Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Battle of the bands: Dueling concerts as aid for Venezuelans in limbo

The stage for the upcoming concert
The stage for the upcoming concert "Venezuela Aid Live" at Tienditas cross-border bridge between Colombia and Venezuela is pictured in Cucuta, Colombia February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

February 22, 2019

By Nelson Bocanegra and Steven Grattan

CUCUTA, Colombia (Reuters) – Tensions along the Colombia-Venezuela border over the entry of aid meant to alleviate widespread food and medicine shortages in the socialist country will be accompanied by music on Friday, as rival concerts kick off on both sides of the boundary.

British billionaire Richard Branson is backing “Venezuela Aid Live” in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, where he and 35 artists hope to raise $100 million for food and medical aid.

Some 250,000 people are expected at the free event, which will features performances by Alejandro Sanz, Maluma, Luis Fonsi and Carlos Vives. Donations will be received online and via direct deposits.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s embattled President Nicolas Maduro, who denies any crisis in his country, is planning two shows near Cucuta on the Tienditas and Simon Bolivar border bridges that connect Venezuela and Colombia.

Saying help is not needed, Maduro has refused to allow international aid into Venezuela despite often-empty supermarket shelves, long lines for government-subsidized food and hospitals lacking in basic supplies and medicines.

Political turmoil and economic collapse including hyperinflation have set Venezuela on a downward spiral.

The Tienditas event will take place near a Colombian warehouse storing hundreds of tonnes of international humanitarian aid that the opposition aims to bring into Venezuela on Saturday.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by dozens of countries, left Caracas in a caravan of supporters on Thursday, vowing to ensure personally the aid enters Venezuela.

Guaido, who invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency last month and who denounces Maduro as an usurper, has not provided details on his plans. Some political analysts speculated Venezuelan soldiers may bar the way.

LOYALTY TEST

Colombia’s migration authority said in a statement on Thursday it will restrict border crossings on Saturday from 5 a.m. until midnight to people participating in the aid handover.

A border showdown could test the military’s loyalty to Maduro if troops are ordered to turn aid away, analysts said.

In Cucuta, residents are wary of what may happen, and many say they will stay indoors, away from possible trouble.

“Everyone’s on edge about what’s going to happen,” said Carolina Guzman, 38, who owns a restaurant. “The important thing is that the aid gets across and things start to change there so we can get back to normal here too.”

Branson said this week he hopes the concert will encourage Venezuelan soldiers to defy orders from Maduro and let humanitarian aid cross the border.

Opposition figures have suggested forming human chains, while Brazil’s government pledged to deliver aid in trucks driven by Venezuelans.

“I don’t think the military will let the aid in and there’ll be another conflict. I’m so worried because my family is over there,” said 40-year-old Venezuelan school janitor Eduardo Bustillos, who came to Cucuta 20 days ago with his son.

Some aid is also being stored on the Dutch island of Curacao, and a boat carrying 250 tons of help is on route from Puerto Rico.

Maduro said on Thursday he was considering closing the border with Colombia and would close the border with Brazil. He has already shut the maritime border with Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire.

Maduro has called the aid stockpiling a “provocation” and accuses the Trump administration, which recognizes Guaido but has levied crippling sanctions against the government, of seeking to force his ouster.

(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra and Steven GrattanWriting by Julia Symmes Cobb and Helen Murphy; Editing by Helen Murphy and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: OANN

0 0

Yes, Julian Assange Is a Journalist — But That Shouldn’t Matter

Julian Assange was arrested last week in London, and he awaits legal proceedings designs to extradite him to the United States to be tried on hacking charges.

At least, those are the charges currently known. Experience suggests that US authorities are likely to add additional charges once they have Assange in the US.

The US government has sought to prosecute Assange since at least 2010 when Wikileaks released video footage of US forces murdering civilians — including two Reuters reporters — during 2007 air strikes.

Many additional leaks followed, which served to make Wikileaks and Assange the enemies of a diverse number of politicians, bureaucrats, and government intelligence agencies. Thus, his arrest has long appeared nearly inevitable.

“Journalists” Against Assange

Given Assange’s role in exposing government lies, corruption, and abuse, one would think that most journalists — most of whom fancy themselves as warriors against government abuse — would call for his release.

That’s not what happened. Instead, many self-described journalists have claimed that Assange isn’t a journalist at all.

In the wake of his arrest, The Washington Post and USNews both dispatched columnists to define Assange as not-a-journalist. Not surprisingly, the right-wing media — e.g., National Review and Commentary — which reliably sides with the military establishment, has also denied Assange is a journalist.

But why exactly is he not a journalist?

According to Kathleen Parker, writing for The Washington Post: “He is not, after all, a journalist, despite his claiming to be, because he isn’t accountable to anyone. No filters, no standards.”

Parker goes on to claim that real journalists must subject their work huge corporate media outlets like The New York Times or The Washington Post, thus allowing editors at those organizations to then decide what information ought to be considered worthy of public disclosure.

Writing for US News, Susan Milligan claims Assange is not a journalist because his motivations are not sufficiently pure. She claims Assange released certain information for the purposes of retribution or personal amusement.The fact that this information was also potentially significant in identifying government abuse and corruption is apparently irrelevant to Milligan. In her mind, “legitimate journalism” is defined by your feelings about the information being released.

Not all journalists fallen victim to the fetish for making journalism a special protected class of approved experts.

Demanding that Assange be afforded the usual protections afforded to journalism demanded by the establishment media, Glenn Greenwald has supported Assange, as has  James Ball at The Atlantic.The editorial boards of some small American newspapers — being outside the DC-NewYork axis — have taken a more principled stand on exposing government crimes, declaring Assange to be a journalist, indeed. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette’s editors write:

Mr. Assange’s critics dispute the notion that charging him is an attack on the First Amendment. They say Mr. Assange isn’t a journalist, just the curator of a website that puts secrets on display. One might argue about the craft of journalism. One might argue about the quality of journalism. But in terms of the exercise of First Amendment freedoms, revealing what is hidden is journalism. That makes Mr. Assange, apart from his personality or his politics, a journalist.

An Arbitrary Standard

Most of the “standards” the media establishment are using to redefine Assange as a non-journalist are purely arbitrary. Whether or not one gets the approval of someone at The Washington Post or some other “official” media outlet has exactly nothing to do with whether or not one is a journalist.

After all, the standards used by journalists today to define their exclusive group were invented less that a century ago. They were pushed by those who wanted to popularize  the idea of “expert” journalists who could dictate to the general public as to what information was relevant to the public interest.

In her column against Assange, Milligan defines journalism as “collecting information, checking the facts, getting the perspectives of the people affected by the information, and then putting all of it together in a way that puts the details in perspective.” But she’s just repeating quaint bromides they teach undergraduates in journalism school.

Prior to the triumph of the Progressive myth of journalist “experts,” the definition of journalism was far more broad, and far more flexible. Although today’s J-school priesthood insists not just anyone can call himself a journalist, that certainly wasn’t the case in the days when anti-slavery activists routinely set up their own newspapers to report on the realities of slavery in America.

Yes, people like William Lloyd Garrison and Elijah P. Lovejoy were ideological anti-slavery activists. But they were also journalists. Virtually no one disputes this today, although pro-slavery activists at the time certainly denounced these newspapermen as mere agitators and Jacobins.

Unfortunately for the slave drivers of the antebellum South, Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post wasn’t around to demand that the first-hand testimonies of escaped slaves — a common feature in the abolitionist newspapers — be submitted first to the wise editors of The New York Times. Only then, it seems, could we know if anti-slavery information was in the “public interest.” Given that the mainstream press of the period opposed abolitionism for the most part, we could expect that the slave narratives would have been deemed “irresponsible” and not up to the standards of “journalism.”

Thank goodness out modern-day gatekeepers weren’t around then.

Yes, Assange is Comparable to Daniel Ellsberg

Although many establishment journalists are going to great pains to pave the way for Assange’s prosecution, they face a problem: there is nearly universal agreement among journalists that Daniel Ellseberg is a hero.

