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North Carolina GOP chairman steps down after federal bribery, fraud charges

The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party is stepping down from his post, after he was charged on federal bribery and wire fraud counts.

The state GOP said Wednesday that Chairman Robin Hayes would cede control to a regional party leader, but would keep the title of chairman until a new election for the post in June.

NORTH CAROLINA GOP CHAIRMAN, OTHERS INDICTED ON BRIBERY AND FRAUD CHARGES

Hayes, who served from 1999 to 2009 in Congress, and Greg Lindberg, the founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC and owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group, were among four people charged in the federal indictments unsealed on Tuesday.

Hayes, Lindberg and his two associates are accused of trying to sway an insurance regulator’s decisions in favor of the donor’s insurance companies. Federal prosecutors said that the four individuals promised or gave Republican Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey millions of campaign dollars to do things Lindberg wanted, including seeking the removal of a deputy insurance commissioner responsible for oversight of one of Lindberg’s businesses.

Hayes also was charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI.

FBI agents interviewed Hayes in August 2018 about his involvement with and knowledge of the alleged misconduct and alleged improper campaign contributions. During that interview, Hayes allegedly lied to FBI agents about directing funds at Lindberg’s request, among other things.

US FALLS IN GLOBAL CORRUPTION RANKING REPORT

A lawyer for Hayes reportedly said his client "steadfastly" denies the allegations.

“Greg Lindberg is innocent of the charges in the indictment and we look forward to demonstrating this when we get our day in court,” Lindberg's attorney Anne Tompkins also told Fox News.

“The indictment unsealed today outlines a brazen bribery scheme in which Greg Lindberg and his coconspirators allegedly offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for official action that would benefit Lindberg’s business interests,” Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski said in a statement. “Bribery of public officials at any level of government undermines confidence in our political system.  The Criminal Division will use all the tools at our disposal—including the assistance of law-abiding public officials—to relentlessly investigate and prosecute corruption wherever we find it.”

The indictment amounted to the latest political scandal to rock the state. Earlier this year, an operative allegedly at the center of a ballot fraud scandal was indicted for illegal possession of absentee ballots and obstruction of justice.

This was after the North Carolina State Board of Election decided to call a new election in the 9th congressional district because of questions surrounding the legitimacy of the victory claimed by Republican Mark Harris, who had hired the later-indicted operative.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Pentagon chief says $1 billion of funding shifted to border wall

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Shanahan speaks at CSIS policy forum in Washington
Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan speaks at a “Strategic National Security Space: FY2020 Budget and Policy Forum,” hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

March 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Defense shifted $1 billion to plan and build a 57-mile section of “pedestrian fencing”, roads and lighting along the border between the United States and Mexico, the Pentagon chief said on Monday.

Last week, the Pentagon gave Congress a list that included $12.8 billion of construction projects for which it said funds could be redirected for construction along the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency last month in a bid to fund his promised border wall without congressional approval.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said in a memo to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen that the Department of Defense had the authority to support counter-narcotics activities near international boundaries.

Shanahan authorized the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to begin planning and executing the project that would involve building 57 miles of 18-foot-high fencing, constructing and improving roads, and installing lighting within the Yuma and El Paso sections of the U.S.-Mexico border.

(Reporting by Mike Stone; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: OANN

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Several Ole Miss athletes kneel during anthem over a nearby Confederacy rally: report

Several college athletes in Mississippi took a knee on Saturday as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played ahead of their basketball game.

The symbolic action by members of the men’s Ole Miss team came in response to a Confederacy rally unfolding near their arena, according to The Associated Press.

NIKE LAUNCHES ‘ICON’ KAEPERNICK JERSEY DAYS AFTER NFL COLLUSION CASE SETTLEMENT

The team was facing off against Georgia, and as the squad lined up near the foul line for the national anthem, six players knelt down, as documented by a photo of the action. Two more players reportedly joined them as the song neared its close.

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Not far away, a pair of pro-Confederate groups had staged a march in favor of a Confederate statue in the area, according to WLBT.

