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San Francisco, Los Angeles And Seattle: 3 Formerly Beautiful West Coast Cities Have Literally Been Transformed Into Hellholes

Once upon a time, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle were three of the most beautiful cities on the entire planet. 

I know that this is hard to imagine today, but there was a time when millions of people eagerly moved out to the west coast for a better quality of life.  Sadly, the reverse is true today.  Millions of people are moving away from our major cities on the west coast because of the hellholes that they have become.  A former Seattle police officer that was recently interviewed by a reporter from KOMO News  was very honest about the fact that he would never want to raise a family in Seattle because of the hellhole that it has become.  Every night he saw the worst of Seattle firsthand, and he finally felt forced to quit because city officials would not allow him to effectively do his job.  An explosion of homelessness in our major west coast cities has fueled a wave of crime, drugs and human degradation unlike anything we have seen before, and in many cases our law enforcement officials have their hands tied and are literally being prevented from cleaning up the streets.

Right now, more than half a million people are homeless in the United States.  As the economy gets worse, that number will continue to rise.

Many homeless Americans are law-abiding citizens that have just had a tough break. Everyone gets knocked down in life at some point, and we need to do all that we can to help those law-abiding citizens get back on their feet.

But because of their ultra-liberal policies, some of the major cities on the west coast have become magnets for drug addicts, serial criminals, sex offenders, illegal immigrants and people that have simply heard about all of the “free benefits” that are being offered.  As a result, the streets of those cities have become a showcase for the social decay that is sweeping across our nation.

Let’s start with San Francisco.  According to one report, it is home to more than 28,000 homeless people, and that would make San Francisco the city with the third largest homeless population in the United States.


Gerald Celente hosts and gives his expert analysis on the current trends in the economy as well as actions Trump is taking to keep the economy strong and win 2020.

Others feel like that number is way too low, and the truth is that it is exceedingly difficult to count the homeless.

After all, how are you supposed to accurately count people that don’t want to be counted?

What we do know is that San Francisco is a huge magnet for drug addicts.  The city handed out 5.8 million free syringes in 2018, and that number would seem to suggest a homeless population far in excess of 28,000.

And as all those drug addicts aimlessly wander through the streets, many of them use those streets as their own personal toilets.  Over the past 8 years, more than 118,000 reports of human feces in the streets have been filed with city authorities

Since 2011, there have been at least 118,352 reported instances of human fecal matter on city streets.

New mayor, London Breed, won election by promising to clean things up. However, conditions are the same or worse. Last year, the number of reports spiked to an all-time high at 28,084. In first quarter 2019, the pace continued with 6,676 instances of human waste in the public way.

In addition to endless piles of poop, the drug addicts are also endlessly committing property crimes in order to pay for their drug habits.

Each year, there are more than 6,000 property crimes per 100,000 residents in San Francisco.  That is about four times the rate of property crime that New York City has reported.

Mayor Breed would like to get a lot of these homeless people off of the streets, but finding a place to put them has been problematic.  Residents of one wealthy liberal neighborhood are currently fighting like mad to keep a proposed homeless shelter away from their gated mansions…

A wealthy liberal neighborhood in San Francisco whose residents cast the most votes for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election is fighting against a proposal to build a new homeless shelter near their gated mansions.

Mayor London Breed has sponsored legislation to fast track a homeless shelter that would house 200 people. However, wealthy liberals living in the affected area have set up a GoFundMe to stop the project which has already hit $80,000 of its $100,000 target.

Things are certainly not any better in Los Angeles.

According to the same report mentioned above, L.A. has nearly twice as many homeless people as San Francisco

Los Angeles has the second largest population of people exploring homelessness, according to a new report.

The LA area contains 55,200 homeless people, according to data released by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

The homeless population in L.A. has surged 75 percent in six years, and this has happened during a time when the economy has been relatively stable.

So how bad are things going to become when the economy starts getting really bad?

When I was running for Congress, one of the people that came to help the campaign had spent a lot of time in some of the worst parts of Los Angeles.  He told me about the public drug use, the constant crime and the human degradation that is seemingly everywhere.  This greatly saddened me, because Los Angeles was once a magnificent city.  In fact, at one point in my life I wanted to live there.

But not anymore.  Today, millions of people are leaving California and never looking back because of the utter hellhole the entire state has become.

Further up the coast, the city of Seattle is experiencing similar issues.  Not too long ago, a veteran Seattle reporter named Eric Johnson produced an hour-long documentary entitled “Seattle Is Dying”, and if you have not seen it yet I would strongly recommend taking the time to watch it.

