Now On Air

Liberty #MAGAOne Mix

Via MAGA One Mix

6:00 am 8:00 am


Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Liberty #MAGAOne Mix

Via MAGA One Mix

6:00 am 8:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Japan’s March factory output declines, rise in inventories raises concerns

FILE PHOTO: Employees of Toyota Motor Corp. work on assembly line in Toyota
FILE PHOTO: Employees of Toyota Motor Corp. work on the assembly line of Mirai fuel cell vehicle (FCV) at the company's Motomachi plant in Toyota, Aichi prefecture, Japan May 17, 2018. REUTERS/Issei Kato

April 26, 2019

By Stanley White

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s factory output fell in March for the first time in two months and inventories rose at the fastest pace in a year as the U.S.-Sino trade war dents the country’s manufacturing sector.

Separate data showed retail sales picked up in March and labor demand remains the strongest in decades, but these positive figures are unlikely to ease policymakers’ concerns about a slowdown in global trade flows.

Factory output fell 0.9 percent in March, data by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) showed, more than a median estimate for a 0.1 percent decline in a Reuters poll of economists. That followed a 0.7 percent increase in February.

The mounting pressure on Japan’s economy from weak external demand has hurt exports and threatens corporate profits, which could weigh on capital expenditure and make it more difficult to keep growth on track, analysts say.

Industrial output fell in March due to a 3.4 percent decline in car output and a 6.7 percent decline in the production of machines used to make semiconductors and flat-panel displays, the data showed.

In another source of concern, inventories rose 1.6 percent in March, the fastest increase in a year, due to higher inventories of metals, plastics, and heavy equipment.

The rise in inventories suggests makers of these goods could curb output in the future.

Manufacturers surveyed by the ministry expect production to rise 2.7 percent in April and 3.6 percent in May, but METI changed its assessment of output to say it is weakening recently.

Retail sales – a key gauge of private consumption that makes up about 60 percent of the economy – rose 1.0 percent in March from a year earlier, more than a 0.8 percent annual gain expected by economists.

Friday’s batch of data comes a day after the Bank of Japan said it would keep interest rates low for at least another year, in a move to dispel uncertainty over its commitment to support the economy and drive inflation.

Japan’s policymakers are nervously monitoring developments overseas but have few policy options if weakness in the global economy continues to damage the country’s outlook, some economists say.

The Sino-U.S. trade war has also had a negative effect on domestic growth, as a slowing Chinese economy curbed demand for mobile phone parts and chip-making equipment from Japan.

Uncertainty over Britain’s exit from the European Union and jittery global financial markets have added to a growing list of worries for policymakers.

Additional data released on Friday showed Japan’s jobless rate edged up to 2.5 percent in March from 2.3 percent previously, and job availability held steady at 1.63 per applicant, hovering at a 44-year high.

Tokyo’s core consumer price index (CPI), which includes oil products but excludes fresh food prices, rose an annual 1.3 percent in April from a year earlier, more than the median estimate for a 1.1 percent annual increase.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: OANN

0 0

Explainer: What next for Sudan after Bashir’s fall?

Sudanese demonstrators protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum
Sudanese demonstrators protest outside the Defence Ministry in Khartoum, Sudan April 14, 2019. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

April 16, 2019

By Khalid Abdelaziz and Aidan Lewis

KHARTOUM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir has been ousted after three decades in power following months of mass protests. The military has announced a transitional period of up to two years followed by elections, but demonstrators are pushing for a quick handover of power to civilians.

HOW DID BASHIR FALL?

Bashir, 75, was one of the longest-serving leaders in Africa and the Arab world. He took power in a coup in 1989 and had survived isolation from the West, civil wars, the split between Sudan and South Sudan, indictment by the International Criminal Court, and several previous bouts of protest.

But in December, a worsening economic crisis triggered protests that quickly spread across the country of 40 million, calling for Bashir to go. The protests continued for 16 weeks despite a security crackdown in which dozens died and thousands were detained.

On April 6, protesters stepped up the pressure with a sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. Riot police and intelligence services tried to clear the area, but the army shielded them before announcing Bashir’s overthrow on April 11.

Despite Bashir’s close ties to the military’s top leadership, mid- and lower-ranking officers more connected to society sympathized with the protesters’ demands, said Hamid Eltigani, a Sudanese professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo.

As pressure from the street mounted, factions within the security establishment distanced themselves from Bashir as they sought to protect their positions, he said.

One Sudanese military officer said a deal was struck within the military leadership. “The faces had to be changed, and they all decided to change them without any bloodshed.”

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

The appointment of defense minister and vice-president Awad Ibn Auf as head of the Transitional Military Council fueled widespread anger among protesters because of his close association with Bashir.

