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German cabinet agrees Weidmann can extend term at Bundesbank for eight years

German Bundesbank President Weidmann delivers a speech during a dinner of the Hellenic Bank Association in Athens
German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann delivers a speech during a dinner of the Hellenic Bank Association in Athens, Greece, August 30, 2018. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

February 27, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German cabinet gave the green light on Wednesday for Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann to extend his term for another eight years, a government source said.

Weidmann’s first term expires at the end of April and the cabinet’s decision paves the way for him to stay for a second term.

The extension would in theory keep Weidmann in the mix as a possible successor to ECB chief Mario Draghi, whose job will become available at the end of October, though Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau is seen as frontrunner.

(Reporting by Holger Hansen; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Madeline Chambers)

Source: OANN

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U.S. intelligence says Huawei funded by Chinese state security: report

Huawei logo is pictured during the media day for the Shanghai auto show in Shanghai
A Huawei logo is pictured during the media day for the Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song

April 20, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. intelligence has accused Huawei Technologies of being funded by Chinese state security, The Times said on Saturday, adding to the list of allegations faced by the Chinese technology company in the West.

The CIA accused Huawei of receiving funding from China’s National Security Commission, the People’s Liberation Army and a third branch of the Chinese state intelligence network, the British newspaper reported, citing a source.

Earlier this year, U.S. intelligence shared its claims with other members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group, which includes Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, according to the report http://bit.ly/2KT7ztd.

Huawei dismissed the allegations in a statement cited by the newspaper.

“Huawei does not comment on unsubstantiated allegations backed up by zero evidence from anonymous sources,” a Huawei representative told The Times.

The company, the CIA and Chinese state security agencies did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The accusation comes at a time of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and amid concerns in the United States that Huawei’s equipment could be used for espionage. The company has said the concerns are unfounded.

Authorities in the United States are probing Huawei for alleged sanctions violations.

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of its founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Canada in December at the request of the United States on charges of bank and wire fraud in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran.

She denies wrongdoing and her father has previously said the arrest was “politically motivated”.

Amid such charges, top educational institutions in the West have recently severed ties with Huawei to avoid losing federal funding.

Another Chinese technology company, ZTE Corp, has also been at the center of similar controversies in the United States.

U.S. sanctions forced ZTE to stop most business between April and July last year after Commerce Department officials said it broke a pact and was caught illegally shipping U.S.-origin goods to Iran and North Korea. The sanctions were lifted after ZTE paid $1.4 billion in penalties.

Reuters reported earlier this week that the United States will push its allies at a meeting in Prague next month to adopt shared security and policy measures that will make it more difficult for Huawei to dominate 5G telecommunications networks.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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Mueller said three weeks ago he wouldn’t reach decision on obstruction: Justice official

FILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after briefing the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington
FILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after briefing the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on his investigation of potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein/File Photo

March 25, 2019

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller informed top U.S. Justice Department officials three weeks ago that he would not be reaching a conclusion on whether President Donald Trump had obstructed justice during the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a U.S. Justice official said Monday.

The decision by Mueller not to reach a determination was “unexpected,” the person added, speaking anonymously in order to discuss private conversations involving U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who received the news.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Lives forever changed by Christchurch shootings

The Wider Image: Lives forever changed by Christchurch shootings
A flower tribute is seen outside Al Noor mosque where more than 40 people were killed by a suspected white supremacist during Friday prayers on March 15, in Christchurch, New Zealand March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su

April 8, 2019

By Edgar Su and Charlotte Greenfield

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (Reuters) – On a small farm on the outskirts of Christchurch in New Zealand, Omar Nabi digs a small hole and sharpens a knife as he prepares to slaughter a sheep as a blessing to his father – a victim of the mass killings at the Al Noor mosque.

Hunched between his father’s collection of rusted cars, Nabi softly said a prayer and slit the animal’s neck, facing it towards Mecca. He removed the pelt and prepared the meat for cooking. Blood was pooled in a hole where he plans to plant a tree. No part of the animal was wasted, he said.

