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Qatari academic seen in shocking video explaining how Muslim men should beat their wives

A leading academic and cleric from World Cup host country Qatar has filmed a shocking guide on how Muslim men should beat their wives.

The vile video features Abd Al-Aziz Al-Khazraj demonstrating how to "punish" a woman in accordance with Islamic law.

The man used a school-age boy as part of his demonstration.

The man used a school-age boy as part of his demonstration. (MEMRI)

In a further sick move, the sociologist used a school-age boy called Nayef to show how to deliver beatings “out of love” -  so a woman can feel a “man’s strength.”

And he disgustingly said that some women enjoyed being married to “violent and powerful husbands.”

Click to read more from The Sun.

Source: Fox News World

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ECB contenders jointly lobby for crisis-proofed euro zone

FILE PHOTO: ECB policymaker Villeroy de Galhau, who is also governor of the French central bank, attends the Paris Europlace International Financial Forum in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau, who is also governor of the French central bank, attends the Paris Europlace International Financial Forum in Tokyo, Japan, November 19, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo

April 3, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The top two contenders vying to replace ECB President Mario Draghi this year joined forces on Wednesday, calling on European leaders to finally enact long-delayed reforms to make the euro zone more resilient to crises.

French central bank chief Francois Villeroy de Galhau and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann asked EU leaders to pass the necessary laws to complete the capital market union, which would better channel savings to where investment was needed and help absorb shocks.

“It is now high time to move forward and complete the capital markets union,” Weidmann and Villeroy said in a rare editorial in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and France’s Les Echos. “Integrated capital markets can cushion shocks that hit parts of a currency area.”

Such a union would also allow equity investors to share more of the economic risk, lessening the burden on the ECB, the two central bankers argued – a key consideration as many argue that the ECB has already exhausted most of its firepower after years of stimulus.

Calls for structural reforms and the completion of the banking and capital market unions has long been the ECB’s mantra but little action has taken place in recent years, leaving the bloc vulnerable to a fresh crisis

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: OANN

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Recovery of Falklands war helmets helps heal wounds

Jorge Altieri runs his hands over old blood stains on a helmet that saved his life in 1982 when Argentina and Britain went to war over the Falkland Islands.

Looking at the treasured object is still a novelty: The helmet was recently returned to Altieri decades after he lost it on the battlefield where he was almost killed by shrapnel.

"I have it next to me now and I use it like a teddy bear," Altieri said. "I look at it and I get teary-eyed from all the memories."

Argentina lost the war for the South Atlantic archipelago after its troops embarked on an ill-fated invasion nearly 37 years ago, an international humiliation that claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 British soldiers.

Argentina still claims the islands, which it calls the Malvinas. Britain says the Falklands are a self-governing entity under its protection.

After decades of tense relations, though, both countries have experienced a thaw, including a deal that allowed a multinational team of experts to exhume and identify the remains of dozens of Argentine soldiers.

Today, veterans and relatives of those who died also say the recovery of objects taken as war trophies has helped heal their scars.

"I can't stop looking at it, thinking of what it did to stop the bomb shrapnel blowing my head off," Altieri said about his helmet, although he still lost an eye and part of his brain in a blast during battle for Mount Longdon on June 12, 1982, two days before fighting stopped.

In a parallel tale of reconciliation, Argentine veteran Diego Carlos Arreseigor announced March 7 that he is planning to return the blood-stained helmet of fallen British soldier Alexander Shaw, who was killed at Mount Longdon at age 25.

The helmet is expected to be delivered to Shaw's sister, Susan, in April or May.

"Susan touched me with her spirituality. She was 15 when her brother left for the war," Arreseigor told The Associated Press.

Arreseigor said he had picked up the helmet in a pile of discarded equipment and hid it from a British soldier by keeping it under his jacket.

"I kept it these 37 years, always considering it a trophy of war, a sort of consolation for the loss and the pain of so many fallen friends," he said.

Some years ago he became curious about who had worn it and noticed it had a last name written on one of its interior belts.

Arreseigor eventually found out Shaw's identity and learned he had been a victim of Argentine artillery.

"The story moved me. Knowing that he died just hours before the cease-fire. ... it's sad like all war stories," he said. "I just turned 60 and I demand our sovereignty over Las Malvinas, but I also pay homage to all of those who died — Argentine and British — because I think that's the way to rebuild."

For Altieri, having his helmet has helped him find similar closure.

After the war's cease-fire, Altieri's helmet was taken to London by a British paratrooper who had pulled it from a heap of military equipment. After the man passed away, it was kept by his family until it was put up for auction four years ago.

