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Dozens of women claim they were secretly recorded by hidden cameras at California hospital, suit says

A lawsuit filed by 81 women against a California hospital accuses the medical center of using hidden cameras to record them while they were being examined by physicians, undergoing surgery and even giving birth.

A lawyer representing the women claims as many as 1,800 women may have been filmed without their knowledge at the facility.

The lawsuit, filed last week in a state superior court, alleges Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa installed hidden, motion-sensing cameras in three operating rooms in the hospital’s women’s center, allegedly in a bid to catch anyone stealing medicine.

LONDON'S GIANT BREAST BALLOONS SPARK NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT BREASTFEEDING

Between July 2012 and June 2013, the lawsuit charges that women were recorded without their knowledge as they were examined by doctors, undressed for procedures and were put under anesthesia for operations. The faces of female patients can reportedly be identified on the recordings as the women entered the operating rooms, gave birth or laid unconscious during surgery.

"It’s such a shocking breach of patient privacy," Allison Goddard, the attorney representing the women in the case, told BuzzFeed News. "I’ve talked to hundreds of women who were affected by it. The response is nearly universal: They just can’t believe it happened."

The cameras allegedly recorded women during extremely private and personal medical procedures, including deliveries, emergency C-sections, miscarriages, hysterectomies, sterilizations and various other gynecological procedures.

Sharp Healthcare admitted in a statement to The New York Times that the hidden cameras were placed in operating rooms to ensure patient safety after some medicine appeared to have been removed from operating rooms without authorization.

“The three cameras were installed and operated to ensure patient safety by identifying the person or persons responsible for the removal of the drugs,” the statement said. “Although the cameras were intended to record only individuals in front of the anesthesia carts removing drugs, others, including patients and medical personnel in the operating rooms, were at times visible to the cameras and recorded."

The complaint alleges that, in addition to violating its patients’ right to privacy, the San Diego County medical facility was “grossly negligent” in the way it stored recordings on computers that were not password protected. The medical facility failed to keep records of who viewed the recordings and how frequently the videos were accessed.

At least half of the videos were destroyed, but the hospital could not confirm if the files could be recovered or if they were permanently deleted, BuzzFeed News reported.

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The hospital allegedly allowed “non-medical personnel to view the recordings without making any effort to track who was viewing them, and then destroying some of the recordings,” the complaint states.

“They don’t know how their videos might be used or who may have seen them because Sharp didn’t make sure that that would be taken care of,” Goddard told The New York Times.

The class-action lawsuit against the hospital was originally filed in 2016. A new case was filed Friday that names individual plaintiffs who first learned about the existence of recordings in December 2018.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump says he's 'O.K.' with 'permanent' Daylight Saving Time

President Trump apparently is tired of switching clocks just like everyone else.

Coming off a universally sleep-deprived weekend during which America set the clocks to spring forward an hour, Trump tweeted that he's “O.K.” with making Daylight Saving Time “permanent” -- in other words, enough with the clock changing.

“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!” Trump tweeted Monday.

The president’s tweet came at the start of 2019’s Daylight Saving Time, which begins each year on the second Sunday in March, starting at 2 a.m. Changing the clocks forward means everyone loses an hour of sleep but gains an hour of evening daylight through the fall, when the clocks are turned back.

The law was first established during World War I as “a way of conserving fuel needed for war industries and of extending the working day,” according to the Library of Congress. But it was only temporary – the law was repealed as soon as the war was over.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME: WHEN AND WHY WE 'FALL BACK'

But the issue of daylight saving emerged again during World War II. On Jan. 20, 1942, Congress re-established daylight saving time.

More than 20 years later, in 1966, former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Uniform Time Act, declaring daylight saving time a policy of the U.S. and establishing uniform start and end times within standard time zones. The policy is regulated by the Department of Transportation.

But not all states participate. Hawaii, most of Arizona and several U.S. territories—including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands—do not observe daylight saving time.