Nabi first slaughtered a sheep when he was 11, each step supervised by his father. Nabi is now 43.

“My father was my whole life… I give thanks for my father, he’s done a lot,” he said. His father, Haji Daoud Nabi, had hoped to build a small mosque on the property, a plan his son intends to complete. “This means a lot to me, Dad put a piece of heaven in Christchurch.”

Several weeks after an attack on Muslim worshippers that killed fifty people and left dozens wounded, the lives of survivors and the families of victims have changed irrevocably. Some survivors feel emboldened, others are haunted by memories of the attack and haven’t been able to return to the mosque.

Burying loved ones brought relief to many families, but reminders of their losses are never far away, from an empty seat at a dinner table to the prospect of Ramadan celebrations in a few weeks.

The shootings on March 15 shook New Zealand and prompted the government to tighten gun laws and launch a powerful national inquiry into the country’s worst peacetime massacre. An Australian man, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with 50 murders and 39 attempted murders.

(For a photo essay of survivors of the attack and victim’s families, please click this link: https://reut.rs/2WSIG1M)

IN LIMBO

Survivor Mark Rangi, 59, feels his future is in limbo following wounds to both legs. The New Zealander, who lives in Sydney, had never been to Al Noor Mosque before the attack.

After visiting relatives in a nearby town, he had attended the mosque before his return flight to Sydney so he could seek spiritual guidance on the direction of his life.

Instead, he ended up running for his life, bleeding heavily from shrapnel wounds in his legs. After surgery, he is able to walk slowly but Rangi is doubtful he can return to work as a baggage handler in Sydney.

“I wouldn’t have a clue (what to do now). I want to be independent,” he said from a youth hostel where he is staying, overlooking piles of flowers placed in a makeshift memorial. “I’m very lucky that I didn’t get injured worse, so I’m grateful for that.”

SOMETHING’S MISSING

In a one-storey house a short drive from Al Noor mosque, Zahra Fathy turned pages in a photo album compiled by her husband Hussein Moustafa, who died in the massacre. As part of the customary four-month and 10 day-mourning period, she wears simple, unadorned clothing and spends most of her time at home.

“It’s hard to stay thinking about what happened, so I have to escape this and think about what’s next,” she said.

Her husband had spent time at the mosque on most days, organizing its library of religious texts and tending to a vegetable garden, which provided the community with pumpkins, rocket and broccoli.

She is now considering visiting her extended family in Alexandria, Egypt, where she and her husband both grew up, for Ramadan.

“Being all on your own during Ramadan is tough,” said her son, Mohammed, who flew home from a new job in Saudi Arabia on learning of his father’s death.

After some trepidation, Mohammed worshipped last Friday at the Al Noor mosque for the first time since his father’s death.

“I’m praying in the same area, the same corner that my dad used to pray. I wanted to do that,” he said. “It was a bit emotional at first, I got a few tears, it was quite tough. I kept imagining him next to me, I kept looking around, looking for the bullet holes.”

Before Ramadan, Zahra and her family plan to mark the graduation of her youngest son, Zeyad, 22, who also returned to Christchurch from a new job, in Canberra. “He was very, very proud of you,” Zahra told her son.

The family had an active WhatsApp messaging group to stay in touch. Zeyad had shared a recent trip to Europe, where his father had also traveled as a young man, and to Egypt. His father had provided long history lessons on the places Zeyad visited and was overjoyed his son was meeting his Egyptian relatives. Now, the WhatsApp group is not so active.

“It feels like something’s missing… It’s hard to explain, I think it just feels weird if we use it,” Zeyad said.

SENSE OF MISSION

In a sleepy Christchurch suburb where he owns a homeopathy business, Farid Ahmed has worked to bring his community and his country together. Farid, a wheelchair user, survived the shooting but his wife Husna was killed.

He spent one recent Sunday going door-to-door to thank his neighbors for their support. 

When his neighbors heard of his wife’s death, “they came running… they were in tears,” he said. “That was wonderful support and expression of love.”

