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APNewsBreak: Ex-governor pardoned late mentor's grandson

Documents obtained by The Associated Press show former Maine Gov. Paul LePage pardoned his late mentor's grandson and people convicted of everything from drug trafficking to embezzlement.

The state released the list of 112 people who were pardoned in response to a request by the AP made under the state's Freedom of Access Act. The state had previously confirmed only one name.

Past Maine governors routinely released the names of individuals pardoned in high-profile cases. But the secretary of state's office this year said a 2017 change in state law prevented the release of pardons made by LePage, a Republican.

The state has since reversed course. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a March 15 executive order allowing for pardons to be made public.

A message was left seeking comment from representatives for LePage, who left office in January.

Source: Fox News National

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Ex South Sudan rebel leader says believes unity government won’t be ready by May 12

South Sudan's ex-vice president and former rebel leader Riek Machar is pictured during an interview with Reuters in Rome
South Sudan's ex-vice president and former rebel leader Riek Machar is pictured during an interview with Reuters in Rome, Italy, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Yara Nardi.

April 12, 2019

ROME (Reuters) – Former South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar said on Friday he does not believe it will be possible for the country’s divided leaders to meet a May 12 deadline to form a national unity government.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Machar, who is slated to be first vice-president in the unity government, also said he is confident that the new military leadership in Khartoum will continue to guarantee the fragile South Sudan peace deal.

He said a six-month extension of the deadline was needed in order to unify defense forces and deploy them, demilitarize the capital Juba and other population centers, agree on the devolution of power and the release of political prisoners.

Machar said he discussed the extension with President Salva Kiir during a retreat at the Vatican that ended on Thursday with an appeal by Pope Francis to the leaders to respect an armistice and resolve their differences.

Sudan, which is predominantly Muslim, and the mainly Christian south fought for decades before South Sudan became independent in 2011. South Sudan plunged into civil war two years later after Kiir, a Dinka, fired Machar, from the Nuer ethnic group, from the vice presidency.

About 400,000 people died and more than a third of the country’s 12 million people were uprooted, sparking Africa’s worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; editing by Gavin Jones)

Source: OANN

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Departures from Rome’s Ciampino airport blocked by tiny fire

Passengers who were evacuated due to a fire at Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy, February 19, 2019 gather outside the teminal building
Passengers who were evacuated due to a fire at Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy, February 19, 2019 gather outside the teminal building. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

February 19, 2019

ROME (Reuters) – Departures from Rome’s Ciampino airport, which is used by budget airlines Ryanair and Wizz Air, were blocked for much of Tuesday after a small fire broke out in the terminal basement, airport authorities said.

Aeroporti di Roma (ADR), which manages the site, said the early morning fire was put out “in less than a minute” and photographs from the scene suggested that only some cardboard had been burnt, with no significant damage reported.

While the arrivals hall was swiftly reopened, the departures area remained sealed off hours after the event, causing an unspecified number of flights to be canceled.

A source at ADR, who declined to be named, said that the smell of smoke was lingering in the building and that the local health authority had not yet ruled that the air was safe.

Passengers were evacuated to a nearby carpark, with many left there for hours awaiting news of their trips. Some flights were diverted to Rome’s main airport Fiumicino.

ADR said they believed the fire had been started deliberately, adding that they had filed a complaint with local magistrates.

(Reporting by Stefano Bernabei; editing by John Stonestreet and Crispian Balmer)

Source: OANN

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Meadows, Jordan probe House Dems' alleged leak of Kushner, Ivanka Trump security clearance docs

The top Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are demanding to know why the panel's Democratic leadership allegedly leaked key documents concerning Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's security clearances to the media, without bothering to keep Republicans on the committee in the loop and while continuing to press the White House to provide the same documents.

In a letter sent Monday to House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking members Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan raised the alarm over a Mar. 8, 2019 article in Axios, in which reporter Alexi McCammond wrote that a "senior Democratic aide involved in handling the documents" told the outlet that "the House Oversight Committee has obtained documents related to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's security clearances that the Trump administration refused to provide."

McCammond went on to write that Axios had "obtained" one of those documents, which "provides some details about why Kushner's security clearance was changed to 'interim' in September 2017. One document quoted by Axios read: "Per conversation with WH counsel the clearance was changed to interim Top Secret until we can confirm that the DOJ or someone else actually granted a final clearance. This action was taken out of an abundance of caution because the background investigation has not been completed."

Another document, dated Feb. 23, 2018, read simply: "Clearance downgraded to Interim Secret per COS direction" — then-chief of staff John Kelly, according to Axios.

