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Venezuela crippled by power blackout, China warns over foreign meddling

People are seen inside a shopping center during a blackout in Caracas
People are seen inside a shopping center during a blackout in Caracas, Venezuela March 8, 2019. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

March 8, 2019

By Vivian Sequera and Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela shut schools and suspended the workday as the worst blackout in decades paralyzed most of the country for a second day on Friday, while China warned Western nations against meddling in the South American country’s domestic affairs.

Power went out across the recession-stricken country on Thursday afternoon due to a problem at Venezuela’s main hydroelectric plant, the government said, calling the event an act of “sabotage” by ideological adversaries.

While blackouts are routine in many Venezuelan provinces, nationwide power outages under the ruling Socialist Party have never extended for more than a day, despite five years of grueling recession and widespread and severe shortages of basic goods.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who most Western nations recognize as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, criticized the government for bungling the country’s energy supply and said Maduro was the one sabotaging the nation.

“Sabotage is stealing money from Venezuelans. Sabotage is burning food and medicine. Sabotage is stealing elections,” Guaido said on Twitter.

Humanitarian aid trucks went up in flames last month when Maduro deployed troops at the Colombian border to prevent the opposition from bringing in relief supplies.

Despite international outcry at Maduro’s decision to turn back the aid convoy, Elliott Abrams, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special representative for Venezuela, on Friday ruled out the use of force to deliver humanitarian assistance.

Washington, which has led calls for Maduro to step down, pledged on Thursday to “expand the net” of sanctions against Venezuela, including more foreign banks providing financing to the government.

The United States in January levied crippling oil industry sanctions meant to starve Maduro’s government of revenue.

Beijing, which together with Moscow backs Maduro, issued a stern warning on Friday about the risks in imposing sanctions and interfering in Venezuela.

“External interference and sanctions will only exacerbate the tense situation,” said the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi. “There’s already enough of such lessons from history, and the same old disastrous road should not be followed.”

Adding to Venezuela’s economic woes, a World Bank arbitration tribunal ruled on Friday that Maduro’s cash-strapped government must pay ConocoPhillips more than $8 billion for seizing the oil and gas company’s oil assets as part of a wave of nationalizations. Venezuela can still contest the award.

SOME POWER BACK

In Caracas, state television and social media users reported that power had returned to some neighborhoods on Friday, though much of the city remained without service.

It was not immediately clear if the power shortages affected oil operations in the OPEC nation. State oil company PDVSA did not respond to a request for comment.

Scores of people walked through the streets of the capital early in the morning due to the closure of the metro, while others took the few buses that were running. Many did not realize the government has suspended the workday because they could not watch television or listen to the news.

In the upscale Caracas neighborhood of Los Palos Grandes, several hundred people gathered for a rally where Guaido was expected to speak.

“Everyone is hoping that with Guaido, the country will go back to being normal,” said Yamila Oliveros, a 53-year-old architect. “That’s all a person wants, to live normally. That when I open the tap, water comes out. That when I flip the light switch, the lights come on.”

The opposition has set protests for Saturday in the capital as it seeks to maintain pressure on Maduro to step down.

Venezuela has become mired in a major political crisis since Guaido declared himself the president in January and denounced Maduro as an usurper.

Maduro says Guaido is a “puppet” of Washington and dismisses his claim to the presidency as an effort by the Trump administration to control Venezuela’s oil wealth.

Maduro, who was re-elected last year in a vote widely viewed as fraudulent, blames Venezuela’s economic crisis on a U.S.-backed campaign to wreck the economy and force him from power. Maduro has consistently attributed major power outages to sabotage by opposition adversaries, without providing evidence.

Government officials on Thursday said the massive Guri Dam was damaged by a cyber attack, and initially said power would return within three hours. They have not updated their timetable.

“We will once again defeat this electrical sabotage. We are going to recover this important service for the population,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said in comments broadcast over state television.

Thermoelectric plants, which are meant to back up the hydroelectric dam, are operating well below capacity, said Miguel Lara, an electrical engineer who formerly ran a state agency that oversaw the national power grid.

He added that shortages of parts as well as a lack of skilled technicians, many of whom have fled the country, will complicate any efforts to repair any damage.

More than 3 million people are believed to have left Venezuela amid the crisis.

The U.N. refugee agency said on Friday that Venezuelans lodged nearly one-quarter of a million asylum applications in 2018 alone, double that of the previous year.

Maduro’s critics say his government has mismanaged the power sector since late socialist leader Hugo Chavez nationalized it in 2007 while setting aside billions of dollars for power projects that were swallowed by corruption.

Venezuela suffered major blackouts in 2008 and 2013 that affected significant parts of the country, but they were resolved in less than six hours.

Local power outages continue to be chronic, particularly in the sweltering western state of Zulia where residents complain of days without power or with limited electricity and voltage fluctuations that damage appliances.

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera, Brian Ellsworth and Corina Pons; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: OANN

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The Latest: Wind and outages as storms move into Mississippi

The Latest on severe weather moving across the United States (all times local):

2:15

Heavy winds and power outages are being reported as a storm system moves across Louisiana and Mississippi.

The National Weather Service reported gusts of 60 mph (97 kph) in Natchez, Mississippi, on Thursday afternoon as the storm system moved across the Mississippi River from Louisiana.

Utilities report about 13,000 customers without power across central Louisiana and another 10,000 without power in southwest Mississippi.

Trees were reported down in multiple locations throughout the region. A spotter confirmed a tornado on the ground southwest of Jackson.

Dozens of schools and colleges dismissed students early as tornado watches were issued.

There was also a band of power outages in east Texas stretching from Tyler south to nearly College Station.

The same system produced tornadoes and hail earlier in North Texas, the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas.

11:45 a.m.

Forecasters are warning about tornadoes and other violent weather as a storm system moves into the southeastern United States.

The National Weather Service issued a series of tornado warnings about a front pushing eastward from Texas on Thursday. Strong storms covered much of Louisiana.

A tornado watch reached from coastal Louisiana into central Mississippi, and more weather alerts are likely. Flood warnings reached as far north as central Indiana.

The same system produced tornadoes and hail earlier in North Texas, the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas.

___

9:55 a.m.

Severe thunderstorms rumbled across North Texas, the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas, producing several tornadoes and unleashing widespread hail.

Seven tornadoes were reported across the Plains from the northeastern Texas Panhandle to southeastern Kansas. Strong winds hit elsewhere Wednesday evening, toppling utility poles and trees and downing power lines in parts of North Texas. No significant structural damage has been reported.

The National Weather Service received numerous reports of hail pelting the storm-struck areas. Egg-size hail was reported about 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of Fort Worth.

The storms were expected to move Thursday into the Deep South. Dozens of schools in Mississippi and Alabama dismissed students early as a precaution.

The threat comes days after dozens of tornadoes from East Texas to Georgia left at least nine dead.

Source: Fox News National

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Deputies: Man paid for customers’ meals before he was killed

Authorities say a man who was fatally shot at a Florida Waffle House had been paying for other customers' meals and handing out money when he was killed.

Alachua County Sheriff's officials told news reporters a female customer apparently got angry when 41-year-old Craig Arttez Brewer didn't include her in his acts of kindness early Sunday.

After he didn't pay for her meal, that resentment sparked an argument between Brewer and the man accused of shooting him, 25-year-old Ezekiel Luke Hicks.

Lt. Brett Rhodenizer says Hicks and Brewer got into physical fight before Hicks left the restaurant and returned with a gun. He says Brewer was shot multiple times, including in the head.

Hicks is charged with first degree murder.

A lawyer for Hicks isn't listed on jail records.

Source: Fox News National

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Capturing 24 hours in Gaza, one hour at a time

The Wider Image: Capturing 24 hours in Gaza, one hour at a time
Children play a game of "Arabs and Jews" outside a school in Gaza City, February 20, 2019. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

March 28, 2019

GAZA CITY (Reuters) – In the build-up to the one-year anniversary of the Gaza border protests that opened up a deadly new front in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez visited Gaza for the first time.

As someone who had never set eyes on Gaza, his assignment was to use those unfamiliar eyes to record life beyond the daily drumbeat of violence in the blockaded Palestinian territory.

The mood has become more tense in recent weeks as the March 30 anniversary nears, with trails of Palestinian rockets and Israeli missiles again appearing in the skies above.

Martinez did not know what to expect after he crossed through Israel’s fortified checkpoint and past a long caged walkway and parallel road leading to a dilapidated Palestinian checkpoint at the other end.

“We have a great team of photographers and journalists in Gaza whose main task, really, is to photograph the protest, the clashes between Israel and Gaza,” said Martinez, 49, a 28-year Reuters veteran who has covered Europe, Asia and the Americas and is currently based in London.

“My remit, I think, was to do pretty much anything but that. Because everyone has seen that side of Gaza.”

Gaza is a 139-square-mile (360-square-kilometre) coastal strip situated between Tel Aviv and Sinai and is home to around two million Palestinians, two thirds of them refugees.

It has been governed by the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas since shortly after Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers in 2005.

With its armed brigades and thousands of police and security men on the streets, Hamas controls Gaza’s interior as tightly as Israeli soldiers, gunboats and warplanes control most of Gaza’s perimeter, with Egyptian walls and watchtowers along the eight-mile southern border.

Accompanied by a Reuters assistant photographer from Gaza City, Martinez traveled the strip, photographing it at every hour of the day and night over a 10-day period.

One of the most powerful scenes was a patch of waste land between a school and a mosque where children were playing.

“These kids were burning some cardboard, they had trenches, they were throwing sandballs so they weren’t hurting each other. And I said, ‘Oh, what are you guys doing?’ and they said, ‘Oh, we are playing Jews and Arabs.'” The image, he said, “will probably stay with me forever”.

SUNSETS AND RUBBISH

Parts of Gaza, to his surprise, resembled an underdeveloped version of California’s famed Venice Beach – with glorious Mediterranean sunsets, bathers and skateboarders, but often with crumbling buildings and rubbish heaps as part of the backdrop.

In vehicle scrapyards in the north, he saw stacks of discarded cars. With 53 percent of Gazans living in poverty, according to a United Nations report in December, valuable items such as cars are cannibalized for every accessory.

The same “use everything” dynamic could be seen at the harbor, where even the smallest fish discarded from a catch were gathered to be sold to poorer families.

On Friday, while youths were protesting at the Gaza-Israel border, Martinez went to the beach to see what was going on.

“I really understood that not 2 million people had gone to the border to clash with the Israelis. What else were they doing?” he said.

“I found a bunch of skaters there with, I don’t know, I think they had one or two boards between them, some pretty ropey roller blades…They were just busy filming themselves trying to do flips, trying to do tricks, things like that.”

After the sun goes down and the streets empty, pool halls and bakeries continue to operate through the darkness imposed by night, and by Gaza’s constant power cuts.

Martinez was warned many times by officials and bystanders on the street, in a more cautionary than menacing manner, not to photograph Hamas checkpoints and military installations.

Often, he did not realize what the buildings were because their exteriors gave no sign of what might have been within. Otherwise, Martinez encountered few problems.

“There’s a real sense of being enclosed. You can stand on the beach looking out toward the horizon and see this fantastic sun and crystal blue waters, a sense (that) you are part of the world and there is everything around you,” he said.

“You look to the right, you turn one way, and there is Israel and you can go down this road but in a car it was taking 20 minutes. You look the other way, there is Egypt. You go down the road there, there’s a blockade, you can’t go any further.

“You look inland, and there in the background as well is the horizon, is Israel. And you can’t go that way.

“So there is always a feeling you can only go so far one way. And the other way. I did feel it. There is a sort of feeling of enclosure.”

(Writing by Stephen Farrell; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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UK public inflation expectations hold at highest since 2013: BoE

Shoppers browse aisles in a supermarket in London
Shoppers browse aisles in a supermarket in London, Britain April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

April 8, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – The British public’s expectations for the level of inflation over the coming year remained at their highest in five years, while the proportion expecting interest rates to rise has fallen, Bank of England data showed on Monday.

British people surveyed in February expect inflation to average 3.2 percent over the next 12 months, unchanged from November’s survey which was the highest reading since November 2013, according to the quarterly BoE survey.

Some 47 percent of the more than 4,000 people surveyed expect the Bank of England to raise interest rates over the next 12 months, down from 53 percent in November.

British consumer price inflation edged up to 1.9 percent in February after touching a two-year low of 1.8 percent in January, and the BoE forecast in February that inflation is likely to rise slightly above its 2 percent target this year.

However, the BoE has warned that a disruptive, no-deal Brexit would likely weaken sterling and push inflation sharply higher.

(Reporting by David Milliken, editing by Kate Holton)

Source: OANN

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Memo to Democrats: Buck Up!

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WASHINGTON -- Fortunately for the republic, President Trump and his minions can't even do an end-zone dance right. And their celebration, by the way, is wildly premature.

You would think that in light of Attorney General William Barr's letter -- which reduced special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into four pages of pro-Trump messaging -- the president's defenders would want a free run at spinning, cheering, distorting and attacking. How could they give up the chance to shout the words "No collusion!" as loudly and as often as they pleased?

For the first 24 hours, they did a pretty good job. It was astonishing how many sweeping conclusions were drawn about a report that no one outside of Barr's and Mueller's inner circle has seen. Trump's adversaries were told to fold up their tents. Reporters who have done the hard work of unearthing the truth about Trump were denounced. A president whose approval ratings have been dismal from the start was said to be on the road to re-election.

Trump's apologists even had the nerve to continue belittling Mueller (Rudy Giuliani called him "pathetic" for not making a call about obstruction of justice), even though their partying was premised entirely on what Mueller was quoted as saying.

But the Trump administration really is as incompetent and mean-spirited as its foes say it is. And so it emerged that the Trump Justice Department filed a court document in support of a right-wing judge's wild ruling that the entire Affordable Care Act should be killed. Dead. Kaput. Twenty million people or so losing health coverage. Over 100 million losing protections for pre-existing conditions.

Suddenly, the Democrats were back in business. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not only denounced Trump's irresponsibility but also touted a Democratic proposal to strengthen, not weaken, the Affordable Care Act. Once again, Trump brought Democrats together. The Dems have their differences about single-payer health care, but they sure don't want Trump wrenching insurance from those who got it though Obamacare.

By the way, we just had an election in which voters told the exit pollsters that health care was by far the No. 1 issue -- 41 percent listed it, well ahead of immigration, which came in at No. 2 with 23 percent. And 75 percent of health care voters supported Democrats in House races. In Pelosi's circle, happy days are here again.

Of course, Trump's foes would have liked Mueller to decide unambiguously against Trump on everything. But the cautious Mueller was always unlikely to get there. The bottom line: Freeing our country from the clutches of Trumpism was always going to require a broad popular consensus. Democracy and elections remain the best ways to create it.

At the same time, Trump's critics need to resist the intimidation that will be brought to bear in the period between now and when Barr releases whatever he is willing to put out from Mueller's report.

They cannot let the spin cycle wash away everything we have learned about all the contacts between Trump's campaign and various well-connected Russians. Or about this most basic fact: the Russians interfered in our election to help elect Trump.

They cannot let Republicans, who devoted such energy under President Obama on harebrained investigations, now tell House Democrats that accountability is off the table for the next 20 months. They cannot fall silent as the press is denounced (sometimes, sadly, from members of the media) for publishing stories about Trump that were 100 percent true.

And they cannot let Barr off the hook for not leaving it to Congress to decide whether Mueller's discoveries add up to obstruction or not. There is now excellent reason to believe that Trump chose Barr as attorney general because of Barr's 19-page memo from 2018 in which Mueller's future boss criticized the special counsel's pursuit of obstruction in the first place. Barr was never going to find Trump guilty of obstruction, and he seemed eager to stop Congress from doing so. No wonder Trump was quoted this week as telling GOP senators of Barr, "I love this guy."

And Trump's critics cannot stop demanding the release of the full Mueller report and the information that underlies it as quickly as possible. The public can't be asked to rely on what amounts to a Trump administration press release to make its judgments.

It's rare for democracy to produce miraculous solutions to our problems. If those of us who oppose Trump can't defeat him with all the unintentional help he's willing to give us, we don't deserve to win.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

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Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.

The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.

But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. …  I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”

— Joe Biden

But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

BIDEN’S CLAIM HE DIDN’T WANT OBAMA TO ENDORSE TRIGGERS MOCKERY

At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.

It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.

An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.

Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.

“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.

“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”

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Sanders released his medical records in 2016, with a Senate physician saying in a letter that the senator was “in overall very good health.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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

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

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

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

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

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEED FOR CASH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STATE COMPETITION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News World

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