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Guaido’s trucks clash with Maduro’s military in attempt to force aid into Venezuela

Trucks driven by supporters of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido nearly rammed into a blockade by security forces still loyal to embattled President Nicolas Maduro in an attempt to reach aid in Colombia.

Images show a red truck trying to forcefully pass through a checkpoint in Mariara, in northern Venezuela a few hours outside of Caracas, on Thursday as the security forces appeared to stand their ground.

Lawmaker members of the Venezuelan National Assembly and supporters of Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognized as the country's rightful interim ruler, clash with security forces as they block the road on the outskirts of Mariara, Venezuela February 21.

Lawmaker members of the Venezuelan National Assembly and supporters of Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognized as the country's rightful interim ruler, clash with security forces as they block the road on the outskirts of Mariara, Venezuela February 21. (Reuters)

The national guardsmen in anti-riot gear positioned a trailer truck in front of a tunnel, blocking the highway westward. A shouting match and scuffle ensured, with the guardsmen firing tear cag before the lawmakers eventually forced their way through and resumed their journey.

US SAYS IT WILL DELIVER AID BLOCKED BY VENEZUELA, SETTING UP CONFRONTATION WITH MADURO REGIME

The truck is part of a cross-country caravan led by Guiado for the border with Colombia, where much of the U.S.-supplied aid is warehoused. Guaido has called for thousands of ordinary Venezuelans to assemble at the Colombian border on Saturday to help bring the aid across.

National guardsmen in anti-riot gear positioned a trailer truck in front of a tunnel, blocking the highway westward. A shouting match and scuffle ensured, with the guardsmen firing tear cag before the lawmakers eventually forced their way through and resumed their journey.

National guardsmen in anti-riot gear positioned a trailer truck in front of a tunnel, blocking the highway westward. A shouting match and scuffle ensured, with the guardsmen firing tear cag before the lawmakers eventually forced their way through and resumed their journey. (Reuters)

The clash came as Maduro announced Thursday plans to close the vast, jungle border with Brazil a day after he blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the nearby Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, where the first cargo of relief supplies arrived earlier that day.

Maduro said he was also weighing whether to shut the border with Colombia, where the bulk of aid is being stockpiled and exiled leaders have been gathering ahead of a fundraising concert Friday organized by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, in which several major Latin American pop artists will perform.

The clash came as Maduro announced Thursday plans to close the vast, jungle border with Brazil a day after he blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the nearby Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, where the first cargo of relief supplies arrived earlier that day.

The clash came as Maduro announced Thursday plans to close the vast, jungle border with Brazil a day after he blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the nearby Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, where the first cargo of relief supplies arrived earlier that day. (Reuters)

"We're not beggars," he said. "What the U.S. empire is doing with its puppets is an internal provocation. They wanted to generate a great national commotion, but they didn't achieve it."

PENCE TO DELIVER SPEECH ON VENEZUELA IN COLOMBIA ON MONDAY

Saturday's aid showdown comes exactly a month after Guaido declared himself interim president in a mass rally, immediately drawing the support of the U.S. and 50 other countries.

But while he's managed to bring hope to Venezuelans crushed by years of recession, food shortages and hyperinflation, he's so far been unable to win over the military, which has shown little sign of abandoning Maduro.

In a move that might change the tide to win over the military, Hugo Chavez’s longtime spy chief, retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, declared his loyalty to Guaido.

Reading prepared remarks in a video on social media, Carvajal, who spent a decade running Chavez's military intelligence agency before stepping down in 2012, urged his former comrades to redeem themselves and abandon their support for Maduro.

"You carry on your shoulders the weight of an army that gave liberty to people in more than five countries," he said, referring to the Venezuelan-born Simon Bolivar's role as the father of South American independence from Spain.

