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U.S. remains concerned about India-Pakistan tensions: officials

FILE PHOTO: India's Border Security Force soldiers patrol along the fenced border with Pakistan in Ranbir Singh Pura sector
FILE PHOTO: India's Border Security Force soldiers patrol along the fenced border with Pakistan in the Ranbir Singh Pura sector near Jammu February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta/File Photo

March 20, 2019

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States remains concerned about India-Pakistan tensions as the two nuclear-armed countries’ militaries remain on alert despite some de-escalation in the region, a senior U.S. administration official said on Wednesday.

“We do still see the militaries on alert and so we realize if there, God forbid, would be another terrorist attack, then you could quickly see escalation in the situation once again,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, which both claim, make the area one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.

The simmering dispute erupted into conflict late last month when Indian and Pakistani warplanes engaged in a dogfight over Kashmir on Feb. 27, a day after a raid by Indian jet fighters on what it said was a militant camp in Pakistan. Islamabad denied any militant camp exists in the area, and said the Indian bombs exploded on an empty hillside.

In their first such clash since the last war between the two nations in 1971, Pakistan downed an Indian plane and captured its pilot after he ejected in the Pakistan-controlled section of Kashmir.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; writing by Doina Chiacu; editing by David Alexander and Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Gymnastics: Whitlock rues no perfect 10, mulls scoring changes

2018 European Championships - Glasgow
2018 European Championships - Artistic Gymnastics, Men's Pommel Horse, Final - Glasgow, Britain - August 12, 2018 - Max Whitlock of Great Britain in action. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

March 23, 2019

By Martyn Herman

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s double Olympics gold-medal winning gymnast Max Whitlock believes the sport’s “confusing” scoring system could switch fans off and says new innovations should be considered.

Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10 on the uneven bars at the 1976 Montreal Olympics is one of sport’s iconic moments, but these days medals are decided by D-scores (difficulty) and E-scores (execution) that run to three decimal places.

Recent dad Whitlock was taking a break from his usual routine this weekend at the Superstars of Gymnastics event at London’s O2 Arena where, along with American superstar Simone Biles, he was thrilling crowds with an exhibition.

He and Biles were also acting as X-factor-type judges, running the rule over routines performed by an international field of gymnasts, before awarding an old school mark out of 10.

Gymnasts, including Olympic horizontal bars champion Fabian Hambuchen, could use a “golden buzzer” option to maximize their scores on their favorite apparatus while they were free to experiment with new moves and routines.

Although it was not an official event, Whitlock, who with wife Leah celebrated the birth of daughter Willow this year, said it was a chance for gymnastics to engage with a wider audience and for the sport to try out new gimmicks.

“I think it’s very important that the sport can evolve,” the 26-year-old Whitlock, who became Britain’s first Olympic gold medalist in artistic gymnastics by winning floor and pommel in Rio, told Reuters.

“Gymnastics is very confusing and no one really knows what a 15.355 really means. It’s hard to keep up with. That takes away from the atmosphere and means the audience doesn’t really get involved in the competition.”

Whitlock got 15.633 from the judges in Rio for his floor routine and while it was a magical moment he regrets that the perfect 10 is not possible these days.

“Events like the Superstars of Gymnastics are so simple with the scoring out of 10,” he said. “It would have been great to get a perfect 10 in my career. It would be hard to go back to that system now, but there are ways it could be simplified.

“You look at football, swimming, athletics and it’s so clear who the winner is and I think gymnastics needs that a bit more.

“Everyone needs to brainstorm, get their heads together and think of ways we can simplify the sport and push it to the next level because I truly believe gymnastics has huge potential to grow.”

With Tokyo looming, Whitlock is working to stay ahead of the field.

“Last two years I’ve been adding in new skills on floor and pommel because ever since Rio I said I didn’t want to come back with the same routines,” he said. “I’m constantly upping my start score.

“I get a huge buzz from that. It keeps me on my toes and makes me work harder and motivated to stay at the level.”

(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)

Source: OANN

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Trump, Pompeo brush aside Kim’s deadline for nuclear talks flexibility

FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump talk in the garden of the Metropole hotel during the second North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi
FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump talk in the garden of the Metropole hotel during the second North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, Vietnam February 28, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday brushed aside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s demand for Washington to show more flexibility in nuclear talks by year-end, with Pompeo saying Kim should keep his promise to give up his nuclear weapons before then.

Asked about Kim’s statement last week that he was only interested in meeting Trump again if the United States came with the right attitude, Pompeo told reporters that the president was “determined to move forward diplomatically.”

But Pompeo said Kim had made a commitment to denuclearize and “we collectively need to see that outcome move forward.”

“Our teams are working with the North Koreans … to chart a path forward so that we can get there. He said he wanted it done by the end of the year. I’d love to see that done sooner.”

Trump and Kim have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore in June, seeming to build personal goodwill but failing to agree on a deal to lift sanctions in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear and missile programs.

