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Interserve set for pre-pack administration if debt deal fails: source

FILE PHOTO: The Interserve logo is seen on a flag at Interserve offices in Twyford
FILE PHOTO: The Interserve logo is seen on a flag at Interserve offices in Twyford, Britain January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

March 9, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Banks for Interserve have lined up a so-called pre-pack administration that will wipe out existing shareholders but enable the troubled outsourcer to keep operating, a person familiar with the situation said on Saturday.

Seeking to avoid a collapse like rival Carillion, the plan would come into force if investors reject Interserve’s debt-for-equity swap at a vote on Friday.

The British company, which employs 68,000 people globally to provide cleaning and building services, is fighting for survival after struggling to service debt due to project delays, a weak construction market and a mistaken push into the energy-from-waste market.

A pre-pack administration enables the company to sell itself or its assets before it appoints administrators who take over the running of the business to protect creditors.

Interserve struck a deal in February under which existing shareholders would retain 5 percent of the group while creditors take control.

However its biggest shareholder Coltrane Asset Management has objected to the deal and a vote will take place on Friday.

Interserve declined to comment but the company’s chairman, Glyn Barker, told the Telegraph newspaper on Saturday that Coltrane would be to blame if the company has to opt for a pre-pack deal.

“If we lose that vote because of Coltrane, then it will be because of Coltrane that shareholders get nothing out of this,” he said.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Source: OANN

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Pay to Play: AOC Gave High Ranked Job to Highest Bidder

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Last Friday, my mentions died for your sins. I posted a screen grab of Riley Roberts’s House Microsoft Outlook card, including his official house.gov email address, office phone number, and his designation as “Staff”. Roberts is the boyfriend of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Congresswoman was upset.

Throwing caution to the wind, she stormed into my mentions, asserting this was just a way to give Mr. Roberts access to her official calendar.

Her Chief of Staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, soon followed, reiterating the calendar claim and accusing me of doxxing Mr. Roberts by posting his publicly available LinkedIn profile (which he deleted) and his official government address and the office phone number.

Neither AOC nor Chakrabarti said why Roberts needs access to her official calendar.

Regardless, hordes of her howling minions followed. I was briefly suspended by Twitter for revealing personal information, only to be released with an apology when I pointed out that everything I posted is government property and public.

My Parole Papers

My brief stint as a digital political prisoner turned into something of a cause célèbreon the right, inviting wave upon wave of MAGA-enthusiasts to battle back on my behalf against the forces of digital socialism. My timeline is still a wasteland.

During my suspension I talked to a Congressional spouse, a few reporters, and some staffers from both parties. AOC hasn’t exactly been winning friends lately, which is how I got Roberts’s Outlook screen grab in the first place. A rumor on the Hill was circulating that Roberts had attended a Congressional Progressive Caucus meeting. A tipster looked to see if he’d been given staff credentials. It appeared he had. All agreed this was irregular if he was just a spouse.

Per the House Admin office, a family member can, in special circumstances, get a house.gov email address. But Roberts is not a family member, and although AOC referred to him as her partner in November of last year, she omitted him from her mandatory candidate financial disclosures for 2017and 2018. Perhaps they’ve gotten married since. If so — if he is her spouse now — we should see his finances disclosed along with hers in her 2019 disclosure form due in May. But to be clear, AOC did not disclose Roberts’s finances as a spouse during her campaign.

Regardless, absent a wavier from House Ethics, family members have to be volunteers. AOC’s office apparently doesn’t believe in having unpaid workers, as according to Chakrabarti they have no volunteers in the office.

So Roberts is designated as staff but also isn’t on AOC’s staff, even though he showed up Friday morning in the House directory as processing into her personal office as a staffer. In other words his staff status, like his spouse status, is akin to Schrodinger’s cat.

This ought to have been enough to make it clear that AOC’s story didn’t add up. More importantly, I’d clearly hit a nerve. Chakrabarti spent much of the day in my mentions insisting that everything was on the up-and-up with Roberts. Instead of asking if Roberts had been supplied with the badge and pin appropriate to a Congressional spouse, evidence of which her office should have been able to produce easily, AOC’s worshipful stenographers in the press went into overdrive witlessly repeating her talking-points. Jeff Stein over at the Washington Post even woke up Saturday to keep it going in my mentions, as did Chakrabarti himself. And, of course, AOC had decided to get into it. That’s a lot of time and effort spent “refuting” a GOP consultant known to a tiny corner of the internet for posting cat pictures and bitching about the doctrine of coequal branches.

