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Petrobras denies political interference, eyes divestments amid investor unease

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company is seen on a tank in at Petrobras Paulinia refinery in Paulinia
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company is seen on a tank in at Petrobras Paulinia refinery in Paulinia, Brazil July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo

April 17, 2019

By Marta Nogueira, Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Luciano Costa

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is completely free of political interference and is examining divesting a wide range of assets, including its fuel distribution unit, executives said on Wednesday.

In an impromptu press conference at the Rio de Janeiro headquarters of Petrobras, as the firm is known, Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco announced a diesel price hike of 10 cents per liter and said the company has complete control over its pricing strategy.

Speaking at an event in Sao Paulo only minutes before, Chief Financial Officer Rafael Grisolia said the firm was looking at selling off assets such as deepwater pipelines and Petrobras Distribuidora SA, which includes a gas station chain stretching across the country.

The comments come as executives scramble to contain the fallout of a Friday incident, in which the firm canceled a diesel price hike at the behest of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, stirring fears of political interference and tanking Petrobras shares.

While Bolsonaro´s government has promised a hands-off approach to Petrobras, investors are wary of a return to policies enacted under past administrations, in which the company was forced to sell fuel at a discount to international rates.

On Tuesday, Bolsonaro´s spokesman and Economy Minister Paulo Guedes sought to characterize the canceled price hike as a one-time error that would not be repeated.

PIPES AND PUMPS

Petrobras is analyzing the best model for selling three offshore natural gas pipelines, CFO Grisolia said, including whether they will be sold individually or in a package.

Grisolia also said the oil company would “probably” reduce its stake in Petrobras Distribuidora to below 50 percent from the current 71 percent, effectively privatizing the unit through a secondary share offering.

Investors have cheered the firm’s recent push to cut debt and refocus on oil exploration and production via an aggressive divestment program.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Petrobras was preparing to sell three more gas pipelines after successfully selling its larger TAG unit to France’s Engie for $8.6 billion.

Reuters reported on Tuesday the company had hired nine banks to manage Petrobras Distribuidora’s share offering.

(Reporting by Marta Nogueira and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro and Luciano Costa in Sao Paulo; Writing by Gram Slattery and Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: OANN

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Swalwell on 2020 Race Agenda: Keep Your Rifles, Shotguns, Pistols

Rep. Eric Swalwell said Tuesday that while he's centering his presidential campaign around gun control, that doesn't mean he wants to take Americans' guns away from them.

"I'm telling folks, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns, keep your pistols," the California Democrat told ABC News' "Good Morning America" anchor George Stephanopoulos. "We just want the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people. Most gun owners believe that."

Swalwell is a former prosecutor and has often spoken out about stopping gun violence. Tuesday, he will host a town hall in Coral Springs, Florida, along with students and families with ties to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the topic.

The 38-year-old candidate also will focus his campaign on student loan debt, noting that he is still working to pay off his own loan of just under $100,000.

"It’s never really been the top issue in a presidential campaign. It’s going to be for me," Swalwell told Stephanopoulos.

Swalwell, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Tuesday also criticized President Donald Trump, while the waiting continues for Attorney General William Barr to release special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his probe on Trump and Russia.

"Just because he wasn’t criminally indicted doesn’t mean that he met the standard of conduct that we should expect from a president or a candidate," Swalwell said Tuesday.

He said he thinks that the report will reveal that Trump, his family, and his team "did not say 'no' any time they were offered information by the Russians, and eagerly asked the Russians to keep bringing more."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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China’s Xi, in scandal-plagued Chongqing, praises city’s achievements

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during the meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (not pictured) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China April 1, 2019. Kenzaburo Fukuhara/KYODONEWS/Pool via REUTERS

April 17, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping offered praise on Wednesday for what he called the achievements of the southwestern city of Chongqing, one of the country’s most important cities, hit by two major graft scandals in recent years.

