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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Jihadists launched an offensive against government-held parts of northwestern Syria near Hama on Tuesday in their biggest attack there since March, triggering heavy air strikes on rebel territory, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said air strikes hit three hospitals, a medical center and premises used by a rescue service in rebel-held Idlib. A Syrian military source denied the report, saying only insurgent convoys and positions had been hit. The insurgent attack north of Hama revived hostilities in the northwestern region near the Turkish border that has been relatively calm in recent months as Russian-led diplomacy seeks to shore up ceasefires in western Syria. Islamist militants who hold sway in Idlib reject the diplomacy, including a tripartite deal struck last week by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara to deploy an observer force on the edge of an Idlib de-escalation zone . A Syrian army source cited by state media said the attack launched on several fronts was being repelled, and the insurgents had suffered losses. The clashes are continuing and the air force and artillery are targeting the headquarters and movements of the terrorist convoys in the area, said the source. An insurgent source told Reuters that rebels were making advances in the northern Hama countryside, in an area where President Bashar al-Assad and his allies have been steadily rolling back rebel gains over the last two years. The Observatory said insurgents taking part in the assault included Tahrir al-Sham, the jihadist Turkistan Islamic Party, and rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. They had captured four villages, it said. The ex-Nusra Front, which cut ties with al Qaeda and rebranded last year, spearheads the Tahrir al-Sham alliance of Islamist groups. A media outlet run by the Damascus-allied Lebanese group Hezbollah said Syrian army air strikes were targeting insurgents in the northern Hama and southern Idlib area. Insurgents advanced to within a few km (miles) of government-held Hama city earlier this year, before the Syrian army and its allies retook the territory in April. Ceasefire deals in western Syria - for years the main theater of the war - have helped the Syrian army and its allies advance against Islamic State in the east, where government forces are battling IS in Deir al-Zor. A U.S.-backed militia force, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is waging a separate offensive against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor province, focusing on areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. The rival forces have generally stayed out of each other s way, with the river often acting as a dividing line. Syrian government forces and their allies have however crossed into the SDF s area of operations on the eastern bank of in recent days. The Hezbollah-run media unit said on Tuesday that government forces and their allies captured a village and parts of the nearby town of Khasham on the eastern bank. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Syrian soldiers, with Russian air power, continued to expand the captured area in recent days. Despite the persistent resistance of ISIS (Islamic State) fighters, Syrian troops managed to free more than 60 square kilometers of terrorists on the left bank of the Euphrates, he said.

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QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) - Kurdish-led authorities held local elections on Friday in areas they control in northern Syria, pushing ahead with autonomy plans opposed by both the government of President Bashar al-Assad and by Turkey. Kurdish forces and their political allies now hold the largest part of Syria outside the grip of Assad s government. They have captured vast territory from Islamic State with the support of U.S. arms, jets and ground advisers, although Washington opposes their autonomy drive. Kurdish leaders say their goal is to establish self-rule within Syria, not secession. But their influence has infuriated Ankara, which considers the Kurdish YPG militia to be an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has run a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. Assad has vowed to recover every inch of the country, as his territorial grip expanded rapidly over the past two years with help from Russia and Iran. Damascus has more forcefully asserted its claim to territory held by Kurdish-led forces in recent months. The head of Syria s delegation to U.N.-backed peace talks in Geneva, Bashar al-Ja afari, rejected the election, repudiating any unilateral act that happens without coordination with Damascus. Since Syria s conflict began more than six years ago, the dominant Kurdish parties have been left out of international diplomacy in line with Turkish wishes. They were excluded again from U.N.-led peace talks which reconvened in Geneva this week. Hadiya Yousef, a senior Kurdish politician, said the Kurdish-led administration would not be bound by decisions taken in its absence. We are not present in these meetings, and therefore we are developing the solution on the ground, Yousef told Reuters. Peace talks would not arrive at solutions so long as they do not involve those running 30 percent of the country, she added. Voters are picking from close to 6,000 candidates for town and city councils on Friday, the second part of a three-stage process that will culminate in electing a parliament early next year. They chose representatives for smaller-scale district councils in September. Everyone should take part (in the election) because this is the fate of the entire region, said Sheikhmous Qamishlo, a 65-year-old Syrian Kurd at a polling station in Qamishli. This is a new experience, we wish it success, he said, and described casting his vote as a national duty . The election was being monitored by a small group of politicians from other countries in the Middle East, Yousef said, including a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party which runs the autonomous Kurdish region in neighboring Iraq. Yousef said the Iraqi Kurdish official s presence was a kind of recognition of the Syrian Kurdish political project. The Iraqi Kurdish authorities, whose own plans for independence were met with a swift backlash from states in the region in the past two months, have previously been hostile to the Syrian Kurdish parties.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is set to agree on Monday to ban business ties with North Korea, part of a new package of sanctions to isolate Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs. The practical impact of the moves is likely to be mostly symbolic: Brussels will impose an oil embargo and a ban on EU investment, but it sells no crude to North Korea and European companies have no substantial investments there. North Korean workers in the EU, of which Brussels estimates there are about 400 mainly in Poland, will face a lower limit on the amount for money they can send home and their work visas will not be renewed once they expire. The measures to be agreed by EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg go further than the latest round of multi-lateral sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. The North Koreans appear to be uninterested in having the EU get involved as a peace mediator, said an EU diplomat. The North Koreans want direct talks with the United States, but President (Donald) Trump has ruled that out, the diplomat said. The sanctions will add three more top North Korean officials and six businesses to a blacklist banning them from travel to the EU and freezing their assets. That will take the total of those sanctioned by the EU to 41 individuals and 10 companies, a senior EU official said. Separately, U.N. sanctions target 63 people and 53 companies and institutions. We have in place everything that we possibly could do to try to get the DPRK to change their behavior, the EU official said, using North Korea s official name of the Democratic People s Republic of Korea. Although the EU does not export crude to North Korea, its aim is to push other countries to ban oil exports, either unilaterally or at the United Nations. The U.N. Security Council last month capped North Korean imports of crude oil, but China and Russia resisted an outright ban. Diplomats said that if Pyongyang launches more missiles, the EU could consider imposing sanctions on non-EU firms doing business with Pyongyang, as the United States has done. However, such secondary sanctions need clear evidence to avoid legal challenges and the bloc is reluctant to anger China, a top trading partner, by targeting Chinese people and firms.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The television audience for Thursday’s restrained Republican Party presidential debate on CNN was down from last week’s figures, according to preliminary Nielsen data on Friday. The debate got an average household rating of 8.3, according to overnight data supplied by CBS television. That’s well below the 11.5 rating garnered by the rowdy March 3 Republican debate, broadcast by the Fox News Channel, which translated to 16.9 million viewers. The size of the audience in millions is expected to be available from Nielsen later on Friday. The CNN-hosted debate at the University of Miami came days before votes in Florida and Ohio that will determine whether U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Governor John Kasich will be able to continue with their increasingly long-shot candidacies.[L1N16I1RJ] With previous assaults on front-runner Donald Trump having failed to knock him down, Rubio and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas chose a more civil approach, raising questions about Trump’s policy positions without attacking him personally.

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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland s finance minister said the prospect of an election and period without government during Brexit talks is unconscionable, telling the party propping the government up that it needed to be aware of the consequences of causing an election. At a time when issues and decisions will need to be made that will reverberate in our country for decades to come, the prospect of either an election taking place or a government not being in place afterwards is actually unconscionable, Paschal Donohoe told national broadcaster RTE.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Theresa May looked despondent , with deep rings under her eyes, EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker told aides after dining with the British prime minister last week, a German newspaper said on Sunday. The report by a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung correspondent whose leaked account of a Juncker-May dinner in April caused upset in London, said Juncker thought her marked by battles over Brexit with her own Conservative ministers as she asked for EU help to create more room for maneuver at home. No immediate comment was available from Juncker s office, which has a policy of not commenting on reports of meetings. The FAZ said May, who flew in for a hastily announced dinner in Brussels with the European Commission president last Monday ahead of an EU summit, seemed to Juncker anxious, despondent and disheartened , a woman who trusts hardly anyone but is also not ready for a clear-out to free herself . As she later did over dinner on Thursday with fellow EU leaders, May asked for help to overcome British divisions. She indicated that back home friend and foe are at her back plotting to bring her down, the paper said. May said she had no room left to maneuver. The Europeans have to create it for her. May s face and appearance spoke volumes, Juncker later told his colleagues, the FAZ added. She has deep rings under her eyes. She looks like someone who can t sleep a wink. She smiles for the cameras, it went on, but it looks forced , unlike in the past, when she could shake with laughter. Now she needs all her strength not to lose her poise. As with the April dinner at 10 Downing Street, when the FAZ reported that Juncker thought May in another galaxy in terms of Brexit expectations, both sides issued statements after last week s meeting saying talks were constructive and friendly . They said they agreed negotiations should be accelerated . May dismissed the dinner leak six months ago as Brussels gossip , though officials on both sides said the report in the FAZ did little to foster an atmosphere of trust which they agree will be important to reach a deal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also reported to have been irritated by that leak. Although the summit on Thursday and Friday rejected May s call for an immediate start to talks on the future relationship, leaders made a gesture to speed up the process and voiced hopes of opening a new phase in December. Some said they understood May s difficulties in forging consensus in London.

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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Thursday expressed disappointment at the decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to sign a waiver to delay relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv but said it hoped a move could take place later. “Though Israel is disappointed that the embassy will not move at this time, we appreciate today’s expression of President Trump’s friendship to Israel and his commitment to moving the embassy in the future,” part of a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. It added that: “Israel’s consistent position is that the American embassy, like the embassies of all countries with whom we have diplomatic relations, should be in Jerusalem, our eternal capital.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto discussed immigration from Central America and the fight against heroin production during a phone call on Thursday, the White House said. “The leaders committed to continue working jointly to address irregular migration from Central America,” the White House said in a statement. “They also pledged to intensify collaboration between our countries to reduce the production and consumption of heroin.”

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SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - Thousands of Rohingya Muslims trapped by hostile Buddhists in northwestern Myanmar have enough food and will not be granted the safe passage they requested from two remote villages, a senior government official said on Tuesday. The Rohingya villagers said they wanted to leave but needed government protection from ethnic Rakhine Buddhists who had threatened to kill them. They also said they were running short of food since Aug. 25, when Rohingya militants launched deadly attacks in Rakhine state, provoking a fierce crackdown by the Myanmar military. At least 420,000 Rohingya have since fled into neighboring Bangladesh to escape what a senior United Nations official has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing . Tin Maung Swe, secretary of the Rakhine state government, said requests from the two villages for safe passage had been denied, since they had enough rice and were protected by a nearby police outpost. Their reasons were not acceptable, he said. They must stay in their original place. Residents of Ah Nauk Pyin, one of the two Rohingya villages, said they hoped to move to the relative safety of a camp outside Sittwe, the nearby state capital. About 90,000 Rohingya displaced by a previous bout of violence in 2012 are confined to camps in Rakhine in squalid conditions. But such a move was impossible, said state secretary Tin Maung Swe, since it might anger Rakhine Buddhists and further inflame communal tensions. In a nationally televised speech on Tuesday, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi vowed to punish the perpetrators of human rights violations in Rakhine, but did not address U.N. accusations of ethnic cleansing by the military. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that many Muslims had not fled and urged foreign diplomats to study why certain areas of Rakhine state had managed to keep the peace . We can arrange for you to visit these areas and to ask them for yourself why they have not fled ... even at a time when everything around them seems to be in a state or turmoil, she said. The Rohingya residents of Ah Nauk Pyin say they have no other choice but to stay, and their fraught relations with equally edgy Rakhine neighbors could snap at any moment. About 2,700 people live in Ah Nauk Pyin, which sits half-hidden among fruit trees and coconut palms on a rain-swept peninsula. Its residents said that Rakhine men have made threatening phone calls and recently congregated outside the village to shout, Leave, or we will kill you all . On Tuesday morning, Rakhine villagers chased away two Rohingya men trying to tend to their fields, said Maung Maung, the leader of Ah Nauk Pyin. The Rakhine deny harassing their Muslim neighbors, but want them to leave, fearing they might collaborate with militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which carried out the Aug. 25 attacks. Khin Tun Aye, chief of Shwe Laung Tin, one of the nearby Rakhine villages, said they had chased away the two Rohingya men in case they were planning to attack or blow up our village . They shouldn t come close during this time of conflict situation. People are living in constant fear, he said. The Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Myanmar told Reuters it was aware and concerned about the situation and was discussing it with the Myanmar government. State secretary Tin Maung Swe said Reuters could not visit the area for security reasons, but said the authorities were assessing needs of those living there. If they need food, we are ready to send it, he said. Don t worry about it.

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BELGRADE (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, setting aside his previous hostility toward Donald Trump, said on Thursday the U.S. Republican’s presidential election victory offered economic opportunities and there was no need for Europeans to be despondent about it. “I may respectfully say to my European friends and colleagues that it’s time we snapped out of general doom and gloom about this election,” Johnson said after meeting Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. “He is after all a deal maker. He wants to do a free trade deal with the UK,” Johnson told reporters. Trump’s upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton has delighted far-right politicians in France, the Netherlands and Austria but worried some mainstream politicians who fear it may be part of a populist, anti-establishment trend. “I believe that this is a great opportunity for us in the UK to build on that relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us but also of great importance for stability and prosperity in the world,” Johnson said. Johnson was one of the leading proponents of the successful Brexit campaign to get Britain out of the European Union. Trump aligned himself with the Brexit movement during his campaign. On Wednesday, Johnson, the former London mayor, congratulated Trump on his victory and tweeted that he looked forward to continuing the partnership between the two nations. Johnson said last year that he feared going to New York because of “the real risk of meeting Donald Trump” after the New York businessman said parts of London were now so radicalized that police officers feared to go there. Later on Thursday, Johnson said on his Twitter account he had spoken to U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence. “We agreed on importance of the special relationship & need to tackle global challenges together,” he tweeted.

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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Backers of Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio have spent nearly as much money in the weeks leading up to Super Tuesday’s nominating contests as all of his rivals combined, including an outsized spend in Texas. The Super PAC supporting the U.S. senator from Florida, Conservative Solutions, poured $4.2 million into 10 Super Tuesday states between Feb. 10 and Feb. 27, almost twice as much as groups backing rival Ted Cruz, according to a Reuters analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. Super PACs supporting all candidates combined, including Rubio, spent $8.8 million in those states during that period. The biggest chunk of money from Rubio's allied Super PAC was $1.5 million targeting U.S. Senator Cruz's home state of Texas, the biggest prize among the Super Tuesday states in terms of the number of delegates up for grabs. (Click here for a graphic: tmsnrt.rs/1Lr2J0c ) Cruz is poised to defeat Republican front-runner Donald Trump in Texas by a double-digit margin, with Rubio running a distant third in opinion polls. Efforts to reach an official at Conservative Solutions were unsuccessful, but experts said the spending could be an effort to prevent Cruz from reaching a threshold of victory that would allow him to sweep the state’s 155 delegates. “Given the delegate allocation, if Rubio can keep Trump or Cruz under 50 percent in some districts, he stops them from getting all the delegates in that district,” said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus. In the Texas Republican primary, delegates are allocated proportionally by congressional district. Texas-based Republican strategist Joe Brettell said a strong showing by Rubio in the state could also help the 44-year-old senator justify another run for the presidency in 2020 if he should fail to win the nomination this time. Rubio has emerged as the Republican establishment’s favored candidate to take on Trump for the presidential nomination, drawing a flood of endorsements and donor cash since former Florida Governor Jeb Bush dropped out on Feb. 20. But the senator has struggled to distinguish himself from Cruz in both the polls and recent nominating contests. Cruz’s allied Super PAC spent $738,000 in his home state during the period. Trump’s campaign is largely self-funded and he does not have an allied Super PAC. The review of Super PAC spending does not include money spent by campaigns, which are set to disclose their February spending on March 20. Super PACs supporting the candidates, as well as other outside groups trying to influence voters, are required to notify the Federal Election Commission shortly after purchasing ads. Super PACs, which were created after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money but are barred from coordinating with the campaigns. This year is shaping up to be one of the most expensive elections in American history. And a lot of the money lately has been spent targeting Trump. Between the Super PACs supporting Rubio and Cruz as well as other groups that are working to bring down Trump, $7.2 million has been spent in Super Tuesday states and in national ad buys attacking the New York real estate billionaire, according to the Reuters review. One of the ads the Conservative Solutions PAC is running in Texas takes aim at Trump University, a for-profit program he launched that is now the subject of lawsuits from unhappy attendees. Trump called for the ad to be taken down, saying it was inaccurate. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson and Grant Smith; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Jonathan Oatis) 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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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman met on Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and international security issues, TASS news agency cited Russia s defense ministry as saying. The meeting took place at the ministry, the agency reported, giving to further details.

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(Reuters) - A reporter for the conservative website Breitbart News filed a criminal complaint on Friday against Republican presidential election front-runner Donald Trump’s campaign manager, saying he grabbed her arm at a rally with such force that he left bruises. A police report released on Friday showed that the reporter, Michelle Fields, said she was the victim of battery on Tuesday night at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, where Trump spoke after that day’s contests in the race to nominate the party’s candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election. The accusation prompted a flurry of exchanges between Trump’s campaign and Fields. The campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and Trump have denied the accusation. Lewandowski dismissed Fields as an “attention seeker” on Twitter. Fields published her account at Breitbart on Thursday of what happened when reporters gathered around Trump to ask him additional questions after a press conference. Fields said she asked Trump about his views on affirmative action. “Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken,” Fields wrote. A Trump campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, questioned Fields’ story on Friday. Hicks said she had not seen any encounter and said no cameras had captured the incident. Fields, who posted a photo on Twitter of bruises on her arm, initially said she did not know who had grabbed her and caused her to stumble. Ben Terris, a Washington Post reporter who witnessed the incident, told her Lewandowski had seized her arm. He wrote his own account for his newspaper. The political news site Politico posted a transcript of an audio recording of the incident, which included an exchange between Terris and Fields. “Yeah he just threw you down,” Terris said to Fields, who replied, “I can’t believe he just did that. That was so hard. Was that Corey?” Terris said that it was and later reported that Fields was tearful after the incident. In a statement on Friday, Breitbart Chief Executive Officer Larry Solov said Trump’s suggestion that Fields may have invented the episode was contradicted by the evidence. “Breitbart News stands behind Michelle Fields,” he wrote. Hours later, however, the website posted a story disputing Terris’ account. The story said that footage from the event showed Trump flanked by two men: Lewandowski and a security official who bore some resemblance to the campaign manager. “The person who made contact with Fields was likely not Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski,” the report said. Terris stood by his account on Friday. He was quoted in a blog by Washington Post reporter Erik Wemple as saying, “I saw what I saw.” Terris did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Fields and Solov could not immediately be reached for comment on the complaint to police. Trump’s rallies across the United States have been marked by rowdiness and physical contact between protesters and either his supporters or security personnel. At a rally in Virginia on Feb. 29, a Time magazine photographer trying to document the exit of dozens of black protesters was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a U.S. Secret Service agent. White House spokesman Josh Earnest also weighed in on the Fields incident on Friday, telling reporters: “There is no excuse or justification for acts of violence against reporters who are covering a political event.” (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins and Jeff Mason; editing by Grant McCool) 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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LIMA (Reuters) - The center-right government of Peru s embattled President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski canceled its scheduled auction of a $2 billion copper project, Michiquillay, on Wednesday amid a growing political crisis, two government sources said. The regional bloc Organization of American States said earlier on Wednesday that it was preparing to send a delegation to Peru, the world s second biggest copper producer, to observe the political situation at the request of Kuczynski ahead of a vote in Congress to oust him on Thursday.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI plans to hand over some of its notes from its interview with U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton regarding her use of private email while secretary of state to news outlets that requested them, CNN reported on Tuesday. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will not yet release other notes from the law enforcement agency’s interviews with Clinton aides or turn over other investigative material, CNN said, citing unnamed sources. The materials could be released as soon as Wednesday to media companies that formally sought them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to CNN. FBI representatives declined to confirm the report to Reuters. In addition to the notes, CNN said the FBI will give the news outlets the roughly 30-page report it sent to the U.S. Department of Justice last month when it recommended against pursuing criminal charges against Clinton, who is vying for the White House in the Nov. 8 U.S. election. The Clinton campaign, which had expressed concern about selective leaks from the notes, welcomed the release. “This is something that we wanted to have happen,” campaign spokeswoman Kristina Schake told CNN in an interview. Several media outlets, including Reuters, have made FOIA requests for a summary of the interview. Such requests are often returned with sensitive information redacted. FBI Director James Comey told Congress that the interview was not recorded, so the agency would only be able to provide a summary.

