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George Conway was turned down from job, jealous of wife, Trump campaign manager says

President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale took a swipe at George Conway on Twitter Monday, accusing the Republican lawyer and frequent Trump critic of being “jealous” of his wife’s success.

“We all know that @realDonaldTrump turned down Mr. Kellyanne Conway for a job he desperately wanted,” Parscale tweeted. “He barely worked @TheJusticeDept and was either fired/quit, didn’t want the scrutiny? Now he hurts his wife because he is jealous of her success. POTUS doesn’t even know him!”

An email from Fox News to the attorney inquiring about the purported job was not immediately returned

George Conway has been critical of Trump on Twitter and has questioned the president's mental health. Earlier in the week, he had tweeted that Trump has a problem with “pathological” lying.

Conway elaborated early Monday, saying that Trump’s barrage of Tweets over the weekend – including critiques of the late Sen. John McCain and “Saturday Night Live” – were a “product of his pathologies” rather than a “rational plan or strategy.”

He then retweeted a post from "Duty To Warn," which tried to demonstrate that Trump's activities matched the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder.

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Later Monday, Parscale attributed Conway’s critique of the president to supposed resentment for not being offered a job and hurting his wife because he is “jealous” of her success.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Mountain lion prowling California man's backyard captured in 'amazing' video: It was 'a close call'

At first glance, Patrick Osgood thought a large dog was loose in his backyard when he saw a furry creature strolling across the grass.

But upon further inspection, the California resident quickly realized it wasn't a canine at all — it was a big cat, a mountain lion to be exact.

"It poked it's head up. I said, 'My God, that's not a dog. That's a mountain lion,'" Osgood recalled to FOX40. "And it was in no rush whatsoever ... just sauntering along."

IDAHO WOMAN ACCIDENTALLY GRABS MOUNTAIN LION DURING ATTEMPT TO BREAK UP 'DOG FIGHT'

Osgood immediately grabbed his phone and started capturing photos and video of the large mountain lion from inside his home. The Jackson resident said a lot of wild animals pass by his house, but none of those wildlife encounters compared to this.

"Yeah, it was just amazing to me that he was right there where we hang out on a daily basis," he told the news station.

"Yeah, it was just amazing to me that he was right there where we hang out on a daily basis."

— Patrick Osgood

Unfortunately, Osgood said it appears the hungry mountain lion attacked his neighbors' outdoor cat while they were on vacation.

MOUNTAIN LION, DEER PLUNGE INTO CALIFORNIA FAMILY'S BACKYARD POOL DURING WILD CHASE

"When they got back last night they found a pool of blood and the cat was gone," he said, adding that he's now a "little skittish" given the "close call" with the large creature.

The Amador County Sheriff's Department is aware of the reported big cat sighting and urged locals to keep an eye out.

Mountain lions are classified as a "specially protected species" in California. However, there are strong populations of the big cats in The Golden State, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW). More than half of the state is "mountain lion habitat," the California DFW says.

"Mountain lion studies over the last 30 years have estimated population densities for different habitat types around the state. These density estimates varied from zero to 10 lions per 100 square miles, and were simply expanded to the total amount of each habitat type available," the agency explains on its website.

While Osgood said it was "awesome" to see the wild animal up close, he hopes it doesn't come around a second time.

Source: Fox News National

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Analysis: WikiLeaks founder unlikely to be extradited soon

The battle between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the American government was always going to be epic, involving concepts like free speech, journalists' rights, national interests, even treason.

As Assange settles in to his first night in British custody , his allies and enemies alike are gearing up for what promises to be a long, dogged legal slog, not only over his possible extradition to the U.S. but over how U.S. courts should view his actions, which sharply cleave public opinion.

Yet in a way, Assange has been fighting this battle for much of the past decade. The struggle has taken him through a "mansion arrest" in the English countryside; a dramatic escape into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London; a multimillion-pound U.K. police siege of the embassy that has strained government coffers; and even a bizarre attempt to turn him into a Moscow-based diplomat.

Whatever happens now, one thing is clear: Assange, who was dragged out of the embassy and arrested Thursday by British police after Ecuador withdrew his political asylum, is not going anywhere soon. Extradition to the United States could take years more.

Assange's saga kicked off in November 2010, when his publication of 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that month left American officialdom apoplectic. Joe Biden, then-U.S. vice president, compared Assange to a "high-tech terrorist." Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, called for him to be hunted down by U.S. troops like an al-Qaida operative.

