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Conservatives defend Trump DC Circuit pick Neomi Rao, after GOP Sen. Hawley raises abortion concerns

Conservative politicians, legal experts, and activist groups are rushing to the all-out defense of President Trump's D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Neomi Rao, after a freshman Republican senator suggested he might vote against her confirmation because she may harbor pro-choice views.

Rao, who would take now-Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's vacated seat on the nation's most influential appellate court, was questioned earlier this month by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning her past writings that implied intoxicated women might share some blame if they are raped. The defection of even a handful of conservatives could sink Rao's confirmation in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim 53-47 majority.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told Axios over the weekend that he had "heard directly from at least one individual who said Rao personally told them she was pro-choice." Hawley clarified: "I don't know whether that’s accurate, but this is why we are doing our due diligence."

Rao, 45, currently serves as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and observers have said she's played a key role in executing the Trump administration's deregulation agenda. She would be the first South Asian woman to serve on a federal appeals court.

WATCH: RAO SCHOOLS CORY BOOKER AFTER FLAMEOUT QUESTION ON LGBTQ LAW CLERKS

However, Rao has never tried a case in state or federal court, and some of her writings -- including as a professor at the George Mason University School of Law, later renamed the Antonin Scalia Law School -- are leading conservatives to raise last-minute concerns.

Freshman Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has suggested he might vote against Neomi Rao, President Trump's replacement for Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Freshman Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has suggested he might vote against Neomi Rao, President Trump's replacement for Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

According to Hawley, Rao's academic writings have indicated she may support the concept of "substantive due process," a legal framework that identifies constitutional rights not expressly provided by the text of the Constitution. Conservatives fiercely have opposed the use of substantive due process to provide for some rights, including the right to privacy and abortion, which are not stated in the constitutional text but instead are purportedly implied by it.

OPINION: I WAS NEARLY RAPED, AND I SUPPORT RAO

"I am only going to support nominees who have a strong record on life," Hawley told Axios. "To me, that means ... someone whose record indicates that they have respect for what the Supreme Court itself has called the interests of the unborn child; someone whose record indicates they will protect the ability of states and local governments to protect the interests of the unborn child to the maximum extent ... and number three somebody who will not extend the doctrines of Roe v. Wade and Casey, which I believe are deeply incompatible with the constitution."

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were the seminal Supreme Court cases to find and define a constitutional right to an abortion. But, conservatives and legal scholars are aggressively pushing back on Hawley's concerns this week, saying variously that there is no evidence that Rao is pro-choice -- and some are suggesting that even if she supports abortion rights, her personal views should not bar her from judicial service.

Carrie Severino, the Chief Counsel and Policy Director at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, accused Hawley of continuing the policies of the Democrat he defeated last November, then-Sen. Claire McCaskill.

"Sadly, barely a month after moving to Washington, Josh Hawley is already acting like Claire McCaskill when it comes to judges," Severino said. "Instead of supporting President Trump's top judicial nominee, he is spreading the very same kind of rumors and innuendo and character assassination that Republican leaders fought during Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation.  Hawley could be working to confirm her and other extraordinary nominees, but it seems he’d rather be making headlines.”

Hawley did not respond to Fox News' request for comment.

Columnist Quin Hillyer, meanwhile, wrote in The Washington Examiner that Hawley's approach was a "dicey" push for a judicial litmus test.

"Conservatives have argued long and correctly that professional qualifications and personal integrity, along with a basic commitment to the Constitution itself, should be the only determinants of nominees’ fitness for appointment to federal judgeships," Hillyer wrote. "In particular, conservatives have inveighed against any result-oriented, single-issue litmus tests for judges, especially for those below the level of the Supreme Court."

Neomi Rao smiling as President Trump announced his intention to nominate her to fill Brett Kavanaugh's seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last November. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Neomi Rao smiling as President Trump announced his intention to nominate her to fill Brett Kavanaugh's seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last November. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

In a statement, Club for Growth President David McIntosh praised Rao as an "originalist who is faithful to the Constitution," citing her work on deregulation in the Trump White House. McIntosh, whose organization is devoted to reducing taxes, also exalted Rao's "extensive knowledge of administrative rulemaking."