His message of forgiveness and peace to avoid “a heart that is boiling like a volcano” has made headlines around the world and was broadcast in a heartfelt speech at a national memorial service.

“I admire him. I couldn’t do that,” said a neighbor, a Christian who lives four doors down. “We’ve learnt a lot about Islam over the last few days… (it’s) crazy how similar our two faiths are.”

COPING

Across the city, survivor Sardar Faisal has thrown himself with vigor into helping co-ordinate dozens of volunteers who prepare meals and run errands for the widows of victims of the attack. As a result, he realized he was not spending much time with his own wife and young children.

“Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt, maybe it’s empathy because whenever I visit the affected families, the only thing I think about is that when I was in that area, they were being shot, the bullets that I heard,” he said over tea at a friend’s house.

On the day of the shootings, Faisal was late to the mosque, an uncharacteristic trait that possibly spared his life. When the gunman burst in and started shooting worshippers at prayer, Faisal was in the bathroom, just about to wash in preparation for prayer and so was able to hide from the gunman.

What he saw and heard that day haunts him, he said. He struggles to focus at work and suffers nightmares as deadly scenarios, almost like a video game, run on repeat through his sleep.

REBORN

Alongside sorrow and pain, others feel the close call has reinvigorated their lives.

“It gave me courage,” said Hazem Mohammed, originally from Baghdad, who played dead in Al Noor mosque as the gunman stood over him, wounded and surrounded by the bodies of fellow worshippers.

“I cry for two reasons. The first half because I lost friends, they are gone,” he said. “And the other tears… these tears are for joy, because I was reborn again on Friday the 15th of March 2019.”

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield and Edgar Su in Christchurch; additional reporting by Jill Gralow, Natasha Howitt and Tom Westbrook; Editing by Neil Fullick)

Source: OANN

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Florida mom was under influence as toddler nearly drowned in hot tub: police

A Florida woman was charged with child neglect after police say her son, 3, nearly drowned in a hotel hot tub while she was intoxicated and using drugs.

The woman, Apryl Connolly, 36, was arrested Monday and charged with neglect of a child causing great bodily harm after video surveillance at Perry’s Ocean Edge Resort showed her son getting into a hot tub on Sunday night and sinking to the bottom, Fox 35 reported.

Apryl Connolly, 36, was charged with an additional count of tampering with physical evidence after police said she threw a pill into a nearby trash can.

Apryl Connolly, 36, was charged with an additional count of tampering with physical evidence after police said she threw a pill into a nearby trash can. (Volusia County Corrections)

An incident report obtained by WFTV said Connolly was watching her twin sons while her husband gathered the family's belongings.

FLORIDA INMATE PUNCHES PUBLIC DEFENDER IN HEAD DURING COURT HEARING, SHOCKING VIDEO SHOWS

That’s when a hotel employee watching the security cameras noticed one of the boys step into the hot tub and slip below the water's surface. The report said that she radioed another staff member, who was seen in the video jumping in and pulling the boy out.

The man was seen performing CPR; the report said the boy was not breathing and had no pulse.

Eventually, after multiple attempts at CPR, the child began to breathe again.

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He was taken to Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition.

Police said Connolly admitted to taking three shots of tequila, and had mixed alcohol while smoking pot, Fox 35 reported. She was charged with an additional count of tampering with physical evidence after police said she threw a pill into a trash can.

Source: Fox News National

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Wall Street set for flat open after Boeing, Caterpillar earnings

A trader speaks to a floor official on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: A trader speaks to a floor official on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 24, 2019

By Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) – Wall Street was set to open flat on Wednesday after a record-setting rally in the previous session, as investors assessed quarterly reports from industrial bellwethers Boeing and Caterpillar.

Boeing Co shares gained 1.5% in premarket trading even as the planemaker suspended its 2019 outlook and reported quarterly revenue below Wall Street estimates due to grounding of its 737 MAX jets. Its stock has lost 11.5% since the deadly Ethiopian crash in early March.

Caterpillar Inc fell 2.6%. The company topped analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit but posted a 4% decline in construction revenue in Asia-Pacific, one of its key markets dominated by China.

“Thus far you’ve had pretty strong reactions to earnings and investor sentiment is nervously positive,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

“The nervousness has to do with valuations and the concern being, ‘Am I going to get good enough results and guidance to justify the markets going higher?'”

The main indexes are holding within a hair’s breadth of all-time highs after a rally this year, sparked by a dovish Federal Reserve, hopes of a U.S.-China trade resolution and an upbeat earnings season.

The benchmark S&P 500 index is just 0.25% away from its intra-day record high of 2,940.91 hit on Sept. 21.

About a third of the S&P 500 companies are expected to report this week, determining if investors should be concerned about the start of an earnings recession or whether back-to-back quarters of negative growth can be avoided.

Profits of S&P 500 companies are expected to decline 1.1% for the quarter, according to Refinitv data. However, 77.5% of the 129 companies that have reported so far have surpassed earnings estimates.

At 8:39 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 15 points, or 0.06%. S&P 500 e-minis were down 1 points, or 0.03% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 1.25 points, or 0.02%.

Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc, set to report after the closing bell on Wednesday, were up more than 0.5%.

EBay Inc shares jumped 3.6% after the company raised its full-year sales and profit forecasts.

AT&T Inc shares declined 2.5% after the second-largest U.S. wireless carrier reported quarterly revenue below Wall Street estimates.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp shares jumped 11.4% after Occidental Petroleum Corp sought to scuttle Chevron Corp’s takeover of the company with a $57 billion bid. Occidental’s shares fell 5.2%.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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Rohingya ‘lost generation’ struggle to study in Bangladesh camps

Rohingya students are seen during a class at school, at Leda refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
Rohingya students are seen during a class at school, at Leda refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, February 9, 2019. REUTERS/Jiraporn Kuhakan

March 18, 2019

By Poppy McPherson and Ruma Paul

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Sixteen-year-old Kefayat Ullah walked to his school in southern Bangladesh in late January, as he had done most days for the previous six years, to find that – despite being one of the top students in his class – he had been expelled.

A government investigation had outed him, along with dozens of his classmates, as a Rohingya refugee, a member of the mostly stateless Muslim minority from neighboring Myanmar.

“Our headmaster called us into his office and told us that there’s an order that Rohingya students have no rights to study here anymore,” said the teenager, a small boy with cropped hair and a faint moustache. “We went back home crying.”

For years, Bangladeshi schools have quietly admitted some of the Rohingya who live as refugees in sprawling camps on the country’s southern coast, and whose numbers have swelled to more than 1 million since violence across the border in 2017. But the new influx has tested the hospitality of the Bangladeshi government, leading them to apply tighter controls on the population.

The recent expulsions highlight the struggle of hundreds of thousands of children desperate to study in the world’s largest refugee settlement, but at risk of missing out on crucial years of education and the chance to obtain formal qualifications.

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar after a military campaign in late 2017 that the United Nations has said was executed with “genocidal intent”. Thousands more, like Kefayat, were born in Bangladesh after their parents fled earlier waves of violence.

Though Myanmar says it is ready to welcome back the refugees, northern Rakhine state, from where they fled, is still riven by ethnic tensions and violence, and the U.N. has said conditions are not right for them to return.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, meanwhile, has said the country cannot afford to integrate them.

“HUNGRY FOR EDUCATION”

In some countries, governments allow refugees to study in local schools, allowing them to gain recognized qualifications, or permit institutions in the camps to teach the national curriculum. But Bangladesh has not recognized the vast majority of the Rohingya as refugees and does not issue birth certificates for those born in the camps, making their legal status unclear.

The government has also forbidden centers in the camps from teaching the Bangladesh curriculum, according to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF.

“Many students are depressed and frustrated,” said a 21-year-old who asked not to be named because he was continuing to pass as Bangladeshi so he could go to university.

