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Poll: 82 Percent Say Release Mueller Report

Eighty-two percent of Americans want special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election should be made public, while just under half still believe President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice, according to a new survey.

Key results from the Politico/Morning Consult poll:
  • 47 percent of voters think Trump impeded or obstructed justice while the Russia investigation was going on, with 39 percent saying the opposite.
  • 55 percent disapprove of the job Trump is doing, compared to 42 percent who approve.
  • 82 percent said special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his Russia probe should be made public.
  • 39 percent said lawmakers should continue investigating whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election — despite Mueller clearing Trump of wrongdoing.

The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday.

Attorney General William Barr announced Sunday via a letter to Congress that Mueller found no evidence to suggest Trump colluded with Russia. The letter also said Mueller could not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice — which he was accused of doing by firing James Comey as FBI director in May 2017.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Filling ‘Brexodus’ gap, Filipino nurses find English tests too daunting

Filipino workers, including nurses applying to work in United Kingdom, attend a lecture at a review center
Filipino workers, including nurses applying to work in United Kingdom, attend a lecture at a review center for the International English Language Testing System or IELTS in Manila, Philippines, April 2, 2019. Picture taken April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

April 8, 2019

By Karen Lema

MANILA (Reuters) – Bracing for life after Brexit, British hospitals badly need more nurses like Filipino Jobie Escalona, but she twice flunked a mandatory English language test that asked her to write up the merits of immigration and computer education in school.

The 23-year-old Escalona, with three years experience in a private hospital in Manila, lost almost 3 months salary paying nearly $600 to sit the tests.

Fed up, she was ready to give up on Britain and try Canada, one of several other countries short of nurses, until her father persuaded her to take the test a third time.

“I was already losing hope,” she told Reuters. Finally, in January last year, she passed, having at last got a subject she felt comfortable writing about in the tough written section of the test.

Asked to compare team and individual sports, Escalona had little trouble: “I was able to relate to it because I am a swimmer.”

But, her tortuous experience doesn’t bode well for Britain’s chances of adequately filling alarming staffing gaps in its healthcare services.

With Brexit looming, the supply of nurses from European Union countries has almost dried up, with lots going home. And of the many foreign nationalities employed in Britain, Filipinos made up the largest number, with 10,719, according to a parliamentary paper.

    As of June last year, 16 percent of nursing jobs in hospitals and community health services were held by foreigners – nearly a quarter of whom were Filipinos.

Britain is already facing a shortage of 40,000 nurses, and once it leaves the EU, if it ever happens, the gap could widen to 50,000, enough to staff more than 40 small to medium-sized hospitals, according to a report commissioned by the Cavendish Coalition, a group of health and social care organizations.

OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE  

    The staffing crisis is increasing Britain’s dependency on hiring from low cost countries like India and the Philippines, where English is widely spoken, yet the language test has proved to be a major obstacle.

Philippine recruitment firm Louis International Manpower Services has received 1,000 job orders for nurses since 2015.

It has only filled a quarter of them.  

“It is not because of the lack of applications, but the English test,” said Lilibeth Villas, documentation officer at the firm. “We have applicants who were interviewed in 2015, but they have not passed the test yet.”

Run by the British Council, IDP Education and Cambridge Assessment, the International English Language Test System (IELTS) gauges applicants’ ability to speak, listen, read and write, and is used by employers around the world.

Questions in the academic written section asks candidates to write short essays on diverse subjects. Examples given on the IELTS website included interpreting graphs on changes in radio and television audiences, and gender variations between full and part-time students, and discussing the pros and cons of nuclear technology and of regulating car ownership.

Many candidates clearly find the weighty topics too daunting.

Febin Cyriac, a business development manager at Envertiz Consultancy, a British healthcare recruitment firm that specializes in bringing in nurses from overseas, started a petition in change.org in 2014 that asked UK regulators to relax their IELTS scores.

Working as a nurse himself, Cyriac said there are a good number of Indian or Filipino nurses with many years of experience working in Britain, but who are only working as assistant nurses in the National Health Service (NHS) and nursing homes.

“IELTS is the only barrier for them to practice as a nurse in the UK,” said Cyriac, himself a nurse working in Britain.

Still, the number of Filipinos in the NHS has risen by almost a third in the last two years, according to British government figures.

Late last year, the pass mark for the writing section was lowered, but there are no immediate plans to make further changes to the test standards, said Andrea Sutcliffe, Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Chief Executive and Registrar.

“We will continue to carefully monitor the impact of the recent changes. This change is part of a wider review of our overseas registration processes aimed at making it more straightforward and user-friendly for people with the right skills and knowledge to join our register in a timely way”, Sutcliffe said.

There is an Occupational English Test (OET), more suited to medical professionals, that foreign nurses can take. If they pass that test they would still have to sit the IELTS, but they would be eligible for a lower pass mark. The OET is more expensive, however, making it unattractive for low paid nurses.

A London-based recruitment agency visited Manila recently to find nurses for Cambridge University, East Surrey and Royal Cornwall Hospitals, while there have also been recent hiring drives for hospital trusts in Oxford, Hull and Dudley.

    Germany, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the other countries hiring Filipino nurses, said Bernard Olalia, head of the government’s Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.    

    In January alone, Olalia’s office received 1,000 job orders for nurses from Saudi Arabia.

“There are a lot of markets for our Filipino nurses,” Olalia said, adding that it was understandable if they took jobs in places where the requirements were easier to fulfill.

Filipino nurses who were recruited in the 1990s did not have to take the language tests, yet they are still in the NHS and providing good service, said Reydeluz Conferido, who was until recently the labor attache to the Philippines embassy in London.

While there, Conferido called on British officials to review the requirements placed on overseas nurses to see whether they were serving the correct purpose or creating an artificial barrier.

“If you really want these nurses, you would do something about your standards,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill in LONDON; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Washington shuts down Utah State

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament-the Washington Huskies vs the Utah State Aggies
Mar 22, 2019; Columbus, OH, USA; Washington Huskies guard David Crisp (1) shoots the ball in the second half against the Utah State Aggies in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Nationwide Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

March 23, 2019

Ninth-seeded Washington married its usually good defense with an unusually proficient performance on offense Friday night, scoring a 78-61 win over eighth-seeded Utah State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

Four players scored in double figures for the Huskies (27-8), which will meet the Iona-North Carolina winner on Sunday in a Midwest Region second-round game. Noah Dickerson led the way with a 20-point, 12-rebound double-double, the 24th of his career.

Jaylen Nowell scored 19 points while adding five rebounds and five assists. Nahziah Carter came off the bench to add 13 points and Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year Matisse Thybulle chipped in 10.

Most importantly, Thybulle and his teammates put the clamps on the Aggies’ best player, 6-5 junior guard Sam Merrill. Coming into the game averaging nearly 28 ppg in his last five games, Merrill didn’t score until the midway point of the second half and managed only 10 points on 2-of-9 shooting.

Brock Miller paced Utah State (28-7) with 13 points, while freshman center Neemias Queta added 11 to go along with nine rebounds. Abel Porter contributed 10 points.

Washington canned 49 percent of its field goals, including an outstanding 10-of-17 on 3-pointers, and limited the Aggies to 19 of 54 shooting from the field. It forced 21 turnovers.

Utah State owned the lead for most of the first 10 minutes, leading by as many as six points just over four minutes into the game. But the Aggies began to have problems hanging on to the ball and Washington started turning defense into offense.

Beginning with a stickback by Dickerson at the 8:42 mark that gave them an 18-17 edge, the Huskies put their stamp on the first half’s remainder. They forced 11 turnovers and used their length to block or alter a spate of attempts around the bucket.

Washington ended the half with a 13-3 spurt in a span of 4:57. Dickerson’s layup off a Carter pass with two seconds left sent it to the locker room with a 40-28 advantage.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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China imports, exports rebound in first half of March: ministry

FILE PHOTO: China's Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng attends a news conference at the commerce ministry in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: China's Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng attends a news conference at the commerce ministry in Beijing, China, June 19, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

March 21, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s imports and exports rebounded in the first half of March, Gao Feng, a commerce ministry spokesman said on Thursday, adding that the overall trade performance in the first quarter remained stable.

China’s exports tumbled the most in three years in February while imports fell for a third straight month, pointing to a further slowdown in the economy.

(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Uganda makes arrests in kidnap of American tourist and her guide

U.S. tourist Kimberly Sue Endicott poses with her guide, Jean Paul Mirenge in Uganda
U.S. tourist Kimberly Sue Endicott poses with her guide, Jean Paul Mirenge in Uganda, April 7, 2019, in this image taken from social media. Wild Frontiers/via REUTERS

April 9, 2019

By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda said Tuesday some suspects had been arrested in connection with last week’s kidnap of an American tourist and her tour guide in a national park while a minister told a local TV that a ransom had been paid to free them.

Tourist Kimberley Sue Endecott, 35, and guide Jean Paul Mirenge-Remezo were ambushed and seized by gunmen as they drove in Queen Elizabeth National Park in the country’s southwest near the border with Democratic Republic of Congo on April 2.

It’s one of Uganda’s most visited parks, home to antelopes, lions, elephants, hippos, crocodile and leopards.

The kidnappers later demanded a ransom of $500,000. On Sunday Ugandan security officials said they had rescued the pair unharmed near the border.

In a statement on Tuesday, police said: “The joint security team actively investigating the kidnapping incident … has made some arrests of suspects, on suspicion of being involved.”

Police did not give details about the suspects but said they had been detained during “raids and extensive searches” in Kanungu district, more than 400 km (250 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala.

On Tuesday, junior tourism minister, Godfrey Kiwanda Ssubi, told NBS TV that a ransom was paid to secure the victims.

“Whatever these people (kidnappers) demanded for was paid,” Ssubi said.

“The money had to be taken … everything was done to save the lives of these people.”

Ugandan security officials had earlier refused to acknowledge the payment despite several reports in local and international media.

The United States has maintained it follows a policy of no concessions to kidnappers although the tour firm that arranged the safari told Reuters the captives were released after a “negotiated settlement” with the assistance of the US government.

In a tweet on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Ugandan authorities to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice “openly and quickly”.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: OANN

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ECB takes over supervision of Latvian bank that accused governor

Sign of the European central Bank (ECB) is seen ahead of the news conference on the outcome of the Governing Council meeting, outside the ECB headquarters in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: Sign of the European central Bank (ECB) is seen ahead of the news conference on the outcome of the Governing Council meeting, outside the ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

March 11, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank will take over the supervision of Latvia’s PNB Banks, a small lender that brought a bribery case against the country’s central bank governor, Ilmars Rimsevics, the ICB said on Monday.

“The European Central Bank…will assume its direct supervision as of 4 April 2019,” the ECB said. “This follows a request made by the Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission.”

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: OANN

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Battle for Hong Kong Airlines pulls complex HNA holdings into daylight

FILE PHOTO: A HNA Group logo is seen on the building of HNA Plaza in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: A HNA Group logo is seen on the building of HNA Plaza in Beijing, China February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Jennifer Hughes and Julie Zhu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shareholders summoned by Hong Kong Airlines this month for a meeting were greeted with some shocking news: the airline needed at least HK$2 billion in fresh funds or it would lose its operating license.

The carrier had lost HK$3 billion ($382.54 million) in 2018, they were told, and an infusion was crucial, according to people present.

Dialed in, but silent for the hour-long meeting on April 1, were executives for Hainan-based HNA Group,, which holds 29 percent of the airline’s shares.

Investors were blunt about HNA’s role in the company’s troubles, according to people at the meeting – including accusations that it was siphoning off cash, which the conglomerate denies.

“There’s no point raising fresh capital if we cannot solve the problem of (a) major shareholder pumping out HKA’s assets,” said Zhong Guosong, who holds 27 percent of the shares and is vying for chairmanship of the company.

Another shareholder echoed his views: “This is Hong Kong, not Hainan.”

In the last week, drama from the call has spilled into the open as HNA and a rival group battled for control of Hong Kong Airlines’ chairmanship. The airline declined to comment on shareholders’ activities and said its operations “remain normal.”

The infighting illustrates the convoluted nature of HNA’s holdings around the world, which range from real estate to banks and are often divided among opaque, related entities.

On paper, HNA gave up control of Hong Kong Airlines two years ago just as it began selling off assets collected in a $50 billion worldwide acquisition spree.

But the carrier has close ties with several HNA affiliates.

“HNA’s shareholding structure and how they structure investments has always been very complicated, and the HKA case isn’t any different,” said David Yu, adjunct professor of finance at New York University, Shanghai. “The issue now is that there is some distress at the parent group, and this is obviously having implications on the underlying companies, including HKA.”

HNA TANGLE

Since Beijing in 2017 began cracking down on Chinese conglomerates’ rapid debt-fuelled global expansions, HNA has sold about $26 billion in assets, according to Dealogic data and Reuters calculations.

Disposals include control of the Radisson hotel group; a quarter stake in Hilton Hotels; prime property in New York, Sydney, Shanghai, San Francisco and Hong Kong; regional Chinese airlines; a stake in aircraft lessor Avolon; and half of its stake in Deutsche Bank.

But the prices HNA has sought and the complex structures, loans and other business links that bind its holdings have made unwinding its investments difficult.

HNA’s wider Hong Kong interests are a case in point. This week, HNA-controlled CWT International said lenders had seized assets, including U.S. property and its Singapore-based commodity trading and logistics unit, because it failed to repay a HK$1.4 billion ($178 million) loan.

HNA said that it was monitoring the situation, but that it was a matter for CWT and its creditors. Yet HNA units own 51 percent of CWT’s shares, and each of CWT’s executive directors has ties to other HNA businesses. CWT’s co-chairman, Mung Kin Keung, is a shareholder in Hong Kong Airlines.

HNA’s involvement with the airline is just as complicated. The conglomerate took control of CR Airways in 2006 and renamed it Hong Kong Airlines. In July 2017 it cut its stake, according to filings, by selling 34 percent to Chinese private equity group Frontier Investment Partners.

According to Hong Kong Airlines’ 2017 accounts, seen by Reuters, the airline held shares in four unlisted HNA affiliates, worth $367 million at the end of 2017, and had loaned $300 million to two other HNA firms.

That year, the airline’s trade receivables – money owed to it but not collected – jumped 50 percent even as revenue rose only 11 percent. Of those payments due, the amount HNA companies owed the airline more than doubled to HK$1.3 billion, or 73 percent of receivables.

Zhong is closely linked with HNA as well, having been a director of the airline for almost four years until August 2018. Since 2017, he has also been chairman of Hong Kong Express, Hong Kong Airlines’ low-cost sister, which HNA recently agreed to sell to Cathay Pacific for HK$4.93 billion.

Cathay’s announcement of the deal contained a warning that an HK Express shareholder planned to contest it. That shareholder is Zhong, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the issue. They declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

In a further sign that the relationship between Zhong and HNA had soured, court papers show that HNA in December sued the company through which Zhong holds his 27 percent stake in the airline, seeking repayment of a HK$854 million debt from 2010.

A representative for Zhong did not provide comment.

CONTROL DISPUTES

Since the April 1 meeting, Frontier has aligned itself with Zhong, working to appoint him chairman of the airline as part of efforts to seize control and investigate its financial ties with HNA.

Late last week they won an injunction that blocked directors and executives from removing or destroying the airline’s documents.

That followed a week in which both Zhong and airline executive Hou Wei – still listed on its website as chairman – claimed control and fought over who had access to the company’s headquarters.

Adding to the confusion, a group called Grand City Investment Capital Limited this week said it owned the Frontier stake after a transfer dated April 11.

A spokesman for Grand City declined to discuss his company’s ownership. Frontier disputes Grand City’s claim to the stake.

Frontier and Zhong have also accused HNA of “embezzlement of HKA assets and serious financial misappropriation by HNA Group parties” – accusations that HNA has denied.

They and other shareholders are still demanding access to the airline’s 2018 accounts and details of how it lost so much money before they address its HK$2 billion capital shortfall.

Amid the court orders and competing statements uncertainty remains over who is in charge – although both sides have gone to lengths to ensure the airline keeps operating normally.

“There are so many moving parts that corporate control is under dispute because the changes are happening too rapidly for the company to organize coherently,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, which focuses on China. He described HNA as “a poster child for overexpansion of China’s worst conglomerates.”

He added: “Because there is always a lack of transparency at HNA, this makes it twice as hard to figure out what the nature of the dispute is.”

(Reporting by Jennifer Hughes, Julie Zhu, Kane Wu and Alun John; Additional reporting by Shellin Li and Jamie Freed; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.

Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”

JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUPS AFTER JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHARGES DROPPED 

Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.

Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.

“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”

The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”

Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.

The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.

“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.

“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.

KIM FOXX’S CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER RESIGNS FOLLOWING SMOLLETT CONTROVERSY

President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”

The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.

Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

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After an intense investigation, police said Smollett staged the entire incident to drum up publicity for his career.

Smollett has strongly denied the accusations.

Source: Fox News National

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