Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

China’s factory activity picks up slightly, but Asia broadly weak

Men work on a production line manufacturing robotic arms at a factory in Huzhou, Zhejiang
Men work on a production line manufacturing robotic arms at a factory in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, China January 8, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

April 1, 2019

By Marius Zaharia

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Factory activity in China showed a slight, surprising recovery last month, in a sign that stimulus injected into Asia’s growth engine may be yielding results, but worries of a global slowdown persisted due to weakness elsewhere in the region.

Even in China, growth in new domestic and export orders was marginal. Factory activity in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan shrank further, adding to expectations of a dovish turn from central bankers in the region.

The U.S.-China tariff war and slowing Chinese demand after a campaign to reduce financial risk-taking have caused broad damage, hurting everyone from small firms in the supply chains of Chinese manufacturers to global tech behemoths such as Apple and across the map from Australia to South Korea and Japan.

Later on Monday, euro zone activity surveys were expected to show contraction due to its own trade frictions with the United States, Brexit uncertainty, and fallout from the U.S-China trade dispute.

The weak external environment is feeding back into the U.S. economy, prompting the Federal Reserve to abruptly end its policy tightening last month and causing the Treasury yield curve to briefly invert last year – a potential signal of a looming recession.

Fed’s pause has changed the game for many Asian central banks and investors are betting on a growing list of potential rate cutters.

“The PMI data … is telling us that the stimulus measures that have been put in place by the Chinese authorities since the middle of last year are finally starting to have an impact,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ.

“Now, of course, this is just one month. I’m expecting Asian central bankers to continue to be accommodative and some of them to cut interest rates. There’s no doubt that overall growth still slowed.”

China’s Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) expanded at the strongest pace in eight months in March, rising to 50.8 from 49.9 in February, above the 50-mark dividing expansion from contraction and the highest level since July 2018.

An official survey on Sunday also showed modest expansion.

Economists also cautioned there were seasonal factors in play, with activity in March traditionally picking up markedly whenever the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays fell in February, as they did this year.

If the trend is sustained, it could mark the turnaround that China’s policymakers had hoped for after some heavy fiscal and monetary stimulus, including five cuts in bank reserve requirements in the past year, although analysts say more such measures may still be in the pipeline.

BofA Merrill Lynch analysts took note of the “green shoots” from the March PMI readings, but said real activity growth could have stayed under pressure in the first quarter, especially given the tougher environment for exports.

“We believe policymakers will stick to their commitment on policy easing to stabilize growth,” the BofA Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note to clients.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said last month the government has additional monetary policy measures that it can take, and will even cut “its own flesh” to help finance large-scale tax cuts.

On the trade front, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that talks with China were going very well, but cautioned that he would not accept anything less than a “great deal” after top U.S. and Chinese trade officials wrapped up two days of negotiations in Beijing.

BROAD WEAKNESS

Activity in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines grew at a modest pace, but in economies with a larger impact on regional growth the outlook remained bleak.

South Korea’s factory activity in March contracted for a fifth straight month.

Japanese manufacturing activity contracted at a slower pace in March than the previous month, but output fell at the sharpest rate in nearly three years. Japanese business confidence worsened to a two-year low in the first quarter of this year, a central bank survey showed.

Corporate spending in Asia is likely to fall for the first time in three years, with capital expenditure at 2,137 Asian companies seen slipping an average 4 percent this year, a Reuters analysis of Refinitiv data showed.

An analysis by Oxford Economics showed nominal Asian export growth fell 3.8 percent year-on-year in January-February combined, primarily driven by a sharp fall in North Asian exports, although growth in Southeast Asia was also weak.

“So far, there are few signs that the global trade cycle has bottomed, and we see global growth still synching lower in the near term,” said Joachim Fels, global economic advisor for PIMCO, adding, however, that the Fed’s change of tack and China stimulus could lead to stabilization or even a moderate pick-up.

“These factors could enable a soft landing of sorts for the global economy – albeit with further air pockets along the flight path.”

