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The Latest: UN sends helicopter to aid to Zimbabwe areas

The Latest on the efforts to recover from Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi (all times local):

12:40 p.m.

The United Nations World Food Program received a US$280,000 from the European Union to help provide urgently-needed logistical support to the humanitarian response in the wake of the cyclone that has devastated eastern Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique.

The funds will support the deployment of a U.N. Humanitarian Air Service helicopter that will work to deliver much-needed assistance to the two most-affected districts in Zimbabwe. The helicopter will deliver medicine, shelter equipment, food and transport of personnel to the areas of Chimanimani and Chipinge, the worst-hit districts in Zimbabwe.

WFP plans emergency food assistance to approximately 270,000 people in seven affected districts in Zimbabwe, including Chimanimani and Chipinge, for three months.

Cyclone Idai hit Beira, Mozambique on 14 March, and continued across the plains of central Mozambique and devastated eastern Zimbabwe with heavy rains and strong winds. Roads and bridges, particularly in the district of Chimanimani, were washed away and communities left stranded. In Zimbabwe, some 250,000 people have been affected, and at least 154 deaths have been reported by the government plus another 120 Zimbabwean bodies were swept into Mozambique and buried there.

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Relief operations are pressing into remote areas to find survivors of the cyclone that ripped into central Mozambique, while trucks carrying aid attempt to travel a badly damaged road to the hard-hit city of Beira.

The United Nations is making an emergency appeal for $282 million for the next three months and says some 1.8 million people in Mozambique need urgent help after Cyclone Idai.

Authorities say the death toll of at least 761 is "very preliminary" and more bodies will be found as floodwaters drain away.

Diseases such as cholera are expected as more than a quarter-million survivors gather in displacement camps both formal and informal.

The United States says it has donated nearly $3.4 million in emergency food assistance to the U.N.'s World Food Program.

Source: Fox News World

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Mexican Senate approves quasi-military National Guard

Mexico's Senate has unanimously approved a watered-down version of the militarized National Guard the government wants to use to combat a rising wave of crime.

Senators want to avoid militarizing law enforcement, but President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants a force with military discipline.

The senate voted to place the new guard under the civilian public safety department. But members will initially come from federal and military police units and will have joint military-civilian command and training.

The bill also places a five-year limit on using the military for police duties.

Because it changed a version passed earlier by the lower house, the bill will apparently have to return to a conference committee. Because it involves constitutional changes, it must still be approved by a majority of state legislatures.

Source: Fox News World

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Merkel: Germany will meet pledge to spend 1.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2024

German Chancellor Merkel checks phone at Bundestag ahead of EU summit on Brexit delay in Berlin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel checks her phone at the lower house of parliament (Bundestag), ahead of a Brussels summit for Brexit delay discussions, in Berlin, Germany March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

March 21, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will meet the obligation it has made to NATO allies to spend 1.5 percent of economic output on defense by 2024, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.

“The 1.5 percent target by 2024 is an obligation to NATO … I guarantee and the German government guarantees that we will meet that obligation. And that will require effort,” Merkel told the lower house of parliament.

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr; Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Michelle Martin)

Source: OANN

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Commerce’s Ross says census question aimed at Voting Rights Act enforcement

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on oversight of the Commerce Department, in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert

March 14, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told lawmakers on Thursday that he exercised his authority to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census in order to obtain more accurate data to help enforce the Voting Rights Act.

In written testimony, Ross told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he determined that this goal outweighed any reduction in census response rates that may result from the decision.

(Reporting by David Lawder)

Source: OANN

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Barrick CEO defends $18 billion hostile Newmont bid as logical tie-up

FILE PHOTO: Mark Bristow, chief executive officer of Barrick Gold, speaks during an interview at the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town
FILE PHOTO: Mark Bristow, chief executive officer of Barrick Gold, speaks during an interview at the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings/File Photo

February 25, 2019

By Ernest Scheyder

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Reuters) – Barrick Gold Corp’s chief executive defended the world’s largest gold producer’s hostile $18 billion bid for Newmont Mining Corp, saying on Monday the deal is “logical” for an industry battling high costs and depleting resources.

Barrick, which recently completed a $6.1 billion acquisition of Africa-focused Randgold Resources, launched its all-stock bid on Monday, encouraging the U.S. rival to ditch a previously announced $10 billion takeover of Canada’s Goldcorp Inc.

“This gold industry needs to become more relevant to investors,” CEO Mark Bristow said in an interview on the sidelines of the BMO Global Metals & Mining Conference in Hollywood, Florida.

Bristow, known for his straight-talking and hands-on approach in running Randgold before the merger, said this deal “drives a further rationalization in our industry.”

Gold mergers and acquisitions have been scarce in recent years as companies focused on cutting costs in the face of investor criticism about capital management. But the need to bolster shrinking gold reserves to boost growth and take advantage of rising prices are providing the impetus for consolidation.

Barrick’s offer for Newmont has pushed the combined value of unsolicited M&A deals globally to $48.2 billion so far this year, the highest since 2006, according to data from Refinitiv.

Newmont said it had reviewed and rejected possible deals with Barrick and said its own $10 billion planned purchase of Goldcorp made more business sense.

“One has to question what the true motives behind going hostile are: Whether it’s really just to get bigger or it’s all ego-driven,” Newmont CEO Gary Goldberg told Reuters at the BMO conference, adding Newmont shareholders “don’t understand it (and) don’t see the value potential.”

Barrick said its acquisition of Newmont was contingent on the company scrapping the deal to buy Toronto-listed Goldcorp, adding that its offer was a “significantly superior” option for Newmont shareholders.

Goldberg said earlier on Monday a joint venture was a better way to extract value from the two companies’ mines in Nevada, the largest producer of gold and silver among U.S. states.

Newmont has 19 mines in the state, adjacent to Barrick’s own operations. Reuters had reported https://www.reuters.com/article/us-barrick-gold-newmont-mining/barrick-in-talks-with-newmont-to-combine-nevada-gold-operations-sources-idUSKCN1NA1GC in November that the miners were in talks to combine their operations in the state.

Talks of a joint venture fell through over Newmont’s demand for management control, Barrick’s Bristow said on a conference call with analysts. The deal marks Bristow’s first major strategic move at Barrick since taking the top position in January.

Newmont’s board of directors would “fully evaluate the Barrick proposal and respond in due course,” the company said.

Gold sector deals took off when Barrick paid $6.1 billion for rival Randgold, a deal that closed last month. That set off a fresh wave of bids, including Newmont’s offer for smaller miner Goldcorp, which would make the Colorado-based firm the world’s top gold miner if it closes as planned next quarter.

Shares of Newmont fell 0.7 percent to $36.22 at mid-afternoon, while Barrick’s Toronto shares dropped 2.7 percent.

Barrick is offering 2.5694 of its common shares for each Newmont share. That translates to about $33 per Newmont share, valuing the company at $17.85 billion, according to Reuters calculations.

The deals come as gold prices are rising, with gains of some 11 percent since October.

Newmont shareholders would hold about 44 percent of the combined company’s outstanding shares.

Barrick said the new company would match Newmont’s annual dividend of 56 cents per share which, based on the offer, would represent a pro-forma annual dividend of 22 cents per Barrick share.

(Additional reporting by John Benny in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang and Phil Berlowitz)

Source: OANN

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Asian shares supported by global growth hopes, eyes on earnings

FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a markets index board in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a markets index board in Tokyo June 12, 2013. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares started on a firm footing on Monday and the dollar eased as risk appetite was whetted by better-than-expected data from China that helped boost confidence about the health of the world economy.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.1 percent with South Korea’s KOSPI up 0.5 percent. Australian shares slightly weaker.

Japan’s Nikkei jumped 1.3 percent to the highest since early December.

Investors have been fretting about a global growth slowdown this year as trade disputes and tighter financial conditions hit demand. Last week, the International Monetary Fund cut its outlook for the world economy for the third time in six months.

There have also been worries that weakness in key economies, including China, could spread to other countries, especially if elevated trade tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated further.

That explains why investors cheered Chinese data showing exports rebounded in March to a five-month high while new bank loans jumped by far more than expected. Total bank lending in the first three months of 2019 hit a record quarterly tally of 5.81 trillion yuan ($866.7 billion). [nL3N21S1F8][nL3N21Q1YT]

“Markets were buoyed by an improvement in China’s data which saw risk appetite improve,” ANZ said in a note to clients.

“A sustained improvement in the data will be important before confidence is restored. In the meantime, policymakers remain committed to setting ‘growth friendly’ monetary and fiscal policies.”

(Graphic: Asian stock markets – https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4)

News over the weekend added to the upbeat mood. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday a U.S.-China trade agreement would go “way beyond” previous efforts to open China’s markets to U.S. companies and hoped that the two sides were “close to the final round” of negotiations.

Also helping sentiment, the Group of 20 industrialized nations have called for a trade truce in a sign world leaders are prepared to take action to curtail risks of a global economic slowdown.

“We expect a relatively market-friendly U.S.-China deal,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch global economist Ethan Harris said in a note. “In our view, market and political concerns will constrain future fights. Think ‘skirmishes’ rather than ‘major battles.'”

The risk sensitive Australian dollar, which is also used as a proxy for China plays, hovered near a seven-week top at $0.7173.

Investors are next looking to China’s March-quarter gross domestic product data due Wednesday. All eyes are also on corporate earnings from major U.S. companies after quarterly results from JPMorgan handily beat analyst estimates last week.

All that positive news boosted Wall Street on Friday with the Dow jumping 1 percent, the S&P500 climbing 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq adding 0.5 percent.

In currencies, the dollar index was a shade weaker at 96.909 against a basket of major currencies as demand for safe haven assets eased. It had slipped to a near three-week trough of 96.745 on Friday.

The euro held at $1.1302 as dealers were gearing up for demand from Japan as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial closed in on its multi-billion-euro acquisition of DZ Bank’s aviation-finance business. [FRX/]

The common currency was also supported by encouraging data from the euro zone where industrial output in February declined by less than expected.

In commodities, oil provided big milestones, with Brent breaking through the $70 threshold last week and the U.S. benchmark posting six straight weeks of gains for the first time since early 2016. [O/R]

Commodities have had the best first-quarter start ever, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said, calling the annualized returns they are tracking the strongest in the past 100 years.

Brent crude oil futures was last off 31 cents at $71.24 while crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, eased 45 cents to $63.44.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: OANN

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Source: InfoWars

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“Outdated laws” need fixing to deal with the surge in illegal immigrant families crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, a top Border Patrol official said Friday.

Migrant families face no consequences if apprehended trying to cross the border illegally under present law, Border Patrol chief of Operations Brian Hastings claimed during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We need a change in the current outdated laws that we’re dealing with for this current demographic and this crisis that we have,” he said.

Hastings said as of Thursday there have been 440,000 apprehensions along the southwest border. There were 396,000 apprehensions all of last year.

SOUTHERN BORDER AT ‘BREAKING POINT’ AFTER MORE THAN 76,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TRIED CROSSING IN FEBRUARY, OFFICIALS SAY

And those numbers continue to rise, he said.

Historically 70 to 90 percent of apprehensions at the border were quickly returned to Mexico, Hastings said.

Now, 83 percent of those apprehended have come from the Central American northern triangle which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and of those 63 percent are “family units” and children who cannot be returned, he said.

“There are no consequences that we can apply to this group currently,” Hastings said. “We’re overwhelmed. If you look at agents there doing a tremendous job trying to deal with the flow.”

The law dictates children have to be released after 20 days of detention.

FLORIDA SHERIFF ON BORDER CRISIS AFTER MAJOR DRUG BUST: ‘IT MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY’

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says that has forced immigration officials to release entire families because “you don’t want to separate families.”

Recently, he said he is drafting legislation that would allow children to be detained for more than 20 days.

Hastings said agents are frustrated with the situation but are doing the best they can with the resources they have.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Up to 40 percent of our agents are processing at any given time,” he said. “That should say that in and of itself is pulling from those border security resources.”

Source: Fox News National

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President Trump on Friday blasted liberal billionaire activist Tom Steyer for his continued push to impeach Trump — with Trump claiming Steyer is “trying to remain relevant” and doesn’t have the “guts” to run for the White House himself.

“Weirdo Tom Steyer, who didn’t have the ‘guts’ or money to run for President, is still trying to remain relevant by putting himself on ads begging for impeachment,” the president tweeted. “He doesn’t mention the fact that mine is perhaps the most successful first 2 year presidency in history & NO C OR O! [Collusion or Obstruction]”

TRUMP IMPEACHMENT BACKERS NOT GIVING UP AFTER MUELLER REPORT

Trump and his allies have pointed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report’s conclusions that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and its decision not to make a conclusion on obstruction of justice as a vindication for the president.

But some Democrats and left-wing activists have pointed to the instances of possible obstruction of justice that the investigation looked into as proof of the need for more investigations or even impeachment proceedings.

ELIZABETH WARREN DOUBLES DOWN ON TRUMP IMPEACHMENT PUSH, SAYS IT’S ‘BIGGER THAN POLITICS’

Steyer has been one of the leaders backing a push to impeach Trump and founded “Need to Impeach” and has kept up that push since the report’s release. He announced on Thursday that he was calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to support impeachment proceedings.

On Friday he responded to Trump’s tweet, calling him “angry and scared.”

“I know you want it all to go away. But for the sake of the country you must face your transgressions. Rage away, but that anger doesn’t matter,” he said in a tweet. The truth and the people will prevail.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Impeachment hearings have been backed by a number of House Democrats, as well as 2020 presidential hopefuls Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. However, Pelosi has long been skeptical of impeachment proceedings against Trump.

“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi told The Washington Post in an interview last month. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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A Florida measure that would ban sanctuary cities is set for a vote Friday in the state’s Senate after clearing its first hurdle earlier this week.

The bill would effectively make it against the law for Florida’s police departments to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

“The Governor may initiate judicial proceedings in the name of the state against such officers to enforce compliance,” a draft version of the Senate bill reads.

A House version of the bill, which passed by a 69-47 vote Wednesday, adds that non-complying officials could be suspended or removed from office and face fines of up to $5,000 per day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign off on the measure, although it’s not clear which version.

FLORIDA MAY SEND A BIG MESSAGE TO SANCTUARY CITIES

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state.

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state. (AP)

LAWRENCE JONES: NEEDLES, DRUG USE AND HUMAN WASTE ARE THE NEW NORMAL IN SAN FRANCISCO

Florida is home to 775,000 illegal immigrants out of 10.7 million present in the United States, ranking the state third among all states.

Nine states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas — already have enacted state laws requiring law enforcement to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Florida doesn’t have sanctuary cities like the ones in California and other states. But Republican lawmakers say a handful of their municipalities — including Orlando and West Palm Beach – are acting as “pseudo-sanctuary” cities, because they prevent law enforcement officials from asking about immigration status when they make arrests.

“There are still people here in the state of Florida, police chiefs that are just refusing to contact ICE, refusing to detain somebody that they know is here illegally,” Florida Republican Rep. Blaise Ingoglia said earlier this month. “So while the actual county municipality doesn’t have an actual adopted policy, they still have people in power within their sheriff’s department or police department that refuse to do it anyway.”

Florida’s Democratic Party has blasted the anti-Sanctuary measures, while the Miami-Dade Police Department says it should be up to federal authorities to handle immigration-related matters.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“House Republicans today sold out their communities to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis by passing this xenophobic and discriminatory bill,” the state’s Democratic Party said Wednesday after the House passed their version of the bill. “It’s abhorrent that Republican members who represent immigrant communities are now turning their backs on their constituents and jeopardizing their safety.

“Florida has long stood as a beacon for immigrant communities — and today Republicans did the best they could to destroy that reputation,” they added.

Fox News’ Elina Shirazi contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain's far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.

No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.

Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.

By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.

Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.

The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.

The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.

Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.

It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.

While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.

TRENDING

According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.

Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.

Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.

Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.

“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said

For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.

“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.

For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.

The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.

The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.

That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.

(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)

(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

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The Amish population in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County is continuing to grow each year, despite the encroachment of urban sprawl on their communities.

The U.S. Census Bureau says the county added about 2,500 people in 2018. LNP reports that about 1,000 of them were Amish.

Elizabethtown College researchers say Lancaster County’s Amish population reached 33,143 in 2018, up 3.2% from the previous year.

The Amish accounted for about 41% of the county’s overall population growth last year.

Some experts are concerned that a planned 75-acre (30-hectare) housing and commercial project will make it more difficult for the county to accommodate the Amish.

Donald Kraybill, an authority on Amish culture, told Manheim Township commissioners this week that some in the community are worried about the development and the increased traffic it would bring.

___

Information from: LNP, http://lancasteronline.com

Source: Fox News National

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