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In South Korea’s struggling Kia Town, ‘bad jobs’ better than no jobs

FILE PHOTO: Members of Kia Motor's union chant a slogan during a protest against the Gwangju joint-venture project, in Gwangju
FILE PHOTO: Members of Kia Motor's union chant a slogan during a protest against the Gwangju joint-venture project, in Gwangju, South Korea, January 31, 2019. Hong Jae-kwan/Kia Motor's union/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Hyunjoo Jin

GWANGJU, South Korea (Reuters) – Park Byung-kyu once led Kia Motor’s union in the city of Gwangju, fighting for labor protections against the powerful, family-run chaebol that dominated the economy during South Korea’s rapid industrialization.

But about 20 years ago, Park was assaulted by unionized workers wielding steel clubs after he campaigned for the rights of temporary workers at another company, leaving him paralyzed on the right side of his body.

The attack also left him disillusioned with the approach of South Korea’s forceful and often militant unions, which have faced increasing criticism for protecting their interests at the expense of other workers.

Now, Park is working for the city of Gwangju on a proposed joint venture with Hyundai Motor Co to build a new low-wage car factory, Hyundai’s first new factory in South Korea in 25 years.

The $616 million plant would create 1,000 jobs, but at less than half the wages of Hyundai’s unionized workers and without many of the privileges they currently enjoy.

“The labor unions with vested interests should change. If not, their interests will be taken away,” said the 53-year-old Park. “Unionized labor should face up to the reality.”

The unions of Hyundai and affiliate Kia Motors, which together form the world’s fifth-largest automaker by volume, have staged strikes and rallies to protest the plant.

They say it will create “bad jobs” and take away production and employment from existing factories.

But in a city that has seen a steady exodus of manufacturing jobs move to low-cost countries, many job seekers say they would work for the plant in a heartbeat.

Employment is a key focus for President Moon Jae-in’s administration as Asia’s fourth-largest economy struggles to create jobs in the face of a slowing China economy, U.S. trade protectionism and increased minimum wages.

The Moon government plans to provide financial assistance to the Gwangju plant, and also introduce similar government-business ventures in two other cities by June.

Officials hope it will lead to a “U-turn” of Korean companies which would otherwise build factories overseas.

“This is a bold experiment to resolve jobs and labor relations problems,” said Park Myung-joon, a senior research fellow at state-funded Korea Labour Institute, who has been involved in the project since its beginning in 2014.

The carmaking venture, the first of its kind in South Korea, is the biggest threat to date for legacy unionized auto workers, who have largely maintained high wages and benefits even with youth unemployment near a record high and the economy sluggish, Park said.

“The expensive union jobs will gradually disappear.”

POOR CITY

The proposed Hyundai factory will offer annual wages of 35 million won ($31,492) – just over a third of the average 92 million won that existing Hyundai workers earn, but higher than the average 33 million won salaried workers make in Gwangju.

Home to Kia Motor’s largest domestic production facility, Gwangju is South Korea’s No.2 motor city after the southeastern city of Ulsan, generating over 40 percent of its manufacturing output from the auto sector.

Like Ulsan, which has declined as Hyundai production has retreated, Gwangju’s fortunes have waned as Kia’s output fell to its lowest level in eight years last year.

Gwangju is now South Korea’s second-poorest metropolitan city, with average monthly wages some 13 percent below the nationwide average in 2017, according to labor ministry data.

Kim Jae-seung, who studied business management in college, said he is willing to apply for a blue-collar job at the planned plant. “Its wage is still above the average worker’s wage. In that sense, it is not a bad job. It is a good job,” the 32-year-old Kim said at a recent job fair held at the city hall.

Other job seekers in Gwangju interviewed by Reuters said they too were interested given high levels of unemployment among the city’s younger workers.

“There are not many quality jobs out there. Given the current economic situation, I will be thankful for the 35 million won wage,” said Goh Chang-hoon, a 27-year-old law major.