At the time, Altieri offered about $520 (400 pounds), but a British man who collects war objects paid twice that amount and Altieri failed to persuade him to sell it.

"He'd say: 'Even if the queen comes asking for it, I won't give it away,'" Altieri recalled.

Some days ago, however, the helmet briefly went up for auction again on eBay for about $13,000 (10,500 pounds). When it was taken off the site, Altieri feared he had lost it for good until he heard the news: An anonymous Argentine entrepreneur had bought it for Altieri.

"All the memories of what I lived in the Malvinas came back to me," Altieri said.

He now hopes to display it at home before donating it to a Falklands war museum. "I want people to see it and see what happened to us there."

___

Associated Press journalists Paul Byrne and Natacha Pisarenko contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Compromise could win over GOP senators opposing Trump order

The White House and Republican senators sought compromise on limiting presidents' powers to unilaterally declare national emergencies, as chances improved that President Donald Trump might avoid a long-expected rejection by Congress of his effort to divert billions more for building barriers along the Mexican border.

As a Thursday showdown vote in the Senate neared, GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and others were talking with the White House about related legislation that would curb the ability of presidents to declare national emergencies. If Trump would commit to signing a bill handcuffing future emergency declarations, more GOP senators might support his border emergency declaration in Thursday's crucial vote.

Lee and Tillis were among five GOP senators who met privately Tuesday at the Capitol with Vice President Mike Pence as Republicans sought a way to bolster support for Trump. Since the Democratic-run House voted last month to block Trump, Senate passage of the resolution rejecting the border emergency would send it to the White House, where it would face a certain veto — Trump's first.

By late Tuesday, there were indications that GOP opposition to Trump's emergency along the Mexican border was softening. If it stands, the declaration would let Trump divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects to build border barriers, even though Congress had voted to limit him to less than $1.4 billion for barrier construction in the budget.

Tillis is among four Senate Republicans who have said they'd vote with Democrats to oppose Trump's border emergency. At a closed-door lunch Tuesday, Tillis suggested he could be open to backing the president, said two people familiar with his comments. One said Tillis told his colleagues he could change his vote if Trump was indeed ready to curb presidential powers to declare emergencies without Congress' approval.

The two spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal private conversations. A Tillis aide did not return messages left for him. Tillis faces a potentially tough re-election fight next year.

Republicans control the Senate 53-47, meaning that four GOP defections would be enough to send the resolution blocking Trump's border emergency to the White House. The others are Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Paul said earlier this month that there were "at least 10" GOP senators prepared to oppose Trump's emergency. But he told reporters Tuesday that he now expects fewer defections. GOP senators are "being beaten up right now" to fall in line, he said. "So if you see anybody that's got blood dripping out of their ear, they may be changing," he said.

Murkowski said in an interview that she would consider backing legislation "that actually does constrain" the president's emergency powers, but added, "At this point in time, we don't have it."

If the Senate sends the resolution blocking Trump's border emergency to the White House, Congress would be highly unlikely to muster the two-thirds majorities needed to eventually override a veto.

But final congressional approval of the resolution on Thursday would highlight a clash in which Trump was being forced to protect his signature campaign promise — building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — by vetoing legislation sent to him by a Republican-led Senate. Congress has never before voted to overturn a president's emergency declaration.

"They'd like to win and short of that they don't want a jailbreak" with large numbers of Republicans defecting, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, an adviser to Senate GOP leadership, said of the eleventh-hour White House lobbying effort.

Under a 1976 law, presidents have wide discretion in determining when a national emergency has occurred. Congress can vote to block an emergency declaration, but the two-thirds majorities required to overcome presidential vetoes make it hard for lawmakers to prevail.

Lee's proposal, released late Tuesday, says a presidential emergency would last 30 days unless Congress votes to extend it. It would apply to future emergencies, not Trump's current border emergency.

The White House wants to extend the 30-day period, perhaps to 30 days when Congress is in session, said one GOP aide familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe closed-door talks.

A vote on Lee's plan was expected after Congress returns from a recess later this month.

Democrats and some Republicans say Trump was abusing the emergency law by issuing a declaration to access money Congress had explicitly voted to deny him. Trump had repeatedly said Mexico would pay for the wall, which is not happening.

Tillis requested Pence's meeting with senators, and Pence largely was there to listen, an administration official said. Pence urged them to stand with Trump in Thursday's vote.

The White House says that Trump is within his rights to declare the national emergency and that opposing him will be seen as a vote against border security — which could play poorly in their home states.

The strongest chance of blocking Trump's border emergency is likely several lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general, environmental groups and others.