Ellsberg, of course, is the former RAND Corp. employee who stole government secrets from his employers and sought (successfully) to have them published in major news outlets. Today, these documents are known as The Pentagon Papers, and their release was a watershed moment in journalism and in the Vietnam War. The documents showed, among other things, that President Lyndon Johnson lied to both the puiblic and to Congress about US involvement in Vietnam. It was an embarrassment for the US government overall, and the military establishment. It helped hasten the end of the Vietnam War and helped to cast a pall of illegitimacy over the entire endeavor. At the time, the information was classified.

Ellsberg was eventually prosecuted for theft and espionage. The case was dismissed.

Ellsberg’s reputation, however, means it becomes necessary for journalists to claim that Ellsberg and Assangeare fundamentally different in some way.

For his part, Ellsberg himself sees no difference. In an April 11 interview, Ellsberg denounces the arrest of Assange, and clearly considers Assange’s actions to be comparable to his own.

The primary difference it seems, is that the methods of disseminating information as much different in today’s world than was the case in 1971 when Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers. The distinction between Ellsberg and Assange appears to be merely one of technology.

The American State’s Attack on Real Journalism

But why is so much ink being spilled on whether or not Assange a journalist? Yes, some of it is just the usual narcissism we’ve come to expect from reporters. Journalists regard themselves as an exclusive club, and they like to excommunicate those whom they suspect of moving in on their territory.

But the stakes are higher than that.

If Assange is a journalist, then his arrest and prosecution is an attack on what investigative journalists do everyday.

While there have been some attempts in the media to define Assange’s investigative methods as substantially different form journalism in general, no real distinctions are clear. Much of the rhetoric surrounding claims of Assange’s criminality stem from the assertion that he asked Chelsea Manning to give him more government information.

Yet, this behavior is common to journalists everywhere.

Ellsberg, for instance, states “if that’s a crime, then journalism is a crime,” noting he had been asked on numerous occasions by numerous journalists to provide them with more information. He adds “unauthorized disclosures of this kind are the life’s blood of a republic.”

Do Journalists Have Special Rights?

At the heart of the matter, we find an additional problem: the idea that journalists enjoy special rights that ordinary people don’t. Consequently, if Assange is a journalist, then he gets special legal privileges in whistleblowing and releasing sensitive government documents. If he’s not a journalist, he’s then presumably open to prosecution.

The authors of the First Amendment, though, did not envision any such distinction. In the late eighteenth century — as in the days of the antebellum abolitionist press — newspapermen were simply people who set up a printing press and sold newspapers. If you could convince someone to buy your papers, you were a journalist.

Governments hated this, of course. The ease with which journalists could print nearly any opinion or revelation was why John Adams wanted the Alien and Sedition Acts — to shut journalists up.

But the freedom of speech was so ingrained in the American mind by that point that there was little the federal government could do about them. After all, the First Amendment says simply that Congress shall make no law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” It doesn’t say anything about these freedoms being restricted only to people who are deemed journalists by The Washington Post. Had the authors of the Bill of Rights wanted this to be the case, they could have said so.

Today, things are quite different. Lawmakers, courts, and their accomplices have managed to define down who is a journalist in order to protect the government from embarrassment.

Establishment journalists have been happy to play along, claiming special privileges for themselves while demanding those outside their circle of friends be sent to federal prison.



Alex Jones talks over the phone with callers and gauges their reactions to AG Barr discussing the redacted first part of Mueller’s report.

Source: InfoWars

0 0

New rules in Mexico may limit cash payments for real estate

FILE PHOTO: Mexico's Finance Minister Carlos Urzua speaks during a news conference to announce a plan to strengthen finances of state oil firm Pemex, at the National Palace in Mexico City
FILE PHOTO: Mexico's Finance Minister Carlos Urzua speaks during a news conference to announce a plan to strengthen finances of state oil firm Pemex, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico February 15, 2019. Picture taken February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero

March 22, 2019

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico is developing rules that would cap the amount of cash that can used to buy real estate, Finance Minister Carlos Urzua said on Friday, part of a push to reduce the use of physical currency in a country rife with money laundering and corruption.

Urzua, speaking at a banking convention in the resort town of Acapulco, said the government was also considering rules that would require all its payments and collections to be processed electronically.

Also under discussion is the creation of incentives for professionals such as doctors, lawyers and architects to accept electronic payments over cash, he said.

Nearly 57 percent of people in Mexico work off the books, according to government data. Millions lack bank accounts and an estimated 90 percent of all transactions are done in cash.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in December, has made it one of his priorities to draw more people into the formal economy and reduce cash in circulation to cut down on the laundering of proceeds from the drug trade and other illicit activities.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Dave Graham in Acapulco; Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

0 0

Papal Good Friday service draws attention to world’s poor

Pope Francis leads the Good Friday Passion of the Lord service in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican
Pope Francis leads the Good Friday Passion of the Lord service in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

April 19, 2019

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis listened as a preacher denounced the widespread inequality in the world at a Good Friday service on the day Christians recall Jesus’ death by crucifixion.

During the “Passion of the Lord” service in St. Peter’s Basilica, songs in Latin recounted the last hours in Jesus’ life, from his arrest to his burial.

The service is one of the few during the year where the pope does not give a sermon, leaving it to Father Raniero Cantalamessa, whose title is preacher of the papal household.

Francis listened as Cantalamessa described Jesus as “the prototype and representative of all the rejected, the disinherited, and the discarded of the earth, those from whom we turn aside our faces so as not to see them”.

He said all religions had a duty to stand with the poor.

“A few privileged people possess more goods than they could ever consume, while for entire centuries countless masses of poor people have lived without having a piece of bread or a sip of water to give their children,” Canatalamessa said.

“No religion can remain indifferent to this because the God of all the religions is not indifferent to all of this,” he said.

It was the first of two services at which the pope presides on the most somber day of the Christian liturgical calendar.

On Friday night the pope, marking his seventh Easter season as Roman Catholic leader, was due to lead a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession around Rome’s ancient Colosseum.

The 82-year-old leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics leads an Easter vigil service on Saturday night and on Easter Sunday reads the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To The City and The World) message.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: OANN

0 0

Euro zone industrial output stronger than expected in January

FILE PHOTO: A steel worker of Germany's industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG takes a sample of raw iron from a blast furnace at Germany's largest steel factory in Duisburg
FILE PHOTO: A steel worker of Germany's industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG takes a sample of raw iron from a blast furnace at Germany's largest steel factory in Duisburg, Germany, January 28, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo

March 13, 2019

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone industrial production was stronger than expected in January, data showed on Wednesday, mainly thanks to a strong contribution from energy and despite a drop in German output.

The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said production in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 1.4 percent month-on-month in January for a 1.1 percent year-on-year fall.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 1.0 percent monthly increase and a 2.1 percent annual decline.

The January result was mainly influenced by a 2.4 percent monthly and 4.0 percent year-on-year jump in energy output, which helped offset or mitigate the weaker results for intermediate and capital goods production.

Output went up despite a drop in Germany, the bloc’s largest economy. Eurostat estimated industrial production in Germany fell 0.9 percent on the month, a higher drop than the 0.8 percent fall estimated by the German statistics agency earlier this week.

Large increases in France and Italy, the second and third biggest economies in the euro zone, more than offset the German data. Eurostat said output grew in France by 1.3 percent on the month, and in Italy by 1.7 percent.

(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski; editing by Francesco Guarascio)

Source: OANN

0 0

Brazil not considering military force in Venezuela: defense minister

FILE PHOTO - General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, who was appointed by Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro as defense minister, arrives for a meeting in Brasilia
FILE PHOTO - General Fernando Azevedo e Silva, who was appointed by Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro as defense minister, arrives for a meeting in Brasilia, Brazil November 20, 2018. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

March 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Brazil is not considering the use of military force in Venezuela and hopes for a peaceful solution to the country’s crisis, Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva said on Tuesday as he met his American counterpart at the Pentagon.

“That’s not a hypothesis we’re considering. Brazil is looking forward to a peaceful and swift solution to the crisis in Venezuela,” he said, when asked whether the use of military force might be appropriate.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: OANN

0 0

In Indonesia, Facebook and Twitter are ‘buzzer’ battlegrounds as elections loom

FILE PHOTO: Indonesia's presidential candidate Joko Widodo shakes hands with his opponent Prabowo Subianto after the second debate between presidential candidates ahead of the next general election in Jakarta
FILE PHOTO: Indonesian President Joko Widodo (L) shakes hands with Prabowo Subianto on February 17, 2019 after the second debate between presidential candidates ahead of the next general election in Jakarta, Indonesia. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo

March 13, 2019

By Fanny Potkin and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Almost every day, “Janda”, a self-described Indonesian housewife with 2,000 Twitter followers, dispenses lifestyle tips, complains about city life, and praises how the government of President Joko Widodo has improved her life as a young mother.

But Janda the housewife does not exist. The Twitter account’s real owner is an unmarried middle-aged man who offers political social media services backing Widodo’s re-election campaign.

He is a leader of one of the many so called “buzzer” teams, named for the social media buzz such groups aim to create, that have sprung up in Indonesia ahead of the presidential election next month in the world’s third-largest democracy.

“Our battleground is social media. The content we are making for the election is reaching at least a million people per week,” said the owner of the Janda account, declining to be named because his work is legally in a gray area.

In interviews with Reuters, over a dozen buzzer team members, social media consultants and cyber experts described an array of social media operations that they said were spreading propaganda on behalf of both Widodo and his challenger, retired general Prabowo Subianto.

Widodo enjoys a comfortable lead in most opinion polls over Prabowo, as the challenger is widely known. The two contested the previous election in 2014 as well, and Widodo won narrowly.

Fake news was spread in that election as well, although social media was less far-reaching than it is now.

Under Indonesia’s broad internet defamation law, creating and spreading fake news is illegal, but holding social media accounts in false names is not, unless a real person is being impersonated. Social media companies however mostly bar holding accounts under false names.

Three buzzers directly involved in the current campaign described how they operate hundreds of personalized social media accounts each on behalf of the candidates. One denied propagating fake news, while two said they didn’t care about the accuracy of the content.

Both campaign teams deny using buzzers or spreading fake news.

Ross Tapsell, an expert on politics and media at Australia National University, said that it has become normal for candidates in Southeast Asia to hire online campaign strategists, who in turn tap an army of people to spread content on social media.

“So there is no direct link at all to the candidate,” he said.

The buzzer campaigns have far outstripped the efforts of Facebook and other social media companies to curtail creation of fake accounts and spread fake news, cyber experts say. Reuters found that while robot accounts were occasionally deleted, personalized fake accounts like “Janda” are widespread on Twitter and Facebook platforms, despite violating the companies’ rules.

ON THE EDGE

Misinformation spread by real accounts – which are often coopted by buzzer teams – is rampant on Facebook as well as on its Instagram and WhatsApp affiliates and rival service Twitter.

The companies say they are working with the government and fighting back against false content.

Representatives for Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp told Reuters they regularly delete fake accounts in Indonesia, but declined to share removal numbers.

A Twitter spokeswoman told Reuters it is working to remove networks of accounts engaged in misinformation and disinformation.

Facebook, which counts Indonesia as its third-largest market globally with an estimated 130 million accounts, says it trains election management bodies how to flag fake news to the company, which is then evaluated by moderators and deleted if it breaks its community standards.

For Indonesian Communications Minister Rudiantara, those efforts are not enough.

He said the government had asked social media companies to work with authorities to create a standard operating procedure that would allow fake news and hoaxes to be flagged and resolved. They have yet to comply.

“We expect it to get much worse as we get closer to the election,” said Harry Sufehmi, co-founder of Mafindo, an Indonesian organization fighting fake news, which listed nearly 500 social media hoaxes related to politics in 2018.

He was one of three experts whose research found that a larger proportion of the misinformation targets Widodo, with some posts depicting him as anti-Islam, a Chinese stooge or a communist.

All are inflammatory accusations in a country that has the world’s largest number of Muslims, where the communist party is banned and suspicions linger over the influence of Beijing.

A smaller portion of the misinformation campaigns target Prabowo.

BUZZING FOR MONEY

On a recent afternoon in Jakarta, one buzzer team leader scrolled through two mobile phones that had over 250 Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Youtube and Twitter accounts, each with a fake persona. He updated five of them with posts praising Widodo’s achievements or mocking Prabowo and his running mate.

He denied disseminating misinformation, focusing instead on content that gushed about his clients’s virtues. But he admitted he does look for dirt on opponents as part of a “complete package” of posts and videos that he sells for 200 million rupiah ($14,000) a month.

His staff of 15, whom he refers to as “cyber troops”, in turn have subcontractors, throughout Indonesia, many of whom are unaware of the ultimate identity of clients, he said.

He told Reuters he was hired by an adviser to Widodo’s campaign.

Ace Hasan Syadzily, a spokesman for the president’s campaign team, denied knowledge of such groups, but said “the campaign had an obligation to counter false or negative narratives” against Widodo. 

Another buzzer said he had been hired by advisers to Prabowo, while the third said he supplied services to a social media agency used by both campaigns.

Anthony Leong, the Prabowo digital team’s coordinator, denied they use buzzer teams, noting that the campaign required its “10,000 digital volunteers” to use real names and only allowed them to post “positive content”.

“WORK IS FUN”

According to the buzzers interviewed, a junior “cyber soldier” can be paid between 1 million to 50 million rupiah per project depending on the reach of his social media accounts.

“For a lot of us, the work is fun…and the salaries are decent,” said the buzzer who said he is a contractor for a social media agency used by both the Widodo and Prabowo campaigns.

He said his role was to create trending topics during key election moments, using hashtags and content provided by his agency in combination with his personal fake accounts, he said.

“For me, there’s no hoax or so-called negative content. The material just comes from the client,” he told Reuters.

Pradipa Rasidi, a researcher at the University of Indonesia, said most buzzers are young graduates who do it “because it’s hard to find a job after university and the pay is higher”.

But the legal risks are real. The buzzer activities are punishable by jail if they are judged to breach Indonesia’s internet defamation law.

All three buzzers interviewed by Reuters declined to be named or provide certain details of their operations because of those risks.

Policing by the social media companies, however, was not a concern: None had ever had an account or post deleted.

(GRAPHIC: Fake news on social media platforms in Indonesia – https://tmsnrt.rs/2NPGswI)

(Reporting by Fanny Potkin & Agustinus Beo Da Costa, additional reporting by Jessica Damiana, Ed Davies, and Cindy Silviana. Editing by Ed Davies, John Chalmers, Jonathan Weber and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said trade talks with China are going very well, as the world’s two largest economies seek to end talks with a trade agreement to defuse tensions.

Trump said on Thursday he would soon host China’s President Xi Jinping at the White House.

Earlier this week, the White House said that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would travel to Beijing for more talks on a trade dispute marked by tit-for-tat tariffs between the two countries.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to his audience as he hosts Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments on North Korea this week following the Russian leader’s summit with Pyongyang’s Kim Jong Un.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump also said China was helping with efforts aimed at the denuclearization of North Korea.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Makini Brice; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Representatives of Russian Transneft, Ukranian Ukrtransnafta, Polish Pern and Belarusian Belneftekhim gather to hold talks on fixing tainted oil supplies to Europe, in Minsk
Representatives of Russian Transneft, Ukranian Ukrtransnafta, Polish Pern and Belarusian Belneftekhim gather to hold talks on fixing tainted oil supplies to Europe, in Minsk, Belarus April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

April 26, 2019

By Katya Golubkova and Andrei Makhovsky

MOSCOW/MINSK (Reuters) – Russia is confident it can soon resolve a problem of polluted Russian oil contaminating a major pipeline serving Europe and affecting supplies as far west as Germany, a senior official said on Friday at talks with importers about the issue.

Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin did not give a precise timeframe but Moscow has previously said it would pump clean oil to the border with Belarus from April 29, seeking to end a crisis hitting the world’s second-largest crude exporter.

Sorokin was speaking at talks with officials from Belarus, Poland and Ukraine in Minsk on the issue. Belarus said the issue had cost it $100 million, while analysts say alternative supply routes for refiners cannot fully fill the gap.

Poland, Germany, Ukraine and Slovakia have suspended imports of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline. Halting those supplies has knock-on effects further along the network.

The problem arose last week when an unidentified Russian producer contaminated oil with high levels of organic chloride used to boost oil output but which must be separated before shipment as it can destroy refining equipment.

Russia’s Energy Ministry said pipeline monopoly Transneft and other Russian companies had a plan to mitigate the effects of the contaminated oil. It did not give details.

Russian officials have said contaminated oil has already been pumped into storage in Russia and Friday’s talks would focus on how to partially withdraw the tainted crude from the Druzhba pipeline running via other countries.

The suspension cuts off a major supply route for Polish refineries owned by Poland’s PKN Orlen and Grupa Lotos, as well as plants in Germany owned by Total, Shell, Eni and Rosneft.

Some refiners have outlined plans for alternative supplies, but analysts say other routes cannot meet the shortfall.

OIL PRICES

Ukraine’s Ukrtransnafta suspended the transit of oil through the pipeline on Thursday, closing supplies via Druzhba’s southern route to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The pipeline issue, which has supported global oil prices, lifted Russian Urals crude differentials to an all-time high on Thursday.

With pipeline supplies to Europe shut, Russia faces a challenge of how to divert about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) that was meant to be shipped through the network to other destinations at the time when export capacity is at its limits.

State-run Russian Railways held talks with energy firms on using up to 5,000 rail tankers to transport crude, RIA news agency reported on Friday.

Concerns about the quality of Urals crude also caused delays in loadings at the Baltic port of Ust-Luga, when buyers refused to lift cargoes, resulting in a brief shutdown of the port on Wednesday and Thursday. An Ust-Luga official and traders said on Friday loadings had resumed.

Russian loading plans indicate it aims to boost Urals exports in May before the expiry of a deal on output cuts agreed with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, Reuters calculations and Energy Ministry data show.

The provisional loading plan for Russia’s Baltic Sea ports and Novorossiisk in May show exports rising to 10.7 million tonnes, the highest level in half a decade.

Minsk estimated its loss from lower oil product exports due to contaminated Russian oil at around $100 million, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Thursday, citing Belarusian state oil company Belneftekhim.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, in charge of government energy policy, said this week that those found responsible for contaminating the oil could be fined. He did not provide names.

(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko in WARSAW, Sandor Peto in BUDAPEST, Jason Hovet in PRAGUE, Matthias Williams and Natalia Zinets in KIEV, Katya Golubkova, Olesya Astakhova, Gleb Gorodyankin, Olga Yagova and Maxim Rodionov in MOSCOW, Andrei Makhovsky in MINSK; writing by Katya Golubkova; editing by Michael Perry and Edmund Blair)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO - A worker sits on a ship carrying containers at Mundra Port in the western Indian state of Gujarat
FILE PHOTO: A worker sits on a ship carrying containers at Mundra Port in the western Indian state of Gujarat April 1, 2014. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – India has once again delayed the implementation of higher tariffs on some goods imported from the United States to May 15, a government official said on Friday.

The new tariff structure was to come into force from May 2, the spokeswoman said without citing reasons for the delay.

Angered by Washington’s refusal to exempt it from new steel and aluminum tariffs, New Delhi decided in June last year to raise the import tax from Aug. 4 on some U.S. products including almonds, walnuts and apples.

But since then, New Delhi has repeatedly delayed the implementation of the new tariff.

Trade friction between India and the U.S. has escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to end preferential trade treatment for India that allows duty-free entry for up to $5.6 billion worth of its exports to the United States.

In a further blow, U.S. on Monday demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions, ending six months of waivers which allowed Iran’s eight biggest buyers including India to continue importing limited volumes.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar in New Delhi and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Source: OANN

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

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

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

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

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

BIDEN HIRES FORMER BERNIE SANDERS’ SPOKESPERSON AS SENIOR ADVISER

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

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

Footage of the interview was resurfaced by RealClearPolitics.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

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

Fox News Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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