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DOJ watchdog reportedly scrutinizing role of FBI informant in Russia probe

The Justice Department’s internal watchdog reportedly is scrutinizing the role of an FBI informant who contacted members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, as part of a broader review of the early stages of the Russia investigation.

The New York Times reported that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is looking into informant Stefan Halper’s work during the Russia probe, as well as his work with the FBI prior to the start of that probe.

BARR REVEALS HE IS REVIEWING 'CONDUCT' OF FBI'S ORIGINAL RUSSIA PROBE

Halper, an American professor who reportedly is deeply connected with British and American intelligence agencies, has been widely reported as a confidential source for the FBI during the bureau’s original investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. That official counterintelligence operation was opened by then-senior agent Peter Strzok, who has since been fired from the bureau.

During the 2016 campaign, Halper contacted several members of the Trump campaign, including former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former aide Carter Page. Page also was the subject of several Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants during the campaign -- which is an issue at the heart of the IG's investigation. Republicans, including President Trump, have alleged misconduct in the bureau and Justice Department’s handling of those FISA warrants.

"It was an illegal investigation. ... Everything about it was crooked," Trump told reporters on Wednesday, describing it as an attempted "coup" and reiterating his interest in digging into the probe's origins. "There is a hunger for that to happen."

Professor Stefan Halper

Professor Stefan Halper (Voice of America, File)

The Times, in its report, noted that Halper also contacted former Trump campaign aide Sam Clovis. It is unclear whether Halper had the FBI’s permission to contact Clovis, according to the report.

Horowitz, more broadly, is probing alleged wrongdoing related to the issuance of FISA warrants to surveil Page during the election. During a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Attorney General Bill Barr testified that Horowitz’s investigation is expected to be complete by May or June.

While vowing to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller's now-completed Russia report in a matter of days, Barr also announced Tuesday that he was reviewing the origins of the Russia investigation at the FBI and the Justice Department, amid mounting calls for scrutiny of the probe's beginnings from Trump and prominent congressional Republicans.

“More generally, I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all of the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted in the summer of 2016,” Barr told the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

BARR ASSEMBLES 'TEAM' TO LOOK INTO COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION ON TRUMP CAMPAIGN IN 2016, OFFICIAL SAYS

Also on Tuesday, Fox News reported that Barr had assembled a “team” to investigate the origins of the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.

The FBI’s 2016 counterintelligence investigation, formally opened by Strzok, began with a “paucity” of evidence, according to former FBI counsel Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was romantically involved. During a closed-door congressional interview, Page admitted that the FBI “knew so little” about whether allegations against the Trump campaign were “true or not true” at the time they opened the probe, adding that they had just “a paucity of evidence because we [were] just starting down the path” of vetting allegations.

Page also said in her interview that it was “entirely common” that the FBI would begin an investigation with just a “small amount of evidence.”

Barr’s team will also review the FISA warrants issued against Carter Page. The issuance of the FISA warrants relied, in part, on the unverified anti-Trump dossier authored by ex-British Intelligence Agent Christopher Steele, who worked on behalf of Fusion GPS—a firm paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie to do opposition research against the Trump campaign. In the dossier, Steele accused Page of conspiring with Russians. Page was not charged with any wrongdoing in either the FBI’s Russia probe or Mueller’s.

Fox News exclusively obtained internal FBI text messages last month showing that just nine days before the FBI applied for the Page FISA warrant, bureau officials were battling with a senior Justice Department official who had "continued concerns" about the "possible bias" of a source pivotal to the application.

Barr’s review could also dovetail with the work U.S. Attorney John Huber has been doing. In 2017, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Huber to review not only alleged surveillance abuses by the Justice Department and the FBI but also the handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation and other matters.

The day following Barr’s release of his summary of the Mueller report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said his panel also would investigate alleged FISA abuses at the start of the Russia investigation and called on Barr to appoint a new special counsel to investigate “the other side of the story.” Graham has been calling for a second special counsel since 2017 to investigate “whether or not a counterintelligence investigation was opened as a back door to spy on the Trump campaign.”

Also, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said over the weekend he was preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department this week regarding alleged misconduct by DOJ and FBI officials during the Trump-Russia investigation. It is unclear whom Nunes will refer for investigation, and what the process at the Justice Department might be.

