Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

UK Brexit-backing lawmaker says ‘a lot of people’ still oppose May’s deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May talks with Conservative MP for Wokingham John Redwood during a visit to a new housing development in Wokingham
British Prime Minister Theresa May talks with Conservative MP for Wokingham John Redwood during a visit to a new housing development in Wokingham, Britain, January 3, 2018. REUTERS/Leon Neal/Pool

March 18, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – A Brexit-supporting British lawmaker said a “lot of people” in parliament still remained opposed to Prime Minister Theresa May’s European Union withdrawal deal, with hostility going beyond opposition to the so-called Irish backstop.

“This is a very bad agreement,” John Redwood told BBC radio. “Quite a number share my overall concerns that we don’t need this kind of binding treaty.

“It’s a lot of people and it goes far wider than the ERG group who have been particularly keen to have the right kind of Brexit,” he added.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Kate Holton)

Source: OANN

0 0

Kazakhstan’s president resigns after holding power for more than 30 years

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, who led the oil-rich nation since the fall of the Soviet Union, announced Tuesday that he will terminate his rule as president, leaving uncertainty in a nation that’s had the same ruler for 30 years.

In a surprise televised address, Nazarbayev, 78, failed to give a specific reason for his “difficult” decision to step down but assured the Central Asian nation that, after decades of service, his mission is to successfully transition power to a new generation.

COURT PUTS KAZAKH ACTIVIST UNDER HOUSE ARREST

"It was an honor for me to serve the people," Nazarbayev said. "I have worked hard to fulfill the nation's will."

Nazarbayev announced that the upper house speaker, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, will assume power as the head of state until the next presidential election, as the nation’s constitution mandates. Tokayev previously served as prime minister and foreign minister in addition to working as the director-general of the United Nations office in Geneva between 2011 and 2013.

Despite his resignation, Nazarbayev maintains significant political influence in Kazakhstan as the chairman of the Security Council and the leader of the ruling Nur Otan party. Nazarbayev, who won uncontested presidential elections in the 1990s, affirmed that he will always be involved in government.

"I will serve you until the end of my days," Nazarbayev said.

Spearheading oil deals between Kazakhstan and China, Nazarbayev, in 2005, inaugurated a 620-mile pipeline that carries oil from Kazakhstan into western China. Bordering Russian and China, Kazakhstan’s extensive oil reserves and massive landmass of 1 million square miles give the nation a strategic and economic advantage.

First beginning his political rule as the chief of the Communist Party in 1989, Nazarbayev later became the elected president and consolidated power during times of ethnic unrest and economic turmoil before the turn of the century.

In 2004, Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party retained the seats necessary to control the lower house of parliament in an election widely criticized on the international stage, and, in 2015, Nazarbayev was re-elected with 97.7 percent of the vote.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Home to roughly 18 million people, Kazakhstan has been criticized for its status as a democracy, as many political opposition leaders have been jailed, exiled or painted by the state media as inciting an overthrow of the government, according to Kazakhstan’s BBC News profile.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Ex-Philippine officials accuse Xi of crimes against humanity

Two former Philippine officials have filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Chinese President Xi Jinping of crimes against humanity over his government's assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea, which they say deprived thousands of fishermen of their livelihoods and destroyed the environment.

Former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario and anti-graft prosecutor Conchita Carpio Morales said Thursday that they filed the complaint with the tribunal last week, before the current Philippine president's move to withdraw the country from the tribunal took effect last weekend.

They accused Xi and other Chinese officials of turning seven disputed reefs into islands, causing massive environmental damage, and blocking large numbers of fishermen from their fishing grounds.

There was no immediate reaction from China.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Factbox: ‘Fake News’ laws around the world

Commuters walk past an advertisement discouraging the dissemination of fake news at a train station in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Commuters walk past an advertisement discouraging the dissemination of fake news at a train station in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

April 2, 2019

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore’s parliament on Monday began considering a law on “fake news” that an internet watchdog has called the world’s most far-reaching, stoking fears the government could use additional powers to choke freedom of speech and chill dissent.

Governments and companies worldwide are increasingly worried about the spread of false information online and its impact on everything from share prices to elections and social unrest.

Human rights activists fear laws to curb so-called “fake news” could be abused to silence opposition.

Here are details of such laws around the world:

SINGAPORE

Singapore’s new law would require social media sites like Facebook to carry warnings on posts the government deems false and remove comments against the “public interest”.

Singapore, which ranks 151 among 180 countries rated by the World Press Freedom Index, defines “public interests” as threats to its security, foreign relations, electoral integrity and public perception of the government and state institutions.

Violations could attract fines of up to S$ 1 million ($737,500) and 10 years in prison.

RUSSIA

Last month, President Vladimir Putin signed into law tough new fines for Russians who spread what the authorities regard as fake news or who show “blatant disrespect” for the state online.

Critics have warned the law could aid state censorship, but lawmakers say it is needed to combat false news and abusive online comment.

Authorities may block websites that do not meet requests to remove inaccurate information. Individuals can be fined up to 400,000 rouble ($6,109.44) for circulating false information online that leads to a “mass violation of public order”.

FRANCE

France passed two anti-fake news laws last year, to rein in false information during election campaigns following allegations of Russian meddling in the 2017 presidential vote.

President Emmanuel Macron vowed to overhaul media laws to fight “fake news” on social media, despite criticism that the move was a risk to civil liberties.

GERMANY

Germany passed a law last year for social media companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, to quickly remove hate speech.

Called NetzDG for short, the law is the most ambitious effort by a Western democracy to control what appears on social media. It will enforce online Germany’s tough curbs on hate speech, including pro-Nazi ideology, by giving sites a 24-hour deadline to remove banned content or face fines of up to 50 million euros.

Since it was adopted, however, German officials have said too much online content was being blocked, and are weighing changes. [https://reut.rs/2RP1OeW]

MALAYSIA

Malaysia’s ousted former government was among the first to adopt a law against fake news, which critics say was used to curb free speech ahead of last year’s general elections, which it lost.The measure was seen as a tool to fend off criticism over graft and mismanagement of funds by then prime minister Najib Razak, who now faces charges linked to a multibillion-dollar scandal at state fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad.

The new government’s bid to deliver on an election promise to repeal the law was blocked by the opposition-led Senate, however. [https://reut.rs/2R4IR6I]

EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union and authorities worldwide will have to regulate big technology and social media companies to protect citizens, European Commission deputy head Frans Timmermans said last month.

EU heads of state will urge governments to share information on threats via a new warning system, launched by the bloc’s executive. They will also call for online platforms to do more to remove misleading or illegal content.

Union-level efforts have been limited by different election rules in each member nation and qualms over how vigorously regulators can tackle misleading content online.

(Reporting by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Clarence Fernandez; and Joe Brock)

Source: OANN

0 0

San Francisco, Los Angeles And Seattle: 3 Formerly Beautiful West Coast Cities Have Literally Been Transformed Into Hellholes

Once upon a time, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle were three of the most beautiful cities on the entire planet. 

I know that this is hard to imagine today, but there was a time when millions of people eagerly moved out to the west coast for a better quality of life.  Sadly, the reverse is true today.  Millions of people are moving away from our major cities on the west coast because of the hellholes that they have become.  A former Seattle police officer that was recently interviewed by a reporter from KOMO News  was very honest about the fact that he would never want to raise a family in Seattle because of the hellhole that it has become.  Every night he saw the worst of Seattle firsthand, and he finally felt forced to quit because city officials would not allow him to effectively do his job.  An explosion of homelessness in our major west coast cities has fueled a wave of crime, drugs and human degradation unlike anything we have seen before, and in many cases our law enforcement officials have their hands tied and are literally being prevented from cleaning up the streets.

Right now, more than half a million people are homeless in the United States.  As the economy gets worse, that number will continue to rise.

Many homeless Americans are law-abiding citizens that have just had a tough break. Everyone gets knocked down in life at some point, and we need to do all that we can to help those law-abiding citizens get back on their feet.

But because of their ultra-liberal policies, some of the major cities on the west coast have become magnets for drug addicts, serial criminals, sex offenders, illegal immigrants and people that have simply heard about all of the “free benefits” that are being offered.  As a result, the streets of those cities have become a showcase for the social decay that is sweeping across our nation.

Let’s start with San Francisco.  According to one report, it is home to more than 28,000 homeless people, and that would make San Francisco the city with the third largest homeless population in the United States.


Gerald Celente hosts and gives his expert analysis on the current trends in the economy as well as actions Trump is taking to keep the economy strong and win 2020.

Others feel like that number is way too low, and the truth is that it is exceedingly difficult to count the homeless.

After all, how are you supposed to accurately count people that don’t want to be counted?

What we do know is that San Francisco is a huge magnet for drug addicts.  The city handed out 5.8 million free syringes in 2018, and that number would seem to suggest a homeless population far in excess of 28,000.