So I went to the FEC, did a little searching, and discovered that, lo and behold, there’s more to the story. Now, during the original kerfuffle, some folks noticed that AOC’s campaign had paid Roberts $1,750. That’s not quite what transpired. Roberts was “paid” only as a means of keeping accounting in order. In the first half of 2018, Roberts did some free work for the campaign. That work got put on the books as an in-kind contribution and then discharged as an expenditure for accounting purposes. That’s perfectly normal. It’s a way to keep people from circumventing federal contribution caps by providing discounted or free services.

But that’s not the only political work Roberts ostensibly did during the cycle. Nor would it be the first time Chakrabarti had hired Roberts. He’s done so at least once before, in 2017, although it’s unlikely Roberts was hired to do any actual work in that case.

At the beginning of 2017, Chakrabarti created Brand New Congress, an organization dedicated to shaking things up in Democratic primaries. It’s a rather ingenious organization, but one that dwells in a legal gray-area as far as campaign finance law is concerned. It facilitates campaigns on shoestring budgets by providing a single clearinghouse for campaign services, generally filed under the banner of “strategic consulting”. But, as a result, it limits the meaningfulness of FEC disclosures by those campaigns. Additionally, it means that Brand New Congress, unlike most PACs, spends most of its budget on overhead and makes relatively few actual contributions to candidates.

Additionally, Brand New Congress is not one thing, but rather two. It’s a nonqualified political action committee — a PAC — that can raise and bundle campaign contributions for candidates. Donations and expenditures from PACs, like those to and by candidates, are publicly disclosed. However, Brand New Congress is also a LLC, owned by Chakrabarti, that provides campaign services to candidates to help lower the barriers to entry. LLCs do not have to disclose or itemize their spending. Here’s Chakrabarti’s own write-up:

From Brand New Congress PAC’s FAQ page

This is a clever way to try to make running for office easier and to place a lot of small bets on a lot of insurgent candidates and hope for a few lucky wins. And that pretty much seems to be what happened.

According to FEC records, the PAC was founded in mid-January of 2017. At the end of February, it affiliated with Justice Democrats, a collaboration between Chakrabarti and Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks. The two organizations are inextricably linked. Chakrabarti lists himself as a Co-Founder of both Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats on his LinkedIn page.

Over the course of the cycle, Justice Democrats would pay Brand New Congress LLC $605,849.12. They would also share an address. In May, Brand New Congress changed the address for its custodian of records to 714 South Gay Street in Knoxville, TN. In August, it switched addresses again, but in December of 2017, Justice Democrats registered at the address. AOC also used the Knoxville address in her first candidate filing, which incorrectly registered her to run in New York’s 15th Congressional District.

Five days later, she switched to the 14th district and added her campaign committee, registered to an address in the Bronx. Two months after that, the campaign committee’s address was changed to 714 South Gay Street as well.

A quick tour through AOC’s campaign expenditures reveals the extent to which Brand New Congress midwifed her campaign into existence, precisely as the FAQ described above would have it. But AOC’s campaign was different from the others backed by Brand New Congress PAC, and not simply because she won. Like other candidates, AOC paid Brand New Congress LLC for strategic consulting, in her case totaling $18,880.14. Unlike in the other cases, Brand New Congress PAC turned around and paid her boyfriend as a “marketing consultant”.

Indeed, while Brand New Congress PAC’s ten largest expenditures were paid to Brand New Congress LLC for “strategic consulting,” a sum that totaled $261,165.20 over the course of the campaign, its eleventh and twelfth largest expenditures were paid to Riley Roberts.

Brand New Congress PAC paid Roberts $3,000 on August 9th:

Payments from Brand New Congress PAC to Riley Roberts

Eighteen days later, AOC’s campaign paid Brand New Congress LLC $6,191.32:

Payments from AOC’s Campaign to Brand New Congress LLC

A month later Brand New Congress PAC then turned around and paid Riley Roberts another $3,000.

Why would Chakrabarti, a founding engineer at Stripe and a wealthy veteran of Silicon Valley, be hiring a no-name “UX Experience” guy with little discernible marketing experience to serve as Brand New Congress PAC’s sole marketing consultant?

The answer seems to be that Chakrabarti was funneling money paid to him by AOC’s campaign back to Roberts and by extension to AOC.