(Reporting by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

0 0

Netanyahu’s strongest challengers form alliance in Israeli election

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks as he meets with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Warsaw
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks as he meets with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Warsaw, Poland, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel -/File Photo

February 21, 2019

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest challengers in Israel’s April general election joined forces on Thursday, a dramatic turn in a race his right-wing Likud party has been predicted to win easily.

In anticipation of the announcement of a new centrist alliance between former military chief Benny Gantz’ Resilience party and ex-finance minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid faction, Netanyahu orchestrated a merger of far-right parties on Wednesday that could help him build a governing coalition after the ballot.

The Resilience party, in a statement, said Gantz, Lapid and Moshe Yaalon, a former defense minister, “decided to establish a joint list that will comprise the new Israeli ruling party”.

Gantz and Lapid, who met overnight, agreed on a “rotation for the prime minister’s post” in which Gantz would hold office for the first two and a half years of a new government’s term before Lapid took over.

Israelis vote for party lists of candidates for seats in the 120-member parliament.

Since Israel’s creation in 1948 no one party has clinched an outright majority in the legislature and so post-election coalition-building has determined the composition of governments and who leads them.

Netanyahu, 69, has been in power for the past decade, with Likud at the helm of a parliamentary bloc.

Opinion polls have forecast a Likud victory, with some 30 parliamentary seats, in the April 9 ballot, with Resilience and Yesh Atid each trailing by a wide margin and Netanyahu on track to form a rightist coalition similar to the one he heads.

But the surveys also predicted a much tighter race and a possible upset should Gantz, 59, and Lapid, 55, team up and then form a centrist and left-wing parliamentary bloc larger than a Likud-led alliance.

In its statement, Resilience announced that another popular former armed forces chief, Gaby Ashkenazy – like Gantz a political newcomer – had agreed to join the new centrist alliance.

‘WITCH-HUNT’

Netanyahu’s political future has also been clouded by three corruption cases in which the attorney-general is expected to decide soon whether to accept police recommendations to indict him.

The prime minister is suspected of wrongfully accepting gifts from wealthy businessmen and dispensing favors in alleged bids for favorable coverage in a newspaper and a website.

Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing, saying he is a victim of a left-wing witch-hunt to topple him. His opponents are attacking his record and underlining the need for clean governance.

While Gantz and Lapid worked out their deal, Netanyahu helped negotiate the merger of two far-right parties, Jewish Home and Jewish Power, that could give followers of the late anti-Arab rabbi, Meir Kahane, a stronger voice in politics.

Leaders of Jewish Power have portrayed themselves as successors of the U.S.-born Kahane, who served one term in the Knesset in the 1980s as head of the Kach party.

Kach advocated the “transfer” of Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries and also called for a ban on intermarriage between Israeli Jews and Arabs.

Kahane’s movement was subsequently banned from Israeli politics as racist. He was assassinated in 1990 in New York by an Egyptian-born American.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: OANN

0 0

Coroner: 5 Illinois warehouse victims shot multiple times

Autopsies on the five employees killed when a gunman opened fire in February at a suburban Chicago manufacturing plant have determined that all of them were shot more than once.

The (Aurora) Beacon-News reports that the reports released on Tuesday by the Kane County Coroner's Office concluded that none of the five victims was shot at close range.

The five employees of the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora were working on Feb. 15 when fellow employee Gary Martin pulled out a gun and began firing after he was notified that he had been fired. Martin shot and wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the plant before he was killed during an exchange of gunfire with police.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Iraq veteran who abused neighbors' dogs gets 9 years in prison

A California man was sentenced to nine years in prison on Friday for physically abusing his neighbors' dogs using various methods, including acid and poison.

David C. Herbert, 37, a former Navy corpsman, was convicted last August on six counts of animal cruelty, one count of burglary and four misdemeanor counts of vandalism for harming two separate families’ dogs, one of which remains missing, Fox5 reported.

In April of 2017, police said, Maria Morales and her 4-year-old son came home to find their home vandalized and Estrella, their Siberian husky, with an eye gouged out. This forced them to move away in fear of their safety.

NAVY VETERAN ACCUSED OF POURING ACID ON DOGS, GOUGING THEIR EYES OUT

"How do you explain to a 4-year-old that a human being gets to be so cruel?” Morales reportedly said in the courtroom.

Police said Herbert’s computer showed searches for “How to get a dog to drink antifreeze.”

A new family moved in a month later, and within two days their Golden retriever, Lala, had disappeared. The dog is missing and presumed dead, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Herbert represented himself at trial and testified that Lala had jumped in his car and escaped as he was driving to an animal shelter. Police found blood in his vehicle and on his baseball bat.

Michelle Plaketta, the owner of the dog, said in court that her daughter "doesn’t have a best friend anymore," according to the newspaper.

PETITION SEEKS TO SAVE DOGS' LIVES AFTER UTAH BOY LOSES HAND

Judge Carlos Armour has heard 40 years’ worth of murder cases and called this one "particularly shocking."

Herbert's lawyer said his client has "major depressive disorder," according to court records.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Teen, 3 friends charged in beating, stabbing death of grandfather, 71, for $30G kept in safe, police say

Two teenage girls and two adult men are facing homicide and other charges in connection with the brutal beating and stabbing death of the 71-year-old grandfather of one of the girls, authorities said.

The girls, ages 16 and 17, and the men, ages 19 and 20, committed the crime so they could take $30,000 in cash that the elderly man kept in a safe in the basement of his Edwardsville, Pa., home, authorities said.

NORTH CAROLINA MAN STABBED WOMAN AT TACO BELL AFTER SHE TURNED DOWN DATE, COPS SAY

The girls and the 19-year-old man were arrested early Thursday at a hotel near Wilkes-Barre, while the 20-year-old was still at large, PennLive.com reported.

The grandfather was killed Monday but his body wasn’t found until Wednesday after other family members started searching for him, Scranton's WNEP-TV reported.

The body was found under a large dresser on the second floor of the home. Police said he had been beaten with a golf club and stabbed in the neck.

The names of the teens are being withheld by Fox News because of their ages. The men were identified as Christopher Brian Cortez, 19, and Devin Malik Cunningham, 20, both of Wilkes-Barre.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

After the elderly man was killed, the four suspects took showers in the home to wash off blood, the Citizens’ Voice reported.

“Over money. Your own family. It’s just a disgrace,” neighbor Ronald Briggs told WNEP.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Russian exec who founded TV channel that once bashed Putin is found dead in Spain, reports say

The media executive who co-founded an independent Russian TV channel once known for blasting President Vladimir Putin was found dead in Spain on Monday, reports say.

It was not immediately clear where 64-year-old Igor Malashenko’s body was discovered, but Russia media reported that he may have committed suicide, according to The Moscow Times.

Malashenko co-founded and served as the president of NTV, a channel that routinely criticized current Russian President Vladimir Putin during his first term in office, Reuters reports. It changed its tune after the Russian government purchased it in 2000.

Malashenko got into politics by joining Boris Yeltsin’s campaign team to help steer him to a presidential victory in 1996, The Moscow Times added.

THOUSANDS MARCH IN MEMORY OF SLAIN RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER NEMTSOV

Malashenko most recently served as the campaign manager for presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak last year. Sobchak, though, received only 1,238,031 votes compared to current Putin’s 56,430,712.

“Igor Malashenko has killed himself. I can’t pull myself together,” Sobchak said Monday on a messaging app, The Moscow Times reported, citing the Vedomosti business daily newspaper. “I’m grateful to him for our joint work on the presidential campaign. I saw him as a very proper and creative person. I’m proud he headed my campaign.”

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Man charged with shooting officer at South Carolina hospital

A shooting inside a South Carolina hospital on Thursday left both a police officer and the suspected gunman wounded, authorities said, in what was the second shooting inside a hospital in the state in two days.

The Thursday shooting happened around 2 a.m., when 27-year-old Kevin Boyce Patterson was spotted with a gun, visiting the emergency room at the Laurens County Memorial Hospital in Clinton, authorities said.

