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Anti-government protests erupt in Nicaragua after extended pause

A demonstrator gestures as he is detained by riot police during a protest against the government of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega in Managua
A demonstrator gestures as he is detained by riot police during a protest against the government of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega in Managua, Nicaragua March 16, 2019. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas

March 17, 2019

MANAGUA (Reuters) – Protesters targeting Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega took to the streets on Saturday, demanding the release of all political prisoners and turning up the heat on the political crisis that has consumed the country since last year.

Protest organizers and witnesses told Reuters that some protesters who gathered at various points in Managua, the capital, were beaten by police, who since November have enforced a ban on street protests. Videos circulating on social media from the protests also showed police hitting civilians.

The national police defended the arrest of 107 protesters in a statement issued late Saturday, arguing that those detained participated in protests that “were not authorized and that interrupted public order and local business.”

But the statement went on to note that all those arrested on Saturday were being released following a request from a Vatican representative in Nicaragua.

Protests in the Central American nation first erupted in April when Ortega’s leftist government moved to reduce welfare benefits, but since then have escalated into broader opposition to Ortega, a Cold War-era former Marxist guerilla leader who has been in office since 2007.

Since April, more than 320 people have been killed and some 600 others that the opposition describes as political prisoners remain detained, according to figures from human rights groups.

Government officials released a group of 50 prisoners on Friday following demands by the opposition for more detainees to be freed before the political talks could continue.

The government released 100 others in late February when it launched a political dialogue with the opposition.

Last month, Ortega said he was willing to reform state institutions ahead of presidential elections in 2021.

(Reporting by Ismael Lopez in Managua; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Source: OANN

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Reporter's Notebook: Catholic Church faces its demons in clergy-abuse summit

In less than 48 hours, about 200 bishops, the heads of Catholic Conferences from around the world, and prominent clergy, will gather in Rome at the Vatican to begin an unprecedented summit on clergy abuse. The official title of the three-day event is the Meeting on the Protection of Minors. But another title could be "The Catholic Church Facing its Demons."

There are two schools of thought about the importance of the meeting. Some pundits say this event is all for show, a response to critics and victims who claim the Catholic Church is more concerned about itself than really solving the issue of clergy sex abuse. The other attitude is that finally the Church, with Pope Francis as its head, is doing something to end the scourge.

But because of the two disparate ideas, all agree, the stakes are high.

Anne Barrett Doyle, the director of Bishop Accountability, says, "The Catholics of the world are grieving and disillusioned. I know I am."

Doyle will be one of the presenters at the meeting, and she says she knows what must happen for this to stop. "Canon law has to be changed, not tweaked, not modified but fundamentally changed so that it stops prioritizing the priesthood of ordained men over the lives of children and vulnerable adults who are sexually assaulted by them."

The Catholic Church has been actively responding to clergy abuse since the 1980s beginning with The Badgely Report out of Canada. Then in 1987 the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Canadian version of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, issued guidelines for Catholic Dioceses. A couple of years after that, the Canadian Church faced its biggest sex scandal, and one of the largest globally, involving the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada.

This was more than a decade before the same bombshell would hit Boston, after the Boston Globe exposed the cover-up of cases by Cardinal Bernard Law. Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston. He died in 2017 in Rome.

In response to the crisis, American bishops created the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which is still in play today.

But in the years since Canada and Boston, the Church has had many responses globally to clergy abuse, many Archdioceses and Dioceses creating charters, guidelines and boards to combat the problem. Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Germany, France, Iceland, Mexico, Poland, Uruguay, are just some of the few. What it shows is that the problem is global. There's something universal about clergy abuse that Pope Francis is trying to address.

In 2004 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned a study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice to research the "scope of the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clergy." One thing the report talked about that has resurfaced ahead of the Summit, is the issue of homosexuality. In fact a controversial book coming out the day the summit begins, claims some 80 percent of the churchmen at the Vatican are gay. And that one reason ex-Cardinal, ex-priest Theodore McCarrick was able to rise through the ranks and become so powerful as the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., was because he was part of that network. Pope Francis over the weekend, laicized the 88-year-old McCarrick, defrocking him, over his abuse of a minor, and many seminarians over several decades.

VATICAN DEFROCKS FORMER U.S. CARDINAL FOR SEX ABUSE

But Phil Saviano, a Church sex abuse survivor says, "My feeling is that there has been a lot of scapegoating of homosexual men as being child predators and I've sometimes thought that that was, that's been a dodge, that's been an excuse that they've used which is not based on any sort of reality because I don't think that having a homosexual orientation automatically means that you're sexually attracted to children."

Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich, one of four Summit organizers, addressed it as well. Saviano was pleased with Cupich's response saying, "He said that we are not trying to screen out homosexuals, that we are trying to come up with a set of rules that people will abide by, I took that as something that was encouraging."