VENEZUELA TO CLOSE BORDER WITH BRAZIL AMID MADURO'S REFUSAL OF HUMANITARIAN AID

"We can't allow an army, in the hands of a few generals subjugated to Cuban instructions, to become the biggest collaborator of a dictatorial government that has plagued people with misery," he added.

For now, the military continues to obey Maduro's orders even as Guaido tries to bring international attention to the country's hardships.

Branson’s “Venezuela Aid Live” event will face a rival concert being put on by the government at the other end of the Tienditas Bridge, which connects Venezuela with neighboring Colombia.

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Venezuelan officials have not said who is going to perform on the Venezuela end of the bridge. The concert’s slogan is “Hands Off Venezuela.”

“All the artists that are going to sing in Colombia must know that they are committing a crime. They are endorsing a military intervention," said Maduro.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Reporter’s Notebook: How Congress could be facing not one, but two shutdowns

It's never too early to try to avoid the next government shutdown. Or the next debt ceiling crisis. Especially when:

  • The federal government recently faced three shutdowns in a little more than 15 months (albeit one for just a few hours).
  • President Trump threatened to veto spending measures twice after everyone thought they had a deal.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., advanced a measure through the Senate to fund the government around Christmas before Trump and House Republicans torched it.
  • The battle over immigration policy and construction of a border wall remains an epic cloud menacing the American political landscape with 19 months to go before the next presidential election.

So it should surprise no one that McConnell announced earlier this month that he had discussed the possibility of a broad bipartisan, bicameral, two-year, spending arrangement with Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"I'm hoping this will be the beginning of a bipartisan agreement, which will be necessary in order to have an orderly appropriations process, not only this year but next year as well," McConnell said at the time.

ACTING DHS CHIEF PREDICTS PROGRESS BUILDING SOUTHERN BORDER WALL DESPITE CONGRESSIONAL INACTION

McConnell knows the debate over the border lingers, with Trump and many congressional Republicans pushing for additional wall funding. He's not just worried about the prospect of another shutdown Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year and when the current round of funding expires, but a second shutdown on Oct. 1, 2020, right before the presidential election.

The chances of another shutdown are high, considering that Trump went around Congress to declare a national emergency in order to marshal money for the border wall. The courts will determine whether that maneuver was constitutional, but the president's action alone bolstered the chances of another shutdown. The possibility increased even further after Congress failed to override Trump's veto of a measure to terminate the national emergency.

McConnell felt burned by the president after he forged ahead with a government spending plan in December, only to have Trump tell then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., he wouldn't sign the package. So after congressional leaders forged a mid-February deal to run the government through this fall, McConnell sped to the floor to publicly announce Trump's intention to sign the measure. McConnell's move locked in the president, lest he try to renege. McConnell understands Trump's fickle and volatile approach to governing. The president dumped McConnell and Ryan under the bus during a 2017 Oval Office meeting in favor of a spending gambit pushed by Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Wiser for that experience, McConnell knows the best bet is to secure broad, long-term buy-in from the White House and Congress on a topline spending measure to avoid potential shutdowns – pre-empting Trump's incessant oscillations.

Let’s examine exactly what's at stake. You may hear these negotiations referred to rhetorically as a "caps deal." This refers to an effort to establish total spending caps for discretionary spending (read: anything but entitlements) for fiscal years 2020 and 2021. The "caps" refer to a set of mandatory spending restrictions (known as sequestration) which Congress imposed as part of the debt ceiling agreement in 2011. The goal is to make everyone happy as long as they can reach a topline accord for all spending by eliminating the caps. The advantage for Trump and many Republicans? Military spending and some additional money for a border wall. The advantage for Democrats? More spending on everything else.

Debts and deficits? Forget about it.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS POSTPONE BUDGET MEASURE VOTE AMID PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE

Sure, some fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Democrats may balk, as will fiscal conservatives like Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. But the key here is the right mixture of Democrats and Republicans. In divided government, leaders need to secure buy-in from both parties and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. But remember, these are discussions focused on overall spending numbers, not specific appropriations. A dispute over the latter is what led to the monstrous government shutdown in December and January.

