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Hogan Gidley: Dems Should Celebrate Mueller Report

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley on Monday criticized Democrats for being "upset" special counsel Robert Mueller did not return evidence President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to undermine the 2016 presidential election.

"They should be celebrating the fact that the president was being truthful," Gidley told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "He was being honest and knew that there was nothing there. No evidence, to corroboration, no collusion. Instead, they are upset about it."

He singled out Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., complaining the lawmaker has said he agrees he does not think impeachment is the right choice for now, but he had been telling the United States he had "stone cold evidence" against the president.

"No one is asking Adam Schiff, 'hey, do you retract this? Do you have the evidence?'" Gidley said. "Everyone still takes him seriously. I don't even know how that's possible."

Meanwhile, the mood in the White House is "very good," Gidley said, but there remains "some righteous indignation and anger why did this all start in the first place? It completely wasted the American's people's time and money."

He also rejected Democrats' argument Trump is putting the Republican Party before the country.

"The president loves this country," Gidley said. "He didn't have to run for president. He was a successful businessman. He has seen how this country has been hurt last eight years economically and ISIS taking over so much of the world. He has come in and changed all of that systematically in two years."

Source: NewsMax America

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President Trump Losing Fight For Free Speech Online

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Source: InfoWars

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Life after ECB’s ‘Super Mario’ unnerves global investors

FILE PHOTO: 28th Frankfurt European Banking Congress (EBC) takes place in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi speaks at the 28th Frankfurt European Banking Congress (EBC) at the Old Opera house in Frankfurt, Germany November 16, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo

March 26, 2019

By Dhara Ranasinghe, Jennifer Ablan and Virginia Furness

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – “Whatever it takes” is a daunting legacy for any departing central bank chief to bequeath a successor and leaves world markets anxious about what is to come after Mario Draghi leaves the European Central Bank later this year.

Draghi’s 2012 pledge to save the euro won the confidence of financial markets and arrested the currency bloc’s debt crisis. Investors admired his willingness to break new policy ground — maneuvering past internal and external opposition — and clear communication of the ECB’s thinking.

With growth and inflation flagging again, and the ECB’s policy arsenal depleted, whoever succeeds him may need to be similarly bold. Growing questions about the orthodoxies of economic policy — including monetary policy models — could present an additional test.

Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser for Allianz SE in California, said replacing Draghi, if badly handled, could create significant uncertainty at a time when the ECB faces slowing economic momentum.

“Add to that concern about the eroding effectiveness of unconventional monetary policies, and the list of challenges facing the next ECB President gets quite significant,” said El-Erian, a long-time central bank observer.

Reuters Poll: ECB to hike before next downturn? https://tmsnrt.rs/2O4dnOv

BIG QUESTIONS

Draghi, nicknamed “Super Mario”, looks set to end his eight-year term without having ever executed a rate rise.

But after years of ultra-easy monetary policy, including negative interest rates and an unprecedented 2.6 trillion euro asset purchase scheme, economic growth is weakening yet again. Inflation is below the ECB’s near-2-percent target and Germany’s 10-year bond yield has dropped back below zero.

Investors fear the ECB’s window to normalize policy has closed, meaning it has little in its toolkit to face the next recession. Like other central banks, it is also struggling to explain why falling jobless rates have failed to lift inflation, market expectations for which are at their lowest since 2016 after weak German data on Friday exacerbated growth fears.

This raises big questions for the next ECB head, to be appointed by politicians, probably after the European Parliament elections in May. Could a weak economy force a revival of quantitative easing (QE), with possible stock purchases given a scarcity of eligible bonds?

And to prevent a Japanese style low-inflation, low-growth rut, the next ECB chief may have to mull unorthodox policy steps adopted by the Bank of Japan such as yield-curve control.

“The issue of having too few tools for the next slowdown, is a challenge for all central banks, but in the case of the ECB you could have a big political crisis to deal with as well as the more normal central banking day job,” said Andrew Balls, global fixed income CIO at PIMCO.

Potential candidates for the job are already discussing these possibilities.

Finnish central bank chief Olli Rehn, seen as an outside tip, said this month that the ECB should follow the U.S. Federal Reserve and review its entire policy framework given the failure to lift inflation after years of extraordinary stimulus.

Inflation has been below the ECB’s target since 2013.

Graphic: ECB balance sheet – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Hz4sUC

For Francesco Papadia, former ECB head of market operations, the balance sheet remains a key tool if further action is needed to shore up the economy.

