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The release of the Mueller report is not the end of the Russia controversy – it’s a new chapter

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Developing now, Friday, April 19, 2019

MUELLER REPORT'S RELEASE MAY NOT BE THE END OF RUSSIA HYSTERIA: The public release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Thursday marked the dramatic final note of a lengthy and contentious investigation, but also sparked new calls for subpoenas, congressional testimony, resignations, and even impeachment proceedings -- all despite the probe's central finding that no evidence showed that President Trump's team "coordinated or conspired" with Russia ... The whirlwind moments kept coming, even hours after the report's release, as more and more revelations from the 448-page document trickled out. The White House, for its part, claimed total victory and vindication for the president who, according to the report, once fretted that the special counsel's appointment meant he was "f---ed" beyond the possibility of redemption and that his agenda would be derailed by partisan distractions.

But Democrats and media outlets that long advanced the idea that the Trump campaign had treasonously worked with Russia -- and anticipated that the Trump administration would collapse -- quickly pivoted to whether the president had, instead, interfered with the now-completed investigation. Within minutes of the report's publication, House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., charged that the special counsel had provided "disturbing evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice" and, referencing the report's limited redactions, wondered: "Imagine what remains hidden from our view."

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Nadler immediately called on Mueller himself to testify, and top Republicans, including Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, said they would have no objections to him doing so. He also announced he would subpoena the full, unredacted version of the Mueller report and any underlying grand jury evidence, setting up a likely legal confrontation with the Justice Department.

TRUMP, SUPPORTERS REPEAT CALL TO INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS: President Trump and his legal team declared victory after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report was released, with the president repeating his "no collusion" mantra and saying “this should never happen to another president again" ... “I’m having a good day, too, it’s called ‘no collusion, no obstruction,’” he said in remarks for the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride, at the White House. “There never was by the way, and there never will be.” Trump also added, “This should never happen to another president again, this hoax, it should never happen to another president again." He also promised “to get to the bottom of these things,” hinting at calls for the origins of the two-year investigation to be reviewed.

NATIONAL ENQUIRER TO BE SOLD TO NEWSSTAND MOGUL: The National Enquirer tabloid is being sold to James Cohen, the owner and CEO of airport newsstand company Hudson News, its parent company announced Thursday ... The deal announced by American Media Inc. also includes two other supermarket tabloids, Globe and the National Examiner. Financial terms were not disclosed. The sale comes after the Enquirer was caught up in a federal investigation of illegal campaign contributions to Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.

AMBASSADOR ACCUSES 'MAYOR PETE' OF PULLING A JUSSIE SMOLLETT ON PENCE: The U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, defended Vice President Mike Pence against accusations of homophobia alleged by Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and compared the claims to a “hate hoax along the lines of Jussie Smollett" ... Grenell, who is openly gay, said Thursday on “The Story with Martha MacCallum.” Buttigieg, who is openly gay and was once cordial with Pence, has fueled criticism of the vice president, repeatedly calling him anti-gay in recent weeks as his campaign has gained momentum. Grenell, who called Pence a friend, accused the mayor of South Bend of drumming up accusations to boost fundraising and asked why he didn’t speak up while Pence was the governor of Indiana.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WEIGHS FED PICK OPTIONS: Trump administration officials are weighing options as the prospective nomination of Stephen Moore and Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board face continued opposition from Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee, Fox Business has learned ... Neither Cain nor Moore have been officially nominated by President Trump to serve on the Fed’s board, though the president has stated his preference for their nomination. Officials have been told by GOP senators on the committee that at least for now, there appears to be almost no support for Cain, a former GOP presidential candidate and pizza industry executive, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The appointment of Moore, a former opinion columnist and fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, has some support, but probably not enough to ensure Senate confirmation, this person added. The continued resistance to both potential nominations among Republicans involves several issues that GOP officials believe are problematic, from Cain’s alleged sexual misconduct, to Moore’s unpaid child support and taxes.

THE SOUNDBITE

APOLOGY IOU'S, ANYONE? - "To those who branded the primetime hosts on this network as state news for daring to tell the truth, not just our truth, but the truth? You owe us an apology." – Laura Ingraham, on "The Ingraham Angle," reflecting on the release of the Mueller report. (Click the image above to watch the full video.)