KUSHNER TEAM RESPONDS TO SECURITY CLEARANCE ALLEGATIONS 

The article raised several questions for Jordan, R-Ohio, and Meadows, R-N.C., especially given the oversight panel's repeated requests to the White House, from January through February, for documents pertaining to the security clearance process. Earlier this month, White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote a letter to Cummings rejecting the committee's request for documents as "extraordinarily intrusive," while asserting that Cummings has rejected reasonable compromises.

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump make their way to board Marine One before departing from South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on October 30, 2018. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump make their way to board Marine One before departing from South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on October 30, 2018. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

"We first learned about these documents from Axios’s reporting," Meadows and Jordan wrote to Cummings. "However, according to the article, the Committee had been in possession of the documents since early February. The article quoted a 'senior Democratic aide' as characterizing the documents as 'part of the puzzle that we would be asking for.' Axios reported that it had even obtained access to at least one of these documents."

The Republicans continued: "Axios’s reporting, if accurate, is concerning for two reasons. First, if you already possessed in early February the documents that you 'would be asking for' from the White House, there would be no legitimate oversight basis to renew your request that the White House produce these documents to the Committee on February 11, 2019.

"Second, and most troubling, the Axios article—if accurate—suggests a departure from the Committee’s historical practice of sharing documents that will be made publicly available," the GOP representatives added. "The Axios article suggests the reporter 'obtained' a document from a larger group of documents provided to the Committee. If accurate, the story seems to suggest that you made these documents available to the press. We have yet to receive this same courtesy."

"These actions are not indicative of the objective, fact-based oversight you promised."

— GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows

By not sharing documents with Republicans on the committee, Meadows and Jordan wrote, Cummings had deprived the panel's GOP minority of the "opportunity to participate in and be aware of the Committee’s work."

"Without access to these documents, we cannot determine whether the information in the Axios story is cherry-picked, inaccurate, or out of context," they wrote. "In addition, the disclosure of documents to the press so early in an investigation undercuts the sincerity of the Committee’s investigation. By providing documents to the media before the Committee issues any reports or holds any hearings, one may conclude that the Committee is seeking documents for future public disclosure to harass and embarrass the President and his senior advisors."

Meadows and Jordan charged that "this conduct seems to be part of a larger trend," noting that "as the star witness of your first big hearing, you invited Michael Cohen, a convicted liar who then lied to the Committee several times under oath."

They concluded with a demand for the documents, and an admonition: "These actions are not indicative of the objective, fact-based oversight you promised."

Late last month, a spokesman for Kushner's attorney told Fox News that President Trump's son-in-law received a top-secret security clearance through "the regular process with no pressure from anyone," after The New York Times reported that Trump "ordered" then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to grant the clearance against the advice of then-White House Counsel Don McGhan.

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Fox News reported in May 2018 that Kushner had obtained a full security clearance. He had been working at the White House with an interim security clearance for the better part of a year, through late February 2018. That month, Kushner's interim clearance was downgraded from "interim top secret" to "interim secret" after Kelly set a Feb. 23, 2018, deadline for halting access to top-secret information for those whose applications have been pending since June 1, 2017, or earlier.

The Times report, which cited "four people briefed on the matter," said that Trump told Kelly to grant Kushner a top-secret clearance the day after the White House Counsel's Office recommended that he not be given one. The report claimed that Kelly was so disturbed by Trump's command that he wrote an internal memo stating that he had been "ordered" to give Kushner the clearance.

Fox News' Brooke Singman and Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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4 Stabbings In 14 hours: London Police Search For Serial Attacker

UK police are searching for a man who stabbed four victims in a series of attacks over 14 hours in Edmonton, North London. At least two are in critical condition, with officers calling on the public to stay vigilant.

The four victims were stabbed by an attacker who approached them from behind. Each was on their own at the time and “are all from different backgrounds and appear to have been selected at random due to them being alone and vulnerable,”DCI Stuart Smillie from North Area Command said.

“Police are treating the four stabbing related incidents as potentially linked,” Smillie added. “There is nothing to suggest this incident is terror-related.”

One woman was stabbed in the back on Aberdeen Road at about 7pm on Saturday and is in critical condition in hospital. A man was attacked just after 12am and is also in hospital, while a third victim was stabbed just before 4am near the Seven Sisters tube station and is in critical condition. The most recent victim was stabbed at 9:40am Sunday in Brettenham Road and has potentially life-changing injuries.

“We are working on the hypothesis that the single male suspect is acting alone and mental health issues may be a factor,”police said.

The suspect has been described as black, about 6ft 3ins, with a skinny build and wearing dark clothing. People living in the area have been advised to be vigilant and call the police if they see anyone acting suspiciously who matches the description.

