Tempted to join his brother and the New England Patriots, tight end Martellus Bennett said he will instead remain retired to focus on his creative work.
Michael Bennett was acquired by the Patriots from the Philadelphia Eagles earlier this month, sparking speculation the defensive lineman might soon be joined by his 32-year-old brother, who retired after being released by New England last offseason.
Martellus Bennett has since focused his creative efforts on his “life’s work” for The Imagination Agency.
“This is why I can’t come out of retirement,” he wrote in an Instagram post Monday. “I would love to play ball with my brother it would truly be a dream come true. But my biggest dream is to change lives with my creativity and that is what I am currently doing @theimaginationagency
“these kids don’t need another athlete to look up to or to aspire to be there’s plenty of inspiration out there for that. I want to inspire the next wave of creatives. The storytellers. The engineers. The designers. The doctors. The filmmakers. The composers. Tech moguls. And maybe a few athletes who like me never felt like they belonged in a locker room.
“I was never one of the guys guys most of my teammates would tell that. I’ve always been a creative who enjoyed competing. I’m playing the game that I was made to play and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had. Scoring touchdowns winning a super bowl has never made me feel the way seeing kids/families/people enjoying things I have created. I’m doing my life’s work fulfilling what I believe to be my life’s purpose. I hope everyone finds something that makes them as happy and as fulfilled as I have with my work @theimaginationagency I appreciate all of the love but this is waaaaayyy bigger than the game of football.”
Martellus Bennett has 30 career touchdowns and played 16 games for the Patriots in 2016, posting 55 receptions and seven scores.
Michael Bennett, 33, has played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle Seahawks and Eagles.
FILE PHOTO: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell holds a press conference following a two day Federal Open Market Committee policy meeting in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
March 9, 2019
By Alexandria Sage
PALO ALTO (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve does not see problems in the U.S. economy that warrant an immediate change in its policy, and it will be careful not to shock financial markets as it stabilizes its bond portfolio, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday.
The U.S. central bank is nearing a major milestone in its efforts to unwind economic stimulus measures enacted to fight the 2007-09 recession.
In a wide-ranging speech at Stanford University, Powell said the Fed was “well along” in discussions on a plan to end a runoff of its balance sheet, which ballooned during and after the recession.
While there were “cross-currents” pointing to economic risks, none were flashing warning signals serious enough for the Fed to change its interest rate policy stance, he said.
“With nothing in the outlook demanding an immediate policy response and particularly given muted inflation pressures, the committee has adopted a patient, wait-and-see approach,” Powell said in prepared remarks, referring to the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
He said the Fed would soon communicate details of its plan to stop shrinking its $4 trillion balance sheet later this year. His remarks appeared aimed at reassuring financial investors that the Fed would take pains not to shock investors.
“As we feel our way cautiously to this goal, we will move transparently and predictably in order to minimize needless market disruption and risks to our dual-mandate objectives,” he said. The Fed’s dual mandate is for maximum employment and the maintenance of stable prices.
Powell’s remarks were the last from any Fed policymakers until the conclusion of the Fed’s next policy-setting meeting, to be held March 19-20.
His remarks came after the Labor Department on Friday reported that U.S. employment growth almost stalled in February, a sign of a sharp slowdown in economic activity in the first quarter.
The Fed had released a statement in January that suggested it was no longer sure if it would continue raising interest rates, after hiking rates four times in 2018. Markets may look to the Fed’s quarterly interest-rate-hike projections, to be released after the Fed’s upcoming March meeting, for clues of when it might continue with rate hikes.
On Friday, however, Powell warned against reading too much into those forecasts, noting that in the past markets at times had misread them as policy promises. He said he asked a small panel of fellow Fed policymakers to figure out a better way to communicate their role.
In December the rate-hike forecasts suggested policymakers expected two rate hikes this year. Markets currently expect none.
Powell also called out the need for the Fed and other central banks to find better ways to deal with pervasive low inflation, and said that as the Fed reviews options this year, it ought to pay serious attention to strategies that would drive inflation higher to make up for past bouts of sluggish inflation.
But Powell said he sees a “high bar” for any fundamental changes to the Fed’s current approach because of the potential of inadvertently undermining the public’s confidence in the U.S. central bank’s commitment to fighting inflation.
(Additional reporting by Ann Saphir and Jason Lange; Editing by Leslie Adler)
It’s almost as though the Mueller Report was written by Democrats for Democrats. Oh, wait -- that’s exactly what it is! Which is why the left-wing media was so drunkenly exuberant on Thursday when the report was released.
The entire framework of the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was to buttress the Democratic argument that President Trump is an unqualified boob who doesn’t deserve to be president — and there is not even the slightest acknowledgement of the by-now blatantly obvious fact that Trump was the victim of a virtual coup.