TODAY'S MUST-READS
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: Mueller report scandal no one is talking about . . . the Obama administration.
George Conway calls Trump a cancer that needs to be removed in blistering op-ed.
New York Post: Kate Smith’s 'God Bless America' out at Yankee Stadium over racist songs.

MINDING YOUR BUSINESS
Trump administration: USMCA would lead to North American auto industry surge.
HBO jabs Trump for 'Game of Thrones' tweet on Mueller report.
California gas prices surge to five-year high.

STAY TUNED

On Fox News:

Fox & Friends, 6 a.m. ET: Fallout from the release of the Mueller report with the following special guests: Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's attorney; Newt Gingrich, former House speaker; Dan Bongino, Fox News contributor and former Secret Service agent; George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign aide.

Hannity, 9 p.m. ET: Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's attorney; former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Fox News contributor

On Fox Business:

Mornings with Maria, 6 a.m. ET: Special guests include: U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich.; U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas.

Making Money with Charles Payne, 2 p.m. ET: Herman Cain, prospective Trump nominee for the Federal Reserve Board.

On Fox News Radio:

The Fox News Rundown podcast: "Mueller Report Made Public" -  Fox News Radio White House correspondent Jon Decker and Fox News Radio Capitol Hill correspondent Jared Halpern break down the Mueller report. Plus, North Korea has tested its first missile since the failed nuclear disarmament summit in Hanoi. Gordon Chang, author of "The Coming Collapse of China," weighs in. Don't miss the good news with Fox News' Tonya J. Powers.
Plus, commentary by Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News senior judicial analyst.

Want the Fox News Rundown sent straight to your mobile device? Subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher.

The Brian Kilmeade Show, 9 a.m. ET: Fallout from the release of the Mueller report with the following guests: Jonathan Swan, political reporter for Axios; John Dowd, President Trump's former attorney; Chris Wallace, "Fox News Sunday" anchor; Geraldo Rivera, Fox News correspondent-at-large; Shannon Bream, "Fox News @ Night" host. Phil Knight, co-founder and current Chairman Emeritus of Nike, Inc., on Tiger Woods' Masters victory and Colin Kaepernick

The Todd Starnes Show, Noon ET: Todd gets more reaction to the Mueller report from U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga. and Sara Carter., investigative reporter and Fox News contributor.
                                                                                                        
On Fox News Weekend:

Cavuto Live, Saturday, 10 a.m. ET: U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, on House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler calling on Special Counsel Mueller to testify by May 23. Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Ken Starr on the findings of the Mueller report and the Attorney General William Barr's decision to allow President Trump’s lawyers to read the report. New reaction as a Democratic lawmaker calls for a hunger strike at the border to “shut down ICE.” And the victims of the Columbine shooting are honored as one survivor, Austin Eubanks, remembers that day, 20 years later.

Fox News Sunday, Sunday, 2 p.m., 7 p.m. ET: Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's attorney.

#TheFlashback
1995: A truck bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people
1993: The 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ends as fire destroys the structure after federal agents began smashing their way in; about 80 people, including two dozen children and sect leader David Koresh, are killed.
1775: The American Revolutionary War begins with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Fox News First is compiled by Fox News' Bryan Robinson. Thank you for joining us! Have a good day and weekend! We'll see you in your inbox first thing Monday morning.

Source: Fox News National

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The Latest: Poland pulls out of Israel meeting over comments

The Latest on the dispute between Poland and Israel (all times local):

11:35 a.m.

Poland's prime minister says his country is not sending a delegation to a meeting in Jerusalem after the acting Israeli foreign minister said that Poles "collaborated with the Nazis" and "sucked anti-Semitism from their mothers' milk."

The developments mark a new low in a bitter conflict over how to remember and characterize Polish actions toward Jews during the German occupation of Poland in World War II.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the remarks by acting foreign minister Israel Katz "unacceptable" and "racist."

Morawiecki had already announced Sunday that he was pulling out of the meeting in Israel on Monday and Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of four central European nations. That had followed a comment by Netanyahu last week about Polish cooperation with the Nazis.