House Democrats drew criticism two weeks ago when they yanked their budget blueprint off the floor because they lacked the votes to adopt it as divergent voices split the caucus. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Fox that if the budget (which only sets broad spending guidelines and is not binding) "had been critical ... I think Nancy (Pelosi) and I could have gotten it passed."

Hoyer pointed out that the discussions with the administration and McConnell are more "substantive." That's true. The budget House Democrats aimed to approve was simply a wish list, much like President Trump's budget in the winter. So, if the sides can get an agreement on spending caps, that would, in theory, make it easier to focus on the hard part, which is appropriations.

Here's the issue with the sequestration caps: Sequestration always hits the military hardest because Congress spends the most on the Pentagon. Sequestration restricts the Pentagon to $576 billion for fiscal year 2020 and could impose a cut of $71 billion to defense next year and $55 billion for non-defense programs.

TRUMP, GOP PLAN TO RESCIND BUDGET SPENDING HAS PRECEDENT BUT FACES ROCKY PATH IN CONGRESS

Trump and defense hawks want to spend more on the military. So, if they get a "caps deal," and cancel sequestration, they can spend a lot more. Of course, the deal must be made with congressional Democrats who also want to eliminate sequestration caps on non-defense spending.

Even though the House failed to adopt a budget this week, Democrats did set an overall discretionary spending figure (encompassing all 12 appropriations bills) of $1.295 trillion for fiscal year 2020. This excludes non-discretionary spending which includes entitlement spending.

But here are the politics: Both sides believe if they can get the president on board with the defense hikes, he could sign off on other Democratic priorities. And if both houses of Congress are behind the plan, Trump could agree and avoid the shutdowns.

The gambit would establish new spending caps for the remainder of the president's term, drastically reducing the chances of shutdowns while baking in a debt limit increase. They could also forge a deal on a supplemental spending bill to cover a host of natural disasters, from Puerto Rico to flooding in the Midwest. One GOP plan to address natural disasters is stalled in the Senate.

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"If we can come to the agreement with the Senate, that puts the onus on the White House," said House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky. "There will be no way [Trump] can explain it away. If he wants that [responsibility of a shutdown], it's on his shoulders."

Pelosi and Schumer are slated to visit the White House Tuesday to discuss a possible infrastructure plan with Trump. The last time Pelosi and Schumer huddled with the president in the Oval Office, sparks flew as the leaders verbally sparred with one another on live TV. The conclave produced one of the most memorable episodes of the Trump presidency. This tableau could prompt similar combat, even though the subject matter is infrastructure. The border wall dispute and immigration policy will remain a flashpoint as long as this president is in office and won't be settled by any caps agreement.

That's why many want to get started on a spending arrangement now. They know the next round of arguments over the wall could be more intense than the last.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Lyft expects to raise as much as $2 billion in IPO

An electric scooter from the ride sharing company Lyft is shown on a downtown sidewalk in San Diego
An electric scooter from the ride sharing company Lyft is shown on a downtown sidewalk in San Diego, California, U.S., March 15, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

March 18, 2019

(Reuters) – Ride-hailing platform Lyft Inc said on Monday it would raise as much as $2 billion in initial public offering.

Lyft expects to price 30.8 million shares between $62 and $68 per share, it said in a filing http://bit.ly/2HBtkKE.

At the higher end of the range, the company will have a market valuation of $19.64 billion.

(Reporting by Diptendu Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel)

Source: OANN

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Man who claimed to be missing boy Timmothy Pitzen is held without bond

An Ohio man, accused of falsely presenting himself as long-missing child Timmothy Pitzen, is being held without bond after a Tuesday court appearance.

