Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Lead Iditarod sledder quits race when his dogs won’t mush

Nicolas Petit checks his dogs before the ceremonial start of the 47th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Anchorage
FILE PHOTO: Nicolas Petit checks his dogs before the ceremonial start of the 47th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. March 2, 2019. REUTERS/Kerry Tasker

March 12, 2019

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Stuck on ice with dogs that refused to mush, lead Iditarod sledder Nicolas Petit dropped from the famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race late Monday.

An early favorite in the world’s best-known dog-sled race, Petit had been stuck for most of the day with his dogs on a section of Bering Sea ice about 200 miles from the finish line in Nome. The dogs refused to move, and Petit ultimately had them taken off the trail by snowmobile.

“Petit scratched in the best interest of his race team’s mental well-being,” said a statement released by Iditarod race managers.

The 1,000-mile race started on March 2 in Anchorage. The winner will take home about $50,000 and a new truck, part of a total race purse of $500,000.

Fifty-two mushers started the race. As of Monday night, seven, including Petit, had dropped out.

The winner is expected in Nome sometime early Wednesday.

The new Iditarod leaders as of Monday night were Pete Kaiser of Bethel, Alaska; Joar Leifseth Ulsom, a Norwegian musher who won last year’s race; and Jessie Royer of Fairbanks.

Kaiser, who is Yupik, would be the first Alaska Native musher to win the Iditarod since 2011. As of late Monday, he was at the village of Elim, about 120 miles from the Nome finish line.

Royer would be the first woman to win the race since 1990, when Susan Butcher claimed her fourth victory.

Petit ran into trouble last year in nearly the same spot of the Bering Sea Coast when he was in position to win the 2018 race. But Petit, a French musher who lives in the Alaska ski community of Girdwood, got lost in a snowstorm. Leisfeth Ulsom passed him, and Petit wound up in second place.

This year’s collapse was precipitated by a dog fight, Petit told race officials. The troubles started when a dog named Joee jumped on a younger dog, Petit said in a video posted on the Iditarod’s website.

“I yelled at Joee. And everybody heard Daddy yelling. It doesn’t happen. And then they wouldn’t go anymore. Anywhere. So we camped here,” he said in the interview, conducted Monday morning on the Bering Sea coast.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage, Alaska; additional writing by Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Larry King)

Source: OANN

0 0

Trial over Delaware prison riot ends with no convictions

The trial for four inmates charged with murder in a 2017 Delaware fatal prison riot has ended with no convictions.

The News Journal of Wilmington reports jurors returned no verdicts Monday against John Bramble and Obadiah Miller for the riot at Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna. They also could not come to a unanimous decision for Miller's murder charge and assault charges for Bramble. They were acquitted of all other charges.

Abednego Baynes and Kevin Berry were acquitted of all charges.

Jurors reported earlier Monday that they were at an impasse on some charges.

Officer Steven Floyd died during the 18-hour standoff. The two other guards were released and a prison counselor was rescued by police.

Each defendant proclaimed his innocence from the stand during the four-week trial.

___

Information from: The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., http://www.delawareonline.com

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Stand Against Communism – Hosted by DeplorablePride.org

Stand Against Communism Hosted by DeplorablePride.org When: Jan 12 2019 1pm-5pm Where: Romare Bearden Park 300 South Church St. Charlotte NC 28202 Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/358420608245281/ As many of you know there has been a rise in violence from groups like antifa and the red guards in this country. These groups are starting to form in Charlotte NC […]

0 0

R Kelly Charged With 10 Counts of Aggravated Sexual Abuse

R. Kelly was charged Friday with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse, after decades of lurid rumors and allegations that the R&B star was sexually abusing women and underage girls.

Tandra Simonton, spokeswoman for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, confirmed to The Associated Press the charges had been filed against the 52-year-old Grammy winner but declined to say the specific number. Media reports said there were 10 counts, all involving underage victims.

Over the years, he has consistently denied any sexual misconduct.

Kelly, whose legal name is Robert Kelly, is one of the top-selling recording artists of all time, with hits such as "I Believe I Can Fly," and his arrest sets the stage for another #MeToo-era celebrity trial. Bill Cosby went to prison last year, and former Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein is awaiting trial.

Kelly was charged a week after Michael Avenatti, the attorney whose clients have included porn star Stormy Daniels, said he recently gave Chicago prosecutors new video evidence of the singer having sex with an underage girl. It was not immediately clear if the charges were connected to that video.

In 2008, a jury acquitted Kelly of child pornography charges over a graphic video that prosecutors said showed him having sex with a girl as young as 13. He and the young woman allegedly depicted with him denied they were in the 27-minute video, even though the picture quality was good and witnesses testified it was them, and she did not take the stand. Kelly could have gotten 15 years in prison.

Legally and professionally, the walls began closing in on Kelly more recently after the release of a BBC documentary about him last year and, last month, the multipart Lifetime documentary "Surviving R. Kelly." Together they detailed allegations he was holding women against their will and running a "sex cult."