Chongqing has been ground zero for Xi’s war against graft, with two of its former Communist Party chiefs, both once seen as contenders for China’s top offices, jailed for corruption.

On a visit to the city, Xi “gave affirmation to the achievements Chongqing has made in its work”, the official Chongqing Daily said, after he heard a report from party and government officials.

Xi said he hoped that the city could ensure party instructions are fully implemented and continue to create a “pure and honest political ecology”, the paper added.

“Cultivate a team of high-quality cadres who are loyal and clean,” it paraphrased Xi as saying. “Maintain high pressure on punishing corruption and consolidate the overwhelming victory in the anti-corruption struggle.”

Last year, a court sentenced former Chongqing party boss Sun Zhengcai to life in prison for corruption.

Before being jailed, Sun had been abruptly removed from his post, and replaced by Chen Miner, who is close to Xi.

Another former Chongqing party boss, Bo Xilai, was jailed in 2013 for bribery, corruption and abuse of power in a dramatic scandal kicked off by his wife’s murder of a British businessman.

The Chongqing Daily report said Chen attended the meeting in Chongqing with Xi, but did not say if Xi had directly talked about the cases of Sun or Bo.

Xi has presided over a sweeping corruption crackdown since coming to power in 2012, vowing to target both “tigers” and “flies”, a reference to elite officials and ordinary bureaucrats.

The campaign has led to the jailing or punishment of thousands of officials and brought down dozens of senior party and military officials.

Beyond issues of bribery and use of public money to funds lavish lifestyles, the anti-corruption effort has taken aim at those who express doubt in public about party policies or are found lacking in political loyalty.

China has rebuffed criticism that the campaign is as much about settling political scores as about stamping out criminal acts.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Source: OANN

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Not Everyone Is Mourning Over Notre Dame Cathedral Being Set Ablaze

The burning of the nearly 1,000 year old Notre Dame Cathedral in France brought out some rather interesting responses on social media.

Perhaps the hottest “hot take” was from the left-wing rag “The Jewish Worker,” which suggested it was “white supremacy” to care about the “antisemitic” Notre Dame Cathedral being set ablaze:

The Jewish Worker later deleted the first tweet but made clear they still agree with everything they said (it was just “ill-timed”):


Alex Jones covers the Notre Dame fire as it burns the 900 year old cathedral to the ground. Could this event signal the grande finale of the Islamic takeover of France?

Here was some of the reactions from Facebook:

BuzzFeed hilariously tried to claim that video was a “hoax”:

Everything which runs contrary to their egalitarian worldview is fake and must be censored.

Here’s some of the reactions from Twitter:

Remember folks, all we need to do to bring about a multicultural utopia is eliminate all borders!

Source: InfoWars

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Oscars draws bigger U.S. audience after record-low 2018

FILE PHOTO: An Oscars sign tops the fan bleachers on the red carpet as preparations continue for the 91st Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: An Oscars sign tops the fan bleachers on the red carpet as preparations continue for the 91st Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

February 25, 2019

(Reuters) – The U.S. television audience for the first hostless Academy Awards broadcast in 30 years was roughly 12 percent bigger than last year’s record-low crowd of viewers, Walt Disney Co’s ABC said on Monday.

Even with the rebound from 2018 the Sunday telecast was the second-smallest ever for the Oscars, drawing in an average audience of 29.6 million total viewers, Nielsen data in an ABC statement showed.

Awards shows remain one of the few must-see live events and their ratings are closely watched by advertisers as streaming shows, movies and other content compete for watchers’ attention. Though dwarfed by the Super Bowl, the Oscars are often one of America’s most watched non-sporting events.

The Nielsen data for the Oscars does not include viewing of the Oscars on digital and mobile platforms. ABC owns U.S. broadcast rights for the Oscars through 2028.

Sunday’s ceremony opened with a performance by British rock band Queen, featuring “American Idol” star Adam Lambert as lead vocalist, that brought the audience to its feet.

The full show ran about 40 minutes shorter than the 2018 program hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and eschewed its typical opening monologue for short celebrity cameos.

Comedian Kevin Hart withdrew from the hosting job in December after past homophobic tweets resurfaced. It was only the second time the show went without a host in its 91-year history.

This year’s ceremony relied heavily on the two music-themed contenders in the best picture race, “A Star Is Born” and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” to help set the tone.

The 2019 Oscars were a win for films telling stories from a range of racial and cultural perspectives, marking a major shift three years after the industry’s top awards show was slammed for overlooking work by nonwhite artists.

Road trip movie “Green Book” triumphed over “Roma” to win the best picture Oscar.

The audience for this year’s Super Bowl, by far the most watched American event of the year, drew 98.2 million viewers on CBS Corp’s television network, down about 5 percent from last year’s game and its smallest audience since 2009.

But the U.S. audience for this year’s Grammy Awards on CBS rose slightly to 19.9 million. CBS said many millions more watched part of the highest honors in the U.S. music industry or interacted on social media.

(Writing by Meredith Mazzilli; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Source: OANN

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Iraq says it tried to stop US from blacklisting Iran corps

Iraq's prime minster says his government tried to stop the U.S. from labelling Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "foreign terrorist organization," saying the designation could have negative consequences for Iraq and the Middle East.

Adel Abdul-Mahdi says Iraq will continue to invest in its relationship with both the U.S. and Iran despite the White House designation Monday. The Iraqi premier says his government spoke to the U.S. administration about the label.

Speaking at his weekly news conference Tuesday, Abdul-Mahdi said that Iraq as Iran's neighbor to the west cannot afford to be the site of conflict between rival powers.

Some 5,200 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq, after the Iraqi parliament invited Washington to deploy forces to fight the Islamic State group in 2014.

Source: Fox News World

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Redaction nation: US history brims with partial deletions

Somewhere in the shadows of federal bureaucracy, there was an issue about the drinking habits of Augusto Pinochet.

The National Security Archive, an advocate for open government, had for years tried to gain access to intelligence files about the Chilean dictator, his human rights abuses and his ties to the United States. In 2003, the Defense Intelligence Agency declassified documents that included a biographical sketch of Pinochet assembled in 1975, two years after he seized power. Parts of the sketch had been blacked out, "redacted," for national security. The archive had no trouble discovering that the missing information included Pinochet's liking for scotch and pisco sours.

"The sketch been published in full by the government in 1999," notes Tom Blanton, director of the archive. But, he says, "all it takes to change that is a single objection."

The censoring of government reports isn't new, but since Robert Mueller turned in his report last month on alleged ties between Russian officials and Donald Trump presidential campaign, "redacted" has joined "collusion" and "obstruction" as a national buzzword. Attorney General William Barr's announcement that he would release a "redacted" version of Mueller's findings, expected Thursday, will likely set off a long debate over what's behind the darkened blotches.

Barr's stated guidelines range from protecting intelligence sources to the privacy of those not under investigation. But over the past few decades, the government has redacted everything from the most sensitive information to the most harmless trivia.

"We believe there are real secrets, common-sense secrets, like names of people in the field who would be killed or specifications of weapons of systems," Blanton says. "But redactions also are overused."

David Cole, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, says any government official who ever had a security clearance will say the same thing: Whether under Clinton, Bush or Obama, "the problem of overclassification is rampant."

"It's partly the consequence of what is safest for the government to do," Cole says. "If you make a mistake and disclose something you shouldn't have, that mistake is public. If you decide to keep something secret that doesn't need to be secret, that mistake is private."

The secrecy reflex is as old as the country: The American government itself was created behind closed doors, and windows. Framers of the Constitution gathered at the Pennsylvania State House from May to September in 1787 and, anxious to speak freely, were so resolved to keep the public away they kept windows shut (in pre-air conditioned times) even on the hottest days. No official transcripts were logged, and much of our understanding of the debate has been shaped by James Madison's (revised) notes, which didn't come out until 1836, after Madison and fellow delegates were dead.

"I think they are pretty reliable," historian Gordon Wood says of Madison's notes. "But they may only account for a fraction of what was said at the convention."

At the time of the Constitution's drafting, there was no system for classifying government documents and no process for the public to obtain them. Our redaction nation formed over the course of the 20th century as the federal government expanded, the country became an international superpower and means of communication and surveillance grew more sophisticated. By the start of the Cold War, just after World War II ended, new bureaucracies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council were defined by what they couldn't, or wouldn't, reveal.

"In 1947, when you have creation of the CIA and the NSC, you have the production of literally billions of papers and billions of secrets contained within them," says Tim Weiner, whose "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" won the National Book Award in 2007. "And the machinery of secrecy far outstripped the ability to demand an open government."

For years, the general public had few means to request records, and little awareness of how much it wasn't being told.

The Freedom of Information Act wasn't enacted until 1966, and broad demands for accountability only began with the jarring revelations of the 1970s: years of official deceit about the Vietnam War as detailed in the Pentagon Papers; the Watergate scandal which forced President Nixon to resign; the Senate's Church Committee of 1975-76, which confirmed reports of the government's history of backing the assassination of foreign leaders.

Ever since, it's been an exhausting process of keeping up.

Names and events change, whether the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the torture of prisoners during the Iraq War, but millions of documents each year continue to be classified. The NSA and others have even compiled lists of some of the more unlikely information to be withheld:

—Some files from World War I, including a method for opening sealed letters without detection and a formula for German secret ink, were not declassified until 2011. "When historical information is no longer sensitive, we take seriously our responsibility to share it with the American people," CIA Director Leon Panetta said at the time. (The release followed years of lawsuits and formal requests).

—The redaction in 2014 of remarks about the Cuban Missile Crisis made 50 years earlier by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The remarks were made in a public speech.

—FBI files about Marilyn Monroe's alleged Communist sympathies were redacted until 2012, 50 years after her death and more than 20 years after the Cold War ended.

Sometimes, history itself is censored. Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense department analyst famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers, remembers the long process to make all of the documents public. The Pentagon Papers were a Defense Department-commissioned study about U.S. policy in Vietnam from 1945-67. It took decades, long after the Vietnam War ended, for the full report to come out. When it did, Ellsberg noticed that one of the sections originally redacted referred to the so-called Haiphong Massacre of 1946.

"The French attacked Haiphong and killed 6,000 people," Ellsberg says. "The entire reference was whited out. The government didn't want people to know that an ally was seeking to conquer and colonize Vietnam."

___

Follow AP National Writer Hillel Italie on Twitter at @hitalie.

Source: Fox News National

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Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.

The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.

But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.

WHY THE MEDIA ARE CONVINCED JOE BIDEN WILL IMPLODE

Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”

“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. …  I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”

— Joe Biden

But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”

— Dr. Neal Kassell

BIDEN’S CLAIM HE DIDN’T WANT OBAMA TO ENDORSE TRIGGERS MOCKERY

At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.

It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.

An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.

Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.

“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.

“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”

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Sanders released his medical records in 2016, with a Senate physician saying in a letter that the senator was “in overall very good health.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.

Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.

School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.

The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.

School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.

Source: Fox News World

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Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.

South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.

Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.

Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.

He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”

Source: Fox News World

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

April 26, 2019

By Ryan Woo

LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.

But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.

The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.

LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.

Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.

“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.

In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.

A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.

No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.

The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.

Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.

That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.

(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)

NEED FOR CASH

LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.

The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.

After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.

Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.

That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.

“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.

FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.

Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.

Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.

But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.

“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.

Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.

Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.

In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.

STATE COMPETITION

China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.

In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.

The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.

In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.

The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.

At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.

Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.

The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.

“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”

Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.

Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.

Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.

Source: Fox News World

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