He survived just 24 hours, stepping down late on Friday. Salah Abdallah Mohamed Saleh, better known as Salah Gosh, resigned as the head of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) the following day.

Long considered the second most powerful man in the country after Bashir, Salah Gosh was another key target for the protesters.

WHO’S IN CONTROL NOW?

Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan replaced Ibn Auf as head of the military council. Burhan was the third most senior general in the Sudanese military and is little known publicly. As chief of Sudan’s ground forces he oversaw Sudanese troops fighting in the Saudi-led Yemen war and has close ties to senior Gulf military officials.

Burhan’s deputy is Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known by his nickname Hemedti, who heads Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. The RSF is a paramilitary grouping that grew out of the Janjaweed militias that fought in Darfur and has provided troops to fight in Yemen.

Other members of the 10-man military council include a NISS representative and the chief of police.

A Sudanese source close to Sudan’s military leadership said the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt had a role in planning “the removal of Bashir and General Ibn Auf and Salah Gosh” as part of a strategy of “weakening the power of the Islamists in power in Sudan”.

Bashir came to power in an Islamist-backed coup. He belonged to the Islamic Movement, Sudan’s equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood, and imposed Sharia law.

WHO SUPPORTS THE NEW LEADERSHIP?

The UAE, a leading member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, was quick to welcome Burhan’s appointment and said it would look to accelerate aid to Sudan. Shortly after Burhan’s nomination, Saudi Arabia said it would provide wheat, fuel and medicine to Sudan.

The UAE and Saudi, which supported the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi in Egypt and have worked to counter Islamists linked to the Brotherhood across the region, are following the same goal in Sudan, said the Sudanese source.

“They want to use economic aid to encourage some power centers in Sudan to weaken the presence of Islamists and their full control over economic institutions.”

The influence of their regional rivals Qatar and Turkey, which both had ties to Bashir, will be limited, said the Sudanese military officer. “It was a tug of war, and right now UAE and Saudi won,” he said.

Hemedti has received of Western diplomatic envoys, several of whom say they have pressed him to ensure a rapid transition to civilian rule. The British ambassador said the meeting was “not to endorse or confer legitimacy”. The Dutch envoy said the meeting was held at Hemedti’s invitation.

HOW MUCH COULD THE MILITARY CONCEDE?

Burhan has promised a civilian government after consultations with the opposition, and announced an easing of emergency measures and the release of political detainees. But there has been little word from the military on protesters’ demands for a civilian presence in the ruling council, and for members of Bashir’s entourage – some of whom face international sanctions and charges – to be held to account.

The military may be wary of ceding ground if it faces opposition from other parts of the security apparatus.

Bashir had the strongest links across different, overlapping branches of the security forces, which could start competing with each other now he’s gone. While the RSF and the NISS are linked to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Islamists within Sudan’s Popular Defence Forces have connections to Qatar, said Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

Military officers “basically wanted a soft landing for Bashir, and the army to be kept intact as an institution, and they have Egyptian backing in that strategy,” said de Waal. “The problem is that the demands of the demonstrators are for democracy and they are the only people who want democracy. Nobody else wants democracy.”

WHAT FATE FOR BASHIR?

When Ibn Auf announced Bashir’s overthrow he said the former president had been detained. Sources told Reuters he was being held at the time under heavy guard at his residence.

The military council has said it will not extradite him, but may try him in Sudan.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Bashir in 2009 and 2010 on suspicion of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In his final years as president he defied the court, visiting friendly nations including several ICC member states.

Sudan and Bashir denied war crimes were committed, saying casualties in Darfur were exaggerated.

Some have speculated that he could follow the example of Tunisia’s former leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and seek refuge in Saudi Arabia.

(Additional reporting by Nafisa Eltahir in Dubai and Yousef Saba in Cairo; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: OANN

0 0

“This Is A System-Wide Collapse” – Texas Border City Overwhelmed By “Surge” Of Central American Migrants

Democrats like to deride President Trump’s warnings about a crisis at the southern border as a “fake emergency” reliant on “nonsensical” numbers about the flow of migrants. They even tried, and failed, to terminate his emergency declaration, which has also triggered a flurry of lawsuits, but that won’t change the fact that the first tranche of money from Trump’s expanded border wall has already been approved by the DoJ. 

And the timing couldn’t have been better, because over the past month, as reports about the number of migrant families declaring asylum between border checkpoints climbing to an all-time high were picked up by the mainstream press,  the true weight of the ongoing disaster at the border has suddenly become difficult to ignore. Even the peso, which had mostly shrugged off his prior threats, tumbled when Trump warned that he would close the border next week if Mexico doesn’t try to stop illegals from entering the US.