An arrest warrant issued Thursday night said Patterson dragged his father at gunpoint across the waiting room. When a Greenville Health Authority Police Department officer and a state trooper started to ask the man questions, he shot the police officer and tried to run, said Sarah Moore, a spokeswoman for Prisma Health, which runs the hospital.

The officer fired back, hitting Boyce in the arm, investigators said.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division charged Boyce with attempted murder, kidnapping and pointing and presenting a firearm. He was booked in the Laurens County jail. Records did not indicate whether he had a lawyer who could comment.

Moore said the police officer was treated and released. The officer's name was not released as of Thursday.

The shooting in Laurens County happened a day after a nurse was shot in a hospital emergency room in Orangeburg. According to a police report, 23-year-old Abrian Dayquan Sabb came to the Regional Medical Center with a long gun and shot the nurse in the abdomen Wednesday morning.

A hospital security guard had Sabb in custody by the time the first Orangeburg County deputies arrived three minutes later, a police report said. Sabb had come to the center just a day before, along with family members who were trying to get him mental health treatment.

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said Wednesday that the family was told to come back because there weren't enough treatment beds.

Before the hospital shooting, deputies said they encountered Sabb after his girlfriend called 911 to report that he had fired a gun while she tried to take it from him. The officers gave the gun to Sabb's father, according to the police report.

The gun used in the hospital shooting Wednesday appeared to have been stolen from a nearby home just minutes earlier, deputies said.

Sabb, 23, is charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of violent crime. Police and court records did not list an attorney for him.

Sabb was ordered to remain in jail at a court hearing Thursday. One of the nurse's family members said at the hearing that the nurse was in critical condition. The family member did not identify herself.

Source: Fox News National

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain's far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.

No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.

Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.

By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.

Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.

The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.

The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.

Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.

It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.

While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.

TRENDING

According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.

Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.

Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.

Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.

“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said

For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.

“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.

For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.

The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.

The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.

That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.

(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)

(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the OPEC is seen at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

April 26, 2019

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and told the cartel to lower oil prices.

“Gasoline prices are coming down. I called up OPEC, I said you’ve got to bring them down. You’ve got to bring them down,” Trump told reporters.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy near Lyon
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy in Meyzieu near Lyon, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot

April 26, 2019

By Julien Pretot

MEYZIEU, France (Reuters) – Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas was wringing out his women’s team shirts in the locker room on a rainy London day eight years ago when he decided it was time to take gender equality more seriously.

It was halftime in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Arsenal at Meadow Park with 507 fans watching and Aulas realized that his players did not have a another kit for the second half.

“Next time, there will be a second set just like for the men, that’s how it’s going to work from now on,” he said.

Lyon have since won five Champions League titles to become the most successful women’s team in Europe and recently claimed a 13th consecutive domestic crown.

They visit Chelsea on Sunday in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, with a fourth straight title in their sights.

At the heart of their achievements is a pervasive ethos that promotes gender equality throughout the club, starting in the youth academy.

In 2013, Aulas appointed former Lyon and France player Sonia Bompastor as head of the Women’s Academy — the female equivalent of one of France’s top youth set-ups that has produced players such as Karim Benzema, Alexandre Lacazette and Hatem Ben Arfa.

At the Youth Academy, girls and boys share the same facilities.

“Pitches, physiotherapy rooms are the same for all,” the 38-year-old Bompastor told Reuters.

As the girls train under the watch of former Lyon and France international Camille Abily, the screams of the boys practicing can be heard nearby.

The boys and girls also benefit from the same psychological support that includes hypnosis sessions and yoga.

“We have a ‘mental ability’ cell and the hypnotist acts on the girls’ subconscious, on their deeply held beliefs after observing them on and off the pitch,” Bompastor added.

SAME TREATMENT

One message the Academy staff are trying to convey is that girls are as good as boys.

“Women’s nature is such that we have low self-esteem. So self-esteem is a big topic for our girls,” said Bompastor.

This is not the case with the boys, she added.

“Some 14, 15-year-old boys still think they would beat our professional players, we tell them this would not be happening. We still need to work on those beliefs,” she said.

