FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Peter Praet speaks during an interview with Reuters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo
April 12, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The euro zone economy appears to be stabilizing in the second quarter so the European Central Bank’s projection for a rebound in the second half of the year remains on track, ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet said on Friday.
“There are good reasons to say that the economy is going to stabilize, it’s probably stabilizing somewhere in the second quarter … That’s our scenario and I still believe in that scenario,” Praet, who leaves office next month, told a financial conference.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Catherine Evans)
FILE PHOTO: Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), greets his supporters during a rally for the upcoming local elections, in Istanbul, Turkey March 24, 2019. REUTERS/Huseyin Aldemir/File Photo
April 21, 2019
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party was attacked by several shouting men on Sunday before security guards led him safely away from a crowd in Ankara on Sunday, according to the party and video footage of the incident.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) that pulled off upset local election victories on March 31, had been attending a funeral for a Turkish soldier killed in clashes with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Video of the incident showed Kilicdaroglu hit on the head at least twice as a clutch of security guards attempted to keep dozens of shouting and fist-pumping men away. He managed to leave the scene and enter a nearby house, according to broadcaster NTV and Demiroren News Agency.
A crowd then gathered outside the house chanting “PKK out”, NTV said.
“In the incident, we were all scattered. Kemal Kilicdaroglu is alright. He is taken to a safe place,” Levent Gok, CHP member of parliament from Ankara, told Haberturk TV. “We must keep calm. Kilicdaroglu will make a statement.”
The CHP’s mayoral candidates in Ankara and Istanbul defeated those from President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party, according to initial results and a series of recounts of the elections three weeks ago.
The AK Party has submitted two petitions to cancel and re-run the vote in Istanbul, citing what is says are irregularities and illegal votes.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Alison Williams)
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis says he is praying for the success of talks underway in Nicaragua aimed at solving a yearlong political crisis in the country.
Francis addressed the crisis in Nicaragua after leading a prayer Sunday to a crowd at St. Peter's Square.
Francis, who is from Argentina, described the talks between President Daniel Ortega's administration and opposition delegations as "important."
He said: "I accompany the initiative with prayer and encourage the parties to find a peaceful solution for the good of all as soon as possible."
The crisis was triggered last April when cuts to social security benefits led to protests that evolved into calls for Ortega's resignation. Security forces responded with violent repression. Human rights groups say at least 325 people died.
On Wednesday, the Student Government Association (SGA), which defended the timing of the vote, killed the bill, "A Resolution Urging the UMCP Administration to Divest from Companies Engaged in Human Rights Violations in Palestine," sponsored by Divest UMD, a group that calls on the university to cut ties with companies that do business with Israel, with a vote of 25-9, with two students abstaining.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called the timing of the vote "insensitive and entirely dishonest to the democratic process."
In the several-hours-long meeting, Jonathan Allen, UMD student body president, told Fox News 74 students spoke in opposition to the BDS bill, while 55 voiced their support before the bill failed.
Allen told The Diamondback, UMD's student newspaper, that despite his anti-BDS stance, he valued the chance to hear the opinions of all students.
“I think it’s important for legislators to hear the comments and concerns of their constituents so that they so that they can responsibility vote on a very difficult and divisive issue,” the senior government and politics major said.
FILE PHOTO: Actor Jussie Smollett leaves court after charges against him were dropped by state prosecutors in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski/File Photo
April 23, 2019
(Reuters) – Two Nigerian-American brothers wrapped up in Jussie Smollett’s Chicago hate-crime hoax sued the “Empire” actor’s lawyers on Tuesday, accusing them of defamation for insisting they had “criminally attacked” the actor even after police concluded otherwise.
Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo were briefly taken into custody as Chicago police investigated the alleged January incident in which Smollett, who is black and gay, said he was assaulted by two men who shouted racist and homophobic slurs and wrapped a noose around his neck.
Police later concluded that Smollett staged the attack for publicity. Prosecutors brought and then abruptly dropped hoax charges against the actor on March 26, a stunning move that drew the fury of the city’s police superintendent and mayor.
In a lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court, the Osundairo brothers charged that Smollett’s attorneys Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian falsely accused them of attacking Smollett, even after the investigation was over.
It rejected the idea that the brothers, who are also black, attacked Smollett because of his race, asserting that the actor staged the incident. It also noted that the pair served as the actor’s trainers and sometime extras on his Fox hip-hop TV drama.
“He wanted his employer and the public to notice and appreciate him as a successful black, openly gay actor,” it said. “Smollett directed every aspect of the attack, including the location and the noose.”
Smollett’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 36-year-old actor has said he had always been truthful about the incident, which sparked extensive outrage on social media, drawing the attention of both Republican President Donald Trump and some of the Democrats who hope to challenge him in 2020.
“They’ve realized that it was wrong. They’ve apologized for it,” Gloria Schmidt, one of the brothers’ lawyers, told reporters on Tuesday. “But make no mistake: they had no role in calling the police and they had no role in defrauding the police department,” Schmidt also said.
Glandian insisted in a television interview after police closed the investigation that Smollett had not made a false report and that the brothers attacked him, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages.
The city of Chicago earlier this month sued Smollett, seeking three times the damages it said it incurred in the investigation of the incident. Smollett had previously refused a demand by the city for $130,000 to cover police overtime costs to investigate his claims.
(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Richard Chang)
Democrats have “dug a hole so deep” with the Mueller probe they don’t know how to get out of it and are doubling down on calls for Attorney General William Barr to release the special counsel’s full report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday.
“I think Democrats recognize that they are playing a losing hand,” he said during an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
“So that the only way to do this is to pivot further away from what they originally started at, which was just allowing Mueller to investigate this issue. Once he came up with a conclusion that wasn't what they wanted, they had to pivot to something else.”
Mueller's report, as summarized on March 24 by Barr, "did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Barr will release a redacted copy of Mueller’s report by mid-April, but Spicer said he “doesn’t have to do it according to law.”
There are “two issues with the current report – one is there’s grand jury testimony and, two, there’s classified information in it that he has to protect by law. … So Attorney General Barr is going above and beyond what he is required to do. And I think Democrats recognize that they are playing a losing hand.”
Veteran broadcaster Lou Dobbs noted Tuesday that the decision to dismiss any notion that the Notre Dame fire could have been a deliberate act was based on politics, rather than any investigation of the facts.
“One thing authorities are ruling out, however, within just a matter of hours, arson,” Dobbs stated.
“That was a decision made within hours. It sounds like a different kind of decision,”Dobbs added.
“Perhaps a political decision rather than one based on careful investigation of the facts.” he further told viewers.
Dobbs cited the enormous amount of attacks on Catholic churches in France last year alone as a reason why it is entirely valid for anyone to wonder if the Notre Dame fire was set deliberately.
“Perhaps overlooked since yesterday is 875 Catholic churches in France were vandalized in 2018 — 875! In a single week last month, 12 churches were vandalized, including a fire deliberately set at a church also located in Paris.” Dobbs urged.
“This is context, this is not speculation, this is the situation right now in France and the recent history of what has happened to Catholic churches throughout the nation.” he added.
“Ignored too often by some covering the tragedy, some who have ruled out ‘speculation’ about the cause of the Notre Dame fire as they speculate — taking it as gospel that arson was not the cause.” Dobbs noted.
While many actually celebrated the fire, news networks declared it was a made up conspiracy theory that anyone was happy Notre Dame was burning.
Networks, including Fox News, actively shut down anyone who dared even suggest that arson should be looked into.
FILE PHOTO – Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea’s top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo
April 26, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison.
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey
April 26, 2019
By Hanna Rantala
LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.
“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.
Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.
With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.
“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.
“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”
The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.
O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.
“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.
“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”
The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.
“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.
“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”
Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.
Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.
“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.
“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”
(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
April 26, 2019
By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.
The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.
(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)
(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)
The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.
The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.
The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.
“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.
The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.
Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.
In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.
Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar
(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.
Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.
Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.
Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.
“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.
Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.
Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.
Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.
Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.
In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.
Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.
Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.
Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES
April 26, 2019
By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer
JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.
The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.
It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.
The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.
One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.
In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.
There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.
A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.
Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.
“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.
FLOOD WARNINGS
Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.
“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.
Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.
However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.
“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.
In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.
Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.
(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)
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