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A Humiliating Moment for the Washington Press Corps

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: So after two years, here we are. It’s hard to believe any of it actually happened. Two years of unremitting, never-diminishing hysteria about Russia. A continuous wave of panic and superstition over unseen Slavic interference, all stoked by the very people we’re told are the most rational in our society. For two years, our capital city became a kind of massive CNN panel — a living monument to ignorance and dishonesty, where the loudest and dumbest invariably got the most attention. We just lived through two full years of that: screaming, threatening, surveillance, character assassination, loyalty tests, wild allegations of treason and spying and betrayal. Innocent people found themselves afraid to go to dinner, hesitant to send text messages or talk on the phone. For two years we lived in an all-pervasive cult of personality. Our leaders worshipped a 74-year-old federal prosecutor who never spoke in public. He alone was good, they told us. Only they could interpret his will. It was all thoroughly bizarre. Demented really, though nobody said so at the time. They were too afraid. It seems like a dream now. Which of course it was. None of it was real. Nobody colluded with Vladimir Putin. Nobody changed vote totals. Or met secretly in Prague. Or had a pee tape. There never was a Russia conspiracy. Hillary Clinton wasn’t robbed by Julian Assange, or anyone else. She lost the election because she was an entitled boor who didn’t run on anything. In the end, that’s what Robert Mueller proved.

The news anchors couldn’t handle that conclusion. It was too far from what they’d promised their audiences for so long. They were too invested in the lies. When the report arrived in congress this morning, they found themselves reduced to huffing and sputtering. They couldn’t admit what was in it. Well, they told us, Robert Mueller “didn’t exonerate President Trump.” That may be true, but only theologically. Mueller doesn’t have the power to absolve sin. Only God can do that. But in every other sense, Mueller’s report was exculpatory. If dozens of federal prosecutors spent two years trying to charge you with a crime, and then decided they couldn’t, it would mean there wasn’t any real evidence you did it. That’s what happened here. You may not like Donald Trump, but that’s what we learned from the Mueller Report. You’d have to be a mindless partisan to deny it. A lot of news anchors turn out to be mindless partisans. When the facts contravene the interests of their party, they deny the facts, and then attack anyone who persists in stating the obvious. Suddenly the very same people who lied to you for two years about Russia are demanding that, under no circumstances, are you allowed to believe anything that Attorney General Bill Barr might say. Sure, Barr looks like a conventional Republican, being a Jeb Bush donor and everything. Yes, he would appear to be a close personal friend of Robert Mueller’s. But it’s all a ruse. Barr is in fact a Putin stooge like all the rest:

JEFFREY TOOBIN: If you just look at his behavior, it is not that of a geriatric, it is that of a partisan

CHRIS MATTHEWS: This looks like an inside job.

MSNBC guest Elie Mystal: We should not take anything that Barr says tomorrow as anything other than performative.

CHRIS CUOMO: Is Barr the President's new fixer? The answer to that seems to be yes.

NICOLLE WALLACE: He becomes to first cabinet secretary to plunge into the deep end of Trump’s conspiracy pool.

It’s an inside job. That’s the reigning assumption. Somehow Bill Barr is preventing Robert Mueller from concluding that Donald Trump colluding with Vladimir Putin. How is Barr doing that? It’s not clear, but they’re no less certain that he is. Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times announced that Barr’s press conference this morning marked America’s transformation into a, quote, “authoritarian junta.” Her colleague, Maggie Haberman, suggested Trump might be a Nazi, because the White House played a song from The Sound of Music — which by the way, is an anti-Nazi musical. But still Germanic-sounding, and therefore suspicious. These are hysterical children. They shouldn’t be in journalism. But they are. They run journalism. They have no plans on giving up their power.

The Mueller Report may be the single most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to the White House press corps in the history of this country. How did reporters in Washington respond? They celebrated themselves. Over on CNN, former Obama official Jim Sciutto bragged that Mueller had quote “debunked” all of Trump’s unfair attacks on the media. At the Washington Post, Philip Bump was telling us that quote, “the vast amount of reporting” on Russia was accurate.

Even they don’t really believe this. They know they lied. Buzzfeed claimed its reporters has personally seen evidence that Michael Cohen had been instructed but Donald Trump to perjure himself. The editor of Buzzfeed defended that story extensively, including on this show. Now we know it was a lie. That and so much more. So what happens now? What do we do with John Brennan and Jim Clapper? They used to run powerful intelligence agencies. For the past two years, they’ve gotten rich from talking about Russia on television. The only problem is, they were lying:

O'DONNELL: What makes you believe that he has more indictments?

