Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Couple that sought peace and simplicity on farm met with violent death

Friends and clients of a couple that fled a high-pressure lifestyle for a more simple one on a farm several years ago now wonder what signs they may have overlooked that might explain the violent way James and Lizette Eckert died last month.

The couple had three children – a biological daughter, 15, and two sons, ages 11 and 13, they adopted from Russia when the boys, who are brothers, were just 2 and 4.

James and Lizette Eckert were found by police in the New Hampshire farmhouse they lived in since moving from Maine in 2012, on the floor, bleeding. Lizette was dead, James was taking his last breaths. Both had been shot once in the head.

Police announced the arrest of an 11-year-old about two hours later, and have charged him with two counts of second-degree murder, according to a press release by state and local police. The release said the boy’s identity and other information are being withheld because he is a minor.

The Boston Globe, in an extensive story on the parents, said that two people who are knowledgeable about the investigation say the alleged killer is the Eckerts’ youngest son.

FLORIDA MAN GOES ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF WIFE 26 YEARS AGO

Few details were offered about the youngest son, other than the observation by those who had been around the Eckerts that he was quiet and that, back in Maine, he cried a lot, according to the Globe.

The Eckerts ran their own chiropractic business in New Hampshire, drawing a broad base of devoted clients who described them as miracle workers and lived expensively. They seemed always to be renovating their large home, they had a Mercedes camper, a boat and timeshares, the Boston Globe reported.

They also went full-throttle into their business, dedicated to giving their patients relief from pain and taking a comprehensive approach to their health.

James Eckert, who was 48 when he died (Lizette was 50), wrote in a local newspaper several years ago: "I desire to help the newborn, the aged, and those without hope…I choose to care for the patient with the disease, not the disease…I wish to assist rather than intrude, to free rather than control.”

Their lavish lifestyle, the Globe reported, caught up with the Eckerts, who started missing mortgage payments on their Maine property and were hounded by bill collectors. They ran into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which assessed the couple more than $100,000.

Neighbors saw a change in the family as their financial downward spiral continued.

James stopped working, they had stopped maintaining their property, and the children seemed unsupervised.

Then one day, abruptly, they left Maine for the farmhouse in New Hampshire that Lizette’s father was said to have bought for the couple, the Globe reported.

The Eckerts voiced disgust with the court system and the government in general.

They homeschooled their children.

While some Maine neighbors said they had been standoffish, their New Hampshire ones said they were very engaged at church and in the community. They resumed chiropractic care and again built a following of satisfied patients.

One of them, Virginia Adams, wrote on the couple’s obituary page: “I would see Dr. Jim twice a week and was always greeted with a cheerful, ‘How's your day?’ His office was a social gathering, a place to see friends, get advice and share a story. I feel so sad. I can't imagine what the family is going through. Hopefully, their faith will bring some comfort.”

Those who interacted with them said they never betrayed any concern about any of their children.

Gertrude Hammond, director of religious education and youth ministry at St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Alton, told the Union Leader newspaper shortly after the murders: “They were here last weekend for our annual parish bingo. They were here for Mass. They were here for youth night. The boys are altar servers. They’re just an integral part of the parish."

The Globe noted that on her Facebook page, Lizette’s “likes” suggested an interest in the topic of kids who are traumatized.

She “liked” the television show "Disconnected Kids, Reconnected Families" and a page for parents of children who have experienced trauma and have problems connecting with others.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Police have not disclosed how the 11-year-old suspect got his hands on a gun or what may have compelled him to murder the Eckerts.

Meanwhile, Lizette’s mother, Diane Kennedy, has established a GoFundMe page to raise money for the Eckert children.

“The terrible impact of losing Lizette and Jim will be felt by their children for many years to come,” she wrote. “Because the story has been in the news, we are doing all we can to protect the children from excess attention, while still allowing the community that loves them so much and so well to help them in ways that will make a lasting impact.”

Source: Fox News National

0 0

The Latest: Jurors at officer’s murder trial hear 911 calls

The Latest on the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman who had called 911 to report a possible crime (all times local):

11:35 a.m.

A defense attorney for a Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman who had called 911 to report a possible crime near her home says the officer and his partner wouldn't have known they were responding to a report about a possible sexual assault.

Recordings of the two 911 calls Justine Ruszczyk Damond made to dispatchers shortly before she died in July 2017 were played Wednesday during Mohamed Noor's trial on murder and manslaughter charges. Damond's voice drew an emotional reaction from her family in court.

Defense attorney Tom Plunkett said the officers would not have heard the 911 calls before going to investigate. He said they were told by dispatch that there was a report of a woman screaming behind a building.

During the 911 calls, Damond said she could hear someone in the alley behind her home and thought it might be a sexual assault.

___

12:05 a.m.

Prosecutors may introduce body camera video as early as Wednesday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an unarmed woman.

Mohamed Noor faces murder and manslaughter charges in the July 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. Noor shot her when she approached his squad car minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

The body camera footage doesn't capture the shooting because Noor and his partner hadn't activated their cameras. But it does capture the aftermath as officers tried to save Damond.

The judge in the case sought to keep the media and public from seeing the footage, but she reversed herself after media outlets filed a legal challenge.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Welcome for migrants cools in Mexican town weary of caravans

Central American migrants eat mangoes for breakfast as they walk during their journey towards the United States, in Mapastepec
Central American migrants eat mangoes for breakfast as they walk during their journey towards the United States, in Mapastepec, Mexico April 20, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

April 20, 2019

By Jose Cortes

MAPASTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) – So many migrants have stopped in the southern Mexican town of Mapastepec in recent months that longstanding public sympathy for Central Americans traveling northward is starting to wane.

Hundreds of migrants have been camped out for weeks in Mapastepec, where locals say six migrant caravans have arrived since last Easter. By far the biggest was a group of thousands in October that drew the anger of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ana Gabriela Galvan, a local resident who helped to provide food to migrants in the October caravan, told Reuters the small town in the impoverished state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, felt overwhelmed by the number of Central Americans.

“It’s really bad, because they’re pouring onto our land,” she said, noting that some locals were reluctant to leave their homes. “They ask for money, and if you offer food, they don’t want it; they want money and sometimes you don’t have any.”

Following a surge in apprehensions of Central Americans trying to enter the United States, Trump last month threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border if the Mexican government did not stop illegal immigration right away.

The administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has stepped up migrant detentions and tightened access to humanitarian visas, slowing the flow of caravans north and leaving hundreds of people in Mapastepec.

The humanitarian visas allow migrants to stay temporarily and get jobs. The documents also make it easier for them to travel through the country or seek longer residence.

According to government social development agency Coneval, Chiapas in 2015 had the highest poverty rate of Mexico’s 32 regions, at 72.5 percent. Some 20,000 people live in Mapastepec, the seat of a municipality of the same name where poverty levels were fractionally higher than the state average in 2015.

A month ago, a large knot of migrants began forming in Mapastepec when the National Migration Institute closed its main office in the nearby city of Tapachula. The closure prompted hundreds to travel north to the sweltering town on the Pacific coast where the agency has a smaller outpost.

Since then, bedraggled groups of men, women and children have been staying in and around a local sports stadium, hoping to be issued humanitarian visas.

Central Americans today make up the bulk of undocumented migrants arrested on the U.S. border.

Southern Mexico has long sent thousands of migrants north and support for them has traditionally been strong there. Concentrations of Central American migrants on Mexico’s northern border caused tensions in the city of Tijuana when caravans arrived late last year.

CONCERNED MEXICANS

Recent studies show that while Mexicans still have sympathy for migrants, many are concerned that Mexico will not be able to cope with the arrival of thousands of people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador fleeing violence and poverty at home.

A survey of around 500 adults in February by the Center of Public Opinion at the University of the Valley of Mexico (UVM) found that 83 percent of respondents believed the Central American migrants could cause problems for Mexico.

Rising crime, increased poverty and a decline in social services were the top risks identified by the poll.

Offered a binary choice on what should be done, 62 percent of those polled said Mexico should be stricter with migrants entering its territory. The other 38 percent said Mexico should help to develop Central America, as Lopez Obrador argues.

The study did not publish a margin of error.

Jesus Salvador Quintana, a senior official at the National Human Rights Commission, said in Mapastepec the body had noticed a decrease in assistance from the public but urged people to keep helping the migrants on their often arduous journeys.

“There are children, pregnant women, whole families that sometimes need this humanitarian aid,” he told Reuters.

Anabel Quintero, a young Honduran mother in Mapastepec, said when her caravan passed through the nearby town of Huixtla some shops closed rather than sell to migrants seeking medicine for sick children.

“It’s a bad feeling,” she said. “They told us they didn’t want us sleeping in the park, and we had to leave.”

Residents of Mapastepec are also running out of patience.

Street vendor Brenda Marisol Ballesteros told Reuters it was time for authorities to move the migrants onward.

“Why?,” she said. “Because things are in a real mess.”

(Additional reporting by Roberto Ramirez in Huixtla; Editing by Dave Graham and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: OANN

0 0

Judge sets May 14 hearing in Trump bid to block Congress demand on his finances

U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. first lady Melania Trump arrive aboard Air Force One
U.S. President Donald Trump waves after arriving aboard Air Force One after spending Easter weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Al Drago

April 23, 2019

By Jan Wolfe

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday said he would hear oral arguments on May 14 in a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump seeking to block a subpoena for information about Trump’s personal and business finances.

Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, had faced an April 29 deadline for complying with the demand from the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee, Representative Elijah Cummings.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington said the firm would not need to respond until one week after he rules on Trump’s request for a preliminary suspension of the subpoena.

The committee said the records are related to its investigation of allegations by Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen that businessman Trump had inflated or deflated financial statements for potentially improper purposes. Cummings sought eight years of financial documents from Mazars and Trump sued Cummings on Monday to halt the process.

Cohen testified to Congress in February that Trump had misrepresented his net worth in the years before he was elected president in 2016.

Cummings and Trump had jointly agreed to the new schedule, the judge said in his order.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; editing by Grant McCool)

Source: OANN

0 0

Russia’s Putin, North Korea’s Kim on track to meet by end of April: Kremlin

A combination of file photos North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia's President Vladimir Putin
A combination of file photos shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending a wreath laying ceremony at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi, Vietnam March 2, 2019 and Russia's President Vladimir Putin looking on during a joint news conference with South African President Jacob Zuma after their meeting at the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia, May 16, 2013. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/Pool/Maxim Shipenkov/Pool

April 22, 2019

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’ President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are on track to meet by the end of April, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

Last week the Kremlin said that Kim Jong Un would travel to Russia this month, announcing the first Russia-North Korea summit since Kim came to power in 2011.

(Reporting by Anastasia Teterevleva; editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

0 0

Egypt rebukes Turkey in spat with EU after executions

FILE PHOTO: Arab league and EU summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh
FILE PHOTO: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt, attends a summit between Arab league and European Union member states, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo

February 27, 2019

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt rebuked Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday after he criticized European leaders for attending a summit hosted by Cairo days after nine men were executed.

Erdogan and his foreign minister accused European Union leaders of hypocrisy for telling Turkey reinstating the death penalty would end hopes of joining the bloc yet attending a summit hosted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“Turkish President Erdogan once again speaks to us about Egypt and its political leadership, clearly showing hatred and furthermore expressing his continued embrace of the terrorist Brotherhood group,” Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said in a statement.

Relations between Ankara and Cairo have been strained since the Egyptian military, then led by Sisi, ousted President Mohamed Mursi of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Hafez cited rights accusations against Turkey, including the existence of 70,000 political prisoners, jailing of 175 journalists and firing of 130,000 government employees.

“This narrative illustrates the lack of credibility of what the Turkish president is promoting,” he said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had on Tuesday chided EU leaders for being with Sisi days after “these young saplings were martyred” for killing Egypt’s chief prosecutor in 2015.

Cairo blamed the Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza-based Hamas militants for the operation. Both groups denied that.

Sisi defended the death penalty on Monday at the Arab-EU summit in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, saying the two regions had “different cultures”.

Turkey aspires to join the EU but its accession negotiations, launched in 2005, are at a standstill amid concerns over human rights and the rule of law.

Egypt says the Brotherhood, the world’s oldest Islamist movement, is a terrorist organization. Most of its senior members have been arrested, driven underground or into exile.

The movement has close ties with Turkey’s ruling AK Party and many of its members have fled there since its activities were banned in Egypt. It says it is a peaceful organization.

Rights groups said the executions in Egypt were carried out after unfair trials.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Yousef Saba; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Source: OANN

0 0

Lloyd’s of London CEO sees success in 2019

A man walks out of Lloyds of London's headquarters in the City of London
A man walks out of Lloyds of London's headquarters in the City of London, Britain, July 31, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

March 22, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Lloyd’s of London is making changes that will make it more successful this year, its new chief executive said on Friday.

The 300-year-old insurance market publishes the 2018 results in aggregate of the more than 80 syndicates under its roof next week.

Large natural catastrophes such as hurricanes, typhoons and wildfires led to losses in the market in 2017, driving Lloyd’s last year to tell its syndicates to withdraw from loss-making areas of business.

Natural catastrophe losses were also heavy in 2018.

John Neal, who joined Lloyd’s as CEO in Oct 2018, told the Marine Insurance London conference that the results were “not a pretty story” but the market had been working to address problems.

“On paper at least, we are set up for success in 2019,” he said.

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn and Jonathan Saul)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



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

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

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

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

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

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEED FOR CASH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STATE COMPETITION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

Title

Artist