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There Will Be a Reckoning Over Dem Collusion Fantasy

There Will Be a Reckoning Over Dem Collusion Fantasy

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Grand Rapids, Michigan, might be my new favorite city. I hadn’t remembered that it was the president’s last stop on the 2016 campaign trail until he reminded his huge (yuge!) audience there on Thursday night.

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Lawyers ask Vatican to denounce criminalization of homosexuality

FILE PHOTO: A participant waves a rainbow flag in front of President's office building during LGBT pride parade in Taipei
FILE PHOTO: A participant waves a rainbow flag in front of President's office building during a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pride parade in Taipei, Taiwan, October 28, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

April 5, 2019

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Human rights lawyers and gay rights advocates urged the Vatican on Friday to issue a clear and unequivocal statement against the criminalization of homosexuality.

The request was made at a Vatican meeting two days after the United Nations said Brunei was violating human rights by implementing Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality.

Brunei has defended its right to implement the laws.

About 50 lawyers and gay advocates, led by Baroness Helena Ann Kennedy, director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, met Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state and gave him a study on criminalization of homosexuality in the Caribbean.

She said Parolin was “very responsive” to the ideas put forward by the group and thanked Pope Francis for having shown “compassion and understanding” to the gay community.

“Obviously there are issues that are doctrinal but the point that we were making and which I think he (Parolin) accepted is that this is absolutely about the Church’s teaching about respecting human dignity,” she told reporters.

The Church teaches that, while homosexual tendencies are not sinful, homosexual acts are but it also says that the human dignity of homosexuals must be respected and defended.

“What we need is a very clear statement, from the Roman Catholic Church at least, that criminalization is wrong,” said Leonardo Javier Raznovich, lead researcher of a Caribbean report, which they gave to Parolin.

In 2008, the Vatican called for decriminalization of homosexuality but opposed a non-binding U.N. resolution on the issue because it believed that other parts of it equated same-sex unions with heterosexual marriage.

Catholic bishops around the world have had differing responses to laws to decriminalize homosexuality.

“The Church needs to have a clear policy where, if they believe in human rights, if they believe in the dignity of the human being, as they actively preach, they need to make sure that the Church throughout the world has the same response,” Raznovich said.

A Vatican statement said: “Parolin extended a brief greeting to those present, repeating the Catholic Church’s position in defense of the dignity of every human person and against every form of violence.”

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the a U.S.-based Catholic LGBT rights group New Ways Ministry, said the Vatican meeting was “a great step forward for improving the relationship between LGBT people and the Catholic Church but more urgent statements and actions are needed”.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Edmund Blair)

Source: OANN

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Star formation in galactic centers

Stars form from the gas and dust in molecular clouds via a series of complex processes that are currently only partly understood, and the evolution of these clouds drives the evolution of the stellar populations in the universe.

Astronomers studying the formation of stars have, over the past decades, concentrated on a few select regions of active star formation: the solar neighborhood, the disc of the Milky Way, and the neighboring Magellanic Cloud galaxies.

This range of environments is limited, however, and not representative of the conditions under which most stars in the Universe formed.

For instance, the densities, pressures, and motions of the gas in these local environments are considerably lower than those thought to be present during the time of peak cosmic star formation about ten billion years ago. Moreover the disparate conditions make it difficult to untangle evolutionary effects.

Recent Galactic plane surveys at a wide range of wavelengths using facilities like the Submillimeter Array and ALMA telescopes have made it possible to study cloud evolution and star formation in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), the central 1500 light-years of the Milky Way, whose extreme physical conditions more nearly resemble those at the peak of cosmic star formation.

CfA astronomers Eric Keto and Qizhou Zhang and their colleagues carried out a series of computer simulations of massive molecular clouds in a CMZ environment with the goal of characterizing their morphological and kinematic evolution as they orbit the galactic center in this dense, complex region.

These computations are the first specifically aimed at modeling the clouds in the CMZ ridge and were designed to compare against recent observations.

The team finds that the CMZ environment causes the clouds to be compressed, with stress and shear forces fragmenting them and developing features such as filaments and spinning, pancake-like structures.

The simulations are able to reproduce key observed features like the “Brick,” a very dense, flattened molecular cloud that, despite its dense gas, lacks star formation activity; the simulations can mimic its general morphology, inclination, and velocity gradients.

The results reveal that the evolution of molecular clouds near galactic centers is closely coupled to their orbital dynamics.

When accompanied by accretion of gas, these clouds can evolve to produce the starbursts observed in many galactic nuclei.



Is Biden’s White House run effectively over?

Source: InfoWars

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Salt Water Battery Charges in Seconds

A battery prototype has been designed using salt water and materials that are non-toxic and charge quickly, paving the way for new types of battery.

The design principles behind the new prototype, which changes color as it charges, could also be applied to existing battery technologies to create new devices for energy storage, biological sensing, and smart color-changing materials.

The most widely used batteries currently are lithium-ion batteries, which have a relatively high capacity (they hold a large amount of charge) but do not discharge or recharge their energy quickly. They also contain organic electrolytes and other materials that can be hazardous and flammable, meaning they require careful handling and disposal.

The new battery prototype, developed by a team of researchers from the departments of Physics and Chemistry at Imperial College London, uses thin films of specially designed plastics and simple salt water instead.

While it can hold less charge than conventional lithium-ion batteries, the prototype, which is made from polymers – long chains of molecules that make up plastics – can charge and discharge in a matter of seconds. As an added benefit of the materials it uses, it also changes color as it charges, giving users an easy way to read out the state of charge of the battery.

The prototype, the details of which were published in Energy & Environmental Science, could pave the way for improving the charging rate and toxicity of existing batteries, or provide a route for making entirely new kinds of batteries.

Developing Recyclable Batteries

Co-lead author Dr. Alexander Giovannitti, who worked on the project while at the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at Imperial, said: “The materials we used to create the battery prototype could potentially be made at low cost and combined with the use of non-toxic and non-flammable water-based electrolytes. This approach could be a viable route to develop recyclable batteries.”

Batteries with faster charge time but lower capacity could have a range of applications where energy needs to be exchanged quickly but the batteries don’t need to be small, such as when energy from car braking is used moments later to accelerate the vehicle.

On a larger scale, when renewable technologies like solar or wind are used as part of a national or local grid, they can only provide energy intermittently. A battery system that could store this energy quickly, but also give it back to the grid when needed, would be valuable in keeping supply steady.

The team say their prototype would need more work to be suited to these areas, but that the principles behind its design could be applicable to a wide range of energy storage devices in development.

(Photo by Marcelo César Augusto Romeo, Flickr)

Designing New Materials

Polymer materials have been successfully used in batteries before, as additives to provide flexibility or as electrolytes that separate positive and negative electrodes, but their use as active materials in battery electrodes operating in water has proved challenging.

The breakthrough comes from the design of polymer materials that can take up and release positive or negative ions from salt water, quickly and reversibly without degrading. These ions are attracted to electrodes of opposite charge when the device is charging.

Water-based batteries are desirable because of their non-toxicity, but it has been difficult to get the ions in water to be reversibly exchanged with the electrodes.

The team got around this by designing side-chains to attach to the conducting polymer ‘backbones’. By using polar materials for the side chains, they could create electrodes with high affinity to water.

With this principle they were able to create positive and negative electrodes that can host their opposite ions from the water – and they had the ingredients for a battery. As the polymer backbones were already flexible – expanding and contracting while the battery charged and discharged – then no additives were needed.

Co-lead author Dr. Davide Moia, who completed the work while at the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: “Using salt water gets rid of toxicity and flammability concerns, but it has not been easy to use as it can limit the amount of energy you can get in and out of a device compared to other organic electrolytes.

“We now want to test how far this limit can be pushed. We have compensated for lower performance with a safer combination of materials, but improving the performance could open up the path to whole new types of viable energy storage devices that are also safe and sustainable.”


Now that Bayer has merged with Monsanto, they’re releasing a new version of the infamous product “Round-Up” called “Barricor.” Alex points out how this is a tactic used in the past to relaunch something horrible.

Source: InfoWars

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Ireland promises ‘substantial’ aid to farmers in no-deal Brexit

Sheep graze on grass and hay on a farm near the County Wicklow village of Roundwood
Sheep graze on grass and hay on a farm near the County Wicklow village of Roundwood, Ireland December 9, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

March 23, 2019

By Graham Fahy

WEXFORD, Ireland (Reuters) – Ireland’s agriculture minister Michael Creed on Saturday promised farmers a “substantial” aid package if they suffer losses as a result of new UK tariffs under a no-deal Brexit.

The Irish Farmers Association estimates that WTO tariffs on Ireland’s beef and livestock sector will impose a direct cost of 800 million euro per year, devastating the 3-billion-euro industry and putting thousands of farmers out of business.

The beef sector is especially exposed to new tariffs, with half of all exports going to the UK.

The government will seek to provide domestic state aid such as grants and intervention, Creed told Reuters in an interview. Dublin may also provide private storage aid (PSA) for the industry, an EU measure usually reserved for smoothing out seasonal imbalances between supply and demand.

In addition, Ireland would apply to the European Commission for exceptional aid under Common Market Organisation rules covering agricultural products, Creed said.

“We are very satisfied that the Commission recognizes the necessity for that and we have a substantial package,” he said. “What we have also secured is the ability of the exchequer here under state aid rules to also intervene.”

Ireland would seek EU financial aid based on the precedent set when exceptional support was given to the Baltic states and Finland following Russia’s 2014 ban on EU food imports, Creed said. Moscow imposed the ban in retaliation for EU sanctions over the annexation of Crimea.

Creed said Ireland would make a case to the Commission that support for its primary producers would limit any possible contagion from UK tariffs to other European countries.

“Because otherwise we’ll be looking for a home for 300,000 tonnes of beef in other European Union markets,” he said.

The fallout from the UK leaving the European Union without a deal cannot be completely eliminated, he said, whatever the level of preparedness or government intervention.

“There will be cost implications, there will be job implications, there will be profit implications. And that’s the tragic reality of Brexit, in any manifestation.”

(Reporting by Graham Fahy; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

Source: OANN

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Mueller probe already financed through September: officials

FILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Mueller departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation in Washington
FILE PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller (R) departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

March 11, 2019

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the team he assembled to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates have been funded through the end of September 2019, three U.S. officials said on Monday, an indication that the probe has funding to keep it going for months if need be.

The operations and funding of Mueller’s office were not addressed in the budget requests for the next government fiscal year issued by the White House and Justice Department on Monday because Mueller’s office is financed by the U.S. Treasury under special regulations issued by the Justice Department, the officials said.

“The Special Counsel is funded by the Independent Counsel appropriation, a permanent indefinite appropriation established in the Department’s 1988 Appropriations Act,” a Justice Department spokesman said. 

There has been increased speculation in recent weeks that Mueller’s team is close to winding up its work and is likely to deliver a report summarizing its findings to Attorney General William Barr any day or week now. Mueller’s office has not commented on the news reports suggesting an imminent release.

Representatives of key congressional committees involved in Trump-related investigations say they have received no guidance from Mueller’s office regarding his investigation’s progress or future plans.

The probe, which began in May 2017, is examining whether there were any links or coordination between the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin and the 2016 presidential campaign of Trump, according to an order signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Critics of the probe, including Trump allies, have suggested the investigation is a misuse of taxpayer funds and should be wrapped up quickly.

Justice Department documents show that Mueller’s office reported spending around $9 million during the fiscal year which ran from Oct. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2018. No figures are available for the current fiscal year.

Ninety days before the beginning of a federal government fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1, special counsels such as Mueller “shall report to the Attorney General the status of the investigation and provide a budget request for the following year,” according to the regulations.

Department officials said that under these regulations, a special counsel should request funding for the next fiscal year by the end of June. It is not known if Mueller is preparing such a request for fiscal year 2020.

Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has labeled Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.”