And as all those drug addicts aimlessly wander through the streets, many of them use those streets as their own personal toilets.  Over the past 8 years, more than 118,000 reports of human feces in the streets have been filed with city authorities

Since 2011, there have been at least 118,352 reported instances of human fecal matter on city streets.

New mayor, London Breed, won election by promising to clean things up. However, conditions are the same or worse. Last year, the number of reports spiked to an all-time high at 28,084. In first quarter 2019, the pace continued with 6,676 instances of human waste in the public way.

In addition to endless piles of poop, the drug addicts are also endlessly committing property crimes in order to pay for their drug habits.

Each year, there are more than 6,000 property crimes per 100,000 residents in San Francisco.  That is about four times the rate of property crime that New York City has reported.

Mayor Breed would like to get a lot of these homeless people off of the streets, but finding a place to put them has been problematic.  Residents of one wealthy liberal neighborhood are currently fighting like mad to keep a proposed homeless shelter away from their gated mansions…

A wealthy liberal neighborhood in San Francisco whose residents cast the most votes for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election is fighting against a proposal to build a new homeless shelter near their gated mansions.

Mayor London Breed has sponsored legislation to fast track a homeless shelter that would house 200 people. However, wealthy liberals living in the affected area have set up a GoFundMe to stop the project which has already hit $80,000 of its $100,000 target.

Things are certainly not any better in Los Angeles.

According to the same report mentioned above, L.A. has nearly twice as many homeless people as San Francisco

Los Angeles has the second largest population of people exploring homelessness, according to a new report.

The LA area contains 55,200 homeless people, according to data released by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.

The homeless population in L.A. has surged 75 percent in six years, and this has happened during a time when the economy has been relatively stable.

So how bad are things going to become when the economy starts getting really bad?

When I was running for Congress, one of the people that came to help the campaign had spent a lot of time in some of the worst parts of Los Angeles.  He told me about the public drug use, the constant crime and the human degradation that is seemingly everywhere.  This greatly saddened me, because Los Angeles was once a magnificent city.  In fact, at one point in my life I wanted to live there.

But not anymore.  Today, millions of people are leaving California and never looking back because of the utter hellhole the entire state has become.

Further up the coast, the city of Seattle is experiencing similar issues.  Not too long ago, a veteran Seattle reporter named Eric Johnson produced an hour-long documentary entitled “Seattle Is Dying”, and if you have not seen it yet I would strongly recommend taking the time to watch it.

Since it was first released, it has been viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube

In the past two weeks, Seattle Is Dying has garnered 38,000 shares on Facebook and nearly 2 million views on YouTube. The report has clearly resonated with anxious, fearful, and increasingly angry Seattle residents. Exhausted by a decade of rising disorder and property crime—now two-and-a-half times higher than Los Angeles’s and four times higher than New York City’s—Seattle voters may have reached the point of “compassion fatigue.” According to the Seattle Times, 53 percent of Seattle voters now support a “zero-tolerance policy” on homeless encampments; 62 percent believe that the problem is getting worse because the city “wastes money by being inefficient” and “is not accountable for how the money is spent,” and that “too many resources are spent on the wrong approaches to the problem.”

One of the moments in the documentary that really touched me was when a concerned resident described how drug addicts have been leaving needles and human waste in the graveyard near his home.  The homeless have erected tents all around the graveyard, and he can clearly smell urine whenever he walks down the streets.

He would like to fix things, and he is fed up enough that he has decided to run for city council.  But he is facing an uphill battle, because Seattle has been entirely taken over by socialists.  The following comes from Mac Slavo

The entire video is about an hour long, but it is pretty easy to see where Seattle continues to go wrong. A heavy tax burden, regulations that push out businesses, and a power-hungry group of totalitarian sociopaths have been slowly eroding the city. The decay of Western civilization can be seen up and down the entirety of the West coast. Some say it’s by design, others disagree. But the commonality is that all of the cities are being pushed into poverty by illusions and lies of socialists. Calling Seattle anything other than a leftist’s paradise would be inaccurate. The city has all of the laws the socialists want, yet it’s killing itself because of it.

In life, the decisions that we make have consequences, and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle are now experiencing the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions.

But of course they are far from alone.  All across the country there are thousands of communities where social decay is exceedingly evident, and it is getting worse with each passing year.

If we want to change the trajectory of our future, we have got to start doing things differently.

Because if we keep doing the same things, we are going to keep getting the same results, and our country is going to continue falling apart right in front of our eyes.

