt his biggest blow since taking office just over two months ago when House Republican leaders pulled legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system. Throughout his presidential campaign and since taking office, Trump had repeatedly vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, the signature domestic achievement of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Below are a sampling of tweets that Trump posted in March on his plans to repeal Obamacare, followed by comments from Trump on Friday after his fellow Republicans yanked the plan. Tweets on vow to repeal and replace Obamacare: March 7: “Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - is imploding fast!” March 9: “Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!” March 13: “ObamaCare is imploding. It is a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far! Republicans will come together and save the day.” March 16: “Great progress on healthcare. Improvements being made - Republicans coming together!” March 24: “After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!” Trump comments on Friday after the bill was pulled: “We learned a lot about loyalty. We learned a lot about the vote-getting process.” “Perhaps the best thing that could happen is exactly what happened today, because we’ll end up with a truly great healthcare bill in the future after this mess known as Obamacare explodes.” “We really had it. It was pretty much there, within grasp.” “We learned a lot about some very arcane rules in obviously both the Senate and the House.”

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Congress is hurtling toward some major deadlines on tax legislation, the budget and other policies. Some of the deadlines are hard and some are soft as the end of 2017 approaches. Here is the Capitol Hill outlook for what promises to be a turbulent few weeks. MONDAY, NOV. 27: President Donald Trump discusses a tax overhaul over lunch with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, the Republican-controlled chamber’s top tax writer, and four other Republican members of Hatch’s panel: John Cornyn, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey and Tim Scott. Senate reconvenes after a week-long holiday break. TUESDAY, NOV 28: Trump joins Senate Republicans at their weekly policy luncheon to urge quick passage of tax legislation. Trump also meets with Republican and Democratic leaders of both the Senate and House of Representatives to talk about funding legislation and other priorities. The Senate Budget Committee holds a hearing on whether Republican tax legislation meets Senate rules for fast-track reconciliation bills. If it does, the bill could be introduced on the Senate floor later on Tuesday, beginning debate. THURSDAY, NOV. 30, or FRIDAY, DEC. 1: Possible, although far from certain, final Senate vote on tax bill. FRIDAY, DEC. 8: Expiration date for funding needed to keep the U.S. government open. Congress has three choices: approve a massive bill for more than $1 trillion to keep the government operating through Sept. 30, 2018; pass a shorter extension of current funding to buy more time; or fail to pass anything and risk a partial government shutdown, stalling the tax effort. U.S. Treasury hits its limit on borrowing, but takes steps to postpone any need for action by Congress, eliminating any need for a debt limit increase in an end-of-year catch-all bill. TUESDAY, DEC. 12: Special U.S. Senate election in Alabama pits Republican Roy Moore, a conservative firebrand accused of sexual misconduct involving teen-age girls, against Democrat Doug Jones. The election could mean trouble for the tax overhaul effort. Moore, a critic of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, could cause turmoil if elected. A win by Jones would shrink even more Republicans’ narrow margin of Senate control, which now stands at 52-48. THURSDAY, DEC. 14: House’s last scheduled session of 2017. FRIDAY, DEC. 15: Senate’s last scheduled session of 2017. FRIDAY, DEC. 22: The last weekday before Christmas, and a potential deadline for sending tax legislation to Trump. DISASTER AID: On Nov. 17, the White House asked Congress to approve $45 billion in more aid for disaster-hit Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Texas, Florida and other states. If approved, as expected, aid would total nearly $96 billion. Additional requests are expected. DREAMERS: Trump has threatened to end an Obama-era program that helped “Dreamers,” people brought illegally into the United States when they were children. Trump gave Congress until early March to come up with a replacement program, but Democrats and some Republicans want to do this in December. CHIP: The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which helps millions of lower-income pregnant women and children, is running out of money. Congress has struggled to approve a five-year renewal for the program that normally enjoys bipartisan support.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union s executive arm, the European Commission, is not conducting any assessments of the impact of the political crisis in Catalonia on Spain s economy as a whole, Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Thursday. This issue is being dealt with by dialogue, so currently we are not doing any assessments on the potential economic impact, Dombrovskis told a regular news briefing.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, who clashed with President Donald Trump and his administration, said on Thursday he would resign before his five-year term ends in January to take a new job. In a letter to Trump dated on Thursday and posted on his Twitter account, Walter Shaub said he would step down from the ethics watchdog effective July 19 and praised his staff for their commitment to laws and ethical principles over private interests. Shaub has sounded many alarms over the Trump administration’s business entanglements. He urged Trump to divest from his business empire rather than turn management of it over to his sons, and chastised the White House for not disciplining presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway after she endorsed a fashion line sold by Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. Shaub said in an interview with the Washington Post published Thursday that he was not pressured to leave, but felt that he could not achieve more in the ethics office under the Trump administration. Democratic lawmakers lauded Shaub’s service. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said he looked forward to examining Republican Trump’s nominee to replace Shaub. Schumer said he hoped the successor would prevent lobbyists and private interests from “rigging the system against working families under the cover of darkness.” Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, urged the Republican chairman of the committee to invite Shaub to testify to the panel about necessary ethical reforms. Some Republican lawmakers, such as Cummings’s former Republican counterpart, Jason Chaffetz, had little praise for Shaub during his tenure. Chaffetz rebuked Shaub in a January letter for making public statements about Trump’s finances. Shaub will next head the Ethics Practice at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based nonpartisan group dedicated to democratic reform, said Larry Noble, the group’s general counsel. Noble said that the Center learned of Shaub’s interest in leaving his government job in the last two weeks and seized the chance to hire him. Shaub’s work at the Campaign Legal Center will involve examining deficiencies in existing ethics laws and developing ways to strengthen them, both at the Office of Government Ethics and in the realm of congressional ethics, Noble said.

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DAKAR (Reuters) - A once-fringe separatist movement in Cameroon s Anglophone regions is gaining ground after a year of state repression that has undermined moderate voices and raised concerns the majority French-speaking nation may face a prolonged period of violence. Soldiers shot dead at least eight people and wounded others in the two English-speaking regions on Sunday, the anniversary of Anglophone Cameroon s independence from Britain. Amnesty International said on Monday at least 17 people had died in the clashes. The growing influence of the separatists, who include armed radical elements, is one of the most serious threats to stability in the central African oil producer since President Paul Biya took power 35 years ago. Last year, separatists couldn t rally people on the streets. But people have seen family members arrested and killed, and they have switched over, said Tapang Ivo Tanku, an Anglophone activist based in the United States. Like many moderates who say they are marginalized by Biya s Francophone-dominated government, Tanku has campaigned for a peaceful solution: a two-state federation - one French speaking, the other Anglophone - under one president. I am in the minority now, he told Reuters from New York. The strife began in November, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the Northwest and Southwest regions, frustrated with having to work in French, took to the streets calling for reforms and greater autonomy. Six people were killed in those protests, and in the months that followed, the government deployed thousands of police and elite soldiers, implemented a blanket internet blackout and arrested dozens of activists, dubbing them terrorists . The thousands who protested on Sunday around the country were no longer calling for reform, but for a separate state for Cameroon s nearly five million English speakers. We told them our problems. They responded with force, killing us, said a young student in Bamenda, one of the largest Anglophone cities. We need our own country. The true size and influence of the movement remains hard to gauge. Many leaders are in jail or exile, and it s unclear how strong alliances are between a multitude of factions with competing visions of how to achieve their goals. Few analysts believe a split is imminent. There is no doubt the separatists popularity and ability to stir turmoil has grown, however. Separatists told Reuters that they were responsible for an improvised bomb that last month wounded three policemen in Bamenda. Nothing great can be achieved by using verbal excesses, street violence and defying authority. Lasting solutions to problems can be found only through peaceful dialogue, Biya said in a statement on Twitter following Sunday s violence. An uprising by Biafran separatists in neighboring Nigeria in the 1960s sparked a civil war that killed around 1 million. The roots of the divisions go back a century to the League of Nations decision to split the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors at the end of World War One. The French Cameroons gained their independence in 1960 and the British Cameroons voted in 1961 to reunite with them under a federal government. The federation was abandoned a decade later, however, after a referendum most Anglophones considered a sham. A separatist movement existed for decades underground, with activists sometimes communicating by passing notes to bus drivers going through different towns. It simmered but never gained widespread popular support - until now. Southern Cameroons political activist Mark Bareta said government arrests of key organizers in January and February have pushed independent separatist coalitions, many of which are run by diaspora Cameroonians, together to form the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF). SCACUF and other groups are busily laying the groundwork for a new state, coordinating protests, gaining support on the ground, and - in some cases - orchestrating violent attacks. They have printed thousands of light blue passports for Ambazonia - the Anglophones aspirational independent homeland - designed a currency and written a national anthem, five members told Reuters. In May, they set up their own satellite television network, the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation, which reaches up to 500,000 people, said SCBC board member Derric Ndim. Its satellite transmission is not affected by government-enforced internet cuts, he said. We are working to make a new country, and we are ready, said Nigeria-based Julius Ayuk Tabe, chairman of the Governing Council of Ambazonia, which is spearheading the movement. The cries of the people are getting louder.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump is facing bipartisan pressure to adopt a more presidential tone in his White House run including from Democratic President Barack Obama and Republicans who worry his missteps may do irreparable harm to the party and his campaign. The Republican front-runner came under fire from Obama on Friday over Trump’s recent comments that he would not rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe and that Japan and South Korea might need nuclear weapons to ease the U.S. financial commitment to their security. “The person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean peninsula, or the world generally,” Obama told a news conference at the conclusion of a nuclear security summit in Washington. “I’ve said before that people pay attention to American elections. What we do is really important to the rest of the world,” he said. Trump lost ground on the online prediction market after drawing fire for his suggestion earlier in the week, which he later dialed back, that women be punished for getting abortions if the procedure is banned. Those who marveled at Trump’s rise are now warning the New York billionaire that his shoot-from-the-lip approach to campaigning could jeopardize his chance to win the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election. Tuesday could be a turning point when Wisconsin hosts its nominating contest. Trump, 69, trails his leading rival, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, 45, of Texas in the Upper Midwestern state. A Cruz win would make it harder for Trump to reach the magic number of 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination before the Republican national convention in July. The winner will get to claim all of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates. “If he continues to fumble the ball, he risks everything,” said David Bossie, who as president of the conservative group Citizens United has helped to introduce Trump to grassroots activists. “These types of ham-handed mistakes give his opponents even greater opportunity.” But losing the Republican nomination may not keep Trump out of the November election. In excerpts of an interview on “Fox News Sunday” to be aired this Sunday, Trump said he wanted to run as a Republican but declined to rule out a third-party candidacy. Asked what he would do if he didn’t get the Republican nomination, Trump replied: “We’re going to have to see how I was treated.” A businessman and former reality TV show host, Trump has never held public office but hails his mastery of negotiating business deals as the sort of experience a U.S. president needs to be successful at home and abroad. He sent ripples through the Republican Party, which promotes a muscular foreign policy, by declaring NATO obsolete and for asserting that as president he might loosen the ties with longstanding U.S. allies. Trump made a surprise visit on Thursday to the Republican National Committee in Washington where he said he and Chairman Reince Priebus discussed how to unify the party going into the July convention. Priebus also addressed any confusion Trump may have had about delegate allocation rules that will govern the proceedings, a source familiar with the meeting told Reuters. Should Trump fail to win enough delegates to secure the nomination outright in the state-by-state contests ending in June, party delegates will select a nominee at the convention in a complex process of sequential votes. Online predictions market PredictIt said on Friday that the probability Trump will win his party’s nomination has dropped sharply in the past week while the likelihood of a contested convention to choose another candidate has risen. Those Republicans who see in Trump a chance to generate voter turnout beyond party regulars to blue-collar Democrats and win the White House say his detail-free style of campaigning has come back to haunt him and he needs to gear up for a new phase. Trump needs to be less sensitive about attacks from opponents and let some go by without responding, said retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a former Republican presidential candidate who dropped out of the race earlier this year and has since endorsed Trump. “If he can just get beyond that and learn how to bite his tongue and redirect people to something that is important, it will show a level of statesmanship,” Carson said. During the Wisconsin campaign, Trump has relentlessly attacked the state’s governor, Scott Walker, another Republican who dropped out of the presidential race last year and who has endorsed Cruz. Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has offered Trump informal advice, said Trump should replicate the type of performance he gave at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on March 21, when he spoke from a teleprompter and offered a well-thought-out case for strong U.S.-Israeli relations. Gingrich said Trump should make eight to 10 policy speeches in order to give voters “a sense of stability and seriousness.” “He’s gone from being an insurgent that people laughed at and a front-runner that people were amazed by to the potential nominee. That requires you to change your role as all this comes together,” Gingrich said. Alternatively, Trump could start to listen to what he says is his wife Melania’s longtime admonishment: “Darling, be more presidential.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will compete in Wisconsin on Tuesday on the Democratic Party side. Both have hop-scotched between Wisconsin and New York, which holds its primary on April 19. Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York with national campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, is trying to prevent the Brooklyn-born Sanders, who represents Vermont in the Senate, from eroding support on her home turf. Both candidates will attend a state party fundraising dinner in Wisconsin on Saturday.

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ROME (Reuters) - Members of Italy s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which leads most opinion polls before a national election early next year, began voting on Thursday to elect their leader and candidate for prime minister. Barring a colossal surprise the winner will be Luigi Di Maio, the 31-year-old lower house deputy who has been groomed as leader over the last few years by Beppe Grillo, the comedian who founded 5-Star as a protest movement in 2009. The party s supporters are voting online on a dedicated platform linked to Grillo s blog, reflecting 5-Star s credo of internet-based direct democracy. Voting will end at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Thursday, but the result will not be known until Saturday, when it is announced at 5-Star s annual three-day gathering in the Adriatic coastal town of Rimini. There are eight candidates, but Di Maio s victory is considered a formality. He is one of Italy s most prominent and popular politicians and his seven rivals, mostly local councillors, are virtually unknown even to 5-Star supporters. The only people seen as having any chance against him decided not to run, opening the party up to accusations of failing to run a proper contest. Roberto Saviano, author of the best-selling novel Gomorra, said on Facebook that he wanted to run for the post to help 5-Star out of a pathetic situation . Saviano is not a party member and so is not eligible. Probably the only risk for Di Maio would be if voting were distorted by another hacking attack against 5-Star s internet platform. In August an anonymous hacker revealed he had broken into the system to obtain secret data on 5-Star s members and donors.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said there is likely to be a British national election next year but that he opposes a second referendum on European Union membership, Grazia magazine reported. Prime Minister Theresa May lost her Conservative Party its majority in parliament by betting on a snap election in June, weakening her hand in Brexit negotiations. Labour by contrast did well at the election, making a net gain of 30 seats in Britain s 650-seat parliament. Corbyn, a lifelong socialist, who has repeatedly claimed that he will win power, said there would soon be another election. There will probably be another election in the next 12 months, he was quoted by Grazia as saying. He predicted his Labour Party would win. I m ready to be Prime Minister tomorrow, Corbyn said. Corbyn, who said he voted against EU membership in a 1975 referendum but voted for membership in 2016, said he opposed former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair s proposal for another referendum on membership. Some were extremely irresponsible in what they did and said, but we have to recognize it was the largest participation of people in an electoral process ever in Britain and they chose to leave, Corbyn was quoted as saying. I think we should continue putting pressure on the government to allow a transition period to develop, because at the moment we re in danger of getting into a complete mess in March 2019, Corbyn said, referring to the date Britain is due to leave the EU.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Wall Street financial regulators would face cuts or major structural changes under President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal According to an Office of Management and Budget document on Monday, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank reform law to protect borrowers from predatory lending, would undergo a “restructure.” This would reduce the federal deficit by $145 million in the 2018 fiscal year, it said. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices securities markets, would have its reserve fund, established under Dodd-Frank, used to supplement its budget. In recent years, the fund has been used to overhaul the SEC’s information technology, including upgrades to the filing system for public companies and initiatives to help police fraud and track equities trading patterns. The White House document said the elimination of the fund would reduce the deficit by $50 million a year, which is the maximum amount the SEC is allowed to deposit annually. Currently, both the SEC and CFPB budgets do not impact the federal deficit. The CFPB’s $605.9 million budget is funded by the Federal Reserve, which is not subject to congressional appropriations. Congress does decide the SEC’s $1.6 billion budget, but it is deficit neutral because the fees it collects from Wall Street firms are matched by the amount Congress sets aside. The reserve fund, which is separate from the rest of the SEC’s general budget, is funded through registration fees. An OMB spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment about how a restructuring of the CFPB or the elimination of the SEC’s reserve fund would reduce the federal deficit. The CFPB’s structure has been under political fire for years. Republicans complain it is not held accountable because it is led by a single director who cannot be fired by the president at will, and it falls outside of congressional budget control. Last year, a U.S. appeals court found the CFPB’s structure violated the U.S. Constitution. The bureau is slated to fight that decision on Wednesday, when the full panel of appellate judges will reconsider the ruling. Legislation proposed recently by House Republicans would subject the CFPB to appropriations. A report by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that such a change could help reduce direct spending by $6.9 billion between 2018-2027. The SEC’s reserve fund has long been a target of congressional Republicans, who have led efforts to prevent the SEC from using portions of the money. In July 2015, the SEC’s inspector general predicted that a cancellation of the fund would stall IT modernization and harm the agency.