Indeed, you cannot help but get the feeling that the Mueller Report is the death benefit of that “insurance policy” that Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andy McCabe took out way back in August 2016.
You will recall that FBI agent Strzok sent his Justice Department girlfriend Page a text message that hinted at nefarious Deep State involvement in the presidential election:
“I want to believe the path you threw out in Andy’s [McCabe's] office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Well, the “unlikely event” of Donald Trump being elected president happened, and therefore the insurance policy went into effect — namely the creation of a diversionary narrative of Russian collusion to weaken the new president and ultimately to overthrow him.
But somehow, Bob Mueller and his team of “Angry Democrats” were unable to penetrate this conspiracy in plain sight — perhaps because they were so busy being part of it.
On page 323 of the report, the special counsel acknowledges that he is aware of the origin of the Russia hoax because he quotes the president's Aug. 24, 2018, tweet asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI agent Peter Strzok, Justice Department lawyer Lisa Page, DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and Christopher Steele and "his phony and corrupt Dossier." But somehow neither Sessions, nor Mueller, nor anyone else has been able to put 2 + 2 together and come up with the correct answer.
Indeed, if you want to gauge the complete inadequacy of the Mueller Report, consider this: President Trump’s tweet is the only mention in the report of Ohr, whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier. It is the only mention of Strzok. It is the only mention of Page. Considering their central role in framing the president, that is the equivalent of the Warren Report somehow relegating Lee Harvey Oswald to a single footnote.
The tweet is not the only mention of McCabe, because he had investigated National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and later became acting director of the FBI after the firing of James Comey, but there is no evidence that Mueller probed McCabe's role with Strzok and Page in setting up the "insurance policy" that Strzok said was in place in case Trump got elected president.
The fact that there is no mention of Steele at all in Volume 1 of the report (which covers Russian interference in the 2016 election) is shocking since it was his unverified dossier that promoted the lie that the Russians had control of Trump because they possessed compromising material on the real estate tycoon. Steele’s participation with Russian sources is the most direct evidence of Russian interference in the election, but Mueller showed no interest in it because it implicated Democrats.
Volume 2 (which covers obstruction) does on page 235 acknowledge Steele's existence as the source of what even Mueller calls the "unverified allegations" published by BuzzFeed in January 2017. It also notes on pages 239 and 240 that Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on the phony dossier on Jan. 6, 2017, and that the briefing was subsequently leaked to the public.
Moreover, page 246 acknowledges that the president wanted the FBI to investigate Steele's allegations on Jan. 27, 2017, but that Comey talked him out of it. If the president had gotten his wish, the entire Mueller investigation would never have taken place at all because it would have been quickly established that Steele was working at the behest of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Oh, yes, and Comey would have kept his job because he was working for the president instead of against him.
The mention of Steele on page 315 does prove that the Mueller team was well aware of allegations of a Democratic/Deep State plot against Trump but chose not to investigate it. This mention is in reference to the July 2017 reporting about the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and several Russians.
The New York Times quoted a statement from Trump legal spokesman Mark Corallo that the Trump Tower meeting "might have been a setup by individuals working with the firm that produced the Steele reporting." If Mueller's team knew this and still didn't bother to investigate the suspicious circumstances of the meeting, then they have lost all credibility.
Most telling perhaps is that there is no direct reference to GPS Fusion in the entire report other than that anonymous reference by Corallo to "the firm that produced the Steele reporting." Nor for that matter is there any reference to the Perkins Coie law firm that was the go-between that hired GPS Fusion on behalf of the DNC to generate the phony Steele dossier.
Clearly, the Mueller Report is the result of a one-sided investigation that did not seek to get at the truth, but only single-mindedly sought — if at all possible — to indict the president. This realization thoroughly vindicates attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has long said that to avoid a political outcome of the investigation, the country needed a bipartisan “blue ribbon panel” such as the 9/11 Commission.
It’s too late for that now, but if Attorney General William Barr has any intestinal fortitude (and I think he does) we will soon get a new investigation that exposes the partisan origins of the Russia hoax and asks many current and former federal officials, up to and including President Obama, “What did you know, and when did you know it.”
Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His new book — “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake” — is available at Amazon. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com to read his daily commentary or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter @HeartlandDiary.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia's government has been urged to reinvestigate the disappearances of a Christian pastor and a Muslim activist after a public inquiry concluded the duo were abducted by the police special branch over matters against Islam.
Amri Che Mat, who ran a Muslim organization, disappeared on Nov. 24, 2016. Pastor Raymond Koh disappeared on Feb. 13, 2017, while being investigated for proselytization of Muslims.
The National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday concluded after a two-year investigation that the men were victims of "enforced disappearance" involving the special branch. It said the men had been targeted and abducted in similar fashion by men in black.