OPINION: DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IS MAKING US ALL TIME TRAVELERS AGAIN

The president would need to work with Congress in order to repeal the 1966 Johnson-era law. Republican Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott filed a bill last week to extend daylight saving time for the entire year, called the Sunshine Protection Act. The Florida legislature voted last year to adopt the measure, but in order for it to take effect, Congress must change the federal law, and Trump must sign it.

His Monday morning tweet seemed to signal that should such a proposal make it to his desk, he would do so.

The topic has caused a nationwide debate since its inception, with many arguing the policy is unnecessary and disturbs sleep patterns. Supporters say it saves energy because people tend to spend more time outside when it's lighter out. The DOT claims it also "saves lives and prevents traffic injuries," because visibility is better.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: Fox News Politics

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Japan’s Heisei era: Changes, growth and tragedies

FILE PHOTO: Japan's Emperor Akihito, accompanied by Empress Michiko, waves to well-wishers before leaving Ujiyamada Station after their visit to Ise Jingu shrine in Ise, Japan
FILE PHOTO: Japan's Emperor Akihito, accompanied by Empress Michiko, waves to well-wishers before leaving Ujiyamada Station after their visit to Ise Jingu shrine in Ise in the central Japanese prefecture of Mie, April 18, 2019, as he takes part in a series of rituals ahead of his abdication. Kazuhiro Nogi/Pool via REUTERS

April 24, 2019

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Emperor Akihito’s abdication on April 30 will end the three-decade Heisei era that began on Jan. 8, 1989, one day after he inherited the throne upon the death of his father, Hirohito.

Below are key events and changes during his reign.

BURST BUBBLE, LOST DECADES

Japan’s “bubble economy” of soaring asset prices was in its final stages when Akihito ascended the throne. The Nikkei share average hit a record high of 38,957.44 on Dec. 29, 1989, but began to slide in 1990. Land prices followed.

The bursting of the bubble triggered financial failures, including the November 1997 collapse of “Big Four” brokerage Yamaichi Securities. It also ushered in what came to be known as the lost decades of economic stagnation.

Japan, which had been the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, was overtaken by China in 2010.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December 2012 promising to revive the economy with an “Abenomics” recipe that included a hyper-easy monetary policy, ushering in expansion but leaving doubts about the sustainability of growth.

AGING, SHRINKING POPULATION

Demographers had forecast Japan’s population decline even before Akihito took the throne. That decline became a reality when the population hit a peak of about 128 million in 2010.

The population was 126.4 million in October and the decline would have been bigger without an increase in foreign residents.

Data released in April showed the percentage of those aged 65 and over was 28.1 percent; the working age population fell to just under 60 percent.

A historic labor shortage pushed Japan to enact a new visa system that took effect this month, allowing in more blue-collar workers despite concerns among conservatives about a threat to social stability.

DISASTERS

Japan suffered several disasters – natural and manmade – during the Heisei era.

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit central Japan on Jan. 15, 1995, devastating the western port of Kobe and killing more than 6,400 people.

Just over two months later, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult carried out a sarin nerve agent attack on the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995, killing 13 people, injuring at least 5,800 and shattering the country’s myth of public safety.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit northeast Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a tsunami that killed nearly 20,000 people and caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Many people are still in temporary housing.

ELASTIC PACIFISM

In 1991, Japan, constrained by its pacifist post-war constitution, sent cash but no troops for the first Gulf War.

Stung by criticism of the move as “chequebook diplomacy”, governments stretched the limits of the constitution, dispatching troops to Iraq on a reconstruction mission in 2004 and enacting legislation in 2015 that would allow its military to fight abroad for the first time since 1945.

Japan has increased military outlays under Abe to counter a Chinese military buildup, and now spends about what Britain does on defense.

Abe wants to revise the pacifist constitution to clarify the military’s ambiguous status, but the public remains divided.

REVOLVING-DOOR PREMIERS

Japan was bedevilled for much of the era by a string of “revolving door” prime ministers, including Noboru Takeshita, who quit in June 1989 over a shares-for-favors scandal.

Seventeen prime ministers served – including Abe twice – with only maverick Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) and Abe in his current term showing staying power.

The long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was briefly ousted in 1993 but returned in an alliance with Socialists the next year.

In 2009, the LDP was toppled again by the Democratic Party of Japan, whose rocky rule under three premiers ended when Abe led the LDP back to power in 2012.

CULTURE

In the 1990s, Japanese pop culture – in the form of anime and manga – swept the wider world with “Dragon Ball Z” and “Pokemon” leading the way. By the end of the Heisei era, many manga were translated into multiple foreign languages.

Among the giants was director Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli, whose “Spirited Away” won a 2003 Academy Award.

Foreign fans also joined their Japanese counterparts in “cosplay”, short for “costume play”, dressing up as their favorite anime characters.

(Reporting and writing by Linda Sieg. Editing by Malcolm Foster and Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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Pompeo hopes North Korea’s Kim does ‘right thing’ on nuclear weapons in parliament speech

U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo speaks to the media during the NATO Foreign Minister's Meeting in Washington
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media during the NATO Foreign Minister's Meeting at the State Department in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

April 5, 2019

By David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday he hoped North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would use a meeting of the country’s parliament next week to state publicly “it would be the right thing” for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly is due to hold its first meeting this year on Thursday and could feature the first public comments from Kim about a second summit between him and U.S. President Donald Trump Hanoi in February that collapsed.

“It’s something that’s an annual event where the leader of North Korea speaks to his people,” Pompeo told “CBS This Morning.” “We’ll watch very closely what he says.” 

“I don’t expect there’ll be great surprise,” Pompeo said, “but I do hope that he will share his sentiment, his sentiment that says: We – I believe, as the leader of North Korea, I believe the right thing to do is for us to engage with the United States to denuclearize our country.”

Pompeo said U.S.-North Korea diplomatic channels remained open and the two sides have “had conversations after Hanoi about how to move forward,” but he did not elaborate.

He said he was “confident” there would be a third summit between Trump and Kim but did not have a timetable although he hoped it would be soon.

Pompeo stressed though that economic sanctions would not be lifted until North Korea gave up its nuclear weapons.

Pompeo said on Monday he hoped the two leaders could meet again “in the coming months … in a way that we can achieve a substantive first step or a substantive big step along the path to denuclearization.”

The Hanoi summit, the second between Trump and Kim in less than a year, fell apart over a failure to reconcile North Korean demands for sanctions relief with U.S. demands for Kim to give up a nuclear weapons program that now threatens the United States.

North Korea has warned since that it is considering suspending talks and may rethink a freeze on missile and nuclear tests, in place since 2017, unless Washington makes concessions.

According to a document seen by Reuters last week, on the day their Hanoi talks collapsed, Trump handed Kim a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States. Analysts said the move was probably seen by the North Korean leader as insulting and provocative.

Next week’s North Korean parliament session will coincide with a visit to Washington by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has pushed talks between the United States and North Korea in the past year and advocated sanctions relief.

Pompeo told CBS that the United States and South Korea had “worked closely together to enforce … sanctions.”

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: OANN

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GOP Rep. Zeldin Rips Dems for Hate 'Double Standard'

A Jewish member of the House who voted against the anti-hate resolution, one of 23 Republicans, ripped the Democrats for "double standards and moral equivalency."

"In January, the House nearly unanimously voted to condemn white supremacy, naming a Republican member, removing that Republican member from his committee assignments," Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., told Sunday's "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y. " Now, after one anti-Semitic comment after another by this Democratic member of Congress, instead of a resolution naming names and being singularly, emphatically, unequivocally condemning anti-Semitism, and removing that member from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, instead, you had a resolution that kept getting diluted and watered down and filled with moral equivalency, which is dangerous."

Rep. Zeldin rebuked Rep. Ilhan Omar's, D-Minn., anti-Israel, pro-BDS politics to host John Catsimatidis.

"If she was a Republican, this resolution would've been naming names," Zeldin told Catsimatidis. "She would've been removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We would be talking about anti-Semitism solely, singularly, and forcefully."

Zeldin called the anti-hate resolution "dangerous," a "slippery slope," a "sloppy bill" that was "spineless and watered down."

"What about [Rep.] Steve Scalise, who was actually shot because of hate, targeted for his political views by someone who didn't like Republicans?" Zeldin said, pointing to the Republican who was shot at a congressional baseball practice by a Republican-hating liberal. "So, moral equivalency is a very dangerous, slippery slope as they attempted to do in this sloppy bill. It was spineless and watered down."

Zeldin added Rep. Omar will have learned nothing from her mistakes with this Democratic protectionism.

"I don't believe this issue is going away anytime soon, and talking to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, that seems to be the general consensus, that this member is going to continue to do and say bad things that [are] going to cause harm to the institution and our country," he said, adding she should have never been put on the Foreign Relations Committee if she held bias against a country and U.S. ally like Israel.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Labour lawmaker quits party in latest jolt to UK politics

A 12th British lawmaker this week has quit one of the country's main political parties, as fallout from Brexit continues to splinter U.K. politics.

Ian Austin said Friday he had quit the main opposition Labour Party, accusing it of having a "culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance" under left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But he said he was not joining eight other ex-Labour lawmakers and three Conservatives who this week formed the centrist Independent Group.

The group hopes to gain members from disgruntled pro-Europeans in both the Labour and Conservative parties and forge a new force at the center of British politics. They oppose the Conservative government's determination to take Britain out of the European Union on March 29, even if there is no divorce deal in place.

Source: Fox News World

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Frankenstein Designer Kids: What You Don’t Know About Gender-Transitioning Will Blow Your Mind

Puberty-blocking drugs, mastectomies, vaginal surgery and fake penises – all with zero chance of reversal – these are just some of the radical experimental methods being used on children. The madness must stop.

Imagine that you are the parent of a five-year-old boy who innocently informs you one day that he is a girl. Of course, the natural reaction would be to laugh, not phone up the nearest gender transitioning clinic. You have no idea how your little boy came to believe such a thing; possibly it was through something he heard at the daycare center, or maybe a program he saw on television. In any case, he insists that he ‘identifies’ as a female.

Eventually, possibly at the encouragement of your local school, you pay a visit to a physician. You hope this medical professional will be able to provide you and your child with some sound counseling to clear up his confusion. Prepare yourself to be disappointed. Your doctor will be forced, according to state and medical dictate, to follow the professional guidelines known as ‘affirmative care.’ It sounds nice and harmless, doesn’t it? In fact, the program could be best described as nothing short of diabolical.

The Medical Harms of Hormonal and Surgical Interventions for Gender Dysphoric Children

Following the ‘affirmative care’ approach, the doctor is required to follow the child’s lead, not vice-versa, as many people believe the doctor-patient relationship in this particular case would best work. In other words, if the child tells the doctor that he believes he is a girl, the doctor must comply with that ‘reality’ no matter what biology tells him or her to be the case. But this is just the beginning of the madness.

As the child’s parent, you will be encouraged to start referring to your son as your ‘daughter,’ and even permit him to choose a feminine name, as well as matching clothes. Teachers will be instructed to let your son use the girl’s bathroom while at school. The question of the social stigma attached to such a lifestyle change, complete with bullying, is rarely brought into the equation. Therapists will seldom discuss with the parents the social implications of such a mental and physical change; indeed, many will insist the changes are ‘reversible’ should the child one day have a change of heart. If only things were that easy.

Let’s pause for a moment and ask what should be the most obvious question, especially among medical professionals: ‘Is it not terribly naive to support the fleeting belief of a child, who still believes in Santa Claus, that he/she is the opposite sex? Isn’t there a very high possibility that the child is just confused and the thought will pass? Moreover, why did we never hear about such episodes just 10 years ago, yet today we are led to believe it is some sort of epidemic?’ Instead of working with the child and his newfound identity from such an obvious approach, in the majority of cases the child will be placed on the fast-track to gender transitioning. This is where the horror story begins.

One parent, ‘Elaine,’ a member of the advocacy group Kelsey Coalition whose daughter underwent “life-altering medical interventions,”came to understand that the transition is immensely harmful to the future health and well-being of her child.

“Once the teenage years begin, affirmative care means giving young people cross-sex hormones,” Elaine said during a panel discussion organized by the Heritage Foundation.

Girls as young as twelve are prescribed testosterone for lifetime usage, while boys are given estrogen. These are serious hormonal treatments that impact brain development, cardiovascular health and may increase the risk of cancer.”

This leads us to the operating table, where adolescents, lacking the mental maturity necessary to make such a huge life-altering choice, are exposed to the knife of irreversible surgical manipulation. Double mastectomies on girls, for example, as well as the fashioning of false penises derived from flesh borrowed from other parts of the body, are just some of the unprecedented procedures now available.

Elaine mentioned the high-profile story of one Jazz Jennings, who was diagnosed with ‘gender dysphoria’ and raised as a girl since the age of five. He was treated with hormones at the age of eleven, and at the age of 17, Jazz underwent surgery to remove his penis and create a simulated vagina out of his stomach lining.

“After surgery, Jazz’s wounds began separating and a blood blister began to form. An emergency surgery was performed. According to Jazz’s doctor, ‘As I was getting her on the bed, I heard something go ‘pop.’ When I looked, the whole thing has split open.’”

Elaine called the case of Jazz a “medical experiment on a child” that “has been playing out on television for the past 12 years.” It should be noted that a similar drama-packed scenario captivated the nation with the high-profile, made-for-television sexual transition of Caitlyn Jenner, born Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic gold medalist, who was quite possibly the greatest American athlete of all time.

The obvious question is ‘how many impressionable children, many experiencing their own bodily changes in the form of puberty, were persuaded to decide in favor of gender transitioning (something that a child could have only heard about from some external media or source, unless the parents engage in such odd discussion topics at the dinner table) after watching these celebrity persona?’ By now, few people would doubt the powerful influence that TV celebrities have over people, and especially adolescents. In fact, that is the entire notion behind the idea of a ‘positive role model.’ I am not sure Caitlin Jenner would qualify for such a part.

According to Michael Laidlaw, M.D., these children, who are experiencing what the medical community has dubbed ‘gender dysphoria,’ will move beyond their condition either naturally or with the assistance of a therapist. Meanwhile, according to Laidlaw, citing studies, many of the girls and boys who display symptoms have neuro-psychiatric conditions and autism.

“Social media and YouTube, things like that, binge-watching YouTube videos of transitioners seem to be playing a role…as well as contagion” in popularizing the idea among the masses.

The movement is predicated upon the modern liberal idea of ‘gender identity,’ which has been defined as a “person’s core internal sense of their own gender,” regardless as to what the biological facts of their sex prove.

Dr. Laidlaw presented perhaps the best case against parents and their children rushing to the conclusion that their children need puberty blockers, for example, or extreme doses of hormones, when he discussed what happens when a person is diagnosed with cancer.

“If a child or somebody you knew had cancer, would you want pathology results, would you want imaging to prove [the condition] before you give harmful chemotherapeutics,” he asked. Yet we are allowing children and adolescents to undergo irreversible chemical and surgical procedures without being able to see any evidence that shows the presence of ‘the opposite sex’ in the patient.

In other words, the medical community is monkey-wrenching with not only Mother Nature, but with the lives of children, with radical and irreversible experiments that have not been proven to promote the happiness and wellbeing of those on the receiving (or subtracting) end.

“We are giving very harmful therapies on the basis of no objective diagnosis,” Dr. Laidlaw said.

Laidlaw was forced to repeat what has been widely known for millennia.

“There are only two sexes,” he said.

“Sex is identified at birth, nobody assigns it. Doctors don’t arbitrarily assign this person to be a boy and this person to be a girl. We all know how to identify it.

“I would say ‘ask your grandmother who doesn’t read the scientific journals, and they will tell you exactly how to identify boys from girls.’”

Source: InfoWars

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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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