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Woman rescued from SUV dangling from Florida parking garage

A woman was rescued Thursday from an SUV that had been dangling on the side of Florida parking garage for nearly an hour.

The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews responded to the second story of a parking garage in Miami Springs at around 4:25 p.m. Thursday, by which time authorities said the vehicle – a white Lexus SUV – was within inches of falling to the concrete driveway below.

And the driver was trapped inside.

Authorities said the SUV was precariously hanging from the side of the parking garage.

Authorities said the SUV was precariously hanging from the side of the parking garage. (Miami-Dade Fire Rescue)

“A very precarious position, the vehicle was wedged by a few inches of metal on the hatch top,” MDFR Chief Danny Cardeso told reporters. “That was the only thing that kept it from falling.”

FLORIDA AUTHORITIES SEEKING DRIVER WHO ALLEGEDLY STOPPED FOR PERSON CROSSING, THEN HIT THEM WITH CAR

Authorities said the SUV crashed through steel cables anchored to the walls of the parking garage.

Rescue workers were able to secure the vehicle and free the driver, who was treated at the scene.

Fire rescue crews were able to secure the vehicle and get the driver out of the SUV.

Fire rescue crews were able to secure the vehicle and get the driver out of the SUV. (Miami-Dade Fire Rescue)

“It took us about 45 minutes to secure the vehicle before we were able to safely remove the occupant,” Cardeso said. “She did not say exactly how it happened, so we do not know what happened at this point.”

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No one else was injured, authorities said.

Source: Fox News National

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Long-hidden Kafka trove within reach after series of trials

A long-hidden trove of unpublished works by Franz Kafka could soon be revealed following a decade-long battle over his literary estate that has drawn comparisons to some of his surreal tales.

A district court in Zurich upheld Israeli verdicts in the case last week, ruling that several safe deposit boxes in the Swiss city could be opened and their contents shipped to Israel's National Library.

At stake are untouched papers that could shed new light on one of literature's darkest figures, a German-speaking Bohemian Jew from Prague whose cultural legacy has been hotly contested between Israel and Germany.

Though the exact content of the vaults remains unknown, experts have speculated the cache could include endings to some of Kafka's major works, many of which were unfinished when they were published after his death.

Israel's Supreme Court has already stripped an Israeli family of its collection of Kafka's manuscripts, which were hidden in Israeli bank vaults and in a squalid, cat-filled Tel Aviv apartment. But the Swiss ruling would complete the acquisition of nearly all his known works, after years of lengthy legal battles over their rightful owners.

The saga could have been penned by Kafka himself, whose name has become known as an adjective to describe absurd situations involving inscrutable legal processes. Kafka was known for his tales of everyman protagonists crushed by mysterious authorities or twisted by unknown shames. In "The Trial," for example, a bank clerk is put through excruciating court proceedings without ever being told the charges against him.

"The absurdity of the trials is that it was over an estate that nobody knew what it contained. This will hopefully finally resolve these questions," said Benjamin Balint, a research fellow at Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute and the author of "Kafka's Last Trial," which chronicles the affair. "The legal process may be ending, but the questions of his cultural belonging and inheritance will remain with us for a very long time."

Kafka bequeathed his writings to Max Brod, his longtime friend, editor and publisher, shortly before his death from tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40. He instructed his protege to burn it all unread.

Brod ignored his wishes and published most of what was in his possession — including the novels "The Trial," ''The Castle" and "Amerika." Those works made the previously little-known Kafka posthumously one of the most celebrated and influential writers of the 20th century.

But Brod, who smuggled some of the manuscripts to pre-state Israel when he fled the Nazis in 1938, didn't publish everything. Upon his death in 1968, Brod left his personal secretary, Esther Hoffe, in charge of his literary estate and instructed her to transfer the Kafka papers to an academic institution.

Instead, for the next four decades, Hoffe kept the papers stashed away and sold some of the items for hefty sums. In 1988, for instance, Hoffe auctioned off the original manuscript of "The Trial" at Sotheby's in London. It went for $1.8 million to the German Literature Archive in Marbach, north of Stuttgart.

When Hoffe died in 2008 at age 101, she left the collection to her two daughters, Eva Hoffe and Ruth Wiesler, both Holocaust survivors like herself, who considered Brod a father figure and his archive their rightful inheritance. Both have since also passed away, leaving Wiesler's daughters to continue fighting for the remainder of the collection.

Jeshayah Etgar, a lawyer for the daughters, downplayed the significance of the potential findings in Zurich, saying they were likely replicas of manuscripts Hoffe had already sold. Regardless, he said the ruling was the continuation of a process in which "individual property rights were trampled without any legal justification." He said his clients legitimately inherited the works and called the state seizure of their property "disgraceful" and "first degree robbery."

Israel's National Library claims Kafka's papers as "cultural assets" that belong to the Jewish people. Toward the end of his life, Kafka considered leaving Prague and moving to pre-state Israel. He took Hebrew lessons with a Jerusalem native who eventually donated her pupil's vocabulary notebook to the library. In recent years, the library also took possession of several other manuscripts the courts had ordered Hoffe's descendants to turn over.

"We welcome the judgment of the court in Switzerland, which matched all the judgments entered previously by the Israeli courts," said David Blumberg, chairman of the Israel National Library, a nonprofit and non-governmental body. "The judgment of the Swiss court completes the preparation of the National Library of Israel to accept to entire literary estate of Max Brod, which will be properly handled and will be made available to the wider public in Israel and the world."

Other scholars question Israel's adoption of Kafka, noting that he was conflicted about his own Judaism. The German Literature Archive, for instance, has sided with Hoffe's heirs and aimed to purchase the collection itself, arguing the German-language writings belong in Germany. Dietmar Jaegle, an archive official, said he would not comment on the Zurich verdict as he had not yet seen it.

Balint cautioned that the contents of the hidden archive may not live up to everyone's expectations.

"It is very unlikely we are going to discover an unknown Kafka masterpiece in there, but these are things of value," Balint said, noting the fierce competition over any original Kafka material. "There is something about the uncanny aura of Kafka that is attracted to all this."

____

Follow Heller at www.twitter.com/aronhellerap .

Source: Fox News World

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After reality check, Indonesia’s ‘new face’ in politics seeks second term

Indonesia's incumbent presidential candidate Joko Widodo reacts as he speaks during a campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta
FILE PHOTO: Indonesia's incumbent presidential candidate Joko Widodo reacts as he speaks during a campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 13, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan

April 14, 2019

By Ed Davies

JAKARTA (Reuters) – When Indonesian President Joko Widodo was elected five years ago, the former furniture salesman seemed to offer a clean break from the military and political elite that had clung to power since the fall of strongman ruler Suharto in 1998.

Now, Widodo, 57, is running on his own record for a second term, with a comfortable lead in most opinion polls over his rival, former general Prabowo Subianto.With his easy smile and signature “blusukan”, or spur of the moment neighborhood walkabouts, he came to power on a wave of popular support for the clean, can-do image he cultivated as a small-city mayor, and then as governor of the capital Jakarta.

Still, during his political rise, Widodo, a moderate Muslim from Solo in Central Java, has had to fend off smear campaigns suggesting he is anti-Islam, a communist or in debt to China, all damaging accusations in the Muslim-majority country.

As president he was saddled with high expectations that he could fix a host of enduring issues in the sprawling archipelago, from tackling past human rights abuses to rooting out pervasive graft.

Jokowi, as he is popularly known among Indonesians, also inherited an economy coming off a commodities boom, and faced an obstructive parliament and vested interests opposed to reform and transparency.

Still, he methodically stitched together a majority in parliament and while unable to deliver on an economic growth target of 7 percent, he led a record infrastructure push to build ports, roads and airports.

Niken Satyawati, a family friend who has co-written a book on the president, said Widodo had sought to extend the clean governance he pursued as mayor of Solo to the national stage.

“He was an ordinary person. And he still is,” she said, describing his weakness as a desire to accommodate the wishes of too many people.

Widodo came from humble beginnings. His father ran a small timber business and his childhood home was a riverside shack in the city of Solo.

He was the first in his family to attend university and after graduating in forestry eventually set up a successful furniture business.

BOLDER REFORM?

Widodo became Solo’s first directly elected mayor in 2005 and was hugely popular after cleaning up the streets and public spaces with incentives and persuasion to shift thousands of illegal vendors to new facilities.

His consultative approach would come to define his campaign as he ran for governor of Jakarta in 2012.

Once president, as a political outsider, he faced accusations of being beholden to party backers, particularly those connected to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, led by former president Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Nevertheless, he focused on reviving the economy by cutting red tape and easing investment rules. At times, he faced cabinet infighting and policy flip-flops cast doubt on his ability to commandeer his own team, let alone a country of 260 million.

On the foreign stage, he appeared more assertive, denying pleas for clemency in 2015 from foreign drug traffickers on death row, straining ties chiefly with neighbor Australia.