Rights groups, lawmakers and a Christian body said Thursday a new investigation should be done to find the truth and punish the perpetrators.
FILE PHOTO: Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida, boards a bus to tour South Dallas as part of a community outreach by U.S. central bankers, in Dallas, Texas, U.S., February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ann Saphir
March 28, 2019
MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – The U.S.’s deepened trade and financial ties have exposed it to increasing “spillovers” that central bankers cannot ignore in setting policy, Fed vice chair Richard Clarida said in remarks to a conference in Europe.Economic shocks abroad can hit the U.S. directly by cutting demand for American-made exports, but are felt ever more deeply through financial and foreign exchange channels as well.
As long as world investors view the dollar as a safe haven, pushing its value up in times of crisis and driving down U.S. interest rates, the U.S. will have to pay attention, Clarida said.
“One hears a great deal about the spillovers of U.S. monetary policy to other economies. One hears somewhat less, though, about how global shocks affect the U.S. economy,” Clarida said at the Bank of France.
With open capital markets, the sum of U.S. assets and debts abroad have grown from around 25 percent of gross domestic product to 300 percent since 1960, Clarida said, a massive financial pool that can carry problems experienced in one country into the U.S.
“In today’s world U.S. policymakers can hardly ignore these risks,” Clarida said, even though their goal is to maintain the maximum level of employment consistent with stable inflation of around 2 percent a year.
In the decade since the 2007 to 2009 economic crisis, the Fed has navigated two disruptive overseas events, including concerns around 2011 that the euro currency area might break apart, and financial turmoil that hit China in 2015 and 2016. That latter episode in particular caused the Fed to delay expected interest rate increases.
The Fed is arguably in a third such epoch now, between the risks of a disruptive British exit from the European Union, a tense global trade environment, and a slowdown in Chinese growth.
“Three of our most recent FOMC statements have highlighted concerns about global economic and financial developments,” Clarida said. “In the presence of these risks and with inflation pressures muted, we can afford to be patient” in deciding any further rate moves.
(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
While Facebook claims to have deleted thousands of pages to prevent meddling in the Indian elections, the American company’s selective deletions have led at least one man to ask: Who is watching the election watchers?
A little over a week ahead of the beginning of elections in India this Thursday, Facebook raised some eyebrows when it announced that it had removed a number of politically oriented pages as a part of its “election integrity” efforts.
The social media giant removed 138 pro-opposition pages that had over 200,000 followers for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” While they only removed 15 pro-government pages, as it turned out, those pages had a far wider reach with millions of likes.
Given the apparent imbalance, it is all the more concerning that the purge was conducted with assistance from the US-based Atlantic Council, a think tank that receives millions of dollars in funding from the US State Department and NATO allies.
Javed Sultan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Indian defense analyst and security expert Abhijit Iyer-Mitra is one of the people extremely concerned with the impact the American private company could have on India’s elections. He has even filed a criminal complaint with police in New Delhi, describing Facebook’s actions as an act of war, and an attack on the country’s sovereignty.
Speaking to RT, Iyer-Mitra blasted the social network for their glaring double standards: while making extensive efforts to protect American elections from foreign actors in the wake of the alleged “Russian meddling” scandal, the company seemingly had no qualms about letting a state-department-linked think tank act in place of Indian election officials.
“The point is they are an American company, this is an Indian election,” said Iyer-Mitra. “We are not willing to cede our sovereignty to other countries like this. I think they are making a big mistake and I intend to pursue this to the end.”
Alex Jones breaks down how the globalists are attempting to collapse civilization within the next six months by intensifying their migrant-fueled destabilization of the West.
An African grey parrot, is treated by Israeli veterinarians Shlomit Levy, right, and Ofer Zadok center, from an Israeli wildlife organization, at the Erez crossing on the Israel--Gaza border, Tuesday, March 19, 2019. In the blockaded Gaza Strip, the Palestinian owner of the African grey parrot, Abdullah Sharaf, said Tuesday his bird, “Koki,” drank bleach that burned a hole in his throat. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip – An ailing parrot in the blockaded Gaza Strip has received treatment from an Israeli animal rights group after its Palestinian owner appealed for help via Facebook.
Abdullah Sharaf said Tuesday his African grey parrot, Koki, drank bleach that burned a hole in his throat. He says local veterinarians, ill-equipped to handle specialized cases, suggested his exotic pet be put down.
Unconvinced, Sharaf appealed via Facebook to an animal rights group in central Israel, which agreed to help. The group sent a mobile surgery clinic to the Israel-Gaza frontier and successfully treated the bird at the crossing.
Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. Palestinians in Gaza face severe travel restrictions, making it difficult to get specialized medical treatment.
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.
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.”
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.”
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – 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.
LONDON – 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.”
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)
JOHANNESBURG – 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.
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