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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AP Sources: Trump Considers Adding ‘Immigration Czar’

As he threatens to shut down the southern border, President Donald Trump is considering bringing on a "border" or "immigration czar" to coordinate immigration policies across various federal agencies, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Trump is weighing at least two potential candidates for the post: Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli — two far-right conservatives with strong views on immigration, according to the people, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the conversations publicly.

The planning comes as Trump is threatening anew to close the U.S.-Mexico border as soon as this week if Mexico does not completely halt illegal immigration into the U.S. And it serves as the latest sign that the president plans to continue to hammer his hardline immigration rhetoric and policies as he moves past the special counsel's Russia investigation and works to rally his base heading into his 2020 re-election campaign.

Aides hope the potential appointment, which they caution is still in the planning stages, would be the administration's new "face" of the immigration issue and would placate both the president and his supporters, showing he is serious about the issue and taking action.

White House press aides, Kobach and Cuccinelli did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment. Kobach previously served as vice chair of the president's short-lived election fraud commission, which was disbanded after finding little evidence of widespread fraud.

Trump has often complained, both publicly and privately, about how he has not been able to do more to stop the tide of illegal immigration, which he has likened to an "invasion" and labeled a national security crisis. Arrests along the southern border have skyrocketed in recent months and border agents are now on track to make 100,000 arrests or denials of entry there this month. More than half are families with children.

Trump in December forced a government shutdown to try to pressure Congress to provide more money for his long-promised border wall and eventually signed an emergency declaration to circumvent them. He also moved Saturday to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where citizens are fleeing north and overwhelming U.S. resources at the southern border.

That focus on immigration has touched on numerous government agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, State, Defense and Justice. But not all of those departments are always on the same page.

One of the most glaring examples came last summer, when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions instituted a "zero tolerance" policy at the border without consulting others that caused a spike in the number of migrant children separated from their families.

The separated children were placed in HHS custody, but there was no tracking system in place to link parents with their children until a federal judge ordered one, causing widespread fear and concern about whether families would ever see each other again. Homeland Security also has to coordinate with the Pentagon on space to detain migrants as well as on wall funding.

It has yet to be decided whether the czar position, if Trump goes through with the plan, would be housed within Homeland Security or within the White House, which would not require Senate confirmation.

A person positioned within the White House could coordinate immigration policy across various agencies, working closely with aides who are deeply involved in immigration policy, including Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, national security adviser John Bolton and Kirstjen Nielsen, the Homeland Security secretary.

Appointing a person who is based within Homeland Security could be trickier because the department's agency heads are all Senate-confirmed positions and, in the case of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are longtime immigration officials with decades of experience dealing with the border.

While immigration officials would welcome an adviser focused specifically on policy across the varying agencies, the names being floated are likely to spark backlash and criticism.

Kobach, an immigration hardliner, ran a failed bid for governor promising to drive immigrants living in the U.S. illegally out of the country and has recently been working for a nonprofit corporation, WeBuildtheWall Inc., which has been raising private money to build Trump's wall. Cuccinelli, meanwhile, has advocated for denying citizenship to American-born children of parents living in the U.S. illegally, limiting in-state tuition at public universities only to those who are citizens or legal residents, and allowing workers to file lawsuits when an employer knowingly hires someone living in the country illegally for taking a job from a "law abiding competitor."

Thomas Homan, the former acting ICE director, has also been mentioned as a potential pick, according to one of the people familiar with the talks.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

Source: OANN

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Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.

The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.

The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.

One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.

In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.

There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.

A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.

“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.

“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.

Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.

However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.

“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.

In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.

Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)

Source: OANN

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A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

April 26, 2019

By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.

For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.

But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.

In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.

That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.

In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a liter, or 0.6 percent.

State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A government spokesman declined to comment.

The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.

“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.

(GRAPHIC: India Polls: Fuel price hike lags crude surge – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XLlxik)

Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.

Only for them to surge after the vote.

“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.

“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.

“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”

India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.

But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a liter after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.

Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]

Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.

Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.

India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.

“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.

“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”

Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.

Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.

The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.

($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Martin Howell and Rob Birsel)

Source: OANN

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