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Texas officer charged for killing man who ran over his foot

A Texas police officer is charged with murder for fatally shooting a man who ran over his foot.

Burnet Police Chief Paul Nelson says former Patrol Sgt. Russell Butler also had been fired for violating the department's use of force policy. KVUE television reports Butler was charged Tuesday with murder and three counts of aggravated assault by a public servant for the killing of 25-year-old Brandon Michael Jacque in the city about 55 miles (88 kilometers) northwest of Austin.

Police previously said Butler shot Jacque in March after responding to a call about loud music and finding him parked in a red car. Jacque began driving off and ran over March's left foot after being ordered to stop. Butler then fired into the car, hitting Jacque.

Source: Fox News National

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Interserve set for pre-pack administration if debt deal fails: source

FILE PHOTO: The Interserve logo is seen on a flag at Interserve offices in Twyford
FILE PHOTO: The Interserve logo is seen on a flag at Interserve offices in Twyford, Britain January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

March 9, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Banks for Interserve have lined up a so-called pre-pack administration that will wipe out existing shareholders but enable the troubled outsourcer to keep operating, a person familiar with the situation said on Saturday.

Seeking to avoid a collapse like rival Carillion, the plan would come into force if investors reject Interserve’s debt-for-equity swap at a vote on Friday.

The British company, which employs 68,000 people globally to provide cleaning and building services, is fighting for survival after struggling to service debt due to project delays, a weak construction market and a mistaken push into the energy-from-waste market.

A pre-pack administration enables the company to sell itself or its assets before it appoints administrators who take over the running of the business to protect creditors.

Interserve struck a deal in February under which existing shareholders would retain 5 percent of the group while creditors take control.

However its biggest shareholder Coltrane Asset Management has objected to the deal and a vote will take place on Friday.

Interserve declined to comment but the company’s chairman, Glyn Barker, told the Telegraph newspaper on Saturday that Coltrane would be to blame if the company has to opt for a pre-pack deal.

“If we lose that vote because of Coltrane, then it will be because of Coltrane that shareholders get nothing out of this,” he said.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Source: OANN

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Ancestry Pulls Slavery-Era Ad After Backlash

Ancestry.com on Friday apologized for an ad that showed a mixed-race couple discussing escaping to the North during the Civil War era.

The ad drew widespread criticism on social media for whitewashing slavery, prompting the DNA testing company to remove it from TV and its YouTube channel. Ancestry started running the ad on TV on April 15, according to research firm iSpot.TV.

The ad is part of a campaign by Ancestry showing stories from the past to pique viewers' curiosity about their ancestors. It depicts a white man holding up a ring and telling a black woman wearing Civil War-era clothing that they can be together if they escape to the North. The woman says nothing as the scene fades to black, with the line: "Without you, the story stops here."

Critics pointed out that the ad ignores the fact that mixed race couplings during the slavery era were usually not romantic love stories but instead due to rape and violence against slaves.

Many took to Twitter to express complaints about the ad.

"I used this service a few years ago. And when I realized I was more than 10% European, I wept," tweeted Brittany Packnett. "Not from shame for who I am, but from anger from the trauma of how it may have come to be. This commercial spits on the trauma in our veins and the fight of our ancestors."

In an emailed statement, Ancestry said the ad was intended to be part of its effort to tell "important stories from history."

"We very much appreciate the feedback we have received and apologize for any offense that the ad may have caused," the company said in the statement.

M.J. McCallum, creative director of Muse Communications, called the ad "thoughtless," but said it could happen to any company that doesn't prioritize having diverse representation in its ranks.

"I believe it's the responsibility of brands and their agencies to foster inclusive environments," he said. "They must encourage their team members to be open, honest and vulnerable to topics like race and culture."

The Ancestry ad joins a long list of missteps by marketers that are at best tone-deaf and at worst racist.

In 2017, Dove stopped using a Facebook GIF that showed a black woman removing a brown shirt and transforming into a white woman. The ad was meant to show different types of people can use Dove but many saw it as saying the black woman was "dirty" and the white woman was "clean." Dove apologized .

In 2018, a Heineken ad with the tagline "Sometimes, Lighter Is Better," showed a bartender sliding a bottle of Heineken down a bar where several people of color were sitting before it stops in front of a light-skinned woman. Heineken apologized and pulled the ad after an online outcry in which many people, including Chance the Rapper , called the ad racist.