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Fox Backs Smollett Over Alleged Race Hoax, Yet ABC Fired Roseanne Over Tweets

“Empire” actor Jussie Smollett receiving major support from Fox over his alleged “assault” is a stark contrast to ABC’s treatment of Roseanne Barr over a series of tweets.

Smollett received the endorsement despite police reports claiming he orchestrated being the victim of a racially and homophobically-charged assaulted by Trump supporters.

“[Smollett] remains a core player on this very successful series and we continue to stand behind him,” said a joint statement from 20th Century Fox Television and Fox Entertainment.

The endorsement from the major network and studio for potentially a Class 4 felony is a stark contrast to ABC’s treatment of Roseanne Barr over a series of tweets.

Barr’s commercially successful titular sitcom was canceled almost immediately after multiple tweets targeted globalist kingpin George Soros and former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett.

Moreover, the mainstream media’s official reasoning for Barr’s termination was her tweet against Jarrett.

“Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby = vj,” said Barr’s May 2018 tweet.

Barr later claimed she had no idea Jarrett was black.

But Barr’s comments on Soros being a Nazi and his ties to ABC seems to have really triggered ABC dropping the cash cow show and actor.



Soros is tied to ABC as well as other major outlets, according to the Media Research Center.

“[Soros] has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC,” reports MRC.org.

If Barr’s tweets set the bar for termination, then doesn’t Smollett’s situation warrant the same treatment?

Breaking report revealing mainstream media’s bias against Americans.

Source: InfoWars

0 0

‘Basil,’ the alarm specialist, jailed over huge UK diamond heist

FILE PHOTO: Handout photo of the hole that robbers drilled through the concrete vault during the Hatton Garden heist in London
FILE PHOTO: The hole that robbers drilled through the concrete vault during the Hatton Garden heist in London, Britain is seen in this undated handout photo released to Reuters by the Metropolitan Police on January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Metropolitan Police/Handout via Reuters

March 15, 2019

By Stephen Addison

LONDON (Reuters) – A 58-year-old man nicknamed “Basil” was jailed for 10 years on Friday after being found guilty of being the final member of a gang of aging criminals who carried out one the most audacious robberies in the annals of British crime.

The gang ransacked 73 deposit boxes at the Hatton Garden Safety Deposit building in London’s jewelry district over the Easter weekend of 2015, stealing gold, silver, diamonds and jewelry worth 13.5 million pounds ($18 million).

Disguised as workmen, they abseiled down a lift shaft over the Easter weekend and used a diamond-tipped drill to cut through the vault wall. It was Britain’s biggest-ever robbery and much of the haul was never recovered.

On Friday, Michael Seed was jailed at Woolwich Crown Court in London after the jury accepted prosecution evidence that he was the man, nicknamed Basil by the rest of the gang, who had remained at large.

“(We) were able to … prove he was not only involved but was one of the ringleaders,” said Kate Mulholland of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). “He was the only member of the group with the technical knowledge to defeat complex alarm systems.”

Basil was seen on closed-circuit TV inside the building wearing a ginger wig and a face-covering as a disguise.

The rest of the ringleaders: Brian Reader, 77 at the time, Terry Perkins, 67, Daniel Jones, 61, and John ‘Kenny’ Collins, 75, were identified in the weeks after and eventually jailed. Others who helped them were also convicted.

But Basil remained unidentified, having last been seen on CCTV walking away from Hatton Garden with a large plastic bag over his shoulder.

Three years later, police raided Seed’s one-bedroom flat in north London and found items stolen from Hatton Garden including jewelry and gold ingots. Seed told police he was an amateur jeweler and had come by the items innocently, the CPS said.

Burglar alarm technical manuals were also found along with signal blockers for alarms, and a machine for melting precious metals.

When the other ringleaders were sentenced in 2016, Judge Christopher Kinch said: “It is clear that the burglary … stands in a class of its own in the scale of the ambition, the detail of the planning, the level of preparation and the organization of the team carrying it out.”

Like Britain’s Great Train Robbery of 1963 with which the Hatton Garden raid was inevitably compared, it was later the subject of books and films.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Michael Holden)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.

The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.

But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. …  I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”

— Joe Biden

But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

BIDEN’S CLAIM HE DIDN’T WANT OBAMA TO ENDORSE TRIGGERS MOCKERY

At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.

It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.

An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.

Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.

“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.

“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Sanders released his medical records in 2016, with a Senate physician saying in a letter that the senator was “in overall very good health.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEED FOR CASH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STATE COMPETITION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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

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

Title

Artist