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Police in North Macedonia arrest man smuggling 5 migrants

Police in North Macedonia say they have arrested a man suspected of smuggling five migrants from Greece, headed north toward Serbia.

Police said Saturday that one Afghan citizen and four Pakistanis were discovered during a routine checkup on a car late Thursday on the main north-south highway. The suspect, a North Macedonian, was identified only by his initials as E.E. An investigative judge has ordered him detained for 30 days, pending trial.

Trafficking migrants from Greece to wealthier western European countries is still happening in North Macedonia, even though the so-called Balkan route of migrant trafficking into Europe has been officially closed since mid-2015.

Source: Fox News World

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Why some U.S. fund managers like China regardless of trade deal

U.S and China trade talks in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: Chinese staffers adjust U.S. and Chinese flags before the opening session of trade negotiations between U.S. and Chinese trade representatives at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

February 26, 2019

By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to delay raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods has helped push global stock markets broadly higher as investors hope for a resolution in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Yet some U.S.-based fund managers from firms including Wells Fargo Asset Management, Causeway Capital Management and Janus Henderson Investors say they are becoming more bullish on China regardless of whether a trade agreement is reached over the next few months.

That is because China has responded to the threat of escalating trade tariffs by increasing its monetary and fiscal stimulus, softening the potential blow as its economic growth rate falls to the slowest pace in 28 years.

China’s central bank has cut the reserve requirement ratios for commercial banks, making lending easier, while tax cuts and increased infrastructure spending are expected to bolster the economy. China’s banks made a record $477 billion in new loans in January.

“The stimulus Chinese officials have started to drip-feed to the economy will likely result in a confluence of positive sentiment and positive growth surprises,” said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Wells Fargo Asset Management.

At the same time, Chinese stocks – which fell into a bear market last year in part because of the trade tariffs – offer more compelling value than other emerging markets countries, said Arjun Jayaraman, a portfolio manager of the $4.5 billion Causeway Emerging Markets fund, which has gained 14.2 percent a year over the last three years, according to Morningstar.

“A lot of negative views are still in the market, but some of the more draconian fears about a continued lack of credit in the economy have been somewhat assuaged,” he said. “We’re seeing more lending to the private sector and higher quality growth.”

As a result, Jayaraman’s fund has been increasing its stake in consumer-focused internet plays such as Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd, along with banks and property companies.

Not all investors are excited about the return of stimulus.

Singapore-based Yoojeong Oh, investment director at Aberdeen Standard Investments, which manages over $700 billion in assets, said the move away from deleveraging the Chinese economy “is a worry for us.” Yet she remains bullish on Chinese equities because her portfolio is focused chiefly on spending by Chinese consumers.

“What we’ve really looked at in China are those companies focused on the domestic growth story, which I think is a much more exciting story than trying to find the export companies selling into lower-growth developed markets,” she said. As a result, intra-Asia trade is a good equities bet over the next few years, she said.

CAUGHT IN THE TREND

The move by U.S. fund managers into Chinese equities comes as investors have been moving steadily back into emerging markets after many abandoned the category amid the global stock market turmoil in the last quarter of 2018.

Emerging market stocks are now the most popular trade among global fund managers, according to BAML data, though much of those bets are going into Latin American countries such as Brazil rather than China, according to the firm’s research.

Overall, China’s CSI 300 index of large-cap companies is up 22.3 percent for the year to date, or about 11 percentage points more than the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 index. That suggests global investors expect a positive trade resolution between the United States and China that, along with China’s stimulus, will continue to bring Chinese equities out of a bear market, said Ashwin Alankar, global head of asset allocation at Janus Henderson Investors.

“China has been a dog over the last two years relative to the rest of the world, so we’re starting to see some reversion to the mean,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; editing by Jennifer Ablan and Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Genetic genealogy testing popular despite concerns

The type of DNA analysis that led to the arrest of an Alabama truck driver and part-time preacher in two slayings nearly 20 years has become the latest trend in police work in many parts of the country, despite concerns over privacy and fairness.

A national association for criminal defense attorneys says genetic genealogy crime-solving can lead to mistakes.

But a relative of one of the victims in the 1999 killings trusts that authorities got the right person when they arrested Coley McCraney, 45, of Dothan on murder charges in the deaths of Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both 17.

"We've been through pure hell the last 20 years," said Mike Roberts, Hawlett's stepfather. "DNA don't lie."

Law enforcement interest in using genetic genealogy to crack cold cases took off after the highly publicized arrest of a suspect in the so-called Golden State serial killings in California last year.

A suspect in those cases was found by running crime-scene DNA through a genealogy database, said CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist with Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs. The same company did the searches that led to McCraney's arrest in Alabama after police heard of the technique.

After genealogical matching identified McCraney as a potential suspect, police said, the man voluntarily submitted a DNA sample that tied him to evidence left at the crime scene.

While investigators seeking new leads in cold cases are intrigued, others see red flags.

"There are huge privacy concerns," said Jennifer Friedman, a public defender in Los Angeles who has been involved in cases involving DNA since the late 1980s.

She said there are multiple problems with tying people to crimes using family genetic information, including the fact that most people probably wouldn't want a relative arrested based on their DNA sample.

Amy McGuire, a professor of biomedical ethics at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told The Associated Press last fall that police searches using DNA and genealogy websites have sometimes pointed to an incorrect person.

And directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers passed a resolution in 2013 opposing the use of familial DNA searches during criminal investigations. The board cited multiple concerns, including the possibility of incorrect matches caused by inadequate procedures.

To make matches, Moore said her company only uses a database to which people have uploaded their information voluntarily after being told it was subject to use in investigations.

She said only about a million people — out of an estimated 23 million who have taken a consumer DNA ancestry test — are in GEDMatch, the database used in the Alabama investigation. GEDMatch is a public genetic database repository to which people have uploaded profiles from at-home ancestry kits.

Moore said the same technique once was used to help adopted individuals search for birth families.

"Many of us that were working with adoptees and others of unknown parentage knew that the methodologies that we had created for that were applicable for law enforcement," she said. The California case helped "open the door" to law enforcement, she said.

McCraney's case is just getting started, and it's unclear whether the defense may try to raise genealogical genetic testing as an issue in court.

But on the street where McCraney grew up in south Alabama, neighbors including 67-year-old Mattie Beaty expressed disbelief at his arrest.

"I tell you, that's a good child. A lot of stuff don't add up. I know they are holding back a lot ... but 20 years, and they are just now coming up with his DNA," Beaty said.

Hawlett and Beasley vanished after heading to a party on July 31, 1999. Their bodies were found the next day in the trunk of Beasley's black Mazda along a road in Ozark, a city of 19,000 people about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Montgomery. Each was shot in the head.

The case sat unsolved for nearly two decades, until the arrest in the Golden State killings. Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker said "let's try that" after hearing about the West Coast case.

McCraney was arrested Friday after the Alabama crime scene sample was analyzed and uploaded to GEDMatch.

Parabon's work enabled police to charge McCraney with multiple counts of capital murder, including one accusing him of killing Beasley during a sexual assault. It's unclear what other evidence, if any, police might have against McCraney.

Moore said the company is now fielding calls for help in decades-old cases as interest grows in this technique. Since May, the company has helped provide law enforcement with identifications in 43 cases, she said.

She said genetic genealogy can help provide answers for families who have seen their loved one' murders go unsolved for years.

"The fact that we can finally provide those is just incredibly important," Moore said.

___

Associated Press writer Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Venezuelan Court Seeks to Strip Guaido’s Legal Immunity, Raising Fears of Arrest

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Federal appeals court affirms Mueller's appointment as special counsel

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, after a former assistant to Trump political adviser Roger Stone brought the case following his refusal to comply with a grand jury subpoena.

Stone associate Andrew Miller refused to testify before the grand jury as part of the Russia investigation, claiming Mueller was illegitimately appointed as special counsel. Miller claimed that Mueller’s appointment was “unlawful” because he was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, rather than former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

JUDGE RIPS INTO ROGER STONE, BARS HIM FROM SPEAKING PUBLICLY ON CASE: 'THERE WILL BE NO THIRD CHANCE'

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday affirmed the validity of Mueller’s appointment to investigate Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates in the 2016 presidential election.

“Because the Special Counsel is an inferior officer, the Deputy Attorney General became the head of the Department [of Justice] by virtue of becoming the Acting Attorney General as a result of a vacancy created by the disability of the Attorney General [Jeff Sessions] through recusal on the matter, we hold that Miller’s challenge to the appointment of the Special Counsel fails,” the court wrote in its decision. “Accordingly, we affirm the order finding Miller in civil contempt.”

At this point, Miller has the ability to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the constitutionality of the special counsel appointment process, which is now overseen by Attorney General William Barr.

Prior to the decision, a lower court also held Miller in contempt. It is unclear whether Miller will now have to appear to testify before the grand jury.

Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017, by Rosenstein. Rosenstein took oversight of the probe after Sessions recused himself due to his early work on the Trump campaign in 2016.

Mueller’s investigation, which was initially ordered to look into the 2016 election, has gone on for more than a year and a half. It has expanded to probe financial crimes of Trump associates before the election, conversations Trump’s national security adviser had with the Russians during the transition and whether Trump obstructed justice with his comments and actions related to the probe.

MUELLER CLAIMS TO HAVE EVIDENCE ROGER STONE COMMUNICATED WITH WIKILEAKS

Stone was charged with obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and making false statements to Congress after being indicted last month as part of Mueller’s probe.

Twenty-six Russian nationals and three Russian companies have also been charged with interfering in the 2016 presidential election. But none of the Trump associates have been charged with crimes related to collusion.

Other convictions include former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who both pleaded guilty to making false statements in 2017. Former campaign adviser Rick Gates in 2018 pleaded guilty and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted and later pleaded guilty in a separate financial crimes case dating back before the 2016 election.

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Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements in a case brought by Mueller in November. Alex van der Zwaan, a London-based lawyer, pleaded guilty to making false statements this year, and Richard Pinedo, a California man, pleaded guilty to identity fraud in 2018.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: Fox News Politics

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Ex-president: Peace possible when all Afghans sit together

Afghanistan's former president says he's saddened by the cancellation of wide-encompassing talks with the Taliban, stressing that peace won't be possible in his homeland, ravaged by more than 17 years of war, until Afghans from all walks of life sit together and negotiate.

Hamid Karzai spoke to The Associated Press a day after the Qatari hosts announced that a scheduled gathering of Afghan-to-Afghan talks was postponed indefinitely after a falling out over who should attend.

The talks were to start on Friday in Qatar, where the Taliban maintain an office. They would have marked the first time that Taliban and Kabul government officials sat together.

Although Karzai did not blame a particular side for the cancellation, he urged the U.S. to "put force behind it to make it (talks) happen."

Source: Fox News World

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VIDEO: Migrant Clips Barbed Wire Off U.S. Border Fence In Broad Daylight

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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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