“I have known Neomi for decades and have no doubt that she will be a principled jurist, cut from the same cloth as Justices Scalia and Thomas,” McIntosh said. "Senate Republicans should not be thrown off track by rumors and innuendo."

LESSONS FROM RAO HEARING -- DEMS ARE CLUELESS ABOUT WOMEN

In a barrage of similar statements, other conservative luminaries lined up to defend Rao. Ed Meese, the former attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, said he also personally knew Rao and could vouch for her commitment to constitutional principles.

"I have had the privilege of knowing Professor Neomi Rao, and have observed her work, since she first started teaching at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University," Meese said. "She has made it her life's work to support the Constitution as it is written, and she understands the proper judicial role in our society and what that requires of judges when they are interpreting the Constitution and the laws.  I have no doubt that she will uphold the rule of law and not legislate from the bench."

Ralph Reed, the chairman of the nonprofit Faith and Freedom Coalition, which focuses on outreach to evangelicals, said he supported Rao's confirmation and asserted that "her judicial philosophy is antithetical to federal judges issuing rulings untethered from the enumerated rights found in the Constitution."

Conservative groups also have ramped up spending with hundreds of thousands of dollars in media outreach to promote Rao, whose rocky confirmation hearing already gave some analysts cause for alarm. Democrats hammered Rao for working to kill regulations they helped champion, while Republicans questioned her past writings on sexual assault.

In a 1994 opinion column, Rao wrote: "Unless someone made her drinks undetectably strong or forced them down her throat, a woman, like a man, decides when and how much to drink. And if she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was a part of her choice."

A good way to avoid a potential rape "is to stay reasonably sober," Rao added.

"To be honest, looking back at some of those writings ... I cringe at some of the language I used," Rao told the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, adding that writings in which she criticized affirmative action and suggested that intoxicated women were partly responsible for date rape did not reflect her current thinking.

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"I like to think I've matured as a thinker, writer and indeed as a person," she said.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who recently revealed she was raped by her boyfriend in college, said Rao's writings "give me pause," in part because of the message they've sent to young women who may be reluctant to report a rape.

Fox News' Alex Pappas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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End of the road for PM May? Betting odds show 20 percent chance she will leave this month

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside Downing Street in London
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside Downing Street in London, Britain March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

March 23, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Betting odds indicate there is now a 20 percent chance that British Prime Minister Theresa May will be out of her job by the end of this month, Ladbrokes said on Saturday.

May’s office declined to comment on a report in The Times newspaper that discussions on a timetable for the prime minister to stand down were now under way.

But a Downing Street source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the report was incorrect.

The Times quoted an unidentified Downing Street source saying that even her closest allies believed it was inevitable she would have to resign.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Guy Faulconbridge.)

Source: OANN

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HSBC directors take pension cut after investor pressure

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO - The HSBC bank logo is seen at their offices in the Canary Wharf financial district in London
FILE PHOTO: The HSBC bank logo is seen in the Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain, March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause/File Photo

April 12, 2019

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) – HSBC’s three executive director board members have agreed a reduction in their pension allowance from 30 to 10 percent of base salary, following increasing scrutiny from investors and other stakeholders on overall executive pay.

New directors on the bank’s board will also see a reduction of cash in lieu of pension to 10 percent of salary, the bank announced at its annual shareholder meeting in Birmingham.

The bank’s move follows similar reductions in pension allowances at other major UK banks.

(Reporting By Lawrence White; editing by David Evans)

Source: OANN

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Two-handed J to Final Four: The evolution and revival of Kyle Guy

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Championship Game-Team Press Conferences
Apr 7, 2019; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Virginia Cavaliers guard Kyle Guy during a press conference for the 2019 men's Final Four championship game at US Bank Stadium. Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

April 7, 2019

MINNEAPOLIS – Lee Larkins first got his hands on Kyle Guy as an Indiana sixth-grader who might as well be shooting free throws with his eyes closed.