___

10:05 a.m.

A government official says Poland is considering pulling out altogether from a visit to Israel over a comment made by the acting Israeli foreign minister, the latest in a bitter new Holocaust spat between the two nations.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki already pulled out of the meeting Monday and Tuesday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by leaders from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz was tapped to go in his place.

On Monday, Michal Dworczyk, the head Morawiecki's office, said Czaputowicz's attendance is now in doubt over comments made by Israel Katz, the acting foreign minister.

Katz said Sunday that Poles "sucked anti-Semitism from their mothers' milk," citing something once said by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, whose father was murdered by Poles.

Source: Fox News World

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Flash floods, earthquake in Indonesia kill dozens

Flash floods and mudslides triggered by downpours tore through mountainside villages in Indonesia's easternmost province, killing at least 58 people, disaster officials said. An earthquake triggered a landslide that hit a popular waterfall on the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok, killing at least two and damaging hundreds of homes.

Floodwaters and landslides destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua province's Jayapura district following days of torrential rains, hampering rescue efforts, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman, said Sunday.

The dead included three children who drowned after the floods began just after midnight Saturday.

Nugroho said 58 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes by Sunday. Another 74 people were hospitalized, many with broken bones and head wounds.

Nugroho said the number of dead and injured would likely increase since many affected areas had not been reached.

"We are overwhelmed by too many injuries," said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding that some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. "We can't handle it alone."

Papua military spokesman Col. Muhammad Aidi said rescuers saved two injured infants who had been trapped for more than six hours. The parents of one of the babies were washed away and died.

Worst hit was Sentani subdistrict, where a landslide early Sunday was followed minutes later by a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents in a fast-moving deluge of water, heavy logs and debris, said the local disaster mitigation agency head, Martono.

Martono, who goes by a single name, said rescuers evacuated more than 4,000 people to temporary shelters as more than 300 houses were damaged.

Television footage showed hundreds of rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals.

Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.

Meanwhile, a moderately strong earthquake triggered a landslide on Lombok island on Sunday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.5 and struck at a depth of 23 kilometers (15 miles).

The earthquake was felt across the island, located next to Bali, panicking residents still recovering from a major quake last August that killed more than 300 people and left thousands homeless.

Sunday's quake triggered a landslide from Mount Rinjani and hit dozens of tourists at the Tiu Kelep waterfall located in the foothills of the active volcano, said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman.

Two Malaysians, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in the landslide, Nugroho said.

He said rescuers managed to evacuate 22 Malaysians and 14 Indonesians from the waterfall site, and 50 others — mostly local surveyors from government institutions, the military and the police — from the mountainous area.

Forty-four people were injured in the quake, including eight Malaysians, Nugroho said. About 500 homes were damaged, including 32 that were flattened.

Indonesia sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations was ready to help Indonesia cope with the disasters.

"The United Nations expresses its solidarity with the Indonesian authorities and stands ready to work with them as they respond to the humanitarian needs resulting from both natural disasters," the spokesman for the secretary-general said in a statement.

___

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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China says top U.S. trade officials to visit Beijing March 28-29

FILE PHOTO: U.S and China trade talks in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: Chinese staffers adjust U.S. and Chinese flags before the opening session of trade negotiations between U.S. and Chinese trade representatives at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

March 21, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s commerce ministry said on Thursday that a U.S. trade delegation headed by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will visit Beijing on March 28-29 for another round of negotiations.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will travel to the U.S. in early April for more talks, Gao Feng, the commerce ministry spokesman told reporters in a regular briefing.

(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Beijing Monitoing Desk; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Exclusive: Despite sanctions, Russian tanker supplied fuel to North Korean ship-crew members

Russian Tantal an oil/chemical tanker is berthed at the far eastern city of Vladivostok
The Russian vessel Tantal, an oil/chemical tanker, is berthed at the far eastern city of Vladivostok, Russia April 3, 2016. Picture taken April 3, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer

February 26, 2019

By Polina Nikolskaya

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – A Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018, two crew members who witnessed the transfers said.