When asked Tuesday about Nunes’ referrals, Barr said he hasn’t seen them yet, but, “Obviously, if there is a predicate for investigation, it will be conducted.”

Fox News’ Gregg Re and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Google’s new cloud boss has big task to catch rivals, Reuters data show

A
A Google logo is seen at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., November 1, 2018. REUTERS/ Stephen Lam

February 21, 2019

By Paresh Dave

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google has a new cloud computing boss and big ambitions to someday produce more revenue from that business than from advertising.

Now comes the hard part: winning over big-spending customers.

Alphabet Inc’s cloud computing division remains a distant third behind Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp in terms of global revenue, according to analysts’ estimates. A few major companies manage their data on Google’s servers. But Google has nowhere near the vast customer base of Amazon, according to a new Reuters analysis of company regulatory filings.

Businesses generally are not required to disclose their cloud vendors. Reuters found 311 out of about 5,000 worldwide that did so in 2018. While not comprehensive, the data provide a window into Google’s challenge.

Thirty five of those companies named Google as a cloud provider. The largest by market capitalization were oil major Total SA and bank HSBC Holdings Plc.

Graphic: Amazon’s cloud dominance – https://tmsnrt.rs/2BMpryP

Amazon Web Services led with 227 clients, including travel company Expedia Group Inc and industrials giant Siemens AG. Microsoft’s Azure cloud had 69 firms, among them weapons maker Axon Enterprise Inc and business data firm Dun & Bradstreet Co.

Thirty four of the companies cited multiple clouds.

The previously untracked data show the work ahead for Thomas Kurian, who is weeks on the job as senior vice president of Google Cloud. Kurian has vowed to double down where Google has seen promising results. Specifically, he plans to target governments and top companies in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, media and finance.

“A lot of our focus as we go forward is making sure that our sales organization has the background and the ability to sell to large, more traditional companies,” Kurian said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference last week. “There’s enormous appetite in those companies to consider Google.”

Google declined to comment or make Kurian available for an interview.

Graphic: Why cloud vendors get disclosed – https://tmsnrt.rs/2BKFoFP

People familiar with his plans said he is looking to reshape his division’s culture. A key part is developing or acquiring easy-to-use, industry-specific corporate applications, an area that Amazon and Microsoft do not dominate.

“It’s about the on-ramp onto their cloud,” said Daniel Ives, a New York-based financial analyst following the cloud industry for Wedbush Securities. “The main way to get that is through applications.”

A 22-year veteran of Oracle Corp, Kurian gave the database company fresh life as the product leader behind its move to selling cloud services. His hire is already making potential customers reconsider Google, said Ray Wang, founder of Constellation Research, a Monta Vista, Calif.-based firm that helps businesses negotiate cloud deals.

“They’ve worked with him,” Wang said. “There’s a trust factor that wasn’t there before.”

Kurian also must reassure some investors bewildered by Google’s cloud ambitions: Diversifying revenue beyond advertising is a plus, but it is not coming cheap.

Google, Microsoft and Amazon combined spent nearly $53 billion on capital expenses last year, driven by data center projects to house their clouds.

With gross margins of 20 percent or less, selling cloud storage or tools for which customers need specialized staff is less lucrative for a small vendor, industry experts said. But margins on the type of software Kurian likely wants to offer can top even the 60 percent of Google’s ad business.

“The next wave of growth is going to have to come from the heavy hitting applications,” said Kerry Liu, chief executive at Rubikloud, which helps retailers with cloud projects.

‘GEEKY, TECHY PLATFORM’

Google got serious about the cloud around 2016, five years after Amazon Web Services had become a multibillion-dollar behemoth. But Google’s reputation for limited customer support has attracted mostly newer businesses or those with significant tech know-how.

Mike Fisher, Etsy Inc’s chief technology officer, said Google’s superior AI tools helped win over the New York-based crafts marketplace. Fisher expects data-crunching algorithms to account for 25 percent of its server use this year, up from 10 percent last year.

“We’ve been more pleasantly surprised than we thought,” Fisher said of the cloud’s benefits.

Advertising software company OpenX recently agreed to spend at least $110 million on Google Cloud over five years. The Pasadena, Calif. firm bet its clients would benefit from transacting on the same infrastructure as Google’s ads system.

“It’s a bit more of a geeky, techy platform, but we’re that kind of company,” said Chief Technology Officer Paul Ryan.

Graphic: Battle for large cap customers – https://tmsnrt.rs/2BMyzTY

KURIAN’S PLAN

To attract more traditional corporate clients, Google Cloud will need to do some handholding, executives at its partners and rivals said.

Kurian is well-suited to the role. Two of his former colleagues said his follow-up and candid disclosures about product limitations helped seal deals at Oracle. An early riser, Kurian impressed staff with his meticulous preparation for morning meetings as well as his recall of the tiniest details of clients’ systems from years before.

Kurian also managed billions of dollars in acquisitions at Oracle, including the purchases of software firms BEA Systems and Taleo.

Applications could come through similar deals and internally: Google is testing product recommendation software for shopping apps, a person familiar with the project said, to

add to its small set of specialized tools.

Kurian told the investor conference that “you will see us continue to expand our footprint there.”

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Marla Dickerson)

Source: OANN

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Facebook files lawsuit against New Zealand company, three people

FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Facebook logo are seen in front of displayed binary digits in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Facebook logo are seen in front of displayed binary digits in this illustration taken, March 18, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. social media giant Facebook Inc on Thursday said it has filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal court, against a company and three people in New Zealand, alleging the sale of fake engagement services on its Instagram photo-sharing platform.

Facebook, in a blogpost, said the company and individuals – whom it did not name – used various other companies and websites to sell the services. It said it issued warnings and suspended associated accounts but that they persisted in their activities.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in BENGALURU; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

Source: OANN

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NTSB: Co-pilot in fatal NJ crash shouldn’t have been flying

The crew of a Learjet that crashed into office buildings near a New Jersey airport two years ago committed multiple mistakes during the 25-minute flight from Philadelphia, starting with the pilot’s decision to let the co-pilot fly the aircraft in violation of company policy, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded Tuesday.

Both pilots were killed in the fiery May 15, 2017, crash just south of Teterboro Airport, located about 8 miles (12 kilometers) from New York City that caters to private jets often carrying the rich and famous. No one else was aboard the aircraft.

NTSB investigators painted a picture of a flight beset by incorrect calculations, missed signals and miscommunication between the two pilots and air traffic controllers at Teterboro.

AIRLINES GROUND BOEING JET AFTER PLANE CRASHES IN ETHIOPIA

There was “widespread procedural noncompliance” on the part of the crew, according to NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt, beginning with the pilot’s decision to have the co-pilot take the controls. The co-pilot had had multiple difficulties during training and was designated by Trans-Pacific Jets to perform flight monitoring.

“The pilot had to extensively coach the co-pilot, while performing his own responsibilities,” Sumwalt said. “He did neither well, and both pilots lacked situational awareness.”

The NTSB faulted Trans-Pacific for inadequate safety monitoring of its operations. The Honolulu-based company hasn’t responded to a message left before business hours Tuesday.

The flight’s problems began even before the plane left Philadelphia, investigators concluded. The pilot initially requested to fly at 27,000 feet, an altitude far too high for a roughly 85-mile (136-kilometer) flight, and there was no evidence the two conducted a briefing on the approach procedures at the small Teterboro airport.

“Somebody needed to get together before they even started the engines and talk about this,” NTSB investigator David Lawrence said Tuesday.

A dozen times during the short flight, the co-pilot had trouble controlling the plane’s speed, Sumwalt said, and the crew initially mistook Newark Liberty International Airport’s runways for Teterboro’s as it headed north. After passing Newark, Teterboro’s air traffic controllers instructed the plane to turn east at a point just north of MetLife Stadium in preparation for a northward turn to Teterboro. But the crew, apparently uncertain about the approach procedure, didn’t execute the maneuver or ask for clarification from the tower.

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Now bearing down on the airport, the plane banked sharply to the right. One controller told investigators the turn was so extreme he could see the aircraft’s entire underbelly. The cockpit voice recorder revealed the expletive-filled final moments as the pilot took the controls back 15 seconds before impact.

The plane crashed into office buildings and a parking lot less than a mile from the runway. Employees at a public works building had left the crash site minutes earlier, according to an eyewitness.

Source: Fox News National

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It’s Happening – The Most Dangerous Volcano In North America Just Erupted And Shot Ash Nearly A Mile Into The Sky

A lot of us have been watching Mt. Popocatepetl for a very long time. 

Could it be possible that we are now on the verge of the most destructive volcanic eruption in the modern history of North America?  On Monday night at precisely 9:38 PM, a massive explosion at Mt. Popocatepetl sent a column of volcanic ash nearly a mile into the sky.  A “yellow alert warning” has been issued by the authorities, and they are ordering everyone to stay at least 12 kilometers away from the crater.  They are stressing that the threat has not passed, and as you will see below, an evacuation plan is in place in case an even larger eruption follows.  And if a much larger eruption does follow, the devastation could be off the charts.  Mexico City is only 43 miles away from Mt. Popocatepetl, and approximately 25 million people live within a 60 mile radius of the crater.

The explosion on Monday night was definitely a wake up call.  According to media reports, it was “loud enough to shake doors and windows of houses in the city of Puebla”

Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano erupted late on Monday, hurling incandescent rock about 1.5 miles down its slopes and sending ash into the night sky near the nation’s capital.

The explosion, one of the volcano’s largest eruptions in years, was heard from nearby communities and was loud enough to shake doors and windows of houses in the city of Puebla, according to local media.

Mt. Popocatepetl has been increasingly active in recent months, and authorities are concerned that all of this activity could be leading up to something really big.

In fact, it is being reported that they are “currently preparing for the worst case scenarios”

Local authorities are currently preparing for the worst case scenarios and haven’t ruled out more eruptions in the near future.

In preparations, they have drafted a special operational plan allowing for quick evacuation of locals in case of any future emergencies.


President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and President Trump are meeting today at the Whitehouse. Alex takes you live and delivers commentary on this breaking news.

Popocatepetl exploded earlier this week but had remained calm over the past several days as it only emitted water vapour, gas and a small amount of ash.

So what would a “worst case scenario” for Mt. Popocatepetl look like?

Well, scientists tell us that the volcano is capable of producing a “catastrophic Plinian eruption”

Popocatépetl is considered the most threatening volcano in North America, in terms of explosive activity and population threat. Its current low- or moderate-scale eruptive behavior can switch relatively quickly to a large, catastrophic Plinian eruption, the largest and most violent of all the types of volcanic eruptions, according to the volcanologists at the National History Museum.

If you have never heard of a “Plinian eruption” before, here is Wikipedia’s definition

Plinian eruptions or Vesuvian eruptions are volcaniceruptions marked by their similarity to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The eruption was described in a letter written by Pliny the Younger, after the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder.

Plinian/Vesuvian eruptions are marked by columns of volcanic debris and hot gases ejected high into the stratosphere, the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. The key characteristics are ejection of large amount of pumice and very powerful continuous gas-driven eruptions. According to the Volcanic Explosivity Index, Plinian eruptions have a VEI of 4, 5 or 6, sub-Plinian 3 or 4, and ultra-Plinian 6, 7 or 8.

Short eruptions can end in less than a day, but longer events can take several days or even months. The longer eruptions begin with production of clouds of volcanic ash, sometimes with pyroclastic surges. The amount of magma erupted can be so large that it depletes the magma chamber below, causing the top of the volcano to collapse, resulting in a caldera.

We are talking about a disaster that could potentially kill millions.

In the Aztec language, Popocatepetl literally means “smoking mountain”, but to most of the locals the volcano is simply known as “Don Goyo”.  In ancient times, it produced giant tsunamis of super heated mud that completely buried entire Aztec cities.  The following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles

Historians tell us that Popocatepetl had a dramatic impact on the ancient Aztecs. Giant mud flows produced by massive eruptions covered entire Aztec cities. In fact, some of these mud flows were so large that they buried entire pyramids in super-heated mud.

But we haven’t witnessed anything like that in any of our lifetimes, so it is hard to even imagine devastation of that magnitude.

In addition to Mexico City’s mammoth population, there are millions of others that live in the surrounding region. Overall, there are about 25 million people that live in the immediate vicinity of Popocatepetl. Thankfully, we haven’t seen a major eruption of the volcano in modern times, but at some point that will change.

Considering what this volcano is capable of doing, I simply don’t understand why there was so little coverage of this massive explosion on Monday by the mainstream media in the United States.

I guess they didn’t have any room after allocating front page space to the powerball jackpot and the ongoing drama surrounding Wendy Williams.

We live at a time when our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and many believe that the shaking is only going to get worse.

Mt. Popocatepetl had been dormant for a very long time before it started becoming active again in the 1990s.

Now it has apparently entered an extremely active phase, and we know that it is capable of producing a catastrophic Plinian eruption.

So let’s keep a very close eye on Mt. Popocatepetl, because a Plinian eruption so close to Mexico City would be a disaster far worse than anything that any of us have ever seen.

Source: InfoWars

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Brazil top court criticized for order to block news stories

Brazil's attorney general is accusing the nation's highest court of violating the constitution with an order for news organizations to withdraw some online reports on a corruption investigation that include references to one of the tribunal's justices.

The court told the news websites O Antagonista and Crusoé on Monday to remove specific articles containing what the court said were "false statements" or face a fine of 100,000 reals ($25,595) per day.

Attorney General Raquel Dodge asked for the ruling to be withdrawn Tuesday, saying that her office had not been consulted and that the case was outside the federal court's purview.

"The legal system clearly establishes an insurmountable separation of functions in a criminal prosecution: One body accuses, the other defends and the other judges. It is not possible for the judging body to be the same as the investigating and accusatory," Dodge said.

The ruling also faced mounting criticism from members of Congress, Brazil's legal association and at least four of the high court's nine justices.

"This to me is inconceivable. It's censorship," high court judge Marco Aurelio Mello said. "It is a regression in democracy. Freedom of expression must prevail."

Several members of Congress and senators wrote a letter asking Dodge that judges involved in issuing the order be investigated for abuse of power. Major Brazilian news organizations called the order a violation of the Supreme Federal Court's powers and an attempt to censor the press.

The reporting targeted by the court refers to purported testimony during the investigation into the mammoth "Operation Car Wash" corruption case that has roiled Brazilian politics in recent years. The testimony came from Marcelo Odebrecht of the huge Brazilian construction company that is at the center of Brazil's scandal as well as other corruption cases across Latin America.

According to documents posted online by the newspaper O Folha de Sao Paulo, an email in 2007 from Odebrecht to two executives at his construction company inquired: "So, in the end, did you manage to close with the friend of the friend of my father?"

The documentation indicates Odebrecht explained in testimony to Federal Police that the "friend of my father" referred to then President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in prison on a corruption conviction and faces investigations in several other cases of alleged corruption. The documents say Odebrecht testified that the "friend of the friend of my father" was a chief legal counsel to the government appointed by da Silva. That person was eventually nominated to Brazil's Supreme Federal Court in 2009.

The investigation into the reports and the order to remove the material originated with Supreme Federal Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, who on Wednesday denied Dodge's request that the ruling be withdrawn. De Moraes said the investigation has a clear mandate to target false statements "that may damage the honor of the Supreme Federal Court and its members."

The ruling also authorized the Federal Police to search the premises of several other critics of the Supreme Federal Court as well as to block their online presence.

Source: Fox News World

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Julian Assange’s arrest draws fierce international reaction

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested Thursday by British police moments after Ecuador withdrew his asylum over for “repeatedly violating international conventions and protocol.”

Assange’s arrest drew sharp reactions from his supporters and those who oppose him.

WIKILEAKS FOUNDER JULIAN ASSANGE ARRESTED AFTER ECUADOR WITHDRAWS ASYLUM

WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing organization Assange founded and published multiple secret U.S. military cables regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, condemned the Ecuadorean and British governments for arresting Assange.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom tweeted the “fight for his freedom kicks into high gear.”

Pamela Anderson, who previously told Fox News she had a close relationship with Julian Assange, retweeted something from April 4 as an apparent response to his arrest.

On the other side, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt thanked the Ecuadorean government for their cooperation with the Assange arrest.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country wants Assange’s rights to be observed, but couldn’t comment on the overall case.

“We of course hope that all of his rights will be observed,” Peskov told reporters.

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Assange, 47, has been in the embassy since 2012 when British courts ordered him extradited to Sweden to face questioning in a sexual assault case. That matter has since been dropped, but Wikileaks is facing a federal grand jury investigation over its publication of American diplomatic and military secrets during the Iraq War.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.

Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”

JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUPS AFTER JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHARGES DROPPED 

Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.

Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.

“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”

The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”

Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.

The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.

“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.

“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.

KIM FOXX’S CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER RESIGNS FOLLOWING SMOLLETT CONTROVERSY

President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”

The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.

Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

CLICK HERE FOF THE FOX NEWS APP

After an intense investigation, police said Smollett staged the entire incident to drum up publicity for his career.

Smollett has strongly denied the accusations.

Source: Fox News National

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