“I shot with two hands, kind of like (motions his hands over his forehead and pushes, palms high, in opposite directions),” Guy, now a junior at Virginia, said Sunday, about 16 hours removed from the heroic game-winning free throws that sent the Cavaliers to the national championship game and Auburn home from the NCAA Tournament.

A self-described slasher in middle school, Guy grew into a sharpshooter. There’s a Jimmy Chitwood — the sweet-shooting Hickory High School guard in the film “Hoosiers” for the uninitiated — on every block in Indiana, where hoops is a religion and virtually all other things take second billing. Not just on winter Fridays in high school gyms. Parents get the ball bouncing on the same day they toss the baby booties.

Guy credits, in part, his middle school guidance counselor, Larkins. Guy’s recollection was Larkins, who played football at Purdue and later coached there after playing middle school for Mike Fratello, forced him to work out with him.

“I have two daughters and they’re a little bit older than Kyle. He used to come into the gym, always had a basketball in his hand,” Larkins told Field Level Media on Sunday afternoon. “It started as — he went against all girls. All girls and him.”

Larkins is not the only basketball mentor in Guy’s life, although he remains a constant. So when Guy strolled to the line with the game hanging in the balance Saturday night with 0.6 seconds left, the Larkins family started celebrating. That included Larkins’ two older daughters who were part of the Kyle Guy Construction Project.

“He was built for this. This is what I texted him last night. Right away, my mindset is that he’s knocking these three down. This is what he trained his mind for,” Larkins said.

“At the end of every workout, we shot free throws with his eyes closed. He had to be at 80 percent. There was no doubt in my mind, this kid is going to make these shots. That same scenario, I guarantee you, he’s played it out in Lawrence Central’s gym. It’s a mindset we were trained on.”

Larkins only had to open the door once for Guy to keep showing up at practices. He begged to be coached hard, and picked up nuances of the game on the fly.

Before long, Larkins had no doubt about Guy’s destiny.

“We constantly worked on his shot, but he wanted to be coached and loved to be coached hard,” said Larkins, who now runs an AAU program and has coached women’s basketball at IUPUI.

“His grandmother was my boss. And then I told her and his dad, I said, ‘This kid can be Mr. Basketball.’ He picked up everything. Worked so hard. In my gym, I’m pretty fundamentally sound: Don’t fade away, straight up and straight down. He picked up from there. It shows now. Just a really good shooter.”

Not everyone peered through the same optimistic lens evaluating the spindly Guy, who floated under the radar of many major college programs. Larkins said his alma mater, Purdue, was not a fit because it already had slots filled — hello, Carsen Edwards — in which Guy would have fit.

“Virginia was a natural fit,” Larkins recalled.

“I tried to get him to Purdue. His grandfather and great grandfather are all (Indiana University) people. Kyle wanted something different. He wanted to get away, and write his own story. I think that was so much different than anyone else.

“Virginia was a great fit. When coach (Tony Bennett) came here and watched him, they were playing Lawrence North at the time. You could just see the relationship he had with Coach. It was a perfect, perfect match.”

The trust evident between Bennett and Guy paid off in a big way again Saturday. But Guy wants his original support system to know he’s taking the court for them, too, on Monday.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot the last three weeks,” Guy said. “Not just what it would mean to win a championship with these guys, but to bring it home and represent my hometown and Indiana.”

* * *

Measured and reflective, Guy comes across as vulnerable with overtones of on-court confidence. He models his openness after his coach, Bennett.

It might not have been evident to observers when Guy, who shoots 86 percent from the free throw line, sealed Virginia’s win Saturday, but he battles extreme anxiety. He looked calm. He told himself he was calm. In reality?

“I was terrified,” Guy said. “But it was a good terrified.”

Pressure typically feels like a privilege until it has buckled you.

“The best thing I could do for Kyle is I pray for him a lot,” said Bennett, who identified five biblical pillars of his program and uses faith-based teaching daily.

