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Washington wolf census finds more packs, breeding pairs

The number of gray wolves in Washington state kept growing last year and for the first time the state documented a pack living west of the Cascade Range, wildlife officials said Thursday.

The state has a minimum of 126 wolves in 27 packs with 15 successful breeding pairs, defined as male and female adults that have raised at least two pups that survived through the end of the year, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife found in its annual wolf census.

A year ago, there were 122 wolves in 22 packs with 14 breeding pairs.

The pack west of the Cascade Range, in Skagit County, consists of a single male wolf, captured in 2016 and released with a radio collar, that has been traveling with a female wolf through the winter. Biologists named the pack Diobsud Creek.

"We're pleased to see our state's wolf population continue to grow and begin to expand to the west side of the Cascades," agency Director Kelly Susewind said. "We will continue to work with the public to chart the future management of this important native species."

Wolves were nearly wiped out in Washington by the 1930s but started returning to the state from surrounding areas early in this century. The animals have preyed on livestock, causing conflicts with ranchers.

The census numbers are compiled from state, tribal, and federal wildlife specialists based on aerial surveys, remote cameras, wolf tracks and signals from radio-collared wolves. The count leads to estimates of the minimum numbers of wolves, because it is not possible to count every animal.

Most of the packs live in Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties in the northeast corner of the state. But the census showed increasing numbers in Washington's southeast corner and its north-central region.

The upturn in new packs and breeding pairs sets the stage for more growth this year, said Donny Martorello, policy lead for the agency.

"Packs and breeding pairs are the building blocks of population growth," Martorello said.

Since 1980, gray wolves have been listed as endangered throughout Washington. They are classified as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act In the western two-thirds of the state.

The agency recorded 12 wolf deaths last year. Six were legally killed by tribal hunters; four were killed by the wildlife agency in response to repeated wolf-caused livestock deaths; and two deaths apparently caused by humans remained under investigation at year's end.

The census reinforces the profile of wolves as a highly resilient, adaptable species with members that are well-suited to Washington's landscape, said Ben Maletzke, the agency's statewide wolf specialist.

Their numbers have increased by an average of 28% a year since 2008, he said.

"Wolves routinely face threats to their survival — from humans, other animals, and nature itself," he said. "But despite each year's ups and downs, the population in Washington has grown steadily and probably will keep increasing by expanding their range."

Maletzke said five of the 27 packs in Washington last year were involved in at least one livestock death.

Wolves killed at least 11 cattle and one sheep, and injured another 19 cattle and two sheep. The agency processed five livestock damage claims totaling $7,536 to compensate producers for direct wolf-caused livestock losses.

Source: Fox News National

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US Aviation Agency to Overhaul Oversight After Boeing Crashes

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will significantly change its oversight approach to air safety by July, a U.S. transport department official said on Tuesday, following two fatal Boeing MAX 737 plane crashes.

U.S. Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel disclosed the plan in written testimony ahead of a U.S. Senate panel hearing on Wednesday.

The aviation industry has been thrown into flux by the two disasters - a Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October that killed 189 and an Ethiopian Airlines one this month that killed 157 - both involving Boeing's 737 MAX single-aisle plane.

The jet, Boeing's best-selling with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices, has been grounded globally.

Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell will tell Wednesday's Senate Commerce subcommittee that the agency's oversight approach must "evolve" following the crashes, according to written testimony viewed by Reuters.

He will also say that the 737 MAX will return to service "only when the FAA’s analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is appropriate."

The MAX software is among the leading areas of focus for investigations into the two crashes.

Elwell’s testimony discloses that Boeing first submitted a proposed upgrade to its anti-stall software to the FAA for certification on Jan. 21.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment but is expected as early as Wednesday to unveil more details of the software upgrade.

Elwell will tell the panel that the FAA "will go wherever the facts lead us, in the interest of safety."

Boeing is this week briefing airlines on software and training updates for the MAX, with more than 200 global airline pilots, technical experts and regulators due in Renton, Washington, where the plane is built.

As well as FAA approval, any MAX software fixes will need a green light from governments around the world, a process that could take months.

China's civil aviation regulator has stopped taking applications for MAX 8 airworthiness certification, an official from the regulator said on Tuesday.

ETHIOPIAN REPORT EXPECTED

On Tuesday, a spokesman for Ethiopia's transport ministry, which is leading the investigation in Addis Ababa into the March 10 crash, told Reuters the preliminary crash report would very likely be released this week, though he cautioned "there could be unpredictable things" and declined to give further details.

The statement came a day after Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Tewolde Gebremariam said he expected the preliminary report "maybe" to be released this week or next.

The airline subsequently issued a statement denying the CEO had commented on the timing of the report's release. "We want to make clear to the world that we have no mandate to comment on the investigation," it said.

Separately on Tuesday, families and friends grieving the victims of the Ethiopian disaster held a tearful ceremony in Addis Ababa to unveil a plaque and plant an olive tree with soil from the crash site.

The initial report from the investigation will begin to paint a more detailed picture of what went wrong during flight ET 302's six minutes in the air -- likely with huge consequences for the plane's manufacturer, the airline, or both.

Ethiopian Airlines is a symbol of immense national pride for the country of more than 100 million people.

Its success over the past decade in particular, as it has grown its Boeing-dominated fleet substantially, is emblematic of Ethiopia's ambitions: to be a regional powerhouse with an Asia-style economic development model.

The country's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who took office a year ago and announced sweeping economic and political reforms, has said he wants to open Ethiopian Airlines up to foreign investment as part of a partial privatization scheme for state-owned enterprises.

All of that could hinge on what the investigation reveals. Most crash investigations end up pinpointing a combination of factors.

SOFTWARE UPGRADES

Boeing's software fix for the grounded 737 MAX will prevent repeated operation of an anti-stall system at the center of safety concerns, and deactivate it altogether if two sensors disagree widely, two people familiar with pilot briefings told Reuters on Monday.

Upgrading an individual 737 MAX with Boeing's new software only takes about an hour per plane, though the overall process could stretch on far longer as it is rolled out across the global fleet due to stringent testing and documentation requirements by engineers and regulators, according to a senior FAA official with knowledge of the process.

Ethiopian and French investigators have pointed to "clear similarities" between the two crashes, putting pressure on Boeing and U.S. regulators to come up with an adequate fix.

Boeing shares (BA) were down 0.5 percent at $368.71 on Tuesday, having lost about 12 percent and $29 billion in market value since the March 10 crash.

In another potential blow to Boeing, France announced on Monday that Airbus had agreed to sell 300 aircraft to China in a deal worth about is 30 billion euros ($34 billion).

Such headline figures surrounding state visits typically mask a mixture of old and new business, but the deal signals China's return to the global aircraft market after a pause of around a year due to trade tensions, industry sources said.

Source: NewsMax America

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Lagging U.S. healthcare stocks could see short-term boost but clouds linger

FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Second-quarter strength in U.S. healthcare stocks is almost as reliable for Americans as warming weather and the start of baseball season. This year, however, the already-lagging sector may struggle to sustain any kind of rally.

Healthcare shares are suffering from a broad market rotation favoring other groups, market-watchers say, as well as from policy-related uncertainty, although positive earnings reports in the coming weeks could provide temporary relief.

Federal government pressure to lower the cost of healthcare, and in particular prescription drug prices, for consumers continues. And as the 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign heats up, that focus is likely to intensify with numerous Democratic candidates keeping it front and center, which could heighten volatility for the group’s shares.

That could upend a traditional second-quarter trend. The overall market tends to be more rocky starting in the period, so investors become more defensive with their portfolios, benefiting groups such as healthcare that are seen as safer bets, according to CFRA strategists.

To some degree, healthcare is suffering from its own success. Healthcare was the best-performing major S&P 500 sector last year, when the overall stock market stumbled.

As the market rebounded this year, fueled by the Federal Reserve signal that it was not inclined to raise interest rates, optimism regarding global trade tensions and better-than-feared economic data, investors piled into laggards.

That favored sectors such as technology and industrials, while healthcare’s strength last year stemmed partly from its allure as a more defensive bet.

“When the Fed shifted their stance in early January, it totally changed the backdrop,” said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital in South Carolina. Investors sold healthcare stocks and “started buying the most beat-up names,” he said.

Earnings could provide a boost, starting on Tuesday. Results are due from diversified healthcare manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc, the biggest and third-biggest U.S. healthcare companies by market value, respectively.

Healthcare companies in aggregate are expected to increase first-quarter earnings by 4.4% from a year earlier, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. That is the second-biggest rise expected of the 11 major sectors and a stand-out as earnings for the overall S&P 500 are expected to drop 2.1%.

“If the healthcare companies are reporting good earnings and the stocks continue to underperform, then you start to get some valuation support,” said James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson.

The healthcare sector has climbed 72% of the time during the second quarter, according to CFRA, which looked at 30 years of data. That compares to 62% for the overall S&P 500, and is a higher rate than the other sectors. The healthcare sector on average has gained 3.6% in the second quarter, compared to 2.2% for the S&P 500, according to CFRA.

But the clouds that have rained on healthcare’s performance so far in 2019 are not expected to dissipate soon.

The S&P 500 healthcare sector has climbed 4% year to date, well below the nearly 16% gain for the overall S&P 500, as the benchmark index nears record highs.

‘A BAD WEEK’

Uncertainty over policy is particularly punishing shares of health insurers and other services companies, investors say. That includes proposals to change the drug-rebate system under which drugmakers refund money to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, and the prominence of Senator Bernie Sanders and other left-leaning presidential candidates who support “Medicare for All” government-run healthcare.

Last week alone, the S&P 1500 managed healthcare care index tumbled 10%, including steep drops for insurers Anthem Inc and UnitedHealth.

“It’s a bad week where all these things have kind of combined and people just want out,” Jeff Jonas, a healthcare portfolio manager with Gabelli Funds, said on Friday.

Shares of many large pharmaceutical and biotech companies – which comprise about half the sector – have struggled this year. Biogen Inc shares tumbled after the company’s closely-watched experimental Alzheimer’s disease medicine failed in clinical trials, the kind of event that analysts say scare off investors from drugmaker shares broadly.

Those stocks have largely avoided the pain doled out to services shares from drug pricing and other policy concerns, but that could change. “I am not sure if we are done with the news flow regarding that topic,” said Thrivent Financial healthcare analyst David Heupel.

Shares of life-science tool and healthcare equipment companies, viewed as relatively immune from policy concerns, have outperformed their healthcare brethren this year. But they also now trade at expensive valuations compared to their five-year averages.

After selling off to end 2018, many small- and mid-cap biotech stocks have rebounded this year, making valuations less cheap than they were.

“I’d love to say that healthcare is going to claw back a lot of this underperformance,” said Jeffrey Schulze, investment strategist at ClearBridge Investments.

But, he adds, political risk and his expectation that other market groups will lead “when it’s clear that global growth is going to come, may weigh on the sector’s prospects.”

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; editing by Alden Bentley and Bill Berkrot)

Source: OANN

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Tom Ridge: Trump Cuts to Disability Programs ‘Unjust,’ ‘Foolish’

Former GOP Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge called President Donald Trump's proposed cuts to a number of disability programs supporting people with disabilities "not only unjust but also fiscally foolish."

Ridge, who currently serves as the chairman of the National Organization on Disability, said in an op-ed for The New York Times that Trump's proposed 2020 budget would cut tens of millions of dollars in programs for people with disabilities.

"Of particular urgency to me and many of my colleagues are the devastating impacts that the weakening of these agencies would have on job seekers with disabilities," Ridge wrote.

"Independent living centers, assistive-technology programs, supports for individuals living with brain injuries and family caregiver support services are among those programs and services on the chopping block. So, too, is the Office of Disability Employment Policy," he added.

Trump's proposal includes cuts to domestic spending and an increase in money for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

A Labor Department office that promotes the hiring of people with disabilities is also proposed for cutbacks.

"Combined, these cuts total in the tens of millions of dollars," Ridge wrote. "Cutting funding to these critical programs — that turn tax consumers into taxpayers — is not only unjust but also fiscally foolish."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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U.S. working on steel, aluminum tariff relief for Mexico, Canada: trade chief

FILE PHOTO: Slabs of marked steel wait in a yard before going into production at the Novolipetsk Steel PAO steel mill in Farrell, Pennsylvania
FILE PHOTO: Slabs of marked steel wait in a yard before going into production at the Novolipetsk Steel PAO steel mill in Farrell, Pennsylvania, U.S., March 9, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk

March 12, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is working on a plan that lifts steel and aluminum tariffs off Mexican and Canadian products while preserving the gains of those tariffs overall, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday.

“What I’m trying to do is a have a practical solution to a real problem … get rid of tariffs on these two, let them maintain their historic access to the U.S. market which I think will allow us to still maintain the benefit of the steel and aluminum program,” he told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee at a hearing about the World Trade Organization.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Alexandra Alper; editing by Grant McCool)

Source: OANN

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The Latest: Teen in Ohio says he’s a missing Illinois boy

The Latest on police investigation into boy who claimed to have escaped from kidnappers in Ohio (all times local):

5:45 p.m.

Authorities in suburban Cincinnati say a teenage boy claimed to have escaped Wednesday morning in southwestern Ohio after being kidnapped.

Police are trying to determine if the boy is Timmothy Pitzen who disappeared in Illinois in 2011 after authorities said his mother took her own life.

Police in Sharonville, Ohio, said in a short incident report that a 14-year-old boy told authorities Wednesday that he had "just escaped from two kidnappers" he described as white men with body builder-type physiques. They were in Ford SUV with Wisconsin license plates and had been staying at a Red Roof Inn.

The boy told police that after his escape he "kept running across a bridge into" Kentucky.

Police believe Amy Fry-Pitzen picked up her 6-year-old son from school and took him to the zoo and a Wisconsin water park before she apparently killed herself. Her body was found with her wrists slit in a Rockford, Illinois, hotel on May 15, 2011.

___

3:45 p.m.

Police in the Chicago suburb of Aurora say the department is sending two detectives to the Cincinnati area to investigate a missing child report that could involve an Aurora boy who disappeared in 2011.

Aurora Police Sgt. Bill Rowley said Wednesday afternoon that the department knows there is a boy involved but they don't know who he is or if he has any connection to Timmothy Pitzen. Pitzen was 6 years old in 2011 when he disappeared after authorities said his mother committed suicide.

The FBI said in a statement that its offices in Louisville and Cincinnati were working with local law enforcement and Aurora police on a missing child investigation. The FBI offered no other details.

Rowley says Aurora police don't know anything more either. He says "It could be Pitzen. It could be a hoax."

Source: Fox News National

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Washington Post’s Next Conspiracy: Maybe Trump ‘Repaying’ Putin for Kremlin’s Election ‘Help’

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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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