Since it was first released, it has been viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube

In the past two weeks, Seattle Is Dying has garnered 38,000 shares on Facebook and nearly 2 million views on YouTube. The report has clearly resonated with anxious, fearful, and increasingly angry Seattle residents. Exhausted by a decade of rising disorder and property crime—now two-and-a-half times higher than Los Angeles’s and four times higher than New York City’s—Seattle voters may have reached the point of “compassion fatigue.” According to the Seattle Times, 53 percent of Seattle voters now support a “zero-tolerance policy” on homeless encampments; 62 percent believe that the problem is getting worse because the city “wastes money by being inefficient” and “is not accountable for how the money is spent,” and that “too many resources are spent on the wrong approaches to the problem.”

One of the moments in the documentary that really touched me was when a concerned resident described how drug addicts have been leaving needles and human waste in the graveyard near his home.  The homeless have erected tents all around the graveyard, and he can clearly smell urine whenever he walks down the streets.

He would like to fix things, and he is fed up enough that he has decided to run for city council.  But he is facing an uphill battle, because Seattle has been entirely taken over by socialists.  The following comes from Mac Slavo

The entire video is about an hour long, but it is pretty easy to see where Seattle continues to go wrong. A heavy tax burden, regulations that push out businesses, and a power-hungry group of totalitarian sociopaths have been slowly eroding the city. The decay of Western civilization can be seen up and down the entirety of the West coast. Some say it’s by design, others disagree. But the commonality is that all of the cities are being pushed into poverty by illusions and lies of socialists. Calling Seattle anything other than a leftist’s paradise would be inaccurate. The city has all of the laws the socialists want, yet it’s killing itself because of it.

In life, the decisions that we make have consequences, and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle are now experiencing the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions.

But of course they are far from alone.  All across the country there are thousands of communities where social decay is exceedingly evident, and it is getting worse with each passing year.

If we want to change the trajectory of our future, we have got to start doing things differently.

Because if we keep doing the same things, we are going to keep getting the same results, and our country is going to continue falling apart right in front of our eyes.

Source: InfoWars

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Sudan’s gum arabic dealers shrug off strife to tap fizzy drink market

FILE PHOTO: Gum arabic is seen on an Acacia trees in the western Sudanese town of El-Nahud
FILE PHOTO: Gum arabic is seen on an Acacia trees in the western Sudanese town of El-Nahud that lies in the main farming state of North Kordofan December 18, 2012. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo

February 26, 2019

By Patrick Werr

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan has faced multiple armed conflicts, economic slumps and nationwide protests, but one of its little known exports has proved resilient through all the turmoil: gum arabic, an essential ingredient in fizzy drinks.

The gum, tapped from acacia trees, is a bonding agent and emulsifier crucial for soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, keeping the sugar from separating and sinking to the bottom of the bottle.

It is so crucial to the world beverages industry that the United States specifically exempted it from the economic sanctions it imposed on Sudan in 1997 over allegations of human rights abuses and supporting terrorism.

Gum arabic is grown mainly in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile – Sudan’s poorest and most strife-ridden regions, where insurgencies have simmered for years, in a country awash with other economic obstacles.

“There has been a lack of petrol, diesel, electricity, plus the ability to transfer funds,” said Hisham Salih Yagoub, whose company Afritec cleans, dries and processes 17,000 tonnes a year before sending it to France for further processing.

The gum, also used in paints, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, comes from two species of acacia tree native to the Sahel, the narrow strip of arid land along the Sahara’s southern border.

Sudan, with the densest acacia forests of them all, is the world’s largest exporter, accounting for two-thirds of the total, according to a 2018 UNCTAD report.

Despite the problems, Sudan’s gum arabic exports have grown from $33.1 million in 2009, when the government ended a state monopoly on the business, to $114.7 million in 2017, according to central bank statistics.

TRADING OBSTACLES

But getting that product to international markets has not been easy.

Last year a new problem emerged, a shortage of Sudanese banknotes needed to pay the gum collectors, most of whom live in remote and rudimentary conditions at the edge of the desert.

The collectors are often family groups of about ten members who begin tapping the trees in late September by making a cut in the trunk using a special knife.

About 40 days after the acacias are wounded, the sap oozes out and hardens into beads. The tree requires daily attention. If left unpicked for two or three days the beads cover up and the tree stops bleeding, maybe for the rest of the season, which lasts until May or June.

Tapped correctly – no more than 2 cm deep at the right time – the best trees will produce up to 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) per day. Deeper wounds can cause a tree to stop producing for months.

Afritec’s Yagoub said the banknote shortage has largely stopped him from buying this season. “Some farmers have been accepting checks but it costs 15 percent more,” he said.

But Azhari Eltigani Elsheikh, whose company Migana Industries exports 10,000 tonnes of gum a year, continues to buy, saying his 20-year relationship with his pickers and agents has created trust, allowing him to buy with promises to deliver cash later.

The gum is taken from the auctions for cleaning, drying and processing at plants in Khartoum, then loaded into containers for shipment to Europe.

Yet despite the exemption from sanctions, exporters have had to work around separate U.S. financial sanctions imposed on Sudanese banks.

Yagoub exports to Nexira, a specialties food company based in Rouen, France.

To avoid settling in dollars and exposing themselves to U.S. scrutiny, both Nexira and Yagoub’s bank, the Bank of Khartoum, have opened euro-denominated accounts in KBC, a Belgian bank, with funds moved discreetly within the bank, Yagoub said.

Elsheikh has followed an even more circuitous route, setting up trading companies in Britain and the UAE and channelling payments through the Emirates. Transfers can take six months.

Even with Sudan’s political turmoil, both Yagoub and Elsheikh have plans to expand their operations.

“The land, the studies are ready,” Yagoub said.

(Reporting by Patrick Werr; editing by Sami Aboudi and Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

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Senior British politician Diane Abbott apologizes after photo captures her drinking on train

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott has apologized after she was pictured drinking alcohol on a London Overground train.

Abbott, 65, tweeted: “A photo of me drinking from a can of M&S [British supermarket chain Marks & Spencer] mojito on the Overground has been circulated. I’m sincerely sorry for drinking on TFL.”

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It is illegal to consume alcohol on any bus or train run by Transport for London’s network, the BBC reported. The rule was introduced in 2008 by Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London. The Sun obtained a photo of the politician drinking the alcoholic drink.

Abbott, Labour’s spokeswoman for domestic affairs, previously campaigned to cease the sale of inexpensive alcohol, received some support from social media users who gave her their best alcoholic suggestions.

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“It’s absolutely fine. I’m sorry your privacy was invaded,” writer and producer Simon Blackwell responded.

“No need to apologize..next time try Pink Gin with Rose Lemonade… very refreshing,” a tweet read.

Source: Fox News World

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China defends Tibet policies, bashes exile government

Chinese officials responsible for Tibet are praising development in the Himalayan region in the 60 years since the suppression of an uprising against Beijing's rule.

Executive vice governor Norbu Dondrup on Wednesday reviewed gains in the economy, health care and education since 1959 and castigated the self-declared government-in-exile established by Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama as illegitimate. The now-83-year-old Dalai Lama fled to India after the uprising was suppressed.

Dordrup also repeatedly emphasized that journalists must travel to Tibet to see for themselves the conditions there, even though China heavily restricts such travel.

The U.S. State Department issued a report on Monday saying China's government "systematically impeded travel" to Tibet and Tibetan areas outside the official Tibetan Autonomous Region for U.S. diplomats and officials, journalists, and tourists in 2018.

Source: Fox News World

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Students Blame Chelsea Clinton for Christchurch Massacre, Force Her to Apologize

On Friday, a gunman opened fire at two mosques in New Zealand’s Christchurch, killing 49 people. Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton was among the many people who condemned the violence, saying that we “need a global response to the global threat of violent white nationalism”.

Chelsea Clinton was confronted by a group of New York University students over her stance on Muslims at a vigil for the New Zealand mosque attacks on Friday.

“I’m so sorry that you feel that way. It was certainly never my intention. I do believe words matter. I believe we have to show solidarity,” Clinton told students who accosted her at the vigil.

“This, right here, is the result of the massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you have put out into the world,” a female student responded. “I want you to know that. I want you to feel that deep inside. The 49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there.”

“I’m so sorry that you feel that way,” Clinton repeated.

“I don’t think…” the girl replied, when another student interrupted: “What does ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ mean? What does that mean?”

The girl who was seen calling out Clinton in the video appears to be a pro-Palestine Muslim activist and a sympathiser of the Black Lives Matter movement.

She refused to apologise for her words and explained that she didn’t plan the confrontation. However, she added she would still attempt to “disrupt” Clinton if she spoke and say the same things she said in the recorded exchange.

“I didn’t tell Chelsea Clinton she was the one who put a gun to Muslims’ heads,” she tweeted. “I said, and continue to say, that by jumping on the right-wing bandwagon and vilifying Ilhan Omar, she fed into the exact discourse we were at the vigil to protest.”