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HARARE (Reuters) - Retired correspondent Cris Chinaka worked for Reuters in Harare from 1990 to 2015. Before that he reported on Zimbabwe for the ZIANA news agency and MOTO, a weekly newspaper. Here he reflects on a third of a century of covering Uncle Bob . There are two images of Robert Gabriel Mugabe that jump out of my memory to illustrate the contrasting sides of the man who led Zimbabwe for 37 years. The first is of a combative and ebullient 57-year-old, dressed in an olive green military-type suit in the dying days of what was then white-run Rhodesia. Waving a clenched fist in the air, he was scolding his opponents and rallying his supporters as they marched confidently towards the birth of a new nation: Zimbabwe. The second is of a shrunken 93-year-old slumped in a cushioned seat, snoozing. His wife Grace, more than 40 years his junior, whispers in his ear while placing a colorful cowboy hat on his head as thousands of fawning ZANU-PF party faithful applauded. In the nearly four decades that separated those two episodes, Zimbabwe had, in the eyes of its critics, declined into the same state as its leader: hollowed out, impotent and for some an object of ridicule. That first image is from my first meeting with Mugabe, in February 1980, at a ZANU-PF rally in the southeastern province of Masvingo, ahead of the vote that would mark independence from Britain. As Mugabe was ushered off the stage by his security guards, I introduced myself, shook his hand and asked for an interview. He was warm and attentive at this approach from a junior reporter and said my newspaper, the MOTO weekly, was one of his favorite publications. Aside from its nationalist editorial line, the paper may also have appealed to the Jesuit-educated Mugabe as it was published by the Catholic Church to which he belonged. Shortly after our conversation, Mugabe survived what would be one of many assassination attempts when a land mine exploded, narrowly missed his vehicle in the motorcade heading back to the capital, Harare. I had a longer one-on-one meeting three years later in March 1983 in India, where I was on a Commonwealth scholarship studying for a postgraduate degree in journalism. Mugabe prided himself on his elephantine and encyclopedic memory, but he must have been briefed on the backgrounds of the students at the Zimbabwean mission function in Delhi. When I introduced myself, he remarked, Oh, you are our Roman Catholic man, right? Five years later, when I was covering an official visit to Brussels for Zimbabwe s national news agency, Mugabe s chief of protocol told him: Your Excellency, that young Roman Catholic man is now a father. On the return journey, Mugabe came through from the presidential section of the plane into economy class, as he frequently did on such trips, to chat with members of the delegation. This time he sat next to me. He asked about my wife and our new baby daughter. We also discussed my job and current affairs. As he got up to leave after a 30-minute conversation, Mugabe said: You sound like an intelligent young man. Why did you go into journalism? Was he just joking, or was this a rare insight into what Mugabe - a man who would later be accused of gagging free speech and individual rights - really thought about the news business? YOU RE THE ONE WHO SAYS I M DYING? Mugabe knew the name of my daughter, Tariro, and for many years he would ask after her. I sometimes thought he remembered because she was born around the same time as his own daughter, Bona. On other foreign trips around Africa and Europe, I had opportunities for discussions with Mugabe, invariably about the subject of his mission, but I always got a sense that he was only giving away glimpses of his real thoughts and feelings. Even as his years advanced and his ability to recall distant facts and figures deserted him, he retained a sense of humor - especially at suggestions that he was on his way out. In 2010, having secured an interview for Reuters, I was ushered into his office and greeted him as he sat behind his desk. In return, he remarked with a smile: Aargh, so you are the man who has been reporting that I am dying? The interview lasted 90 minutes, and covered everything from his health, the desperate state of the economy and the Western sanctions that his ZANU-PF government blamed for the ills that had befallen the nation. My story focused on his denial that he was suffering from cancer and featured, for the first time, a line that he would repeat many times over the following years. Jesus died once, and resurrected only once - and poor Mugabe several times, he said, clapping his hands in glee.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - Ten North Koreans, including a four-year-old child, have been detained in China, where they face being deported back to the North, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters. The group was trying to defect to South Korea but were detained by Chinese police in the northeastern city of Shenyang in Liaoning province, according to the sources, both of whom requested anonymity citing the sensitivity of the situation. China s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a daily news briefing on Tuesday she was unaware of details of the case. She said China consistently upholds the handling of such matters in accordance with domestic and international law and humanitarian principles. One of the two sources told Reuters on Tuesday he was able to confirm the group was in Shenyang until Monday morning, but they seem to have been transferred elsewhere since then . The man only wanted to be identified by his surname Lee because his wife and four-year-old son were among the detained 10. I told her to call again and was waiting and hoping she would find a safe place somewhere, but she never called me back, Lee said. The group consisted of seven women and three men, Lee said. His wife and son had met the rest of a group at a safe house in Shenyang, but lost contact with him on Saturday, Lee said. A second source with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed the detention and said that China appeared to have intensified its crackdown on North Korean defectors in China, especially in the past two months. The New York-based non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch said in September that it had documented the arrests of 41 North Koreans in July and August alone - compared to the 51 cases the organization had identified over the July 2016 to June 2017 period. Make no mistake: sending them back across the border makes Beijing complicit in the torture, forced labor and, in some cases, executions that others sent back to North Korea have faced, Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement about the most recent detention. China should release this group of 10 North Koreans and let them proceed to a third country where they can receive the protection they urgently need, Robertson said. China says North Korean defectors are illegal migrants who flee their country for economic reasons, and does not treat them as refugees. North Korea calls them criminals and describes those who try to bring them to South Korea as kidnappers. The vast majority of North Koreans who escape to China defect to South Korea where over 31,000 of them have resettled, according to South Korean government data. Safe passage for defectors fleeing oppressive North Korea often depends on their ability to make the grueling and at times dangerous trip across rural China without being detected. South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Roh Kyu-deok said Seoul was closely monitoring the latest case of the 10 North Koreans in China. We re making diplomatic efforts with related countries so that the defectors will not be forcibly repatriated, Roh said, declining to provide details citing safety concerns and cooperative relations with those countries. An official at the South Korean consulate in Shenyang said they had checked with local police regarding the whereabouts of the group, but had been unable to reach them. The official said it had become even tougher for defectors to cross the border into China following tightened security around the Chinese Communist Party congress last month. Last week, Seoul and Beijing agreed to move beyond a year-long stand-off over the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea - a factor which some observers worry may make Seoul more reluctant to raise the issue of deportations. North Korean defectors and people working in the field are worried that South Korea isn t raising this issue with Beijing as strongly as before, as they are trying to improve relations, said the second source with direct knowledge of the group detained in Shenyang. (This version of the story was refiled to correct age of child in paras 1 and 4 to four)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top aides to President Donald Trump demurred on Sunday over where U.S. policy on Syria was headed after last week’s retaliatory missile strike, leaving open questions about whether removing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad from power was now one of Trump’s goals. After the United States launched cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base alleged to have launched a deadly poison gas attack on Syrian civilians, Trump administration officials said they were prepared to take further actions if necessary. Trump’s United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, said the United States had “multiple priorities” in Syria and that stability there was impossible with Assad as president. “In no way do we see peace in that area with Assad as the head of the Syrian government,” Haley told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And we have to make sure that we’re pushing that process. The political solution has to come together for the good of the people of Syria,” she said. Her comments appeared at odds with those of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the U.S. missile strike was aimed solely at deterring the use of chemical weapons by Assad. “There is no change to our military posture” in Syria, Tillerson said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ program. Tillerson said the U.S. priority in Syria was defeating Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS. Once ISIS is defeated, the United States could turn its attention to trying to help bring about a “political process” that could bring about stability in Syria, he said. “It is through that political process that we believe the Syrian people will ... be able to decide the fate of Bashar al-Assad,” Tillerson said. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any difference in nuance was inadvertent and unintentional, and declined to comment further. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down. The Republican criticized calls by his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” to protect non-combatants. “What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” Trump told Reuters in an interview last October. Tillerson on Sunday blamed Russia for enabling the poison gas attack by failing to follow through on a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria. “The failure related to the recent strike and the recent terrible chemical weapons attack in large measure is a failure on Russia’s part to achieve its commitment to the international community,” he added. Russia swiftly condemned last week’s attack. On Sunday, a joint command center comprised of Russian, Iranian and militia forces supporting Assad said it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally. Trump ordered the missile strikes on the Syrian air base after blaming Assad for the chemical weapons attack, which killed at least 70 people, many of them children, in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the assault. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said the United States was “prepared to do more” regarding military action in Syria if necessary. On whether Assad should be removed from power, McMaster said: “We are not saying that we are the ones who are going to effect that change. “What we are saying is other countries have to ask themselves some hard questions. Russia should ask themselves, ‘What are we doing here?’” McMaster said. Lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties were supportive of Trump’s decision to attack the Syrian air base, but some Republican senators said they were concerned about the lack of policy clarity and Tillerson’s strategy of leaving Assad’s fate unresolved while concentrating on Islamic State. “There seem to be a difference in what Ambassador Haley is saying, that Assad has no future, and what I heard this morning from Secretary Tillerson,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio told ABC, adding that Tillerson’s strategy won’t work. “There is no such thing as Assad yes, but ISIS no,” Rubio said. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said removing Assad from power would require the United States to commit thousands more troops to the country to create safe-haven areas for the opposition to regroup, retrain and ultimately take control of the country. “You tell the Russians, ‘If you continue to bomb the people we train, we’ll shoot you down,’ Graham said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday that globalization is a fact that “we’re not going to be able to build a wall around” but that it was important to work to shape the process so that it benefits not just big companies but small firms as well. The U.S. leader, speaking at a news conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, said the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal currently being worked on has taken into account some of the weaknesses and criticisms of the North American Free Trade Agreement and sought to address those.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain s Brexit minister David Davis said on Tuesday that reaching a deal with the European Union was the most likely outcome of talks, but added that the British government was prepared for no agreement with the bloc. Reaching a deal with the European Union is not only far and away the most likely outcome, it s also the best outcome for our country, Davis said in a speech in London. I don t think it would be in the interest for either side for there to be no deal. But as a responsible government it is right that we make every plan for every eventuality. Both sides have spoken of their frustration at a lack of progress in negotiations so far, although Davis said talks had made real and tangible progress. Britain wants to move discussions on to the future trade relationship with the EU which Brussels will not consider until London settles what it sees as past debts. While Davis said he was unambiguously seeking a deal, he said Britain was ready for talks to fail. Over the past year every department across Whitehall has been working at pace covering the whole range of scenarios, he said. These plans have been well developed, have been designed to provide the flexibility to respond to a negotiated agreement, as well as preparing us for the chance that we leave without a deal.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has dismissed him as a puppet and former mentor Jeb Bush called him not fit to serve as up-and-coming Republican Marco Rubio becomes the man to beat in next week’s New Hampshire primary. Rubio’s unexpectedly strong third-place showing in Monday’s Iowa caucuses has made him the target of rival Republican candidates who focused their campaigns on the New England state’s first-in-the-nation primary. Christie, the New Jersey governor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich all hope for a strong showing in New Hampshire to boost their flagging campaigns to become the Republican nominee in the Nov. 8 election to replace Democratic President Barack Obama. While Christie said on Thursday he would not be out of the race if he lost to Rubio in New Hampshire, Kasich has told audiences he would go back to Ohio if he got “smoked” there. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses on strong evangelical Christian credentials, was expected to have less appeal for voters in New Hampshire. Real estate mogul Donald Trump’s second-place showing in Iowa raised questions about how well his popularity can survive the voting booth. Christie has been one of Rubio’s fiercest critics this week, calling the first-term U.S. senator from Florida “the boy in the bubble” the day after the Iowa vote. He continued the personal vein of attack on Thursday. “This isn’t the most controlled candidate we’ve seen in this race at all. His handlers handle him all the time,” Christie said on Fox News. “We need to take him out of that controlled atmosphere because, believe me, it won’t be controlled against Hillary Clinton this fall,” he said. Clinton, the former secretary of state, is battling U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the Democratic nomination. Bush, whose establishment Republican credentials have not guaranteed him public support, has also turned on his former protege. On Wednesday he took out a full-page ad in a leading New Hampshire newspaper, the Union-Leader, attacking Rubio as not ready to serve as commander in chief. “Nearly every political leader in Florida of stature who knows Marco and Jeb’s records have joined us in endorsing Governor Bush,” the ad read. Rubio has garnered significant endorsements since Monday, including U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, which holds its primary this month, and U.S. Representative Matt Salmon of Arizona, a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrea Ricci) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.

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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Longtime Donald Trump supporter and activist investor Carl Icahn confirmed on Tuesday that the president-elect is looking at Wall Street veteran Steven Mnuchin as his choice for treasury secretary and billionaire Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary. “Spoke to @realDonaldTrump. Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are being considered for Treasury and Commerce. Both would be great choices,” Icahn wrote on Twitter. Icahn, a close ally of Trump who was often praised by the Republican during the presidential campaign for his business acumen, also tweeted that both Mnuchin and Ross were friends and “two of the smartest people I know.” Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Trump’s campaign finance manager, has been considered a front-runner for the Treasury post for much of the past week since Trump’s stunning election victory. Mnuchin’s inclusion in Trump’s campaign team was questioned at the time by Stephen Bannon, now Trump’s chief White House strategist. In an interview on Breitbart News, Bannon asked Trump whether the then presidential candidate was “selling out to Wall Street”. The list to head the Treasury Department has also included JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling has said he would prefer to focus on a revamp of financial regulation, while Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, has denied interest in the job in the past. Ross, a billionaire investor, is a part of Trump’s economic advisory team. Calls to Ross were not immediately returned. Mnuchin walked through the Trump Tower lobby in Manhattan on Tuesday morning. He would not comment on personnel decisions but said the Trump team is “making sure we get the biggest tax bill passed, the biggest tax changes since Reagan. So a lot of exciting things in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.” With Republicans retaining majorities in Congress, Trump will have a clearer shot at enacting major tax cut and reform legislation and rolling back the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law passed in the wake of the financial crisis. The new treasury secretary would play a key role in crafting such legislation, as well as managing potential new debt issuance of as much as $1 trillion if Congress agrees to Trump’s proposed infrastructure spending program. With such high stakes, Wall Street is more focused on the selection of the next treasury chief than it was during President Barack Obama’s choices for the post. “This time will be different,” Gregory Peters, senior investment officer at Prudential Fixed Income, said Tuesday at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit in New York. “That role takes on greater importance.” Unlike current Secretary Jacob Lew, who is viewed investors to have taken a lower profile focused largely on international issues over the past year, the next Treasury secretary is expected to be a featured player in articulating and executing the Trump administration’s new economic policies and initiatives. A figure such as Mnuchin, with Wall Street experience, might be seen as better equipped to manage the relationship between Treasury and the banks that facilitate U.S. debt issuance. The last Wall Street insider to serve in the post was Henry Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs CEO appointed by George W. Bush and whose term was dominated by the bank bailouts of the 2008 financial crisis. Mnuchin, whose father was also a Goldman Sachs partner, worked at the investment bank for nearly two decades starting in the mid-1980s, a time when Wall Street was developing major financial innovations including new securitization techniques and collateralized debt obligations — instruments that would later contribute to the financial crisis. In 2009, he led a group of investors that purchased the assets of failed California-based mortgage lender IndyMac, for $1.55 billion that included a loss-sharing deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. After rehabilitating the operation and rebranding it as OneWest Bank, they sold it in 2014 for $3.4 billion to CIT Group Inc for $3.4 billion.

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ABUJA (Reuters) - The minister for Nigeria s oil-producing Delta region said on Monday the government was ready to meet militants days after they called off a year-long ceasefire. Usani Uguru Usani asked the Niger Delta Avengers to be patient and said the government was pushing through development schemes in the southern territory where rights groups have long complained about poverty and pollution. The Avengers - whose attacks on energy facilities in the Niger Delta last year helped push Africa s biggest economy into recession - called off the ceasefire on Friday. The announcement threatened to push one of Nigeria s economic heartlands further into turmoil and disrupt the country s fragile recovery. It also piled pressure onto President Muhammadu Buhari who is already facing the jihadist Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast and rising calls for secession in the southeast. If the Avengers wants to meet with us, we are ready to meet with them ... We are at all times ready to engage them and other groups and stakeholders, Usani told reporters at the presidential villa in Abuja. My message to the Avengers is that they should be patient with the government. We have been doing what we can to ensure the development of the region. Everything has a phase of planning and a phase of execution so I will advise all stakeholders to remain calm, he added. The government has been in talks for more than a year to address grievances over poverty and oil pollution but local groups have complained that no progress has been made, despite Buhari receiving a list of demands at a meeting last November. Attacks in 2016 cut oil production from a peak of 2.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) to near 1 mbpd, the lowest level in Africa s top oil producer for at least 30 years. The attacks, combined with low oil prices, caused the OPEC member s first recession in 25 years. Crude sales make up two-thirds of government revenue and most of its foreign exchange. Nigeria came out of recession in the second quarter of this year as prices strengthened, attacks ended and oil production rose.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had at least three previously undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, seven current and former U.S. officials told Reuters. Those contacts included two phone calls between April and November last year, two of the sources said. By early this year, Kushner had become a focus of the FBI investigation into whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, said two other sources - one current and one former law enforcement official. Kushner initially had come to the attention of FBI investigators last year as they began scrutinizing former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s connections with Russian officials, the two sources said. While the FBI is investigating Kushner’s contacts with Russia, he is not currently a target of that investigation, the current law enforcement official said. The new information about the two calls as well as other details uncovered by Reuters shed light on when and why Kushner first attracted FBI attention and show that his contacts with Russian envoy Sergei Kislyak were more extensive than the White House has acknowledged.  NBC News reported on Thursday that Kushner was under scrutiny by the FBI, in the first sign that the investigation, which began last July, has reached the president’s inner circle.   The FBI declined to comment, while the Russian embassy said it was policy not to comment on individual diplomatic contacts. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Kushner’s attorney, Jamie Gorelick, said Kushner did not remember any calls with Kislyak between April and November. “Mr Kushner participated in thousands of calls in this time period. He has no recollection of the calls as described. We have asked (Reuters) for the dates of such alleged calls so we may look into it and respond, but we have not received such information,” she said. In March, the White House said that Kushner and Flynn had met Kislyak at Trump Tower in December to establish “a line of communication.” Kislyak also attended a Trump campaign speech in Washington in April 2016 that Kushner attended. The White House did not acknowledge any other contacts between Kushner and Russian officials. Before the election, Kislyak’s undisclosed discussions with Kushner and Flynn focused on fighting terrorism and improving U.S.-Russian economic relations, six of the sources said. Former President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia after it seized Crimea and started supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. After the Nov. 8 election, Kushner and Flynn also discussed with Kislyak the idea of creating a back channel between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could have bypassed diplomats and intelligence agencies, two of the sources said. Reuters was unable to determine how those discussions were conducted or exactly when they took place. Reuters was first to report last week that a proposal for a back channel was discussed between Flynn and Kislyak as Trump prepared to take office. The Washington Post was first to report on Friday that Kushner participated in that conversation. Separately, there were at least 18 undisclosed calls and emails between Trump associates and Kremlin-linked people in the seven months before the Nov. 8 presidential election, including six calls with Kislyak, sources told Reuters earlier this month. . Two people familiar with those 18 contacts said Flynn and Kushner were among the Trump associates who spoke to the ambassador by telephone. Reuters previously reported only Flynn’s involvement in those discussions. Six of the sources said there were multiple contacts between Kushner and Kislyak but declined to give details beyond the two phone calls between April and November and the post-election conversation about setting up a back channel. It is also not clear whether Kushner engaged with Kislyak on his own or with other Trump aides. FBI scrutiny of Kushner began when intelligence reports of Flynn’s contacts with Russians included mentions of U.S. citizens, whose names were redacted because of U.S. privacy laws. This prompted investigators to ask U.S. intelligence agencies to reveal the names of the Americans, the current U.S. law enforcement official said. Kushner’s was one of the names that was revealed, the official said, prompting a closer look at the president’s son-in-law’s dealings with Kislyak and other Russians. FBI investigators are examining whether Russians suggested to Kushner or other Trump aides that relaxing economic sanctions would allow Russian banks to offer financing to people with ties to Trump, said the current U.S. law enforcement official. The head of Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank, Sergei Nikolaevich Gorkov, a trained intelligence officer whom Putin appointed, met Kushner at Trump Tower in December. The bank is under U.S. sanctions and was implicated in a 2015 espionage case in which one of its New York executives pleaded guilty to spying and was jailed. The bank said in a statement in March that it had met with Kushner along with other representatives of U.S. banks and business as part of preparing a new corporate strategy. Officials familiar with intelligence on contacts between the Russians and Trump advisers said that so far they have not seen evidence of any wrongdoing or collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin.  Moreover, they said, nothing found so far indicates that Trump authorized, or was even aware of, the contacts. There may not have been anything improper about the contacts, the current law enforcement official stressed. Kushner offered in March to be interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Russia’s attempts to interfere in last year’s election. The contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials during the presidential campaign coincided with what U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was a Kremlin effort through computer hacking, fake news and propaganda to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House and damage his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

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OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will impose targeted sanctions against 40 Venezuelan senior officials, including President Nicol s Maduro, to punish them for anti-democratic behavior, the foreign ministry said on Friday. Canada s move, which followed a similar decision by the United States, came after months of protests against Maduro s government in which at least 125 people have been killed. Critics say he has plunged the nation into its worst-ever economic crisis and brought it to the brink of dictatorship. Canada will not stand by silently as the government of Venezuela robs its people of their fundamental democratic rights, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement. The measures include freezing the assets of the officials and banning Canadians from having any dealings with them. The actions were in response to the government of Venezuela s deepening descent into dictatorship, Canada said. There was no immediate reaction from Caracas, where the government established a pro-Maduro legislative superbody that has overruled the country s opposition-led Congress. Maduro has said he faces an armed insurrection designed to end socialism in Latin America and let a U.S.-backed business elite get its hands on the OPEC nation s crude reserves. The United States imposed sanctions on Maduro in late July and has also targeted around 30 other officials. The Canadian measures name Maduro, Vice President Tareck El Aissami and 38 other people, including the ministers of defense and the interior as well as several Supreme Court judges. Canada is a member of the 12-nation Lima Group, which is trying to address the Venezuelan crisis. A government official said Freeland wanted to host a meeting of the group within the next 60 days. Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, a trade sanctions expert at Toronto law firm LexSage, said although limited in scope, the Canadian measures were symbolic. When you join other countries ... it makes the message louder, she said by phone. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday he believed there was a chance for a political solution. This is a situation that is obviously untenable. The violence ... needs to end and we are looking to be helpful, he told reporters at the United Nations. Experts say individual measures have had little or no impact on Maduro s policies and that broader oil-sector and financial sanctions may be the only way to make the Venezuelan government feel economic pain. U.S. President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company. Earlier this month, Spain said it wanted the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will speak with European leaders about the Syrian refugee crisis, Russia and Ukraine, and the aftermath of Britain’s decision to pull out of the EU during the NATO summit on Friday, the White House said. Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday en route to the summit in Warsaw, White House spokesman Josh Earnest also said Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not reach any agreement for new cooperation in Syria during a phone call they held on Wednesday.

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ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is investigating reports that 11 Turkish folk dancers applied for asylum after attending a folk dance festival in the Hungarian capital Budapest, state-run news agency Anadolu said. Ankara prosecutors have launched an investigation into the dancers, who received special passports to attend the festival, as only five dancers of a group of 16 returned to Turkey. It was not clear where the remaining dancers may have sought asylum. The Hungarian Immigration Office said they did not submit asylum requests in Hungary, but gave no further details. The folk dance team from Ankara arrived on Nov 1, four days before the event, the private Dogan News Agency said. The team had previously attended an event in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July, and the whole team had returned to Turkey afterwards, according to media reports. It was not immediately clear why the dancers sought refuge. Turkey has jailed more than 50,000 people in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt last year and is seeking thousand of others for alleged ties to the coup.

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KINSHASA (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Friday she did not want to take the job of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose tenure has been dogged by rumors of rifts with President Donald Trump. Asked by reporters whether she wanted to be the top U.S. diplomat, Haley said: “I just don’t want to keep having this conversation. The focus is, I really want to do a good job now in what I’m doing.” “We have a secretary of state. Tillerson’s not going anywhere, so it’s really not been a topic of conversation,” she told reporters in Kinshasa at the end of a week-long trip to Africa. If she was offered the job, she said: “I would say no.” Tillerson, a former chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp, said on Oct. 4 he had never considered resigning, but failed to address whether he had referred to Trump as a “moron,” as NBC reported. That was a few days after Trump said on Twitter that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea after the secretary of state said Washington was directly communicating with Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs. More recently Trump has said he has a good relationship with his secretary of state but that Tillerson could be tougher. Haley, a Republican former governor of South Carolina, traveled to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters. The filing of the sealed charges was first reported by CNN.

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PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Thursday praised aggressive police tactics and condemned attacks on officers amid criticism of his plan to use “stop-and-frisk” tactics to reduce crime, in a speech following a second night of unrest that shook Charlotte, North Carolina. The Republican presidential nominee said drugs were “a very, very big factor” in urban unrest and that those suffering the most from the violence were “law-abiding African-American residents who live in these communities.” “Crime and violence is an attack on the poor and will never be accepted in a Trump administration,” Trump told an energy conference in Pittsburgh, as a room full of natural gas and coal industry executives listened in silence. “The violence against our citizens, and our law enforcement, must be brought to an end,” he added. Trump has portrayed himself as the “law-and-order” candidate. Stop-and-frisk, in which police stop, question and search pedestrians for weapons or contraband, has drawn protests and successful legal challenges because it is seen as unfairly targeting minorities. At the same time, Trump has recently reached out to African-American voters as the gap in many opinion polls has narrowed between him and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Clinton, who did not immediately respond to Trump’s remarks on Thursday, has pushed for stricter gun controls to help rein in gun violence and called for the development of national guidelines on the use of force by police officers. In Pittsburgh, Trump, a New York businessman, called for better training of police and more community engagement. “If you’re not aware, drugs are a very, very big factor in what you’re watching on television at night,” Trump said. “My administration will work with local communities and local officials to make the reduction of crime a top priority.” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said later in a statement that Trump’s comments were not referring “specifically” to the violence in Charlotte, but “addressing a major concern that authorities and moms across the country are raising with him, which is indiscriminate drug use and opiate addiction.” The fatal police shooting of a black man sparked the protests in Charlotte, and a state of emergency was declared on Wednesday. There have also been protests in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in recent days after a fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man who a video showed had his hands in clear view at the time. A white Tulsa officer was charged with first-degree manslaughter on Thursday in the shooting. Police tactics and deadly encounters with African-Americans, many of them unarmed, have sparked protests and unrest across the country in recent years. Clinton said on Wednesday that the deaths in Charlotte and Tulsa added two more names to the list of African-American victims of police killings. “It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable,” she said. Trump was at an African-American church in Cleveland on Wednesday when he praised stop-and-frisk, which had triggered protests and court rulings that it was unconstitutional or required outside monitoring in cities like New York, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey. Before going to Pittsburgh, Trump was asked on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program to define the tactic. He said: “If they see a person possibly with a gun or they think may have a gun, they will see the person and they’ll look and they’ll take the gun away.” “They’ll stop, they’ll frisk, and they’ll take the gun away. And they won’t have anything to shoot with,” he said. In Washington, White House spokesman John Earnest pointed to what he said was a contradiction in Trump’s remarks. “It does raise questions that a politician would be so dogmatic about protecting Second Amendment rights (to bear arms) yet rather cavalier about protecting the constitutional prohibition against illegal search and seizure,” he told a news briefing. While Trump did not mention stop-and-frisk by name in Pittsburgh, he used the speech to repeat his praise for the policing tactics fostered by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, now a major Trump supporter, who promoted the practice. Trump again credited policing under the Republican mayor with reducing crime in the candidate’s hometown. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio rejected that argument on Thursday, warning Trump against embracing a tactic that would worsen relations between police and the minority community. De Blasio attributed the sharp drop in crime to another strategy adopted by Bill Bratton, the city’s longtime police commissioner, who retired less than a week ago. Bratton championed the “broken windows” policing strategy that emphasizes pursuit of crimes no matter how minor. In his resignation letter, he attributed the decline in crime in New York, the nation’s most populous city with 8.5 million people, to additional officers and an emphasis on building bonds within neighborhoods. De Blasio, who supports Clinton, said in an interview with CNN that Trump “should really be careful because if we reinstitute stop-and-frisk all over this country, you would see a lot more tension between police and community.”

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(Reuters) - The communications director for U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore has resigned amid the Alabama Republican’s efforts to combat allegations of sexual misconduct that have roiled his campaign. News of the departure of John Rogers came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump defended Moore from accusations by multiple women that Moore pursued them as teenagers when he was in his 30s, including one who has said he initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14. Moore has denied any wrongdoing and has accused the women of conspiring with Democrats, media outlets and establishment Republicans in an effort to tarnish his reputation. Reuters has not independently confirmed any of the accusations. “As we all know, campaigns make changes throughout the duration of the campaign,” campaign Chairman Bill Armistead said in a statement on Wednesday. “John made the decision to leave the campaign last Friday - any representations to the contrary are false - and we wish him well.” Fox News journalist Dan Gallo said on Twitter that Brett Doster, a Moore campaign adviser, told him: “Unfortunately John just did not have the experience to deal with the press the last couple of weeks, and we’ve had to make a change.” Doster did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moore, 70, a conservative Christian and former Alabama chief justice, won the nomination for the Dec. 12 special election in a hotly contested primary against incumbent Senator Luther Strange. Strange, who was appointed to fill the Senate vacancy left by Jeff Sessions, now U.S. attorney general, was backed by Republican leaders, including the president, while Moore’s campaign attracted support from insurgent right-wing figures like former Trump strategist Steve Bannon. Trump told reporters on Tuesday, however, that he might yet campaign for Moore, who he said “totally denies” the misconduct allegations, and that Democratic nominee Doug Jones was a liberal who should not be elected. The president’s stance stood in contrast to the reactions from most Republicans in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who have called on Moore to step aside. Jones released a campaign advertisement on Wednesday featuring the nine women who have accused Moore of improper conduct. “They were girls when Roy Moore immorally pursued them,” the narrator says, as photos of the women as young girls flash on the screen. “Will we make their abuser a U.S. senator?”

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HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States decision to reduce staff at its Havana embassy was hasty and will affect bilateral relations, Cuba s Foreign Ministry chief for U.S. Affairs Josefina Vidal said on Friday. We consider the decision announced today by the U.S. government through the State Department is hasty and will affect bilateral relations, Vidal said in a briefing broadcast on state-run television during the midday news show.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans on Friday unveiled the final version of their dramatic U.S. tax overhaul - debt-financed cuts for businesses, the wealthy and some middle-class Americans - and picked up crucial support from two wavering senators ahead of planned votes by lawmakers early next week. Passage of the biggest U.S. tax rewrite since 1986 would provide Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump their first major legislative victory since he took office in January. Prospects for approval soared after Republican senators Marco Rubio and Bob Corker pledged support. Three Republican senators, enough to defeat the measure in a Senate that Trump’s party controls with a slim 52-48 majority, remained uncommitted: Susan Collins, Jeff Flake and Mike Lee. The final version hammered out between Senate and House of Representatives Republicans after each chamber previously passed competing versions contained no surprises. It would cut the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, according to a summary distributed to reporters by congressional tax writers. Corporate tax lobbyists have been seeking a tax cut of this magnitude for many years. The bill, the summary showed, would create a 20-percent business income tax deduction for owners of “pass-through” businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships; allow for immediate write-off by corporations of new equipment costs; and eliminate the corporate alternative minimum tax. Under a new territorial system, the bill would exempt U.S. corporations from taxes on most of their future foreign profits. It also sets a one-time tax for companies to repatriate more than $2.6 trillion now held overseas, at rates of 15.5 percent for cash and cash-equivalents and 8 percent for illiquid assets. If passed by Congress, the changes would be in effect for 2018 taxes, with tax returns for 2017 unaffected. Democrats have been unified against the measure, calling it a giveaway to corporations and the rich that would drive up the federal deficit. Bernie Sanders, a leading liberal voice in the Senate who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination last year, called the bill “a moral and economic obscenity.” “It is a gift to wealthy Republican campaign contributors and an insult to the working families of our country,” Sanders said. Republicans have said the tax cuts are needed because the economy is not expanding quickly enough. “Now the American people are closer to a plan that will deliver higher wages, lower taxes, a simpler system, and a stronger American economy,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said. The House was expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday. Republicans have a large majority there, and passage was expected despite Democratic opposition. The bill would then go to the Senate. Republicans can afford to lose only two votes from within their own ranks and still win Senate passage. The tax bill was expected to add at least $1 trillion to the 20 trillion U.S. national debt over 10 years, making it an unusual example of deficit spending on stimulative tax cuts at a time when the economy is already expanding. For months, Trump has touted the bill as a middle-class tax cut. Studies from independent analysts and non-partisan congressional researchers have projected that corporations and the rich would benefit disproportionately. The Republican bill would maintain the existing seven individual and family income tax brackets with rates of 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent. That top rate, for the highest-earning Americans, would be cut from today’s 39.6 percent. Republicans abandoned their quest to eliminate the estate tax on inherited assets, a move that would have benefited the richest Americans. But they did propose increasing the exemption for the tax to $10 million from $5 million person. The bill does not eliminate Wall Street’s so-called carried interest loophole that allows fund managers to claim a lower capital gains tax rate on profits from investments held more than a year. Getting rid of the loophole was a Trump campaign pledge. Instead, the legislation makes it harder for some fund managers to take advantage of the loopholes by requiring them to hold investments for more than three years before claiming it. Trump, who last year promised voters major tax cuts, wants a bill on his desk before the Dec. 25 Christmas holiday so he can sign it into law and finish 2017 with at least one big win in Congress before the 2018 mid-term election campaigns, when Republicans will defend their Senate and House of Representatives majorities. Since sweeping to power in Washington in January, Trump and his fellow Republicans have failed to pass major legislation including a promised healthcare overhaul, while Trump’s public approval ratings have remained low. Since last month, Republicans have lost hard-fought elections in Alabama and Virginia. Stock markets have been rallying for months in anticipation of sharply lower tax rates for corporations, wealthy financiers and business owners, all of which the bill would deliver. Wall Street’s three major stock indexes closed at record highs on Friday, driven by corporate tax rates that looked likely to pass. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 0.58 percent to 24,651.74, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 0.90 percent to 2,675.81 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC rose 1.17 percent, to 6,936.58. As the tax package evolved, it tilted increasingly toward benefiting businesses and the wealthy. Provisions for offsetting the revenue costs of last-minute changes were troublesome for some lawmakers. Rubio said he would support the bill after its approach to the child tax credit was changed. The bill doubles the credit, meant to help reduce the costs of raising kids, to $2,000 per dependent child under the age of 17, with a refundable portion of $1,400. That refundable portion was raised from $1,100 at the last minute to win Rubio’s backing. Lee called the change to the child credit “a big win” but stopped short of endorsing the bill until he saw the details. Corker, a fiscal hawk who opposed an earlier bill that passed the Senate because of its deficit impact, said the final measure was “far from perfect” but he would support it, calling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to help U.S. businesses. Collins has remained non-committal, in part out of concern about a provision that would repeal the fine imposed under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, on Americans who do not obtain health insurance. Flake has said he needs to see all the details before supporting the measure. The Senate vote outlook has been complicated by Republican Senator John McCain’s hospitalization for treatment for side effects of cancer therapy. His office said he “looks forward to returning to work as soon as possible.” Vice President Mike Pence has delayed a trip to the Middle East in case his vote is needed to break a Senate tie.

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PARIS (Reuters) - From text messages at 2 a.m. to clockwork meetings and tight deadlines, 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron is shaking up how the French presidency is run, raising the tempo and stretching the limits of the largely youthful team around him. France s political magazines are full of snippets every week about the inner workings of Macron s Elysee, whether the comings and goings of his rescue dog Nemo or details of messages sent to the foreign minister in the dead of night. But foreign diplomats dealing with the administration also describe a different pace and style of work, saying the young president, with a background in investment banking and civil service, has injected fresh elan into the role. Half a dozen senior European envoys, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, expressed similar views on the sharpness, energy and openness of Macron and his team, whether on specific policy discussions or wider bilateral issues. While they were quick to emphasize that former President Francois Hollande also had a strong command of the files and a ready wit, Macron s focus, personal engagement and trust in those around him has quickened the rhythm, they said. There is undoubtedly a change in pace, said the ambassador of one northern European country. It s not just in terms of ambition, but actually engagement. They are very open, they want us involved, they want us there in meetings. Another described Macron s team as bringing a level of analysis and planning to the table that is more in tune with the worlds of investment banking and finance than politics. On EU policy in particular which Macron has made a priority, delivering big-picture speeches in Athens and at the Sorbonne he has established a tight group of advisers and envoys around him, combining youth and experience. As well as Philippe Etienne, 61, the former French ambassador to the EU, there is 36-year-old Clement Beaune, a graduate of the elite ENA school who was part of Macron s En Marche! Movement from the beginning and is now Europe adviser. Philippe Leglise-Costa, the new representative in Brussels, and Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau are also part of the mix. The question is whether the new energy and approach of the Macronistas which some French media have described as exhausting to the point of collapse can bear fruit or will prove more style than substance. Some of the early signs are positive, particularly on Europe policy. This week, EU labor ministers agreed to amend the rules on so-called posted workers , a divisive issue Macron had pushed since taking office in May. The policy allows EU employees to work elsewhere in the bloc on terms set in their home countries, which countries like France that offer strong worker protections say lets employers get around labor laws by importing workers. The ministers agreed to shorten the period of such postings. Last month, with Elysee input, Germany s Siemens and France s Alstom agreed to merge their rail operations, creating a European champion to compete with China. The same week, France agreed to cede control of shipyard STX to Italy s Fincantieri, another sensitive move shaped by the Elysee. The area where Macron s high-tempo agenda is proving less successful so far is euro zone financial reform. The president had hoped to work with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to overhaul monetary union, including establishing a separate budget for the 19 countries that use the euro. The results of Germany s election last month have made that more difficult, with both Merkel s likely coalition partners, the liberal FDP party and the Greens, opposed to a euro zone budget or any debt-sharing. Macron acknowledged some of those obstacles at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels last week, but said he remained committed to the budget goal, saying it would emerge eventually.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Sunday said Americans would stand united and “not give in to fear or turn against each other” in the wake of a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 50 people. Following is the full text of remarks, Obama delivered at the White House: Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder - a horrific massacre - of dozens of innocent people. We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city. Although it’s still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate. And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people. I just finished a meeting with FBI Director Comey and my homeland security and national security advisers. The FBI is on the scene and leading the investigation, in partnership with local law enforcement. I’ve directed that the full resources of the federal government be made available for this investigation. We are still learning all the facts. This is an open investigation. We’ve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. And I’ve directed that we must spare no effort to determine what - if any - inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred. Over the coming days, we’ll uncover why and how this happened, and we will go wherever the facts lead us. This morning I spoke with my good friend, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, and I conveyed the condolences of the entire American people. This could have been any one of our communities. So I told Mayor Dyer that whatever help he and the people of Orlando need - they are going to get it. As a country, we will be there for the people of Orlando today, tomorrow and for all the days to come. We also express our profound gratitude to all the police and first responders who rushed into harm’s way. Their courage and professionalism saved lives, and kept the carnage from being even worse. It’s the kind of sacrifice that our law enforcement professionals make every single day for all of us, and we can never thank them enough. This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends - our fellow Americans - who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub - it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American - regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation - is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans. Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well. In the coming hours and days, we’ll learn about the victims of this tragedy. Their names. Their faces. Who they were. The joy that they brought to families and to friends, and the difference that they made in this world. Say a prayer for them and say a prayer for their families - that God give them the strength to bear the unbearable. And that He give us all the strength to be there for them, and the strength and courage to change. We need to demonstrate that we are defined more - as a country - by the way they lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us. As we go together, we will draw inspiration from heroic and selfless acts - friends who helped friends, took care of each other and saved lives. In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united, as Americans, to protect our people, and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us. May God bless the Americans we lost this morning. May He comfort their families. May God continue to watch over this country that we love. Thank you.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Amnesty International urged Egyptian authorities on Tuesday to release 24 Nubian activists detained last week on charges of protesting without permission as they rallied for resettlement on the banks of the Nile river. For half a century, Egypt s Nubians have lobbied the government in Cairo for a return to their homelands on the banks of the upper Nile, desperate to reclaim territory their ancestors first cultivated 3,000 years ago. Egyptian authorities have long since marginalized Nubians, ignoring their demands to return to their historical lands and treating Nubian activism as suspicious on security grounds, Amnesty International s North Africa Campaigns Director Najia Bounaim said in a statement. Instead of flagrantly flouting Nubians rights to freedom of expression and assembly by continuing to detain them over their peaceful protest, the authorities must release these 24 activists from custody immediately. According to the statement, the activists had not marched far before they were surrounded and beaten by security officers. The activists lawyer, Mohamed Abdel Salam, told Reuters last week they were also charged with incitement of protests and disrupting public safety.

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged North Korea on Monday to refrain from taking further provocative actions, comply with U.N. resolutions and abandon its nuclear missile development. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have escalated as U.S. President Donald Trump takes a hard rhetorical line with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has rebuffed admonitions from China and proceeded with missile tests. North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Sunday but it blew up almost immediately, the U.S. Pacific Command said. Abe told parliament he would exchange views on North Korea with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they hold a summit meeting later this month. He also said the government was considering measures to respond to contingencies stemming from a potential crisis on the Korean peninsula, including floods of refugees and how to evacuate Japanese citizens from South Korea. “We assume a series of responses in case of evacuees into Japan, such as protecting them, a process of landing, housing facilities and their management, and a screening whether our nation should protect them,” Abe said. Japan’s National Security Council discussed how to evacuate its nearly 60,000 citizens from South Korea in the event of a crisis, a government official said on Friday amid rising concern over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited the demilitarized border between North and South Korea on Monday and reiterated that the U.S. “era of strategic patience” with Pyongyang was over.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said on Sunday he will depose Trump administration officials to uncover “what truly motivated” President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration if the case he brought against it goes to trial. Documents and emails authored by administration officials may contain evidence that the order was an unconstitutional attempt to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and Ferguson will use “every tool” at his disposal to bring those to light, he told ABC’s “This Week.”

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BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - Flames swept through an illegal firecracker workshop in the eastern Indian state of Odisha on Wednesday, killing at least six people, police said. The fire broke out as workers were making crackers for Thursday s celebrations of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, district police chief Niti Shekhar told Reuters. The blaze injured seven others, leaving some with serious burns, he said. They had stocked crackers in the cottage illegally. Some workers were making the crackers and some were present to purchase the crackers, he added. Local television channels showed fire and smoke billowing out of the workshop in a cottage in Bahabalpur village, about 200 km (120 miles) from state capital Bhubaneswar.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Kurdish referendum for independence has decreased focus on fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the militant group said. The focus which used to be like a laser beam on ISIS is now not 100 percent there, so there has been an effect on the overall mission to defeat ISIS in Iraq as a result of the referendum, said coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon, using an acronym for Islamic State. Dillon added that there had been no impact on current military operations out of Erbil s airport.

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(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he would nominate retired Marine Corps General James Mattis for defense secretary, the latest of about a dozen picks he has announced for high-level positions since winning the Nov. 8 presidential election. Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as Trump works to form his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and media reports. See the end of list for posts already filled. * Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor * Rudy Giuliani, Republican former mayor of New York City * John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Republican President George W. Bush * Bob Corker, Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee * Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, former leader of Southern Command * David Petraeus, retired general and former CIA director who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information he shared with his biographer, with whom he was having an affair * Michael McCaul, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee * David Clarke, Milwaukee County sheriff and vocal Trump supporter * Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, former leader of Southern Command * Joe Arpaio, outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who campaigned for Trump * Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state * Frances Townsend, homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Republican former President George W. Bush * Jeff Holmstead, energy lawyer, former EPA official during George W. Bush administration * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Leslie Rutledge, Republican Arkansas attorney general * Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management * Scott Pruitt, Republican Oklahoma attorney general * 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 senator from West Virginia * Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc * Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp * James Connaughton, chief executive of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush * Rick Perry, former Republican 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 private equity firm 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, chief executive of investment company Charter Holdings * U.S. 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, former Republican U.S. representative from Michigan * Rudy Giuliani, former Republican mayor of New York City * Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steel producer Nucor Corp * Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants * 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 * Dr. Ben Carson, former 2016 Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon * Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc * Scott Brown, former Republican U.S. senator from Massachusetts * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee * Jeff Miller, former Republican U.S. representative from Florida who was chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee The Trump transition team confirmed he 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. * Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus * Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative website Breitbart News * Jeff Sessions, Republican U.S. senator from Alabama and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (subject to Senate confirmation) * Republican U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo from Kansas (subject to Senate confirmation) * Michael Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency * Nikki Haley, Republican South Carolina governor (subject to Senate confirmation) * Betsy DeVos, Republican donor and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party (subject to Senate confirmation) * Tom Price, Republican U.S. representative from Georgia, orthopedic surgeon (subject to Senate confirmation) * Elaine Chao, former labor secretary and deputy transportation secretary under Republican Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, respectively. (subject to Senate confirmation). Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell * Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump’s campaign finance chairman (subject to Senate confirmation) * Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor, chairman of Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co (subject to Senate confirmation) * James Mattis, retired Marine Corps general (subject to Senate confirmation)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Monday said he will vote to back President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, despite the former Exxon Mobil Corp CEO’s “troubling” responses before lawmakers regarding Russia. “Despite my reservations, I will support Mr. Tillerson’s nomination in committee and in the full Senate,” Rubio said in a statement posted on Facebook ahead of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s vote on Tillerson later on Monday. A vote in the Republican-controlled Senate is expected shortly afterward.

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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutchman wielding a knife was shot by military police on Friday at Amsterdam s Schiphol Airport and taken into custody, an official said. There were no reports of other injuries. The suspect in the incident is a 29-year-old man from The Hague, police said in a tweet. The man is known to the police in connection with previous violent incidents. The man had made threats with a knife and was shot at the central plaza of Schiphol airport, an area with shops and restaurants, spokesman Stan Verberkt said. He was injured and has been taken into custody. No details of his condition were released. The immediate area around the incident was closed to the public, but authorities gave the all clear and the airport was operating as usual, he said.

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GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - The Guatemalan unit of telecommunications firm Telefonica SA suspended its customer service operations and closed its shops over the weekend after three of its employees were shot to death in the Central American nation. The three killings and the wounding of a fourth employee occurred in four separate attacks on Friday. This is a typical case of extortion in business areas in dangerous parts of the country, a company representative, who asked not to be named because of safety concerns, told Reuters on Sunday. For the safety of our employees, we decided to suspend customer service but will restart tomorrow (Monday) and gradually recover normal operation, the representative said. Local media published the transcripts of two supposed conversations between an employee of Movistar, Telefonica s local unit, and a man attempting to extort $13,600. Police spokesman Pablo Castillo said authorities were investigating the killings. Guatemala is struggling with endemic gang violence, especially from the powerful Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, and its rival, Calle 18. Movistar has 4 million clients in Guatemala.

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GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria s government delegation quit U.N.-led peace talks in Geneva on Friday and said it would not return next week unless the opposition withdrew a statement demanding President Bashar al-Assad play no role in any interim post-war government. For us (this) round is over, as a government delegation. He as mediator can announce his own opinion, government chief negotiator Bashar al-Ja afari said after a morning of talks, referring to U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura. As long as the other side sticks to the language of Riyadh 2 ... there will be no progress, Ja afari said. He was referring to a position adopted by Syrian opposition delegates at a meeting in Riyadh last week, in which they stuck to their demand that Assad be excluded from any transitional government. Ja afari went further in a televised interview with al-Mayadeen TV: We cannot engage in serious discussion in Geneva while the Riyadh statement is not withdrawn. De Mistura put a brave face on the impasse, saying in a statement that he had asked the delegations to engage in talks next week and give their reactions to 12 political principles. Previously there had been some speculation the opposition could soften its stance ahead of this week s Geneva negotiations, in response to government advances on the battlefield. The Syrian civil war, now in its seventh year, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million from their homes. So far all previous rounds of peace talks have failed to make progress, faltering over the opposition s demand Assad leave power and his refusal to go. Pressed whether the government delegation would return to Geneva next week, Ja afari replied: Damascus will decide. Ja afari said the statement insisting Assad leave power that was adopted by the opposition in Riyadh ahead of this week s peace talks was a mine on the road to Geneva, and the opposition had purposefully undermined the negotiations. The language with which the statement was drafted was seen by us, the Syrian government, as well as by too many capitals, as a step back rather than progress forward, because it imposed a kind of precondition, he said. The language is provocative, irresponsible, he said. The opposition, which held brief talks later with U.N. officials, rejected the charge that it was seeking to undermine the talks, and said it sought a political solution . We have come to this round with no preconditions, opposition spokesman Yahya al-Aridi told reporters. Now, not coming back is a precondition in itself. It s an expression or a reflection of a responsibility toward people who have been suffering for seven years now, Aridi said. Nasr Hariri, the opposition delegation chief, said earlier on Friday that his side had come to Geneva for serious, direct negotiations with Assad s government. So far, government and opposition delegations have not negotiated face-to-face in any Syrian peace talks but have been kept in separate rooms. We call on the international community to put pressure on the regime to engage with this process, Hariri said in a statement. De Mistura said on Thursday the talks would run until Dec. 15, but the government delegation might return to Damascus to refresh and consult before a resumption probably on Tuesday.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Change at the Federal Reserve could come quickly with President-elect Donald Trump’s team pledging to promptly fill high-level central bank jobs and roll out a tax and fiscal plan that could rewrite policymakers’ core economic assumptions. Fed officials already say their plan to gradually increase interest rates may need to be accelerated to accommodate the new administration’s economic proposals, which could push inflation higher. The concerns for Fed Chair Janet Yellen are broader as she faces a 14-month window to preserve her legacy and try to ensure the central bank’s independence in the face of a possible four or more Trump appointees to its seven-member Board of Governors. Yellen’s term as Fed chief expires in February 2018, and Trump is likely to name a successor in synch with his desire to cut financial regulation, lower corporate taxes, reorder fiscal policy, and possibly impose some of the constraints on the Fed that Republicans in Congress have long advocated. Yellen, 70, a ranking Fed official for the past 12 years and the top U.S. central banker since 2014, laid out a long list of concerns during recent questioning before Congress: that any fiscal boost not blow up the deficit and be tailored to improve growth and productivity; that the regulations crafted after the 2007-2009 financial crisis not be trashed; that the Fed not be hamstrung by policy rules or political pressure. “There is clear evidence of better outcomes in countries where central banks can take the long view, are not subject to short-term political pressures,” Yellen said in her testimony. “Sometimes central banks need to do things that are not immediately popular.” Fed officials would not comment on whether Trump and Yellen have spoken, or describe the contact so far between the central bank and the Republican businessman’s transition team. Trump transition officials could not be reached for comment. It remains unclear how deep a stamp Trump wants to put on the Fed, or what he feels about issues like central bank independence that are fundamental to Yellen and her peers. Trump’s sharp comments about Yellen during the presidential campaign, when he accused her of setting monetary policy to help Democrats, rattled Fed officials who felt he had crossed a line. But it is not known whether he’ll be content to merely change personnel - Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer’s term also runs out in 2018 - or whether he hopes to infuse the central bank with a different operating philosophy altogether. Congressional Republicans are expected to push legislation forcing more oversight of the central bank, possibly tying it to a monetary policy rule that more mechanically sets rates. Among the candidates mentioned as Yellen’s possible replacement is Stanford University economics professor John Taylor, whose “Taylor Rule” is often used in analysis and as a reference point in debate over the usefulness of rules in general. In his first comments after being named as Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin indicated in a Fox Business interview that the new administration’s plans could quickly alter the collegial and consensus-driven dynamic Yellen has tried to mold. The plan is to move soon to fill two open board seats at the Fed, and appointing one of those as a vice chair of supervision “will be a big priority,” said Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Hollywood financier. Many analysts feel such a move could prompt the resignation of Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo ahead of the expiry of his term in 2022, giving Trump a fifth board seat to fill. A former Clinton administration economic advisor appointed to the Fed by President Barack Obama, Tarullo currently handles regulatory issues but has never been formally named vice chair. He would not comment on his plans in a public appearance last month. Financial markets, which had been spooked by Trump’s anti-trade comments during the campaign, so far appear to expect smooth sailing and a sober version of Trumpism. The prospect of major tax reform has bolstered U.S. stocks, especially in the financial sector where regulations are expected to be eased, and the dollar has rallied against major currencies. Yet for the Fed, Trump’s victory brings a new and possibly unnerving sort of uncertainty. The Fed has the equivalent of a university full of PhD economists who can employ sophisticated models to gauge how new tax or fiscal policies might change growth, inflation and unemployment. What they can’t model is the fallout if a major trade agreement is summarily ripped up, or if Trump follows through on campaign threats to declare China a currency manipulator. “Do you think the ideologue or the pragmatist prevails?” said Cornerstone Macro analyst Roberto Perli, who like many in the markets argues that Trump’s most volatile rhetoric won’t find its way into practice. Fed officials have so far struck a cautious note. “It is time to be patient and see how things unfold,” Governor Jerome Powell said at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Wednesday. But some feel that policymakers may need to get on top of the coming wave. “Fed officials can’t simply dismiss the prospect of legislative reforms anymore,” Dartmouth University economics professor and former Fed adviser Andrew Levin said. “It seems practically inevitable.”

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois’ long-running budget impasse stung the state on Thursday in the U.S. municipal market where buyers of its $550 million bond issue demanded bigger yields over the market benchmark. The pricing was “surprisingly soft,” considering a strong rally in muni bonds on Thursday, said Greg Saulnier, a Municipal Market Data analyst. The results demonstrate that the market is increasing its penalty due to the state’s worsening fiscal and political problems, leaving Illinois unable to take full advantage of the historically low borrowing rates. Bank of America Merrill Lynch won the tax-exempt general obligation deal in competitive bidding, pricing bonds due in 2026 with a 5 percent coupon to yield 3.32 percent, which is 185 basis points over MMD’s triple-A yield scale. The spread was 175 basis points ahead of the bond sale, according to MMD, a unit of Thomson Reuters. It was also wider than the 154 basis-point spread in 10 years for Illinois’ $480 million GO bond sale in January. Illinois is poised to be the only U.S. state since at least the 1930s to end a fiscal year without a complete budget. Its Republican governor and Democratic-controlled legislature have so far failed to reach a deal on fiscal 2016 or 2017 spending plans. That leaves unaddressed the growing structural budget deficit and huge $111 billion unfunded pension liability in the fifth-biggest U.S. state. The bond issue itself was seen as a weapon in the political war to pressure Democrats to cave in to Governor Bruce Rauner’s demands, while losing money for the cash-strapped state. Muni yields have been hitting new record lows on MMD’s scale in recent days, driven by cash-heavy investors chasing low supply of debt. Rauner’s office said the true interest cost for the bonds, which carry maturities from 2017 to 2041, was 3.74 percent, down from 3.99 percent in the January sale, and the lowest ever for similar general obligation bonds issued by the state. “It’s clear from today’s bond sale that investors realize Illinois now has a governor that is trying to turn the state around and right its fiscal ship,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said in a statement. Some market participants thought Illinois’ so-called credit spread should be even wider. “It’s odd to me,” said Nicholos Venditti, a portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management. “Illinois has proven time and time again they can’t get anything done.” Heading into the deal, Illinois’ credit ratings, which were already the lowest among the states, were downgraded by Moody’s Investor Service and Standard & Poor’s. The governor’s office also revealed on Wednesday that the state lacks appropriations to actually spend all the proceeds earmarked mainly for road construction and mass transit projects due to the impasse. State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, a first-term Democrat, predicted the bond issue could be a net money-loser for Illinois if the borrowed funds go unspent and must be invested short-term. “We’ll make far less in interest than we’ll be paying in interest to the bondholders,” Frerichs said in an interview. “I think we need to make these investments in infrastructure, but we’re going about it in the wrong order. It seems backwards issuing the bonds and hoping they get an appropriation to spend them.” On Wednesday, Rauner administration officials warned of the imminent shutdown of transportation projects and the loss of 25,000 construction jobs without a budget deal. Spokesmen for House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, both Democrats, declined to speculate on the chances of either legislative chamber granting the Rauner administration the spending authority it needs to fully tap the bond issue.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will host Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for an official visit on Oct. 18, the White House said on Monday. Obama and Renzi, whose countries are NATO allies, have discussed security and economic issues in the past including the fight against Islamic State in Libya, the conflict in Ukraine, and the European economy. “Italy is one of our closest and strongest allies and we cooperate across a range of shared interests from addressing climate change and the global refugee crisis, to promoting global security and inclusive economic growth,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters during a daily briefing. Renzi and his wife, Agnese Landini, will be guests at a state dinner on the evening of the visit, Earnest said.

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DHAKA, (Reuters) - Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Monday to set up a joint working group on the repatriation of Rohingya Muslim refugee who have fled to Bangladesh, Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali told reporters after talks with a Myanmar official. We are looking forward to a peaceful solution to the crisis, Ali said after his talks with Myanmar government official Kyaw Tint Swe. More than half a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since late August, to escape what the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing by Myanmar s military.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to address a joint meeting of Congress when he visits Washington in June, an unusual show of warmth for a foreign leader. “This address presents a special opportunity to hear from the elected leader of the world’s most populous democracy on how our two nations can work together to promote our shared values and to increase prosperity,” the Republican leader of the House of Representatives said in a statement. The invitation is a sharp turnaround for Modi, who was once barred from the United States over massacres of Muslims. Opportunities to address the House and Senate are considered a great honor. There have only been two in the past year: Pope Francis, on Sept. 24, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on April 29, 2015. When Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies swept India’s elections in 2014, there were initially questions about whether he would qualify for a visa. President Barack Obama quickly dismissed the issue by inviting him to the White House when he called to congratulate him on his victory. In 2002, when Modi had just become Gujarat’s chief minister, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in sectarian riots in the state. The administration of President George W. Bush denied Modi a visa in 2005 under a 1998 U.S. law barring entry to foreigners who have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” Modi denied any wrongdoing. India’s Supreme Court ruled in 2010 he had no case to answer. Washington sees its relationship with India as critical, partly to counterbalance China’s rising power. Obama has called it “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.”

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VIC, Spain (Reuters) - Catalonia s pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont has called for the European Union to mediate with Spain over the region s future, but for many Catalans the intensity of a police crackdown on a banned referendum may mean it is too late for compromise. Across Catalonia s separatist heartland of Osona county, politicians said police action, using rubber bullets and batons against voters in the independence vote, left little room in the independence camp for anything short of secession. People here have completely disconnected from the Spanish state, said Joan Coma, a councilor for the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), a small anti-capitalist party which has an outsized influence on Puigdemont s Catalan government. Independence will be unilateral, said Coma, who police arrested last year and released in June on charges of inciting civil disobedience and who is councilor in Osana s capital Vic. Before Sunday s vote, members of Puigdemont s PdeCat party said they would be ready to accept greater fiscal and political autonomy without full independence for Catalonia, a region with its own language and an industrial and tourism powerhouse that accounts for a fifth of Spain s economy. But widespread anger over the crackdown on the referendum, declared illegal by Madrid, now makes any such strategy politically risky, given it would be unlikely to sustain broad support from independence supporters and from within Puigdemont s own ruling coalition in the Catalan parliament. The pro-independence Catalan National Assembly (ANC), which has organized protests of hundreds of thousands of secessionists in the past, interpreted Puigdemont s push for mediation as essentially a call for EU recognition of a new Catalan state. It would be the EU that offers to mediate talks to reach an agreement which, I insist, would include Catalonia s independence, ANC spokesman Adria Alsina said. Puigdemont on Tuesday evening said his government would ask the separatist-controlled Catalan parliament to declare independence within 48 hours of tallying votes from the referendum, which he said could be as soon as this weekend. This would leave Rajoy with the option of invoking the constitution to suspend the Catalan government and to bring on regional elections. This so-called nuclear option could reignite unrest in a region where secessionists are invoking the name of late dictator Francisco Franco in describing Rajoy s tactics. Before Franco s death in 1975, the Catalan language was suppressed. An EU spokesman declined to say whether the Union would mediate, although it would be unusual for Brussels to take such a step within one of the bloc s own member states. The EU executive voiced trust in Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy s ability to manage this internal matter , but also called for dialogue between the sides and reminded Madrid of a need to respect citizens basic rights. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Catalonia on Tuesday to protest against Sunday s violent crackdown by Spanish police. The referendum has plunged Spain into its worst constitutional crisis in decades, and is a political test for Rajoy, a conservative who has taken a hard line stance on the issue. Outside of Catalonia, Spaniards mostly hold strong views against its independence drive. Spain s King Felipe VI, in a rare intervention, accused secessionist leaders on Tuesday of shattering democratic principles and dividing Catalan society. Interviews with five pro-independence politicians in Osona county, a patchwork of farming towns, reveal an uncompromising mood after Sunday s violence which, according to Catalan officials, injured around 900 people across the region. We have lost our fear, said Jordi Casals, a 39-year-old councilor for the center-left Esquerra Republicana party in the town of Torello. To go back now is impossible. Casals said that when he entered politics over a decade ago, separatist rallies attracted just a few thousand people. On Sunday, 2.26 million people out of 5.34 million registered voters managed to vote with about 90 percent backing independence, according to Catalan government figures. However, unionists mostly boycotted the referendum. Puigdemont used vague language open to interpretation when asked what he wanted to achieve from EU-mediated talks. On Monday, he said: It would be a mediation in which there must be a commitment to re-establish the institutional normalcy. Coma said Sunday s turnout greater than that of an informal ballot in 2014 according to Catalan officials made the referendum result binding and the CUP was now mobilizing local assemblies to begin the process of splitting with Spain. The CUP is crucial to the survival of a separatist Catalan government since it enabled larger parties to form a pro-independence coalition in 2015. As a condition, it forced out Artur Mas as Catalan leader for Puigdemont due to the lack of progress toward independence since the 2014 vote. The independence tide began to turn in 2010 when secessionists were outraged by a decision of Spain s Constitutional Court, which struck down a reform to Catalonia s autonomy statute that had recognized it as a nation and gave the Catalan language primacy over Spanish. The week after, a million Catalans took to Barcelona s streets in the first pro-independence mass demonstration to protest under the slogan We are a nation. We decide! Whenever we have trusted the Spanish state, they have cheated us. Every agreement we made they broke, said Jordi Fabrega, mayor of the town of Sant Pere de Torello, which symbolically declared independence from Spain in 2012. A banner reading EUROPE HELP US hung from an apartment block in Vic on Tuesday. But so far, despite international criticism of the crackdown, most comments from EU member states have been against secession. Rajoy raised the possibility of a negotiated settlement this week, though he ruled out independence and praised the police crackdown on the referendum. He called for all-party talks to find a solution, opening the door to a deal giving Catalonia more autonomy. In towns around Osona, an hour s drive north of Barcelona and with a population of over 150,000 people, the Spanish state is just where they have to send their taxes. Catalan authorities provide heath care, run their schools and police their streets. When Rajoy appears on television, I don t see him as my (leader), he doesn t represent me, said 58-year-old Elvira Ramisa in Sant Pere as her kitchen s radio blared out news on the referendum s aftermath.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party’s Senate campaign wing has severed its fundraising deal with Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore, Politico reported on Friday, a day after allegations emerged that he initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. Politico said Federal Election Commission paperwork filed on Friday showed the National Republican Senatorial Committee was no longer listed as part of a joint fundraising committee with the campaign of Moore, who is now 70, or the Alabama Republican Party and the Republican National Committee.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrats beat Republicans in U.S. television ratings, according to Nielsen data released on Tuesday for the first night of the Democratic National Convention. An estimated 26 million people watched Monday evening between 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, when first lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders were among the key speakers, Nielsen said. The data represents people watching across seven broadcast and cable TV networks. The total is about three million more TV eyes than for the first night of the Republican convention last week when White House contender Donald Trump’s wife Melania was the keynote speaker. All in all, some 23 million Americans watched the first night of the Republican convention last week - in line with the audience for the 2012 gathering. Trump’s big acceptance speech on Thursday night last week, however, failed to deliver the record audiences many TV executives had been expecting. In 2012, the Democratic convention generally drew more nightly TV viewers than the Republican gathering, when Mitt Romney was running for the White House.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is closely watching the situation in Saudi Arabia amid reported asset agreements between Saudi authorities and some detainees in an anti-corruption crackdown, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday. Asked about the agreements to hand over wealth for detainees freedom, Mnuchin told CNBC I think that the Crown Prince (Mohammed bin Salman) is doing a great job at transforming the country, adding that the United States was obviously monitoring the situation.

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ROME (Reuters) - Italian magistrates are investigating whether a Treasury official sold confidential government information to her previous employers, Ernst & Young, two judicial sources involved in the case said on Wednesday. Magistrates suspect that Susanna Masi was paid some 220,000 euros ( 195,290.33) between 2013-2015 in return for sensitive material, including on planned tax reforms which could have given the professional services firm an unfair advantage over its rivals, the sources said. Masi s lawyer, Giorgio Perroni, confirmed his client was being investigated but denied she had done anything wrong. Neither Ernst & Young s Italian office, nor lawyers representing the company, responded to requests for comment. The judicial sources told Reuters that magistrates had emails and wiretaps to back up their case. Perroni said he was still waiting to see the case files after which his client would request to meet the investigators. We are certain that we will be able to demonstrate the correct behaviour of my client and the total lack of foundation of the accusations, Perroni told Reuters. Masi joined the Treasury in 2012, becoming a tax adviser for the government in 2013. In 2015, she was appointed to the board of Equitalia a state-owned tax collection agency while retaining her position within the Treasury, her lawyer said. Corriere della Sera newspaper, which first reported the story on Wednesday, said besides leaking confidential information, Masi was also suspected of lobbying on behalf of Ernst & Young for modifications to the tax code. Corriere said Masi worked for Ernst & Young before joining the Treasury. Perroni confirmed she used to work for the company in Italy, but did not know the exact dates. The Treasury declined to comment on the case.

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MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government on Friday passed measures to increase control over how Catalonia spends its money in an effort to stop the regional administration from using state cash to pay for an illegal independence referendum. The wealthy northeastern region launched its official campaign for an independence referendum on Thursday in defiance of Madrid, which has declared the process illegal, and the Constitutional Court, which has suspended the vote. The Catalan authorities could not be trusted to spend the money on public services rather than the planned Oct. 1 vote, Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro said on Friday. The central government will take over the funding of most essential public services in the region, he said. These measures are to guarantee that not one euro will go toward financing illegal acts, Montoro said following the weekly cabinet meeting. The increased control on the region s financing would continue for as long as the exceptional situation continues, Montoro said. Spain s 17 regions pay taxes to the central government which then redistributes funds back to regional heads for local social security, police and emergency services and education, a system that Catalans claim is weighed against it. Since July, Madrid has obliged the Catalan government to provide weekly spending reports in an attempt to guarantee that public cash is not used to organize the Oct. 1 referendum. On Thursday, Catalan regional Vice President Oriol Junqueras said the arrangement implied political control and had nothing to do with budget stability, though Montoro on Friday disagreed, saying the measures were within budget stability rules. Catalonia, an industrial region with a strong export sector and a thriving tourist destination, produces about a fifth of the country s total economic output but complains it receives a lot less back. Montoro said he would appear before parliament next week to give the full details of the measures which would also include a demand by Madrid that the central government oversees all short-term debt operations by the regional government.

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GOTHENBURG, Sweden (Reuters) - European Union leaders, wary of the rise of populism and xenophobia, are turning to one of their more successful programs, the Erasmus student exchange scheme, to help foster cross-border education and European unity. Over lunch in the Swedish city of Gothenburg on Friday, they discussed and gave political support to a European Commission proposal to create a European Education Area, in which the EU could help promote studies across its various nations. The idea is to foster a European identity by letting more people study in countries across the bloc, emphasizing language learning and engendering more cooperation between universities, including on curricula. During our meeting today, we established political support for these ideas, the chairman of the leaders meeting Donald Tusk told a news conference. The initiative comes as the Union, about to lose its second biggest economy Britain, seeks to make itself more appealing to European citizens, many of whom find the often highly technical or legal issues, which the EU deals with, disconnected from their everyday lives. The Erasmus exchange program of studying abroad is one of the most recognizable and popular EU policies. It has already been used by 9 million Europeans. Appreciation for it is growing fast, the Commission said, adding that 90 percent of Erasmus students, who typically spend a year at a university in another EU country, come back with an increased awareness of common European values. As we look to Europe s future, we need ... a driver for unity. Education is key, because it is education that ...helps us... develop a European identity, Commissioner for Education Tibor Navracsics said. Scaling up the scheme could see 2 million more people taking part in Erasmus over the next 2 years, the Commission said, although leaders were cautious about the funding this would require. Talks on the money would start with discussions on the next seven-year EU budget that starts from 2020. EU leaders also backed the idea that by early 2019, students in the EU should have an electronic student card enabling secure exchange of data like student records and academic attributes and access to services like course materials, enrolment services, online libraries in host institutions and countries. By 2025 we should live in a Europe in which learning, studying and doing research is not hampered by borders but where spending time in another Member State to study, learn or work is the norm, Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said. The Commission wants to set a goal that all university students should speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue by 2025, improve computer literacy and create a network of world-class European universities that can work together. The Commission also wants all EU governments to invest, by 2025, a minimum 5 percent of their GDP in education today s average rate, which Germany, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria or Romania do not meet.

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian troops seized a suburb of the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Sunday, tightening the noose around Islamic State, a Syrian military source said. The army pushed into the city this month with the help of Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, breaking an Islamic State siege of an enclave there that had lasted three years. On Sunday, the Syrian army and allied forces captured al-Jafra district on the western bank of the Euphrates river, the military source said. They have no outlet except crossing the Euphrates towards the eastern bank and fleeing towards the desert, or (the towns) al-Bukamal and al-Mayadin, the source told Reuters. Moscow and Washington are backing separate offensives in the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zor bordering Iraq. Both have advanced from opposite sides of the Euphrates which bisects the province, Islamic State s last major foothold in Syria. Russian- and U.S.-backed offensives against Islamic State have mostly stayed out of each other s way, with the Euphrates often acting as the dividing line. But the Pentagon accused Russia this week of bombing U.S.-backed forces on the river s eastern bank. Russia s Defence Ministry rejected the allegations on Sunday. Moscow had warned the United States well in advance of its operational plans and its jets only targeted Islamic State militants, it said. Russia s RIA news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the Syrian army had cut Islamic State s main supply line in Deir al-Zor city. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces took al-Jafra near the city s air base overnight, though Islamic State militants still hold nearly a third of the city. Russian jets pounded movements across the river as Islamic State fighters tried to escape in ferries, and many civilians, including families of the militants, had also tried to flee across the river in recent days, it said. Separate air strikes by Russia and by the U.S.-led coalition killed more than 34 people, including children, across Deir al-Zor province over the past day, the war monitor said. Islamic State controls much of the desert region around Deir al-Zor city, where its fighters are also under attack from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance. With jets and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition, the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias is battling Islamic State in the northern parts of Deir al-Zor province. The SDF said it had taken 14 villages and farms, two towns, and some factories on the eastern bank of the Euphrates since launching its assault last week.

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WASHINGTON/WEST PAlM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign will take part in a recount of Wisconsin votes in the U.S. presidential race, an effort Republican winner Donald Trump called “ridiculous” on Saturday. Wisconsin’s election board on Friday approved the recount requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. She has said she wants to guarantee the integrity of the U.S. voting system since computer hacking had marked the Nov. 8 election. Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign counsel, said the campaign would take part in the recount in Wisconsin as well as in the other battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan if recounts were mounted there. Elias said in a statement on the Medium website that the Clinton campaign had not planned to seek a recount since its own investigation had failed to turn up any sign of hacking of voting systems. “But now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” Elias said. Clinton’s campaign should be legally represented in Wisconsin to be able to monitor the recount, he said. In a statement, Trump said the three states had been won by wide margins, including by more than 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania. The recount is a “scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded,” he said. The $7 million Stein has sought to raise for the recounts is a way “to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” he said. Although Trump won the Electoral College tally, Clinton will have won the national popular vote by more than 2 million ballots when the final results are in. Stein has raised $5.8 million of the $7 million needed to cover fees and legal costs for the three recounts, according to her campaign website. The deadline for filing a recount bid in Pennsylvania is Monday. The voting margins make it highly unlikely any recounts would end up giving Clinton a win in all three states, which would be needed for the overall election result to change. Trump beat Clinton in Pennsylvania by 70,010 votes, in Michigan by 10,704 votes and in Wisconsin by 27,257 votes. Experts urged extra scrutiny of the three states, Stein told CNN on Friday, because their voting systems were seen as vulnerable.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to nominate former Senate aide Hester Peirce to an open seat on the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. Peirce, a Republican, is a former Senate Banking Committee staff member and currently is the director of the Financial Markets Working Group at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. She was nominated to the SEC last year by President Barack Obama, but the full Senate never acted on her nomination. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. The SEC declined to comment, while Peirce and the White House were not immediately available to comment. Rumors began flying soon after Trump’s election win in November that he would put Peirce’s name forward again for one of the two SEC commissioner posts that have sat vacant for more than a year. If Trump follows tradition, he will suggest a Democrat for the other open slot at the top U.S. securities regulator. Obama had Lisa Fairfax, a George Washington University law professor, as the Democrat last year, but Trump is not expected to tap her. Peirce is no stranger to the SEC. She currently sits on its investor advisory committee and was previously an SEC staff attorney and counsel to former Commissioner Paul Atkins. Peirce could be instrumental in carrying out Trump’s work on reforming the regulations coming out of the 2007-09 financial crisis and recession. When she worked on the Senate Banking Committee, Peirce focused on how regulators implemented the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and helped provide oversight of the SEC. Recently, she edited and contributed to a book published by the right-leaning Mercatus Center that called for totally restructuring the country’s financial regulation. Last year Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee attempted to block both Peirce and Fairfax’s nominations when neither nominee fully committed to work as commissioners on requiring corporations to publicly disclose their political donations. After finally winning the committee blessing, the two nominations stalled in the Senate as Republicans dragged their feet on approving names put forward by Obama, a Democrat. Peirce could face a rocky time again in the chamber. Liberal firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren is highly critical of Peirce, who is a member of the Federalist Society, an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers.

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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Non-EU Norway called on Brussels and London on Wednesday to ensure that Brexit does not disrupt its trade relations once Britain leaves the European Union. Norway has chosen to remain out of the EU but pays hundreds of millions of euros to access the single market as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) and is also in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) along with Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein. To preserve the integrity of the single market, the EU-27, the UK and EFTA should agree on legal arrangements to enter into at the same time that the EU-UK agreement is reached, Marit Berger Roesland, Norway s European affairs minister, said in a speech in Dublin. Norway is concerned, among other things, about the fate of Norwegians living in Britain after Brexit; fisheries policy; what kind of terms would be given to Britain after Brexit and whether Britain would get preferential treatment over Norway. Roesland told Reuters that while Oslo is not at the negotiating table, there was a good understanding of its position in London, and that it was now up to finding a technical solution. If the EU and UK agree on withdrawal terms relevant to the single market, such as the rights of citizens, we need to find ways to extend these to the members of the EEA, said Roesland, who was appointed to the role last month. Likewise any transitional agreements that extend the application of the single market should also include the EEA states. Otherwise we risk having a fragmented solution and that would be a great problem for Norway.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate predicted on Monday that Republicans would fall short of their stated goal of repealing former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. “The odds are very high we will keep ACA,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters at a news conference, referring to the Affordable Care Act, which is commonly known as Obamacare. “It will not be repealed.”

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