“Yes, we are somehow pretending to be Bangladeshi students. Yes, we have got some education. But now, where will we go? The world should think about this: if we can’t study, our future will be damaged. We are hungry for education.”

In the headmaster’s office at Leda High School, piles of textbooks inscribed with the names of some of the 64 expelled students lay stacked in a corner.

“We are very sorry and disappointed about the decision,” said the principal, Jamal Uddin. “The government is providing everything for the Rohingya – why not education?”

But others were relieved. Eighteen months on from the start of the crisis, and with no resolution in sight, some local people are losing patience.

In the grassy playground of the school, its founder, 48-year-old Kamal Uddin Ahmed, said the arrival of the Rohingya had been a massive upheaval for the local area.

“How do you think I feel?” he said. “We don’t mind the Rohingya, but we mind our lives.”

Intelligence officials who visited said it was “not safe for the country, not safe for our people” to have Rohingya in schools, he said.

Rohingya have been accused by some of bringing drugs and crime to Bangladesh.

“SHORT TERM”

In a letter to local headmasters dated January, Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission Chief Abul Kalam said that an intelligence report on the situation had been filed with the prime minister’s office in November.

“It has been seen the trend of Rohingya children’s participation in getting education has been increasing,” Kalam said in the letter, seen by Reuters, adding that some Rohingya had obtained fake Bangladeshi identity documents through “dishonest public representatives”.

“It is advised to monitor strictly so that no Rohingya children can take education outside the camps or elsewhere in Bangladesh,” he said.

Asked about his order to expel Rohingya children from local schools, Kalam said they were getting an education from learning centers in the camps.

“They are not allowed to enrol in Bangladeshi schools as they are not Bangladeshi citizens,” he said.

But many children and their parents say the hundreds of learning centers operated in the camps by international NGOs and the U.N. offer mostly unstructured learning and playtime.

Bob Rae, Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar, who has also traveled to Bangladesh, said Bangladesh authorities including Sheikh Hasina “have emphasized that the refugee camp is supposed to be ‘short term’ and that to talk about schooling beyond learning centers for very young children would risk giving the impression, to Myanmar and the world, that camps were there to stay”.

SECRET STUDYING

In the camps, many children study by themselves from tattered textbooks carried from Myanmar or purchased at local markets, where stalls ply a swift trade in copies of the Myanmar curriculum smuggled across the border. Recent fighting in the region has made imports tougher, one stall owner said.

“There are many Rohingya who can’t get the Myanmar curriculum – we are doing this so we can help them,” said 20-year-old Nurul Ansur, the Bangladeshi proprietor of a print shop which specializes in copies of the textbooks, pulling a copy of ‘Grade One Primer, Basic Education’ from a filing cabinet.

A makeshift school staffed with Rohingya volunteer teachers opened in February, though the headteacher said they had no official permission to operate.

Karen Reidy, a communications officer at UNICEF, which leads education programming in the camps, said efforts were under way to adapt other countries’ curriculums into a “learning framework” for refugee children.

“There’s a risk in the camps that we will see a lost generation of children if we don’t manage to catch them with education, with skills and training at this critical point in their lives,” she said.

At Nayapara camp, the expelled students recounted stories from years of illicit study at the Bangladeshi schools. Some of their classmates were cruel, said Kefayat Ullah.

“They used the word ‘Rohingya’, ‘Burma’ to tease us,” he said. “Nevertheless, we were happy. We need education.”

One 15-year-old, Mohammed Yunus, said he had worked in a brick-field to pay for classes that his parents could not afford.

“Bangladesh wants to see us a good community,” he said. “Also the U.N. wants to see us a good community, but if they block our education, how can we be?”

Kefayat Ullah had dreamed of graduating and becoming a journalist “to help our community”. Now, he watches his Bangladeshi former classmates travel to and from class in their crisp white shirts.

“We feel sad when we see the local students studying in a nice place, quietly,” he said. “Now we are always worried and thinking – what will we do?”

(Reporting by Poppy Elena McPherson; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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

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

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

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

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

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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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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