___

Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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CEO sees Bayer ‘massively’ affected by herbicide litigation

Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer AG speaks during the annual results news conference of the German drugmaker in Leverkusen
Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer AG speaks during the annual results news conference of the German drugmaker in Leverkusen, Germany February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 11, 2019

COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) – Bayer’s chief executive on Thursday acknowledged the German maker of pharmaceuticals and crop chemicals was facing massive challenges from a wave of lawsuits over an alleged carcinogenic effect of its Roundup weedkiller.

“We have lost two cases in lower courts. That is why the company is massively affected. You see it in our share price,” CEO Werner Baumann said in a panel discussion at an academic business event in Cologne.

“You see it selectively, mainly here in Germany and in France – less so in the USA – in our reputational scores,” he added.

Bayer has seen about 30 billion euros ($34 billion) wiped off its market value since August, when a U.S. jury found Bayer liable because Monsanto, acquired by Bayer for $63 billion last year, had not warned of weedkiller Roundup’s alleged cancer risks.

It suffered a similar courtroom defeat last month and more than 10,000 cases are pending.

“There’s lots of politicking, campaigning and propaganda that goes entirely against the current regulatory status of our products. That has prompted U.S. lawyers to sue for damages – a big industry in the USA – following an outlier assessment of the potential risk by a subordinate organization,” Baumann added.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and other regulators across the globe have found that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is not likely carcinogenic to humans.

However, the World Health Organization’s cancer arm in 2015 reached a different conclusion, classifying glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

Bayer is legally challenging the verdicts and has stressed that regulators across the globe have found the product to be safe.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Michelle Martin)

Source: OANN

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German driver who hit New Year’s crowds to remain in clinic

Prosecutors in western Germany say a man who repeatedly drove into crowds early on New Year's Day and injured 14 people can't be held criminally responsible because of his mental condition.

Prosecutors in the city of Essen said Monday they based their decision on an expert opinion. They are calling for the 50-year-old German man to be kept at a psychiatric hospital.

The man drove into people in the city of Bottrop and then in nearby Essen in the early hours of Jan. 1.

At the time, police said the driver made anti-foreigner comments during his arrest and there were indications he'd been treated for mental illness in the past.

The injured people included a 46-year-old Syrian woman who suffered life-threatening injuries.

Source: Fox News World

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Ex-U.S. intelligence officer pleads guilty to attempted espionage for China

U.S. and Chinese flags are placed for a joint news conference in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: U.S. and Chinese flags are placed for a joint news conference by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China June 14, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

March 15, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officer pleaded guilty to attempted espionage for China, the Justice Department said on Friday.

The officer, Ron Rockwell Hansen, was accused of trying to transmit classified U.S. national defense information to China and receiving “hundreds of thousands of dollars” while illegally acting as an agent for the Chinese government.

Hansen started working at the DIA, which specializes in military intelligence, in 2006 after his retirement from the U.S. Army, and held a top-secret security clearance for many years, according to the Justice Department.

In 2014, a Chinese intelligence service recruited Hansen, the Justice Department said.

FBI agents took Hansen into custody in June, when he was traveling to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to take a connecting flight to China.

He faces up to 15 years in prison. His sentencing will take place on Sept. 24. It was not immediately clear who was representing Hansen in his case.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Jonathan Oatis; and Alistair Bell)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain's far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.

No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.

Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.

By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.

Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.

The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.

The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.

Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.

It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.

While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.

TRENDING

According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.

Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.

Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.

Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.

“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said

For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.

“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.

For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.

The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.

The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.

That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.

(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)

(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo of the OPEC is seen at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

April 26, 2019

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and told the cartel to lower oil prices.

“Gasoline prices are coming down. I called up OPEC, I said you’ve got to bring them down. You’ve got to bring them down,” Trump told reporters.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy near Lyon
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy in Meyzieu near Lyon, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot

April 26, 2019

By Julien Pretot

MEYZIEU, France (Reuters) – Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas was wringing out his women’s team shirts in the locker room on a rainy London day eight years ago when he decided it was time to take gender equality more seriously.

It was halftime in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Arsenal at Meadow Park with 507 fans watching and Aulas realized that his players did not have a another kit for the second half.

“Next time, there will be a second set just like for the men, that’s how it’s going to work from now on,” he said.

Lyon have since won five Champions League titles to become the most successful women’s team in Europe and recently claimed a 13th consecutive domestic crown.

They visit Chelsea on Sunday in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, with a fourth straight title in their sights.

At the heart of their achievements is a pervasive ethos that promotes gender equality throughout the club, starting in the youth academy.