“I do, and I’m there for him. We have a saying: be kind because everyone you meet is facing a hard battle. Some things you have to work through with yourself and the right kind of help, and he’s very honest about it. I try to encourage him and challenge him in ways and be there for him, coach him hard.

“We always talk about encouragement and accountability — being that way with him. I constantly think about him. It’s an extended family, so you are a father figure, to an extent, to them. I think about that stuff, and I do that for me. That’s really important for him. That’s probably the best thing I could say I did.”

* * *

Historically improbable, Virginia lost to UMBC in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament. The March 16 defeat wasn’t just an upset — it was the first time a No. 16 seed knocked off a No. 1 in tournament history — it also was an emotional landmark for Guy.

At the time, it felt like a landmine. The impact settled well below the surface when the team bus required a police escort back to Virginia’s hotel in response to death threats.

Guy didn’t know where to turn. He went into a shell and tried to close himself off from society. The 20-point loss felt to Guy like a nightmare from which he couldn’t, and seemingly wouldn’t, escape.

Fighting out of the pit wouldn’t be a point-to-point venture.

Anxiety medication. Sports psychology. Sessions with Bennett. All of it helped. Nothing cured Guy.

He wrote himself a series of letters and ultimate liberation came through a social media post. Guy poured out his heart and soul into the emotion-charged writing at the behest of fiancee Alexa Jenkins.

“When that final buzzer sounded, I cracked. I cracked and the pressure got to me,” Guy wrote in a Facebook post 39 days after the UMBC loss, unwinding and expelling almost 2,500 words of pulverized anguish.

“If you know me or read my last passage you know I do not believe pressure is real, unless you let it be real. Pressure comes from thinking too much about the future or past so there can be such thing as no pressure if you just be where your feet are. Well I was right where my feet were but my mind raced to the past, the future, and the present. It was too much. I was hit with an overwhelming feeling of sadness, anxiety, and failure. All the sensations of that exact moment consumed me and I was no longer in control of my emotions.”

* * *

Writing became a necessary form of therapy. He shared, he asked and listened. And most important to Guy, he refused to forget. It didn’t take away the shame and the sting is still there — but it is now suspended intentionally by the 21-year-old.

His cellphone wallpaper and Twitter avatar are still set to the March 16, 2018, loss to UMBC. Soon enough, Guy says he’ll let it go. And if you wonder how often a 21-year-old college athlete checks a cellphone — “a lot.”

“It still stings every time I look at it,” he said.

But Guy crept out of his shell. He firmly believes a hand guided him here, to Minneapolis, to Monday night, to the precipice of a story of overcoming failure by refusing to repeat history.

It helped that when he felt like he was drowning a year ago, his mom reminded him his lifeguard walked on water.

He felt an unspeakable presence on the Virginia team outing — white-water rafting, the high-class kind that might not be a wise choice for someone battling anxiety — and an unshakable calm that emerges in-game with a smile that stretches to his earlobes.

“In a way, it’s a painful gift,” Bennett said of how the UMBC loss propelled Virginia to this point.

“It did draw us nearer to each other as a team. I think it helped us as coaches. I think it helped the players on the court and helped us in the other areas that rely on things that were significant. I knew it was going to be a really important marked year for all of us in our lives, and it’s certainly playing out that way.”

* * *

That echo helped carry Guy in this very NCAA Tournament, when he endured a shooting slump from 3-point range — 3 of 29 — that put the Cavaliers in peril in two of their first three games. Then came the regional final. Guy collected 21 points after halftime, 25 in all, and Virginia bounced Purdue to reach the Final Four.

Six points in the final 10 seconds on Saturday is now the string of splash plays Guy can recall when he rewinds his journey on and off the court.

“I think all of my life has led to this. Everything that I’ve been through made it a lot easier to hone in and try to knock down the free throws,” Guy said Sunday. “I said that I was terrified. It was a good terrified, though, a good nervousness in my stomach like, ‘This is my chance.'”

The climactic final chapter comes Monday.