A man was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm before 11am in Fore Street, Edmonton and police are working to find out if this is the suspected attacker.

Source: InfoWars

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Exclusive: EU draws up list of 20 billion euros of U.S. imports to hit over Boeing – diplomats

U.S. and EU flags are pictured during the visit of Vice President Pence to the European Commission headquarters in Brussels
U.S. and European Union flags are pictured during the visit of Vice President Mike Pence to the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium February 20, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

April 12, 2019

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission has drawn up a list of U.S. imports worth around 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) that it could hit with tariffs over a transatlantic aircraft subsidy dispute, EU diplomats said.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose U.S. tariffs on $11 billion worth of European Union products over what Washington sees as unfair subsidies given to European planemaker Airbus.

The EU measures would relate to the European Union’s World Trade Organization complaint over subsidies to Boeing.

A WTO adjudicator still has to set a final amount of potential countermeasures.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Robin Emmott)

Source: OANN

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Amid Bromance, Trump & Bolsonaro Forge Security Alliance

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President Trump hosted Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” at the White House on Tuesday, and most of Washington seemed transfixed by the two leaders’ budding nationalist bromance and effusive embrace of each other’s brash style and bravado.

Indeed, it was difficult not to be. During an Oval Office meeting and a joint press conference in the Rose Garden, the two gushed about their shared conservative values and endorsed each other’s confrontations with the mainstream media.

“I think Brazil’s relationship with the United States, because of our friendship is better than it’s ever been so far,” Trump said after the leaders held a lunch meeting. 

Bolsonaro, a former army captain who crafted his own anti-establishment campaign based on Trump’s 2016 run, pledged that the United States and Brazil would “stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God our creator against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news.”

Trump, addressing the media in the Rose Garden, responded that he was “very proud to hear the president use the term ‘fake news.’”

Beyond all the colorful mutual admiration, the real magnitude of the historic meeting should not be lost, especially when it comes to advancing U.S. security interests, regional experts stress.

Brazilian political leaders have long held the U.S. at arm’s length, harboring deep anti-imperialist suspicions since a 1964 coup, supported by the U.S. government, overthrew then-President Joao Goulart. The suspicions remained even after the country’s shift to democracy in the mid-1980s.

But Bolsonaro eschewed that past, pledging a new “chapter of cooperation” and a grand new alliance between the two most populous nations and largest economies in the Western hemisphere. He and Trump promised to work together to improve trade, oppose socialism and other leftist movements, and specifically to confront the political crisis in Venezuela.

Trump and Bolsonaro also signed an agreement with U.S. companies on technical safeguards to allow commercial satellite launches in northern Brazil. Bolsonaro even stopped by CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., to discuss “international themes in the region,” according to his son, Eduardo, a Brazilian lawmaker accompanying the president on his first overseas trip.

Trump responded by designating Brazil a “major non-NATO ally” and said he would possibly go further by supporting a campaign to make Brazil “maybe a NATO ally.”

Becoming a major non-NATO ally gives a country the ability to purchase U.S. military equipment and technology. Trump also pledged to support Brazil’s efforts to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, an international group that helps democratic countries foster economic growth and world trade.

“The U.S.-Brazil alliance has the capacity to really shake international relations up – you can’t overestimate the possibilities of the U.S. and Brazil getting together to pursue mutual interests,” said Jose Cardenas, an expert on Latin America who has served in several senior positions at the National Security Council, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

While the trade side of the equation has its pluses and minuses for American industry, on a national security front the alliance is a strategic boon for the U.S.  It not only hedges in the Maduro regime geographically between two major U.S. allies – Colombia and now Brazil – it also could provide the Trump administration more leverage in confronting the influences of China, Russia and Iran in all of Latin America.

National Security Adviser John Bolton last fall elevated Latin America as a national security priority and made no bones about where he stood. Bolton delivered a speech at Miami’s Freedom Tower to a group of Cuban and Venezuelan exiles, calling the leftist governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua the “troika of tyranny in this hemisphere” and a “triangle of terror” that has caused “immense human suffering.”

The administration has pledged to push back against the three countries’ leaders and other destabilizing anti-democratic activities in the region as well as their larger state sponsors – China, Russia and Iran.

The first two are an immediate source of administration irritation regarding Venezuela, where they continue to assist the cash-strapped Maduro government as the U.S. has ramped up sanctions on the embattled leader and his Russian sponsors.

As a candidate, Bolsonaro raised concern about China’s growing influence in Latin America and the significant investment Beijing had previously made in Brazilian state companies. He also angered China by visiting Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory, not its own nation-state.

Still, China has strong economic ties to Brazil, which is its main supplier of wood and beef, and shifting that trade dynamic won’t happen overnight.

“Bolsonaro is breaking the historic mold, and if it can be actualized, it represents a true cultural shift – to identify so closely with Americans,” Cardenas told RealClearPolitics. “It’s almost like an aircraft carrier that takes a week to turn around – it’s not going to be immediate.”

Moreover, Bolsonaro can’t afford to kick out the Chinese and their strong investments without the U.S. stepping in to replace them. Trump on Tuesday expressed a willingness to accept more beef imports from Brazil but can’t go too far too soon or he risks angering the U.S. agricultural industry.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies can more quickly benefit from the new alliance and will likely use it to home in on narco-trafficking and its ties to Hezbollah, rather than the military intervention in Venezuela that Nicolas Maduro has so often predicted and railed against.

“It’s apparent around the comments about [Bolsonaro’s] visit to the CIA that he is very much prioritizing counter-terrorism,” said Fernando Cutz, a senior adviser at the Cohen Group who previously served as a top aide specializing in Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council during the Trump and Obama administrations.  

Brazil and Colombia already have allowed the U.S. to position humanitarian aid intended for their beleaguered neighbor on its borders, but likely won’t serve as launching pads for any type of Washington-led military intervention.

While both Trump and Bolsonaro said they are leaving a military option against Venezuela on the table, they are signaling they won’t use it unless something extreme happens — if, say, Maduro-led forces start massacring people in the streets or provoke an armed conflict on the Colombian or Brazilian borders.

Instead, Trump administration officials have an opportunity to build on the new ties to further isolate Venezuela while cracking down on terrorist-related narco-trafficking in the region after the Obama administration shifted resources away from that activity.

In 2017, former U.S. officials charged the previous administration with systematically disbanding law enforcement investigative units across the federal government focused on disrupting Iranian, Syrian and Venezuelan terrorism financing out of concern that that the work could cause friction with Iranian officials and scuttle the nuclear deal with that nation.

Early last year, the Trump administration formed an interagency task force focused on Hezbollah’s financing and promotion of narco-terrorism, but it has yet to launch a coordinated assault against those finance networks in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the activity occurs in the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, which has become a haven for narco-trafficking and illegal arms sales.

“Hezbollah is very strong in Brazil and it’s one of the challenges that Bolsonaro is facing,” Johan Obdola, who served as the counter-narcotics chief in Venezuela before leaving that post in 1997, told RealClearPolitics. “This narco-terrorism activity that we’ve seen growing really fast in the tri-border area … once it starts showing up and growing its capabilities, it’s very hard to stop.”

While Bolsonaro’s CIA visit is not playing well in the Brazilian media, which accuse him of being submissive to the U.S., Cutz said the Langley stop shows his commitment to a new security alliance.

“It’s an outward sign of his understanding of what needs his country has and what limitations his country has – and how we might work tougher,” Cutz said. “Brazil’s southern border that it shares with Argentina and Paraguay, it’s a dangerous place. I wouldn’t call it much of a terrorist threat, but a lot of the financing of Hezbollah comes from that region – and it’s a place where money-laundering in general takes place for a lot of bad actors around the world.”

Obdola, who founded the Canada-based Global Organization for Intelligence,  a consulting firm focused on transnational crime, also said Hezbollah’s foothold in Venezuela, established over several years, is giving the group safe haven to extend its illicit activities across Latin America.

As Iran and Venezuela have become increasingly isolated and sanctioned by the U.S and much of the international community, the two governments have forged closer bonds, with the help of Hezbollah.

In Venezuela, Hezbollah operatives are granted passports and allowed to operate freely on the east side of the country. In recent years, there also have been close military ties among Venezuela, Iran and Hezbollah.

Since 2012, Obdola said, Iran’s elite counter-terrorism unit, the Quds force, has held training camps across Latin America — using its Hezbollah operatives to train the Venezuelan military and Colombia’s FARC rebels.

The U.S.-Colombia security model, while imperfect, has worked to stabilize Colombia and prevent it from becoming a failed state. Under the “Plan Colombia” program, the U.S. provided roughly $10 billion in aid and military assistance to Bogota between 2000 and 2015 to fight leftist narco-terrorist insurgents and now provides $400 million annually.

The new relationship forged with Brazil provides a similar -- albeit more focused and likely less costly -- security opportunity.

“We can have deeper military-to-military relationships and intelligence sharing,” Cardenas said. “It’s extremely important to have these strategic allies for the purpose of regional security and our own security interests. If things are working right, we will detect threats a lot further away before they come to our border.”

Susan Crabtree is a veteran Washington reporter who has spent two decades covering the White House and Congress.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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