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Mexican businesswoman decapitated after ‘family wouldn’t pay’ ransom, reports say

A Mexican businesswoman’s decapitated body was discovered with a note that reportedly said she was killed because her husband “didn’t want to pay” a ransom.

The body of Susana Carrera was found last Wednesday inside a bag in a parking lot in the coastal city of Coatzacoalcos in the state of Veracruz. She had been kidnapped a week earlier outside a friend’s house where she had gone to pick up one of her children.

SWEDISH STUDENT WHO TRIED TO STOP MAN'S DEPORTATION TO AFGHANISTAN IS REPORTEDLY FINED

Harrowing security camera footage showed her captors pulling up in a car, grabbing her and quickly throwing her into a car in a matter of seconds.

The kidnappers left a note alongside the woman's body, according to local media, which read: “This happened to me because my husband played the tough guy and didn’t want to pay my ransom.”

The family confirmed they could not collect the funds to the ransom, according to the Heraldo de Mexico newspaper. The kidnappers reportedly asked for a ransom of 4 million Mexican pesos ($207,000).

AUSTRALIAN CHAMPION BODYBUILDER ID’D AS HOME INTRUDER WHO DIED AFTER ALTERCATION WITH RESIDENT, REPORTS SAY

Hours after her body was found, Carrera’s husband, Luis Manriquez, confirmed her death in a message on social media.

“Thank you very much to everyone for your prayers and wishes for my wife Susana Carrera to return home. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to and she passed away.”

The couple were owners of the aluminum company Pezaliminio, which had an office in Coatzacoalcos. It’s unclear why the kidnappers targeted Carrera.

Local media shared photos that purportedly showed Carrera’s body and a copy of the note. Prosecutors in Veracruz announced Monday that it had launched an investigation into how the photo was leaked to media, which were probably taken at the medical examiner’s office.

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“The Office of the Attorney General of the state will not tolerate situations like this one, which constitutes a re-victimization and a breach of the duty of secrecy within the investigation,” prosecutors said in a statement.

No arrests have been reported so far. The number of kidnappings has reportedly risen in the city of Coatzacoalcos, with 49 reported in 2018. More than 160 homicides were reported last year.

Source: Fox News World

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IRS Insider: Federal Reserve Committed Over 100 Years Of Fraud And Deceit

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Source: InfoWars

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Abandoned vehicle found near Mexico border amid search for missing California girl, 2 murder suspects

Authorities in California searching for a missing teenage girl who was last seen with two murder suspects located an abandoned vehicle connected to the trio on Friday near the border with Mexico.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Friday on Facebook that an empty white BMW 4-door sedan was found by San Diego Police in San Ysirdo.

The vehicle was the same car that Alora Benitez, 15, was last seen in on Wednesday morning with her 40-year-old mother, Maricela Mercado and a 39-year-old man identified as Roman Cerratos.

WOMAN CAUGHT ON CAMERA DUMPING PUPPIES NEXT TO DUMPSTER BEHIND STORE IN COACHELLA, CALIFORNIA

Both adults are considered "armed and dangerous" and are suspects in a murder investigation. The victim, Jeffrey Appel, 32, was found dead Tuesday in the front seat of a white Audi in the city of Carson, California.

Authorities are searching for Alora Benitez, who has been missing since Wednesday. She was last seen with Roman Cerratos, and her mother, Maricela Mercado, who are murder suspects and also missing.

Authorities are searching for Alora Benitez, who has been missing since Wednesday. She was last seen with Roman Cerratos, and her mother, Maricela Mercado, who are murder suspects and also missing. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department)

"Her family is concerned for her safety," police said.

Authorities have not revealed how Appel was killed, or what may have motivated the slaying. The trio had last been seen driving in the BMW sedan that had a Nevada license plate that read "MARIMAR."

2017 DELPHI MURDERS OF 2 TEENAGE GIRLS MOVING IN 'NEW DIRECTION,' INDIANA STATE POLICE SAY

Alora is described by police as 5-feet 2-inches, 100 pounds, Hispanic with brown hair and brown eyes.

The missing teenager spurred authorities to issue an Amber Alert in Southern California, which at one pointed extended to Nevada, according to FOX11.

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Anyone with information on the murder or missing girl is urged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500.

Source: Fox News National

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Media’s botched Russia coverage will bring 'day of reckoning… like we haven't seen since 2016:' Joe Concha

The media’s constant push over the past few years of the unsubstantiated claim that President Trump and his campaign staff conspired with Russia is going to bring about a “day of reckoning… like we haven’t seen since the 2016 election."

That's according to media reporter Joe Concha, who discussed the coverage of Mueller's investigation during an interview on "Fox & Friends" Monday morning.

His comments come one day after Attorney General Bill Barr sent a letter to key congressional leaders summarizing the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, in which he wrote it “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.”

“Throughout these last 22 months, gossip was treated as gospel,” Concha said. “Sources providing information to reporters all too willing to accept it, like seagulls at the beach.

WATCH FOX NEWS' LIVE COVERAGE

“This is a day of reckoning for our media like we haven’t seen since the 2016 election. I would say, maybe the worst day ever for our media given all that coverage and the pushing of that particular narrative around Russia collusion.”

Concha said that narrative included frequent uses of phrases about how the “‘walls are closing in,’ [the] ‘noose is tightening’ and ‘this is the beginning of the end’” for Trump and his closest campaign associates.

“And now we are hearing, even yesterday and this morning, this is the beginning of something else. The next chapter,” he said. “You know why? Because it’s good for ratings and because people want to believe the worst about this president.”

Concha also lamented how The Washington Post and the New York Times “won Pulitzers for their reporting on Russian collusion.”

The Washington Post, in an article last year highlighting their Pulitzer Prize, said its stories on Russia “exposed secret or undisclosed information and altered America’s political landscape.”

READ THE MUELLER REPORT FINDINGS

“The Post’s revelations about Russia, including contacts between Russian figures and President Trump’s associates and advisers, helped set the stage for the special counsel’s ongoing investigation of the administration,” it wrote.

But Concha said for all the time spent pushing unsubstantiated claims of collusion, the media could have better invested their resources elsewhere.

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“Think of the stories we missed as the result of Russia,” he told ‘Fox & Friends’. “The economy’s performance as it pertains to wages, or unemployment or growth. The destruction of the ISIS caliphate. That suddenly came out of nowhere, it seemed to a lot of people, because no one was really covering it.

“And the most overlooked story? The opioid epidemic, 70,000 people killed in 2017 alone. That’s more than car crashes, you hardly hear about that. And that’s what affects real Americans’ lives.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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German lawmakers ready to block public cash for Deutsche-Commerzbank

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: Banners of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are pictured in front of the German share price index, DAX in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: Banners of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are pictured in front of the German share price index, DAX board, at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, September 30, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

April 3, 2019

By John O’Donnell

BERLIN (Reuters) – Lawmakers are warning Germany’s finance minister that they will block any attempt to invest public money into a merged Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, a deal which could require up to 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) of fresh capital.

They intend to deliver this message at a closed-door meeting next week with Olaf Scholz, although it is unclear whether the Social Democrat finance minister still plans to attend.

“The merged bank will probably need fresh capital. One thing that we will not stand for is that the state gives more money,” said Bettina Stark-Watzinger, who chairs the Bundestag’s finance committee, emphasizing a hurdle to any deal.

Deutsche Bank’s exploratory merger talks with state-backed Commerzbank come after prodding by Germany’s finance ministry, which is worried about the future of the country’s biggest bank.

A deal would see Berlin become a shareholder in the combined group, which one German official said will need up to 10 billion euros of fresh capital because of restructuring costs and the fact that losses on investments could be triggered by a tie-up.

While German parliamentarians cannot stop the merger itself, they are warning that the Bundestag can block any fresh money to fill a capital shortfall, a crucial pillar to any deal.

“This goes contrary to one of the lessons of the financial crisis – that the taxpayer should not foot the bill for troubled banks,” Stark-Watzinger said.

A spokesman for Scholz, who was the first to publicly reveal the merger talks but has since sought to distance himself from the process, insisting it is up to the banks to decide on their future, declined to comment, as did Deutsche Bank.

“UNTHINKABLE”

Lothar Binding, a leading Social Democrat on the committee, also said the government needed approval from the Bundestag if it wanted to back the merged group with fresh funds.

This would not be triggered if Germany’s 15 percent Commerzbank stake automatically translates into a roughly 5 percent stake in the merged group, but approval is needed if the bank asks investors for fresh money, as expected.

“As things stand, it is unthinkable that the Bundestag would agree,” said Binding. “Any synergies in this deal would come at an immensely high price: huge unemployment. 25,000 to 30,000 jobs could go. I’m against a merger.”

Some conservatives are similarly opposed to the deal.

“We need competition in the banking market, not mega mergers,” said Hans Michelbach, a lawmaker from the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.

“How on earth can we sell a merger with this bank to our voters? I won’t support it under any circumstances.”

Frustration has been growing in parliament because lawmakers believe Scholz is ignoring their concerns.

Through its stake in Commerzbank, the German government would become a top shareholder in a merged group, playing a central role in any fusion. Lawmakers fear this puts it on the hook to shoulder losses if the bank later runs into trouble.

Berlin could yet pull the plug if it believes a deal would be politically unpalatable.

“This merger is rubbish. It will cost not only jobs but hard cash as well,” said Lisa Paus, a Green party member of parliament, adding that she would reject any government participation in a capital hike.

“It is a running joke in parliament: ‘Where is Scholz?’, she said, adding that his failure to explain the merits of a merger had infuriated many lawmakers. “He doesn’t speak to us.”

(Additional reporting by Tom Sims in Frankfurt; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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North Korea’s Kim: I don’t want my children to bear burden of nuclear arms – report

FILE PHOTO - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses for photos in Pyongyang
FILE PHOTO - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses for photos in Pyongyang in this January 1, 2019 photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA/via REUTERS.

February 23, 2019

By Jack Kim

HANOI (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told the U.S. secretary of state he did not want his children to live with the burden of nuclear weapons, a former CIA officer involved in high-level diplomacy over the North’s weapons was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Kim made the rare personal comments to Mike Pompeo during a visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in April last year to lay the groundwork for the historic first summit between the North’s leader and U.S. President Donald Trump in June in Singapore, former CIA official Andrew Kim said, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency and the Wall Street Journal reported.

“’I’m a father and a husband. And I have children’,” Andrew Kim quoted the North Korean leader as telling Pompeo, when asked whether he was willing to end his nuclear program.

“‘And I don’t want my children to carry the nuclear weapon on their back their whole life.’ That was his answer,” Andrew Kim told a lecture on Friday at Stanford University’s Asia Pacific Research Center, where he is a visiting scholar.

Before he retired from the CIA, Kim established the agency’s Korea Mission Center, in April 2017, and accompanied Pompeo – who was then CIA director – to Pyongyang last year.

In their Singapore summit, Kim and Trump pledged to work toward peace between their countries and for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

But little progress has been made since then and they are set to meet again in Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday. They are expected to focus on what steps North Korea might take toward denuclearization, in exchange for what U.S. concession.

The former CIA officer said the North Korean leader expressed a strong desire to improve ties with the United States as a way to build confidence between them, which he said was needed to end the nuclear weapons program.

The North Korean leader left Pyongyang by train for his visit to Vietnam on Saturday afternoon, Russia’s TASS news agency reported on Saturday citing a North Korean diplomatic source.

North Korea’s state media has yet to confirm either Kim’s trip to Vietnam or his summit with Trump.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: OANN

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“This Country Has Gone To Hell”: Total Chaos In Venezuelan Oil Capital After Blackout

Venezuela’s oil capital, Maracaibo, was ransacked and looted in the midst of a blackout that hit the country around March 7. Even as the lights started to come back on, looting continued and residents overpowered disputed President Nichloas Maduro’s security forces. Store owners are just now starting to clean up, according a new Bloomberg article, which paints a picture of Venezuela as a country on the edge of total anarchy.

Enrique Gonzalez, an 18 year old bus conductor said: “If people made enough to make ends meet, we wouldn’t be trying to get by like this. This country has gone to hell.” His driver, at the time, was pillaging a Pepsi warehouse, where thousands of bottles had been looted in hours and where people were now ripping out spare copper wire and scrap metal.

Empresas Polar SA, a Venezuelan food giant, reportedly saw its Pepsi plant lose thousands of cases of beer and soda, 160 pallets of food, 22 trucks and five forklifts. A home improvement shopping center also saw its 50 stores looted by people who broke through its iron gates and glass doors. Travel agencies, cosmetic stands and snack shops were all pillaged among the chaos.

Bernardo Morillo, 60, who built and manages the mall told Bloomberg: “It’s hard to swallow. The national guard stood by as this vandalism happened and the firefighters didn’t even show.’’

Ricardo Costa, vice president of the Zulia state chapter of the Fedecamaras business group said: “…security forces were useless as people took anything of value, including cash machines, door frames, ovens, computers and surveillance cameras…”

The country’s Centro 99 food market saw looters pick its shelves clean. “They even carried off the lard and flour to bake bread in their bare hands,’’ the store’s manager said.

The looting started last Saturday afternoon after an ice company, on a hot day, demanded that it be paid in dollars. A crowd instead tore through its factory and then continued onto nearby pharmacies and stores. By the evening, the entire city was taken over by people seeking out life’s necessities by any means necessary.

The country’s blackout took an already flammable situation and threw a match on it. Maduro’s handling of the situation has prompted the U.S. and other nations to instead recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the rightful head of state. Maduro has concentrated his power, in the form of resources and troops, in Caracas, the country’s capital. But the recent chaos in Maracaibo, a city of 1.6 million, shows the rest of the country is in tumult and not even the largest cities are safe.

Maduro blamed the blackout on a U.S. cyberattack last week. 

When power was restored, many transformers and substations wound up bursting into flames. There were long lines of people at water trucks, streams and burst pipes. As far as protection, “a single municipal squad car was seen” during a day of looting in the city – and the officers within warned that “no protection” was on its way.

Costa continued: “How is it possible that a thousand guardsmen are deployed to repel 50,000 protesters, but when a thousand looters come to a mall only 50 were sent?’ You could say this began because people are hungry, but the looters didn’t take just food — it morphed into aimless vandalism.’’

“Everyone knows that working here means working in anarchy, that anything can happen to you at any moment,” one local watchman said while watching his store disintegrate in front of him.

“They’re pulling wires, air conditioners, pipes — they’re literally running off with the roof.’’

Source: InfoWars

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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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