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COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - More than 2,600 houses have been burned down in Rohingya-majority areas of Myanmar s northwest in the last week, the government said on Saturday, in one of the deadliest bouts of violence involving the Muslim minority in decades. About 58,600 Rohingya have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh from Myanmar, according to U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, as aid workers there struggle to cope. Myanmar officials blamed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for the burning of the homes. The group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks on security posts last week that prompted clashes and a large army counter-offensive. But Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say a campaign of arson and killings by the Myanmar army is aimed at trying to force them out. The treatment of Myanmar s roughly 1.1 million Rohingya is the biggest challenge facing leader Aung San Suu Kyi, accused by Western critics of not speaking out for the Muslim minority that has long complained of persecution. Former colonial power Britain said on Saturday it hoped Suu Kyi would use her remarkable qualities to end the violence. Aung San Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age, but the treatment of the Rohingya is, alas, besmirching the reputation of Burma, foreign minister Boris Johnson said in a statement. The clashes and army crackdown have killed nearly 400 people and more than 11,700 ethnic residents have been evacuated from the area, the government said, referring to the non-Muslim residents. It marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered since October, when a smaller Rohingya attack on security posts prompted a military response dogged by allegations of rights abuses. A total of 2,625 houses from Kotankauk, Myinlut and Kyikanpyin villages and two wards in Maungtaw were burned down by the ARSA extremist terrorists, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said. The group has been declared a terrorist organisation by the government. But Human Rights Watch, which analysed satellite imagery and accounts from Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, said the Myanmar security forces deliberately set the fires. New satellite imagery shows the total destruction of a Muslim village, and prompts serious concerns that the level of devastation in northern Rakhine state may be far worse than originally thought, said the group s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson. Near the Naf river separating Myanmar and Bangladesh, new arrivals in Bangladesh carrying their belongings in sacks set up crude tents or tried to squeeze into available shelters or homes of locals. The existing camps are near full capacity and numbers are swelling fast. In the coming days there needs to be more space, said UNHCR regional spokeswoman Vivian Tan, adding more refugees were expected. The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and regarded as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots that date back centuries. Bangladesh is also growing increasingly hostile to Rohingya, more than 400,000 of whom live in the poor South Asian country after fleeing Myanmar since the early 1990s. Jalal Ahmed, 60, who arrived in Bangladesh on Friday with a group of about 3,000 after walking from Kyikanpyin for almost a week, said he believed the Rohingya were being pushed out of Myanmar. The military came with 200 people to the village and started fires...All the houses in my village are already destroyed. If we go back there and the army sees us, they will shoot, he said. Reuters could not independently verify these accounts as access for independent journalists to northern Rakhine has been restricted since security forces locked down the area in October. Speaking to soldiers, government staff and Rakhine Buddhists affected by the conflict on Friday, army chief Min Aung Hlaing said there is no oppression or intimidation against the Muslim minority and everything is within the framework of the law . The Bengali problem was a long-standing one which has become an unfinished job, he said, using a term used by many in Myanmar to refer to the Rohingya that suggests they come from Bangladesh. Many aid programmes running in northern Rakhine prior to the outbreak of violence, including life-saving food assistance by the World Food Programme (WFP), have been suspended since the fighting broke out. Food security indicators and child malnutrition rates in Maungdaw were already above emergency thresholds before the violence broke out, and it is likely that they will now deteriorate even further, said Pierre Peron, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar. More than 80,000 children may need treatment for malnutrition in northern Rakhine and many of them reported extreme food insecurity, WFP said in July. In Bangladesh, Tan of UNHCR said more shelters and medical care were needed. There s a lot of pregnant women and lactating mothers and really young children, some of them born during the flight. They all need medical attention, she said. Among new arrivals, 22-year-old Tahara Begum gave birth to her second child in a forest on the way to Bangladesh. It was the hardest thing I ve ever done, she said.