He also held a cabinet meeting aboard a warship off the Natuna Islands after China stated its “overlapping claim” to nearby waters.

The most bruising period of his presidency was from 2016, when huge rallies targeting Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese, Christian governor for alleged blasphemy pushed religious tension in Indonesia to its highest in years.

Widodo was forced to distance himself from Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a one-time ally later jailed for insulting Islam.

To the disappointment of some progressive supporters, Widodo picked Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin as his running mate for the election, seeking to boost the ticket’s appeal to Muslims.

If he is re-elected, analysts expect broadly the same economic policy focus, though they are divided whether he will quicken the pace.

“If he wins, I believe he will push his reform agenda more confidently, as politically he is a ‘stubborn’ leader,” said Wawan Mas’udi, a politics expert at Gadjah Mada University who has charted Widodo’s rise to power.

(Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Clarence Fernandez)

Source: OANN

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ECB’s Lane sees only small cuts in ECB projections

Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland Philip Lane speaks at a European Financial Forum event in Dublin
Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland Philip Lane speaks at a European Financial Forum event in Dublin, Ireland February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

February 26, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Europe’s recent slowdown implies only limited cuts in European Central Bank forecasts, and the current policy strategy should be able to handle this, Irish central bank chief and ECB board seat candidate Philip Lane said on Tuesday.

“There’s been a sequence of negative shocks in recent times,” Lane said in a confirmation hearing at the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

“But I think all this is in the neighborhood of reasonably small adjustments to the forecasts,” Lane said. “The current strategy can cater to limited downside revisions.”

Lane will replace Peter Praet on the ECB’s board from June 1 and is almost certain to be appointed by ECB President Mario Draghi as the bank’s next chief economist.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: OANN

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Islamic Minaret Should Replace Notre Dame Spire, Says Architecture Expert

An architecture expert has called for Notre Dame’s fallen spire to be replaced with an Islamic minaret as an apology to Algerian Muslims killed by French police.

Writing in Domus, Tom Wilkinson, history editor of the Architectural Review, argues that the rebuild is an opportunity to communicate a message of political correctness.

“I can’t say I ever thought it the most beautiful cathedral in the world,” writes Wilkinson, before going on to slam Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the cathedral’s 19th century restorer, accusing him of “utterly unforgettable fantasies of structural engineering”.

He goes on to call for the rebuild to reflect “a more up-to-date form of political truth,” which could include “transforming Notre-Dame into a memorial to the generations of peasants who were exploited to fund it.”

According to Wilkinson, it could also include replacing the church’s perished 200 year old spire with an Islamic minaret.

“What about the approximately 100 Algerians who were killed by the French police while protesting the Algerian War in 1961, many of them thrown into the Seine at the foot of Notre-Dame?” he writes.

“These victims of the state could be memorialised by replacing Viollet-le-Duc’s flèche with – why not? – a graceful minaret.”

A minaret is a tower built next to a mosque that is normally used to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer.

As I document in the video below, while Wilkinson’s proposal is unlikely to be taken seriously, top architects and President Macron himself have called for the rebuild of Notre Dame to reflect the country’s new “diversity”.

The favorite to secure the rebuilding contract, Foster + Partners, has been responsible for some of western architecture’s most hideous eyesores, including the new ‘Tulip’ tower in London, which critics say reminds them of a giant dildo.

Those who prayed for Notre Dame to be rescued from the fires that nearly destroyed it should keep praying because the threat posed by modernist architects may be substantially greater.

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Source: InfoWars

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McCabe says Rosenstein was 'absolutely serious' about secretly recording Trump

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "was not joking" when he suggested secretly recording President Donald Trump in the Oval Office following the May 2017 dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.

McCabe, speaking to CBS News' "60 Minutes," recounted a conversation soon after Comey's firing about the ongoing Russia investigation in which he said Rosenstein told him: "I never get searched when I go into the White House. I could easily wear a recording device. They wouldn't know it was there."

"Now, he was not joking," McCabe said of Rosenstein's comments. "He was absolutely serious. And in fact, he brought it up in the next meeting we had."

McCabe told "60 Minutes" that he "never actually considered taking [Rosenstein] up on the offer," but said he did discuss the matter with the FBI's then-general counsel, James A. Baker. Last fall, Baker told lawmakers during a closed-door deposition that McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page came to Baker "contemporaneously" and told him details of the meeting where Rosenstein made the comments. Baker told congressional investigators he took the word of McCabe and Page "seriously."