At the beginning of October, more than four months into her campaign, AOC’s fundraising had been anemic. Excluding an in-kind contribution from Chakrabarti, she’d raised only $3,032.75 but had already spent $27,591.27 — more than half of which she’d paid to Chakrabarti’s Brand New Congress LLC. By the end of 2017 she’d spent $37,249.94 but raised only $8,361.03. That’s a lot of money to stick on a credit card. Since no loans are recorded on her campaign books, presumably either AOC or Roberts was fronting the necessary cash.

It looks to me like Chakrabarti was effectively reimbursing AOC for a third of her expenses with Brand New Congress LLC, perhaps so that she would stay in the race despite her mounting debt.

The shadiness of the whole business may also explain why Roberts lists his residence as Arizona for the expenditure, rather than New York. Roberts is from Arizona, but was living in New York with AOC. His other contributions to her campaign, both cash and in-kind, list New York as his residence.

Regardless of whether or not Roberts was officially AOC’s spouse at that time, it seems probable Chakrabarti was reimbursing her for her campaign expenses off-books. Brand New Congress PAC simply served as a pass-through to do so.

When AOC won, she then hired Chakrabarti, her strategist/patron, as her Chief of Staff. Taking money from a rich guy, trying to hide it by passing it through a PAC, and then giving her benefactor a government job.

That’s definitely unethical and potentially illegal. Chakrabarti may have made an illegal campaign contribution in excess of federal limits. Regardless, it raises questions about Chakrabarti’s hiring as AOC’s Chief of Staff after her election. Maybe add that to your next lightning round, Congresswoman.

Finally, all of the above is based on public information. It took me a couple of hours to pull it all together and write it up. I suppose this could be called muckraking, but it’s really just minimal reporting that nobody in the press decided to do. I can’t emphasize enough how easy it was to find all of this information. It’s literally just sitting there. But no reporter bothered to read it. Democracy dies in darkness? Nah. Reporters are just lazy.

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Intel says to exit 5G smartphone modem business

FILE PHOTO: Intel's logo is pictured during preparations at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover
FILE PHOTO: Intel's logo is pictured during preparations at the CeBit computer fair, which will open its doors to the public on March 20, at the fairground in Hanover, Germany, March 19, 2017. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer/File Photo

April 16, 2019

(Reuters) – Intel Corp said on Tuesday it was exiting the 5G smartphone modem business, while assessing opportunities for 4G and 5G modems in PCs, internet of things devices and other data-centric devices.

“…in the smartphone modem business it has become apparent that there is no clear path to profitability and positive returns,” Intel CEO Bob Swan said in a statement.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: OANN

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India’s economy seen losing momentum ahead of election

Labourers works at the construction site of a residential building in Mumbai
Labourers works at the construction site of a residential building in Mumbai, India, February 4, 2016. REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade

February 27, 2019

By Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s economy appeared to be losing momentum in the approach to a general election that must be held by May, as a Reuters survey of economists forecast that growth slipped to 6.9 percent annually in the October-December quarter.

If the forecast proves accurate, India will post its slowest growth in five quarters, making it harder for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to persuade voters that government policies were delivering economic success.

The gross domestic product and the second advance estimates for the 2018/19 fiscal year ending in March will be released on Thursday around 1200 GMT.

Weaker domestic and external demand were key factors behind the economists expectations of sub-7 percent growth. India would still be growing faster than China’s 6.4 percent growth in the same quarter, but its economy has decelerated from the more than two-year high of 8.2 percent growth posted in the April-June quarter.

The current growth numbers may look respectable, but Modi faces a criticism that he has not done enough for the manufacturing sector and create enough jobs for millions of youth entering the jobs market every month.

Growing signs of weakness in India, most alarmingly the desperation of rural communities whose income have been hit by falling prices for farm produce, forced Modi earlier this month to increase state spending, and make direct cash transfers to farmers. That could marginally help growth rates, but it will increase the government’s debt.

This month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut its policy interest rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent, and changed its stance to “neutral” to boost a slowing economy as inflation has come down sharply.

“The economic growth slowed in December quarter following weaker consumption as reflected by auto sales and slowdown in credit after a crisis in non-banking financial company sector,” A. Prasanna, chief economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership in Mumbai said.

Prasanna said economic growth in December quarter could fall to as low as 6.4 percent.