DEFUNCT GERMAN MODEL

Park, the former union leader, first proposed the low-wage factory in 2014 and later took a leave of absence from Kia to work full-time for the city government.

Park said he borrowed the idea from Volkswagen’s now-defunct low-cost division Auto 5000, which was created in 2001 to keep jobs from moving out of Germany. The project came to end in 2009, after the automaker won wage concessions from its powerful and highly paid legacy workers.

The new factory would have an annual capacity of 100,000 mini, gasoline-powered SUVs starting 2021.

Gwangju also hopes to make electric vehicles at the plant in the future, although it has yet to be agreed with Hyundai.

James P. Rooney, an international finance professor at Sogang University in Seoul, said to be successful, the plant should make electric cars.

“The joint venture shouldn’t be thought of a place of getting away from union and high labor cost. It should be based on the product of the future, not product of the past.”

Hyundai said it has decided to participate in the project, because the city, local community and the joint venture pledged to “build collaborative labor relations and maintain proper wage levels”.

“Under such conditions, we believed that we would be able to secure competitiveness when we outsource mini-vehicle production to the newly created corporation,” Hyundai said in a statement to Reuters.

Kim Yong-gu, chief executive of Hyundai Hitech, a Gwangju-based parts supplier for Kia, is hoping the new Hyundai factory will help make up for reduced output at Kia.

Kia’s Gwangju plant produced 455,252 vehicles last year, well short of its production capacity of 620,000.

“Kia can’t make the car with current labor costs,” Kim said.

In addition to lower wages, the joint venture will break away from the union’s tradition of striking almost every year during annual wage talks.

South Korea’s reputation for militant unions and rigid labor practices has long been cited as contributing to high labor costs and a persistent discount for corporate Korea.

To make up for lower pay, Gwangju plans to build 1,100 homes as well as daycare and gym facilities in the factory complex, with the central government’s help.

WHITE ELEPHANT?

The plan is not without its critics, who question the wisdom of adding another plant at a time when automakers are grappling with excess capacity amid sluggish domestic demand, falling exports to the United States and weak sales in China.

Auto production in South Korea is expected to fall to 3.65 million vehicles this year, just three quarters of total capacity of 4.66 million vehicles, auto unions say.

They also argue the project is politically motivated, with Gwangju long a political stronghold of Moon’s liberal government.

“We have been agonizing over how to create jobs at a time when low growth and low employment have become structural issues,” Jung Tae-ho, the presidential job secretary, said at a recent briefing.

“The project will be key to revitalizing the struggling local economy.”

Local officials acknowledge the plan is not the panacea to all the problems Korea’s manufacturing industry faces, but say it can show one path forward.

“This is not just about creating jobs in Gwangju, but about addressing Korean Inc’s structural problems of low growth, low employment and high cost,” Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-sup told Reuters. “Korea Inc needs a breakthrough.”

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Edward Taylor in FRANKFURT; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Lincoln Feast.)

Source: OANN

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‘Very serious’ U.S.-Mexico border delays hit autos: industry group

FILE PHOTO: Eduardo Solis, President of AMIA, gestures during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City
FILE PHOTO: Eduardo Solis, President of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA), gestures during an interview with Reuters in Mexico City, Mexico May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo

April 8, 2019

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – “Very serious” delays in exporting goods over the U.S.-Mexico border are impacting the auto industry, Eduardo Solis, the president of the Mexican Auto Industry Association (AMIA), said on Monday.

Washington’s decision to move some 750 border agents from commercial to immigration duties to handle a surge in families seeking asylum between border crossings has triggered long delays for cross-border traffic at Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Otay Mesa, some of the busiest ports on the border.

Solis said the delay in exporting car parts destined to U.S. auto plants was putting operations there at risk and called on officials to find a diplomatic solution.

(Reporting by Sharay Angulo; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

Source: OANN

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Papal Good Friday service draws attention to world’s poor

Pope Francis leads the Good Friday Passion of the Lord service in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican
Pope Francis leads the Good Friday Passion of the Lord service in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

April 19, 2019

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis listened as a preacher denounced the widespread inequality in the world at a Good Friday service on the day Christians recall Jesus’ death by crucifixion.