And in February , Gucci pulled a sweater off the market after complaints that the oversized collar designed to cover the face resembled blackface makeup. Italian designer Prada, Katy Perry's fashion line and H&M have also pulled similar racially insensitivity items.

"The idea that an ad won't be offensive simply because no one who approved it was offended is just not acceptable anymore," McCallum said. "Yes, there is always a chance that even the best of intentions will be misinterpreted, but there are reliable resources and skilled professionals available for brands to tap into."

Source: NewsMax America

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Greek PM: Turkish fighter jets harassed helicopter

Greece's prime minister says Turkish fighter jets harassed the helicopter he was traveling on during a visit to a remote Greek island to celebrate independence day.

Alexis Tsipras said he was "welcomed" by Turkish fighter jets violating Greek airspace during his arrival Monday on the small eastern Aegean island of Agathonissi.

The move forced the helicopter pilot to carry out low maneuvers until Greek fighter jets arrived to deflect the Turkish aircraft, Tsipras said.

Greece and Turkey have long had tense relations and are divided over several issues, including territorial disputes in the Aegean. Athens often complains Turkish fighter jets violate its airspace.

Tsipras stressed Greece is committed to dialogue and cooperation with Turkey, but that if necessary "we will do what our ancestors taught us, to defend our country."

Source: Fox News World

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Bad loan build-up clouds emerging share market picture

A broker reacts while trading at his computer terminal at a stock brokerage firm in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A broker reacts while trading at his computer terminal at a stock brokerage firm in Mumbai, India, December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

March 11, 2019

By Tom Arnold

LONDON (Reuters) – Emerging equities markets have soared this year as investor sentiment toward them rebounds, but for some the enthusiasm is being tempered by worries about surging bad loans at many banks.

Non-performing loans have shot up to a global high of close to 10 percent of gross credit exposures in India, and they are expected to edge up this year in China, Mexico, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey and Argentina, say analysts.

A gloomy outlook on the final two issued by Standard & Poor’s undercuts the assumption that fallout from currency crises last year in both countries was already priced in.

For an interactive version of the below graphic, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2EQt5cM.

As well as holding back financial sector growth and national economies, hefty levels of soured debt pose a particular risk for foreign investors, who have long favored retail lenders as picks for getting exposure to rising middle classes in emerging markets.

EM bank lending swelled to an average of 128 percent of GDP among the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – in 2017, from 98 percent in 2007, according to World Bank data.

But such activity is vulnerable to swings in the credit cycle, and some fund managers are growing more cautious.

Asset manager Ashmore Group is negative on banks in seven emerging countries – China, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Mexico and Russia – and positive on just Indonesia, India and Peru, said emerging markets equity portfolio manager Edward Evans.

There have been signs of policy softening by some emerging market central banks, and some commercial lenders have been cutting foreign exchange exposure and slashing risk on their balance sheet.

But broad financial conditions are tighter at the start of 2019 than they were a year ago after several interest rate rises in the United States and concerns about weaker global growth.

Asked which banking sectors he was bearish on, Eaton Vance emerging markets corporate strategist Akbar Causer cited risks if China’s economic slowdown continued.

The outlook for lenders in Turkey and Argentina was also “not so strong”, he added.

Turkey’s banks are vulnerable as the lira’s depreciation and its lurch into recession – data on Monday showed the economy slumped 3.0 percent year on year at the end of 2018 – hampers borrowers’ ability to meet debt obligations

S&P, in a note last month, said it expected Turkish NPLs to swell to around 6 percent this year, roughly double its earlier forecast. Official data showed it at 4 percent at the end of January.

For an interactive version of the below graphic, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2VBzjCW.

FX DEBT RISK

High dependence on external funding is a source of risk in Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia and Mexico, said Tan Nguyen, senior research analyst at OppenheimerFunds.

Their combined external debt stands at around $1.37 trillion. That and heightened financial stress among companies based there could lead to difficulties for them repaying their debt, pushing up non-performing loans, Nguyen warned.

S&P this month took ratings action on 22 Mexican financial institutions, cutting the outlook on several to “negative” from “stable”. They included Citigroup subsidiary Citibanamex and Banco Inbursa, controlled by the family of billionaire Carlos Slim.

S&P added, however, that cautious lending practices would help Mexican banks avoid a sharp rise in NPLs.

Others see more immediate risks, particularly in Turkey, where the central bank last week held its base interest rate at an above-inflation 24 percent.

“The fact we have higher interest rates and a weaker currency means there’s a rising probability of corporate defaults and non-performing loans,” said Jon Harrison, managing director, emerging markets macro strategy at TS Lombard.