FORMER TOP FBI LAWYER: TWO TRUMP CABINET OFFICIALS WERE 'READY TO SUPPORT' 25TH AMENDMENT EFFORT

McCabe told CBS News that "I think the general counsel had a heart attack" when he told him of Rosenstein's plan.

"And when he got up off the floor, he said, 'I, I, that's a bridge too far. We're not there yet,'" McCabe added. Days later, Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to oversee the bureau's investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Rosenstein repeatedly has denied he "pursued or authorized recording the president" and also has denied McCabe's suggestion that the deputy attorney general had broached the idea of invoking the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows Cabinet members to seek the removal of a president if they conclude that he or she is mentally unfit. The Justice Department echoed both denials in a statement released last week, saying Rosenstein "was not in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."

"Rod raised the [25th Amendment] issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," McCabe told interviewer Scott Pelley, adding that he believed Rosenstein was "counting votes or possible votes" to remove Trump from office.

"What seemed to be coursing through the mind of the deputy attorney general was getting rid of the president of the United States one way or another," Pelley suggested.

"I can't confirm that," McCabe answered. "But what I can say is, the deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time."

MCCABE, ROSENSTEIN MUST TESTIFY TO EXPLAIN CLAIM THAT DOJ DISCUSSED REMOVING TRUMP, GOP LEADERS SAY

According to McCabe, Rosenstein was affected by what McCabe called an "incredibly turbulent, incredibly stressful" time after Comey's firing. The former FBI deputy director claimed Trump had instructed Rosenstein to cite the Russia investigation in a memo Rosenstein wrote justifying Comey's dismissal.

"[Trump was] saying things like, 'Make sure you put Russia in your memo.' That concerned Rod in the same way that it concerned me and the FBI investigators on the Russia case," said McCabe, who added that Rosenstein "explained to the president that he did not need Russia in his memo. And the president responded, 'I understand that. I am asking you to put Russia in the memo anyway.'"

During his interview, McCabe criticized Trump for what he called an "unwillingness to learn the true state of affairs that he has to deal with every day." He cited an account by an anonymous FBI official who met with the president only to be met with "several unrelated diatribes by Trump."

MUELLER CLAIMS TO HAVE EVIDENCE ROGER STONE COMMUNICATED WITH WIKILEAKS

"One of those was commenting on the recent missile launches by the government of North Korea," McCabe said. "And, essentially, the president said he did not believe that the North Koreans had the capability to hit us here with ballistic missiles in the United States. And he did not believe that because [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin had told him they did not. President Putin had told him that the North Koreans don't actually have those missiles."

When intelligence officials allegedly told Trump that their information did not match what the Russian leader had told him, Trump allegedly said, "I don't care. I believe Putin."

McCabe was dismissed from the FBI in March 2018 after the Justice Department's internal watchdog concluded he approved leaking information to a Wall Street Journal reporter in order to cast himself in a positive light, then lied under oath about it. In the interview broadcast Sunday, McCabe denied intentionally misleading the DOJ's internal investigators, saying: "There's absolutely no reason for anyone and certainly not for me to misrepresent what happened ... Did I ever intentionally mislead the people I spoke to? I did not. I had no reason to. And I did not."

He added, "I believe I was fired because I opened a case against the president of the United States."

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In the White House response to McCabe's claims, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders noted that "Andrew McCabe was fired in total disgrace from the FBI because he lied to investigators on multiple occasions, including under oath. His selfish and destructive agenda drove him to open a completely baseless investigation into the President. His actions were so shameful that he was referred to federal prosecutors.

"Andrew McCabe has no credibility and is an embarrassment to the men and women of the FBI and our great country."

Source: Fox News Politics

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Harley-Davidson workers ratify new labor contract in Wisconsin

FILE PHOTO: Paris Auto Show
FILE PHOTO: A Harley-Davidson Inc. logo is seen at the Paris auto show in Paris, France, Oct. 4, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

April 15, 2019

(Reuters) – Harley-Davidson Inc’s unionized workers in Milwaukee and Tomahawk, Wisconsin, on Monday ratified a new five-year labor agreement for a 14 percent wage increase over the life of the contract.

The agreements in place at all of its Wisconsin operations also include a signing bonus, two separate variable incentive plans, pension enhancements for current employees and a retirement incentive.

These agreements, ratified by the United Steelworkers (USW) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Lodge, cover more than 1,000 employees in the Milwaukee-area and Tomahawk.

Earlier this month, the workers had rejected the motorcycle maker’s proposal for a five-year contract, citing non-financial issues such as temporary workers and job security.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel)

Source: OANN

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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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