Pressure is a privilege Guy would never consider passing on this time around. Imagining scissors fitted around his fingers to trim the nets hanging at U.S. Bank Stadium won’t bring anxiety Sunday night or Monday. Even knowing Texas Tech could be the team climbing the ladders to celebrate becoming champions brings a peaceful smile to Guy’s face.

“Every player and coach on every team has envisioned it, I’m sure,” he said. “But I think it’s important to realize that you don’t get to skip the game and just go down and cut the nets. We’ve got to focus on what’s in front of us. We’ve got to practice (Sunday) … and just focus. We’re excited.”

–By Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Struggling industry saps German business morale as trade woes bite

Aerial view of containers at a loading terminal in the port of Hamburg
FILE PHOTO: Aerial view of containers at a loading terminal in the port of Hamburg, Germany August 1, 2018. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer

April 24, 2019

By Paul Carrel and Jörn Poltz

BERLIN/MUNICH (Reuters) – German business morale deteriorated in April, bucking expectations for a small improvement, as trade tensions hurt the industrial engine of Europe’s largest economy, leaving domestic demand to support slowing growth.

The Munich-based Ifo economic institute said on Wednesday its business climate index fell to 99.2 in April from an upwardly revised 99.7 in March, the first rise after six straight declines. The consensus forecast for a rise to 99.9.

“March’s gentle optimism regarding the coming months has evaporated,” Ifo President Clemens Fuest said in a statement. “The German economy continues to lose steam.”

Ifo sub-indices on current conditions and expectations fell in April.

Last week, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said that Berlin expected gross domestic product to grow by 0.5 percent this year after an expansion of 1.4 percent in 2018.

The government had already cut its 2019 forecast in January to 1.0 percent growth from 1.8 percent previously. Long the euro zone’s economic powerhouse, Germany is in its 10th year of expansion, but only narrowly avoided recession last year.

German exporters are struggling with weaker demand from abroad, trade tensions triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump and business uncertainty caused by Britain’s planned departure from the European Union.

“Pessimism is increasing,” Ifo economist Klaus Wohlrabe told Reuters. “The industrial sector is dragging down the German economy.”

Late last month, German lighting company Osram cut its forecast for the fiscal year 2019, citing market weakness in the automotive industry, general lighting and mobile devices as well as a broader economic slowdown.

A delay to Brexit, which leaders from the remaining 27 EU countries granted Britain earlier this month, did not buoy German business morale.

“The uncertainty has receded slightly, but is still very high,” Wohlrabe added.

In a fresh development in the trade difficulties unnerving German businesses, Trump said on Tuesday European tariffs facing motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson Inc were “unfair” and vowed to reciprocate.

The difficult trade environment means that Germany’s vibrant domestic demand, helped by record-high employment, inflation-busting pay increases and low borrowing costs, is expected to be the sole driver of growth this year and next.

Germany’s HDE retail association on Wednesday confirmed its forecast that sales would rise 2 percent this year, marking a 10th straight year of growth.

“The domestic economy remains a pillar of support,” said Ifo’s Wohlrabe.

However, the HDE added that although it did not yet have a forecast for 2020 sales, it expected the industrial slowdown to affect retailers.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Martin, editing by Larry King)

Source: OANN

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Appeals court decision closes Iraqi deportation dispute

Lawyers say they've exhausted efforts to slow down or suspend the deportation of Iraqi nationals from the U.S. after a court refused to set aside a decision from one of its three-judge panels.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday there's no interest in taking another look at the case.

The lawsuit was filed in 2017 after the U.S. government began arresting hundreds of Iraqi nationals to enforce deportation orders. They had been allowed to stay in the U.S. for years because Iraq wouldn't accept them. The lawsuit's goal was to suspend deportations and allow people to make new arguments about their safety in Iraq.

Detroit federal Judge Mark Goldsmith made a series of decisions in favor of the immigrants, and hundreds have benefited. But the appeals court said in December that Goldsmith exceeded his authority.

