Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Lara Trump asks why ‘someone would be dumb enough’ to primary challenge the president

President Trump’s re-election campaign adviser and daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, says the president’s 2020 team isn’t worried at all about a Republican primary challenge.

“I don’t know why someone would be dumb enough to challenge Donald Trump,” she told Fox News when asked about former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who many expect to make such a challenge.

LARA TRUMP TARGETS 2020 DEMOCRATS

“I don’t know why anybody would waste their time and money on the Republican end trying to challenge the president. We’re not worried about that at all,” added Trump, who was interviewed on Tuesday evening before headlining the New Hampshire GOP’s annual fundraising gala.

Trump, the wife of the president’s son Eric, also said that the campaign’s first=quarter fundraising figures would be reported soon. The campaign raised $6.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.

“They’re much better than the last quarter of last year,” she hinted when asked how much the campaign had raised in the January-March period.

BERNIE'S BIG BUCKS - SANDERS RAISES $18.2 MILLION

The president’s daughter-in-law was in New Hampshire hours after Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont announced that he has raised $18 million since February, when he kicked off his second bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

On Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris of California reported a $12 million haul since declaring her candidacy. And South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was considered a long shot when he set up his presidential exploratory committee in January, brought in more than $7 million.

Asked about the large hauls by some of the Democrats trying to defeat the president, Lara Trump confidently said that “we’re not worried about that in any sense.”

She predicted that the big bucks being raised the by 2020 Democrats won't have much of an effect: "First of all, they have to fight it out in the primaries. Get your popcorn ready because I think it’s going to be a show. So we’ll let them take care of spending that money up front and we’ll worry about whoever the challenger is later.”

Touting the president’s grassroots appeal, she stressed that “at the Trump campaign, we’re very proud of the fact that the vast majority, 96 percent, of the money we raise comes from low-dollar donors, meaning $100 or less.”

At the fundraiser, Lara Trump took aim at the Democratic contenders, urging the crowd to call them socialists.  “I don’t know what’s going on over there, but it’s great for us.”

She also took aim at two of the more high-profile 2020 White House hopefuls.

“Robert Francis O’Rourke. Also known as Beto O’Rourke. Great skateboarder. Not sure what he’s going to do for this country,” she said, repeating a line she's used to criticize the former congressman from Texas, who quickly grabbed large crowds and raised an eye-popping $6 million in his first 24 hours as a presidential candidate.

Pointing to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Trump predicted, “I think she’s done.”

“Let me tell you our strategy. We’re going to stay out of the Democrats' way and let them battle it out,” she told the crowd.

Lara Trump said that when it comes to the re-election, her father-in-law “is doing all the hard work for us at the campaign. We just let him go.”

But she added that “sometimes we wish we could monitor the tweets a little better.”

The New Hampshire GOP said that Lara Trump helped raise nearly $70,000 at the fundraiser, more than three times the haul from last year’s gala.

Donald Trump’s double-digit victory in New Hampshire’s 2016 GOP presidential primary over a large field of rivals launched him toward capturing the Republican nomination and eventually the White House. He narrowly lost the state’s four electoral votes in the general election.

Lara Trump told Fox News that “we’ll get him [the president] up here in short order. … He’ll be here many times.”

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Indonesian president’s lead over election rival cut in new survey

Indonesia's presidential candidate Joko Widodo speaks during a debate with his opponent Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta
Indonesia's presidential candidate Joko Widodo speaks during a debate with his opponent Prabowo Subianto (not pictured) in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 17, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan

March 20, 2019

JAKARTA (Reuters) – A new Indonesian election survey shows President Joko Widodo’s big lead over his challenger, retired general Prabowo Subianto, is narrowing, just weeks ahead of next month’s vote in the world’s third-largest democracy.

The April 17 election will be a rerun of the 2014 race, in which Widodo beat out Prabowo by almost six percentage points.

A survey by pollster Litbang Kompas, which is part of Indonesia’s biggest newspaper Kompas, shows Widodo likely to win 49.2 percent of the vote, surpassing 37.4 percent for Prabowo.

Although still a double-digit lead, the electability gap in the survey between February 22 and March 5 was narrower than the Kompas survey in October that gave Widodo a 19.9-percentage point lead over his rival.

Opinion polls in January by other pollsters, including Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting and Australian-based Roy Morgan, put Widodo at an advantage of about 20 percentage points over Prabowo.

The president’s campaign team is confident he will still win by a big margin, spokeswoman Meutya Hafid said in a statement.

“There’s a number of indications why votes for Jokowi will be higher than in 2014,” she said, referring to the president by a popular nickname.

“Jokowi will be able to grab votes from places that are normally the stronghold of candidate number two (Prabowo), such as West Java,” Hafid said, referring to Indonesia’s most populous province.

The latest Kompas survey showed Widodo’s support may be shrinking among mature millennials aged between 31 and 40, as well as baby boomers.

After a slow beginning, the six-month campaign has picked up pace, with televised debates between the candidates and rallies held across the archipelago of more than 17,000 islands.

Some analysts say the debates were a missed opportunity for Prabowo, who has struggled to land any big blows against Widodo, while the president has appeared workman-like in projecting his achievements in areas such as infrastructure while in office.

But the challenger’s running mate, private equity tycoon Sandiaga Uno, has appeared to generate a buzz on the campaign trail while proving popular online, especially with women and young voters.

Uno attacked Widodo’s track record on education and healthcare last weekend, saying his government would be able to solve Indonesia’s problems in education and large deficits in health insurance.

Last week, the anti-graft agency named a prominent politician backing Widodo’s re-election campaign a suspect in a bribery case, which could further dent his campaign.

(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor and Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Ed Davies and Clarence Fernandez)

Source: OANN

0 0

Mercedes Schlapp: 'Strong Legal Grounds' for Border Declaration

President Donald Trump and his administration believe there are "strong legal grounds" behind the decision to declare the border situation a national emergency and that Trump had the presidential authority to take the action, White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp said Monday.

"Congress has the statutes and it has been used before over 50 times since 1976," Schlapp told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "What we're seeing right now at the border is an emergency."

In addition, Border Patrol agents are having difficulty having enough operational support to secure the border, said Schlapp.

Schlapp also commented on Trump's statement at the Rose Garden Friday that he didn't "have to" go the route of a national emergency, saying that he didn't want to choose the route he took.

"He wanted to see if Congress would negotiate a better deal," said Schlapp. "They, of course, fell short with pushing forward $1.375 billion toward the physical barrier. That is better than the zero or less than $1 Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi was willing to offer."

There also are several pots of money the president can start using even while legal challenges mount to his declaration, including from the departments of Treasury and Defense.

"This is an opportunity to really be able to build these physical barriers in much-needed areas," she said. "We can start building immediately and start working with our contractors. The president met last week with the generals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get the process going. The president wants to move fast."

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

Italy demands answers over reports daughter of North Korea diplomat abducted

FILE PHOTO: An entrance to the North Korean Embassy in Rome
FILE PHOTO: An entrance to the North Korean Embassy in Rome, Italy, January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi/File Photo

February 20, 2019

By Crispian Balmer

ROME (Reuters) – Italy warned on Wednesday there would be consequences to pay if there was any truth to reports that the daughter of a missing North Korean diplomat had been abducted from Rome and whisked to Pyongyang.

“If confirmed, this would be of unprecedented gravity,” said Manlio Di Stefano, undersecretary at the Italian foreign ministry. “Those responsible for this will pay, you can be sure of that,” he wrote on Facebook.

North Korean diplomat Jo Song Gil, who was recently acting ambassador to Italy, went missing in November along with his wife, a South Korean member of parliament said last month, following reports that the envoy had defected.

Thae Yong Ho, a former deputy North Korean ambassador to Britain who staged a surprise defection to South Korea in 2016, told a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday that Gil could not take his daughter with him when he escaped the Rome embassy.

“North Korean authorities sent her back home immediately and she’s now under their custody in Pyongyang,” he said, citing his contacts in the North Korean capital.

Di Stefano, a member of the 5-Star Movement in Rome’s governing coalition, said Italy should have protected the unnamed daughter. “She now risks being tortured by one of the worst regimes in the world,” he wrote.

A diplomatic source in Rome has said Italy has no record of Jo seeking asylum there and the whereabouts of him and his family were not known.

Thae urged Jo in January to move to South Korea, but he said the fact his daughter was in North Korea complicated matters.

“The level of punishment that the children of a North Korean diplomat who defected would face is completely different depending on whether the parent went to South Korea or a Western country,” he said, suggesting Jo’s daughter would face much harsher penalties if her father went to Seoul.

Antonio Razzi, a former Italian centre-right parliamentarian who is a staunch defender of secretive North Korea, said Jo’s daughter had been abandoned by her parents and was now safe back home with her grandparents.

“Those two wretches left their daughter alone. She is a child and suffers from a disability,” Razzi told Italy’s Adnkronos news agency. “It is normal that she was sent back to her grandparents,” he added, denying she was in any danger.

Pyongyang normally requires diplomats going overseas to leave at least one child at home, but those from the top echelons or seen as the most loyal to the leadership get some exceptions. Thae has said previously that Jo hailed from a wealthy family of diplomats, and was able to take his child with him on his posting to Italy which started in 2015.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer with additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

0 0

Former Patriots WR Mitchell retires at 25

Atlanta Falcons' Goodwin breaks up a pass intended for New England Patriots' Mitchell during the second quarter of Super Bowl LI in Houston
Atlanta Falcons' C.J. Goodwin (R) breaks up a pass intended for New England Patriots' Malcolm Mitchell during the second quarter of Super Bowl LI in Houston, Texas, U.S., February 5, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

March 24, 2019

Former New England Patriots receiver Malcolm Mitchell has ended his short NFL career, he announced over the weekend.

Speaking at an event at his alma mater, Georgia, Mitchell told attendees he was moving on to a “new chapter” of his life.

The oft-injured Mitchell was waived by the Patriots before the 2018 season and spent the year out of the league. He was continuing to battle a knee issue after missing all but one preseason game in 2017.

A fourth-round pick from Georgia in 2016, Mitchell carried injury concerns from college after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee early in the Bulldogs’ 2013 season.

Through two years in the NFL, the 26-year-old played in 14 games (six starts), all in 2016, catching 32 passes for 401 yards and four scores. He added six grabs for 70 yards in the team’s Super Bowl LI victory that postseason.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

0 0

Judge gives go-ahead to lawsuit aimed at stopping Chicago Obama library

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group hoping to halt the construction of former President Barack Obama's $500 million presidential center on Chicago's South Side can proceed.

U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey, who was nominated to the federal bench by Obama in 2014, ruled that Protect Our Parks has standing to sue the city because it represents taxpayers with concerns that providing land in Jackson Park to the Obama center violates their due process rights. The judge indicated that he doesn't want the litigation to drag on, and that he'll limit any fact-gathering before the trial to 45 days.

The proposed Jackson Park site is seven miles from downtown Chicago, is near low-income neighborhoods where Obama worked as a community organizer, and lies just blocks from the University of Chicago, where Obama was a law professor. It is also close to the home where the Obamas lived until he won the presidency in 2008.

LEGAL DRAMA THREATENS CONSTRUCTION OF OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CENTER

The center would comprise 20 acres of the 500-acre park. Its centerpiece would be a 225-foot museum tower, surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, including a 300-seat auditorium. Supporters estimate the project would create 5,000 jobs during construction and over 2,500 permanent jobs. An estimated 760,000 people could visit each year.

Protect Our Parks has accused the city of illegally transferring parkland to the private Obama Foundation, effectively "gifting" prized land to a Chicago favorite son. The group said city officials manipulated the approval process and tinkered with legislation to skirt longstanding laws designed to ensure residents have unobstructed access to lakeside parks.

"Defendants have chosen to deal with it in a classic Chicago political way ... to deceive and seemingly legitimize an illegal land grab," the lawsuit says.

To make the park available for the project, the Chicago Park District first sold the land to the city for $1. Illinois legislators amended the state's Illinois Aquarium and Museum Act to include presidential libraries as an exception to the no-development rules if there's a compelling public interest. The Chicago City Council approved the project by a 47-to-1 vote last May.

OBAMA FOUNDATION DEAL WITH CHICAGO CALLS FOR $10 FEE ON 99-YEAR LEASE: REPORTS

The Obama Foundation would pay $10 to the city for use of the parkland for 99 years, cover the costs of building the complex and be responsible for covering operating costs for 99 years. Once built, the Obama Presidential Center's physical structures would be transferred to the city for free, meaning the city would formally own the center but not control what happens there.

"They are essentially giving [property] to Obama ... for 10 cents a year for 99 years," parks advocacy lawyer Mark Roth said Thursday.

In his ruling Tuesday, Blakey threw out a claim that taxpayers' First Amendment rights would be infringed upon because tax money would be spent to reconfigure roads and traffic. The suit argued that taxpayers would thus subsidize any partisan political activity by Obama at the center.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

City lawyers conceded Thursday that Chicago would pay an estimated $175 million to reconfigure roads to manage traffic around the center, but they also argued that Protect Our Parks misread the law, misrepresented how the approval process played out and exaggerated potential environmental disruptions.

The center was originally slated to open in 2021, though ground hasn't yet broken because of the lingering litigation. Some supporters of the project fear that ongoing litigation might lead Obama to decide to build the center somewhere else.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

North Korea’s ruling party to meet amid ‘tense situation’: state media

A North Korean flag flutters on top of a 160-metre tower in North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong, in this picture taken from the Tae Sung freedom village near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), in Paju
FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flutters on top of a 160-metre tower in North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong, in this picture taken from the Tae Sung freedom village near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), inside the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 10, 2019

By Josh Smith and Joyce Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea will hold a plenary session of its ruling party’s central committee on Wednesday, a day after leader Kim Jong Un chaired a politburo meeting to discuss ways to make progress under the “prevailing tense situation”, state media reported.

The plenary session, which occurs regularly, comes in the wake of Kim’s second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in February in Hanoi, where the two leaders failed to make any agreements over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program or international sanctions.

The ruling party officials will gather to “discuss and decide the new orientation and ways of struggle in line with the need of the prevailing revolutionary situation,” state news agency KCNA said on Wednesday.

In a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on Tuesday, Kim told officials they need to work more responsibly to carry out his strategy in the face of international pressure.

“The Supreme Leader urged the need for leading officials to fully display a high sense of responsibility and creativity, and the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude in an attitude befitting the masters of the revolution and construction under the prevailing tense situation and thus follow through on the new strategic line of the Party,” KCNA said.

At a plenary session last year, Kim formally announced a “new strategic line” of focusing on economic progress and improving North Koreans’ lives, rather than the previous two-pronged approach of both economic and nuclear weapons development.

Despite his failure to secure any sanctions relief at the Hanoi summit, Kim has continued to highlight his economic push in recent weeks.

Over the past week state media published images and reports of Kim visits to at least four economic projects in five days, including a remodeled department store, tourist resorts, and an economic hub near the border with China.

North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament is scheduled to meet on Thursday.

Wednesday’s ruling party plenary session comes as South Korean President Moon Jae-in flies to Washington to meet with Trump and try to jumpstart talks between North Korea and the United States.

“In a situation where it’s difficult to take a completely new path, they’re emphasizing self-reliance to show the U.S. that they can go their own way,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

“North Korea is targeting the U.S., sending a message that we will not back down, so the U.S. must change its stance.”

(Reporting by Josh Smith and Joyce Lee; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Title

Artist