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UK citizens who go to conflict zones could be punished

British citizens who go to designated conflict zones could face up to a decade in prison under a new law.

The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 is meant to address the threat of individuals who go overseas to take part in fighting. The measure won't allow prosecutions retrospectively, so those who fought with the so-called Islamic State group are exempt.

The law enacted Friday will allow exceptions for journalists, aid workers and others with a good reason, such as people who want to attend a funeral.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid says the law gives "police the powers they need to disrupt terrorist plots earlier and ensure that those who seek to do us harm face just punishment."

Source: Fox News World

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Volkswagen pushes battery partners to build Gigafactories

FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo is seen on a new car model at the 89th Geneva International Motor Show
FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo is seen on a new car model at the 89th Geneva International Motor Show in Geneva, Switzerland, March 5, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

April 15, 2019

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Volkswagen is pushing its joint venture partners including SK Innovation (SKI) to build electric car battery plants which have at least one Gigawatt manufacturing capacity, Chief Executive Herbert Diess told Reuters.

“Anything below that amount would make little sense,” Diess said on the sidelines of the Shanghai Auto Show on Sunday.

Volkswagen will buy 50 billion euros ($56.57 billion) worth of battery cells for electric cars and has identified South Korea’s SKI, LG Chem and Samsung SDI as strategic battery cell suppliers as well as China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL).

The German automaker is retooling 16 factories to build electric vehicles and plans to start producing 33 different electric cars under the Skoda, Audi, VW and Seat brands by mid 2023.

“We are considering an investment in a battery manufacturer in order to reinforce our electrification offensive and build up the necessary know-how,” Volkswagen said.

SKI is building a battery cell manufacturing plant in the United States to supply Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

SKI will supply lithium-ion battery cells for an electric car that Volkswagen plans to start making in Chattanooga in 2022.

LG Chem, Samsung and SKI on will also supply battery cells for Volkswagen in Europe. CATL is the automaker’s strategic partner for China, and will supply batteries for its electric fleet from 2019.

(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

Source: OANN

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Malaysia’s February export growth seen slowing to 1.4 percent year-on-year: Reuters poll

General view of container yard at North Port in Port Klang
A general view of a container yard at North Port in Port Klang outside Kuala Lumpur January 8, 2009. REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad

April 2, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia’s exports likely rose 1.4 percent in February from a year earlier, slower than the previous month, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday.

Estimates among the 10 economists surveyed, however, ranged widely between an annual decline of 4.9 percent and a rise of 6.8 percent.

In January, exports had grown 3.1 percent year-on-year, amid higher shipments of manufactured and mining goods.

February’s imports are expected to fall marginally by 0.6 percent from a year earlier, down from a 1 percent expansion in the previous month, the poll showed.

Malaysia reports trade data in ringgit.

The country’s trade surplus likely narrowed to 10.4 billion ringgit ($2.55 billion) in February, from 11.5 billion ringgit in January.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)

Source: OANN

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Whirlpool profit beats on price hikes, shares jump

FILE PHOTO: The administrative entrance at the Whirlpool plant in Clyde Ohio
FILE PHOTO: The administrative entrance at the Whirlpool plant in Clyde, Ohio, U.S. October 3, 2017.REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk/

April 22, 2019

(Reuters) – Appliances maker Whirlpool Corp beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit on Monday, fueled by price increases to counter higher raw material and freight costs.

Shares of the company rose about 8 percent after the bell, adding to the 32 percent gain since the beginning of the year.

Whirlpool is facing higher-than-expected raw material costs as the U.S.-China trade dispute has made imported steel and aluminum expensive, with the company looking to cushion the hit by raising prices and reining in costs.

“Successful execution of price increases and sustained focus on cost discipline drove very positive results in the first quarter, and provide confidence in our ability to deliver our full-year financial goals,” Chief Executive Officer Marc Bitzer said in a statement.

The company also hiked its quarterly dividend by 4.3 percent and reaffirmed its full-year profit forecast of between $14 and $15 per share.

Net earnings available to Whirlpool rose to $471 million, or $7.31 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31 from $94 million, or $1.30 per share, a year earlier.

The quarter included a $127 million benefit from a Brazilian indirect tax credit.

Excluding items, the company earned $3.11 per share, blowing past analysts’ average estimate of $2.86, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Net sales fell 3.1 percent to $4.76 billion, missing the average estimate of $4.83 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas, Divya R and Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Source: OANN

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Snapshot of some of most notorious imposters in U.S. history

Before ex-convict Brian Rini launched his bizarre attempt to claim he was an Illinois boy who disappeared in 2011 at the age of 6, there were plenty of others who engaged in hoaxes, trying to pass themselves off as other people. Here are a few of the most notorious:

CLARK ROCKEFELLER

He came to be known as a Rockefeller – Clark Rockefeller, to be exact.

