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New details in Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombings as death toll rises; Dems divided on impeaching Trump

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Developing now, Monday, April 22, 2019

NEW DETAILS IN SRI LANKA BOMBINGS EMERGE AS DEATH TOLL RISES: The series of bombings that ripped through churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday and left at least 290 people dead and more than 500 people wounded were carried out by seven suicide bombers and investigators are examining reports that intelligence agencies had warnings of possible attacks, according to the Associated Press …  No one has taken responsibility for the bombings. Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardena described the blasts as a terrorist attack by religious extremists, and police said 13 suspects had been arrested.

The identities of some victims of the Easter massacres in Sri Lanka emerged Sunday evening -- including a British mother and her 11-year-old son, along with a TV chef, Shantha Mayadunne, and her daughter, Nisanga. Most of those killed were Sri Lankans. However, the U.S. said “several” Americans were among the dead, while Britain and China said they, too, lost citizens.

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BUZZFEED EDITOR TAKES SRI LANKA SHOT AT TRUMP: A BuzzFeed News world editor faced backlash Sunday for taking a swipe at President Trump while tweeting an article about the attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter ... "Suspect we’d be hearing a lot more outrage from Trump and co. if the Christians killed in Sri Lanka were white," Miriam Elder tweeted with a link to BuzzFeed News. Elder’s tweet had received more 6,000 replies, 179 retweets and 423 likes as of early Monday morning. Many of the commenters asked why the BuzzFeed News world editor would politicize the terrorist attacks. When contacted by Fox News, BuzzFeed News responded: “No comment from us.” Trump on Easter morning offered condolences to the people of Sri Lanka, tweeting, "We stand ready to help!”

DEMS DIVIDED ON COLLUSION, SEEKING TRUMP IMPEACHMENT: Leading Democrats appeared divided whether to pursue impeachment against President Trump after last week's release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's redacted report, which found no evidence of collusion and did not draw a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice ... Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chair of the House Oversight Committee, signaled that Democrats are not yet concerned about the possibility of "Russia fatigue" and warned ominously on Sunday that "the Russians aren't getting tired" and are "attacking our electoral system every single day."

Cummings previewed new lines of investigation against Trump and said it might be necessary to hear testimony from former White House Counsel Don McGahn and Mueller himself. In addition, Cummings neither fully endorsed, not rejected the idea of pursuing impeachment against Trump. 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren and freshman Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. have all called for impeachment.

But other Democrats, including Maryland House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and 2020 presidential candidates Reps. Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard have also said impeachment proceedings would be premature or misguided. (Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, weighed in on the prospects of impeaching Trump and more on "Fox News Sunday." Click on the video above to watch the full interview.)

Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-NY, argued on Sunday that, despite Mueller deciding not to charge President Trump with obstruction of justice, he believes there is still plenty of evidence of obstruction and wondered why Donald Trump Jr. isn't facing charges for the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives in June 2016.

REPORT: U.S TO SANCTION FIVE NATIONS OVER IRANIAN OIL - The Trump administration is set to inform five nations that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to import oil from Iran, reports said Sunday ... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce the policy move on Monday, which would no longer renew sanctions waivers for allies Japan, South Korea, and Turkey. The other countries no longer exempt are China and India. The waivers for sanctions will expire on May 2. The Washington Post first reported on the move, and three sources confirmed the report to the Associated Press.

FILE - In this Wednesday, April 10, 2019, file photo, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing with leaders of major banks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Tom Ferrall, chairman of the Ohio College Republican Federation and a senior at the University of Dayton, has apologized for a fundraising email that referred to Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a “domestic terrorist.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, April 10, 2019, file photo, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing with leaders of major banks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Tom Ferrall, chairman of the Ohio College Republican Federation and a senior at the University of Dayton, has apologized for a fundraising email that referred to Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a “domestic terrorist.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

AOC FACING EARLY RE-ELECTION CHALLENGE: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surging national profile has inspired a trio of Republican opponents from her home district — along with a multimillionaire mystery donor who could help close the gap in her foes’ long-shot race against her ... Just three months after taking office, the Democratic socialist congresswoman’s challengers include an Egyptian American journalist, who has already tossed her hat in the ring, and an NYPD cop-turned-high-school-civics teacher and conservative talk-radio producer, both of whom are seriously exploring a run against her. And the fledgling challengers could get help from a wealthy New Yorker committed to backing an Ocasio-Cortez opponent, the New York Post reports.