During the “Passion of the Lord” service in St. Peter’s Basilica, songs in Latin recounted the last hours in Jesus’ life, from his arrest to his burial.

The service is one of the few during the year where the pope does not give a sermon, leaving it to Father Raniero Cantalamessa, whose title is preacher of the papal household.

Francis listened as Cantalamessa described Jesus as “the prototype and representative of all the rejected, the disinherited, and the discarded of the earth, those from whom we turn aside our faces so as not to see them”.

He said all religions had a duty to stand with the poor.

“A few privileged people possess more goods than they could ever consume, while for entire centuries countless masses of poor people have lived without having a piece of bread or a sip of water to give their children,” Canatalamessa said.

“No religion can remain indifferent to this because the God of all the religions is not indifferent to all of this,” he said.

It was the first of two services at which the pope presides on the most somber day of the Christian liturgical calendar.

On Friday night the pope, marking his seventh Easter season as Roman Catholic leader, was due to lead a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession around Rome’s ancient Colosseum.

The 82-year-old leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics leads an Easter vigil service on Saturday night and on Easter Sunday reads the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To The City and The World) message.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: OANN

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Trump says China’s Xi will soon come to White House

U.S. President Trump speaks at the Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Georgia
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks at the Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis

April 25, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will soon host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House, setting the stage for a possible agreement on trade between the world’s two largest economies.

The White House said on Tuesday that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will travel to Beijing for additional talks on a trade dispute that has led to tit-for-tat tariffs between the two countries.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

Source: OANN

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HuffPost Poll: 47% of GOP Says No Trump Campaign Crime

Forty-seven percent of Republicans voters believe no one on President Donald Trump's campaign committed any crimes, according to a poll conducted by HuffPost and YouGov.

The survey was conducted April 18-19, one day after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.  

Mueller, who turned in his report to Attorney General William Barr on March 23, neither charged nor exonerated Trump on obstruction of justice charges and also said neither Trump nor his campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 campaign.

But the Mueller report states "the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."

The poll also found:

  • 61% of Republicans think the Trump campaign's relationship is not a problem at all.
  • 45% of Republicans strongly approve of the job Attorney General William Barr is doing, compared with 45% of Democrats who strongly disapprove.
  • 81% of Republicans do not believe Trump attempted to obstruct justice, while 78% of Democrats say he did.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted April 18-19 among 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Mother and adult daughter charged with killing 5 relatives

A mother and her adult daughter killed five of their close relatives, including three children, and were found "disoriented" after child welfare authorities arrived for a surprise visit to their trashed apartment outside Philadelphia, police and prosecutors said Tuesday.

Shana Decree, 45, and her daughter Dominique Decree, 19, were charged with five counts of homicide and one count each of conspiracy. The motive and how the five family members died are unclear; their bodies were found Monday night.

"As confusing as it was last night, we are no closer to understanding that in the harsh light of day," Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said at a news conference Tuesday. "We will continue to pursue every lead and to work this case to its just conclusion."

The victims were Shana's children, Naa'Irah Smith, 25, and Damon Decree Jr., 13, both of Morrisville; Shana Decree's sister Jamilla Campbell, of Trenton, New Jersey; and Campbell's 9-year-old twin daughters, Imani and Erika Allen.

Authorities discovered the scene after a Bucks County child welfare officer arrived Monday evening for an unannounced visit and was let into the building by an apartment worker, according to court papers.

Police say they found Shana and Dominique Decree "disoriented" inside the apartment, where furniture had been turned over, drywall was cracked and glass lay around. Police initially said they found four bodies, but they discovered a fifth underneath another next to a bed.

The mother and daughter were taken to a hospital and at first told authorities they didn't know what happened.

Before telling authorities about their involvement in the slayings, Shana Decree said her sister Jamilla's boyfriend and two unknown men killed the five family members but left Shana and Dominique alive, according to an affidavit.

Shana Decree then told police that "everyone at the apartment ... wanted to die" and talked about suicide, according to court documents. She said that she killed one of the victims, that she and her daughter Dominque killed another together, and that Campbell killed two other victims before she herself was slain by Dominique.

Shana Decree was arraigned early Tuesday, and Dominique Decree's arraignment was expected later in the day. It isn't clear whether either woman has a lawyer to speak for her.

Authorities who had been looking for Campbell's 17-year-old son Joshua found him in Willingboro, New Jersey, where he was staying with friends, Police Chief George McClay said.

Weintraub stressed the teen is not a suspect, saying authorities just wanted to make sure he was safe.

The apartments are in Morrisville, which sits on the Delaware River northeast of Philadelphia and across from Trenton, New Jersey. The three-story, red-brick apartment complex is on a busy road lined with auto repair shops, a safe-and-lock shop and a bail bonds agency nearby.

Thai Hall, 24, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, said she attended Morrisville High School with Smith and spoke with her about three months ago. Hall, whose mother lives in a neighboring apartment, said Smith was attending cosmetology school. She remembered Smith warmly.

"She was a happy person, happy person and cared for people," Hall said.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Jamilla Campbell was 42, not 45.

Source: Fox News National

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Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders enters crowded 2020 presidential race

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., announced Tuesday he will make another bid for president by entering the already crowded 2020 race, as he tries to rekindle the grassroots energy from his 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton.

Sanders made the announcement in an interview with Vermont Public Radio, followed by a web video and email to supporters.

DEMOCRATS IGNORE BERNIE SANDERS' 2020 ANNOUNCEMENT WHILE EMBRACING HIS SOCIALIST POLICIES 

"Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution. Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for," he told supporters.

While blasting President Trump as a "pathological liar," Sanders said in the radio interview he's running to pursue policies like universal health care and a $15 minimum wage. His challenge this time, however, will be standing out in a field of candidates who largely have adopted the big-government policies he championed three years ago.

The Republican National Committee cited his influence on the field's present-day policies in blasting his announcement. "Bernie Sanders is a self-avowed socialist who wants to double your taxes so the government can take over your health care. The vast majority of voters oppose his radical agenda, just like they are going to oppose all the 2020 Democrats who have rushed to embrace it," RNC Spokesman Michael Ahrens said.

Sanders, a progressive populist who identifies as a democratic socialist, put up a serious fight against Democratic contender Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary.

He joins a field already that already consists of top Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker. And two of the most progressive lawmakers in the Senate – Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jeff Merkley of Oregon – are also seriously considering presidential bids. Merkley was the only senator to endorse Sanders in 2016. Another progressive, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii – who also backed Sanders’ first White House bid – is also in the race.

Sanders, 77, has had to deal in recent months with a sexual harassment and mistreatment controversy stemming from his 2016 campaign staff, which elicited apologies from the senator.

FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2018, file photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks about his new book at a George Washington University/Politics and Prose event in Washington.

FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2018, file photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks about his new book at a George Washington University/Politics and Prose event in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

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But Sanders still enjoys widespread name recognition and strong support from progressives across the country. In New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in the race for the White House, a steering committee of top supporters of his 2016 campaign continues to meet on a monthly basis.

While many of those Granite States supporters will stick with Sanders, some are eyeing other candidates. And the state will be considered a "must win" for Sanders, as well as for Warren, who comes from neighboring Massachusetts.

The senator also slammed Trump, telling Vermont Public Radio that "I think the current occupant of the White House is an embarrassment to our country."

"I think he is a pathological liar,” he added. “I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, somebody who is gaining cheap political points by trying to pick on minorities, often undocumented immigrants."

Sanders spread the news of his announcement through an email to his supporters nationwide. And he conducted a national interview with CBS News. Asked what would be different the second time around, he answered that this time, “we’re going to win.”

Fox News’ Sarah Tobianski contributed to this report.

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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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

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