It was an apparent reference to a scandal that erupted last month after Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar said that pro-Israeli lobbying groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), buys support for the Jewish state from US Congress.

Her comments were met with backlash from members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. Clinton also joined in, tweeting: “We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism.”

Omar was forced to apologise, saying that her “Jewish allies” educated her “on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes”.

The row resulted in the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passing a resolution that condemned hate speech.

The Clinton-activist confrontation has made waves on social media, with many commenters — even those from the right — siding with the former first daughter.


Reports are now emerging that the Mosque shooter is not the white “Christian conservative” the MSM says that he is. Alex Jones exposes the false narrative surrounding this tragedy.

Source: InfoWars

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Putin: nothing wrong with us giving passports to east Ukraine residents

Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok
Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok, Russia April 25, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

April 25, 2019

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday a decision to give residents of Ukrainian rebel regions fast-track access to Russian passports was no different from what European Union states were already doing.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Putin said that both Romania and Hungary grant citizenship to their own ethnic kin living outside their borders.

He said it was strange that Kiev had reacted angrily to the Russian move on passports. On Ukraine’s president-elect, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he said Moscow was willing to work with him if he implemented an international peace accord on east Ukraine.

(Reporting by Vkladimir Soldatkin and Maria Vasilyeva; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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Proposed Embarcadero Waterfront Homeless Shelter Not A Treat For San Francisco Residents

Whitney Tipton | Contributor

The Port Commission of San Francisco is set to approve a prime Embarcadero waterfront location for what will be the largest homeless shelter in the city.

The commissioners, appointed by the mayor, are scheduled to vote on the proposal April 23. It is expected to be approved. “The commission is likely to support the mayor’s proposal, but has a strong track record of engaging with the community,” said Elaine Forbes, the port’s executive director, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

The facility, called a “SAFE Navigation Center,” (Shelter Access For Everyone) is planned to house at least 175 people and provide comprehensive social services for the area’s homeless, including care for pets and access to storage, according to Jeff Kositsky, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

The Embarcadero district of San Francisco looking toward the Oakland Bay Bridge is seen from the Coit Tower in this photo taken July 13, 2008. A 27.1 percent slump in June from a year earlier pushed the median price paid for a home in the San Francisco Bay area, one of the priciest U.S. housing markets, to below $500,000 for the first time in four years, a report said July 17, 2008. Photo taken July 13, 2008. REUTERS/Lisa Baertlein

The Embarcadero district of San Francisco looking toward the Oakland Bay Bridge is seen from the Coit Tower in this photo taken July 13, 2008. REUTERS/Lisa Baertlein

The shelter will be located at Seawall Lot 330, directly across from piers 30/32, and is estimated to be open for four years. The area around the proposed shelter site is densely residential, consisting mainly of high-end apartment homes in the Rincon Hill and South Beach neighborhoods, ranging from $750,000 to millions of dollars, per Zillow.

San Francisco has an average daily homeless population of 7,500, according to the 2017 San Francisco Homeless Count & Survey, and an estimated 4,300 sleep on the streets each night. Democratic Mayor London Breed announced her plan last October to add 1000 beds for the city’s homeless by the end of 2020.

She unveiled the proposed shelter site on March 4. “To help those living on our streets, we need to meet people with shelters and services where they are,” Breed said in a statement. “The waterfront has a number of challenges around homelessness.” Seawall Lot 330 is owned by the Port of San Francisco, so the Port Commission’s approval is required.

To speed up the project, Breed introduced legislation in January declaring a shelter crisis for San Francisco, along with ordinances to expedite developmental red tape. Eight days after the announcement, residents were invited to share concerns at the Port Commission’s scheduled March 12 meeting.

The public comments were overwhelming negative, with many residents displaying visible emotion during speeches, which were limited to two minutes each. Most of their issues related to increased crime, drugs, loitering and garbage. The meeting was broadcast on San Francisco Government TV.

“We’ve seen more homeless folks on the waterfront, sleeping inside of pier sheds that are vacant. More people are showing signs of needing care and shelter. We, like the rest of the city, have been experiencing more homelessness issues, and we want to find real solutions to address this humanitarian crisis.” (RELATED: Remember The Failing Homeless Shelter In The San Francisco School Gym? Board Members Try To Keep It Around By Increasing Access To More Families)

Follow Whitney on Twitter

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Source: The Daily Caller

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Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.

Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.

School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.

The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.

South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.

Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.

Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.

He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”

Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.

Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.

Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.

Source: Fox News World

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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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