The Hanoi talks collapsed after Trump proposed a “big deal” in which sanctions would be lifted if North Korea handed over all its nuclear weapons to the United States. He rejected partial denuclearization steps offered by Kim.

Breaking his silence on the summit in a speech to North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly on Friday, Kim said it was “essential for the U.S. to quit its current calculation method and approach us with a new one.”

He said the outcome in Hanoi led him to question the strategy he embraced last year of international engagement and talks with the United States.

Kim said his personal relationship with Trump was still good, but that he had no interest in a third summit if it were a repeat of Hanoi.

He said North Korea would “wait for a bold decision from the U.S. with patience till the end of this year,” raising the potential for the unresolved North Korea nuclear issue to become a liability for Trump during his 2020 re-election bid.

TRUMP: NORTH KOREA ISSUE ‘MOVING ALONG’

In a speech on Monday in Burnsville, Minnesota, Trump nevertheless maintained an upbeat tone on North Korea, saying the issue was “moving along” with Pyongyang sticking to a freeze in nuclear and missile testing in place since 2017.

He again stressed his “very good relationship” with Kim “who just said the other day he looks forward to more talks.”

“Talk is OK. Talk is OK,” Trump said adding that he did not want the process to move fast. “It doesn’t have to move fast. Right now it’s moving along just perfectly. And we have a good relationship, the sanctions are on … there’s a lot of constructive things going on.”

On Saturday, Trump said a third summit with Kim “would be good in that we fully understand where we each stand.”

Despite Trump’s and Pompeo’s remarks, U.S. officials have acknowledged that the two sides have failed to agree on a definition of denuclearization. And in a year of talks, Pyongyang has given no public indication of willingness to abandon its weapons program unilaterally as Washington has demanded.

At a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Washington last Thursday, Trump expressed a willingness for a third summit with Kim but said Washington would leave sanctions in place.

On Friday, Kim accused Washington of escalating hostility “despite its suggestion for settling the issue through dialogue” and called the U.S. policy of sanctions and pressure “as foolish and dangerous an act as trying to put out fire with oil.”

Last month, a senior North Korean official warned that Kim might rethink the test freeze unless Washington makes concessions such as easing sanctions.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick, David Alexander and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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Kim’s top aides on economic tour as North Korea looks to Vietnam model

The motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes bystanders on a road near the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi
The motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes bystanders on a road near the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung Hoon

February 27, 2019

By Hyonhee Shin

HANOI (Reuters) – North Korean officials visited some high-tech factories and a tourist site in Vietnam on Wednesday, as their leader, Kim Jong Un, looks to shore up his sanctions-hit economy by copying the successes of another old U.S. foe.

President Donald Trump noted how Vietnam was thriving soon after he arrived late on Tuesday for his second summit with Kim, in Hanoi, a city the United States bombed during the Vietnam War.

As Trump tries to cajole Kim into taking steps towards full and verified denuclearization of North Korea, he has been highlighting its economic potential and the example Vietnam offers.

When Kim visited Singapore in June, for his first summit with Trump, he was impressed with its development and said he was eager to learn from its experiences.

Now he’s keen to learn from Vietnam.

A group of Kim’s foreign policy and economic aides, who accompanied him to Vietnam, traveled out of Hanoi on Wednesday to the industrial port town of Haiphong and the nearby UNESCO-listed Ha Long Bay.

Kim, scheduled to begin talks with Trump in the evening, did not join the trip.

In Haiphong, the delegation toured the automaker Vinfast, smartphone firm VinSmart and VinEco, an agriculture and food supplier, all of the which are units of Vietnam’s largest conglomerate, Vingroup.

But the trip was not all work. Some members of the delegation snapped selfies on a boat ride on Ha Long Bay, one of Vietnam’s top tourist sites, South Korean broadcaster KBS reported.

Communist-ruled Vietnam has boomed since it launched reforms known as “doi moi” in the late 1980s.

“Vietnam’s ‘doi moi’ is an ideal model for North Korea, which wants to retain the one-party system while pursuing bold economic reforms to engineer growth,” said Cho Bong-hyun, a specialist in the North Korean economy at IBK Bank in Seoul.

Cho said Vietnam’s size, population, the state of its agriculture and its need for foreign capital made it a better model for North Korea to copy than China.

The North Korean team was led by Ri Su Yong, a former vice foreign minister and now vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party, and included for the first time top economic policymaker O Su Yong.

The inclusion of O, a former minister of electronics and vice minister of metals and machine building, in the delegation signals Kim’s hope to take a page from Vietnam’s book.

‘BETTER FIT’

Kim shifted his focus to the economy at a party congress last April, abandoning the parallel pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development he had expounded since taking power in 2011.

While Vietnam’s model of reform is widely touted as the economic path for North Korea, Vietnam’s transformation has required political change and levels of individual freedoms that would require major reforms for the Kim family, which is afforded godlike status by state propaganda.

The delegation’s choice of the three factories and the tourist hot spot reflected Kim’s calls for “cutting-edge technologies” and a self-reliant economy.

Vinfast is Vietnam’s first fully fledged carmaker, while VinSmart rolled out its first locally made smartphone, Vsmart, last year.

Despite Vietnam’s new focus on high-tech industry, agriculture remains a major source of exports and driver of growth. VinEco promotes sustainable farming.

Ha Long Bay, dotted with steep-sided islands, attracted more than 12 million tourists last year, numbers Kim can only dream of.

North Korea is building tourist complexes in the east coast city of Wonsan and in the alpine town of Samjiyon near its famous Mount Paektu.

Kim’s late grandfather, Kim Il Sung, visited Ha Long Bay in 1964. On Wednesday, Vietnamese officials gave the visiting delegation pictures from that trip as a gift for Kim Jong Un, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper hailed Vietnam’s “big potential” and efforts to “diversify industrial structure” from the agriculture-dependent economy.

Yang Un-chul of the Sejong Institute in South Korea said if the North is ever going to fulfil its ambition to be an advanced socialist economy, it has to learn from business like the ones the delegation visited in Vietnam.

“North Korea would want to make better use of its good labor and nurture more sophisticated industries, and those sites have something to offer,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee, Jeongmin Kim and Wonil Lee in SEOUL; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: OANN

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Texas robber duct-tapes store clerk, sets bound customer on fire: police

Authorities in Texas on Thursday said they arrested the suspect wanted for a violent robbery earlier that included duct-taping a convenience store clerk and customer and then pouring lighter fluid on the customer and setting the bound person on fire.

The suspect, identified by police as 40-year-old Robert Thompson, was arrested on a warrant for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault, KTRE reported.

The victim was transported to a hospital in Dallas for treatment, the report said. Her condition was not known. The incident, which took place at JJ's Fast Stop in Palestine, Texas, was captured on surveillance footage.

“The suspect … decided to pour lighter fluid on the cashier and the customer. Right before he left, he lit a match and lit them on fire," a police official said.

Source: Fox News National

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11 Retailers Who Have Filed for Bankruptcy This Year

The year is not half over but a slew of major retailers have already filed for bankruptcy, with hundreds of stores poised to shutter in the coming weeks, leaving thousands of employees without jobs, Business Insider reported.

The pace for closures continues from 2018, which saw dozens of retailers, including major department stores chains, brands, and manufacturers, file for bankruptcy protection, CNBC noted.

It is likely many more will still file this year, but here is a look at the 11 retail companies that have filled for bankruptcy this year, per Business Insider:

  1. Beauty Brands – The Midwest retail chain selling makeup, hair, and skincare products, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four days into the new year.
  2. Innovative Mattress Solutions – Following in the footsteps of Beauty Brands, Kentucky-based mattress company, Innovative Mattress Solutions, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Jan.14.
  3. Shopko – The Wisconsin-based retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Jan. 16 and in March it was reported Shopko failed to find a buyer and would shut all 363 of its stores.
  4. Gymboree – After filing for bankruptcy Jan. 17, it emerged the clothing company will be closing all 800 of its stores.
  5. FullBeauty Brands – The clothing retailer exited bankruptcy within 24 hours after filing Feb 4.
  6. Charlotte Russe – The women's clothing brand revealed it would be closing all its stores after filing for bankruptcy Feb. 4.
  7. Things Remembered – The 53-year-old specialty chain, which focused on creating personalized engravings and merchandise, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Feb. 6.
  8. Payless ShoeSource – The shoe store will close all its locations except its franchise stores after filing for bankruptcy Feb. 18.
  9. Diesel – The iconic denim and accessory brand shocked the public when it filed for bankruptcy March 5.
  10. Z Gallerie – The home furnishing retailer announced it would be closing 17 stores after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy March 11.
  11. Roberto Cavalli – The Italian fashion company has closed its U.S. shops after filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Source: NewsMax America

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France expresses regret over expulsion of AFP’s Algeria bureau chief

Exterior view shows the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency headquarters in Paris
Exterior view shows the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency headquarters in Paris, France, August 6, 2018. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

April 10, 2019

PARIS (Reuters) – The French foreign ministry said on Wednesday it regretted a decision by Algerian authorities to expel Agence France-Presse’s bureau chief in the country.

“We regret this decision and we would like to once again highlight the importance we attach toward the freedom of the press and the protection of journalists throughout the world,” a spokesperson for the ministry said in an electronic briefing.

Aymeric Vincenot, who had been AFP’s Algiers bureau chief since June 2017, had a visa extension request turned down by Algerian officials and returned to Paris on Tuesday, an editor at the agency told Reuters.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Luke Baker)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang North Korea
FILE PHOTO – Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea’s top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey)

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Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

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FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

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Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.

The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.

The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.

One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.

In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.

There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.

A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.

“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.

“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.

Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.

However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.

“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.

In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.

Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)

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