Migrants

And in the latest report that, like the others, will be difficult for the public to chalk up to more conservative fear mongering, USA Today published a story on Saturday about a border city that has seen public resources overwhelmed as asylum seekers are released into the city at a rate of more than 800 per day.

The city is McAllen, Texas, which has seen a surge of migrants crowding church shelters and other resources in the community as ICE has been forced to release more asylum seekers as they await their immigration hearings. ICE shelters have simply become too overcrowded, and the agency, which can hold migrants for up to 20 days, longer than the 72 hours for the border patrol, has few alternatives.

Under a bridge connecting the U.S. with Mexico, dozens of migrant families cram into a makeshift camp set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The families are there because permanent processing facilities have run out of room.


Alex Jones presents a report produced by CNN where Latino voters living along the border in Texas make it completely clear that they want the wall, and in fact, they want it taller and longer than its current construction.

Seven hundred miles east, busload after busload of weary, bedraggled migrants crowd into the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas. Organizers there are used to handling 200 to 300 migrants a day. Lately, the migrants have been arriving at a clip of around 800 a day, overflowing the respite center and straining city resources.

“It’s staggering,” McAllen City Manager Roy Rodriguez said. “Really, we’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Along the Texas border with Mexico – from El Paso to Eagle Pass to the Rio Grande Valley – masses of migrants have been crossing the border in unprecedented numbers, overwhelming federal holding facilities and sending local leaders and volunteers scrambling to deal with the relentless waves of people.

With the border patrol on track to apprehend 100,000 migrants during the month of March – a new monthly record – Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said Wednesday during a speech in El Paso that the border had reached its “breaking point”. He urged Congress to do something – though it seems the Democrat-led House is preoccupied with stymieing Republican efforts to secure more money for border security. “The surge numbers are just overwhelming the system”, McAleenan said.

Theresa Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who was a CBP policy adviser under both President Obama and President Bush, put it even more bluntly: “This is a system-wide collapse”.

When migrants who have made it through the first round of the asylum process arrive in McAllen, they are typically released to the Catholic charities in town, which have also become overwhelmed.

In McAllen, migrants deemed to have credible asylum cases are released to the Catholic Charities respite center, where they’re allowed to shower, given medical attention and helped with getting a bus or airplane ticket to their final U.S. destination.

Sister Norma Pimentel, who oversees the shelter, said she received a phone call two weekends ago from a Border Patrol official warning that the numbers were about to skyrocket. The next day, around 800 migrants showed up to the shelter, she said.

On Wednesday, clusters of migrants crowded the halls of the center. Lines stretched down long halls, as migrants waited to use the shower or pick up diapers. Teams of volunteers called migrants’ relatives to get bus tickets. Every 20 minutes or so, a new tour bus would drive up and deliver another 50 migrants into the shelter.

As the charity’s respite center started to overflow, the town has gotten involved, opening new shelters and bringing in city buses for transportation. Local officials are applying for federal disaster grants to compensate them for the hundreds and thousands of dollars already drained from city coffers.

Despite the crush, Pimentel said she will continue taking in the migrants. “If you drop them off on the street, they’re not going to know what to do” she said. “We’re going to have chaos. We’re going to have a terrible problem.”

As the respite center started to overflow last week, city officials got involved, opening new shelters and contracting buses to take the migrants directly to shelters rather than have them cluster around the bus station downtown.

Rodriguez, the city manager, said he’s dedicated several city officials to spearhead the problem and the city’s spending thousands of taxpayer dollars a day on the buses and other services.

He’s lobbied the federal government for reimbursement, but he’s not overly hopeful. In 2014, when a similar crush of Central American migrants strained city resources, local officials applied for $600,000 in federal disaster funds. After years of wrangling, they got just $140,000, he said.

“This is very similar to what we saw then,” Rodriguez said. “It’s real people and real time and real money.”

So, Nancy Pelosi, tell us again how the border crisis is a “made up emergency?”?

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Bishop asks Nicaraguans to ‘fight for freedom’ in speech

The auxiliary bishop of Nicaragua's capital has given an impassioned speech before being transferred to Rome at the request of Pope Francis.

In one of his final sermons Sunday, Silvio Báez called on Nicaraguans to "fight for freedom" and to remember "the crucified of today: political prisoners, exiles and mothers who mourn those killed by repression."

At least 325 people have died during clashes between civilians and government forces in Nicaragua during the past year. Báez has been a vocal critic of the government of President Daniel Ortega.

Pope Francis recently told Báez that he is needed in Rome but didn't say whether the decision was related to an alleged assassination plot against the bishop.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Taiwan cites US concerns over El Salvador-China relations

Taiwan's foreign minister says Washington should be concerned for strategic reasons that Taiwan is losing its diplomatic allies in Latin America to rival China.

