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Newcomer Mayor Lori Lightfoot takes on Chicago establishment and ‘political machine’

Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot clinches her fists as she speaks during her election night celebration after defeating her challenger Toni Preckwinkle in a runoff election in Chicago
Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot clinches her fists as she speaks during her election night celebration after defeating her challenger Toni Preckwinkle in a runoff election in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Lott

April 3, 2019

By Brendan O’Brien

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago, known for its machine politics and corruption, woke up Wednesday to voters choosing an anti-establishment candidate who may shake up a city that made history by electing its first African-American woman for mayor.

Voters in the third-largest U.S. city on Tuesday elected Lori Lightfoot, who has never held office, in a runoff election. She easily defeated long-time local politician and a fellow black woman, Toni Preckwinkle, 72, to become the city’s 56th mayor.

Chicago has now become the largest American city to elect a black woman as its mayor, and an openly gay woman as well.

The 56-year-old Lightfoot is also the latest in a wave of political newcomers to win major elections around the globe as voters upend the status quo, propelling anti-establishment candidates to power. She will now take over a city where politics is a blood sport and where corruption has swirled in and around City Hall for generations.

But Chicagoans are ready for a change, Lightfoot said on the campaign trail, promising to support mayoral term limits, reforms that would ban elected officials from profiting from their governmental positions and strengthen worker compensation oversight.

“They want a break from the corrupt political machine that has held back the aspirations of so many people,” Lightfoot said during a debate last week. “They want a government that is responsive to them and that has integrity.”

The city got its reputation as a well-oiled political machine from the way Richard J. Daley, one of the last big-city “bosses,” ran the city from 1955 to 1976 with help from armies of patronage workers and crooked city council members.

Thirteen years later, his son Richard M. Daley became mayor and for the next 22 years, he ran the city as the powerful political machinery churned in the background.

“It’s refreshing to see somebody who is different, hopefully,” said Andrew Tabor, 61, a consultant who has lived in Chicago his entire life.

Tabor recalled an incident from “years ago” when the so-called machine allegedly sent a message to a childhood friend’s father who had political connections.

“They blew up his car. I don’t know who he was not playing nice with, but someone blew up his car. That’s the machine right there,” Tabor said sitting in the living room of his home on the north side days before the historic vote.

NOT PROGRESSIVE ENOUGH?

Lightfoot has held several positions in and out of government. She was an assistant United States attorney, a senior equity partner at Mayer Brown LLP and, most notably, the president of the Chicago Police Board, an independent civilian panel.

Some on the left, including Preckwinkle, criticized her as not being progressive enough, noting she made millions as a corporate lawyer representing corporate clients.

She and Preckwinckle earned spots on the runoff ballot after they garnered the most votes among 14 candidates, including Richard M. Daley’s younger brother Bill, in a February election. Lightfoot will replace Rahm Emanuel, who announced in September he was not seeking a third term as mayor.

Voters saw Lightfoot as the anti-establishment choice compared with Preckwinkle, who was a city council member, or alderman, for almost 20 years before becoming Cook County board president in 2010.

“Lightfoot will bring more change because Preckwinkle is connected to the old-boys club, the establishment,” said retired mailman Gary Muckle, 77, after voting for Lightfoot this weekend at a polling place on the city’s north side.

“We will have to see what happens now. Lightfoot is not beholden to anyone,” he said.

Lightfoot will also face a raft of thorny problems such as reforms to the police department, rampant gangs and violent crime and a spiraling budget deficit fueled by escalating pensions.

Emanuel leaves as corruption continues to seep throughout city hall. Just this year, Alderman Ed Burke, a long-time political powerhouse in Chicago, was charged with extortion, Alderman Willie Cochran pleaded guilty to wire fraud and it was revealed Alderman Danny Solis was recently under investigation for corruption.

Burke, who has been an alderman for 50 years, won re-election in February.

In all, federal prosecutors racked up 246 public corruption convictions in the Northern Illinois District, which includes Chicago, from 2010 to 2017. That is 80 percent more than in the Southern District of New York, located in Manhattan, according to a report from the Department of Political Science at University of Illinois at Chicago.

“The race turned on reform of Chicago politics and moving towards a new Chicago,” said Dick Simpson, a professor in the department, who studies Chicago politics, noting that 33 city council members have gone to jail over the last four decades.

“There seems to be a desire to make reforms so that the continuing pattern of corruption … would change permanently,” said Simpson, a former city council member.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Bill Tarrant and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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Colombian proposal to ditch NY coffee price may send buyers elsewhere

FILE PHOTO: A coffee grower selects coffee fruits on a canvas in Chinchina
FILE PHOTO: A coffee grower selects coffee fruits on a canvas in Chinchina, Colombia November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez/File Photo

March 19, 2019

By Julia Symmes Cobb and Ayenat Mersie

BOGOTA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A proposal by Colombian coffee growers’ federation that producer countries sell their high-quality harvests untethered from the New York market price could encourage buyers to look for alternative providers, importers and exporters said.

The federation in late February said it would discuss a possible unlinking from the New York benchmark price with other producers of high-quality arabica and buyers in an effort to sell coffee above production costs.

Prices on the New York market have hovered at or below $1 per pound so far in 2019. Last week, the most-active ICE arabica futures contract bottomed at a 13-year low of 94.65 cents per pound.

Brazil harvested a record-large coffee crop last year, and is on track to produce another massive harvest this crop year, despite it being the off-year in its biennial production cycle.

Colombia, which prices much of its coffee at a differential to futures, is proposing an unlinking that would set its prices between $1.40 and $1.50 per pound. The Colombian federation is already beginning discussions with other producers, it said.

But despite the proposal’s popularity with struggling growers, an alternative price could have buyers looking elsewhere.

“There was a time a while ago, when Colombia was so far above everyone else, quality-wise,” said Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors, a Florida-based futures brokerage and research firm specializing in agricultural commodities.

“Nowadays, there’s some really good quality in Brazil, really good quality in Central America, in Africa.”

PAST EFFORTS

Colombia’s federation has long made the case to large buyers that it is in their interest to ensure producers earn a profit.

Colombian farmers need to make 760,000 pesos ($245.84) per 125-kg (275-lb) shipment on the domestic market to meet production costs, the federation has said. Prices were at 692,000 pesos per shipment on Monday.

Coffee price cartels have been attempted before, but failed.

An effort in 2000 to get coffee producers to hold back 20 percent of output until prices climbed to $1.05 per pound was scrapped after just a few producer countries – including Colombia – agreed to participate.

The higher the target price, the greater the incentive for those outside a price agreement to increase output, a United Nations report on the effort said.

Successful control of coffee prices will also require the participation of importers, who have largely ignored requests to pay more, despite warnings that farmers will switch crops if they cannot turn a profit.

Due to slumping prices and delays in certifying organic beans, coffee producers in Peru, for example, have been seen abandoning their crop to work on plantations that grow coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, the federation there said recently.

In 2013, some Colombian farmers even floated switching from arabica coffee – which is a smoother-tasting, more expensive bean – to the cheaper-to-grow robusta, which is used more in instant coffee.

“If the spread between the market and the prices that the Colombian exporters are trying to charge gets big enough, you will probably see a lot of people switch over to other origins,” said a U.S. importer. “People will become less dependent upon Colombian coffee.”

Colombian exporters agree.

“I don’t think the proposal is realistic,” said Giancarlo Ghiretti, of specialty exporter Caravela Coffee. “Selling large amounts of coffee outside of the market is difficult and risky. Large buyers will look to replace Colombia with other origins.”

The U.S. National Coffee Association said its members, who include major chains Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee & Tea, agree growth requires stability for farmers, but price controls are generally unsuccessful.

“While the pressure to find quick economic fixes is understandable due to current market dynamics, history shows that policies designed to control price ultimately hurt those they are meant to protect,” the industry group’s president Bill Murray said in an email.

Colombia produced 13.6 million 60-kg bags of washed arabica last year, more than any other country but down 4.5 percent from 2017. Dry weather is expected to help the crop recover this year.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota and Ayenat Mersie in New York; editing by Helen Murphy, Dan Flynn and G Crosse)

Source: OANN

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British backpacker died from 'traumatic brain injury' in Guatemala, autopsy report says

A 23-year-old British backpacker whose body was found Monday near a highland lake in Guatemala popular with tourists died of hemorrhaging resulting from a traumatic brain injury, according to an autopsy report.

The National Institute of Forensic Sciences of Guatemala said in a statement that Catherine Shaw had died 4 to 6 days earlier.

Shaw, from Witney, England, was staying in San Pedro La Laguna, about 50 miles west of Guatemala City. Police announced Monday that her body had been found unclothed and in a state of decomposition in the brush near a mountain overlook.

She was last seen alive taking a puppy for a walk in the early hours on March 5 before her body was discovered, Sky News reported.

BODY OF BRITISH BACKPACKER, 23, WHO VANISHED IN GUATEMALA HAS BEEN FOUND, GROUP SAYS

A doctor who performed the examination on Shaw said her body showed signs of trauma but no apparent gunshot or stab wounds.

"In the preliminary findings, there are no wounds from bullets or sharp weapons," Miguel Angel Samayoa told The Associated Press. "There are blows to the body."

Catherine Shaw had been traveling since last September.

Catherine Shaw had been traveling since last September. (Facebook)

The Lucie Blackman Trust, which has been assisting Shaw's family, issued a statement urging people not to speculate about her death and saying it may have been a "tragic accident" not involving foul play.

MICHIGAN TEENAGER ON SPRING BREAK IN MEXICO DIES AFTER FALLING FROM BALCONY IN CANCUN

It added that Shaw had been fasting for days before her disappearance and "disposing of possessions, including clothing."

A police officer walks outside the morgue where an autopsy is being performed on the body of English tourist Catherine Shaw in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Tuesday, March 12, 2019.

A police officer walks outside the morgue where an autopsy is being performed on the body of English tourist Catherine Shaw in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Tuesday, March 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Santiago Billy)

"She was very much a nature lover and adored sunrises, so it seems quite conceivable that she went up the mountain to greet the sunrise, shedding clothing as she went, and due to her lack of intake of food and fluid may have passed out or fallen, causing the wounds to her body," the statement added, cautioning that not all the facts are known and nothing can be ruled out.

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Paying tribute to their daughter, Shaw's parents Ann and Tarquin said the 23-year-old "just loved mountains and sunrises" and "she died doing what she loved."

The British Embassy confirmed with the Asscoiated Press that Tarquin Shaw, the woman's father, identified the body Tuesday in Guatemala, and said it was working with local authorities and assisting the family.

Fox News' Katherine Lam, Nicole Darrah, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Dems pushing to impeach Trump may be trying to delegitimize his election, Mike Lee says

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee said Tuesday that Democrats pushing to impeach President Trump may be trying to delegitimize his election.

Speaking to the “Fox News Rundown” podcast, Lee said: “They will be perhaps intentionally delegitimizing President Trump's election, they'll be cheapening the process by bringing forward allegations that in my view are nowhere near worthy of impeachment charges and they'll be diverting all attention ... attention that could otherwise be devoted to something else.”

He said the impeachment call wouldn't benefit any Americans “except maybe... a small handful of people in the media. Primarily the media on the left, and a few politicians on the left.”

HARRIS JOINS ELIZABETH WARREN’S CALL FOR IMPEACHMENT

Some of the Democrats vying for the White House in 2020 have been clamoring for impeachment proceedings against Trump, but many of their congressional colleagues — who would have to manage such efforts — signaled they were far more wary. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week has urged rank-and-file Democrats to proceed with caution.

The split reflected tensions that could emerge in coming months between Democrats on Capitol Hill and those seeking the party’s presidential nomination.

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Lee, who also spoke Tuesday morning on an appearance on “Fox and Friends,” said the push to impeach Trump could backfire as it did in the process involving then-President Bill Clinton in the ’90s.

“We can look back on the Clinton impeachment,” he said. “I said that was not the finest hour of either the Republican party or the republic itself. I don't think anyone really gained much by that, and I think we ought to learn from that today.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Europe is Taxing and Regulating Tech, Now It’s Lagging Behind in Innovation

If we analyze the ranking of the main technological companies (2017), there is not a single European among the top fifteen. The vast majority are North American and Chinese companies.

It is even more worrying. If we go to the top 50 global technology companies, only four are European, but when we analyze those four, it is more than debatable that they are leaders in innovation, patents and market power. The European indexes of “technology” include, diplomatically, a few industrial conglomerates that have long lost the technological race.

This is not by chance or bad luck. It is by design, sadly.

A Wrong Taxation

The European Union usually talks a lot about technological investment and its commitment to new industries, but much of it is a facade. It penalizes technological investment in a very aggressive way, as well as the value creation and wealth that it entails. European taxation penalizes technological investment from the beginning, not only putting obstacles to companies from the start but, more importantly, with a confiscatory policy on capital investments, stock option schemes and private equity that finance business growth. It is not only monumental errors such as the so-called “Google Tax” and a myopic view of taxation aimed at scraping revenues from anything, but it is also the assault on any capital investment, added value, and profit created from risk-taking by investors who bet on innovation. In Europe, if something is not subsidized, it is considered suspicious.

Everything comes from the huge mistake of a European Union that seems to behave like a combination of a television preacher and the sheriff of Nottingham. One that tells others what they have to do and how to behave while confiscating the last coin of the remaining taxpayer.s The EU is obsessed with supposed tax revenues that only a central planner would invent, and at the same time ignores and hinders the enormous possibilities of employment, wealth and productivity improvement that it could attract.

A Wrong Regulation

The EU subordinates innovation to the bureaucratic whims of officials who insist on keeping things as they were in 1980. The European regulation for technology and innovation is as slow, inefficient and burdensome as it is for the old economy, and it puts obstacles under the excuse of normativism but hides something much worse, the thinly-disguised goal of supporting low productivity sectors by putting barriers to high productivity ones.

When one discusses this problem with regulators, they congratulate themselves because that the approval period of, for example, a Fintech company, is six to nine months. Even worse, anti-business myopia is reflected in a statement from thirty technological entrepreneurs sent to the European Union in which they warn of an “incoherent and punitive” system, “often archaic and highly inefficient” that can cause a “brain drain” of the best and brightest in Europe. ”

Subsidizing Low Productivity Sectors to Penalize High Productivity Sectors

A thin veil of regulation and laws disguises protectionism.

There is an obsession of the individual states to shield at any cost the rent-seeking position of their ill-named “national champions”, who have become a kind of disguised Social Securities and are docile companions of political power. The constant subsidization of sectors in the process of obsolescence while penalizing those who could replace and improve the pattern of growth and the business fabric is very evident throughout the EU. By keeping dinosaurs alive, governments prevent the creation of an ecosystem that would make other companies grow, develop and become global leaders. It is not a surprise that, country by country, we see how the European Union that constantly talks about competition is, in reality, trying to put barriers to new leaders so that the rent-seeking sectors keep their privileges of decades ago.

By trying to protect the dinosaurs, the EU countries end up hindering the innovation capacity of their economies and do not allow new giants to thrive.

This is protectionism hidden under the excuse of regulation and taxation, and the worst is that it neither protects national conglomerates, nor encourages them to reinvent themselves, nor does it support the creation of new European leaders.

Of course, there are some positive initiatives, it can not be denied, but the empirical evidence is that those are drowned under a million pages of obsolete European Union rules and taxes that impede it to lead the technological change.

If Europe wants a better future for our children and grandchildren, and our economies to strengthen, it must stop subsidizing what does not work and penalizing what works, stop attacking those who risk and invest in innovation. Because what no European politician is going to achieve is to return to 1980. However, what politicians will achieve is to make Europe the ideal collateral damage of a US-China technological dominance.



The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 allowed for fraud against the American people by the Fed, a private bank that to this day has never been audited.

Source: InfoWars

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British religious activist found dead in Peru

A British religious activist who faced expulsion from Peru a decade ago for his work on behalf of indigenous communities has been found dead at a youth hostel he ran in the Amazon rain forest.

Paul McAuley, 71, had long worked to embolden Peru's historically discriminated tribes in the battle against powerful oil and mining interests.

In 2010, the government tried unsuccessful to strip him of his residency for allegedly inciting unrest after he fought attempts to open up the Amazon to drilling.

The La Salle Christian Brothers said in a statement Tuesday that the lay activist had been burned to death.

Authorities are questioning six indigenous youth who lived in the hostel he managed in a poor section of the city of Iquitos.

Source: Fox News World

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Buffett encourages investors to bet on American economy

Billionaire Warren Buffett says the company he built through decades of acquisitions continues to perform well even though he hasn't found any major deals at attractive prices recently.

Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders on Saturday. He says the two potential successors he promoted last year to oversee most day-to-day operations are doing well, but the 88-year-old tycoon makes no mention of retiring.

Buffett also encourages investors to continue betting on the American economy because Berkshire has prospered by doing so, but he says they shouldn't forget about the rest of the world.

He says Americans will benefit and be safer if all nations thrive.

Source: Fox News National

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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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