THE SOUNDBITE

'AN IMPEACHMENT REPORT' - "They wrote it for CNN, they wrote it for MSNBC. They wrote it for Nadler and Schiff and all the other reprobates. They wrote the report for them."– Mark Levin, on "Life, Liberty & Levin," arguing that the Mueller report was written for the "media and the "Democrats in the House of Representatives." (Click the image above to watch the full video.)

TODAY'S MUST-READS
Ocasio-Cortez impersonator, 8, takes on Green New Deal, socialism in adorable Twitter video.
Prince William wants Prince Harry, Meghan Markle 'as far away as possible': report.
Liz Peek: Democrats cling to the Russia probe because it’s all they’ve got.

MINDING YOUR BUSINESS
Stop & Shop, union workers resume negotiations in effort to end strike.
McDonald's ditches 'signature-crafted' burgers, simplifies menu.
Relocating retirees: Where Americans are moving to retire.

STAY TUNED

On Fox News:

Fox & Friends, 6 a.m. ET: . "Fox & Friends" will be live at the White House for the Easter egg roll. Special guests include: White House press secretary Sarah Sanders; Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump; Mike Huckabee on the Sri Lanka Easter Sunday attacks; former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville on running for Senate in Alabama. And on National Jelly Bean Day, a special look at President Reagan's love of the sweet snack.

On Fox Business:

Mornings with Maria, 6 a.m. ET: Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations; Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News senior judicial analyst; Mark Penn, former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Varney & Co., 9 a.m. ET: Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

Countdown to the Closing Bell, 3 p.m. ET: David Kennedy, "The White Hat Hacker" and founder & CEO of security consulting firm TrustedSec.

On Fox News Radio:

The Fox News Rundown podcast: "Joe Biden Says He Is In" - Joe Biden is set to officially announce his 2020 presidential run this week. Chris Stirewalt, Fox News' digital politics editor, discusses Biden's strengths and weaknesses. Gianni Russo, actor-singer-businessman, shares stories from his new book "Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob." Plus, commentary by Howard Kurtz, host of "Media Buzz."

Want the Fox News Rundown sent straight to your mobile device? Subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher.

The Brian Kilmeade Show, 9 a.m. ET: Mary Walter guest-hosts. Special guests include: Ken Starr, former Whitewater independent counsel, on the debate over the Mueller report. Bill Waybourn, Tarrant County, Texas sheriff, on the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border.

#TheFlashback
2000: In a dramatic pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seize Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a custody dispute, from his relatives' home in Miami; Elian is reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
1993: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated in Washington, D.C. to honor victims of Nazi extermination.
1970: Millions of Americans observe the first "Earth Day."
1864: Congress authorizes the use of the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins.

Fox News First is compiled by Fox News' Bryan Robinson. Thank you for joining us! Have a good day! We'll see you in your inbox first thing Tuesday morning.

Source: Fox News National

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Germans must spend for Europe: EU candidate Weber

EU centre-right lead candidate Weber poses during an interview with Reuters in Brussels
Manfred Weber, the centre-right European People's Party's lead candidate in the European Parliament elections, poses during an interview with Reuters in Brussels, Belgium, March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

March 22, 2019

By Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germans must be ready to spend to bolster economies elsewhere in Europe, the German lead candidate for the EU center-right said on Friday as campaigning gets underway for European Parliament elections in May.

Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party in the EU legislature and bidding to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as EU chief executive, told Reuters his compatriots had to understand that rising anti-EU nationalism in struggling economies like Italy should be countered by greater European investment to stimulate growth.

Under him, he said, the European Commission would expand the investment programs launched under Juncker, a fellow conservative, maintaining tight controls on euro zone public spending but promoting expenditure on infrastructure and new technologies to compete in the globalized world economy.

Insisting he should not be seen as the candidate of the bloc’s powerhouse Germany, Weber said: “I am a European candidate so that’s why we have a European program in mind. That’s why I go to Germany and tell people, don’t be surprised that we have so much populism in Italy and the Germans don’t care about youth unemployment in Italy.

“We have to understand that Europe can only have a good future if they care about the concerns of others.

“It’s only a solidarity based Europe that will work and that’s my message, all over Europe.”

Germany, running a budget surplus, has faced criticism from France, Italy and other governments struggling to free up funds for investment, but Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, with which Weber is aligned, has insisted that states must guard against wasteful expenditure and promote efficiencies.

Weber said there was funding available outside the public sector that should be encouraged: “We have a lot of money in Europe, there’s a lot of private money in Europe and we must … bring this money really alive,” he said.

The center-right would also distinguish itself from other pro-EU parties to its left by promoting free trade pacts and deepening Europe’s internal open market. It would promote better living standards in poorer EU states to curb the drive for migration of labor across the bloc, he said.

Chinese investment was welcome, he added, but there must be tougher screening to avoid the Chinese state exploiting Europe’s openness to acquire research secrets and undermine EU businesses.

DEMOCRACY DRIVE

Among challenges the next Commission will face will be from governments in the ex-Communist east, such as in Hungary and Poland, which criticize Brussels and are accused of undermining democracy by curbing media and judicial freedoms.

Weber this week helped steer the EPP to suspending its Hungarian member, Fidesz, the ruling party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Expulsion was still an option, he said, but for now Fidesz would be kept under review by an EPP monitor.

That, Weber said, was a model he could adopt if he succeeds Juncker. He would push for a mechanism to allow for annual reviews of governments’ support for the rule of law according to three criteria – fighting corruption, judicial independence and media freedom.

A Weber Commission would entrust senior independent jurists to review countries and, if need be, take them to the European Court of Justice under the EU’s infringement process. He would also seek to levy financial sanctions on states abusing rights.

Opinion polls ahead of the May 23-26 elections show the EPP would remain the biggest party in the European Parliament, giving Weber a solid chance of becoming Commission president, though he may face resistance from governments who do not want to be bound to choose from among party leaders.

Commission presidents have traditionally been former prime ministers or senior ministers but Weber said nominating a figure from parliament would bolster Europe’s democratic credentials at a time when the Union was under attack by populists.

“I want to live in a democratic Europe,” he said. “I don’t want to have a bureaucratic Europe.” He described the Council of national leaders as lacking transparency.

“I want to have a parliamentary democracy.”

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: OANN

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Americans’ Safety Governed by Profit, Special Interest – Report

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a radio interview where the topic was safety and government oversight. I had tuned in at the exact moment when the interviewee said the following:

Well, my experience of 30 years in Washington, D.C. is the same Ronald Reagan had – you know, trust but verify. And when bad things happen, you need to verify if what he is saying is correct. I certainly question that there’s not a cozy relationship. All anyone has to do is look at the revolving door in Washington, D.C., and this agency and the industry to realize that there is a cozy relationship. Now the question is, is that cozy relationship having an adverse impact on the safety decisions being made?

Before I could ascertain what they were discussing in the interview, my mind began to race. Could it be clean water, Round Up pesticide lawsuits, climate change, vaccine safety, the opioid crisis? My question was quickly answered. The forum was an interview on National Public Radio(NPR) with former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairman, James Hall, on the investigation into the recent tragedy of two Boeing 737 MAX airline crashes.  Upon a rewind of the interview, I kept hearing references to “revolving doors” and “cozy relationships.”

David Greene, host of the show, asked,

“But are you saying there are documents that Boeing has showing that they’re – that the company and, potentially the FAA, knew that there were some problems, some of the very problems that may have caused these accidents, and that they certified the aircraft anyway?”

Mr. Hall responded,

“…the process that we presently have is a self-certification process by the manufacturer of the safety of the aircraft… what has happened is that these decisions have been made in commissions and rulemakings dominated by the industry in Washington, D.C.”

As reported by NPR, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) left the safety testing of the plane to the manufacturing company (Boeing) and that this practice could be found “a lot” in the federal government. James Goodwin of the Center for Progressive Reform stated, “The American public would be surprised, and maybe even concerned, if they knew how widespread the practice of self-regulation was.” I wondered what implications this example might carry for aviation safety, agriculture, vaccine safety, and generally for the future of government oversight and scientific inquiry.

Toward the end of the interview, Mr. Greene from NPR stated that recently he had asked FAA head, Dan Elwell, some of the same questions. In one answer, Mr. Elwell responded, “the FAA is an agency that is based on data, and they very much make their decisions, including keeping those planes in the air, based on data.” Dan Elwell, is a former Vice President of the Aerospace Industries Association, representing the most powerful aerospace industry companies. There remain some very tough questions to be answered by the manufacturers of the airline industry, like Boeing, and the “cozy relationship” it and other industry members enjoy with the government agencies responsible for regulating its operations and overseeing its compliance with public safety. But, let’s move on from that thread of public air safety and pause for an overview of the opioid crisis facing the United States.


Alex exposes the globalist agenda that uses government agencies to cover up their crimes against the population.

Public Air Safety to the Opioid Crisis

Earlier in March, the 13th to be precise, I saved a copy of the transcript from an interview between David Greene and Brian Mann, an NPR associate, who has been following developments in some of the lawsuits around the nation’s opioid crisis. In its introduction to the interview NPR reported,

“The opioid epidemic claimed 70,000 lives in 2017. To put that in perspective, that is more than the number of people who died annually at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And the pharmaceutical industry is going to spend much of this year answering some hard questions. Many blame pharma for our country’s opioid crisis. And this year, big drug makers, as well as pharmacy chains, are facing more than 1,500 lawsuits filed by state and local governments. Billions of dollars are at stake, and so are reputations. Johnson & Johnson, Purdue Pharma, CVS – those are just some of the companies targeted in these lawsuits.”

The following are excerpts from the interview:

Greene: I mean that there are internal company documents that are being made public, and some of them have been controversial, you’ve been finding.

Mann: Purdue executives, for example, can be seen secretly acknowledging that their prescription opioids were far more addictive and dangerous than they were telling doctors. At the same time, company directives kept pushing sales, pushing the salespeople incredibly hard to get more opioids into the hands of vulnerable people, including seniors and military veterans….We’ve also learned that Purdue Pharma executives developed a secret plan they called Project Tango, which they allegedly hoped might help them profit again from the growing wave of opioid addiction. The idea here was to sell addiction treatment services to some of the same people addicted to products like their own OxyContin… Which means for more than a decade, no one in the wider public knew how serious the allegations against Purdue and these other drug companies were. But this time, states and cities suing these companies seem eager to sort of pull back the curtain… the drug industry has fought these disclosures at every turn. They describe the information in these documents as proprietary, basically arguing its corporate property. But as more and more information comes out, it’s making people angry.

On a related topic, Mr. Mann expressed:

But according to the drug company’s own documents, firms including Johnson & Johnson pushed unscientific theories about drug addiction. They did so allegedly to convince doctors to prescribe even more opioids after patients showed signs of dependency. David Armstrong, the reporter with ProPublica, says this kind of disclosure is making it harder for the industry to protect its image.

(Photo by Dr. Partha Sarathi Sahana, Flickr)

Government Agency Collusion

Government agency collusion with different industries, to me, represented nothing short of corruption. I was reminded of the tobacco industry and how the Phillip Morris tobacco company organized its Boca Raton Action Plan in 1988, in an effort to “diffuse and re-orient” the voices and initiatives of those fighting tobacco in favor of public health. Also, how the World Health Organization (WHO) itself colluded with legal experts and doctors in the United States in favor of the tobacco industry and against public health. From this fiasco was coined the expression “tobacco science;” i.e. “Science” done on behalf of an interest defending its profits, like the science conducted by a cigarette company showing that cigarettes are safe.

And speaking of the WHO, I was also reminded of the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) “pandemic.” In the spring of 2010, the Council of Europe was investigating the role of the WHO in declaring the H1N1 pandemic. Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, an epidemiologist who at one time was head of the Health Committee of the Council of Europe, expressed concerns that the contracts for the vaccine were mostly confidential arrangements between the WHO, individual member states and the companies producing the vaccine. In fact, numerous countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, entered into contracts with the vaccine manufacturing companies prior to the WHO’s declaration of an H1N1 pandemic. The contracts obligated these countries to purchase swine flu vaccinations under one condition: that the WHO issue a pandemic flu alert.

Transformed Relationships

In his farewell speech to the citizenry, U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower poignantly expressed his concern regarding the future of science and its partnership with government, and government with industry, when he said:

…the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research…The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

I kept wondering about the revolving doors, the collusion, industrial interests, and the science that was supposed to provide a foundation upon which to rest our confidence, our trust. How did we get here? The short answer, and quite possibly the simplest, might be the privatization of knowledge, or as some have called it, the “selling of science.” Or, maybe it’s the troubled matrimony of science and technology, where an applied and economic gain becomes the foundational rationale for present and future scientific endeavor. Such an environment raises serious questions as to the future of knowledge, the advancement of the sciences, and potential impacts on our economic, social, and public health.

Aristotle reminded us that “knowledge is virtue.” It has a value unto itself; a purpose that serves no particular master other than the rational development of inquiry and respective methods for the development of that knowledge. Here resided the principles of the classic universities, places where questions were explored, answered, and questioned again. This was the meaning of science – never settled – but forever moving toward a better, safer, healthier, and more advanced state of human affairs. But what happens to science when the scientist is tied to private industry, where the principle objective of private industry is defined by its stockholders interests, investments, and profits, where the same industry that manufactures the product for profit is also the industry responsible for generating the science determining the efficacy, effectiveness, and safety of its product?

In his book, Science in the Private Interest, Dr. Sheldon Krimsky writes,

“The responsibility of the scientist begins with discovery and ends with commercial applications. Universities exist mainly to provide labor for industry and to help industry turn knowledge into technology; technology into productivity; and productivity into profits.”

What Dr. Krimsky refers to as “public interest science as a model of knowledge for human welfare,” has been redefined, or more crudely speaking, undermined by the transformation of the relationship between scientists at universities, private industries with their scientists, and the “cozy relationships” that exist between the two. In the book To Profit or Not To Profit, authors Walter Powell and Jason Owens-Smith state,

“The changes underway at universities are the result of multiple forces: a transformation in of the nature policymakers and key constituents. These trends are so potent that there is little chance for reversing them-nor necessarily a rationale for doing so.”

These changes have been referred to as characteristic of the scientist as entrepreneur, or parts of what Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie explore in their book Academic Capitalism. In it, they write:

“We would expect that faculty as professionals participating in academic capitalism would begin to move away from values such as altruism and public service, toward market values.”

The Transformation of Science and Scientists

The transformation of science and scientists that are lured into and seek financial support from private industry for any number of research-to-market projects has become an all too familiar scenario with potentially devastating consequences.

Most recently, the parents of one of the victims of the Egyptian Boeing airline, filed suit against Boeing and the Rosemont airline parts manufacturing industry. Reuters report states that:

Thursday’s complaint accuses Boeing of putting “profits over safety” and said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration must also be held accountable for certifying the 737 MAX. 

However, reports Reuters: “Legal experts say these cases face high hurdles since government officials and agencies are generally immune from civil lawsuits.”

Under the current science-to-market model, government oversight of any number of products, from airplanes, to drugs, to tobacco, and more, continues to demonstrate a complacency that favors market-driven profits over public safety. This reality should alarm anyone and all. What if, as some of the legal experts above claim, a U.S. citizen has no right to hold industry responsible for assurances of safety because those industries are tied to government agencies, or because those agencies derive profits or “benefits” from the “cozy relationships?” If you believe that the FAA and the FDA need to come clean regarding the “revolving door” and “cozy relationships” that experts have indicated exist between both agencies and private industry, why would we not consider the same for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)?

Arguably, a profoundly vivid parallel is seen in the policies and practices of mandatory vaccination and informed consent. Over the many years studying vaccination theory and practice, I discovered a disturbing similar pattern – the “revolving door” between the CDC and private pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, the conflicts of interest where different committees and their members are given waivers protecting conflicts of interest, payoffs to doctors for administering vaccines, fast-tracking of vaccines and safety studies with no use of double-blind placebo studies, and the very “cozy relationship” between members of Congress, “big pharma,” the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In 1986, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA). For years families had been suing vaccine manufacturers for injuries their children suffered at the hands of vaccines. Threatening to discontinue vaccine production, the vaccine manufacturers asked for government assurances that their products would go forward unhindered. The 1986 law took all liability away from the manufacturers of vaccines, making it impossible to sue the industry. The same law stipulated that every two years the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would submit a report to Congress on the state of vaccine safety. It was during this time that the numbers and doses of vaccines began a dramatic increase.

In 2017 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Del Bigtree of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) filed a suit before the U.S. Federal Court for the Southern District of New York. On July 27, 2018, HHS admitted the following before the court:

The [Department]’s searches for records did not locate any records responsive to your request. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Immediate Office of the Secretary (IOS) conducted a thorough search of its document tracking systems. The department also conducted a comprehensive review of all relevant indexes of HHS secretarial correspondence records maintained at Federal record centers that remain in the custody of HHS. These searches did not locate records responsive to your request, or indications that records responsive to your request and in the custody of HHS are located at Federal record centers.

Today in the United States, political, medical, and mass media leadership, infused by the interests of vaccine manufacturers, are currently engaged in a massive campaign to silence dialogue, ban books and websites, avoid debates, and impose that vaccines become mandatory for all with no respect to informed consent, religious beliefs, medical conditions, or personal conscience. Writing on a recent measles outbreak in Rockland County, New York, Celeste McGovern remarks,

“People, like those in Rockland County, don’t avoid vaccines because they are misled by “fake” news and Facebook – but because of the real stories of corporate greed and political cover-up and vaccine-injured children that are shared on those platforms. The data bears them out. There are millions of them.”

The very thought that censorship would become an instrument of intimidation, humiliation, a threat, and a practice violating human rights, should make anyone shiver. But maybe more importantly, the unbridled and crass censorship we are witnessing today on the topic of mandatory vaccination, its effectiveness and safety, should leave us asking: How is it possible that censorship becomes a principal upon which public policy and social interaction are defined in a democracy? Will the violation of the right to informed consent become the new paradigm applied to air travel, medications, vaccination, food, and more?

Personally, and professionally, I see nothing edifying and positive coming from the censorship of those that question. Boeing has explaining to do, as does the FAA. Furthermore, Johnson & JohnsonPurdueCVS and the FDA, owe the people an explanation. Likewise, the HHS, CDC, and pharma owe the people many explanations about the safety of vaccines.

This is no time for silence.

The viewpoints expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Infowars.


Brian Stelter is famous for complaining too much.

Source: InfoWars

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At the Oscars or in the cinema, the sound that puts movie lovers in the picture

FILE PHOTO: The Dolby Theatre is decorated for the Oscars as preparations continue for the 91st Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: The Dolby Theatre is decorated for the Oscars as preparations continue for the 91st Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 19, 2019. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

February 22, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – You may be a guest at the Oscars or simply watching one of the season’s hit movies in a hi-tech multiplex, but chances are that, in either case, the soundtrack will make you feel like you’re right at the heart of the action.

Five of the eight movies that will vie for the Best Picture academy award on Sunday use Atmos, the latest sound technology developed by Dolby.

The same goes for the Dolby Theatre where the prizes will be handed out.

The post-production system, which also features ultra-high resolution Dolby Vision Technology, allows directors to place “up to 108 different sound objects in 3D space”, said Julian Stanford, Dolby Cinema Europe’s director of business development.

That creates a soundscape with different angles, intensities, and tonal values. “It’s an immersive system which has speakers that are not only all round you but above your head and behind the screen,” he told Reuters TV.

“So it allows the director and his sound mixer to put objects in sound in three-dimensional space and so it means they can put you right in the middle of the movie.”

For those watching in the growing number of Atmos-equipped cinemas worldwide, sound can nuance the movie-going experience every bit as much as images, Stanford believes.

At one end of the decibel scale, the pivotal beach scene in “Roma” is largely silent, but the tonal textures remain key.

“You feel terrified. There is no music in the background, almost no dialogue at all. The landscape of your emotion is defined by that sound that he (director Alfonso Cuaron) has created,” he said.

At the other, in the wall-of-noise Live Aid segment of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, director Brian Singer can place “the bass to the left, the drums to the back.

“You are placed on the stage with them, and you hear this incredibly intense experience, and you live what (Queen frontman) Freddie Mercury is living at that moment,” Stanford said.

(Reporting by Emily Roe; writing by John Stonestreet; editing by Michael Davidson)

Source: OANN

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Schiff to Trump on Budget: 'We'll Take It From Here'

President Donald Trump's proposed $4.75 trillion budget is useless, says Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

"Trump finally submitted a budget (a month late)," Schiff tweeted late Monday. "Let's take a look, shall we? $8 billion for a wall Congress rejected. $840 billion in cuts to Medicare. Trillion dollar deficits for the next four years. You know what, Mr. President, keep your budget. We’ll take it from here."

Trump's budget also calls for a substantial reduction for Medicare and controversial work requirements for Americans collecting a variety of welfare benefits.

The president is requesting an additional $8.6 billion to build the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border – $5 billion from Congress and $3.6 billion from the military construction budget, for fiscal 2020.

"In the last two years, President Trump and his Administration have prioritized reining in reckless Washington spending. The Budget that we have presented to Congress and the American people . . . embodies fiscal responsibility and takes aim at Washington's waste, fraud, and abuse," Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russ Vought said in a statement.

"Our national debt nearly doubled under the previous administration and now stands at more than $22 trillion," he continued. "This Budget shows that we can return to fiscal sanity without halting our economic resurgence while continuing to invest in critical priorities."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Exclusive: Germany sees 8.86 billion euro cost to operate Tornado jets through 2030

FILE PHOTO - A technician works on a German Tornado jet at the air base in Incirlik
FILE PHOTO - A technician works on a German Tornado jet at the air base in Incirlik, Turkey, January 21, 2016. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz/Pool

April 10, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German Defence Ministry estimates it will cost nearly 9 billion euros to replace obsolescent parts and keep its aging fleet of 93 Tornado fighter jets flying until 2030, according to a classified document provided to German lawmakers this week.

The steep cost estimate includes 5.64 billion euros to maintain the warplanes, which first entered service in 1983, 1.62 billion euros to design replacements for obsolete parts, and 1.58 billion euros to procure them, according to the document, which was viewed by Reuters.

Germany in January decided to pick either the Eurofighter or Boeing Co’s F/A-18E/F fighter jet to replace its Tornado fleet in coming years, dropping Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth fighter from a tender worth billions of euros..

But neither the F/A-18 nor the Eurofighter are currently certified to carry U.S. nuclear weapons, as required under Germany’s obligations to NATO, leaving Germany dependent on its Tornado fleet until it gets new planes.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, editing by Thomas Escritt)

Source: OANN

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Asian shares supported by global growth hopes, eyes on earnings

FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a markets index board in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a markets index board in Tokyo June 12, 2013. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares started on a firm footing on Monday and the dollar eased as risk appetite was whetted by better-than-expected data from China that helped boost confidence about the health of the world economy.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.1 percent with South Korea’s KOSPI up 0.5 percent. Australian shares slightly weaker.

Japan’s Nikkei jumped 1.3 percent to the highest since early December.

Investors have been fretting about a global growth slowdown this year as trade disputes and tighter financial conditions hit demand. Last week, the International Monetary Fund cut its outlook for the world economy for the third time in six months.

There have also been worries that weakness in key economies, including China, could spread to other countries, especially if elevated trade tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated further.

That explains why investors cheered Chinese data showing exports rebounded in March to a five-month high while new bank loans jumped by far more than expected. Total bank lending in the first three months of 2019 hit a record quarterly tally of 5.81 trillion yuan ($866.7 billion). [nL3N21S1F8][nL3N21Q1YT]

“Markets were buoyed by an improvement in China’s data which saw risk appetite improve,” ANZ said in a note to clients.

“A sustained improvement in the data will be important before confidence is restored. In the meantime, policymakers remain committed to setting ‘growth friendly’ monetary and fiscal policies.”

(Graphic: Asian stock markets – https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4)

News over the weekend added to the upbeat mood. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday a U.S.-China trade agreement would go “way beyond” previous efforts to open China’s markets to U.S. companies and hoped that the two sides were “close to the final round” of negotiations.

Also helping sentiment, the Group of 20 industrialized nations have called for a trade truce in a sign world leaders are prepared to take action to curtail risks of a global economic slowdown.

“We expect a relatively market-friendly U.S.-China deal,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch global economist Ethan Harris said in a note. “In our view, market and political concerns will constrain future fights. Think ‘skirmishes’ rather than ‘major battles.'”

The risk sensitive Australian dollar, which is also used as a proxy for China plays, hovered near a seven-week top at $0.7173.

Investors are next looking to China’s March-quarter gross domestic product data due Wednesday. All eyes are also on corporate earnings from major U.S. companies after quarterly results from JPMorgan handily beat analyst estimates last week.

All that positive news boosted Wall Street on Friday with the Dow jumping 1 percent, the S&P500 climbing 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq adding 0.5 percent.

In currencies, the dollar index was a shade weaker at 96.909 against a basket of major currencies as demand for safe haven assets eased. It had slipped to a near three-week trough of 96.745 on Friday.

The euro held at $1.1302 as dealers were gearing up for demand from Japan as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial closed in on its multi-billion-euro acquisition of DZ Bank’s aviation-finance business. [FRX/]

The common currency was also supported by encouraging data from the euro zone where industrial output in February declined by less than expected.

In commodities, oil provided big milestones, with Brent breaking through the $70 threshold last week and the U.S. benchmark posting six straight weeks of gains for the first time since early 2016. [O/R]

Commodities have had the best first-quarter start ever, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said, calling the annualized returns they are tracking the strongest in the past 100 years.

Brent crude oil futures was last off 31 cents at $71.24 while crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, eased 45 cents to $63.44.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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