Such transactions could have helped provide North Korea with an economic lifeline and eased the isolation of the secretive communist state, whose leader, Kim Jong Un, is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam this week.

Primportbunker, the owner of the vessel the crew members said made the transfers, did not respond to requests for comment by telephone. No one answered the door when Reuters visited the building where Primportbunker has its headquarters in the port city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast.

On the four voyages between Oct. 13, 2017, and May 7, 2018, the Tantal tanker gave its destination as the Chinese port of Ningbo when it set sail, according to port documents seen by Reuters and tracking data from financial data company Refinitiv.

It then met up in international waters with a North Korean vessel to which it transferred its cargo of fuel, the two crew members who witnessed the transfers said.

The two crew said the fuel transfers took place when the Tantal’s transponder, which allows the vessel to be tracked at sea, was not operating. Shipping industry experts said this indicates the transponder was deliberately turned off or the Tantal had entered a zone not covered by ship-tracking radar.

On each occasion, the transponder started operating again when the Tantal was close to port in Russia, the two crew said.

They declined to give their names, citing fear of reprisals.

“We got officially registered for Ningbo and went to the 12-mile zone (marking the limits of Russian territorial waters),” one of the crew said, describing four journeys in which he was involved.

“We worked at night there with the North Korean tanker Chon Moyng-1,” he said.

Such transactions violate the international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missiles program, which include a United Nations ban on nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to Pyongyang.

Washington has accused Russia of “cheating” on sanctions and said it has evidence of “consistent and wide-ranging Russian violations”. In earlier denials that it has violated sanctions, Russia has said such accusations are not backed up by evidence.

THREE OTHER TRIPS

Russia’s foreign ministry and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions, did not respond to requests for comment about the Tantal. The independent U.N. panel of experts that monitors implementation of sanctions also did not respond.

Russia’s Far Eastern Customs Administration said it could not provide information about the Tantal’s voyages. The Seaport Administration of Russia’s Primorye region, which includes Vladivostok, said it had sought information from the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency in response to Reuters’ questions but the agency provided no information.

One of the crew members who said he was on board during the transfers said the ship that received the fuel flew the North Korean flag and saw it had the name Chon Myong-1 on its side.

The Chon Myong-1 was in March 2018 included on a U.N. list of vessels that have conducted so-called ship-to-ship transfers of fuel in violation of sanctions. 

Reuters’ was unable to obtain comment from North Korea and the owners of the Chon Myong-1.

The Tantal concealed its fuel transfers to North Korea by declaring when it returned to port that it had transferred the fuel at sea to a Chinese vessel, the two crew members said.

A third crew member said the Tantal had met up on these occasions with a vessel that was not North Korean – the China-registered Hui Tong 27 – and told port authorities on its return to port that it had transferred its cargo of fuel to this ship. But the Refinitiv ship-tracking data showed the Hui Tong 27 was not in the area at these times.

The Tantal also gave Ningbo as its destination on three other trips between October 2017 and May 2018, according to port documents and shipping data. The two crew members who spoke to Reuters did not cite any evidence that sanctions were violated on these three voyages.

In December 2017, Reuters quoted two senior Western European security sources as saying Russian tankers had supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in the preceding months by transferring cargoes at sea. The security sources made no mention of the Tantal.

FINANCIAL PROBLEMS

A court in Vladivostok introduced bankruptcy proceedings on behalf of the Russian tax service against Primportbunker on Sept. 18 last year, according to a publicly available court order. The first stage of bankruptcy proceedings is still under way — the company is now under temporary management which is assessing its ability to pay off creditors. If unable to pay, the company’s assets will be sold and it will be closed down, according to Russian law.

The two crew members who spoke to Reuters said they had not always been paid their wages on time.

Denis Vlasov, executive partner in law firm Vladpravo which represented Primportbunker, said Primportbunker had tried to resolve its financial problems including wage arrears, but that Vladpravo stopped working with the company about a year ago. He said he knew nothing about the Tantal’s declared trips to Ningbo.

Shipping brokers cited customs data as showing that on three of the seven trips from October 2017 to May 2018 the Tantal was carrying fuel from the Komsomolsky refinery in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia’s far east. The refinery, which is owned by state oil company Rosneft, did not respond to requests for comment. There was no suggestion Rosneft know of the alleged transfers at sea. Rosneft did not respond to requests for comment.

