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Michael Cohen prison date pushed back to May 6

A judge in New York on Wednesday agreed to postpone by two months the date that President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen has to surrender to authorities to serve his prison sentence.

New York Judge William Pauley approved the delay Wednesday after Cohen's lawyers said he needed more time to recover from shoulder surgery and prepare for congressional testimony. They noted prosecutors did not object.

TRUMP, GIULIANI DENY PRESIDENT TRIED OBSTRUCTING MICHAEL COHEN INVESTIGATION

“We thank the court for granting the postponement of Mr. Cohen’s surrender date to May 6,” Cohen’s lawyers said in a statement provided to Fox News.  “As we have previously stated, Mr. Cohen underwent serious shoulder surgery and this extra time allows Mr. Cohen to continue his physical therapy.  In addition, he will be able to prepare for the expected testimony next week before Congressional Committees, which he welcomes.”

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress about Trump’s past business dealings in Russia. He was sentenced to three years behind bars and ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution and a $50,000 fine, and forfeit $500,000.

Trump’s former lawyer was originally scheduled to report to prison on March 6.

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Cohen is scheduled to testify before three congressional committees this month, after numerous delays from his lawyers citing Cohen’s ongoing cooperation in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and threats allegedly brought against his family.

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Trump asked then-Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker whether U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, a presidential ally, could be put in charge of the investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Cohen. Trump’s current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, denied the report.

Fox News’ Tamara Gitt and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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U.S.-backed Syria forces say IS suicide bombers thwarted in last-stand battle

Islamic state fighters and their families walk as they surrendered in the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province
Islamic state fighters and their families walk as they surrendered in the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

March 13, 2019

DEIR AL ZOR, Syria (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said it thwarted an attempted Islamic State group suicide bomb attack early on Wednesday during a last-stand battle for the jihadist group’s final enclave.

The SDF on Tuesday said the battle for Baghouz, a collection of hamlets and farmland near the Iraqi border, was as good as over.

The enclave is the last shred of populated territory held by the jihadists who have been driven from roughly one third of Iraq and Syria over the past four years.

Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the SDF media office, said its forces had been bombarding Baghouz heavily overnight before engaging in direct clashes with IS fighters from 4-6 am (0200-0400 GMT).

Live footage broadcast by the Kurdish Ronahi TV overnight showed a series of large explosions lighting up the night sky over Baghouz.

“There were suicide vest attacks by a group of bombers who tried to blow themselves up amidst our forces. Our forces targeted and killed them before they reached our positions,” Bali said.

The SDF has laid siege to Baghouz for weeks but had repeatedly postponed its final assault to allow thousands of civilians, many of them wives and children of Islamic State fighters, to leave. It resumed the attack on Sunday.

Around 3,000 fighters and their families surrendered to SDF forces in 24 hours, Bali said overnight. Three women and four children belonging to the Yazidi sect, a minority group who were kidnapped and enslaved by IS in 2014, were also freed, he said.

While Baghouz is the last populated territory of what was once the group’s self-proclaimed “caliphate”, fighters still operate in remote areas elsewhere.

The group put out a new propaganda video overnight Monday filmed in recent weeks inside Baghouz, insisting on its claim to leadership of all Muslims and calling on its supporters to keep the faith.

“Tomorrow, God willing, we will be in paradise and they will be burning in hell,” one of the men interviewed in the video said.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Deir al-Zor, Syria; Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

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Credit Suisse lifts profit with surprise equity trading gains

FILE PHOTO: The Credit Suisse logo is pictured on a bank in Geneva
FILE PHOTO: The Credit Suisse logo is pictured on a bank in Geneva, Switzerland, October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

April 24, 2019

By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

ZURICH (Reuters) – Credit Suisse set a positive tone for this quarter’s European bank results on Wednesday, lifting its net profit as gains in equities and deeper ties between trading and private banking helped offset lower revenue.

Switzerland’s second-biggest bank bucked market expectations of a profit dip and said it gained market share in equities trading during a quarter in which major U.S. rivals such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley saw revenue slides in this business.

Its Global Markets trading unit, the focus of much criticism in recent years, increased equity trading, with Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam saying Credit Suisse was “moving up the ranks in equities”. But a slide in its Asian unit brought overall group revenue from equities sales and trading down by 5 percent.

Wednesday’s results also included a forecast that Credit Suisse was cautiously optimistic about the second quarter.

Although Credit Suisse last year wrapped up a three-year overhaul with its first annual profit since 2014, volatile earnings and high headcount in its trading division meant it faced questions over whether it was downsized enough.

“Global Markets has been the main cause of consensus earnings downgrades over the past year and with these results has now shown signs of stabilizing,” Citi analysts said.

However, in the first quarter Credit Suisse said the unit increased equity sales and trading by 4 percent, while fixed-income sales and trading fell by just 2 percent, notably less than at U.S. investment banks.

Credit Suisse shares rose by more than 3 percent to a six-month high following the results, in which it confirmed its full-year profitability target but noted it would need supportive markets, and a pickup in revenues, to hit its goals.

Last month Swiss rival UBS forecast first-quarter revenues would fall by about a third in its investment bank and by 9 percent in wealth management, its largest business.

UBS is looking to cut costs further as CEO Sergio Ermotti sounded a pessimistic note on profitability for the year.

Analysts expect first-quarter profit at UBS, which is Switzerland’s biggest bank, to have nearly halved when it reports on Thursday.

(This story corrects net profit figure to 749 million Swiss francs in first bullet point, adds dropped word “group”, paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Michael Shields and Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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Asia shares underpinned by U.S. job news, China stimulus

FILE PHOTO: Employees of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) work at the bourse in Tokyo,
FILE PHOTO: Employees of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) work at the bourse in Tokyo, Japan, February 9, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo

April 8, 2019

By Wayne Cole

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares edged higher on Monday as investors cheered a much-needed rebound in U.S. payrolls, while looking forward to more policy stimulus in China.

In a document published on the central government’s website late on Sunday, Beijing said it would step up its policy of targeted cuts to banks’ required reserve ratios to encourage financing for small and medium-sized businesses.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.1 percent to hold just below its recent seven-month top.

Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.2 percent to its highest of the year so far, while South Korea and Australia both made modest gains. E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 inched up 0.03 percent.

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 closed higher for its seventh trading day in a row last week, the longest winning streak since October 2017. [.N]

However, a test looms as major U.S. banks kick off what analysts expect to be the first quarter of contracting corporate earnings since 2016.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co will get the ball rolling on Friday.

Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting are due out on Wednesday.

“Markets will be looking at just how dovish the FOMC has become,” wrote analysts at TD Securities in a note. “We put a very low but not zero chance on a rate cut discussion; conversely rate hikes are still on the horizon for the majority of Fed officials.”

“The minutes are likely to show peak dovishness in terms of nervousness about the outlook.”

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

JOBS RELIEF

There was a huge sigh of relief globally on Friday when the U.S. payrolls report showed a solid 196,000 rise in jobs in March, while annual wage growth slowed a little to 3.2 percent.

“This data assuages both the downside and upside fears,” said Alan Ruskin, global head of G10 FX Strategy at Deutsche Bank. “Fears of soft growth are assuaged. On the upside, the wage data does not point to further acceleration that would threaten inflation.”

“It plays to idea that the U.S. economy remains reasonably robust, and does not justify any rate cut expectations over say the next six months, and is to that extent going to play to buying U.S. dollar dips versus the majors.”

The dollar was steady at 97.377 against a basket of currencies on Monday, but remained short of the March peak at 97.710 which marks major chart resistance.

The dollar held its recent gain on the Japanese yen at 111.68, but again needs to clear the March top of 112.12 to spark a true uptrend.

The euro has been undermined by a string of dismal data out of Europe and idled at $1.1216 not far from its recent 20-month trough at $1.1174.

Sterling had troubles of its own at $1.3035 as time ticks away to Britain’s departure from the European Union on April 12, with no deal agreed.

Prime Minister Theresa May must come up with a new plan to secure a delay from EU leaders at a summit on Wednesday.

In commodity markets, spot gold was a fraction firmer at $1,292.09 per ounce.

Oil prices held firm as the upbeat U.S. jobs data tempered fears about weakening global crude oil demand, and on expectations that an escalating conflict in Libya could tighten oil supplies. [O/R]

U.S. crude was last up 34 cents at $63.42 a barrel, while Brent crude futures rose 31 cents to $70.65.

(Editing by Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

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AP Was There: Only human wreckage left in Karubamba village

This story was first published on May 13, 1994 when AP journalist Mark Fritz reported on the Rwandan genocide, for which he won a Pulitzer prize. We are reprinting the story now to mark the 25th anniversary of the start of the genocide on April 6.

___

Nobody lives here anymore.

Not the expectant mothers huddled outside the maternity clinic, not the families squeezed into the church, not the man who lies rotting in a schoolroom beneath a chalkboard map of Africa.

Everybody here is dead. Karubamba is a vision from hell, a flesh-and-bone junkyard of human wreckage, an obscene slaughterhouse that has fallen silent save for the roaring buzz of flies the size of honeybees.

With silent shrieks of agony locked on decaying faces, hundreds of bodies line the streets and fill the tidy brick buildings of this village, most of them in the sprawling Roman Catholic complex of classrooms and clinics at Karubamba's stilled heart.

Karubamba is just one breathtakingly awful example of the mayhem that has made beautiful little Rwanda the world's most ghastly killing ground.

Karubamba, 30 miles northeast of Kigali, the capital, died April 11, six days after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu tribe, was killed in a plane crash whose cause is still undetermined.

The paranoia and suspicion surrounding the crash blew the lid off decades of complex ethnic, social and political hatreds. It ignited a murderous spree by extremists from the majority Hutus against rival Tutsis and those Hutus who had opposed the government.

This awesome wave of remorseless mayhem has claimed 100,000 to 200,000 lives, say U.N. and other relief groups. Many were cut down while cowering in places traditionally thought safe havens: churches, schools, relief agencies.

One stroll past the bleached skulls, ripped limbs and sunbaked sinews on the blood-streaked streets of Karubamba gives weight to those estimates.

Almost every peek through a broken window or splintered door reveals incomprehensible horror. A schoolboy killed amid tumbling desks and benches. A couple splattered against a wall beneath a portrait of a serene, haloed Jesus Christ.

Peer into the woods every few hundred feet along the red-clay road to Karubamba and see piles of bodies heaped in decaying clumps.

News from Rwanda has been dominated by accounts of the carnage in Kigali or of millions of refugees living in mud and filth in vast encampments just outside the border. But what happened in Karubamba has happened - and is still happening - in villages across this fertile green nation of velvety, terraced hills.

Survivors from Karubamba say when early word came of the Hutu rampage, people from surrounding towns fled to the seemingly safe haven of the Rukara Parish complex here.

On the night of April 11, the killers swarmed among the neat rows of buildings and began systematically executing the predominantly Tutsi population with machetes, spears, clubs and guns.

"They said, 'You are Tutsi, therefore we have to kill you,'" said Agnes Kantengwa, 34, who was among dozens holed up inside the yellow-brick church. "We thought we were safe in church. We thought it was a holy place."

It wasn't.

Her husband and four children were butchered amid the overturned pews. Bodies stretched to the ornately carved hardwood altar beneath a large crucifix.

Somewhere amid the stinking human rubble is the Rev. Faustin Kagimbura, "who tried to protect us," Kantengwa said.

Down the road, outside the maternity clinic next to the hospital, about 25 bodies lie beneath a cluster of shade trees; most appear to be women, but it is difficult now to be sure.

"They were women waiting to have babies," Kantengwa said. "The killers made them go outside and kneel down, then cut them in the head with machetes and spears. They said, 'You are Tutsi.'"

Mrs. Kantengwa, her 6-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter survived with a mosaic of machete wounds. They share one hospital bed in nearby Gahini, a larger town that breathes bustling life as easily as Karubamba exudes the suffocating stench of month-old death.

At the primary school midway between the maternity clinic and the church, a man lies prone beneath a meticulously drawn blackboard sketch of Africa, the capitals of each nation listed alongside.

Serena Mukagasana, 16, said the man was teacher Matthias Kanamugire.

The girl also was in the church when the slaughter began. By the time it was over, she was an orphan.

"All my family was killed," she said. She fled outside during the slaughter and watched from the bushes.

"They just killed and killed," she said.

The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front that has been battling the government since 1991 has made huge gains in the countryside since the rampage began.

Their secured areas are relatively stable and well-policed, though scores of villages remain empty and thousands of people line the roads looking for safe places to stop. More than 1.3 million people in this nation of 8 million are displaced.

The rebels took Gahini and set up a base just days after the massacre at Karubamba. It is one of the staging areas for what is believed to be an imminent rebel assault on Kigali, where guerrillas are battling government troops backed by Hutu militias.

Capt. Diogene Mugenge, the rebel commander in Gahini, said an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 people died in the carnage at Karubamba. The only sign of human life in the area is a lone sentry posted roughly where the fresh air begins.

When asked about the massacre, and the fact that mutilated, battered bodies remain frozen in the moment of agonizing death just a few miles from his base, Mugenge shrugs.

"It's happening everywhere," he said.

Source: Fox News World

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In Cuba, Obama’s detente becomes history as Trump threatens

People pass by images depicting Venezuela's late president Chavez and late revolutionary hero
People pass by images depicting Venezuela's late president Hugo Chavez (L), with words that read "The best friend of Cuba", and late revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in downtown Havana, Cuba, March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

March 14, 2019

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba has jettisoned rhetorical restraint toward the United States and is broadcasting footage of military defense exercises in the face of threats and new sanctions from the administration of President Donald Trump.

The island nation had turned the other cheek over the last two years in the face of Trump’s efforts to end a detente initiated by former President Barack Obama. Local experts said Havana was eager to salvage what it could of improved relations and not be blamed for their deterioration.

Not anymore, as the United States is increasingly blaming Cuba’s Communist government for the political crisis in its left-leaning ally Venezuela and piling new sanctions onto the decades-old trade embargo.

Every day last week, the nightly newscast of Cuban state television showed footage of Soviet-era tanks rolling out from mountain caves, soldiers manning anti-aircraft missile batteries, spandex-clad women shooting rifles and factory workers taking up positions around their plants.

Cuba has always insisted defense preparations are the best way to maintain the peace with the United States and state television described the images as training for “The War of the Whole People.”

Relations between Washington and Havana have nosedived since National Security Adviser John Bolton said in November the United States would no longer appease what he called Latin America’s `troika of tyranny` – Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Few international observers believe the United states has any intention of attacking the Caribbean island, with which it has tense relations since Fidel Castro’s 1959 Revolution. Most view Havana’s military exercises as a way to rally nationalist sentiment.

“The message being sent is for the United States and Cuban population at home,” said Hal Klepak, a Canadian military historian who has written extensively on the Cuban armed forces.

Klepak said, however, the Cuban armed forces take a U.S. military threat against Venezuela very seriously and in worst case scenario planning can not discount a spill-over toward the island.

“Preparations of a very limited kind are being made and the population brought up to speed, both to emphasize the seriousness of the moment and to stiffen popular resolve,” he said.

CHANGE OF TONE

An abrupt change in Cuban rhetoric came last month when President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who replaced Raul Castro a year ago, denounced a speech by Trump as “high-handed, cynical, immoral, threatening, offensive, interfering, hypocritical, warlike and dirty.”

That has set the tone for official rhetoric since then.

In his Florida speech, Trump had launched a broad attack on socialism and pledged to free the hemisphere from communism. He branded Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro a “Cuban puppet” and “a man controlled by the Cuban military and protected by a private army of Cuban soldiers.“

Cuba has furnished tens of thousands of doctors, educators and other technical assistance including intelligence and military assistance to Venezuela’s socialist government since the time of Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, who forged close ties with Fidel Castro. Venezuela in turn has provided Cuba with heavily subsidized crude oil.

Since Trump’s speech, senior U.S. officials have denounced Cuba’s role in Venezuela on an almost daily basis, stirring an angry response in Havana.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo provoked a quick tweet from his Cuban peer, Bruno Rodriguez, on Monday.

“Sec. of State makes a fool of himself when saying ‘Cuba is true imperialist power in Vzla.’ His gov. plundered Vzla for 2 centuries … fabricated ‘self-proclaimed’ president,” Rodriguez said.

The United States led the way in recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela in January – a move followed by dozens of other nations.

The U.S. administration’s decision this month to partially implement Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 law, has added fuel to the fire.

Title I and II codify all previous sanctions into law and set conditions that must be met for Congress to lift them.

But previous presidents, both Republican and Democrat, suspended Title III, which allows U.S. citizens, including Cuban-Americans, to sue anyone profiting from their nationalized or confiscated properties. The presidents stopped short because of opposition from foreign governments and fear thousands of lawsuits would clog U.S. courts.

The Trump administration will consider further implementation in April.

Now, not a day goes by without the official Cuban media denouncing the Trump administration and the Helms-Burton Act, which it charges was written by exiles out to reclaim their land and people’s homes and schools to boot.

The return to Cold War rhetoric and new sanctions has disappointed many Cubans for whom the detente had raised hopes the United States might soon lift its crippling embargo on the beleaguered economy and the two countries might normalize relations.

“When Obama was in the presidency, we dreamed of an opening that would make things work better, in a healthier, more pleasant way between the two countries,” said retiree Julia Porrata, who sells used books in the colonial sector of Havana.

“That hope we had is gone,” she said.

(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Steve Orlofsky)

Source: OANN

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Dartmouth professor wins top religion prize

A Dartmouth College professor of physics and astronomy has won one of the world's leading religion prizes for blending hard science and deep spirituality in his work.

The John Templeton Foundation announced Tuesday it was awarding its 2019 prize to Marcelo Gleiser, who has written books on topics ranging from the origin of the universe to how science engages with spirituality. The Templeton Prize comes with a $1.4 million award.

Gleiser, who is from Brazil, is the 49th recipient and the first from Latin America to get the award. It honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension. Previous winners include Mother Teresa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and King Abdullah II of Jordan.

The 60-year-old Gleiser joined Dartmouth in 1991.

Source: Fox News National

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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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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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Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.

The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.

Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.

The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.

The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

April 26, 2019

By Charlotte Greenfield

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.

Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.

Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.

In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.

“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.

Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.

The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.

“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.

New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.

He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.

The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University

He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.

“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo commodities trader Glencore is pictured in Baar
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.

Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.

On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.

(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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