Source: Fox News National

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School buses, patients held up by Indian roadblocks on main Kashmir highway

Traffic is stopped as the Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy moves along a national highway in Qazigund
Traffic is stopped as the Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy moves along a national highway in Qazigund March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Ismail

March 18, 2019

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR (Reuters) – Military roadblocks on Kashmir’s main highway are delaying ambulances carrying patients and leading to confrontations with motorists that occasionally turn physical, residents and medical staff say, as India’s crackdown on separatists in the region causes major disruption to daily life.

Tensions in Kashmir, a mountainous region claimed by both India and Pakistan, have been elevated since a suicide car bomb attack killed 40 Indian paramilitary police in the region on Feb. 14.

The nuclear-armed neighbors, who have fought two wars over the territory, which is divided between them, both launched airstrikes last months, forcing world powers to urge calm.

Tensions between the two countries have temporarily eased. But India has kept up pressure on militant groups on its side of the contested border, boosting its military presence there and arresting hundreds of alleged separatists. Hundreds of thousands of Indian troops patrol the valley, and motorists say security around military convoys has increased delays.

Roadblocks on a 100-kilometre (60-mile) stretch of NH-44, Kashmir’s picturesque main highway linking the summer capital of Srinagar with the rest of India, are sometimes trebling the time it has taken for sick patients to reach hospitals in the capital, several users of the road told Reuters.

India’s military denies this, saying troops are instructed to stop traffic for only a few minutes at a time, and that ambulances and school buses are getting priority.

“School buses, ambulances will be give priority during the convoy movements,” said Indian defense department spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia on Monday. “We have given directions to the troops on the ground that they are not stopped.”

But the Kashmir Private Schools Association sees no difference in the security forces approach, and its Chairman G N Var said it may have to close down the schools because the disruption is so great.

“The school buses were stopped even today,” Var said. “It is harassment. We can’t run schools like this.”

CHEST PAIN

Irfan Ahmad, 45, a resident of Awantipora in South Kashmir, said it took him three hours to take his mother, Sajja Begum, for treatment at a hospital in Srinagar on March 11, a journey that usually takes an hour.

“She was crying with chest pain but who listened, there were long queues everywhere we were stopped”, he said.

Mohammad Yusuf, an ambulance driver who frequently ferries critical patients from nearby Qazigund to hospitals in Srinagar, said commuting on the highway has become increasingly difficult.

“We are stopped (in) five to six places on the way,” he said. “It takes four hours to take patients from Qazigund to Srinagar and normally it hardly takes 70-80 minutes.”

Waqar Ahmad, a doctor at North Kashmir’s main Baramulla hospital, said he faced similar delays making him late for work shifts.

“Every few kilometers we are stopped by troops on the highway,” he said. “They are very aggressive and they don’t listen to us. We feel insecure. Earlier, they would nicely talk to you and now they are abusive. We are stopped in at least five to six places in a 60-kilometre journey. It is a routine now and we feel dejected.”

The hospital’s medical superintendent, Syed Masood, said most of its doctors were now late for work.

“It affects the functioning of the hospital which caters to lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people,” he said.

SCHOOLS HIT

A rail line intended to link mountainous North Kashmir to the winter capital of Jammu is more than a decade behind schedule.

That means the highway – India’s longest that begins in Srinagar and terminates at the country’s southern tip – is a vital lifeline to Indian-administered Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region where many residents say they feel cut off from the rest of Hindu-majority India.

Some residents also allege that troops have damaged cars during roadblocks.

Khursheed Ahmad, a 23-year-old from South Kashmir, said he was hit by troops carrying batons and had one of his car windows broken at a traffic stop on March 8.

“I was on the way to Srinagar and was stopped by troops, it took me a little while to apply the breaks and two men swooped on me,” he said. “They beat me with batons and smashed one of the window panes.”

Lt General KJS Dhillon, one of India’s top military commanders in the region, denied troops had harassed or assaulted motorists.

“The point about harassment and all, it is not true, it is propaganda,” he said. “I appeal to my civilian friends to please cooperate with the security forces for one and a half minutes.”

(Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari, writing by Alasdair Pal; Editing by Martin Howell and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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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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