BRENNAN: Because he hasn't addressed the issues related to criminal conspiracy as well as individuals --

O'DONNELL: A criminal conspiracy involving the Russians?

BRENNAN: Yes yeah.

CLAPPER: Is there influence whether witting on unwitting by the Russians over President Trump. And in the intervening year and a half or so, you know, his behavior hasn't done much at least in my mind to allay that concern.

So do Clapper and Brendan get to keep their cable TV contracts? Probably. In decadent societies, the guilty aren’t punished. Only the unpopular are. Over on the other channels, they’re talking about Trump tonight, not themselves. The line they’re quoting most is from today’s report. It’s Trump’s response when he first learned there was going to be a special counsel investigation. “Oh my God,” he said. “This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m effed.”

As it turns out, Trump was wrong on the specifics. He never got indicted. Mueller didn’t drive him from office. But, as usual, Trump’s instincts were clearer. In fact, dead on: In the ways that matter most, the Russia hoax did sabotage his presidency. Mueller’s investigation ended critical momentum from the 2016 election almost immediately. Lawmakers, including a shamefully large number of Republicans, were much happier to talk about Russia than about changing the status quo in Washington, which is what Trump ran on. So they talked about Russia. The result: an election that should have realigned the country, had almost no effect. Two years later, virtually nothing has changed. Millions are still flood over our border from the third world, encouraged by an army of non-profits that instruct them to subvert our laws. The opioid epidemic rages on, as horrible as ever. Suicides are up. Troops are still bogged down in Afghanistan and Syria. Goldman Sachs still controls our economy. Tech companies are still spying on you and crushing your freedom of speech. You can still have your life ruined for supporting the wrong candidate, or believing there are two genders. Most ominous of all, Americans are still dying younger and having fewer children. None of this was resolved. It was never even talked about. The Russia investigation didn’t destroy Trump. But it did a lot to destroy America.

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Man accused of forcing California woman into prostitution

A Florida man is accused of inviting a California woman on an all-expenses paid trip to party in Orlando and then forcing her into prostitution.

News outlets report 40-year-old Joseph Masinas was arrested Tuesday on charges including human trafficking. The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation in central Florida says the woman and Masinas had spoken on Instagram for months before they met up in California and he invited her on the trip.

She told deputies she arrived at a city motel in January and was told she'd have to prostitute herself to earn money to get back home. It says the woman refused and was beaten, later complying out of fear. The woman was rescued days later after calling a human-trafficking hotline. It's unclear if Masinas has a lawyer.

Source: Fox News National

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Fed’s Kashkari says rate cut now would be ‘premature’

President of the Federal Reserve Bank on Minneapolis Neel Kashkari speaks during an interview in New York
President of the Federal Reserve Bank on Minneapolis Neel Kashkari speaks during an interview in New York, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

March 29, 2019

By Ann Saphir and Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve should not bow to market pressure by advocating a “premature” rate cut until it becomes clear whether recent weakness in the U.S. economy is a blip or a harbinger of danger down the road, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari told Reuters on Friday.

“I, for one, want to see more evidence that the economy is actually slowing before we would then go and cut rates; I think there’s a real cost to the Federal Reserve chasing noisy data because we can add to uncertainty,” Kashkari said in an interview. “There’s a cost to these pivots.”

It will take “a few more months” to determine whether the slowdown is lasting, he said.

Though the probability of recession is higher than it was nine months ago, it still is not the most likely outcome in his view. And while it is possible that the Fed has already raised rates too high and will need to backtrack, as markets are betting, Kashkari said he needs more time to know for sure.

“I don’t know if the recent slowdown in data is a blip or if it’s a real economic trend,” he said. “If we reach the conclusion that the economy is really slowing, then I think it would be appropriate to consider cutting interest rates.”

Kashkari’s remarks are notable not because they are measured – several other Fed policymakers have also recently downplayed the chance of recession despite a signal from bond markets that one is coming – but because he has been one of the Fed’s most adamant doves almost from the moment he joined in 2016.

The Fed last week confirmed that rate hikes are on hold for now after four increases in its policy rate in 2018, citing an economic slowdown. Markets immediately reacted by betting that the Fed’s next move would likely be a cut and investors also pushed down short-term bond yields to a level that in past years has presaged a recession. But Kashkari said he wants to wait for more evidence.

“Part of what the bond market is doing is trying to psychoanalyze the Fed,” he said.

“If they’re looking at us and then we’re looking at them very quickly we can start chasing our tail.”

(Reporting by Ann Saphir and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source: OANN

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George Stephanopoulos presses Sarah Sanders on Mueller report, culture of lying at White House

“Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos grilled press secretary Sarah Sanders Friday on the allegations that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report exposed a culture of lying at the White House.

Stephanopoulos showed a clip from a press conference when Sanders told reporters that “countless members of the FBI” had lost confidence in FBI Director James Comey, which led to his firing.

“That’s not a slip of the tongue, Sarah, that’s a deliberate false statement,” the host said.

“Actually, if you look at what I said, I said the slip of the tongue was using the word 'countless.' There were a number of FBI, both former and current, that agreed with the president’s decision, and they continued to speak out and say that and send notice to the White House of that agreement with the president’s decision. James Comey was a disgraced leaker and used authorization to spy on the Trump campaign despite no evidence of collusion,” the press secretary replied.

TRUMP'S 'UNPRECEDENTED COOPERATION' WITH MUELLER PROBE BEING WEAPONIZED FOR 'POLITICAL PURPOSES': KEN STARR

Stephanopoulos continued to press Sanders on why she couldn’t acknowledge that what she said at that time was not true.

“I said that the word I used 'countless' and I also said if you look at what’s in quotations from me it’s that and that it was in the heat of the moment, meaning that it wasn’t a scripted talking point,” Sanders responded.

The two got into another tense moment when Stephanopoulos asked Sanders about a statement the president was involved in regarding the infamous Trump Tower meeting. The “Good Morning America” host pointed out that Trump’s lawyers said he “dictated a statement.”

“Why did you tell the press that the president did not dictate the statement?” he asked.

“If you look at the play-by-play account, I’m not denying he had involvement in what the statement said. That was the info I was given at the time and I stated it to the public,” Sanders replied.

The two had a brief exchange when Stephanopoulos said “that’s not what happened.”

“So, the president’s lawyers aren’t telling the truth?” he asked.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“The information I had was that the president had weighed in on the statement, which he clearly did,” Sanders replied.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who also spoke with “Good Morning America,” said the Mueller report clearly outlines “a culture of lying” inside the White House. He told the morning program that he was preparing a subpoena not only for Mueller’s complete report, but also for the underlying documents, including grand jury evidence. Shortly after the interview, Nadler submitted a subpoena for the full report.

On Thursday, Attorney General William Barr released a redacted version of Mueller’s highly anticipated, 448-page report.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Hush-money probe gathered evidence from Trump’s inner circle

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has gathered more evidence than previously known in its criminal investigation of hush payments to two women who alleged affairs with Donald Trump, including from members of the president’s inner circle.

Prosecutors interviewed Hope Hicks, a former close aide to Mr. Trump and White House communications director, last spring as part of their campaign-finance probe, which ultimately implicated the president in federal crimes.

They also spoke to Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s former security chief. Investigators learned of calls between Mr. Schiller and David Pecker, chief executive of the National Enquirer’s publisher, which has admitted it paid $150,000 to a former Playboy model on Mr. Trump’s behalf to keep her story under wraps.

In addition, investigators possess a recorded phone conversation between Mr. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and a lawyer who represented the two women.

The prosecutors’ campaign-finance investigation is based on the theory that the secret payments to keep women quiet were illegal contributions, because they were intended to influence the election. New details of the investigation—gleaned from interviews with 20 people familiar with the probe and from nearly 1,000 pages of court documents—show prosecutors had gathered information about Mr. Trump’s alleged involvement in the payments weeks before Mr. Cohen asserted it in open court.

Mr. Cohen, in pleading guilty last August to charges that included campaign-finance violations, said he arranged the payments at Mr. Trump’s direction. Prosecutors in December implicated the president in the campaign-finance crimes, identifying him as the “Individual-1” who directed and coordinated the payments to the two women. Mr. Cohen is scheduled to begin a three-year prison sentence next month for lying to a bank, lying to Congress, tax evasion and campaign-finance violations.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal. 

Source: Fox News Politics

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Man charged in Wisconsin kidnapping, killings due in court

A man accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old Wisconsin girl, killing her parents and holding her captive in a cabin for three months is expected to enter a formal plea Wednesday when he appears in court for an arraignment.

Jake Patterson, 21, wrote in a letter to Minneapolis' KARE-TV this month that he intends to plead guilty. His attorneys have not returned repeated messages seeking to confirm that he will do so at the arraignment in western Wisconsin. Prosecutors have said they won't comment. Such hearings are typically procedural affairs, where charges are read to a defendant who enters a formal plea ahead of trial. Sometimes a judge enters a not-guilty plea on the person's behalf.

Patterson told authorities that he decided "to take" Jayme Closs after seeing her getting on a school bus near her home, a criminal complaint says. He's accused of killing her parents, James and Denise Closs on Oct. 15 at the family home near Barron, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Minneapolis. He then allegedly threw Jayme into the trunk of his car and drove to a remote cabin, where authorities say he held her for 88 days until she escaped Jan. 10.

Patterson is charged with two counts of intentional homicide and one count each of kidnapping and armed burglary. He faces life in prison if convicted on the homicide counts.

Jayme told police that the night she was abducted, she was asleep in her room when the family dog started barking, the criminal complaint says. She woke her parents as a car came up the driveway.

She and her mother hid in the bathroom, clutching one another in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled shut. They heard Jayme's father get shot as he went to the front door. Patterson then found Jayme. He told detectives he wrapped tape around her mouth and head, taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, then shot her mother in the head.

During her time in captivity, Patterson forced Jayme to hide under a bed when he had friends over and penned her in with tote boxes and weights, warning that if she moved, "bad things could happen to her." He also turned up the radio so visitors couldn't hear her, according to the complaint.

Authorities searched for Jayme for months and collected more than 3,500 tips. In January, she escaped when Patterson was away from the cabin and flagged down a woman who was walking her dog for help. Patterson was arrested minutes later.

Since her escape, Jayme has been living with an aunt in Barron, out of public view but for a handful of pictures showing a smiling Jayme posted to the aunt's Facebook page.

Patterson wrote in his jailhouse letter to KARE-TV that he intended to plead guilty because he didn't want Jayme's family "to worry about a trial," the station said.

___

Check out AP's complete coverage of Jayme Closs' abduction and her parents' deaths.

Source: Fox News National

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Red-hot McIlroy opens Masters with tepid effort

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland hits off the fourth tee during first round play of the 2019 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland hits off the fourth tee during first round play of the 2019 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S., April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

April 11, 2019

By Steve Keating

AUGUSTA, Ga. (Reuters) – Rory McIlroy entered the Masters as golf’s hottest player but the Northern Irishman’s opening-round on Thursday was tepid at best, carding an uninspiring one-over 73.

With six top-six finishes in six stroke play events, including a win at the Players Championship, McIlroy arrived at the year’s first major looking primed to finally complete his career grand slam.

Sitting four back of the clubhouse leaders, a Green Jacket and the elusive slam are certainly not out of reach but the 29-year-old will have to fire up his game if he is to get back on track.

“I mean I felt the course was there. It’s soft. There’s not much wind,” said McIlroy. “I made five birdies, that wasn’t the problem.

“I just made too many mistakes.

“That was the problem and I’m making mistakes from pretty simple positions, just off the side of the green, 17 and 18 being prime examples of that.”

McIlroy got his round off to a stumbling start with a bogey at the first but quickly got that stroke back with a birdie at the third.

Yet that was only the beginning of what would be a rollercoaster afternoon, swapping another bogey-birdie before making the turn where the ride got even wilder.

A harrowing back nine began with back-to-back bogeys and ended in the same deflating fashion with the world number three dropping shots at 17 and 18, taking the glow off a sparkling stretch when he picked up three birdies over four holes from the 13th.

With five consecutive top-10 finishes at the Masters, McIlroy has some fine performances at Augusta National to look back on.

Yet it has also been the scene of one of his biggest failures, a final-round collapse in 2011 when he failed to close out the win despite entering the day with a four-shot lead.

“I think I’ve sort of been through it all here at this golf course,” said McIlroy, who is trying to become just the sixth golfer to complete the career slam. “So … it’s fine.

“You know you’re going to have chances.

“There’s birdie opportunities. I can accept mistakes if I’m trying and it’s not a mental error or I haven’t got into places, so I can accept some mistakes.

“But six bogeys out there is a little too many and I’m just going to need to tidy that up over the next few days.”

(Editing by Toby Davis)

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)

Source: OANN

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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)

Source: OANN

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