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Frequent crossers of U.S.-Mexico border fret over threatened shutdown

The border fence between Mexico and the United States is pictured from Tijuana
The border fence between Mexico and the United States is pictured from Tijuana, Mexico March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes

March 30, 2019

By Julio-Cesar Chavez

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – Workers and students who frequently cross the U.S. border with Mexico worried over the weekend about the impact on their lives if President Donald Trump follows through on a threat to shut entry points used by hundreds of thousands of people every day.

Faced with a surge of asylum seekers from Central American countries who travel through Mexico, Trump said on Friday that there was a “good likelihood” he would close the border this coming week if Mexico does not stop unauthorized immigrants from reaching the United States.

Shutting the southern frontier completely would disrupt billions of dollars in trade and millions of legal border crossings, including those made by U.S. citizen Andrea Torres.

The 22-year-old student spends weekdays with her aunt in El Paso, where she attends the local campus of the University of Texas, and weekends with her mother in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

On the border bridge linking the two cities, so many students cross every day that authorities have assigned them their own pedestrian lane.

“Right now, it’s better for me to stay in El Paso because I need to finish school,” Torres, who is studying art history, said on Friday as she headed to Juarez for the weekend.

That would mean missing her mom. “It would be really hard,” Torres said. “I’m really close to her.”

Gerardo Pozas, a 38-year-old mechanic, moved to El Paso from Juarez in 1997 to attend high school and later became a U.S. citizen. He has always retained strong ties with his birthplace. He worried what he would do if Trump closed the border.

“My family, my church and my girlfriend are (in Juarez). I wouldn’t be able to go,” Pozas said. “But if I stay there, in Ciudad Juarez, I wouldn’t be able to come to my house.”

Department of Homeland Security officials had already warned traffic with Mexico could slow as the agency shifts personnel from ports of entry to help process asylum seekers.

Delays were already being felt on Friday, with waiting times longer than usual on the Mexican side of the crossing between Juarez and El Paso, and hours-long lines for trucks carrying goods from Mexican factories into the United States.

Trade between the United States and its third-largest trading partner totaled $612 billion last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Trump, who launched his presidential campaign in 2015 with a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, has repeatedly threatened to close the border during his two years in office but has not followed through.

Mexico has played down the possibility of a border shutdown. On Friday its foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said the country does not act on the basis of threats.

(For a graphic on ‘Trump threatens to shut U.S.-Mexico border’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2V59n2R)

(Additional reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez and Julia Love in Mexico City; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish)

Source: OANN

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Saudi King Salman to visit Bahrain: BNA agency

FILE PHOTO: Saudi Arabia's King Salman attends Arab league and EU summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh
FILE PHOTO: Saudi Arabia's King Salman attends a summit between Arab league and European Union member states, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, February 24, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo

April 3, 2019

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is expected to visit Bahrain on Wednesday, Bahrain news agency BNA said, adding the two kings will hold meetings to discuss bilateral relations and regional developments.

Saudi Arabia, along with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, pledged $10 billion in financial aid to Bahrain last year to rescue the country from a potential debt crisis.

(Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Most senior Catholic charged with child sex abuse convicted

The most senior Catholic cleric ever charged with child sex abuse has been convicted in Australia of molesting two choirboys moments after celebrating Mass.

Cardinal George Pell is Pope Francis' top financial adviser and the Vatican's economy minister. He bowed his head as a jury delivered unanimous verdicts in the Victoria state County Court on Dec. 11 after more than two days of deliberation.

The court had until Tuesday forbidden publication of any details about the trial.

The 77-year-old faces a potential maximum 50-year prison term after a sentencing hearing which begins on Wednesday. He has foreshadowed an appeal.

The jury convicted Pell of abusing two 13-year-old boys whom he had caught swigging sacramental wine in a rear room of Melbourne's St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1996 when he was archbishop.

Source: Fox News World

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Exclusive: How Iran fuel oil exports beat U.S. sanctions in tanker odyssey to Asia

FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf
FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran, July 25, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/File Photo

March 20, 2019

By Roslan Khasawneh, Ahmed Rasheed and Ahmed Elumami

SINGAPORE/BAGHDAD/TRIPOLI (Reuters) – At least two tankers have ferried Iranian fuel oil to Asia in recent months despite U.S. sanctions against such shipments, according to a Reuters analysis of ship-tracking data and port information, as well as interviews with brokers and traders.

The shipments were loaded onto tankers with documents showing the fuel oil was Iraqi. But three Iraqi oil industry sources and Prakash Vakkayil, a manager at United Arab Emirates (UAE) shipping services firm Yacht International Co, said the papers were forged.

The people said they did not know who forged the documents, nor when.

The transfers show at least some Iranian fuel oil is being traded despite the reimposition of sanctions in November 2018, as Washington seeks to pressure Iran into abandoning nuclear and missile programs. They also show how some traders have revived tactics that were used to skirt sanctions against Iran between 2012 and 2016. (https://reut.rs/2NF1fTK)

“Some buyers…will want Iranian oil regardless of U.S. strategic objectives to deny Tehran oil revenue, and Iran will find a way to keep some volumes flowing,” said Peter Kiernan, lead energy analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

While the United States has granted eight countries temporary waivers allowing limited purchases of Iranian crude oil, these exemptions do not cover products refined from crude, including fuel oil, mainly used to power the engines of large ships.

NO RECORD AT BASRA

Documents forwarded to Reuters by ship owners say a 300,000 tonne-supertanker, the Grace 1, took on fuel oil at Basra, Iraq, between Dec. 10 and 12, 2018. But Basra port loading schedules reviewed by Reuters do not list the Grace 1 as being in port during those dates.

One Iraqi industry source with knowledge of the port’s operations confirmed there were no records of the Grace 1 at Basra during this period.

Reuters examined data from four ship-tracking information providers – Refinitiv, Kpler, IHS Markit and Vessel Finder – to locate the Grace 1 during that time. All four showed that the Grace 1 had its Automatic Identification System (AIS), or transponder, switched off between Nov. 30 and Dec. 14, 2018, meaning its location could not be tracked.

The Grace 1 then re-appeared in waters near Iran’s port of Bandar Assaluyeh, fully loaded, data showed. The cargo was transferred onto two smaller ships in UAE waters in January, from where one ship delivered fuel oil to Singapore in February.

Shipping documents showed about 284,000 tonnes of fuel oil were transferred in the cargoes tracked by Reuters, worth about $120 million at current prices.

Officials at Iran’s oil ministry declined to comment.

Singapore customs did not respond to requests for comment.

The Grace 1, a Panamanian-flagged tanker, is managed by Singapore-based shipping services firm IShips Management Pte Ltd, according to data. IShips did not respond to several requests for comment via email or phone.

A Reuters reporter visited the office listed on IShips’ website but was told by the current tenant that the company had moved out two years earlier.

(MAP: Grace 1 tanker movement between Iraq, Iran and the UAE – https://tmsnrt.rs/2FkRjMK)

SHIP-TO-SHIP TRANSFERS

The ship-tracking data analyzed by Reuters showed the Grace 1 emerged from the period when it did not transmit its location almost 500 kilometers south of Iraq. It was close to the Iranian coast with its draught – how deep a vessel sits in water – near maximum, indicating its cargo tanks were filled.

The Grace 1 transferred its cargo to two smaller tankers between Jan. 16 and 22 in waters offshore Fujairah in the UAE, data showed.

One of those vessels, the 130,000 tonne-capacity Kriti Island, offloaded fuel oil into a storage terminal in Singapore around Feb. 5 to 7. Reuters was unable to determine who purchased the fuel oil for storage in Singapore.

The Kriti Island is managed by Greece’s Avin International SA.

The tanker was chartered by Singapore-based Blutide Pte Ltd for its voyage to Singapore, Avin International’s Chief Executive Officer George Mylonas told Reuters. Mylonas confirmed the Kriti Island took on fuel oil from the Grace 1.

There is no indication that Avin International knowingly shipped Iranian fuel oil. Mylonas said his firm had conducted all necessary due diligence to ensure the cargo’s legitimate origin.

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN

Mylonas emailed Reuters a copy of a Certificate of Origin (COO) that he said was provided by the charterers – referring to Blutide – showing the Grace 1 loaded fuel oil at Basra on Dec. 10 and 12, 2018.

“The Certificate of Origin and all the information obtained did not reveal any connection with Iran, let alone that the cargo of fuel oil originated” from there, Mylonas wrote.

Mylonas said the Grace 1’s owners, managers, shippers, receivers and charterers were screened by Avin International. “There were not circumstances that would make the COO of dubious origin,” he said via email.

He said he had been told by the charterers that the Grace 1 only stopped in waters off Iran in late December and early January for “repairs of damaged diesel generators” before sailing to Fujairah.

The document provided by Mylonas says Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO certified the Grace 1 in December loaded a total of 284,261 tonnes of Iraqi fuel oil.

Reuters shared the document with a SOMO official in Iraq who said it was “faked” and “completely wrong”. The official declined to be identified by name, citing the marketer’s communications policy.

Two other Iraqi oil industry sources with direct knowledge of Basra port and oil industry operations also said the documentation was forged.

The two sources said the document bore the signature of a manager who was not working at Basra port on the stated dates. The document also bears contradictory dates: It indicates a loading period of Dec. 10 and 12, 2018 but a sign-off date for the transaction of Jan. 12, 2018.

‘CONSIDER TO BE FORGED’

Data showed the second tanker into which the Grace 1 transferred cargo was the Marshal Z, also a 130,000-tonne vessel.

It was bound for Singapore in the first half of February but changed course on Feb. 15, parking off western Malaysia. Reuters was unable to determine who owns the Marshal Z, nor who chartered it.

Around Feb. 25, the Marshal Z transferred its cargo to another vessel called the Libya, owned and managed by Tripoli-based General National Maritime Transport Company (GNMTC).

A GNMTC spokesman said the Libya was chartered by Blutide, the same Singapore firm that chartered the Kriti Island.

    Blutide registered as a company in Singapore on May 14, 2018. Its sole listed shareholder and only director, Singaporean Basheer Sayeed, said by telephone on Feb. 7 he was retired and not in a position to comment on the company’s activity.

The Libya’s owner GNMTC “was not aware, at any stage that the cargo is linked in any way to Iran,” the company’s spokesman said via email.

GNMTC provided Reuters with a copy of a COO that it said was issued by shipping services company Yacht International, based in Fujairah, showing the Marshal Z loaded Iraqi-origin fuel oil during a ship-to-ship transfer in UAE waters on Jan. 23.

However, Yacht International shipping manager Prakash Vakkayil said in an email his firm did not issue the certificate and “considers it to be forged”.

The GNMTC spokesman did not respond to follow-up questions from Reuters.

    As of March 20, data showed the Libya was located alongside the Marshal Z offshore western Malaysia, the position vessels typically adopt for ship-to-ship transfers.

Reuters could not immediately determine whether the fuel oil cargo the Libya had been carrying was still aboard the ship.

(Reporting by Roslan Khasawneh in SINGAPORE, Ahmed Rasheed in BAGHDAD and Ahmed Elumami in TRIPOLI; Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in LONDON and Parisa Hafezi in DUBAI; Editing by Henning Gloystein, Christian Schmollinger and Kenneth Maxwell)

Source: OANN

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Tillis Changes Vote, Supports Trump on Border Emergency

Changing his vote from the public stance he took last month, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis voted Thursday to support President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency to pay for his border wall.

Tillis announced his change of heart on the Senate floor, minutes before the Senate voted to disapprove Trump's declaration.

"A lot has changed over the last three weeks," when he laid out his objections to the president's action in an op-ed in The Washington Post, Tillis said.

He discussed the issue with Vice President Mike Pence and other senior administration officials, as well as Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has been working a proposal to change the way national emergencies are declared, Tillis said. Lee's proposal stalled after Trump rejected it earlier this week.

In the meantime, Tillis said, "I think we have to recognize that we have a crisis at the border."

More than 76,000 people crossed the southern border illegally last month alone, he said. "We have narcotics flooding our country, poisoning our children and adults of all ages, and a lot of it has to do with the porous border and the seemingly out of control crossings."

Tillis, a Republican who is facing re-election in 2020, has been facing public pressure from Trump and local Republicans, who have indicated they'd be open to a primary challenger.

In the end, Tillis decided to back the president.

The decision placed him at odds with 12 Republicans who sided with Democrats to reject Trump's emergency declaration. The vote set up a veto fight and dealt Trump a conspicuous rebuke as he tested how boldly he could ignore Congress in pursuit of his highest-profile goal.

Tillis was among a group of GOP senators who had wavered on the high-profile vote amid concerns that Trump's die-hard loyalty from millions of conservative voters could lead them to punish defecting lawmakers in next year's elections.

Tillis' initial strong statements of opposition to Trump's use of executive power were not the first time the former IBM consultant and state House speaker had defied the president, who often views other Republicans in terms of their loyalty to him. Tillis partnered with Democrats earlier this year on legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller's job investigating the president's campaign and Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

For Tillis, 58, decisions on how and when to support or oppose Trump are clearly shaded by his expected bid for a second Senate term next year — and the drive to hold off any strong challengers. In a floor speech and the Post op-ed, Tillis made clear that he shares Trump's concerns about border security.

But he firmly declared that Trump's effort to go around Congress to pay for his wall overstepped the Constitution's separation of powers. "These are the reasons I would vote in favor of the resolution disapproving of the president's national-emergency declaration," he wrote last month.

Doing so would have planted Tillis firmly among the Senate's influential centrists, such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Tillis' change of heart seemed aimed at appeasing the GOP base back home as well as independents.

"He needs both an enthusiastic party base as well as at least some unaffiliated voters to win," said Eric Heberlig, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "To appeal to one is basically to shut out support for the other."

While Tillis has been a reliable conservative vote during his first term, he's also pressed for bipartisanship, hardly letting a few days go by this year without news releases highlighting bills he's introduced with Democrats.

Republicans back home had questioned Tillis' support for Trump when he co-sponsored the legislation to protect Mueller's job. Tillis said in January he didn't believe Trump would fire the special prosecutor but called that bipartisan bill "good government policy with enduring value across the current and future administrations."

Dianne Parnell, chairwoman of the Rockingham County Republican Party, said Wednesday she's weighing whether Tillis' second thoughts on the border emergency resolution change her view of him.

"We want him to support our president," Parnell said, adding that now is not the time for Tillis to reach across the aisle and blaming Democrats for hyper partisanship. "I would be delighted if he changed his mind."

Suspicion about Tillis by Republican activists has been around for years. While Tillis helped lead the charge to conservative GOP control in the state legislature for the first time in 140 years in 2011, some on the far right didn't believe he was conservative enough.

That required Tillis to take on credible tea party adversaries in the 2014 Republican Senate primary before upsetting Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan later that year in a race where the two sides spent more than $100 million.

State Democrats jumped on his flip-flop on the emergency. It didn't take long for Tillis "to lose his spine and fall right back in line with President Trump," Democratic spokesman Robert Howard said.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Kamala Harris recalls ‘extremely bittersweet’ 2016 election night when she and Trump won

Democratic presidential candidate and California Sen. Kamala Harris shared the “bittersweet” night she had when she and Donald Trump won in the 2016 election.

During a Thursday night appearance, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers asked Harris if sharing her election victory with Trump was the “weirdest night ever” and if it felt like “being someone on the Titanic going, ‘I’ve got a boat.’”

HARRIS BACKS BILL TO LET 'DREAMERS' BE HILL INTERNS

Harris began by explaining that she was heading to a small dinner gathering with friends and family before what she hoped would be her election celebration, but her husband kept “grunting” in the car as he stared intently at the infamous election needle.

“He was making noises and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And I was like, ‘No, it’s too early. It can’t be.’ And as the night progressed, of course, that’s what it was,” Harris elaborated. “It was extremely bittersweet. And I tore up all the notes that I had prepared to read and I just took the stage and I said, ‘We will fight, we will fight.’”

HARRIS CALLS FOR TEACHER PAY BOOST

“And then I went home and I sat on the couch with a family size bag of nacho Doritos and I did not share one chip with anybody,” the California senator chuckled. “And I just watched the TV. Utter shock and dismay.”

Harris is currently one of the leading candidates in the wide Democratic field, averaging at 9.8 percent in the polls according to Real Clear Politics, behind former Vice President Joe Biden (who has not yet declared) and her colleague, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Islamists Arrested Over Kindergarten Children Massacre Plot

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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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