Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

India’s cash-strapped Jet Airways to pay December salaries

FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircrafts are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircrafts are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo

March 30, 2019

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indebted Indian carrier Jet Airways will pay December salaries to pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers but for now cannot pay more recent overdue wages, its chief executive said on Saturday after pilots threatened to strike over payment delays.

Jet Airways has delayed payments to pilots, suppliers and lessors for months and defaulted on loans after racking up more than $1 billion in debt. The airline blamed its problems on high oil prices and rising competition.

Lessors have grounded more than three dozen Jet Airways planes, forcing hundreds of its flights to be canceled.

The airline was bailed out on Monday https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jet-airways-debt-analysis/rescue-deal-is-no-panacea-for-indias-struggling-jet-airways-idUSKCN1RA0XV by state-run banks, which have temporarily taken a majority stake in the company and given it a loan, under a government-led rescue deal.

“These are complex processes and it has taken longer than we had expected and as such we are only able to remit your remaining salary for December 2018,” Chief Executive Vinay Dube told employees in a letter seen by Reuters, adding the company was working as fast as possible to resolve its debt issues.

“We realize that this remittance does not lift the financial hardship that each of you are facing and we do not take your sacrifices for granted,” he added.

“We continue to work on additional funding on an urgent basis and shall advise you about the release of the remaining salary arrears as the funds come in,” he added.

Karan Chopra, the president of the National Aviators Guild, the union of Jet Airways pilots, said union members planned to meet in Mumbai on Sunday to discuss further steps and whether they planned to go ahead with their planned April 1 strike.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in NEW DELHI; Editing by Edmund Blair)

Source: OANN

0 0

Thousands gather for rally supporting populist Serbia leader

Thousands are gathering in Belgrade for a mass rally in support of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who is seeking to counter months of protests demanding more democratic freedoms in the Balkan country.

Authorities have sealed off central streets in the capital Friday as Vucic's supporters arrive in buses from all over the country, neighboring Bosnia and Kosovo. In live broadcasts, the dominant pro-government media are lambasting opposition officials as "fascist and thieves."

Vucic has promised a "carnival atmosphere" at the rally he describes as Serbia's biggest in decades.

Anti-government demonstrators have been demanding free and fair elections and more media freedoms and have accused the president of autocratic tendencies.

Vucic formally advocates joining the European Union, but has remained pro-Russian since his ultranationalist past.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Frankenstein Designer Kids: What You Don’t Know About Gender-Transitioning Will Blow Your Mind

Puberty-blocking drugs, mastectomies, vaginal surgery and fake penises – all with zero chance of reversal – these are just some of the radical experimental methods being used on children. The madness must stop.

Imagine that you are the parent of a five-year-old boy who innocently informs you one day that he is a girl. Of course, the natural reaction would be to laugh, not phone up the nearest gender transitioning clinic. You have no idea how your little boy came to believe such a thing; possibly it was through something he heard at the daycare center, or maybe a program he saw on television. In any case, he insists that he ‘identifies’ as a female.

Eventually, possibly at the encouragement of your local school, you pay a visit to a physician. You hope this medical professional will be able to provide you and your child with some sound counseling to clear up his confusion. Prepare yourself to be disappointed. Your doctor will be forced, according to state and medical dictate, to follow the professional guidelines known as ‘affirmative care.’ It sounds nice and harmless, doesn’t it? In fact, the program could be best described as nothing short of diabolical.

The Medical Harms of Hormonal and Surgical Interventions for Gender Dysphoric Children

Following the ‘affirmative care’ approach, the doctor is required to follow the child’s lead, not vice-versa, as many people believe the doctor-patient relationship in this particular case would best work. In other words, if the child tells the doctor that he believes he is a girl, the doctor must comply with that ‘reality’ no matter what biology tells him or her to be the case. But this is just the beginning of the madness.

As the child’s parent, you will be encouraged to start referring to your son as your ‘daughter,’ and even permit him to choose a feminine name, as well as matching clothes. Teachers will be instructed to let your son use the girl’s bathroom while at school. The question of the social stigma attached to such a lifestyle change, complete with bullying, is rarely brought into the equation. Therapists will seldom discuss with the parents the social implications of such a mental and physical change; indeed, many will insist the changes are ‘reversible’ should the child one day have a change of heart. If only things were that easy.

Let’s pause for a moment and ask what should be the most obvious question, especially among medical professionals: ‘Is it not terribly naive to support the fleeting belief of a child, who still believes in Santa Claus, that he/she is the opposite sex? Isn’t there a very high possibility that the child is just confused and the thought will pass? Moreover, why did we never hear about such episodes just 10 years ago, yet today we are led to believe it is some sort of epidemic?’ Instead of working with the child and his newfound identity from such an obvious approach, in the majority of cases the child will be placed on the fast-track to gender transitioning. This is where the horror story begins.

One parent, ‘Elaine,’ a member of the advocacy group Kelsey Coalition whose daughter underwent “life-altering medical interventions,”came to understand that the transition is immensely harmful to the future health and well-being of her child.

“Once the teenage years begin, affirmative care means giving young people cross-sex hormones,” Elaine said during a panel discussion organized by the Heritage Foundation.

Girls as young as twelve are prescribed testosterone for lifetime usage, while boys are given estrogen. These are serious hormonal treatments that impact brain development, cardiovascular health and may increase the risk of cancer.”

This leads us to the operating table, where adolescents, lacking the mental maturity necessary to make such a huge life-altering choice, are exposed to the knife of irreversible surgical manipulation. Double mastectomies on girls, for example, as well as the fashioning of false penises derived from flesh borrowed from other parts of the body, are just some of the unprecedented procedures now available.

Elaine mentioned the high-profile story of one Jazz Jennings, who was diagnosed with ‘gender dysphoria’ and raised as a girl since the age of five. He was treated with hormones at the age of eleven, and at the age of 17, Jazz underwent surgery to remove his penis and create a simulated vagina out of his stomach lining.

“After surgery, Jazz’s wounds began separating and a blood blister began to form. An emergency surgery was performed. According to Jazz’s doctor, ‘As I was getting her on the bed, I heard something go ‘pop.’ When I looked, the whole thing has split open.’”

Elaine called the case of Jazz a “medical experiment on a child” that “has been playing out on television for the past 12 years.” It should be noted that a similar drama-packed scenario captivated the nation with the high-profile, made-for-television sexual transition of Caitlyn Jenner, born Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic gold medalist, who was quite possibly the greatest American athlete of all time.

The obvious question is ‘how many impressionable children, many experiencing their own bodily changes in the form of puberty, were persuaded to decide in favor of gender transitioning (something that a child could have only heard about from some external media or source, unless the parents engage in such odd discussion topics at the dinner table) after watching these celebrity persona?’ By now, few people would doubt the powerful influence that TV celebrities have over people, and especially adolescents. In fact, that is the entire notion behind the idea of a ‘positive role model.’ I am not sure Caitlin Jenner would qualify for such a part.

According to Michael Laidlaw, M.D., these children, who are experiencing what the medical community has dubbed ‘gender dysphoria,’ will move beyond their condition either naturally or with the assistance of a therapist. Meanwhile, according to Laidlaw, citing studies, many of the girls and boys who display symptoms have neuro-psychiatric conditions and autism.

“Social media and YouTube, things like that, binge-watching YouTube videos of transitioners seem to be playing a role…as well as contagion” in popularizing the idea among the masses.

The movement is predicated upon the modern liberal idea of ‘gender identity,’ which has been defined as a “person’s core internal sense of their own gender,” regardless as to what the biological facts of their sex prove.

Dr. Laidlaw presented perhaps the best case against parents and their children rushing to the conclusion that their children need puberty blockers, for example, or extreme doses of hormones, when he discussed what happens when a person is diagnosed with cancer.

“If a child or somebody you knew had cancer, would you want pathology results, would you want imaging to prove [the condition] before you give harmful chemotherapeutics,” he asked. Yet we are allowing children and adolescents to undergo irreversible chemical and surgical procedures without being able to see any evidence that shows the presence of ‘the opposite sex’ in the patient.

In other words, the medical community is monkey-wrenching with not only Mother Nature, but with the lives of children, with radical and irreversible experiments that have not been proven to promote the happiness and wellbeing of those on the receiving (or subtracting) end.

“We are giving very harmful therapies on the basis of no objective diagnosis,” Dr. Laidlaw said.

Laidlaw was forced to repeat what has been widely known for millennia.

“There are only two sexes,” he said.

“Sex is identified at birth, nobody assigns it. Doctors don’t arbitrarily assign this person to be a boy and this person to be a girl. We all know how to identify it.

“I would say ‘ask your grandmother who doesn’t read the scientific journals, and they will tell you exactly how to identify boys from girls.’”

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Boy, 7, picks of bag of cocaine, Fentanyl dropped by man in Subway, police say

A man was arrested Thursday more than a year after he dropped a bag of drugs inside a Connecticut Subway store that a 7-year-old boy later picked up, police said.

Henry Marrero-Rodriguez, 47, was arrested and charged with risk of injury to a minor and possession of narcotics/controlled substance in the Nov. 22, 2017, incident at the Subway in East Haven, FOX61 reported. The manager of the store called police that day after a customer said her 7-year-old son found a bag containing seven smaller baggies filled with white powder.

WOMAN 'DRESSED LIKE A NUN,' HUSBAND ARRESTED FOR FENTANYL TRAFFICKING, OFFICIALS SAY

The child picked up the bag he discovered in the chip display.

“Unaware of the potential dangers it could have posed, the child began handling the bag of narcotics briefly before turning it over to his mother,” police said in a news release.

Authorities discovered the powder was cocaine and Fentanyl.

IOWA OFFICER EXPOSED TO SUSPECTED FENTANYL DURING TRAFFIC STOP: POLICE

Police reviewed surveillance video that showed a man, later identified as Marrero-Rodriguez, entering the sandwich restaurant about 30 minutes before the child discovered the drugs. Marrero-Rodriguez is seen on video rummaging through his pocket to grab his cellphone when the bag of drugs falls out and into the chip display.

Marrero-Rodriguez and a woman leave the Subway, unaware the bag of drugs dropped into the chip rack.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Marrero-Rodriguez was held on $50,000 bail and appeared in front of a judge Friday. It’s unclear why it took more than a year for police to make an arrest.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

ACLU Concerned About ICE's Use of License-Plate Database

Immigration agents have been utilizing a massive, privately run database of license plates from vehicles nationwide to track down people who may be in the country illegally, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and released Wednesday, The Washington Post reported.

The database contains billions of records on the details of vehicle locations recorded by traffic cameras and scanners used in parking lots and toll roads to monitor the movement of vehicles.

Although police have long used these devices to track criminal suspects and catch traffic offenders, the ACLU said the records they obtained from the Department of Homeland Security via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal an expanding network of surveillance that seems to have few legal limitations.

"The ACLU's grave concerns about the civil liberties risks of license plate readers take on greater urgency as this surveillance information fuels ICE's deportation machine," said Northern California ACLU staff attorney Vasudha Talla in a blog post.

ICE has been able to access driver-location information gathered from businesses in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, the ACLU records show, and thousands of ICE employees have access to the database.

Critics say innocent people are thus subjected to an improper level of government surveillance, because the scanners record license-plate data on every passing car, and not just those owned by suspects.

Making matters worse for civil liberties, police can access years of data without getting permission from a judge, while, for example law enforcement agencies must get warrants to legally use GPs-tracking devices.

Source: NewsMax America

0 0

Report: Catholic Charities Criticizing Officials For Bungling Info on Asylum Seekers

Catholic Charities in one Texas diocese is reportedly criticizing government officials and lawmakers for a lack of information and transparency about asylum-seeking immigrants recently released from federal custody.

According to Antonio Fernandez, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, says Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and unspecified local lawmakers have passed along misinformation on migrants’ release times and locations, the Washington Examiner reported.

“The frustration is not the work — it’s the lack of information because we get conflicting info from so many people,” Fernandez told the news outlet, accusing DHS officials of a  “lack of transparency and information” — adding even workers at the same agencies have passed along contradicting information.

San Antonio is the closest major city to the South Texas border, where many of those who’ve been released from custody and told to show up at future hearings then fly or bus to their final U.S. destination.

According to the Examiner, about 1,000 migrants arrived in San Antonio on government-funded buses and private vans last week. Fernandez told the Examiner it’s been “madness” trying to prepare for the arrival and then to have the dates or places suddenly changed.

Source: NewsMax America

0 0

Truck drivers see orders, miles fall in latest U.S. slowdown signal

FILE PHOTO: Trucks are pictured at a truck stop along I-95 in Darien
FILE PHOTO: Trucks are pictured at a truck stop along I-95 in Darien, Connecticut, U.S. January 16, 2019. REUTERS/Jessica Resnick-Ault

April 17, 2019

By Stephanie Kelly and Jessica Resnick-Ault

(Reuters) – At a truck stop in Ridgefield, New Jersey, driver Paul Richards reviews a notebook where he tracks miles driven and what he is hauling. His paycheck is down about 25 percent from the same period a year ago, and his weekly miles have dropped as well.

“This hasn’t been a very good week,” said Richards, who carries building materials and recycled goods through the U.S. Northeast. “Last week wasn’t, either.”

Across the United States, drivers, regional operators and industry officials say the $700 billion U.S. trucking sector slipped in late 2018, with the fall continuing into this year. While the decline in freight rates and hauling does not suggest the United States is headed into a recession, that softness is consistent with slippage in the economy as a whole.

The effects have been uneven nationwide, with weaker orders and miles in the U.S. Midwest and Southeast than on the West Coast, economists and regional officials said.

Trucking accounts for 70 percent of U.S. shipment tonnage, and is key to supplying the manufacturing, construction and retail sectors, all of which showed sluggishness in the first quarter. The most common factors for the decline include the U.S.-China trade war and weakness in the Farm Belt.

An ACT Research index of truck carrier volumes that surveys about 60 fleets crossed into negative territory in November for the first time since July 2016. It briefly returned to positive territory in January but dipped again in February. It matches forecasts for a soft first quarter for U.S. gross domestic product, which is expected to come in at 1.8 percent growth, according to Reuters polling.

“Clearly, the economy is slowing down,” Kenny Vieth, president of ACT Research, said in a recent interview. “When the economy moderates, the trucking industry can be exceptionally worse than the overall economy because of the deep cyclical trend that characterizes the industry.”

To be sure, another indicator, the American Trucking Associations tonnage index, is at a healthy level at 117.4, still far above recession-era levels between 2008 and 2012, when it remained below 90.

(GRAPHIC: Truck tonnage and U.S. real GDP: https://tmsnrt.rs/2OjFgls)

REGIONAL SOFTNESS

The industry’s softness is not uniform nationwide. Reuters spoke to 47 out of 50 state trucking associations, and of those that responded, 16, including Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Tennessee, said activity had slowed. Another 16 said there was little change, and the rest could not say one way or another.

Shipments in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States have been hit harder than other regions, according to Bobby Holland, vice president and director of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank Freight Data Solutions. In the Midwest, export tariffs on crops have hurt agricultural sales, and auto production is also moderating, he said.

Neal Kedzie, president of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association, said activity started to slow at the end of 2018. Brokers had been connecting trucking companies known as carriers with requests from those who needed to haul freight. Now, though, carriers are starting to reach out to brokers to find loads.

“Carriers are having to do more searching on their own versus the brokers, who (before) had so much to deliver that they couldn’t find enough trucks,” Kedzie said.

Northeast shipments were strong last year, U.S. Bank said, but state officials in Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island all told Reuters that early 2019 has been weaker.

A year ago, Larry Hobson was driving 14 hours a day hauling refrigerated food from Tennessee to New England. Now he is working eight or nine hours a day, and his paycheck has dropped by about $1,000 a week because of the decrease.

“I am a lot less busy,” he said at a service center in Darien, Connecticut.

Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2HP3V0ZMidwest, Southeast see shipment growth contract, click

(GRAPHIC: regional shipment growth: (https://tmsnrt.rs/2NRPt8O)

PROFIT WARNINGS

Spot total rates for freight have slumped as well, averaging $1.85 per mile in March, according to DAT Solutions, a freight exchange company. That’s the lowest seasonally since 2017.

That weakness is starting to show up in company results. In mid-March, Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Covenant Transportation Group Inc warned of weak first-quarter results, saying average freight revenue per tractor was down 5 percent in early 2019 from the year-ago period, with average miles down more than 11 percent.

“The truckload freight environment has been weaker this year from late January through mid-March,” CEO David Parker said in a statement last month. Covenant shares are down more than 20 percent in the last six months.

Analysts have lowered quarterly per-share estimates for J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc, Covenant and service company Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc by 9 percent, 40 percent and 5 percent, respectively, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

“There’s no doubt that we have been seeing a deceleration in volumes,” said Bob Costello, chief economist for the American Trucking Associations (ATA). “This is an indication that the economy is decelerating.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Writing by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Story Time

1:00 am 6:00 am



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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist