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Large blast outside crowded restaurant in Somalia's capital

A Somali police officer says an explosives-laden vehicle has detonated outside a restaurant in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.

Capt. Mohamed Hussein says the blast occurred as the restaurant in Waberi district was crowded with diners.

There is no immediate word of casualties.

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group often targets high-profile areas in Mogadishu with suicide bombings.

Source: Fox News World

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Battle for Hong Kong Airlines pulls complex HNA holdings into daylight

FILE PHOTO: A HNA Group logo is seen on the building of HNA Plaza in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: A HNA Group logo is seen on the building of HNA Plaza in Beijing, China February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Jennifer Hughes and Julie Zhu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shareholders summoned by Hong Kong Airlines this month for a meeting were greeted with some shocking news: the airline needed at least HK$2 billion in fresh funds or it would lose its operating license.

The carrier had lost HK$3 billion ($382.54 million) in 2018, they were told, and an infusion was crucial, according to people present.

Dialed in, but silent for the hour-long meeting on April 1, were executives for Hainan-based HNA Group,, which holds 29 percent of the airline’s shares.

Investors were blunt about HNA’s role in the company’s troubles, according to people at the meeting – including accusations that it was siphoning off cash, which the conglomerate denies.

“There’s no point raising fresh capital if we cannot solve the problem of (a) major shareholder pumping out HKA’s assets,” said Zhong Guosong, who holds 27 percent of the shares and is vying for chairmanship of the company.

Another shareholder echoed his views: “This is Hong Kong, not Hainan.”

In the last week, drama from the call has spilled into the open as HNA and a rival group battled for control of Hong Kong Airlines’ chairmanship. The airline declined to comment on shareholders’ activities and said its operations “remain normal.”

The infighting illustrates the convoluted nature of HNA’s holdings around the world, which range from real estate to banks and are often divided among opaque, related entities.

On paper, HNA gave up control of Hong Kong Airlines two years ago just as it began selling off assets collected in a $50 billion worldwide acquisition spree.

But the carrier has close ties with several HNA affiliates.

“HNA’s shareholding structure and how they structure investments has always been very complicated, and the HKA case isn’t any different,” said David Yu, adjunct professor of finance at New York University, Shanghai. “The issue now is that there is some distress at the parent group, and this is obviously having implications on the underlying companies, including HKA.”

HNA TANGLE

Since Beijing in 2017 began cracking down on Chinese conglomerates’ rapid debt-fuelled global expansions, HNA has sold about $26 billion in assets, according to Dealogic data and Reuters calculations.

Disposals include control of the Radisson hotel group; a quarter stake in Hilton Hotels; prime property in New York, Sydney, Shanghai, San Francisco and Hong Kong; regional Chinese airlines; a stake in aircraft lessor Avolon; and half of its stake in Deutsche Bank.

But the prices HNA has sought and the complex structures, loans and other business links that bind its holdings have made unwinding its investments difficult.

HNA’s wider Hong Kong interests are a case in point. This week, HNA-controlled CWT International said lenders had seized assets, including U.S. property and its Singapore-based commodity trading and logistics unit, because it failed to repay a HK$1.4 billion ($178 million) loan.

HNA said that it was monitoring the situation, but that it was a matter for CWT and its creditors. Yet HNA units own 51 percent of CWT’s shares, and each of CWT’s executive directors has ties to other HNA businesses. CWT’s co-chairman, Mung Kin Keung, is a shareholder in Hong Kong Airlines.

HNA’s involvement with the airline is just as complicated. The conglomerate took control of CR Airways in 2006 and renamed it Hong Kong Airlines. In July 2017 it cut its stake, according to filings, by selling 34 percent to Chinese private equity group Frontier Investment Partners.

According to Hong Kong Airlines’ 2017 accounts, seen by Reuters, the airline held shares in four unlisted HNA affiliates, worth $367 million at the end of 2017, and had loaned $300 million to two other HNA firms.

That year, the airline’s trade receivables – money owed to it but not collected – jumped 50 percent even as revenue rose only 11 percent. Of those payments due, the amount HNA companies owed the airline more than doubled to HK$1.3 billion, or 73 percent of receivables.

Zhong is closely linked with HNA as well, having been a director of the airline for almost four years until August 2018. Since 2017, he has also been chairman of Hong Kong Express, Hong Kong Airlines’ low-cost sister, which HNA recently agreed to sell to Cathay Pacific for HK$4.93 billion.

Cathay’s announcement of the deal contained a warning that an HK Express shareholder planned to contest it. That shareholder is Zhong, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the issue. They declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

In a further sign that the relationship between Zhong and HNA had soured, court papers show that HNA in December sued the company through which Zhong holds his 27 percent stake in the airline, seeking repayment of a HK$854 million debt from 2010.

A representative for Zhong did not provide comment.

CONTROL DISPUTES

Since the April 1 meeting, Frontier has aligned itself with Zhong, working to appoint him chairman of the airline as part of efforts to seize control and investigate its financial ties with HNA.

Late last week they won an injunction that blocked directors and executives from removing or destroying the airline’s documents.

That followed a week in which both Zhong and airline executive Hou Wei – still listed on its website as chairman – claimed control and fought over who had access to the company’s headquarters.

Adding to the confusion, a group called Grand City Investment Capital Limited this week said it owned the Frontier stake after a transfer dated April 11.

A spokesman for Grand City declined to discuss his company’s ownership. Frontier disputes Grand City’s claim to the stake.

Frontier and Zhong have also accused HNA of “embezzlement of HKA assets and serious financial misappropriation by HNA Group parties” – accusations that HNA has denied.

They and other shareholders are still demanding access to the airline’s 2018 accounts and details of how it lost so much money before they address its HK$2 billion capital shortfall.

Amid the court orders and competing statements uncertainty remains over who is in charge – although both sides have gone to lengths to ensure the airline keeps operating normally.

“There are so many moving parts that corporate control is under dispute because the changes are happening too rapidly for the company to organize coherently,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, which focuses on China. He described HNA as “a poster child for overexpansion of China’s worst conglomerates.”

He added: “Because there is always a lack of transparency at HNA, this makes it twice as hard to figure out what the nature of the dispute is.”

(Reporting by Jennifer Hughes, Julie Zhu, Kane Wu and Alun John; Additional reporting by Shellin Li and Jamie Freed; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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Politico: Trump Immigration Policies Might Be Fueling Rise in Caravans

A new analysis shows that some of the Trump administration's policies and threats designed to thwart illegal immigration are actually having the opposite effect.

Politico examined the issue of illegal immigration, which President Donald Trump has vowed to fix since he was a presidential candidate in 2015. Roughly 100,000 migrants arrived at the United States' border with Mexico in March, and the problem only seems to be getting worse.

But Trump's threats to shut down the border and cut aid to Central American countries could actually be stoking the fire and forcing more people to flee poverty and threats of violence and head toward the U.S., Politico reported.

For example, cutting aid to countries such as El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala would result in even higher poverty rates, which would only make people more desperate to flee. Those three countries have extremely high homicide rates.

There's also a lack of food in some Central American countries, which would be exacerbated by cuts in foreign aid.

"There's just a sense of hopelessness in the region," Adriana Beltrán, a director at the Washington Office on Latin America, told Politico. "If you are a victim of violence, a victim of extortion, or if you are living in impoverished conditions and you feel your government isn't addressing your needs … you look for protection, for safety, or for better conditions elsewhere."

The rise in migrant caravans traveling from Central America and through Mexico en route to the U.S. has made it more feasible for some people to journey to the U.S. because the caravans don't cost any money and they are relatively safe. Smugglers can charge thousands of dollars per person, and much has been written about the violence — particularly sexual violence — people have endured while traveling with smugglers.

"Why would anyone ever pay $6,000 for a smuggler again if you can get into a caravan for free?" Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told Politico.

The Trump administration has taken a hard stance on Central American countries for not preventing migrants from beginning their journeys to the U.S. Mexico has also become a target for allowing caravans enter its country and head north to the border.

Trump has threatened to close down the U.S.-Mexico border because of the illegal immigration issue, but so far that has not happened.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Russians lead after pairs short program, French favorites tumble

ISU World Figure Skating Championships - Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan
ISU World Figure Skating Championships - Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan - March 20, 2019. Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of Russia in action during the Pairs Short Program. REUTERS/Issei Kato

March 20, 2019

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – Russian pair Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov took a commanding lead after the short program at the World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama on Wednesday after a fall left French favorites Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres in seventh.

James and Cipres, undefeated this season and the first French pair to win the European Championship in over 80 years, went down when James botched the landing on their throw triple flip and fell to the ice.

James later said a collision with Italy’s Matteo Guarise during the warm-up prior to their performance had rattled her.

“I didn’t see Matteo, Matteo didn’t see me so we crashed and I fell,” she told the International Skating Union (ISU). “It took me off a little and I was not very comfortable after. I felt a little dizzy, so I tried to stay focused.

“It was a bad skate for us today, and with the fall it was very tiring after.”

Tarasova and Morozov, who placed fourth at the 2018 Winter Olympics and second at last year’s worlds, renewed their season’s best score with 81.21 points in a dramatic, dynamic routine that had the audience clapping along at the Saitama Super Arena, just north of Tokyo.

“During the European Championships we had the same mistake both in short and free programs. Therefore, now we had to train harder not to allow this to happen anymore,” Tarasova said. “We decided to make everything at our maximum.”

James and Cipres were on 68.67 points after their routine, in which Cipres also made an uncharacteristic error when he doubled a toeloop.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “The season was long, we were not good on the ice today. It was not our moment, not our day.”

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China, who have had an injury-plagued season, were second on 79.24 after delivering a graceful routine, with compatriots Peng Cheng and Jin Yang in third with 75.51.

“While we had several mistakes at the beginning of the program, otherwise the score would be above 80 points, we still performed our best, and we would like to skate well in the free program as well,” Sui said.

The pairs winner will be decided on Thursday with the free program. The championship competitions last until March 23.

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Source: OANN

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Dem Leaders Stress More Trump Probes, Downplay Impeachment

A House chairman on Monday subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn as Democratic leaders moved to deepen their investigation of President Donald Trump while bottling up talk among their rank-and-file of impeaching him.

Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler was one of six powerful committee leaders making their case on a conference call with other House Democrats late in the day that they are effectively investigating Trump-related matters ranging from potential obstruction to his personal and business taxes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged divided Democrats to focus on fact-finding rather than the prospect of any impeachment proceedings after the damning details of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Nadler and the other chairmen made clear they believe Trump did obstruct justice, according to people on the call who weren't authorized to discuss it by name. McGahn would be a star witness for any such case because he refused Trump's demand to set Mueller's firing in motion, according to the report.

"The Special Counsel's report, even in redacted form, outlines substantial evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction and other abuses," Nadler said in a statement released as the conference call got underway. "It now falls to Congress to determine for itself the full scope of the misconduct and to decide what steps to take in the exercise of our duties of oversight, legislation and constitutional accountability."

The subpoena angered Republicans even as it functioned as a reassurance to impatient Democrats.

Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, pointed out that McGahn sat for 30 hours of interviews with Mueller and said Nadler was asking for some items that he knows cannot be produced.

Trump himself insisted he wasn't worried.

"Not even a little bit," he said when asked Monday whether he was concerned about impeachment. However, his many tweets seeking to undermine the report's credibility indicate he is hardly shrugging it aside.

"Only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment," he said Monday on Twitter. "There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can't impeach. It was the Democrats that committed the crimes, not your Republican President!"

On the other end of the scale, Pelosi's approach disappointed some Democrats who are agitating for impeachment proceedings. According to her spokesman, Rep. Val Demings of Florida said she believed the House has enough evidence to begin the process.

McGahn was a vital witness for Mueller, recounting the president's outrage over the investigation and his efforts to curtail it.

The former White House counsel described, for instance, being called at home by the president on the night of June 17, 2017, and directed to call the Justice Department and say that Mueller had conflicts of interest and should be removed. McGahn declined the command, "deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre," the Mueller report said.

Once that episode became public in the news media, the president demanded that McGahn dispute the reports and asked him why he had told Mueller about it and why he had taken notes of their conversations. McGahn refused to back down, the report said.

Nadler's announcement was one of several leadership moves aimed at calming a struggle among Democrats to speak with one voice about what to do in light of Mueller's startling account of Trump's repeated efforts to fire him, shut down his probe and get allies to lie.

After Mueller's report was released last week, the most prominent of the Democratic freshmen, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, signed on to Rep. Rashida Tlaib's resolution calling for an investigation into Trump's conduct and the question of whether it merits a formal impeachment charge in the House.

"Mueller's report is clear in pointing to Congress' responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

On Monday, Pelosi's letter made clear there was no Democratic disagreement that Trump "at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds." But she acknowledged the party's officeholders have a range of views on how to proceed.

She counseled them repeatedly to go after facts, not resort to "passion or prejudice" in the intense run-up to the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. She is the de facto leader of her party until Democrats nominate a candidate to challenge Trump, so her words echoed on the presidential campaign trail.

"We all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth," Pelosi wrote. "It is also important to know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings."

As the conference call got underway, Nadler's subpoena announcement was made public, an indication that the facts-first approach was moving ahead. Pelosi, calling from New York City, spoke briefly. Then she put a show of leadership force on the line — six committee chairmen, some of the most powerful people in Congress — to give more details, according to people on the call.

Nadler went first. Others who followed were Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings, intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Water and Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal. The call lasted about 90 minutes and included about 170 Democrats.

During a series of town hall events on CNN Monday night, several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates weighed in. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren repeated her call for an impeachment vote, saying that if lawmakers believe the president's actions were appropriate, "they should have to take that vote and live with it."

California Sen. Kamala Harris said she believes "Congress should take the steps toward impeachment."

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Trump should be held accountable, but she stopped short of calling for impeachment.

There's more coming to keep Trump's reported misdeeds in public. Congressional panels are demanding the unredacted version of the Mueller report and its underlying material gathered from the investigation. Attorney General William Barr is expected to testify in the House and Senate next week. Nadler has summoned Mueller to testify next month, though no date has been set.

In the face of the intense run-up to the 2020 election, Pelosi implicitly suggested Democrats resist creating episodes like the one in January in which Tlaib was recorded declaring the House would impeach Trump.

"We must show the American people we are proceeding free from passion or prejudice, strictly on the presentation of fact," Pelosi wrote.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Censorship Alert: Social Media Getting Prepared to Ban Political Speech

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'Trigger' abortion bill clears Oklahoma Senate panel

Oklahoma would automatically ban abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide under a bill that has cleared a Senate panel.

While abortion opponents chanted, prayed and sang hymns outside the committee room, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 11-4 on Monday for the so-called "trigger" abortion ban . Similar bills already have passed in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Many of the abortion opponents were upset that a separate bill by Republican Sen. Joseph Silk to make abortion a felony crime was not granted a hearing.

Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat described Silk's bill as a dangerous precedent by a state to ignore a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Source: Fox News National

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One of Joe Biden’s newly-hired senior advisers has seemingly had a very recent change of heart.

Symone Sanders, a prominent Democratic strategist and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., staffer in 2016, was announced as one of the big-name members of Team Biden on Thursday.

But Sanders, who has also served as a CNN contributor, is seen in resurfaced footage from November 2016 expressing her opposition to a white person leading her party after Donald Trump’s election.

“In my opinion, we don’t need white people leading the Democratic party right now,” Sanders told host Brianna Keilar during a discussion on Howard Dean potentially becoming DNC chairman.

BIDEN HIRES FORMER BERNIE SANDERS’ SPOKESPERSON AS SENIOR ADVISER

“The Democratic party is diverse, and it should be reflected as so in leadership and throughout the staff, at the highest levels. From the vice chairs to the secretaries all the way down to the people working in the offices at the DNC,” she said.

Sanders wrapped up her remarks by saying: “I want to hear more from everybody. I want to hear from the millennials and the brown folks.”

Footage of the interview was resurfaced by RealClearPolitics.

After news of her hiring broke on Thursday, Sanders backed her new boss on Twitter.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG

“@JoeBiden & @DrBiden are a class act. Over the course of this campaign, Vice President Biden is going to make his case to the American ppl. He won’t always be perfect, but I believe he will get it right,” she wrote.

The hiring of Sanders has been viewed as another indication of the expected tough fight that Biden and Sanders are in for as the two frontrunners battle a deep Democratic field.

While Sanders himself didn’t torch Biden as he jumped into the race, it’s clear that many of his progressive supporters view the former vice president as a threat.

Biden’s entry into the race – at least in the early going – sets up a battle between himself and Sanders, who thanks to his fierce fight with eventual nominee Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination, enjoys name ID on the level of the former vice president.

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Justice Democrats — who also called Biden “out-of-touch” – is an increasingly influential group among the left of the party. They’ve championed progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as well as Sanders. The group was founded by members of Sanders 2016 presidential campaign.

Biden has pushed back against the perception that he’s a moderate in a party that’s increasingly moving to the left. Earlier this month he described himself as an “Obama-Biden Democrat.”

And Biden said he’d stack his record against “anybody who has run or who is running now or who will run.”

Former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile – a Fox News contributor – highlighted that “Joe Biden can occupy his own lane in large part because he’s earned it. He’s earned the right to call himself whatever.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

But she emphasized that “elections are not about the past, they’re about the future…I do believe he has the right ingredients. The question is can he find enough people to help him stir the pot.”

Fox News Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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