Tempers at the top eventually cooled — Palin would later apologize to Assange after he began publishing material about U.S. Democrats. As a candidate, President Donald Trump startled many Americans by repeatedly praising WikiLeaks.

But in the U.S. intelligence community, the rage against Assange lingered. On the sidelines of a conference a few years ago, a former senior National Security Agency official told an Associated Press journalist that all he wanted was a couple of minutes alone with Assange in a dark alley, grasping his hands together as if he were crushing a man's windpipe.

Assange seemed to sense that the release of the diplomatic cables, which also enraged and embarrassed other countries around the world, were the point of no return.

It's often forgotten that Assange once traveled easily to the United States, appearing at the National Press Club in Washington on April 2010 to present "Collateral Murder," the title he chose for the camera footage that captured American helicopter pilots laughing as they fired at a crowd of civilians they mistook for Iraqi insurgents.

Shortly after his visit, his source for the video — an American Army intelligence analyst now named Chelsea Manning — would be arrested after an ill-advised online confession. Assange dropped out of sight, likely aware that the government now had spools of conversations between him and Manning, including the one that now forms the centerpiece of the Justice Department's newly unveiled indictment against Assange for conspiracy to hack into a U.S. government computer.

For a while, Assange gravitated to the Frontline Club in London, the convivial journalists' hangout where he dropped one media bombshell after another in collaboration with the Guardian newspaper and other media outlets. But staying in Britain, a close ally of the United States, was risky.

In a fateful move, Assange decided to scope out Sweden, a country with powerful press protections and where he had already located some of WikiLeaks servers. The expedition would prove to be a disaster.

Two women he stayed with there would soon go to the police with allegations of sexual assault and rape. The prosecution nearly tore WikiLeaks apart and threated the upcoming publication the U.S. diplomatic cables.

With Sweden out of the question and "Cablegate" sure to enrage the Americans further, Assange looked to Moscow. A document published by the AP last year showed he considered the idea of getting a Russian visa through his friend and sometimes WikiLeaks collaborator, Israel Shamir.

Assange would eventually get the visa, Shamir said later, but it came several weeks too late. Sweden had already applied for an Interpol Red Notice, something akin to an international arrest warrant, making travel all but impossible. That left Assange little choice but to turn himself in on Dec. 7, 2010, to British authorities.

Things only got more surreal from there.

Assange was granted bail at the country mansion of Frontline's founder, Vaughan Smith, receiving a stream of well-heeled and rebellious visitors in rural Norfolk while his London legal battle against extradition went all the way to Britain's Supreme Court. When that court finally turned him down, Assange dyed his hair, popped in colored contacts and skipped bail, fleeing to the Ecuadorian Embassy.

From there, he carried on as before, albeit in a more constricted space. When the AP visited him in 2012, he occupied a back room in the embassy scattered with laptops, some marked "Do not connect to the internet." When discussing an upcoming leak, Assange took this reporter into the corridor between his office and the bathroom, speaking in a whisper in a bid to baffle the high-tech surveillance thought to be deployed against him.

The embassy stalemate dragged on for years, costing the British government millions in policing costs.

But it didn't stop Assange from publishing new material, notably in 2016, when his disclosure of U.S. Democratic Party documents stolen by Russian hackers hurt Hillary Clinton's presidential election campaign.

But if Assange had hoped for leniency from America's new president, he would soon be disappointed. Twitter messages between WikiLeaks and Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., showed the group lobbying him to get his father to suggest that Australia appoint its native son Assange to be its ambassador to the U.S.

Instead, the Trump administration promoted him to public enemy; in a 2017 speech, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo described WikiLeaks as a "hostile non-state intelligence agency."

Meanwhile, Assange wasn't getting much more satisfaction from his Latin American host, which was increasingly embarrassed by its houseguest's publications. The government of Ecuador tried all kinds of creative solutions to break the embassy impasse, including an abortive attempt to send Assange to Russia under diplomatic cover. When it became clear that the WikiLeaks founder wasn't leaving — and that he wouldn't curb his publications to suit Ecuador's diplomatic interests — the government looked for a way to wash its hands of him.

Tensions had been building for more than a year, but the Thursday morning raid in London was still a surprise. WikiLeaks had issued one of its periodic warnings that Assange was at risk, but at a Wednesday press conference, his longtime lieutenant, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told journalists that Assange's eviction from the embassy had been averted.

It's not clear what comes next, but it'll almost certainly be complicated.

The interactions quoted in the U.S. indictment are nothing new — Assange's instant message exchange with Manning has been in the public domain ever since the latter's court martial — so Assange's high-powered legal team has had years to prepare their arguments. And Britain has generally tended to favor accused hackers fighting extradition to America.

Lauri Love, a friend of Assange's who was accused of penetrating U.S. government networks, was last year spared extradition after Britain's high court ruled in his favor. British hacker Gary McKinnon, accused of breaking into U.S. military and space networks, won his fight against extradition in 2012 after a decade-long struggle.

Assange's fight may not take a decade, but he's unlikely to see the inside of a U.S. courtroom anytime soon.

___

Follow AP's coverage of the arrest of WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange here: https://www.apnews.com/WikiLeaks

Source: Fox News World

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Cher blasts ‘thug’ Trump after it appeared they reached a common ground

Well, that didn't last.

Cher called President Trump an “ignorant thug” with a “lizard brain that guarantees his survival above all else” Monday in an attempt to reject praise from the president on her Twitter post in which she implied Los Angeles is overlooking homeless veterans to handle immigration issues.

TRUMP SIDES WITH CHER AFTER STAR QUESTIONS LA'S ABILITY TO ‘TAKE CARE OF ITS OWN’ AMID IMMIGRATION DEBATE

The 72-year-old pop culture icon and Los Angeles native clarified that she does not agree with Trump’s immigration policies, but that she instead, agrees that Democrats “still don’t get it” and that Trump is “playing butcher your enemies” and “create constant mayhem” in the realm of politics.

“I Understand Helping struggling Immigrants,but MY CITY (Los Angeles) ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN.WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000+Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS.PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE,& HUNGRY? If My State Can’t Take Care of Its Own(Many Are VETS)How Can it Take Care Of More,” Cher wrote Sunday afternoon.

Trump responded to the Tweet, saying “I finally agree with @cher.” The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also reposted Cher’s tweet to his Instagram account, writing: “Welcome to the Republican Party Cher!!!”

California is home to the highest number of homeless veterans, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Los Angeles has the second largest homeless population in the nation, just below that of New York City.

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Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Sweden Calls For Sanctions Against Countries That Refuse Migrants

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has indicated that he would like to see sanctions levied against European countries that do not participate in migrant 'resettlement.'

Speaking with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, PM Löfven was asked about economic penalties for countries that refuse 'refugees' but receive European Union funding, such as Hungary.

"Yes, I am ready to do this," Löfven said. "Because sooner or later we have to take joint responsibility for receiving migrants. One, two or three countries cannot bear it, we need to help with this."

"If they are not ready to take responsibility, then it will come at a cost, it will not be possible to receive EU funds in the same way as today."

"Hungary is one of the countries that gets the most," Löfven continued. "It is unacceptable that the country that received the most support from the EU said, 'No, we do not take responsibility for immigration.'"

During the 2015 crisis, Sweden received the highest per capita intake of 'refugees' in Europe, accepting some 163,000 migrants from mostly Africa and the Middle East.

Hungary, a nation that lies on the frontier of the Schengen Area, was deluged by tens of thousands of migrants in mere months, prompting a dramatically different reaction than Sweden, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's administration moved quickly to construct a groundbreaking border barrier and reduce Hungary's migrant intake to nearly zero.

Italy's Matteo Salvini recently said his nationalist party, Lega, is here to stay. Dan Lyman joins Owen to discuss the future of Europe and solutions for the migration crisis.

(PHOTO: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Source: InfoWars

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Hearing on Gun Bills Expected to Draw Large Crowd

Advocates for gun rights and gun control are expected to pack a Connecticut legislative hearing on several firearms bills, including measures that would tighten safe storage laws and require people openly carrying guns to produce their permits if police ask.

The legislation to be debated Monday at a Judiciary Committee public hearing in Hartford has spurred a flood of written testimony that has been submitted to the panel, both for and against the bills.

The safe storage proposal was drafted in response to the death of 15-year-old Ethan Song, who accidentally shot himself in the head with a handgun owned by his friend's father in their hometown of Guilford in January 2018.

The friend's father had kept his three guns secured with gun locks in a plastic container in his bedroom closet, but the keys to the locks and ammunition also were in the container, police said. Prosecutors said they could not charge the friend's father under the state's existing safe gun storage law, because it requires only loaded guns to be safely stored and there was no evidence the guns were stored loaded.

Gun control advocates including Ethan's mother, Kristin Song, said the new bill, called "Ethan's Law," would save lives by requiring all guns — loaded or unloaded — to be safely stored. Violating the law would be a felony carrying a prison sentence of one to five years.

"Ethan's death was completely preventable, if only the father had securely stored his guns," Kristin Song wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "That's why I'm fighting to pass 'Ethan's Law,' to strengthen Connecticut's safe storage requirements."

Some gun rights supporters are opposing the bill because they believe it would make accessing their guns more difficult during home invasions and burglaries.

Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, said the gun rights advocacy group is ready to support the bill, but only if it includes a requirement to educate school-age children about gun safety.

Another one of the most talked-about bills would require people who are openly carrying firearms to produce their gun permits if their firearms are visible and if police request them. Current law requires people to produce their gun permits for police, but only if police have a "reasonable suspicion of a crime" — a requirement that would be eliminated in the new bill.

Gun rights advocates say the bill reminds them of New York City's former "stop and frisk" policy — which was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 and criticized as discriminatory against minorities — and believe it would violate people's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"This bill clearly targets individuals that have followed the law and have gone through the permit process," Paul Acampora, of Woodbridge, wrote to the committee. "Removing 'reasonable suspicion of a crime' from the current statutes is a bad idea, and allows police officers to 'stop and frisk' for no reason."

Supporters of the bill say that they would feel safer on the streets and that public safety would be protected if people were required to show their permits.

Other gun bills up for discussion at the public hearing would:

— Prohibit cities and towns from imposing their own firearms regulations.

— Ban guns without serial numbers, and regulate so-called "ghost guns" that are assembled by owners or made with 3D printers.

— Allow people to carry handguns in state parks and state forests for self-defense.

— Require safe storage of guns in motor vehicles.

— Allow the transfer of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines between people who already legally possess such weapons and magazines.

Source: NewsMax America

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Boeing reshuffles top engineers amid 737 MAX crisis

FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight approaches for landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles approaches for landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

March 20, 2019

By Eric M. Johnson

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Boeing Co, facing its biggest crisis in years following deadly crashes of its flagship 737 MAX aircraft, has brought in a new vice president of engineering while dedicating another top executive to the aircraft investigations, a company email showed on Tuesday.

The management reshuffle comes as Europe and Canada said they would seek their own guarantees over the safety of Boeing’s 737 MAX, further complicating plans to get the aircraft flying worldwide after they were grounded in the wake of crashes that killed more than 300 people.

John Hamilton, formerly both vice president and chief engineer in Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes division, will focus solely on the role of chief engineer, the unit’s Chief Executive Officer Kevin McAllister told employees on Tuesday in an email seen by Reuters.

“This will allow him to fully dedicate his attention to the ongoing accident investigations,” McAllister said, adding that the staffing changes were needed as “we prioritize and bring on additional resources for the ongoing accident investigations.”

Lynne Hopper – who previously led Test & Evaluation in Boeing’s Engineering, Test & Technology group – has been named vice president of Engineering, McAllister said.

A Boeing spokesman declined to comment but confirmed the authenticity of the email.

The shakeup showed how the world’s largest planemaker was freeing up engineering resources as it faces scrutiny during crash investigations while also maintaining production of its money-spinning 737 single-aisle aircrafts.

Previously, Hamilton served as the vice president of engineering for Boeing Commercial Airplanes from April 2016 through March 2019, according to a biography on Boeing’s website.

From July 2013 through March 2016, Hamilton served as the vice president of Safety, Security and Compliance and oversaw the Commercial Airplanes Organization Designation Authorization – a program that takes on specific safety certification duties on behalf of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Lawmakers and safety experts are questioning how thoroughly regulators vetted the MAX model and how well pilots were trained on new features.

For now, global regulators have grounded the existing fleet of more than 300 MAX aircraft, and deliveries of nearly 5,000 more – worth well over $500 billion – are on hold. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Hv2btC)

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.

The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.

Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.

The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.

The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

April 26, 2019

By Charlotte Greenfield

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.

Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.

Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.

In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.

“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.

Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.

The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.

“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.

New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.

He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.

The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University

He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.

“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo commodities trader Glencore is pictured in Baar
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.

Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.

On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.

(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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