The hefty asset purchases under Draghi have doubled the ECB’s balance sheet to 4.68 trillion euros.

“The scarcity of some bonds could be dealt with the inventiveness the ECB has shown over the years, for instance they could purchase bank loans or equities, like the BOJ,” said Papadia. “They could also come up with completely new tools, consistent with their record of bold innovations.”

Economists polled by Reuters favored ECB board member Benoit Coeure to succeed Draghi but saw Finland’s Erkki Liikanen as a more likely choice. Rehn, German Jens Weidmann — long a policy hawk to Draghi’s dove — and France’s Francois Villeroy de Galhau are also potential candidates.

“Nobody can be more dovish than Draghi. Whoever it is, is going to be on the more hawkish end,” said Giles Rothbarth, portfolio manager in BlackRock’s European equity team.

Graphic: Draghi’s financial market record – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HzKgSu

BIG SHOES TO FILL

Few had predicted the ECB’s change of speed after Draghi took over from Jean-Claude Trichet in November 2011. With the debt crisis raging, Draghi had soon overridden northern European concerns about money-printing.

“Draghi is big shoes to fill — his “whatever it takes” speech is precisely what was needed at the time,” said Bob Michele, head of global fixed income at JPMorgan Asset Management.

Investors said the ability to communicate with markets and the boldness to fight a crisis were crucial qualities for a successor, and that they valued stability more than asset performance during a central bank chief’s tenure.

Returns on the euro have fallen 17 percent during Draghi’s term, while those on bank stocks are 1 percent lower.

The euro rallied 10 percent in the year after that July 2012 speech, however, while Italy’s 10-year bond yield dropped to around 4 percent from above 6 percent.

An analysis of introductory policy statements by ECB economists shows they generally became easier to read under Draghi.

Graphic: Reading grade level and length of ECB press conference introductory statements – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HBc0WW

For former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill, Draghi, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and Fed chairman Jerome Powell represent a step forward as central bank heads because they have experience beyond academic circles.

All three worked at banks. Powell and Carney have government experience, while Draghi later worked at the World Bank.

“Whoever replaces Mario, I hope they are as open-minded, savvy and not too narrow-minded economists,” said O’Neill.

HIGH FLUX

Half the ECB board and more than a third of the rate-setting Governing Council will be replaced this year.

Richard Barwell, a former BoE economist and head of macro research at BNP Paribas Asset Management in London, said the reality is the loss of an “entire dream team” that has driven the policy agenda.

Coeure, for example, was a dynamic force in the ECB’s market operations team that designs key crisis-fighting tools. Belgian Peter Praet brought heavyweight power to the influential economics unit.

“The succession will influence every decision for the next eight years,” said Barwell.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe, Virginia Furness, Helen Reid and Marc Jones in London and Jennifer Ablan and Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; graphics by Ritvik Carvalho and Reuters polling; Editing by Mike Dolan and Catherine Evans)

Source: OANN

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Barclays may cut costs in ‘challenging’ economy

London-based Barclays bank says it may cut costs if "challenging" economic conditions persists throughout the year.

The warning came as the bank said Thursday that revenue dropped 2% to 5.25 billion pounds ($6.77 billion) in the first quarter of 2019. Pre-tax profit from Barclays' corporate and investment banking business fell 30%.

Barclays says the "income environment in the quarter was challenging" and it will reduce spending "if this were to persist for the remainder of the year."

The bank says it has already cut bonus and compensation payouts across the corporate and investment bank to reflect the division's poor performance.

Barclays reported quarterly net income of 1.04 billion pounds, compared with a year-earlier loss of 764 million pounds, when the bank set aside 2 billion pounds to cover misconduct.

Source: Fox News World

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Serbia appeals court overturns verdict for Milosevic's widow

A Serbian appeals court has overturned a one-year prison sentence for the widow of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic and ordered a retrial.

Mirjana Markovic is believed to be living freely in Moscow since 2003 despite the legal proceedings against her in Serbia.

A Belgrade court last year convicted Markovic of abusing her position in 2000 when she helped allocate a state-owned apartment to her grandson's nanny.

But the Appeals Court said on Tuesday that the verdict was flawed and that a new trial must be held.

Markovic had also been sought for questioning over the killing of Milosevic's political opponents during his autocratic rule in the 1990s.

Milosevic was ousted from power in 2000. He died in 2006 while on a genocide trial at a U.N. tribunal in The Netherlands.

Source: Fox News World

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Military Tests Single-Use Drones

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Ocasio-Cortez: Illegal Aliens Are ‘My Constituents’

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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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