Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Lawmakers ask ‘Big Four’ auditors for client dining details

FILE PHOTO: The logo of KPMG is pictured at the Viva Tech start-up and technology summit in Paris
FILE PHOTO: The logo of accounting firm KPMG is pictured at the Viva Tech start-up and technology summit in Paris, France, May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo

February 18, 2019

By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – The “Big Four” accounting firms in Britain have been asked by lawmakers to say how much they have spent on wining and dining clients and to demonstrate a link between the pay of their partners and the quality of their audits.

Rachel Reeves, chair of parliament’s business committee, has written to EY, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC with nine questions and a Feb. 27 deadline for replies. The letters dated Feb. 13 were published on Monday.

Begun in January, the committee’s inquiry aims to investigate whether reforms proposed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will succeed in making the accountancy sector more competitive.

The CMA has recommended measures to inject more choice for companies when choosing an outside accountant to check their books.

A separate review has proposed a new regulator for auditors with tougher powers to improve quality after collapses at construction company Carillion and retailer BHS raised questions about how much time accountants spend on an audit.

In her letter, Reeves asks the Big Four to say how much they each spent on hospitality on audit and non-audit clients at Britain’s top 350 listed companies in the past five years.

This would include expenditure on non-audit customers who later became audit clients.

Elsewhere in the financial sector, brokers are under pressure from regulators to scale back on hospitality such as tickets for rugby or tennis matches.

Accountants are also being asked to show how pay and promotion of auditors are linked to audit quality.

The committee is due to publish its report in March. KPMG said it would supply the information as requested. Deloitte, EY and PwC had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by David Holmes)

Source: OANN

0 0

Exclusive: Israel’s chip sales to China jump as Intel expands

FILE PHOTO: Intel logo is seen behind LED lights in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: Intel logo is seen behind LED lights in this illustration taken January 5, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

March 19, 2019

By Tova Cohen and Steven Scheer

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel’s exports of computer chips to China soared last year as Chinese companies bought more semiconductors made at Intel’s Kiryat Gat plant.

An official at the Israel Export Institute told Reuters that new data showed semiconductor exports to China jumped 80 percent last year to $2.6 billion. An industry source told Reuters that Intel Israel accounted for at least 80 percent of those sales.

The data will be welcome news for the Israeli government as it pushes for deeper ties with China and because semiconductors accounted for $3.9 billion of overall goods exports in 2018, according to the institute, a government agency.

The two countries have started negotiating a trade deal and technology is expected to be a major part of the discussions. Overall exports of Israeli goods to China, excluding diamonds, rose 50 percent to $4.7 billion, statistics.

Intel announced a $5 billion investment to expand capacity in its Kiryat Gat plant in southern Israel in 2017, which makes some of the smallest and fastest chips in the world.

That year it also bought Israeli auto-focused chip and technology firm Mobileye for $15 billion. It said this year it would invest $11 billion in a new Israeli plant.

A spokesman for Intel said the firm exported $3.9 billion worth of goods from Israel last year, up from $3.6 billion in 2017. He declined to give further details of Intel’s operations in Israel.

Chinese officials have said they are looking to develop a domestic chip market because Chinese companies import $270 billion of semiconductors each year. Israel has a reputation for exporting high-end chips.

Israel’s export institute also said sales to China of inspection equipment for semiconductor manufacturing jumped 64 percent to $450 million last year.

That equipment is used to control and inspect manufacturing processes in semiconductor plants and is useful for China as its domestic chip manufacturing increases.

Companies in Israel making such equipment include Orbotech, which was just acquired by fellow semiconductor equipment maker KLA-Tencor of California for about $3.4 billion.

That deal was announced a year ago but was held up by Chinese regulators, who only gave their approval in February.

PIVOT TO ASIA

China is now Israel’s second largest export market for goods after the United States, having overtaken Britain last year.

Sales of semiconductors to the United States slipped 20 percent to $860 million, contributing to a 3 percent drop in goods exports. But at $10.9 billion, overall goods exports still dwarf those to China.

Israel has been pivoting its economy toward Asia in the past few years both because of perceived political hostility in some European countries and the fact that Asian markets are growing rapidly.

In recent years, Chinese-based airlines have started direct flights to Tel Aviv, the two countries signed a visa agreement and are working on the trade deal. Israel is also in talks for free trade agreements with Vietnam and South Korea.

Some analysts in China expect the ties to get stronger due to the tit-for-tat trade war between the United States, a major chip producer, and China.

“Because of the trade war, China and Israel’s cooperation is closer than it has been before,” said Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at ICWise, a semiconductor consultancy in Shanghai.

“Israel has the technology and China has the market – the space for cooperation is big.”

Eyal Waldman, founder and CEO of Israeli chipmaker Mellanox, said his company was benefiting from China’s policies.