Brian Rini, 23, could face up to eight years in prison. He's accused of lying to federal agents and attempting to convince them he was the missing Illinois boy. He is set to appear in court again next Tuesday, when a grand jury will hear evidence against him and determine if there is enough probable cause to continue with a trial, according to Sarah Hager of Fox 19.

A judge deemed him a flight risk, as he has multiple active warrants against him, has skipped past court appearances, lacks an identifiable address and is believed to suffer from significant mental health issues, WCPO reported.

Rini appeared, battered, in Newport, Kentucky last week and told police he had been held captive for years at the hands of two men. He was taken to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital to assess his injuries, and to conduct tests to ensure that he was Pitzen, who would be about 14 years old today.

MAN WHO CLAIMED TO BE TIMMOTHY PITZEN CHARGED WITH LYING TO FBI

Rini first refused to allow officers to take his fingerprints, but later agreed to let them sample his DNA. According to reports, he maintained that he was Pitzen until he was shown the results of the DNA test, which identified him as the 23-year-old instead, and revealed that he was recently released from prison and had posed as a juvenile sex trafficking victim twice before.

Rini is said to have admitted he got the idea for a hoax after seeing a story about Pitzen on the ABC show "20/20."

The episode reopened old wounds for the Pitzen family, who have since spoken out about their heartbreak stemming from Timmothy's 2011 disappearance. The boy's aunt, Kara Jacobs, said that the emotional turmoil of learning the man was not Timmothy was "like reliving that day all over again."

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Timmothy Pitzen disappeared at the age of 6 after his mother, 43-year-old Amy Fry-Pitzen, committed suicide in May 2011. The boy was last seen with his mother at a waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells, and his mother's body was later discovered in a hotel room in Illinois.

Fry-Pitzen wrote in a note that she left Timmothy with people who would care for him, but that he would never be found.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed reporting.

Source: Fox News National

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Canadian family drives home from Florida with dead body to avoid US health care costs, reports say

A Canadian family decided to keep driving when its 87-year-old patriarch died in the backseat of their car while returning home from a Florida vacation last month to avoid paying for U.S. health care, reports said.

When Fernand Drapeau’s wife and son reached the U.S.-Canada border on March 31, authorities stopped and searched the car. Inside they found Drapeau, who appeared to have died from a heart attack at least a day before arriving at the border, the Vancouver Sun reported.

FLORIDA MAN THREATENED TO DESTROY TOWN WITH ARMY OF TURTLES: POLICE

The family cited the high cost of U.S. health care, plus the cost of shipping the body back to Quebec as the reason for not stopping at a hospital, CTV News reported.

Border officials said it was the first time that such an incident has occurred.

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No charges have yet been filed in the case. Authorities are continuing to investigate.

Source: Fox News National

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Final verdict looms for ex-Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic

Nearly a quarter of a century since Bosnia's devastating war ended, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is set to hear the final judgment on whether he can be held criminally responsible for unleashing a wave of murder and destruction.

United Nations appeals judges will on Wednesday rule whether to uphold or overturn Karadzic's 2016 convictions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as his 40-year sentence. They will also rule on an appeal by prosecutors against his acquittal on a second count of genocide during Bosnia's war, Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.

The appeals judgment comes at a time when the global project to hold leaders accountable for crimes is under pressure — last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington will revoke or deny visas to International Criminal Court personnel seeking to investigate alleged abuses committed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and may do the same with those who seek action against Israel.

Amnesty International described the move as "the latest attack on international justice and international institutions by an administration hell-bent on rolling back human rights protections."

Karadzic was convicted by a different court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, but should the judges overturn his convictions, it would likely be seen as another damaging blow to international courts.

As the leader of Bosnia's Serbs during the country's devastating 1992-95 war, Karadzic is one of the most senior figures tried by the Hague war crimes court. His case is considered as key in delivering justice for the victims of the conflict which left over 100,000 people dead and millions homeless.

Bosnian Serb wartime military commander Ratko Mladic is also awaiting an appeal judgment of his genocide and war crimes conviction, which earned him a life sentence.

At an appeals hearing last year, prosecution lawyer Katrina Gustafson told a five-judge panel that Karadzic "abused his immense power to spill the blood of countless victims. Justice requires that he receive the highest possible sentence — a life sentence."

Last week, Bosnian war wounds were revived when it was revealed that the white supremacist suspected in the mosque shootings that left at least 50 people dead in New Zealand appeared to show admiration for Karadzic and his legacy. In a video, the self-proclaimed white supremacist is seen driving apparently on his way to the attack and listening to a wartime Bosnian Serb song praising Karadzic and his fight against Bosnia's Muslims.

Bosnian war survivors believe that appeals judges must keep in place his 10 convictions and his sentence.

"We expect that he'll get (the punishment) he deserves," said Sehida Abdurahmanovic, who lost 30 relatives in the Bosnian war's bloody climax, the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. "We expect (the appeals court) to confirm the first-instance verdict and that he will not be allowed at any price to avoid the responsibility for genocide."

But Karadzic supporters are hoping for a reduction in his sentence or even acquittal.

"I believe that, at worst, the (appeals) verdict will be much, much more favorable than the first-instance verdict," said Momcilo Krajisnik, Karadzic's political right-hand man during the war. "If we are lucky, he will be a free man."

Krajisnik, himself, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for persecuting and forcibly expelling non-Serbs and crimes against humanity. He was released in 2014 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Azir Osmanovic, 36, curator of the Srebrenica memorial, who survived the massacre as a child but whose older brother's remains have not been found, fears that Karadzic's sentence could be reduced.

"We believe that for the crimes he had organized here in Bosnia-Herzegovina he does not deserve 40, but rather 400 years in prison," he said.

Karadzic was also tried for an orchestrated campaign to drive the Muslims and Croats from Serb-held territories in Bosnia, as well as the more than three-year siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital.

Karadzic remained at large for years before he was arrested in Serbia in 2008 as a disguised new-age therapist.

A U.N. peacekeeper in Srebrenica ahead of the massacre, Boudewyn Kok has been returning to the eastern Bosnian town annually to pay his respect to the victims. This year, he came with his teenage son so he could tell him about what happened in Srebrenica.

"But unfortunately, the war crimes court has no death penalty," Kok said.

___

Stojanovic reported from Belgrade, Serbia. Sabina Niksic contributed to this story from Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Source: Fox News World

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Teenage African migrants accused of hijacking tanker after sea rescue

One of the migrants charged with hijacking the merchant ship Elhiblu 1 is escorted by a police officer out of the Courts of Justice in Valletta
One of the migrants charged with hijacking the merchant ship Elhiblu 1 is escorted by a police officer out of the Courts of Justice in Valletta, Malta, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi

March 30, 2019

VALLETTA (Reuters) – Three teenage migrants were charged in a Maltese court on Saturday with hijacking a small commercial tanker that had rescued them and others off the coast of Libya.

The three, who have pleaded not guilty, were among 108 Africans rescued by the El Hiblu 1 tanker this week. They are accused of threatening the crew on Wednesday to try to force the boat to go to Malta and not take them back to Libya.

Maltese soldiers boarded the tanker without incident and escorted it to the Valletta harbor on Thursday.

The defendants are 15, 16 and 19 – one of them from Ivory Coast and the other two from Guinea. They pulled the hoods of their jackets over their faces as the were escorted out of court by police on Saturday.

EU states have been at loggerheads over migration since a spike in Mediterranean arrivals caught the bloc by surprise in 2015, stretching social and security services and fuelling support for far-right, nationalist and populist groups.

Sea arrivals have fallen from more than a million in the peak year to some 140,000 people last year, according to U.N. data. But political tensions around migration run high in the EU, especially ahead of European Parliament election in May.

(Reporting by Chris Scicluna; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

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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

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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

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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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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

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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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