In 2013, Aulas appointed former Lyon and France player Sonia Bompastor as head of the Women’s Academy — the female equivalent of one of France’s top youth set-ups that has produced players such as Karim Benzema, Alexandre Lacazette and Hatem Ben Arfa.

At the Youth Academy, girls and boys share the same facilities.

“Pitches, physiotherapy rooms are the same for all,” the 38-year-old Bompastor told Reuters.

As the girls train under the watch of former Lyon and France international Camille Abily, the screams of the boys practicing can be heard nearby.

The boys and girls also benefit from the same psychological support that includes hypnosis sessions and yoga.

“We have a ‘mental ability’ cell and the hypnotist acts on the girls’ subconscious, on their deeply held beliefs after observing them on and off the pitch,” Bompastor added.

SAME TREATMENT

One message the Academy staff are trying to convey is that girls are as good as boys.

“Women’s nature is such that we have low self-esteem. So self-esteem is a big topic for our girls,” said Bompastor.

This is not the case with the boys, she added.

“Some 14, 15-year-old boys still think they would beat our professional players, we tell them this would not be happening. We still need to work on those beliefs,” she said.

Female players also have to face questions that their male counterparts do not, Bompastor explained.

“In France there is a problem with the way women are considered, there are high aesthetic expectations. So we get heavy questions on femininity, intimate questions that men don’t get,” she said.

OL’s Academy has been held up as a shining example for others to follow, even in the U.S., where women’s soccer has a wider audience than in Europe.

“About one third of the (senior women’s) squad comes from the Academy, we have a good balance,” said Bompastor.

“I’m getting tons of requests from American universities and foreign clubs, who want to come and visit our facilities.”

‘ONE CLUB’

The salaries of the senior players is one area where there remains a large discrepancy between Lyon’s men’s and women’s teams.

While the three best-paid women players in the world are at Lyon with Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg earning 400,000 euros ($445,520) a year, this figure is dwarfed by the around 4 million euros earned annually by men’s player Memphis Depay.

There is, however, a level of interaction between the men’s and women’s players that is not present at many other clubs.

“When you talk about OL you talk about women and men, you talk about one club and you feel it when you are here or outside in the city,” Germany defender Carolin Simon told Reuters.

“We see it when we play in the big stadium. It’s not ‘normal’ for women’s football,” the 26-year-old, who joined the club last year, added.

Lyon’s female players also enjoy respect from their male counterparts, Simon said.

“It’s very cool, it’s a big honor to feel that it doesn’t matter if you are a professional man or woman. We talk with the men, there are handshakes, it’s a good atmosphere and it’s also why we are successful,” said Simon.

“The men respect us and it’s not just for the cameras.”

Her team mate, England’s Lucy Bronze, sees the men’s respect as key to improving women’s football.

“We might not be paid the same but they are just normal with us, they see us as footballers the same as they are,” Bronze told Reuters.

“Being at Lyon has really opened my eyes. To improve women’s football, it starts with having the respect of your male counterparts. It’s the biggest thing because they can influence so many people.”

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo

April 26, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemeni authorities have rounded up about 3,000 irregular migrants, predominantly Ethiopians, in the south of the country, “creating an acute humanitarian situation,” the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.

“IOM is deeply concerned about the conditions in which the migrants are being held and is engaging with the authorities to ensure access to the detained migrants,” the International Organization for Migration said.

The migrants are held in open-air football stadiums and in a military camp, it said in a statement.

The detentions began on Sunday in the city of Aden and the neighboring province of Lahj, which are under the control of the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran-aligned Houthi rebels control Sanaa, the capital, and other major urban centers.

Both sides are under international diplomatic pressure to implement a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire deal agreed last year in Sweden and to prepare for a wider political dialogue that would end the four-year-old war.

Thousands of migrants arrive in Yemen every year, mostly from the Horn of Africa, driven by drought and unemployment at home and lured by the wages available in the Gulf.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

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U.S. dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. Picture taken November 7. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.

1/DOLLAR JUGGERNAUT

The dollar has zipped to near two-year highs, leaving many scratching their heads. To many, it’s down to signs the U.S. economy is chugging ahead while the rest of the world loses steam. After all, Wall Street is busily scaling new peaks day after day.

Never mind the cause, the effect is stark. The euro has tumbled to 22-month lows against the dollar and investors are preparing for more, buying options to shield against further downside. Emerging-market currencies are also in pain, with Turkish lira and Argentine peso both sharply weaker.

Now U.S. data need to keep surprising on the upside or even just meet expectations. The International Monetary Fund sees U.S. growth at 2.3 percent this year. For Germany, the forecast is 0.8 percent. The U.S. economy’s rude health has given rise to speculation the Fed might resume raising interest rates. Unlikely. But as other countries — Canada, Sweden and Australia are the latest — hint at more policy easing, there seems to be one way the dollar can go. Up.

(GRAPHIC: Dollar outperforms G10 FX – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dz17S5)

2/FED: UP OR DOWN?

Wall Street is near record highs and recession worries are receding, so as we mentioned above, investors might wonder if the Federal Reserve will start raising rates again.

Such a pivot is unlikely after the Fed killed off rate-rise expectations at its March meeting. And the latest Reuters poll all but puts to bed any risk of rates will go up this economic cycle, given inflation remains below the Fed’s alarm threshold and unemployment is the lowest in generations.

Before the March rate-pause announcement, a preponderance of economists penciled in one or more increases this year. But that has flipped. A majority of those surveyed April 22-24 see no further tightening through December and more are leaning toward a cut by the end of next year.

Indeed, interest rate futures imply Fed Funds will be below the current 2.25-2.50 percent target range by this December.

Recent positive consumer spending and exports data have eased market concerns of a sharp economic slowdown. But inflation probably needs to run hot for a long period to panic policymakers off their wait-and-see course.     

(GRAPHIC: Federal funds and the economy – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DzjTZz)

3/HEISEI TO REIWA

Next week ends three decades of Japan’s Heisei era. Heisei, or Achieving Peace, began in 1989 near the peak of a massive stock market bubble and closes with the country trapped in low growth, no inflation, and negative interest rates.

The new era that dawns on May 1 is called Reiwa, meaning Beautiful Harmony. It begins when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne. But do investors really want harmony? What they want to see is a bit of economic growth and inflation to shake up the status quo.

The Bank of Japan’s stimulus toolkit to revive a long-suffering economy is anything but harmonious and yet it’s set to stay. The central bank confirmed recently rates will stay near zero for a long time. But the coming days may not be harmonious or peaceful for currency markets. A 10-day Golden Week holiday kicks off on April 29 and investors are fretting over the risk of a “flash crash” – a violent currency spasm that can occur in times of thin trading turnover.

The year has already seen two yen spikes and many, including Japan’s housewife-trader brigade – so-called Mrs Watanabes – appear to have bought yen as the holiday approaches. Their short dollar/long yen positions recently reached record highs, stock exchange data showed.

(GRAPHIC: Japan stocks: from Hensei to Reiwa – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W6a7Fe)

4/EARNING TURNING

Quarterly earnings were supposed to be the worst in Europe in almost three years, but with a third of results in, things are looking a little rosier.

Two-thirds of companies’ results have beat expectations, and they point to earnings growth of 4.5 percent year-on-year. Financials have delivered the biggest surprises, according to analysis by Barclays.

That might just show how low expectations were. In fact, analysts are still taking a red pen to their estimates.

The latest I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv shows analysts on average expect first-quarter earnings-per-share for STOXX 600-listed companies to fall 4.2 percent. That would be their worst quarter since 2016 and down sharply from an estimated 3.4 percent just a week earlier.

Those estimates may end up being a little too bearish as earnings season goes on, quelling worries that Europe is heading toward a corporate recession.

GSK and Reckitt Benckiser will give the market a glimpse of the health of the consumer products market and spending on everything from toothpaste, washing powder and paracetamol.

(GRAPHIC: Earnings forecasts – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DuO2ZF)

5/WAITING FOR THE OLD LADY

Sterling has gone into the doldrums amid the Brexit delay and unproductive talks between the UK government and the opposition Labour party on a EU withdrawal deal. The resurgent dollar, meanwhile, has taken 2 percent off the pound in April. It is unlikely the Bank of England will be able to rouse it at its May 2 meeting.

Despite robust retail and jobs data of late, the economic picture is gloomy – 2019 growth is likely to be around 1.2 percent, the weakest since 2009, investment is down and Governor Mark Carney says business uncertainty is “through the roof”.

Indeed, expectations for an interest rate increase have been whittled down; Reuters polls forecast rates will not move until early 2020, a calendar quarter later than was forecast a month ago. The hunt for a new governor to replace Carney in October adds more uncertainty to the mix.

The recent run of UK data has fueled hopes of economic rebound. That’s put net hedge fund positions in the pound into positive territory for the first time in nearly a year. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might temper some of that optimism.

(GRAPHIC: Sterling positions – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XJwUXX)

(Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Karin Strohecker, Josephine Mason and Saikat Chatterjee in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; edited by Larry King)

Source: OANN

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