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The nearly man of South African politics, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, took a big step towards the top job on Monday when he was elected by a whisker as head of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Ramaphosa s ability has been apparent for decades. Whenever Nelson Mandela needed a breakthrough in talks to end apartheid, he turned to the then-trade union leader with a reputation as a tenacious negotiator. Using skills honed in pay disputes with mining bosses, Ramaphosa steered those talks to a successful conclusion, allowing Mandela to sweep to power in 1994 as head of the victorious ANC after South Africa s first democratic vote. Mandela wanted Ramaphosa to be his heir but was pressured into picking Thabo Mbeki by a group of ANC leaders who had fought apartheid from exile. It has taken more than two decades for Ramaphosa to get another chance to run the country. Monday s party vote, which handed him victory by less than 200 of nearly 5,000 ballots, puts that goal firmly within the 65-year-old s grasp. The rand surged as much as 4 percent, suggesting approval of the business community. Ramaphosa s ambition for the presidency has been clear through his whole adult life. He was quite clearly wounded by his materialization in the Mbeki period, said Anthony Butler, a politics professor who has written a biography of Ramaphosa. The choice of Ramaphosa over his main rival for the ANC s top job, former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is likely to chart a reformist course for South Africa, which has lost its lustre under President Jacob Zuma. A lawyer with an easygoing manner, Ramaphosa has vowed to fight corruption and revitalize an economy that has slowed to a near-standstill under Zuma s scandal-plagued leadership. His message went down well with foreign investors and ANC members who thought Zuma s handling of the economy could cost the party dearly in 2019 parliamentary elections. Dlamini-Zuma promised a radical brand of wealth redistribution popular with poorer ANC voters who are angry at racial inequality. While Ramaphosa has backed calls for radical economic transformation , an ANC plan to tackle inequality, he tends to couch his policy pronouncements in more cautious terms. Unlike Zuma or Dlamini-Zuma, Ramaphosa was not driven into exile for opposing apartheid, which some of the party s more hardline members hold against him. He fought the injustices of white minority rule from within South Africa, most prominently by defending the rights of black miners as leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). A member of the relatively small Venda ethnic group, Ramaphosa was able to overcome divisions that sometimes constrained members of the larger Zulu and Xhosa groups. A massive miners strike led by Ramaphosa s NUM in 1987 taught business that Cyril was a force to be reckoned with, said Michael Spicer, a former executive at Anglo American. He has a shrewd understanding of men and power and knows how to get what he wants from a situation, Spicer said. The importance of Ramaphosa s contribution to the talks to end apartheid is such that commentators have referred to them in two distinct stages: BC and AC, Before Cyril and After Cyril. Ramaphosa also played an important role in the drafting of South Africa s post-apartheid constitution. After missing out on becoming Mandela s deputy, Ramaphosa withdrew from active political life, switching focus to business. His investment vehicle Shanduka - Venda for change - grew rapidly and acquired stakes in mining firms, mobile operator MTN (MTNJ.J) and McDonald s South African franchise. Phuti Mahanyele, a former chief executive at Shanduka, recalled that Ramaphosa was a passionate leader who required staff to contribute to charitable projects aimed at improving access to education for the underprivileged. By the time Ramaphosa sold out of Shanduka in 2014, the firm was worth more than 8 billion rand ($584 million in today s money), making Ramaphosa one of South Africa s 20 richest people. To his supporters, Ramaphosa s business success makes him well-suited to the task of turning around an economy grappling with 28 percent unemployment and credit rating downgrades. In the Johannesburg township of Soweto last month, Ramaphosa called for a new deal between business and government to spur economic growth. Pravin Gordhan, a respected former finance minister, told Reuters that if Ramaphosa was elected ANC leader, the whole narrative about South Africa s economy would change for the better within three months . But Ramaphosa has his detractors too. He was a non-executive director at Lonmin (LMI.L) (LONJ.J) when negotiations to halt a violent wildcat strike at its Marikana platinum mine in 2012 ended in police shooting 34 strikers dead. An inquiry subsequently absolved Ramaphosa of guilt. But some families of the victims still blame him for urging the authorities to intervene. My conscience is that I participated in trying to stop further deaths from happening, Ramaphosa said about the deaths. Others are unconvinced that Ramaphosa, who has been deputy president since 2014, will be as tough on corruption as his campaign rhetoric suggests. Bantu Holomisa, an opposition politician and former ANC member who worked closely with him in the 1990s, said he was by nature cautious. Cyril has been part of the machinery and has not acted on corruption so far, Holomisa said. It is not clear whether he will if he gets elected. ($1 = 13.6947 rand)

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