As a Rockefeller, he moved in the highest social circles, gaining memberships in country clubs, luxuriating on yachts, and showing off expensive artwork that astonished even the most discriminating collectors. He married a wealthy woman, Sandra Lynne Boss, who boasted a Harvard MBA and earned $2 million a year. They had a daughter.

But Rockefeller actually was Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, born in Germany.

Clark Rockefeller during an interview with The Boston Globe. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Clark Rockefeller during an interview with The Boston Globe. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The faux Rockefeller scion came to the United States on a tourist visa when he just 1978, giving a surprise visit to a Connecticut student backpacker he had met in his homeland, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A district attorney called Gerhartsreiter’s hoax "the longest con I've seen in my professional career."

In 2006, Boss ended the marriage, still not realizing his identity had been a fraud. In court, however, she said he had managed to con her for more than a decade because:  "One can be brilliant and amazing in one area of one's life and really stupid in another." She paid him $800,000 in alimony.

In 2013, Gerthartsreiter was sentenced to 27 years to life in the death of his Southern California landlady's son, who had been missing since 1985 and whose dismembered remains were found in 1994 by workers who were installing a pool in the home the victim's mother had owned.

The jury had convicted Gerhartsreiter, who has argued he is innocent, of first-degree murder in the killing of John Sohus, 27.

ANNA DELVEY

She was known among the New York art and party gentry as Anna Delvey, who introduced herself as a German heiress with a $60 million fortune. Friends were happy to lend her money, and high-end hotels let her stay in them without requiring her to provide a credit card.

In reality, she was Anna Sorokin, born in Russia, and daughter of a truck driver. She dropped out of college and went to Paris for a while, eventually going to New York City, connecting with trust fund kids and providing a convincing story about herself as a mover and shaker. Sorokin lived the life of a socialite, financing her expensive taste in part by scamming others, according to published reports. Through fraud, she tried to secure a $22 million loan to realize her dream of opening up a club in Manhattan.

She borrowed a lot of money she never repaid and stiffed hotels and other establishments when they pressed for payment.

Anna Sorokin is escorted into a courtroom after a recess in her trial in New York State Supreme Court on Thursday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Anna Sorokin is escorted into a courtroom after a recess in her trial in New York State Supreme Court on Thursday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Now Sorokin is standing trial in New York, accused of stealing $275,000 from friends and financial institutions.

Sorokin, however, is still acting the part of an heiress.

She has caused court delays because of fits over unacceptable outfits brought to her for her hearings, according to The New York Daily News.

“I told you previously we were not holding up this trial any more over your fashion,” Justice Diane Kiesel firmly and irritably told Sorokin after she finally showed up in court with wrinkled but fashionable clothes.

“I’ve had a jury here since 9:30 this morning. This is unacceptable and inappropriate . . . This is not a fashion show!”

WALTER COLLINS

In 1928, 9-year-old Walter Collins disappeared in California. Months later, a boy in Illinois told police he was Walter.

The boy, it turns out, was actually 12 and was named Arthur Hutchins Jr., who was a runaway.  Years later, Hutchins said he had lied about being Walter because “I was sure that would be my best way to get to California.”

When authorities turned him over to Walter’s mother, the charade was up. Police tried to persuade the mother that the boy really was her son, explaining that traumatic experiences can change appearances.

Walter’s mother would have none of it, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The smoking gun came during a trip to the beach, when Hutchins took to the water like a fish.

Walter always had been terrified of the water. Christine Collins told police that this was conclusive proof the boy they brought to her was someone other than her missing son. The police fumed.

Los Angeles Police Department Captain J.J. Jones, who investigated Walter's disappearance, allegedly told Collins: "What are you trying to do, make fools out of us all? Or are you trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have the state provide for your son? You are the most cruel-hearted woman I've ever known. You are a . . . fool!"

The police locked her up in a psychiatric hospital.

Eventually, Hutchins confessed to making up the whole story up, and police concluded Walter had died at the hands of a serial killer.

NICHOLAS BARCLAY

French-born Frederic Bourdin passed himself off as a 14-year-old runaway while traveling around Europe, though he was in 20's.

But when he told his bogus story at a group home for Spanish youths, the staff thought something was not quite right.

If he was going to stay there, they told him, he had to give them proof that he was a teenager, and he had 24 hours to do it.

Bourdin called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Washington Post reported, and pretending to be an employee of the youth shelter, he culled information about a boy named Nicholas Barclay who had been missing from San Antonio since 1994. Bourdin told the center that he believed a boy at the youth shelter was Barclay. When police went to check, he posed as Barclay, and was sent to San Antonio to live with the missing boy's family in what authorities thought was a reunification.

In 2008, Bourdin told a New Yorker magazine journalist that he had craved attention at the time of his fraudulent act.

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Barclay's relatives, incredibly, believed it could be their missing relative.

The truth eventually caught up with him, and he was sent to jail for five years for perjury and falsifying documents.

In the New Yorker interview, Bourdin, who had come to be known as a serial child impersonator, said: “People always say to me, ‘Why don’t you become an actor?’ I think I would be a very good actor, like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. But I don’t want to play somebody. I want to be somebody.”

Source: Fox News National

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BOE tells some UK lenders to triple amount of liquid assets before Brexit: FT

An adjacent building throws a shadow accross the Bank of England in the City of London
An adjacent building throws a shadow accross the Bank of England in the City of London, Britain, December 12, 2017. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

March 10, 2019

(Reuters) – The Bank of England has told some UK lenders to triple the amount of easy-to-sell assets they hold to help them weather any no-deal Brexit crisis, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the situation.

The BOE has told some lenders to hold enough liquid assets to be able to cope with stress of 100 days, instead of the regular 30 days that BOE’s Prudential Regulation Authority rules demand, the FT reported.

A Bank of England spokeswoman said the central bank had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Ishita Chigilli Palli in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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Finnish Imam’s Daughter, Son-in-Law Revealed as ISIS Jihadists

An investigative report by Finland’s national broadcaster Yle has found alleged links between an ISIS terrorist and a Finnish Islamic leader, who denies any radicalization among his flock, yet promises that any returnees will be “treated nicely” and rehabilitated.

A man who left Finland to join ISIS was the son-in-law and business partner of the imam of the Islamic Society of Northern Finland, headquartered in the city of Oulu, Yle reported.

As part of its investigation, Yle found that Finnish jihadists earned money through a variety of legal and illegal means ranging from running pizzerias to tax fraud.

One of them, Bangladeshi-born Taz Rahman, was found to have co-owned a business with Oulu imam and fellow Bangladeshi Abdul Mannan. According to leaked ISIS documents, Rahman joined the terrorists’ ranks in the summer of 2014. His wife and the imam’s daughter, with whom he had children, followed suit.

Before his departure, Rahman ran two companies in Finland. One was a pizzeria that still operates in Helsinki. Rahman’s second business was registered as a food kiosk at the address of the Oulu mosque in the city center.

ISIS announced Rahman’s death and in May 2017 published a photo of him, adding that he had worked as physical therapist; Mannan still runs the Oulu Islamic Society.


Paul Joseph Watson breaks down the story surrounding a woman who left the United Kingdom when she was 15 to marry a member of ISIS and join their Islamic caliphate revolution.

When confronted by Yle journalists, Mannan denied several times personally knowing anyone who had been radicalized, despite the fact that his own daughter and son-in-law had become jihadists.

“I know each and every person. We don’t have any extremists here,” Mannan assured. When asked about Rahman, he admitted “he’s a relative of mine, my daughter’s husband, that’s all.”

Mannan also claimed that he didn’t know where the couple was heading before they left. Mannan said he does not know whether his daughter is still in Syria, and claimed to have not heard from her in nearly two years and denied any responsibility.

“It’s the person, the individual case, who is responsible for this. So if someone takes some decision for his own and without consulting us, so he’s solely responsible for that,” he stressed.

(Photo by Paul Arps, Flickr)

Mannan said he had informed the police about the couple and ventured that there may be other Finnish nationals who have made the same choice.

“All of them are members of this society,” Mannan concluded. “So when they come back, they will be treated in a nice way. They will be rehabilitated and we will let them live a normal life. I hope it will work.”

Mannan previously served as a deputy city councilor for the Social Democratic Party from 2012 to 2017. Mannan moved to Oulu from Bangladesh in 1992 to study geology and earned a doctoral degree from the University of Oulu in 2002 before becoming an Islamic instructor.

Oulu has 200,000 residents and a 3,000-strong Islamic community. Some 1,000 people from more than 20 countries are said to attend events at the mosque.


Alex Jones gives his personal view on how the United States should intervene in South America with the collapsing socialist utopia known as Venezuela, and he urges President Trump to pay attention to the Chinese troops being deployed to help maintain Nicolás Maduro’s wrongful rule over his own people.

Source: InfoWars

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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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