Economic growth could suffer from a possible slowdown in state spending in the two months before the election.

But, Prasanna and other analysts still expected a pick up in coming quarters due to rising private investments and consumer demand, helped by lower interest rates and a fall in global oil prices.

Average industrial capacity utilization during the four quarters that ended in September 2018 was about 74.5 per cent although the new orders growth has moderated, according to the RBI estimates released earlier this month.

Year-on-year growth in the industrial output in November and December 2018 were low at 0.3 per cent and 2.4 per cent, compared to the average growth of 5.7 per cent in the preceding seven months of 2018-19.

The country has underperformed in the manufacturing sector – though emerging as the world’s sixth biggest auto manufacturer, and expanding production of smart phones.

Manufacturing’s share of GDP has risen just 1.5 percent in last three years to stand at nearly 18 percent, and investors complain that higher taxes, lack of efficient infrastructure and regulatory red tape make India a difficult place to work.

Inflows of foreign direct investment has slowed, dropping 7 percent to $33.5 billion in the nine months between April and December 2018, reflecting investors concerns that Modi’s business-friendly government faced a tough contest and whoever wins the election could have a hard time pressing forward with needed reforms.

“The government needs to focus on addressing issues related to land, labor tax, the policy regime related to infrastructure, and overall ease of doing business,” Upasana Chachra, an economist at Morgan Stanley said in a note earlier this week.

(Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Facebook tightens rules on political ads ahead of EU vote

FILE PHOTO: A 3D printed Facebook logo is placed on broken glass above a printed EU flag in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: A 3D printed Facebook logo is placed on broken glass above a printed EU flag in this illustration taken January 28, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

March 28, 2019

By Alissa de Carbonnel and Katie Paul

BRUSSELS/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc toughened its rules on political advertising in Europe on Friday under pressure from EU regulators to do more to guard against foreign meddling in the bloc’s upcoming legislative election. Chastened since Russia used the social media platform to influence polls that swept U.S. President Donald Trump to power, Facebook says it has ploughed resources and staff into safeguarding the ballot across 27 EU nations on May 26.

“I don’t want anyone to be in any doubt that this is a top priority for the company,” Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president for global policy solutions, told reporters over a video-link to Brussels.

All such ads will be labeled as “paid for”, offering info on who bought it, for how much and how many people have seen it – broken down by age, location and gender.

Only advertisers located and authorized in a given country will be able to run political ads or issue ads there, mirroring policies elsewhere where the tools have been rolled out.

Ads will also be archived for seven years in a publicly searchable archive.

Facebook will block ads that fail to comply from mid-April.

Despite requests by the umbrella political groups that make up the European Parliament and by the EU executive to allow for one-stop-shop pan-European advertising, Facebook said the risks were too high and the timeline too short to do so.

“The convenience … we understand why they want that, but we could not find any way to carve that out without opening up opportunities nobody would want to see,” Allan said.

Doing so when polls in each of the 27 EU member states are governed by local election rules, he said, would allow little recourse for regulators in case of a breach of law.

The ad transparency rules – already in place in the United States, Britain, Brazil, India, Ukraine and Israel – will be rolled out globally by late June, the company said.

Issue categories differ by country. In Europe, they will be: political values, immigration, security and foreign policy, civil and social rights, environmental politics and the economy.

In the same update, Facebook said it was adding new features and information to its ad archive, the Ad Library, and expanding access to its database so researchers can conduct more in-depth analysis of the data.

Other efforts by the company to safeguard a ballot in which 350 million adults can vote include working with independent fact-checkers to combat disinformation and a cyber security team working to foil bad actors and fake accounts.

As the polls approach, EU heads of state again sounded the alarm at a summit last week, urging private operators such as online platforms and social networks to “ensure higher standards of responsibility and transparency.”

“Over the past year there has been huge progress in awareness of the problem,” said a senior diplomat from an EU member state in the former Soviet bloc, whose government was among those pushing Brussels to pay more attention to the threat. “Now it is becoming a central part of EU thinking … to address the fragilities that our democratic systems may have.”

(Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Katie Paul; Additional reporting Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Source: OANN

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Lockheed Martin raises 2019 profit, shares rise

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Lockheed Martin is seen at Euronaval, the world naval defence exhibition in Le Bourget near Paris
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Lockheed Martin is seen at Euronaval, the world naval defence exhibition in Le Bourget near Paris, France, October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

April 23, 2019

(Reuters) – Pentagon’s No.1 weapons supplier Lockheed Martin Corp on Tuesday reported a 47 percent jump in quarterly profit and raised its 2019 profit forecast, sending shares up 4.5 percent before the bell.

The company now expects full-year profit to range between $20.05 and $20.35 per share, compared with its previous forecast of $19.15 to $19.45.

Net earnings rose to $1.70 billion, or $5.99 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $1.16 billion, or $4.02 per share, a year earlier.

Net sales rose 23 percent to $14.34 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Source: OANN

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A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing
A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool (CHINA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

April 26, 2019

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even as the lift from optimism over prospects for U.S.-China trade detente shows signs of wearing off for the wider U.S. stock market, upbeat sentiment around China’s economy could bolster shares of materials companies.

Shares of S&P 500 industrial and technology companies, which were buffeted by last year’s tit-for-tat tariffs as well as slowing global demand, have been very responsive to progress in U.S.-China trade relations and a strengthening Chinese economy. This year, those sectors have outpaced the ascent in the S&P 500, which reached a record closing high on Tuesday.

Materials stocks have not been as sensitive, however, even though they also stand to benefit as a stronger Chinese economy lifts global consumption and industrial output. As China has taken measures to stimulate its economy, its economic data have turned more upbeat. That in turn could aid global growth, which has flagged as a result of China’s cooldown.

“What we’re seeing is China spending more on stimulus: fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco in New York. “That’s likely to be a positive for materials.”

The People’s Bank of China has cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio five times over the past year and is widely expected to ease policy further to spur lending and reduce borrowing costs. The stimulus appears to have boosted Chinese economic data, with factory activity growing in March for the first time in four months.

Yet so far in 2019, the S&P 500 materials index has underperformed the S&P 500 at large, rising just 11.9% compared with 16.7% for the benchmark index. Moreover, it is among the biggest decliners in the period since the S&P’s previous record closing level on Sept. 20. The materials index has fallen 7% over those seven months, versus a 5.2% gain for technology and a 3% loss for industrials. Only the energy index has dropped more over that period.

A trade agreement could serve as a catalyst for a bump in materials shares as a drag on China’s economy is lifted, some market strategists say. Some commodity prices, including those for copper and oil, have ascended this year as the prospects for the global economy have somewhat brightened.

“It all goes back to the global growth outlook,” said Andrea DiCenso, portfolio manager for alpha strategies at Loomis Sayles in Boston. “With the front run in hard data, we’re beginning to see a pretty significant rally.”

Additionally, a trade agreement is expected to include commitments from China to purchase higher quantities of U.S. products such as soybeans, which could benefit companies that make agricultural chemicals, including DowDuPont Inc and CF Industries Holdings Inc.

CF Industries is scheduled to report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, and DowDuPont is scheduled to report before the market open on Thursday.

To be sure, even with a trade agreement, some materials companies could face price pressures. Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc fell 10.1% on Thursday after the copper mining company posted a lower-than-expected profit as its production slipped and its costs rose.

A rollback of tariffs on Chinese imports, particularly aluminum and steel, would likely prompt a fall in some commodity prices, which could hurt prospects for certain materials companies, said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management in El Segundo, California.

Even so, those drawbacks may be outweighed by the support for global demand fostered by a U.S.-China trade agreement.

“You could see a number of companies with lowered expectations bring them back up as they talk favorably about the impact that a trade deal would have on them,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.

(Reporting by April Joyner; additional reporting by Sinéad Carew; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Cyprus police on Friday widened their search for more victims of a suspected serial killer after the 35-year-old national guard captain told investigators he killed four more people that he previously admitted to on the small Mediterranean nation.

The count now has climbed to seven.

CYPRUS FEARS POSSIBLE SERIAL KILLER AFTER BODIES OF TWO WOMEN ARE DISCOVERED IN MINESHAFT

Authorities said they are focusing on a military firing range, a man-made lake and an abandoned mine about 20 miles west of the capital Nicosia.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades expressed “deep sorrow and concern” at the slayings and said he shared the public’s revulsion at “murders that appear to have selectively targeted foreign women who are in our country to work.”

“Such instincts are contrary to our culture’s traditions and values,” he said in a statement from China, where he was on an official visit. He urged calm so police can complete their investigation.

The scale of the alleged crimes by a Cypriot National Guard captain has horrified the small nation of over a million people, where multiple killings are rare. Five British law enforcement officials — including a coroner, a psychiatrist and investigators who specialize in multiple homicides — have been dispatched to help with the investigation.

On Thursday, the 35-year-old suspect, who can’t yet be named because he hasn’t been formally charged, told investigators that he had killed four more people than he had previously admitted to. Police said the suspect will appear in court Saturday for another custody hearing.

Cypriot investigators and police officers search a flooded mineshaft where two female bodies were found, outside of Mitsero village, near the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Monday, April 22, 2019. Police on the east Mediterranean island nation, along with the help of the fire service, are conducting the search Monday in the wake of last week's discovery of the bodies in the abandoned mineshaft and the disappearance of the six-year-old daughter of one of the victims. 

Cypriot investigators and police officers search a flooded mineshaft where two female bodies were found, outside of Mitsero village, near the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Monday, April 22, 2019. Police on the east Mediterranean island nation, along with the help of the fire service, are conducting the search Monday in the wake of last week’s discovery of the bodies in the abandoned mineshaft and the disappearance of the six-year-old daughter of one of the victims.  (AP)

The victims — all foreigners— include Marry Rose Tiburcio, 38, from the Philippines, whose bound body was found April 14 in a flooded mineshaft. She and her six-year-old daughter had been missing since May of last year.

The girl remains missing and authorities believe she was also slain by the suspect. Divers have entered the reservoir to search for her but have not found her body yet.

CYPRUS: GROUND NOT YET READY FOR PEACE TALKS RESUMPTION 

Authorities tracked down the officer last week by scouring Tiburcio’s online messages.

Six days later, police discovered another body April 20 in the same mineshaft, identified by Cypriot media as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines.

A third alleged victim, also of Filipino descent, is 31-year-old Maricar Valtez Arquiola, who had been missing since December 2017. The suspect initially denied killing Arquiola but reversed himself after a court hearing Thursday, a police official said.

The suspect on Thursday also pointed investigators to a military firing range, where they discovered another unidentified body, which according to the suspect belongs to a woman of either Nepalese or Indian descent.

SERIAL KILLER WHO MAY HAVE COMMITTED 90 MURDERS IS LINKED TO YET ANOTHER KILLING 

Cypriot police are also looking for a Romanian mother and daughter. Cypriot media identified them as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and eight-year-old Elena Natalia Bunea, who are believed to have been missing since September 2016.

The man-made lake remains off-limits to a manned search because of high levels of toxic heavy metals from the copper pyrite mine, Fire Service Chief Marcos Trangolas said, adding that authorities will use other means to scour the lake.

Chief of Cypriot police Zacharias Chrysostomou, center, walks with Cypriot investigators and police officers at a flooded mineshaft where two female bodies were found, outside of Mitsero village, near the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Monday, April 22, 2019.

Chief of Cypriot police Zacharias Chrysostomou, center, walks with Cypriot investigators and police officers at a flooded mineshaft where two female bodies were found, outside of Mitsero village, near the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Monday, April 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Cyprus police have faced criticism from immigrant activists who said they didn’t act fast enough to investigate the whereabouts of some of the victims, many of them domestic workers. The island nation has 80 unsolved missing persons cases, going back to 1990.

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Police chief Zacharias Chrysostomou said a three-member panel has been assigned to probe whether police followed all the correct protocol in recent missing persons cases.

According to the state-run Cyprus News Agency, an investigator had told the court at an earlier hearing that the suspect admitted to killing one woman he met online after having sex with her.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: Fox News World

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Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro is seen delivering a speech at a forum on human rights in Caracas
Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro is seen delivering a speech at a forum on human rights in Caracas, Venezuela June 12, 2018 in this still image taken from a video. REUTERS TV/ via REUTERS

April 26, 2019

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition-run National Assembly said on Friday that opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro was detained, which it described in a Twitter post as a violation of diplomatic immunity.

Caro had previously spend a year and a half in jail, before being freed in June 2018. The arrest comes as Juan Guaido, the National Assembly’s leader, mounts a challenge to President Nicolas Maduro, arguing his 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Guaido in January invoked the country’s constitution to assume an interim presidency.

(Reporting by Caracas newsroom; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Customers shop in a Sainsbury's store in Redhill
FILE PHOTO: Customers shop in a Sainsbury’s store in Redhill, Britain, March 27, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By James Davey

LONDON (Reuters) – With Sainsbury’s dream of creating Britain’s biggest supermarket group in tatters, its chastened CEO Mike Coupe needs to reassure investors he has the plan to arrest a sales decline when he presents annual results next week.

Britain’s competition regulator blocked Sainsbury’s 7.3 billion pound ($9.4 billion) takeover of Walmart’s Asda on Thursday, saying the deal would increase prices. Sainsbury’s shares fell 5 percent and are down 22 percent over the last three months.

For Sainsbury’s fourth quarter to March 9 analysts are on average forecasting a 1.6 percent fall in like-for-like sales, which would follow 1.1 percent decline over the Christmas period.

Monthly industry data from researcher Kantar has also shown Sainsbury’s as the weakest performer of the big four grocers this year and this month it lost its status as Britain’s No. 2 supermarket group by market share to Asda.

While Sainsbury’s has struggled, market leader Tesco has gained momentum, this month reporting a 34 percent jump in full year profit.

Prohibition of the deal was a major blow to Coupe, its architect and Sainsbury’s boss since 2014.

Martin Scicluna became Sainsbury’s chairman last month and when bedded-in may decide that if the group needs a major shake-up it is best carried out by a new leader.

Much will depend on the attitude of 22 percent shareholder the Qatar Investment Authority, which has so far declined to comment, as well as Coupe’s own appetite to continue after 15 years at the group.

THE RIGHT STRATEGY?

Coupe said on Thursday he was confident Sainsbury’s was pursuing the right strategy.

That was a clear indication that Wednesday’s results statement will not include radical changes to the group’s plans, such as a big margin reset — sacrificing profit to drive sales.

However, sources connected to Sainsbury’s said Coupe would likely acknowledge that more needs to be done on prices, so the supermarket business can better compete with its big four rivals – Tesco, Asda and No. 4 Morrisons – as well as German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Coupe’s strategy is based on differentiating Sainsbury’s food offer, growing its general merchandise, clothing business and bank, while investing in convenience and online channels.

Some analysts believe major change is needed.

HSBC analyst David McCarthy reckons Sainsbury’s needs a margin reset, should allocate more space for core lines and needs to drive better store standards. He said Sainsbury’s might consider closing down space in some of its larger stores and reducing its non-food offer.

For the full 2018-19 year analysts are on average forecasting a pretax profit of 626 million pounds, up from 589 million pounds in 2017-18 – a second straight year of profit growth. A full year dividend of 10.5 pence per share is forecast versus 10.2 pence last time.

Bank and lawyer fees related to the proposed combination with Asda were 17 million pounds in the first half and have reportedly jumped to around 50 million pounds.

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey rejected demands from a secular group to remove posts on social media where he sent Easter greetings and cited a Bible verse, offering to provide copies of the Constitution to his critics.

Ducey, who’s a practicing Catholic, has been bombarded with calls from Secular Communities for Arizona to remove the post, which included a cross, a Bible verse, and the phrase, “He is risen.”

ARIZONA’S GOP GOVERNOR WAGING WAR AGAINST OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING LAWS

The group argued the posts crossed a line into government sponsorship of religious messages and was unconstitutional.

The governor fired back at the group, saying in a tweet that he will never remove the posts or other religious ones.

“We won’t be removing this post. Ever. Nor will we be removing our posts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Palm Sunday, Passover or any other religious holiday,” he tweeted. “We support the First Amendment, and are happy to provide copies of the Constitution to anyone who hasn’t read it.”

Dianne Post, an attorney for the secular group, told the Arizona Republic “elected officials should not use their government position and government property to promote their religious views.”

LICENSE REQUIRED TO REPAIR DOORS? REGS SPARK HEATED DEBATE IN ARIZONA

She added the courts have repeatedly “struck down symbolism that unites government with religion,” adding that Ducey’s office must “represent and protect the rights of all residents of Arizona, including those who do not believe in a monotheistic God or any gods at all.”

Many congratulated Ducey for not backing down amid the pressure, though some Facebook users sided with the secular group and criticized the governor on his original post.

“Why do you use a government platform to bring up your personal religion?” asked one person. “Are there no citizens in your jurisdiction that believe differently from you?”

Another stipulated that the post was somewhat discriminatory. “Great sensitivity, Doug. That’s the last time this Jew votes for you,” one person wrote.

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Ducey wished in a statement Arizonans last week a “blessed and joyful Easter and Passover weekend.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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