Some see McCarrick as the poster priest for what's wrong with the abuse crisis; Bishops looking the other way and responding first as administrators and less like pastors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pope Francis has touted a 'zero tolerance' policy; he has met with victims of clergy abuse. And as stated earlier, the various Church dicasteries and dioceses have issued plenty of guidelines. But turning words into action has been the major problem. The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report of last summer proved that. Three hundred predator priests and a thousand victims over a seventy-year period. It shows there's a disconnect between what the Church says and what its followers do.

But maybe there's another problem that should be looked into.

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While in the mainstream media the legal and civil penalties of clergy abuse have been debated and dissected, the spiritual, not as much. It could be because mainstream media is not as interested in it or doesn't believe in it. But let's assume there is a spiritual element to the problem. I would then refer to C.S. Lewis's take on what's happening. He wrote a very chilling story called The Screwtape Letters. The book is about a senior devil named Screwtape, writing to a junior Devil, of how to corrupt the enemy. The enemy, of course, is God. I call the book chilling because of how subtly the corruption is perpetrated. It's not in Hollywood-style special effects, but in the mundane of the everyday; a casual attitude, a compulsiveness about the little things. But it's in the epilogue that we find what could very well apply to the clergy abuse. The Devils have a big banquet. And during the grand speech they toast to the fine wine of Pharisee and priest. Because the best way to destroy God is through the altar. Take down the shepherds, and the sheep will flee.

Let's hope this Summit is the beginning of the end for Screwtape and his antics.

Source: Fox News World

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Report: Automated “Robo-Debt” Program Related to Over 2000 Deaths

An estimated 2030 Australians on some form of income support in the nation have died after the government branch tasked with guaranteeing their payments sent threatening and often factually incorrect letters warning of cancellation.

At least 2030 recipients of Centrelink’s basic human services in Australia died over a two-year period following the initiation of a ‘robo-debt’ machine-automation program to address discrepancies in income support payment data.
According to reports, after Canberra placed much of its human services branch into the digital realm, hundreds of thousands of resource recipients — particularly those considered to be psychologically ‘at-risk’ — mistakenly received letters between July 2016 and October 2018 demanding new proofs for payment eligibility, resulting in the deaths of over 2030 people, cited by Abc.net.au.

Canberra’s Centrelink program supplies income support and many other services including healthcare to pensioners, indigenous Australians, military veterans, students and families with small children, among many other social groups. An estimated 5.1 million people were noted to depend upon one or another of the services, according to the most recent data.

Alex Jones breaks down how devices with artificial intelligence embedded in the applications, aka ‘smart’, are being used for surveillance as well as electromagnetic stimuli to control peoples’ thoughts, feelings, and actions for an ultimate act of mass suggestion that will collapse society.

The machine-generated letters threaten discontinuance of payment, a life-event profound enough to see many recipients become at-risk for suicide, according to medical and government observers.

“Because of the way the system works at the moment, people don’t feel confident or don’t feel safe or trust the person that they’re reporting to flag that they feel vulnerable, or flag that they might have poor mental health at the time,” Greens Senator Rachel Siewert noted, cited by Abc.net.au.
Siewert pointed to evidence gleaned from a Senate inquiry revealing that debt notices received by at-risk people — particularly those received in error — can result in deep depression and thoughts of suicide.

Centrelink’s robo-debt program, designed originally to streamline a massive government aid program, has instead resulted in placing the onus of proof for false cancellation notices on the recipient, even as customer services are increasingly automated, according to reports.

“People talk about feeling stressed and anxious through the system, feeling humiliated and they get depressed,” Siewert observed, adding that the use of a machine interface “sets alarm bells for me,” due to “the high proportion of people with vulnerabilities.”

“This should be ringing alarm bells for the Government in terms of further investigation,” she added.
Canberra’s Centrelink program, as a money-saving gesture, began in July 2016 to use an unidentified software platform to match recipient’s welfare payments to their tax records.

(Photo by Geralt / Pixabay / CC0 Creative Commons)

As the robo-debt program was rolled out, the standard 20,000 letters sent annually became 20,000 letters a week, often overwhelming payees with additional requests for information as well as, in many cases, relying on factually incorrect data.

“Robodebt has unleashed thousands of debt notices in error to parents, people with disabilities, carers, students and people seeking paid work, resulting in people slapped with Centrelink debts they do not owe or debts higher than they owe,” declared Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) head Dr. Cassandra Goldie, cited by Abc.net.au.

“It has been a devastating abuse of government power that has caused extensive harm, particularly among people who are the most vulnerable in our community,” Goldie said.

In many cases, unnecessarily aggressive demands from debt-collection agencies hired by Centrelink have been alleged to be contributing to the suicides of recipients.

“People with severe depression don’t handle financial pressure,’ stated one victim’s mother, who added that in debt-collection letters sent to her son, the robo-debt “numbers didn’t make sense,” cited by Abc.net.au.

Owen Shroyer explains how independent media helped bring out the facts about Jussie’s story before that could happen.

Source: InfoWars

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War Room – 2019-Mar-27, Wednesday – Democrats And Media Caught Red Handed Staging And Lying About Russian Collusion

The failed Russian Collusion narrative continues to expose the Democrats and the fake news media as the liars they are, as the Smollet hoax exposes the double tier justice system in America. George Papadopoulos joins The War Room to drop an exclusive bomb shell when it comes to the Russian Collusion witch hunt.

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Source: The War Room

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Liz Cheney: Dangerous to Charge Allies 'Rent' to Host US Troops

President Donald Trump’s reported intent to charge NATO countries a huge premium for hosting U.S. military bases would be “devastating,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., chair of the House GOP Conference said Sunday.

In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Cheney was adamant that charging our allies “rent” would be dangerous.

According to Bloomberg News the administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other country hosting U.S. troops pay the full price of American soldiers deployed there — plus 50 percent or more for hosting them.

“I think it would be absolutely devastating,” Cheney said of such a move — and declared “I won’t” support Trump on it.

“I think it's going to be very important for us to make sure that people understand the danger that will do to our relationships and to our fundamental security,” she said. “Our security, we've been able to protect it because of our alliances and because we have been able to work with countries. We should not look at this that we need to charge them rent for the privilege of having our forces there because that does us a huge benefit, as well.”

Cheney also elaborated on why last week she voted against a House resolution condemning hate, lamenting that House Democrats are “protecting” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who has lashed out at pro-Israel lobbyists and supports in terms condemned as anti-Semitic.

“I decided to vote against it because I think it was an effort to protect Omar, by refusing to name her,” Cheney said. “The Democrats have yet to take any action to remove her from her committee. And they have a real problem. The extent to which they are abiding by anti-semitism, enabling anti-semitism in their party is something they struggle with. I hope they will be able to stand up and do the right thing.”

Cheney said Omar should be stripped of her foreign affairs committee assignment.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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IMF’s Lagarde says global growth outlook ‘precarious’ amid trade tensions

FILE PHOTO: Munich Security Conference in Munich
FILE PHOTO: International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde attends MSC Women's Breakfast during the annual Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany February 16, 2019. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert/File Photo

April 2, 2019

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday that global growth has lost momentum amid rising trade tensions and tighter financial conditions, but pauses in rate hikes will help boost activity in the second half of 2019.

Lagarde, in a preview of the April 12-14 IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, said the global economy is “unsettled” after two years of steady growth, with the outlook “precarious” and vulnerable to trade, Brexit and financial market shocks.

“In January, the IMF projected global growth for 2019 and 2020 at around 3.5 percent, less than in the recent past but still reasonable,” Lagarde said in remarks prepared for delivery at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “It has since lost further momentum, as you will see from our updated forecast next week.”

She said that the IMF does not anticipate a recession in the near-term, and the Federal Reserve’s “more patient pace of monetary policy normalization” will provide some thrust to growth in the second half of 2019 and into 2020.

Lagarde cautioned, however, that years of high public debt and low interest rates since the financial crisis a decade ago have left limited room in many countries to act when the next downturn arrives so countries need to make smarter use of fiscal policy. This means striking a better balance between growth, debt sustainability and social objectives and acting to address growing inequality by building stronger social safety nets.

She previewed new IMF research showing that rising trade barriers were hurting investment in plant, machinery and job creating projects.

Lagarde also said that the IMF has revised its analysis of the U.S.-China trade war’s impacts, showing that if all trade between the world’s two largest economies were subjected to a 25 percent tariff, U.S. gross domestic product would fall by up to 0.6 percent while China’s GDP would fall by up to 1.5 percent.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to subject all imports from China to a 25 percent tariff if the two sides cannot resolve their disputes in negotiations. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is due in Washington for another round of talks starting on Wednesday.

“Nobody wins a trade war,” Lagarde added. “That is why we need to work together to reduce trade barriers and modernize the global trade system.”

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Durbin: 'What the Heck' Is Green New Deal

Sen. Dick Durbin said Wednesday he's read over the "Green New Deal" several times, and he doesn't know yet if he'll vote for it.

"At this point, I can't tell you," the Illinois Democrat and Senate Minority Whip told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."  "I have read it and I have reread it and I asked, 'What the heck is this?'"

The controversial 14-page proposal by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., earlier this month, includes goals to follow for the country to reach an economy that has a net-zero carbon emission footprint.

"It's an aspiration," said Durbin. "It's a resolution. We're going to ask the Republican leader what's your position on global warming while we're at it. Should he come out on the record and say if human activity is having an impact on the environment? Get it on the record on both sides."

Durbin said he does "certainly agree," though, with the "premise that global warming is a threat to the planet and we're not doing enough."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell already has promised to bring the Green New Deal to a vote and House Republicans are calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring it the floor not to avert climate change, but because of hopes to take back Congress seats by casting Democrats as being extreme over the proposal.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.

The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.

But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. …  I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”

— Joe Biden

But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

BIDEN’S CLAIM HE DIDN’T WANT OBAMA TO ENDORSE TRIGGERS MOCKERY

At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.

It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.

An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.

Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.

“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.

“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”

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Sanders released his medical records in 2016, with a Senate physician saying in a letter that the senator was “in overall very good health.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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