Female players also have to face questions that their male counterparts do not, Bompastor explained.

“In France there is a problem with the way women are considered, there are high aesthetic expectations. So we get heavy questions on femininity, intimate questions that men don’t get,” she said.

OL’s Academy has been held up as a shining example for others to follow, even in the U.S., where women’s soccer has a wider audience than in Europe.

“About one third of the (senior women’s) squad comes from the Academy, we have a good balance,” said Bompastor.

“I’m getting tons of requests from American universities and foreign clubs, who want to come and visit our facilities.”

‘ONE CLUB’

The salaries of the senior players is one area where there remains a large discrepancy between Lyon’s men’s and women’s teams.

While the three best-paid women players in the world are at Lyon with Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg earning 400,000 euros ($445,520) a year, this figure is dwarfed by the around 4 million euros earned annually by men’s player Memphis Depay.

There is, however, a level of interaction between the men’s and women’s players that is not present at many other clubs.

“When you talk about OL you talk about women and men, you talk about one club and you feel it when you are here or outside in the city,” Germany defender Carolin Simon told Reuters.

“We see it when we play in the big stadium. It’s not ‘normal’ for women’s football,” the 26-year-old, who joined the club last year, added.

Lyon’s female players also enjoy respect from their male counterparts, Simon said.

“It’s very cool, it’s a big honor to feel that it doesn’t matter if you are a professional man or woman. We talk with the men, there are handshakes, it’s a good atmosphere and it’s also why we are successful,” said Simon.

“The men respect us and it’s not just for the cameras.”

Her team mate, England’s Lucy Bronze, sees the men’s respect as key to improving women’s football.

“We might not be paid the same but they are just normal with us, they see us as footballers the same as they are,” Bronze told Reuters.

“Being at Lyon has really opened my eyes. To improve women’s football, it starts with having the respect of your male counterparts. It’s the biggest thing because they can influence so many people.”

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo

April 26, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemeni authorities have rounded up about 3,000 irregular migrants, predominantly Ethiopians, in the south of the country, “creating an acute humanitarian situation,” the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.

“IOM is deeply concerned about the conditions in which the migrants are being held and is engaging with the authorities to ensure access to the detained migrants,” the International Organization for Migration said.

The migrants are held in open-air football stadiums and in a military camp, it said in a statement.

The detentions began on Sunday in the city of Aden and the neighboring province of Lahj, which are under the control of the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran-aligned Houthi rebels control Sanaa, the capital, and other major urban centers.

Both sides are under international diplomatic pressure to implement a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire deal agreed last year in Sweden and to prepare for a wider political dialogue that would end the four-year-old war.

Thousands of migrants arrive in Yemen every year, mostly from the Horn of Africa, driven by drought and unemployment at home and lured by the wages available in the Gulf.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. Picture taken November 7. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.

1/DOLLAR JUGGERNAUT

The dollar has zipped to near two-year highs, leaving many scratching their heads. To many, it’s down to signs the U.S. economy is chugging ahead while the rest of the world loses steam. After all, Wall Street is busily scaling new peaks day after day.

Never mind the cause, the effect is stark. The euro has tumbled to 22-month lows against the dollar and investors are preparing for more, buying options to shield against further downside. Emerging-market currencies are also in pain, with Turkish lira and Argentine peso both sharply weaker.

Now U.S. data need to keep surprising on the upside or even just meet expectations. The International Monetary Fund sees U.S. growth at 2.3 percent this year. For Germany, the forecast is 0.8 percent. The U.S. economy’s rude health has given rise to speculation the Fed might resume raising interest rates. Unlikely. But as other countries — Canada, Sweden and Australia are the latest — hint at more policy easing, there seems to be one way the dollar can go. Up.

(GRAPHIC: Dollar outperforms G10 FX – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dz17S5)

2/FED: UP OR DOWN?

Wall Street is near record highs and recession worries are receding, so as we mentioned above, investors might wonder if the Federal Reserve will start raising rates again.

Such a pivot is unlikely after the Fed killed off rate-rise expectations at its March meeting. And the latest Reuters poll all but puts to bed any risk of rates will go up this economic cycle, given inflation remains below the Fed’s alarm threshold and unemployment is the lowest in generations.

Before the March rate-pause announcement, a preponderance of economists penciled in one or more increases this year. But that has flipped. A majority of those surveyed April 22-24 see no further tightening through December and more are leaning toward a cut by the end of next year.

Indeed, interest rate futures imply Fed Funds will be below the current 2.25-2.50 percent target range by this December.

Recent positive consumer spending and exports data have eased market concerns of a sharp economic slowdown. But inflation probably needs to run hot for a long period to panic policymakers off their wait-and-see course.     

(GRAPHIC: Federal funds and the economy – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DzjTZz)

3/HEISEI TO REIWA

Next week ends three decades of Japan’s Heisei era. Heisei, or Achieving Peace, began in 1989 near the peak of a massive stock market bubble and closes with the country trapped in low growth, no inflation, and negative interest rates.

The new era that dawns on May 1 is called Reiwa, meaning Beautiful Harmony. It begins when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne. But do investors really want harmony? What they want to see is a bit of economic growth and inflation to shake up the status quo.

The Bank of Japan’s stimulus toolkit to revive a long-suffering economy is anything but harmonious and yet it’s set to stay. The central bank confirmed recently rates will stay near zero for a long time. But the coming days may not be harmonious or peaceful for currency markets. A 10-day Golden Week holiday kicks off on April 29 and investors are fretting over the risk of a “flash crash” – a violent currency spasm that can occur in times of thin trading turnover.

The year has already seen two yen spikes and many, including Japan’s housewife-trader brigade – so-called Mrs Watanabes – appear to have bought yen as the holiday approaches. Their short dollar/long yen positions recently reached record highs, stock exchange data showed.

(GRAPHIC: Japan stocks: from Hensei to Reiwa – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W6a7Fe)

4/EARNING TURNING

Quarterly earnings were supposed to be the worst in Europe in almost three years, but with a third of results in, things are looking a little rosier.

Two-thirds of companies’ results have beat expectations, and they point to earnings growth of 4.5 percent year-on-year. Financials have delivered the biggest surprises, according to analysis by Barclays.

That might just show how low expectations were. In fact, analysts are still taking a red pen to their estimates.

The latest I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv shows analysts on average expect first-quarter earnings-per-share for STOXX 600-listed companies to fall 4.2 percent. That would be their worst quarter since 2016 and down sharply from an estimated 3.4 percent just a week earlier.

Those estimates may end up being a little too bearish as earnings season goes on, quelling worries that Europe is heading toward a corporate recession.

GSK and Reckitt Benckiser will give the market a glimpse of the health of the consumer products market and spending on everything from toothpaste, washing powder and paracetamol.

(GRAPHIC: Earnings forecasts – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DuO2ZF)

5/WAITING FOR THE OLD LADY

Sterling has gone into the doldrums amid the Brexit delay and unproductive talks between the UK government and the opposition Labour party on a EU withdrawal deal. The resurgent dollar, meanwhile, has taken 2 percent off the pound in April. It is unlikely the Bank of England will be able to rouse it at its May 2 meeting.

Despite robust retail and jobs data of late, the economic picture is gloomy – 2019 growth is likely to be around 1.2 percent, the weakest since 2009, investment is down and Governor Mark Carney says business uncertainty is “through the roof”.

Indeed, expectations for an interest rate increase have been whittled down; Reuters polls forecast rates will not move until early 2020, a calendar quarter later than was forecast a month ago. The hunt for a new governor to replace Carney in October adds more uncertainty to the mix.

The recent run of UK data has fueled hopes of economic rebound. That’s put net hedge fund positions in the pound into positive territory for the first time in nearly a year. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might temper some of that optimism.

(GRAPHIC: Sterling positions – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XJwUXX)

(Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Karin Strohecker, Josephine Mason and Saikat Chatterjee in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; edited by Larry King)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist