People react at the scene where policemen were killed when an explosive device carried by a militant they were pursuing exploded in Cairo, Egypt, February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
February 18, 2019
CAIRO (Reuters) – Two policemen were killed and three wounded when an explosive device carried by a militant they were pursuing exploded in the heart of the Egyptian capital on Monday, an interior ministry statement said.
According to the ministry, security forces were pursuing the man as part of the search for the perpetrator of an attempted attack against a police patrol in western Cairo on Friday.
After catching the suspect in Cairo’s ancient Islamic district close to the Al Azhar mosque, “one of the explosive devices in his possession exploded, causing the death of the terrorist and the martyrdom of a police officer from national security and an officer from Cairo investigations (department)”, the statement said.
At least three civilians were also injured, security sources said.
Friday’s attempted attack left two policemen and three civilians with minor injuries when a home-made bomb exploded during an attempt to defuse it, security sources said at the time.
Egyptian security forces have been waging a campaign against Islamist militants over the past year focused on Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
Attacks in the capital are relatively rare, though a roadside bomb in Giza killed three Vietnamese tourists and a Egyptian guide in December.
(Reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Dan Grebler)
FILE PHOTO - Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso attends the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting in Tokyo, Japan January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato
April 12, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Thursday he has called on his Group of 20 counterparts to strengthen global coordination to address potential risks to the world economy.
Aso also said he has told G20 members that Japan plans to proceed with a scheduled sales tax hike in October and take measures to mitigate the pain on its economy.
Japan is chair of this year’s G20 meeting. Aso made the comments after a G20 finance leaders’ working dinner, held on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings.
The G20 finance leaders will not issue a communique at their two-day meeting that concludes on Friday, a senior Japanese finance ministry official told reporters.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
FILE PHOTO: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during "A Civil Society Dialogue on Securing Religious Freedom in the Indo-Pacific Region" forum in Taipei, Taiwan March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
March 31, 2019
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan on Sunday condemned what it called a “provocative” move by China after two Chinese fighter jets crossed a maritime border separating the two sides amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
Earlier on Sunday Taiwan scrambled aircraft to drive away the two Chinese planes, the self-ruled island’s defence ministry said.
China’s move had “seriously impacted regional safety and stability”, the ministry said in a statement.
There was no immediate reaction from Beijing, which views Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province.
Huang Chung-yen, a spokesman for Taiwan’s Presidential Office, said Beijing “should stop behaviour of this sort, which endangers regional peace, and not be an international troublemaker”.
President Tsai Ing-wen had urged the army “to complete all tasks on war preparation”, he added.
China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle Taiwan during drills in recent years and worked to isolate the island internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies.
The United States last week sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the Taiwan Strait, as part of an increase in the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.
Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a trade war and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee in TAIPEI and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Dale Hudson and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign on the proven lie that Donald Trump said Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were “very fine people”.
“He said there were, quote, ‘Some very fine people on both sides,’” said Biden in his campaign video. “Very fine people on both sides? With those words the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it and in that moment I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any other I’d seen in my lifetime,” added the former Vice President.
However, as is manifestly provable, Trump never referred to neo-nazis as “very fine people” and openly condemned them on numerous occasions.
The hoax is based on the president’s Trump Tower press conference when he was asked to respond to the tragic events in Charlottesville.
“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides,” said Trump, before making it clear that he was referring to people protesting against the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee,” not alt-right white supremacists who subsequently hijacked the demonstration.
Trump specifically went on to condemn the alt-right mob and made it clear he was not referring to them with his “very fine people” line.
“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally,” said Trump in the same press conference.
“Trump made clear several times during the conference that he was referring specifically to those who had showed up to demonstrate against the statue’s removal and that he otherwise condemned the white supremacists,” writes the Washington Examiner’s Eddie Scarry.
Real Clear Politics’ Steve Cortes also carefully explains in his article how, “Despite the clear evidence of Trump’s statements regarding Charlottesville, major media figures insist on spreading the calumny that Trump called neo-Nazis “fine people.” The only explanation for such a repeated falsehood is abject laziness or willful deception.”
Trump never referred to neo-nazis as “very fine people” and specifically condemned them on multiple occasions.
The entire foundation of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is built on a proven hoax.
The Gowanus Expressway, which is part of Interstate 278, runs through New York and New Jersey. (Google)
What a lucky lamb!
New York City Police Department Highway Patrol officers saved a lamb on the loose from rush hour traffic in Brooklyn Wednesday, according to reports.
Drivers started uploading photos of the little lamb strolling along the Gowanus Expressway around 9 a.m. to Twitter, and eventually highway patrol officers were able to rescue the animal and take her to an Animal Care Center on Staten Island, CBS reported. The care center named the lamb Petunia.
She has now been transferred to Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue in New Jersey, which takes care of rescued farm animals, according to a tweet from the Animal Care Center.
People take part in the "March for Love" at North Hagley Park after the mosque attacks in Christchurch, March 23, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
March 23, 2019
By Tom Westbrook
CHRISTCHURCH (Reuters) – About 3,000 people walked through Christchurch in a ‘march for love’ early on Saturday, honoring the 50 worshippers massacred in the New Zealand city a week ago, as the mosques where the shooting took place reopened for prayers.
Carrying placards with signs such as, “He wanted to divide us, he only made us stronger”, “Muslims welcome, racists not”, and “Kia Kaha” – Maori for ‘stay strong’, people walked mostly in silence or softly sang a Maori hymn of peace.
“We feel like hate has brought a lot of darkness at times like this and love is the strongest cure to light the city out of that darkness,” said Manaia Butler, 16, one of the student organizers of the march.
With armed police on site, the Al Noor mosque, where more than 40 of the victims were killed by a suspected white supremacist, reopened on Saturday. Police said they were reopening the nearby Linwood mosque as well.
“It is the place where we pray, where we meet, we’ll be back, yeah,” Ashif Shaikh told reporters outside the Al Noor mosque. He said he was there on the day of the shooting in which two of his housemates were killed.
Most victims of the country’s worst mass shooting were migrants or refugees from countries such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
At Saturday’s march security was heavy, with dozens of armed police officers and buses parked sideways across city streets to close them off for the march.
Shila Nair, a migrant from India who works for a migrant advocacy group called Shakti, traveled from Auckland to take part in the march.
“The support gives us hope and optimism that migrant and refugee communities in this country can have a level playing field,” she said.
“We appreciate the solidarity, but it must be carried on. It cannot be allowed to fizzle out. This is how social change happens.”
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who swiftly denounced the shooting as terrorism and has participated in many of the tributes and funerals for the victims, has announced a ban on military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles, some of the guns used by the shooter.
Ardern and New Zealand have been widely praised for the outpouring of empathy and unity and the response to the attacks. Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum thanked her on Twitter late on Friday.
“Thank you @jacindaardern and New Zealand for your sincere empathy and support that has won the respect of 1.5 billion Muslims after the terrorist attack that shook the Muslim community around the world,” he said on Twitter.
Muslims account for just over 1 percent of New Zealand’s 4.8-million population, a 2013 census showed, most of whom were born overseas.
On Friday the Muslim call to prayer was broadcast nationwide on television and radio and about 20,000 people attended a prayer service in the park opposite Al Noor mosque in a show of solidarity.
Many women have also donned headscarves to show their support.
In Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, a special prayer was held after the Friday sermon for the victims of the attack, according to the Saudi news website Sabq.
Most of the dead were laid to rest at a mass burial in Christchurch on Friday, when 26 victims were interred. Others have been buried at private ceremonies, or repatriated to their home countries for funerals.
Shahadat Hossain, whose brother Mojammel Haque was killed in the attack, told Reuters that she would bring his body back to Bangladesh.
“I don’t know when our family will be able to come out of this grief,” she said.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook, Joseph Campbell, Natasha Howitt and Jill Gralow in Christchurch, Hesham Hajali in Cairo, Ruma Paul in Dhaka and Marwa Rashad in Riyadh; Writing by Tom Westbrook and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
A number of Democratic presidential candidates have already spoken at Al Sharpton’s four-day National Action Network Convention in New York that started Wednesday, but Friday will see appearances by a slew of the most prominent 2020 hopefuls.
Senators Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kristin Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and California Rep. Eric Swalwell are all scheduled to speak at the event.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., will also speak on Friday.
Some of the issues being discussed at the event include health care, education, prison reform and reparations.
On Wednesday, former Texas congressman and 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke spoke about voter suppression and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro discussed his plan for decriminalizing illegal entry into the United States.
The National Action Network promotes “a modern civil rights agenda that includes the fight for one standard of justice, decency and equal opportunities for all people regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, criminal record, economic status, gender, gender expression, or sexuality,” according to its website.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – 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.
LONDON – 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.”
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)
JOHANNESBURG – 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.
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)
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