After the latest documentary, Chicago's top prosecutor, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, said she was "sickened" by the allegations and asked potential victims to come forward.

#MeToo activists and a social media movement using the hashtag #MuteRKelly called on streaming services to drop Kelly's music and promoters not to book any more concerts. And protesters demonstrated outside Kelly's Chicago studio.

Kelly's attorney, Steve Greenberg, said earlier this year that his client was the victim of a TV hit piece and that Kelly "never knowingly had sex with an underage woman, he never forced anyone to do anything, he never held anyone captive, he never abused anyone."

Avenatti said his office was retained last April by people regarding allegations of sexual assault of minors by Kelly. He said the video surfaced during a 10-month investigation. He told the Associated Press that the person who provided the VHS tape knew both Kelly and the female in the video.

Despite accusations that span decades, the singer and songwriter who rose from poverty on Chicago's South Side has retained a sizable following. He has written numerous hits for himself and other artists, including Celine Dion, Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga. His collaborators have included Jay-Z and Usher.

Kelly broke into the R&B scene in 1993 with his first solo album, "12 Play," which produced such popular sex-themed songs as "Bump N' Grind" and "Your Body's Callin'."

Months after those successes, the then-27-year-old Kelly faced allegations he married 15-year-old Aaliyah, the R&B star who later died in a plane crash in the Bahamas. Kelly was the lead songwriter and producer of Aaliyah's 1994 debut album.

Kelly and Aaliyah never confirmed the marriage, though Vibe magazine published a copy of the purported marriage license. Court documents later obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times showed Aaliyah admitted lying about her age on the license.

Jim DeRogatis, a longtime music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, played a key role in drawing the attention of law enforcement to Kelly. In 2002, he received the sex tape in the mail that was central to Kelly's 2008 trial. He turned it over to prosecutors. In 2017, DeRogatis wrote a story for BuzzFeed about the allegations Kelly was holding women against their will in Georgia.

Source: NewsMax America

0 0

ECB studying tiered deposit rate to alleviate banks’ plight: sources

FILE PHOTO: Headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) are illuminated with a giant euro sign at the start of the
FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) are illuminated with a giant euro sign at the start of the "Luminale, light and building" event in Frankfurt, Germany, March 12, 2016. EUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

March 27, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is studying options to lower the charge that banks pay on some of their excess cash as a possible way to offset the side-effects of its ultra-easy policy, two sources told Reuters.

No policy proposal has been made on the matter but the objective of the move would be to return some of more than 7 billion euros ($7.90 billion) a year the ECB collects in interest from banks, one of the sources said.

Negative interest rates effectively mean banks pay the ECB to park their excess liquidity safely with it overnight.

A so-called tiered deposit rate would mean banks are exempted in part from paying the ECB’s 0.40 percent annual charge on their excess reserves, boosting their profits as they struggle with an unexpected growth slowdown.

A problem with a tiered rate is that it would signal that rates are going to stay low for a very long time, in potential conflict with the ECB’s forward guidance, which sees rates at record lows only until next year, one of the sources added.

On the other hand, movements in financial markets suggest investors have already priced out a deposit rate hike for almost another two years.

The sources said work is still at the staff level and has not yet reached the policymaking Governing Council.

An ECB spokesman declined to comment.

The ECB’s Governing Council discussed the merits of a tiered deposit rate at its March 2016 meeting but ultimately decided against it.

The negative deposit rate was introduced by the ECB in 2014 to stave off the threat of deflation but is proving a burden for cash-rich banks in countries such as Germany and France.

With the economy slowing, the ECB earlier this month pushed back the timing of its first post-crisis rate hike to next year and is ready to delay it again if needed, its President Mario Draghi said on Wednesday.

Excess cash sloshing around the euro zone has ballooned as a result of the ECB’s 2.6 trillion euro ($2.93 trillion) bond-buying program.

Various forms of tiered rates have been introduced in Japan, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland and the sources said ECB staff had been working on a number of options for years.

In a speech earlier on Wednesday, Draghi said the ECB should if necessary “reflect on possible measures that can preserve the favorable implications of negative rates for the economy, while mitigating the side-effects, if any”.

“That said, low bank profitability is not an inevitable consequence of negative rates,” he added.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi, Frank Siebelt and Francesco Canepa; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Source: OANN

0 0

Senate GOP effort on Trump border wall seems to crash

An 11th-hour rescue mission by Republican senators to stave off an awkward defeat for President Donald Trump on his declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border, and to protect themselves from a politically dicey vote opposing him, seemed to collapse Wednesday.

The setback made it all but certain that defections from his own party will force Trump to cast what could be his first veto — on a struggle directly related to his signature issue of building barricades along the southwest border. It also left Republican senators facing a painful choice: defy a president who commands passionate loyalty from conservative voters or acquiesce to what many lawmakers from both parties consider a dubious and dangerous expansion of presidential authority.

After a closed-door lunch, GOP lawmakers predicted the Senate would approve a resolution Thursday annulling the emergency Trump has declared along the border. The Democratic-led House passed the legislation last month, meaning Senate assent would send it to Trump.

"It was called turn out the lights, the party's over," said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., recalling a favorite refrain of Monday Night Football announcers when a game was out of reach. "Well, that's appropriate right now."

Republicans hoped Trump would support a separate measure curbing a president's powers to declare future emergencies. Had he done so, they thought, it would be easier for reluctant GOP senators to support the emergency Trump has proclaimed to steer $3.6 billion more than Congress has approved for barrier construction.

But during the GOP lunch, Trump called Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, chief sponsor of the bill limiting future emergency declarations, and told him he opposed that proposal. The call was described by two officials who weren't authorized to publicly discuss the matter and described it on condition of anonymity.

"There's been numerous efforts to engage with the vice president and the president, and the president's not persuaded that he should support it right now," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who advises GOP leaders. "I don't know of any president that likes to give up power."

Lee said in a statement that he will back the resolution canceling the border emergency because his own bill now lacks "an immediate path forward."

With Republicans controlling the Senate 53-47, it will take just four GOP defections to approve the measure, which the House passed last month.

Besides Lee, four have said they would vote no: Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kentucky's Rand Paul. Tillis and Collins face potentially competitive re-election fights in 2020.

Tillis, though, said Wednesday that his vote was "still a work in progress" as talks with the White House continued.

As many as 15 Republicans might vote to block Trump's emergency, said one Republican who offered the estimate only on condition of anonymity.

An administration official said the White House is skeptical there will be enough votes to head off a Senate defeat and is reluctant to back limits on future declarations unless a victory on the resolution is assured. The official was not authorized to publicly private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Any Republican hopes of a turnabout rested largely on a familiar phenomenon of the Trump administration — an unexpected change in mind, as he's done in congressional battles over health care and immigration.

Trump told reporters that he has advised GOP senators to "vote any way you want" on the resolution blocking his emergency declaration — but he added a warning.

"Anybody going against border security, drug trafficking, human trafficking, that's a bad vote," he said. Framing Thursday's vote that way seemed to be a message all but aimed directly at undecided GOP senators facing re-election races next year, of whom there are several.

Even so, there was little doubt among GOP senators that Thursday's vote would turn out badly for the party.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tried making it even harder for uncertain Republicans to support Trump's border emergency. She said the House would never even consider the separate bill limiting future declarations by presidents, including Trump.

"Republican Senators are proposing new legislation to allow the president to violate the Constitution just this once in order to give themselves cover," Pelosi said in a statement. "The House will not take up this legislation to give President Trump a pass."

Under a four-decade old law, presidents have wide leeway in declaring a national emergency. Congress can vote to block a declaration, but the two-thirds majorities required to overcome presidential vetoes make it hard for lawmakers to prevail. Presidents have never before declared an emergency after Congress voted to deny them money for the same purpose.

Lee's proposal says a presidential emergency would last 30 days unless Congress votes to extend it. It would apply to future emergencies, but not Trump's current border emergency unless he seeks to renew it next year.

The strongest chance of blocking Trump's border emergency is likely several lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general, environmental groups and others.

___

Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Large dog in plane’s cockpit likely caused fatal crash, NTSB says

A 90-year-old Iowa pilot’s decision to let his large dog ride next to his small plane’s flight controls likely led to the crash that claimed his life two years ago, federal investigators announced this week.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s final report on the June 2017 accident at Monticello Regional Airport in Iowa concluded that Jerry Naylor’s canine companion – which weighed an estimated 70-75 pounds – interfered with his ability to land.

Investigators wrote that the probable cause for the crash was “the pilot's decision to fly with his large dog in the two-seat, light sport airplane, and the dog's likely contact with the flight controls during landing, which resulted in the pilot's loss of airplane control and a subsequent aerodynamic stall when the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack.”

Naylor’s son, investigators say, told them that “the pilot had installed a homemade, removable, plywood device to prevent the right-seat passenger (or his dog) from inadvertently contacting the rudder pedals during flight,” despite the device not being approved for installation in the plane.

“After the accident, the witness saw the pilot's dog running out of the cornfield where the airplane had crashed,” the NTSB wrote.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

His son told The Gazette newspaper after the crash that Naylor had been flying since 1945.

“He was just one of those guys that even though he was 90 years old you wouldn’t think twice about asking him to help you with something because he would be right there to hustle and go, go, go,” added Charlie Becker, the executive director at Camp Courageous, an organization that assists individuals with special needs and where Naylor had been a board member since the late 1980s.

Source: Fox News National

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



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

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

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

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

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

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

April 26, 2019

By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger

BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.

Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.

Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.

A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.

“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.

About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.

Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.

Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.

“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.

He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.

Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.

Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.

Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.

“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.

This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.

(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Source: OANN

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