Even Garanti Bank, Turkey’s second-largest private bank and considered one of the best-run lenders across emerging markets, had a non-performing loan rate of 5.2 percent last year, above its forecast.

In India, banks had been under pressure to clean up a $190 billion pile of soured loans. But that pressure has eased since Shaktikanta Das – seen as closely aligned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government – took over as central bank governor in December.

“What that means is they avoid a short-term potential crisis by enabling banks to avoid recognizing the problem, but at the cost of slower long-term credit growth,” said Harrison.

(Reporting By Tom Arnold; Graphics by Ritvik Carvalho; editing by John Stonestreet)

Source: OANN

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A Humiliating Moment for the Washington Press Corps

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: So after two years, here we are. It’s hard to believe any of it actually happened. Two years of unremitting, never-diminishing hysteria about Russia. A continuous wave of panic and superstition over unseen Slavic interference, all stoked by the very people we’re told are the most rational in our society. For two years, our capital city became a kind of massive CNN panel — a living monument to ignorance and dishonesty, where the loudest and dumbest invariably got the most attention. We just lived through two full years of that: screaming, threatening, surveillance, character assassination, loyalty tests, wild allegations of treason and spying and betrayal. Innocent people found themselves afraid to go to dinner, hesitant to send text messages or talk on the phone. For two years we lived in an all-pervasive cult of personality. Our leaders worshipped a 74-year-old federal prosecutor who never spoke in public. He alone was good, they told us. Only they could interpret his will. It was all thoroughly bizarre. Demented really, though nobody said so at the time. They were too afraid. It seems like a dream now. Which of course it was. None of it was real. Nobody colluded with Vladimir Putin. Nobody changed vote totals. Or met secretly in Prague. Or had a pee tape. There never was a Russia conspiracy. Hillary Clinton wasn’t robbed by Julian Assange, or anyone else. She lost the election because she was an entitled boor who didn’t run on anything. In the end, that’s what Robert Mueller proved.

The news anchors couldn’t handle that conclusion. It was too far from what they’d promised their audiences for so long. They were too invested in the lies. When the report arrived in congress this morning, they found themselves reduced to huffing and sputtering. They couldn’t admit what was in it. Well, they told us, Robert Mueller “didn’t exonerate President Trump.” That may be true, but only theologically. Mueller doesn’t have the power to absolve sin. Only God can do that. But in every other sense, Mueller’s report was exculpatory. If dozens of federal prosecutors spent two years trying to charge you with a crime, and then decided they couldn’t, it would mean there wasn’t any real evidence you did it. That’s what happened here. You may not like Donald Trump, but that’s what we learned from the Mueller Report. You’d have to be a mindless partisan to deny it. A lot of news anchors turn out to be mindless partisans. When the facts contravene the interests of their party, they deny the facts, and then attack anyone who persists in stating the obvious. Suddenly the very same people who lied to you for two years about Russia are demanding that, under no circumstances, are you allowed to believe anything that Attorney General Bill Barr might say. Sure, Barr looks like a conventional Republican, being a Jeb Bush donor and everything. Yes, he would appear to be a close personal friend of Robert Mueller’s. But it’s all a ruse. Barr is in fact a Putin stooge like all the rest:

JEFFREY TOOBIN: If you just look at his behavior, it is not that of a geriatric, it is that of a partisan

CHRIS MATTHEWS: This looks like an inside job.

MSNBC guest Elie Mystal: We should not take anything that Barr says tomorrow as anything other than performative.

CHRIS CUOMO: Is Barr the President's new fixer? The answer to that seems to be yes.

NICOLLE WALLACE: He becomes to first cabinet secretary to plunge into the deep end of Trump’s conspiracy pool.

It’s an inside job. That’s the reigning assumption. Somehow Bill Barr is preventing Robert Mueller from concluding that Donald Trump colluding with Vladimir Putin. How is Barr doing that? It’s not clear, but they’re no less certain that he is. Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times announced that Barr’s press conference this morning marked America’s transformation into a, quote, “authoritarian junta.” Her colleague, Maggie Haberman, suggested Trump might be a Nazi, because the White House played a song from The Sound of Music — which by the way, is an anti-Nazi musical. But still Germanic-sounding, and therefore suspicious. These are hysterical children. They shouldn’t be in journalism. But they are. They run journalism. They have no plans on giving up their power.

The Mueller Report may be the single most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to the White House press corps in the history of this country. How did reporters in Washington respond? They celebrated themselves. Over on CNN, former Obama official Jim Sciutto bragged that Mueller had quote “debunked” all of Trump’s unfair attacks on the media. At the Washington Post, Philip Bump was telling us that quote, “the vast amount of reporting” on Russia was accurate.

Even they don’t really believe this. They know they lied. Buzzfeed claimed its reporters has personally seen evidence that Michael Cohen had been instructed but Donald Trump to perjure himself. The editor of Buzzfeed defended that story extensively, including on this show. Now we know it was a lie. That and so much more. So what happens now? What do we do with John Brennan and Jim Clapper? They used to run powerful intelligence agencies. For the past two years, they’ve gotten rich from talking about Russia on television. The only problem is, they were lying:

O'DONNELL: What makes you believe that he has more indictments?

BRENNAN: Because he hasn't addressed the issues related to criminal conspiracy as well as individuals --

O'DONNELL: A criminal conspiracy involving the Russians?

BRENNAN: Yes yeah.

CLAPPER: Is there influence whether witting on unwitting by the Russians over President Trump. And in the intervening year and a half or so, you know, his behavior hasn't done much at least in my mind to allay that concern.

So do Clapper and Brendan get to keep their cable TV contracts? Probably. In decadent societies, the guilty aren’t punished. Only the unpopular are. Over on the other channels, they’re talking about Trump tonight, not themselves. The line they’re quoting most is from today’s report. It’s Trump’s response when he first learned there was going to be a special counsel investigation. “Oh my God,” he said. “This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m effed.”

As it turns out, Trump was wrong on the specifics. He never got indicted. Mueller didn’t drive him from office. But, as usual, Trump’s instincts were clearer. In fact, dead on: In the ways that matter most, the Russia hoax did sabotage his presidency. Mueller’s investigation ended critical momentum from the 2016 election almost immediately. Lawmakers, including a shamefully large number of Republicans, were much happier to talk about Russia than about changing the status quo in Washington, which is what Trump ran on. So they talked about Russia. The result: an election that should have realigned the country, had almost no effect. Two years later, virtually nothing has changed. Millions are still flood over our border from the third world, encouraged by an army of non-profits that instruct them to subvert our laws. The opioid epidemic rages on, as horrible as ever. Suicides are up. Troops are still bogged down in Afghanistan and Syria. Goldman Sachs still controls our economy. Tech companies are still spying on you and crushing your freedom of speech. You can still have your life ruined for supporting the wrong candidate, or believing there are two genders. Most ominous of all, Americans are still dying younger and having fewer children. None of this was resolved. It was never even talked about. The Russia investigation didn’t destroy Trump. But it did a lot to destroy America.

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Eastern Libyan military forces claim control of El Feel oilfield

View shows El Feel oil field near Murzuq
A view shows El Feel oil field near Murzuq, Libya, July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Aidan Lewis/File Photo

February 21, 2019

BENGHAZI, Libya/TUNIS (Reuters) – Eastern-based Libyan military forces took control on Thursday of the southwestern El Feel oilfield, their spokesman and a field engineer said.

Production was unaffected and continuing in the range of 75,000 barrels a day, the usual level, the engineer said, asking not to be named. He denied local media reports that there had been fighting inside the field located deep in Libya’s south.

State oil firm National Oil Corp (NOC), which operates the field in a joint venture with Italy’s Eni, “is concerned about the developments near El Feel oilfield and is monitoring the situation closely to ensure the safety of its staff,” an NOC representative said.

Forces loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar have waged an offensive in Libya’s south since last month. Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) posted a video purporting to show their vehicles driving into El Feel. Reuters was unable to confirm its authenticity.

Separately, LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said his forces had allowed planes of oil firms bound for El Feel and the nearby El Sharara oilfield to resume flights.

The LNA this month imposed a ban on any flights without its permission and carried out air strikes near El Feel after a plane arrived carrying a rival commander from Tripoli, home to the U.N.-recognized government. Haftar backs a rival administration based in the east.

The LNA last week secured the El Sharara oilfield located also in the south by cooperating with state guards which had occupied it in December to press officials into financial demands.

NOC has not reopened El Sharara yet, demanding guarantees for its workers. This week it sent an inspection team by road to assess the security, but no results have been made public yet. El Sharara produced around 315,000 barrels per day until it got closed.

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli, Ulf Laessing and Hesham Hajali; Writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by David Evans and Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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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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