Various student groups held counterprotests on campus on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, one began on the city square and ended at the Confederate monument in the heart of the Ole Miss campus.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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No Country Can Survive Being Run By Traitors

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CFR's Snyder: Need to See More From Trump Out of Summit

President Donald Trump has set too low a bar for North Korea, says the director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Trump and Kim are set to meet next week in Vietnam for their second summit.

"There is a good team, but one of the things I worry about is how well President Trump is working with his team and the other issue is that President Trump has set too low a bar by saying he would be happy just with nuclear and missile testing restraint from North Korea," Scott Snyder during an interview with Bloomberg.

"We really need to see more coming out of this meeting, including an actual process where we are addressing denuclearization along with peace."

The U.S. and North Korea started diplomatic efforts last year, and since the North has suspended nuclear and missile tests and dismantled its nuclear testing site and parts of its long-range rocket launch facility.

Kim, though, might want sanctions relief to do more.

"For North Korea, abandoning the Yongbyon complex is a fairly big (negotiating) card . . . so the North will likely try to win some economic benefits," Chon Hyun-joon, president of the Institute of Northeast Asia Peace Cooperation Studies in South Korea, said last week.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Airbus says A320neo India deliveries back on track

An Airbus A320neo aircraft is pictured during a news conference to announce a partnership between Airbus and Bombardier on the C Series aircraft programme, in Colomiers near Toulouse
An Airbus A320neo aircraft is pictured during a news conference to announce a partnership between Airbus and Bombardier on the C Series aircraft programme, in Colomiers near Toulouse, France, October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

February 20, 2019

By Aditi Shah

Bengaluru (Reuters) – European aircraft maker Airbus deliveries of its A320neo aircraft are back on track in India with fewer problems being seen with the narrowbody jet’s Pratt & Whitney engines, a senior company executive said on Wednesday.

“Pratt has informed Airbus that engine issues have come down by a factor of four in the last 12 months,” said Airbus’ India head Anand Stanley, on the sidelines of the Aero India airshow in Bengaluru.

Last month, India’s aviation safety watchdog forced airlines to make extra checks on their Airbus A320neo aircraft fitted with Pratt & Whitney engines, as part of new safety protocols after temporary grounding orders affected the planes last year.

IndiGo, India’s biggest carrier by market share, and its low-cost rival GoAir, both fly the A320neos.

The aircraft, which entered service in early 2016, boasts significant fuel efficiency benefits, but it has been plagued by teething issues with its engines that have forced Interglobe Aviation-owned IndiGo and Wadia Group-owned GoAir to regularly ground a number of the planes.

This caused a backlog in deliveries of the planes by Airbus.

IndiGo has over 60 A320neos in its fleet and is one of Airbus’ biggest global customer with over 400 more A320neo and A321neo jets on order. GoAir has about 30 A320neos in its fleet and over 100 more of the jets ordered.

Stanley said that the reliability rate on A320neo engines is now 99.6 percent and that it has retrofitted engines of about 95 percent of the A320neos in service. It expects to finish work on the remainder in the next two months.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Writing by Euan Rocha; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Source: OANN

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Nicaragua 'marathon man' protester defiant from house arrest

Grasping the iron bars at his home, Alex Vanegas is taken back to the dark prison cells where he spent the previous four months talking to fellow inmates through holes in the walls that also let in rats, scorpions and cockroaches.

During the unrest that rocked Nicaragua last year, Vanegas became a prominent symbol of opposition to President Daniel Ortega, instantly recognizable for his salt-and-pepper beard and shirts emblazoned with anti-government slogans as he jogged through the streets of Managua in the blue and white of his country's flag.

Arrested again and again, he was conditionally released in late February after four months in jail but is now barred from leaving his house.

Being cooped up hasn't cooled Vanegas' defiant belief that Ortega must leave office, even if for now he has to eschew public protest.

"All Nicaragua is a prison," the diminutive 62-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview.

A longtime athlete, Vanegas competed in track tournaments until he was 46, when he retired due to various maladies. He worked as a business administrator and in sales, and he also managed a roving DJ business.

Vanegas was moved to run again when student-led demonstrators took to the streets nearly a year ago to demand that Ortega leave office and allow early elections — only for hundreds to die in a crackdown by security forces and armed civilian militias backing the president.

"On April 20 I was watching television and I saw Alvarito Conrado die," Vanegas said, referring to a 15-year-old shot in the neck as he carried water to university students hunkered down at a barricade. "I was filled with anger, and I decided to run as a way of releasing that rage and that sorrow."

He began by running around traffic circles in the capital, many of which are adorned by huge, colorful "trees of life" metal sculptures that were sponsored by and have become synonymous with Ortega's powerful first lady and vice president, Rosario Murillo.

"At first I would do a lap for every young person killed. ... Then it was 10, 20, 30," Vanegas said. "And as every day there were more and more dead, I ran more and more laps."

Nicaraguans took notice. Many took to calling Vanegas "el maratonista" — roughly "marathon man." Others mused he was Nicaragua's version of Forrest Gump, the title character in the 1994 Oscar-winning film starring Tom Hanks.

He started receiving unsolicited gifts: hats, flags, bottles of water, a pair of shoes. Independent media outlets portrayed him as a symbol of a spreading rebellion.

"I run to force Ortega out," read the message on one of his T-shirts that, along with his cellphones, were confiscated by police each time he was arrested. They also took from him dozens of Nicaraguan flags, a symbol favored by the opposition against the red-and-black flags of Ortega's Sandinista movement.

Vanegas didn't always feel that way. As a young man, he said, he supported Ortega's struggle that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza and was jailed for four months as an urban guerrilla fighting for the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

He celebrated the triumph of the Sandinista revolution in 1979, but soon soured on what he saw as its authoritarian politics.

"Alex has become a symbol due to his bravery and his rebellion. Thousands of people love him because he represents everything that the people would like to do but can't," said activist Carla Sequeira of the non-governmental group Permanent Commission on Human Rights.

The government, not surprisingly, takes a different view.

Ortega and his allies have characterized protesters as "coup plotters" and "terrorists," and that has included Vanegas.

On Aug. 13, when Vanegas promoted a run under the slogan "Nicaragua wants justice," Murillo alluded to him by saying he was "making a fool of himself" running around in shorts. "The same ones as always — those who sell out their nation, the traitors," she added.

"I think he felt motivated by those (opposition) mobilizations and discovered that the way to show his political feeling and his solidarity was to have that permanent marathon," said Cairo Amador, a member of a truth commission created by Nicaragua's Sandinista-controlled legislature at the direction of Ortega.

Asked about Vanegas' popularity, Amador said, ironically, "It's because we don't have any other marathon runner in Nicaragua, at least not one with his constancy and perseverance."

Vanegas was arrested five times and released. Then, on Nov. 2, he was taken into custody at a Managua cemetery while accompanying victims' relatives on Day of the Dead. He spent four months behind bars.

The first 60 days were at El Chipote prison. Vanegas said he was poorly fed and had no access to sunlight, and it partially harmed his vision. The next two months were at Modelo prison, where Vanegas said he was not tortured but lived with vermin as cellmates.

The "marathon man" was one of about 100 people deemed political prisoners by rights groups who were granted conditional release Feb. 27, the same day Ortega's government resumed long-stalled talks with the Civic Alliance opposition group.

While negotiators have agreed on a roadmap for the talks, Vanegas sees the process as fraught with pitfalls "because reconciliation cannot be imposed by decree, and this government has committed crimes against humanity."

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at least 325 people were killed in the unrest and more than 2,000 wounded, while more than 50,000 fled Nicaragua. The government puts the death toll at 198.

The day after he was released, Vanegas laced up his shoes and began running through his neighborhood, surrounded a pack of journalists. Twice police detained him and warned him not to leave home.

So he stopped. The tiny, dark and cluttered house in the working-class neighborhood of La Luz is being watched day and night, he said, with police patrols passing every half hour.

Vanegas lives alone because his partner was allegedly warned she should stay away from him. His four children visit and bring food, "but they are also afraid," he said.

"I risked my life to put Daniel Ortega in power," Vanegas said, "and now he has me locked up in my own home."

Source: Fox News World

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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