Latin American nations have been switching relations from U.S. ally Taiwan to China, a top American strategic competitor, raising concerns in Washington about Chinese inroads in America's backyard.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Thursday seemed to imply that Washington could use its influence to help Taiwan hang on to its remaining Latin American allies.

Wu's comments came a day after El Salvador's president-elect said he has not decided whether to continue relations with China and accused Beijing of not being respectful to his country.

El Salvador switched ties from Taiwan to China in August, in a blow to the island's Latin American diplomacy.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Comic Zelenskiy wins Ukraine presidential vote in landslide

Results from nearly all polling stations show that TV star Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won the Ukrainian presidential runoff vote in a landslide.

The Central Election Commission says Monday that Zelenskiy has won 73% of the vote while the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko got just 24% support with more than 95% of the ballots counted.

Unlike in most of the elections in Ukraine's post-Soviet history, Zelenskiy appears to have won both in Ukraine's west and east, areas that have been traditionally polarized.

One of the campaign slogans of the popular television comedian who has no previous political experience was to unify Ukraine, which has been torn by bitter debates over its identity as well as the separatist conflict in the east that is fueled by neighboring Russia.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

DNA test solves 45-year-old double-murder mystery in Montana

A genealogy database used to match a family's DNA with evidence found at a 1973 crime scene has led investigators to identify the long-dead suspect in the strangulation killing of a young married couple, a Montana sheriff said Monday.

Linda and Clifford Bernhardt, both 24, were killed at their Billings-area home in a case that would stymie investigators for decades.

Investigators now believe they were killed by Cecil Stan Caldwell, a longtime city of Billings employee who was once a co-worker of Linda Bernhardt, Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said. He did not identify a motive in the killing.

Caldwell had no criminal record, and died in 2003 at the age of 59, according to his obituary in the Billings Gazette.

Relatives of the victims attended a news conference in which Linder named Caldwell as the suspect. The family issued a statement thanking the sheriff's office for its work, but made no further comment and asked for privacy.

Clifford Bernhardt was a concrete worker and Vietnam veteran and his wife worked at a grocery distribution warehouse. They had been married several years and moved into a new house just weeks before they were killed.

Linda Bernhardt had been bound and sexually assaulted before her death, and authorities used psychologists to try to build a profile of the suspect, according to reports at the time.

Hundreds of interviews were conducted, and police at one point even brought in a psychic in their desperate search for clues to a crime described in a newspaper article as "the most sensational unsolved murder case in Billings history."

They also enlisted the help of "The Amazing Kreskin," when the mentalist visited town, according to a 1980 news report.

Scott Goodwin, a volunteer with the cold case unit who helped with the investigation, said he and others involved were unwilling to let it go.

"We were obsessed with it," Goodwin said. "These are two young people who didn't deserve what happened to them. They didn't do anything. They came home on a Tuesday night and they were murdered."

All other leads had dried up by 2004, when DNA was discovered on evidence gathered at the crime scene, Linder said.

But comparing that DNA against an FBI database of known criminals yielded no results, leaving authorities frustrated yet again.

In 2015, the sheriff's cold case unit enlisted a Reston, Virginia, technology company, Parabon NanoLabs, to analyze the DNA by comparing it to genetic samples available through a public genealogy database. That process ultimately narrowed the list of suspects to Caldwell and his brother, who is still alive and living outside the area, said Vince Wallis, a former detective captain with the sheriff's office who now works for the Billings Police Department.

After DNA was obtained voluntarily from the brother, it was analyzed by the Montana State Crime Lab to eliminate him as a suspect. That left only Caldwell, Wallis said.

Wallis added other circumstantial evidence including "unspecified behavior" by Caldwell connected the suspect to the crime scene, but he declined to offer additional details.

An anonymous donor in 2013 had offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the couple's killer.

___

Follow Matthew Brown at https://twitter.com/matthewbrownap

Source: Fox News National

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Liberty #MAGAOne Mix

Via MAGA One Mix

6:00 am 8:00 am



Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.

The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.

The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.

One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.

In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.

There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.

A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.

“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.

“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.

Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.

However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.

“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.

In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.

Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

April 26, 2019

By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.

For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.

But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.

In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.

That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.

In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a liter, or 0.6 percent.

State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A government spokesman declined to comment.

The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.

“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.

(GRAPHIC: India Polls: Fuel price hike lags crude surge – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XLlxik)

Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.

Only for them to surge after the vote.

“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.

“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.

“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”

India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.

But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a liter after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.

Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]

Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.

Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.

India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.

“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.

“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”

Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.

Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.

The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.

($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Martin Howell and Rob Birsel)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist