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New Australia law threatens social media firms with fines, jail over violent content

FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration
FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

April 4, 2019

By Colin Packham

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia will fine social media companies up to 10 percent of their annual global turnover and imprison executives for up to three years if violent content is not removed “expeditiously” under a new law passed by the country’s parliament on Thursday.

The new law is in response to a lone gunman attack on two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, killing 50 people as they attended Friday prayers.

The gunman broadcasted his attack live on Facebook and it was widely shared for over an hour before being removed, a timeframe Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described as unacceptable.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with one murder following the attack and was remanded without a plea. He is due back in court on April 5, when police said he was likely to face more charges.

It is now an offence in Australia for companies, such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet’s Google, which owns YouTube, not to remove any videos or photographs that show murder, torture or rape without delay.

Companies must also inform Australian police within a “reasonable” timeframe.

“It is important that we make a very clear statement to social media companies that we expect their behavior to change,” Mitch Fifield, Australia’s minister for communications and the arts, told reporters in Canberra.

Juries will decide whether companies have complied with the timetable.

A spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on the legislation specifically, but said the company has already taken action to limit violent content on its platforms.

A spokeswoman for Facebook was not immediately able for comment.

Facebook said last week it was exploring restrictions on who can access their live video-streaming service, depending on factors such as previous violations of the site’s community standards.

Australia’s opposition Labor party backed the legislation, but said it will consult with the technology industry over possible amendments if it wins power at an election due in May.

Australia’s parliament will rise until after the election. The newly elected lawmakers will not sit until at least July.

Critics of the legislation said the government moved too quickly, without proper consultation and consideration.

“Laws formulated as a knee-jerk reaction to a tragic event do not necessarily equate to good legislation and can have myriad unintended consequences,” said Arthur Moses, head of the Australian Law Council.

(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: OANN

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Hate Crime Hoaxes Outnumber Actual Hate Crimes

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Source: InfoWars

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US, Canada Expanding Anti-Russia Sanctions Over Ukraine

The last expansion of anti-Russia sanctions by the US occurred in January 2018, when 21 individuals and 12 entities were added to the sanctions list.

The US has imposed sanctions targeting 6 Russian nationals, including Board Guard Service Deputy Director Medvedev, the notice from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control stated on Friday. At the same time, new sanctions have been imposed on 8 enterprises for their alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis.

According to the US State Department, Washington’s new set of restrictions have been introduced in coordination with the European Union and Canada.

Commenting on the reason behind the fresh sanctions introduction, the State Department referred to last year’s Kerch Strait incident.


Alex Jones breaks down how the Ukraine Government has declared Martial Law and threatened to suspend future Presidential elections based on the conflict with Russian naval ships in the Sea of Azov.

Later in the day, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release that Canada has also imposed its new sanctions targeting more than 100 Russian individuals and 15 entities in response to the Kerch Strait incident and Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

“In coordination with the European Union and the United States, Canada is today announcing new sanctions in response to Russia’s aggressive actions in the Black Sea and Kerch Strait and Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea,” the release said. “The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is announcing these sanctions on 114 individuals and 15 entities, under the Special Economic Measures Act.”

On 25 November, Ukraine’s Berdyansk and Nikopol gunboats and the Yany Kapu tugboat illegally crossed the Russian maritime border as they sailed toward the Kerch Strait, the entrance to the Sea of Azov. Russia seized the Ukrainian vessels and detained 24 people on board after they failed to respond to demands to stop. After the incident, a criminal case on illegal border crossing was opened in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident a provocation, noting that there were members of the Ukrainian security service, who were in charge of the operation, on board the Ukrainian vessels. According to Putin, the provocation was prepared in advance as a pretext to declare martial law in Ukraine, which was announced after the incident and lasted for a month. Many considered the situation as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s attempt to shore up his falling approval ratings ahead of the March presidential election.

In 2014, the US imposed sanctions against Russia for the first time following the unfolding of the Ukrainian crisis. The sanctions have since been expanded several times to include more individuals, entities and entire economic sectors. The most recent expansion took place in January last year, when 21 individuals and 12 entities were added to the sanctions list.


Alex Jones takes calls directly from New Zealand to get opinions from those closest to this tragedy.

Source: InfoWars

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America's Next Moon Shot: Fixing the Broken Political System

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In 1961, President Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon before the decade was done, and we did it.

On Friday, with HR 1 as their rocket ship, House Democrats challenged the Republican-held Senate and White House to another big visionary moment: Join us in repairing and modernizing our representative democracy. This bill is a beacon of hope for citizens sick of legislators dialing for dollars, cozying up to lobbyists, and rigging the system.

It is easy to forget that as presidential candidates in 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump could not have been more ideologically different, but both agreed that our political system is grossly unfair and dominated by rich contributors demanding favors. The average American is either forgotten or gets hammered by bigger political powers.

But this bill is the latest move in a campaign that started in the midterms last year, when nearly 50 Democrats won their seats — and the House majority — by campaigning on a reform agenda, rejecting corporate PAC money and fighting back against the culture of corruption in Washington. Now, every declared Democratic 2020 candidate is talking about these issues on the campaign trail because the For the People Act paints an optimistic future for our country where more Americans vote and are incentivized to participate in our great democratic experiment. It is good politics and good policy.

In the past, Republicans and Democrats agreed on core parts of HR 1 that would fix the feckless Federal Election Commission, eliminate dark money, improve transparency, increase the leverage of small-dollar contributions, and help prevent anonymous foreign actors from interfering in our elections. And Democratic leadership should be applauded for thinking bigger and starting a national, comprehensive conversation about repairing our political system. Election eve polling showed that a majority of voters wanted reform to be a top priority for this Congress, and four in five voters supported bipartisan political reform.

The lawmakers who voted for this bill are sending a powerful message that should reverberate around the country: It is time to prioritize the American people over the special interests, to replace fealty to political labels and parties with those politicians that say yes to repairing our political system for the next generation. They are following on the work started by dozens of states and localities that have been strengthening ethics, increasing transparency, and fighting big money.

But now comes the next step in governing — spending time building bipartisan coalitions that will turn this House-passed bill into federal law. The majority leader has pledged to prevent it from moving forward in the Senate, painting it incorrectly as nothing more than a “Democratic Politician Protection Act” and labeling the expanded voting provisions as little other than a paid holiday for federal workers. Both of these are talking points peddled for years by opponents of reform who want the system to stay rigged. I refuse to believe that the late great John McCain was the last of his party in the upper chamber to view political reform as smart politics and policy.

When I served in Congress, I knew who on the other side of the aisle I could approach and work with on legislation I cared deeply about in a bipartisan manner to support efforts to begin programs like Head Start, AmeriCorps and the 9/11 Commission. It is time for Democrats in Congress to do the same because until both parties find common ground, this legislation and others like it will not become law.

At the end of the day, we need to sanitize and clean out the culture of corruption in Washington. The greatest threat to our democracy comes not from foreign enemies outside our borders but from our tendency to retreat into tribalism and not work together to “form a more perfect union.” No one wants the status quo to continue, and 38 percent of Americans support the creation of a third party. Let’s see Democrats and Republicans put country above party.

Tim Roemer is a former Democratic U.S. congressman from Indiana and former U.S. ambassador to India and co-chairman of Issue One’s ReFormers Caucus. 

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U.S. opposes more IMF funding, at odds with other stakeholders

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin leaves the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' meeting at the IMF and World Bank's 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

April 12, 2019

By David Lawder and David Milliken

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States repeated its opposition to increasing overall funding and shareholding quotas for the International Monetary Fund, putting it at odds with other stakeholders on the need to boost the global lender’s resources and update its governance.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Trump administration opposes any changes now, likely meaning the effort to lift IMF funding and reshuffle voting rights was a dead issue as global finance leaders gathered in Washington this week for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings.

The voting quotas were last altered nearly a decade ago.

“In our view, the IMF currently has ample resources to achieve its mission, and countries also have considerable complementary resources should a crisis emerge,” Mnuchin said in a statement for the IMF’s steering committee meeting that was posted on the IMF’s website on Friday.

“Thus, we do not see a need for a quota increase at this time and support closure of the 15th General Quota Review as soon as possible.”

Without U.S. backing for an update to the IMF’s stakeholding weights, there was little prospect for a change at this week’s meetings.

“There is no majority in sight for any changes regarding IMF quotas,” a German official said on condition of anonymity.

The IMF’s last quota increase was agreed in 2010, boosting the shareholding and influence of major emerging markets including China and Brazil.

The IMF has current total lending capacity of about $1 trillion, including the New Arrangements to Borrow crisis fund that was greatly expanded in 2009 at the depths of the last financial crisis.

That fund is set to expire in November 2022.

British finance minister Philip Hammond worried the lack of a funding boost could hamper the IMF’s ability to step in to help Venezuela respond to its worsening humanitarian and economic crisis.

“This set of meetings is crucial to the debate about IMF quotas and funding for the IMF,” Hammond said.

“We all anticipate that as events unfold in Venezuela, at some point there will be a need for a major program to support Venezuela. So the UK is very keen to ensure that the IMF in particular is properly funded.”

Oil-rich Venezuela is embroiled in political and economic turmoil as socialist President Nicolas Maduro battles to retain power in the face of U.S. and Western powers’ backing of opposition leader Juan Guaido.

IMF and World Bank shareholders, meanwhile, are still undecided on whether to recognize Guaido as the South American nation’s leader.

(Reporting by David Lawder, David Milliken and Michael Nienaber in Washington; Writing by Dan Burns; Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: OANN

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Huawei, Samsung agree to settle patent dispute in U.S. court

Attendees at Samsung Electronics Co LtdÕs Unpacked event test out the companyÕs new devices in in San Francisco
Attendees at Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Unpacked event test out the company's new devices in in San Francisco, California, U.S., February 20, 2019 REUTERS/Stephen Nellis

February 27, 2019

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics have agreed to settle a two-year old patent dispute in the United States, court documents show.

The two companies filed a joint motion to a U.S. appeals court on Tuesday to pause court proceedings over their intellectual property disputes because they have entered into a settlement agreement on February 25.

The world’s two largest makers of Android smartphones have been fighting in courts in the United States and in China since 2016, with Huawei alleging that Samsung had used its cellular communications technology without authorization and has unreasonably delayed entering into a licensing agreement.

Samsung had denied the allegations and accused Huawei of seeking “grossly” inflated licensing fees, countersuing Huawei in the United States.

The joint filing on Tuesday did not give a reason for their intended settlement. It asked for a 30-day stay after which the two companies expect to finalize a settlement where Huawei would drop an appeal request. The case was originally set to go to trial in September.

Huawei and Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In January 2018, a Shenzhen court outpaced a federal court in San Francisco, ruling for Huawei and issuing an order blocking Samsung’s Chinese affiliates from manufacturing and selling 4G LTE smartphones in China. A judge hearing the parallel U.S. case in April ordered Huawei not to enforce the Shenzhen court’s ban.

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Additional reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengalaru)

Source: OANN

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Interserve to go in administration after rescue deal blocked

FILE PHOTO: Interserve offices are seen in Twyford
FILE PHOTO: Interserve offices are seen in Twyford, Britain January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

March 15, 2019

By Iain Withers

LONDON (Reuters) – Troubled outsourcing company Interserve, one of the British government’s biggest contractors, is set to go into administration later on Friday after its shareholders rejected a rescue plan.

Interserve’s shareholders voted 59 percent against a debt-for-equity rescue package at a general meeting in central London on Friday, in a victory for its biggest shareholder, US hedge fund Coltrane, which owns a 28 percent stake and had opposed the plan.

The company is now expected to file to go into a ‘pre-pack’ administration on Friday evening, under a plan overseen by EY which would see Interserve’s creditors buy its assets.

Interserve, which provides services to the public sector ranging from school dinners to hospital cleaning, said this arrangement should ensure that its business can continue to operate “as normal” for the time being.

Shares in the company have been suspended.

Interserve chairman Glyn Barker told investors ahead of the vote on Friday the firm was struggling with a “financial burden that is completely unsustainable and is crippling”.

Barker had warned against rejecting the rescue plan and forcing the firm into administration, arguing it would be “more disruptive to the company, significantly more costly and would deprive shareholders of any value whatsoever”.

An Interserve spokesman told Reuters the company’s lenders had already set up a company with a shadow board ready to buy Interserve’s assets.

ILL-FATED ACQUISITIONS

Interserve employs 68,000 people worldwide, with around 45,000 of them in Britain. It ran into difficulty after a string of ill-advised acquisitions and loss-making contracts weighed on its finances and piled on debt, raising fears it could collapse into insolvency like rival outsourcer Carillion.

The GMB union, which represents Interserve workers, said the company’s turmoil showed outsourcing public sector contracts to private companies had been a “disastrous experiment”.

“Ministers have learned absolutely nothing from the Carillion fiasco and are hell-bent on outsourcing public sector contracts.

“Shambolic mismanagement is putting jobs on the line and services in jeopardy. Our public services can’t go on like this.”

The rejected rescue plan would have handed Interserve’s lenders, which include banks and hedge funds, 95 percent ownership of the company in exchange for cancelling 485 million pounds ($641.95 million) of its debts, with existing investors’ holdings diluted to 5 percent.

A representative for Coltrane at the general meeting declined to comment on the situation, other than saying “I voted for Donald Trump” when asked how the firm had voted.

The pre-pack administration will wipe out all shareholder value.

(Reporting by Iain Withers; Editing by Lawrence White and Rachel Armstrong)

Source: OANN

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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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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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Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.

The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.

Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.

The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.

The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

April 26, 2019

By Charlotte Greenfield

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.

Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.

Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.

In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.

“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.

Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.

The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.

“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.

New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.

He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.

The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University

He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.

“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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FILE PHOTO: The logo commodities trader Glencore is pictured in Baar
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.

Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.

On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.

(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru)

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