The data quoted the brokers for the same three trips showed the oil products were acquired from the refinery by a small Russian  trading firm, Mir Torgovli, based in Vladivostok. Mir Torgovli’s buyer was a Chinese firm in Shandong called Worldmax Trading Co. Ltd, according to the data cited by the brokers.

Mir Torgovli’s chief executive declined to comment. Reuters was unable to reach Worldmax Trading.

After completing the last of the seven voyages for which the destination was registered as China, the Tantal has not left Vladivostok port, according to the Refinitiv ship-tracking data. It sits at anchor offshore, shipping industry sources said.

(Additional reporting by Gleb Stolyarov in Moscow, Jonathan Saul in London, Meng Meng and Aizhu Chen in Beijing, Michelle Nichols in New York, Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Source: OANN

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Texas Instruments quarterly revenue beats estimates, shares up

A Texas Instruments Office is shown in San Diego, California
FILE PHOTO: A Texas Instruments Office is shown in San Diego, California, U.S., April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 23, 2019

(Reuters) – Chipmaker Texas Instruments reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenue on Tuesday, sending its shares up 5 percent after the bell.

Revenue at the company, often seen as a bellwether for a semiconductor industry facing signs of a global downturn, fell 5.1 percent to $3.59 billion.

Analysts were expecting the chipmaker to report revenue of $3.48 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Its net income fell to $1.22 billion, or $1.26 per share, during the first three months of the year, from $1.37 billion or $1.35 a share a year earlier.

(Reporting by Sayanti Chakraborty and Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

Source: OANN

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China March new bank loans seen rebounding, further easing expected: Reuters poll

Illustration photo of a China yuan note
A China yuan note is seen in this illustration photo May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration

April 4, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – New bank loans in China likely rebounded in March from a drop the previous month, a Reuters poll showed, as policymakers push the country’s banks to keep lending to struggling smaller companies even if it risks more bad loans.

Chinese banks likely extended 1.2 trillion yuan ($178.78 billion) in net new loans in March, up about 7 percent from the same period a year earlier, a median estimate in a Reuters survey of 20 economists showed.

After a record credit pulse in January into the slowing economy, new lending dropped sharply to 885.8 billion yuan in February, which analysts attributed to seasonal factors and regulators’ concerns about a flare-up in some types of shadow bank financing.

But if the March reading is in line with forecasts, total bank lending in the first three months of the year would reach a record quarterly tally of 5.32 trillion yuan ($792.60 billion), suggesting months of policy loosening by the central bank are starting to bear fruit.

“Regulators’ credit easing measures have significantly supported loan growth in March,” said Ning Zhang, a senior economist at UBS, while noting that loan demand usually picks up due to seasonal factors during the month.

China’s banking and insurance regulator has told big state-owned banks to increase loans to smaller companies by more than 30 percent in 2019, adding that it would also increase its tolerance for non-performing loans at small firms.

The country’s top four banks warned last week that bad loans could rise and interest margins would shrink industry-wide this year.

While monthly readings can be volatile, outstanding yuan loan growth on a year-on-year basis likely held steady at 13.4 percent, the poll showed.

Broad M2 money supply was seen rising 8.2 percent on-year, up from a 8.0 percent gain in February.

China’s biggest lender Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC),, is planning more than 100 billion yuan of loans to small businesses this year at the behest of Beijing, and has already doled out over half of the amount in the first quarter.

But analysts say it will be months yet before the credit surge translates into stronger economic activity, assuming many companies are using the funds for expansion and not merely refinancing existing debt at lower rates.

TSF, a broad measure of credit and liquidity in the economy, was estimated to have swelled to 1.744 trillion yuan in March, more than double the 703 billion yuan in the previous month, buoyed by an acceleration in local government special bond issuance as Beijing looks to ramp up infrastructure investment.

TSF includes off-balance sheet forms of financing that exist outside the conventional bank lending system, such as initial public offerings, loans from trust companies and bond sales.