“In China they prefer to use Chinese silicon and then after that non-U.S. silicon and only if they don’t have that then U.S. silicon, so we are benefiting from that,” he told Reuters.

“We are seeing better growth in China.”

Mellanox agreed this week to sell itself to California-based chipmaker Nvidia Corp for almost $7 billion. Intel lost the bidding war to Nvidia. Russell Ellwanger, the CEO of another major chip manufacturer TowerJazz, said his company’s growth in China “is very, very strong”.

(Additional reporting by Josh Horwitz in Shanghai and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; editing by Anna Willard)

Source: OANN

0 0

South Korea February exports seen sliding most in nearly three years: Reuters poll

FILE PHOTO : A truck drives between shipping containers at a container terminal at Incheon port in Incheon
FILE PHOTO: A truck drives between shipping containers at a container terminal at Incheon port in Incheon, South Korea, May 26, 2016.REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

February 26, 2019

By Hayoung Choi and Cynthia Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean exports likely fell the most in nearly three years in February as China demand falters, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday, pointing to further stresses caused by the Sino-U.S. trade conflict.

Exports are expected to have contracted 10.8 percent from the same period a year earlier, the third consecutive month of declines and a much sharper drop than January, according to a median estimate of 12 economists. Exports fell 5.8 percent in January.

Imports were predicted to shrink for a second straight month, falling 11.6 percent in February compared with a dip of 1.3 percent in January.

Analysts said exports from Asia’s fourth-largest economy would remain subdued possibly until the third quarter on cooling demand in China, its biggest trading partner.

“Korean export growth will bottom out in the third quarter, as Chinese growth starts rebounding in the second quarter,” said Lee Seung-hoon, an analyst at Meritz Securities. “For the full year, we see exports shrinking by 4 percent.”

Though trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing appear to be making some progress, export-driven Asian countries including South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are reeling from disruptions in supply chains.

“Given the easing trade frictions and emerging impact of Chinese stimulus measures, trade performance will rebound gradually,” said Park Sang-hyun, an economist from HI Investment.

South Korea, the world’s sixth-largest exporter and biggest manufacturer of memory chips, also has been squeezed by the falling price of micro-chips and petroleum products, its other key export.

For the first 20 days in February, South Korea’s overseas sales fell 11.7 percent, with sales of memory chips and petroleum goods falling by 27.1 percent and 24.5 percent, respectively. By destination, exports to China tumbled 13.6 percent.

Survey respondents also forecast the February headline inflation rate would ease to 0.5 percent on-year versus 0.8 percent in January, remaining firmly below the central bank’s 2-percent target.

Despite falling exports, January industrial output is expected to have narrowly avoided contraction by gaining a mere 0.2 percent from a month earlier, versus the 1.4 percent decline in December.

January industrial output data will be out at 2300 GMT on Wednesday. Trade data are scheduled to be published at 0000 GMT on Friday, while the inflation figures will be released at 2300 GMT on March 4.

(Additional reporting by Yuna Park; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

0 0

Euro zone headline, core inflation slows in March, February jobless stable

Vintage cameras are on decorative display in the shop window of a photo studio in Altenburg
Vintage cameras are on decorative display in the shop window of a photo studio in Altenburg, September 10, 2014. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

April 1, 2019

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone headline and core inflation slowed in March, flash estimates showed on Monday, supporting the European Central Bank’s decision to delay a planned tightening of monetary policy.

The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said consumer prices in the 19 countries sharing the euro grew 1.4 percent year-on-year in March, against market expectation of no change from February’s 1.5 percent.

Energy prices were the only major component of the index that accelerated in March, to a rise of 5.3 percent year-on-year from 3.6 percent in February. Growth of all other components was slower.

Excluding the volatile energy and unprocessed food contributions — what the ECB calls core inflation and watches closely in policy decisions — consumer prices rose 1.0 percent year-on-year, decelerating from 1.2 percent in February.

Markets had expected an unchanged reading.

An even narrower measure, excluding also alcohol and tobacco and watched closely by market economists also decelerated to 0.8 percent from 1.0 percent in February, against the average expectation of 0.9 percent in a Reuters poll of analysts.

The ECB wants to keep headline inflation below, but close to 2 percent over the medium term and reversed course in March to put off plans to “normalize” its very loose monetary policy.

Instead it decided to provide banks with even more liquidity and delaying a rate increase until next year.

ECB board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger said in a newspaper interview on Monday that euro zone inflation would take longer to rise as political uncertainty is weighing on growth and that the ECB had underestimated slack in the labor market.

Eurostat data showed separately that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.8 percent of the workforce in February against January, but in the number of people out of a job fell to 12.730 million from 12.807 million in January.

(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)

Source: OANN

0 0

Trump fine with releasing Mueller report without White House seeing it: Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News host Shannon Bream on Tuesday that President Trump will not ask to see Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election before it's made public.

Mueller's highly-anticipated report found no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy after a nearly two-year long investigation deemed a "witch hunt" by Trump almost daily.

TRUMP TURNS UP HEAT ON MEDIA AFTER MUELLER REPORT, RENEWS ‘ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE’ LABEL

“I talked to him just a few minutes ago, the president, and he said let it out,” Graham told Bream on “Fox News @ Night." “There'll be some things in there I think will be interesting in terms of conversations. But the bottom line here is that Mueller has looked at this for two and a half years. He's concluded that no one on the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians and that the facts regarding obstruction were insufficient for him to make a decision.”

Graham, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, predicted Attorney General William Barr will turn the report "over to the committee and then I think he'll come to the Senate hopefully sometime in April." He said it needs to be screened to make sure no sensitive information is released, such as grand jury information, which is legally prohibited from being released, and intelligence sources and methods.

TRUMP ALLIES AWAIT RESULTS OF TWO INTERNAL PROBES THAT COULD EXPOSE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION BACKSTORY

Democrats are pressing Barr to release the full report instead of a summary of the main conclusion points. Some point to the more than 30 indictments of Trump aides and attorneys since the investigations began.

Mueller did not determine whether Trump obstructed justice and Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein found insufficient evidence to determine whether he committed a crime.

Graham reminded Bream that nobody was indicted for collusion with Russia and urged Democrats to accept Mueller’s findings and move on.

“Now I'll say this if they don't accept this and they keep warning and outcome in spite of the evidence they're going to get President Trump re-elected on this issue alone,” he said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

On Monday, Graham said he will probe alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) at the start of the Russia investigation and called on Barr to appoint a new special counsel to “investigate the other side.”

“Somebody’s got to decide if there’s criminal responsibility on the other side,” Graham told Bream. “If we don’t look at how it got so off the rails. If we don’t look at this accusation against the president came about, then shame on us.”

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Roadside bomb kills 2 in southwestern Pakistan

Police in Pakistan say a roadside bomb went off in a market, killing two people and wounding seven.

Police official Jamil Ahmed says Thursday's blast, near the town of Panjgur, about 800 kilometers (480 miles) south of Quetta, damaged shops and vehicles.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the southwestern Baluchistan province, where the attack took place, has seen previous attacks by Islamic militants and separatists.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

VW’s Slovak unit vows to increase efficiency, curb wage growth

The logo of Volkswagen carmaker is seen at the entrance of a showroom in Nice
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Volkswagen carmaker is seen at the entrance of a showroom in Nice, France, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

April 17, 2019

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Volkswagen’s Slovak unit pledged on Wednesday to increase efficiency by 30 percent by 2020 to get ahead of the company-wide savings drive as it seeks to raise its competitiveness within the group.

The country’s biggest car plant and largest private sector employer has seen investment of 2.8 billion euros ($3.16 billion) since 2010 but its focus on SUVs leaves it vulnerable to an EU drive to cut CO2 emissions and VW’s aim to launch almost 70 new electric models by 2028.

Bratislava makes electric versions of the Volkswagen up!, Seat Mii and Skoda Citigo but no plans have yet been made for models built on VW’s electric vehicle platform.

The plant, which made 408,208 cars last year mostly for the Chinese, U.S. and German markets, is in the running to produce several new models, VW Slovak Chief Executive Oliver Grunberg told a news conference.

“To put Slovakia on the forefront of the company’s factories, we aim to increase efficiency by 30 percent already in 2019-2020, five years earlier than the company-wide target,” he said.

The plans include reduction of its 14,800 staff by 3,000 this year and slower wage growth.

“We need (unions) to contribute to raising VW’s competitiveness, perhaps not take two steps ahead but half a step instead,” Grunberg said. “We expect slower wage growth.”

Workers at the factory went on strike two years ago over pay. VW Slovakia agreed then to hike wages by 4.7 percent from June 2017, followed by a 4.7 percent rise in January 2018 and 4.1 percent from last November.

“We will prefer guarantees of job stability over wage growth in the ongoing round of collective bargaining,” VW union chief Zoroslav Smolinsky told Reuters on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova, editing by Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



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

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRENDING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the OPEC is seen at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy near Lyon
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy in Meyzieu near Lyon, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot

April 26, 2019

By Julien Pretot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SAME TREATMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘ONE CLUB’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. Picture taken November 7. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

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

1/DOLLAR JUGGERNAUT

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

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

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

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

2/FED: UP OR DOWN?

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

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

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

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

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

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

3/HEISEI TO REIWA

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

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

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

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

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

4/EARNING TURNING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5/WAITING FOR THE OLD LADY

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist