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Lebanese girl gifts piggy bank savings to Hezbollah chief to “get a missile”

It was a gesture that has some experts in extremism and national security raising red flags.

On April 1, as captured by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Lebanese TV station aired a segment featuring a young Lebanese girl gifting all her piggy bank pennies to the head of the militant and political group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

“Take my money and get a missile. I want my mother to give me 25,000 Lebanese pounds,” Hawra Nada said on Al-Jadeed/New TV, referencing what amounts to * USD, as she removed her savings. “As soon as I get them I will give to you. I love you, Hassan Nasrallah. I saw Hassan Nasrallah on TV fighting the enemies. I saved some money in order to give it to him, so he could get a missile and fight enemies with it.”

VENEZUELA, IRAN, AND HEZBOLLAH - ALL HOSTILE TO THE US - FORGE CLOSER TIES

The young girl tells the camera that she dedicates her life, not just her money, to the organization’s leader, along with issuing some harsh words of warning to Israel.

“If you kill little children, Hassan Nasrallah will kill you,” she told the cameras. “They are killing them for no reason.”

Going further, Hawra’s mother, identified as Zaynah Ali Qilqas, praised her daughter’s political astuteness and knowledge of the ongoing situation in Syria, of which Hezbollah is closely allied with the Syrian regime.

“She knows there is a war there. She knows that they fight ISIS and are martyrs,” she continued.

It was after the filming of the segment, the reporters noted, that Hawra started wearing the hijab which was gifted to her by Nasrallah along with a signed copy of the Quran.

Only some analysts in the west aren’t so convinced it’s all as sweet as it seems.

“This display is not surprising at all. Islamist extremist groups often parade their indoctrinated children around, hoping to inspire parents and other children alike,” said Ryan Mauro, a national security expert at the Clarion Project. “It reinforces their message that parents are obligated to instill jihadist beliefs in their children, rather than teach them critical thinking skills and hope they independently adopt these beliefs.”

GERMANY RULES OUT DESIGNATING IRAN-BACKED HEZBOLLAH AS TERROR GROUP, SNUBBING US EFFORTS TO ISOLATE IRANIAN REGIME

Others suggest its part of a calculated media campaign.

“Hezbollah is in the middle of a concerted media campaign emphasizing the need for the Shiite community to show solidarity with the group and offer financial support. Observers, including U.S. officials, are taking this as an indication of a crippling financial crisis, in light of US sanctions on Iran,” explained Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It is also possible that it’s a propaganda effort tied to a maneuver by the group, pertaining to its agenda in Lebanon. Not everything the group says should be taken at face value.”

For instance, Badran said, when Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in 2016 that it doesn’t have any business projects, and that its entire budget came from Iran, “he wasn’t being truthful, and may have been deliberately trying to create the impression that Hezbollah has nothing to do with the Lebanese economy or its banking sector, at a time when congressional sanctions were targeting any such dealings.”

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Yet many of all ages and especially within the global Shiite community support Hezbollah and see its work as a vital savior against other Sunni-led insurgencies, including Al Qaeda and ISIS, and against the invention of foreign powers like the United States.

Nasrallah, 59, has served as the Hezbollah secretary-general since 1992 and catapulted the group into becoming a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. and an array of other nations and organizations including the U.K. E.U., Canada, Australia, and the Arab League.

Source: Fox News World

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Assad meets Khamenei in first Iran visit since Syrian war began

FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a meeting with heads of local councils, in Damascus
FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during a meeting with heads of local councils, in Damascus, Syria in this handout released by SANA on February 17, 2019. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

February 25, 2019

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al Assad made his first public visit to his closest regional ally Iran since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, meeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday and championing their alliance, state media reported.

Syrian and Iranian state television showed Assad and Khamenei smiling and embracing. Syrian television said the two leaders agreed “to continue cooperation at all levels for the interests of the two friendly nations”.

Khamenei was quoted as saying the two countries’ military victories in Syria had dealt “a harsh blow” to U.S plans in the region.

Assad regained the upper hand in Syria’s war with the help of Russian air power and Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, retaking all main cities from rebels and militants backed variously by Western powers and Gulf Arabs.

Sitting next to Assad was Major General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force – an overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He has appeared on frontlines across Syria, where his presence has infuriated Sunni-led insurgents who oppose what they view as Shi’ite Iran’s expansion in the region.

It was Assad’s first known foreign visit other than to Russia since the war began and his first to Tehran since 2010

Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias have expanded their control over mainly Sunni areas around Damascus, southern and eastern Syria that bore the brunt of the heaviest bombardment and led to mass displacement or emigration to neighboring countries.

Iran’s growing influence in Syria, where it has struck economic and trade deals, has also raised the prospect of a military confrontation with its arch-enemy Israel.

Israel, regarding Iran as its biggest threat, has repeatedly attacked Iranian targets in Syria and those of allied militia, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to escalate its fight against Iranian aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

Assad was quoted by Syrian state television as saying that

any escalation by Western powers would not stop Iran and Syria from defending their own interests.

Iranian state media said Khamenei praised Assad as a hero who had strengthened the alliance between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran sees helping Syria’s government and nation as support for the resistance movement (against Israel) and is deeply proud of doing it,” Khamenei said.

Assad was also briefed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani about efforts by Russia, Iran and Turkey – supporters of the main sides in the Syrian civil war – to end the conflict.

Syria wants Turkey, which has backed Sunni rebels and carved a sphere of influence in the northwest of the country, to remove its troops from Syrian territory and end its support for rebels.

Efforts have so far failed to make progress toward a political settlement to end a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced about half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi.; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Israeli military says has begun striking Hamas in Gaza

An Israeli Apache helicopter releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip
An Israeli Apache helicopter releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

March 25, 2019

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said on Monday it had begun carrying out strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, hours after a Palestinian rocket hit a house near Tel Aviv.

Reuters witnesses heard explosions in Gaza.

The military said in a statement that it had “begun striking Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip.”

One position hit was a Hamas naval position west of Gaza City, and a another was a large Hamas training camp in northern Gaza, Palestinian security officials and Hamas media outlets said.

Both positions were likely to have been evacuated, as Hamas had hours of notice that Israeli strikes were coming.

Witnesses said three missiles hit the northern target.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised a strong response to the rocket attack earlier in the day that injured seven Israelis.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Nidal al-Mughrabi, Editing by Jeffrey Heller)

Source: OANN

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Swampy: Ocasio-Cortez Reportedly Used PAC To Funnel Cash To Boyfriend

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used a political action committee (PAC) to funnel campaign funds back to her boyfriend, according to reports.

Republican strategist Luke Thompson first made known on Twitter last week that Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend Riley Roberts had a house.gov email address and was designated as one of her “Staff,” therefore “drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime.”

The revelation was met with fierce opposition by Ocasio-Cortez and her Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti, who accused Thompson of “doxxing” Roberts despite the information being publicly available, and failed to explain why Roberts would need such access.

Per the House Admin office, a family member can, in special circumstances, get a house.gov email address,” Thompson reported Wednesday.

“But Roberts is not a family member, and although AOC referred to him as her partner in November of last year, she omitted him from her mandatory candidate financial disclosures for 2017 and 2018. Perhaps they’ve gotten married since. If so — if he is her spouse now — we should see his finances disclosed along with hers in her 2019 disclosure form due in May. But to be clear, AOC did not disclose Roberts’s finances as a spouse during her campaign.”

As Chakrabarti noted, Roberts also isn’t an unpaid volunteer and “isn’t doing any government work.”

Additionally, instead of producing the appropriate evidence to refute Thompson’s claims, the mainstream media attempted to provide cover for Ocasio-Cortez using their own talking points.

Instead of asking if Roberts had been supplied with the badge and pin appropriate to a Congressional spouse, evidence of which her office should have been able to produce easily, AOC’s worshipful stenographers in the press went into overdrive witlessly repeating her talking-points,” Thompson wrote.

Former chairman of the House Oversight Committee Jason Chaffetz said Friday that such an arrangement was “inappropriate.”

“It’s totally naïve and inappropriate – you wouldn’t allow it in most companies, let alone the House of Representatives. There should be real consequences,” he told Fox News.

“When I was in the House, my scheduler would forward my wife my schedule once a week. But you’re not allowed unfettered access. And he isn’t even her spouse…It should be referred to the ethics committee for further investigation,” he added.

It gets deeper: Chakrabarti co-founded a PAC called Brand New Congress LLC in 2017, which Ocasio-Cortez paid for “strategic consulting” for her campaign.

Brand New Congress LLC then hired Roberts as a “marketing consultant” for AOC’s campaign, paying him approximately $6,000.

Why would Chakrabarti, a founding engineer at Stripe and a wealthy veteran of Silicon Valley, be hiring a no-name ‘UX Experience’ guy with little discernible marketing experience to serve as Brand New Congress PAC’s sole marketing consultant?” Thompson asked.

The answer seems to be that Chakrabarti was funneling money paid to him by AOC’s campaign back to Roberts and by extension to AOC,” Thompson wrote.

In effect, Chakrabarti likely reimbursed AOC through Brand New Congress LLC to mitigate her campaign’s mounting debt, he says.

Regardless of whether or not Roberts was officially AOC’s spouse at that time, it seems probable Chakrabarti was reimbursing her for her campaign expenses off-books. Brand New Congress PAC simply served as a pass-through to do so,” Thompson continued.

After Ocasio-Cortez won in the 2018 midterms, she then hired Chakrabarti as her Chief of Staff.

That’s definitely unethical and potentially illegal,” Thompson wrote. “Chakrabarti may have made an illegal campaign contribution in excess of federal limits. Regardless, it raises questions about Chakrabarti’s hiring as AOC’s Chief of Staff after her election.”

A shocking aspect of this is that the mainstream media failed to uncover (or simply ignored) any of this information despite the fact it was publicly available for scrutiny.

For now, it appears AOC is adjusting to the swamp just fine.


Twitter: 

Democrats continue the calls to remove President Trump even citing the 25th Amendment as reason for his removal. Owen Shroyer exposes their motive is to cover their own criminality.

Source: InfoWars

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China to review anti-dumping tariffs on U.S. distillers grains: document

FILE PHOTO: A process operator holds a handful of dried distillers grains, a protein animal feed that can be fed to livestock, at the GreenField Ethanol plant in Chatham
FILE PHOTO: A process operator holds a handful of dried distillers grains, a protein animal feed that can be fed to livestock, at the GreenField Ethanol plant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada April 10, 2008. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo

April 9, 2019

By Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Ministry of Commerce is set to review its anti-dumping tariffs on imports from the United States of distillers grains (DDGS), an animal feed ingredient, according to a document issued by the China Alcoholic Drinks Association.

The document – dated April 8 and issued to member companies and reviewed by Reuters – said the U.S. Grains Council had asked the commerce ministry to terminate their anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on American DDGS.

The commerce ministry did not respond to a fax seeking confirmation of the review. It is not clear what the outcome of the review will be.

DDGS are a byproduct of ethanol production and have become a key contributor to profits for makers of the biofuel. After the tariffs were implemented in 2016, imports by China fell sharply.

China bought 3 million tonnes of DDGS in 2016, mainly from the United States and worth $684 million in total, according to Chinese customs data. The imports that year were down 55 percent from 2015.

The U.S. industry request comes amid trade talks between Beijing and Washington as both sides try to secure a pact to end a tit-for-tat tariff battle that has roiled global markets.

Beijing has pledged during these talks to increase its imports of American farm goods.

China set anti-dumping duties of between 42.2 percent and 53.7 percent on U.S. DDGS in January 2017, up from 33.8 percent in preliminary duties implemented in September 2016.

Anti-subsidy tariffs range from 11.2 percent to 12 percent.

The document seen by Reuters asked member companies to submit information to the China Alcoholic Drinks Association before April 10 regarding their sales and production of DDGS and income levels from recent years.

It also sought members’ views on how removing the tariffs would impact the domestic industry and companies, as well as the local agriculture industry, farmer incomes and poverty alleviation programs.

The association plans to gather the material and submit the information to the ministry this week, it said.

The Beijing office of the U.S. Grains Council declined to provide any further details.

(Reporting by Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton; Editing by Tom Hogue)

Source: OANN

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Turkey, Iran conduct joint operation against Kurdish rebels

Turkey has announced a joint military operation with Iran against Kurdish militants.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu says the operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, began Monday on Turkey's eastern border.

The PKK has been waging an insurgency for more than three decades, and is considered a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Turkey regularly conducts airstrikes in northern Iraq against PKK camps and has cracked down on the group and alleged supporters since a peace process collapsed in 2015.

The PKK-affiliated Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK, was formed in 2004 to fight for Kurdish autonomy in Iran.

Iran's deputy interior minister visited Ankara last week and the two countries vowed to continue cooperation in fighting "terrorist groups," Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.

Source: Fox News World

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North Korea slams Bolton’s ‘dim-sighted’ call for sign of denuclearization

National Security Advisor Bolton listens as U.S. President Trump speaks while meeting with NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg at White House in Washington
National Security Advisor John Bolton adjusts his glasses as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

April 20, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has criticized U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s “nonsense” call for Pyongyang to show that it’s serious about giving up its nuclear weapons, the second time it has criticized a leading U.S. official in less than a week.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is open to a third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Bolton told Bloomberg News on Wednesday there first needed to be “a real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons”.

“Bolton, national security adviser of the White House, in an interview with Bloomberg, showed above himself by saying such a nonsense,” North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters when asked about his recent comments, the Korean Central News Agency said on Saturday.

“Bolton’s remarks make me wonder whether they sprang out of incomprehension of the intentions of the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. or whether he was just trying to talk with a certain sense of humor for his part, with its own deviation,” she said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

“All things considered, his word has no charm in it and he looks dim-sighted to me.”

The North Korean vice minister also warned that there would be no good if the United States continued “to throw away such remarks devoid of discretion and reason”.

North Korea said on Thursday it no longer wanted to deal with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.

(Reporting by Joori Roh, Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.

Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.

School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.

The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.

South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.

Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.

Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.

He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”

Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.

Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.

Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.

Source: Fox News World

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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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