MORE EASING ON THE WAY

Signs are growing that a flurry of support measures are starting to gain traction, after China’s economic growth slowed last year to a 28-year low.

Activity in the vast manufacturing sector unexpectedly returned to growth in March, while the services sector accelerated, business surveys showed.

But given the lag time between credit growth and actual business expansion, analysts believe China will need to loosen policy further in coming months to ensure a sustained economic turnaround.

The central bank has already slashed banks’ reserve requirements five times over the past year and more reductions are expected in coming quarters, with analysts tipping the next move by mid-April.

RELUCTANT BORROWERS

To be sure, loan growth in China has looked solid at the start of the year as the central bank keeps its liquidity taps open. But with company earnings slumping to multi-year lows, business confidence remains weak overall.

A vice president of Agriculture Bank Of China said last week that a lack of willingness to expand has limited corporate loan demand.

China’s central bank governor last month pointed out lending rates for small firms were still relatively elevated because of concerns they are higher risks, and said policymakers will push ahead with interest rate reforms to resolve the issue.

Premier Li Keqiang also said recently that China will cut “real interest rate levels” and lower financing costs for companies, though it was not clear which rates he was referring to.

Most analysts do not expect China to cut its benchmark lending rate unless economic conditions deteriorate sharply, which would risk adding to a mountain of debt. But sources have told Reuters the central bank may cut money market rates, which is has already been guiding lower in various ways.

(Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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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) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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A remote controlled robot for the 'Isotopium: Chernobyl' game is seen at the game's location in Brovary
A remote controlled robot for the ‘Isotopium: Chernobyl’ game is seen at the game’s location in Brovary, Ukraine April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

April 26, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian computer game that brings to life a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may not sound like everyone’s idea of fun but has attracted 60,000 people globally since its launch in October.

Players of “Isotopium: Chernobyl” drive tanks around the ghost town of Prypyat near Chernobyl, knocking out competitors as they search for an energy source called isotopium and collecting points every time they find some.

While the game takes its theme from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, which marked its 33rd anniversary on Friday, it was also inspired by the 2009 science fiction film “Avatar”.

Newcomers to the game think they have entered a virtual world when in fact they are controlling a real robot, equipped with a camera and computer, which makes its way around a model of the town rendered down to the tiniest detail.

“When playing our game, for the first 5-10 minutes many players don’t understand that it is not fictional,” said the game’s co-founder Sergey Beskrestnov. “They message us saying: ‘You have cool texture, you have good graphics, your designer is good, well done. You have a cool operating system.’

“People then reply: ‘It is not an operating system, it is real,’ and the player can’t believe it is real,” said Beskrestnov, speaking mid-game from Prypyat city square as he towers over surrounding five-storey buildings.

Kiev-born Beskrestnov was just 12 years old when on April 26, 1986 a botched test at the nuclear plant in the then Soviet Union sent clouds of smoldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe, forced over 50,000 people, including Beskrestnov’s family, to evacuate and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean-up.

Beskrestnov and his partner Alexey Fateyev used Google maps and hundreds of pictures from the Chernobyl area to recreate Prypyat landmarks, including residential buildings, a hotel, concert hall, amusement park and a stadium.

The game’s real-scale model occupies a 180 square meter (1,938 sq. ft) basement of a residential building in the Ukraine city of Brovary, just 150 km (93 miles) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and 30 km east of Kiev.

Miniature radioactivity warning signs, graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and tables and chairs left scattered inside a small cafe all add to the creepy atmosphere of a once lively town.

“It’s a really neat concept …,” Shaun Prescott wrote in a review of the game published by PC Gamer magazine in January. “Controlling the tanks is kinda cumbersome, but they are tanks, after all.”

An attentive player will notice at least one inaccuracy – the real Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not located in town as it is in the game.

It costs $9 to immerse in the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic town for an hour but only 20 people at a time can play simultaneously. Beskrestnov’s company, Remote Games, said 62,615 people around the world have registered to play the game, including around 15,000 in France and 10,000 in the United States.

A camera fixed on top of a moving tank broadcasts high quality signal in real time, allowing players from as far apart as Australia and Canada enjoy the game without facing any time delay in delivering video signals.

Its creators next ambition is to devise a game featuring the colonization of Mars in which 1,000 people will be able to simultaneously control robots on different missions involved in the operation.

“Many people advise us to contact Elon Musk directly because it resonates his dreams and ideas,” Beskrestnov jokes.    

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California
FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 19,2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Initial optimism over first-quarter results from Starbucks Corp was waning fast on Wall Street on Friday, as analysts questioned the longer-term prospects of its new sales push given subdued overall customer traffic numbers especially in China.

The company on Thursday beat brokerage estimates for quarterly same-store sales on the back of demand for its new Cloud Macchiato, Matcha tea and cold brews in the United States.

However, BTIG’s Peter Saleh was one of a number of sector analysts who said while customers forking out for higher-priced new drinks had helped drive growth in same-store sales, “anemic” traffic at cafes remained a concern.

He and others pointed to a 1 percent decline in footfall at cafes in the Chinese market, viewed as crucial to the chain’s growth for the foreseeable future.

More broadly, transaction numbers, the substitute analysts use for customer traffic, were unchanged in all three of the company’s global regions.

Shares in the company, which hit a record high after the results on Thursday, fell 1 percent in morning trade.

“We remain cautious given near-term headwinds surrounding China, including cannibalization, increasing competition (and) a slowing economy,” Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan said.

Starbucks has also poured money into beefing up its delivery network in China as it battles with local startup Luckin Coffee, whose speedy growth led it to file for an IPO in the United States earlier this week.

New menu items and partnerships with delivery services, the heart of the company’s strategy to win back customers lost to artisanal coffee shops and cheaper fast-food rivals, did help Starbucks’ sales in its home market.

However, analysts said growth in China may continue to be subdued.

Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog said she expects store expansion in China to take priority over comparable sales growth.

She downgraded her rating on Starbucks’ to “market perform” from “outperform”, arguing that the company facing tough sales comparisons later on in 2019 from last year and the current rich valuation of shares meant the stock had limited room to rise.

“Investors will be hesitant to invest new money in a stock with a topline that, while still strong, is unlikely to meaningfully accelerate,” Herzog said.

Still, the company’s solid same-store growth in the United States, improving profit margins and a lower tax rate for the rest of the year led at least 6 Wall Street brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock to as high as $81.

11 of 29 brokerages rate Starbucks “buy” or higher, 17 “hold” and 1 “sell” or lower. Their median price target is $75.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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A man accused of fatally beating a 4-month-old boy after finding out the infant wasn’t his son had been previously deported from the United States five times, most recently in late 2016, immigration officials said.

Carlos Zuniga-Aviles, a 33-year-old Honduran national, has used multiple aliases, including the fake name of Jose Agurcia-Avila he gave police in Memphis, Tennessee, following his arrest in the boy’s death earlier this month, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told WMC-TV.

ICE officials have since filed an immigration detainer against Zuniga-Aviles, who was initially deported back to Honduras in February 2010. He was also returned to the Central American country in 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016.

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“ICE will seek to take him into custody to reinstate his removal order following the resolution of the criminal charges he currently faces,” the statement reads. “Mr. Zuniga-Aviles has been removed from the US five prior times: his most recent removal by ICE to Honduras took place in December 2016.”

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WITH CRIMINAL HISTORY ARRESTED IN CALIFORNIA WOMAN’S MURDER

Zuniga-Aviles later returned to the U.S. following his removal, a felony under federal law, immigration officials said. It’s unclear exactly when he returned, but he was living with his girlfriend and the woman’s 4-month-old son in Memphis at the time of his arrest, WREG reports.

DAD OF MAN KILLED BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT BLASTS CALIFORNIA GOV. NEWSOM’S TRIP TO CENTRAL AMERICA: ‘IT’S DISGUSTING’

The infant, Alexander Lizondro-Chacon, was pronounced dead at a hospital from blunt force trauma to the head after his mother, Mercy Lizondro-Chacon, called police on April 12 to report that the boy was having trouble breathing, according to an affidavit of complaint obtained by the Commercial Appeal.

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This article originally appeared in the New York Post. For more from the Post, click here.

Source: Fox News National

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