After coming under fire for saying “bread lines” were a good thing in Soviet-era Russia, we thought that we would review Sen. Bernie Sanders hypocritical record.
While preaching that the wealthy should pay their fair share, Sanders continually indulges on various luxuries such as Audi’s, Mercedes Benz, and multiple vacation homes.
Despite campaigning on the premise that he is an average everyday man for the people, Sanders owns three different pieces of real estate.
Sen. Sanders, a self-described Socialist, owns a 944 square foot townhome which he purchased for $497,000 in 2006. The residence has a current estimated valuation of $675,000.
Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-proclaimed Socialist, owns three homes, including a residence in Washington and a lakefront getaway.
Bernie purchased a lakefront property near Lake Champlain in North Hero, Vermont following his failed presidential bid.
Sanders and wife Jane paid $575,000 in late 2016 for the 4-bedroom home on Lake Champlain with 1,883 square feet.
Sanders, following his failed bid for the White House, purchased a vacation home on Lake Champlain for $575,000.
Sanders flew around in a private jet to campaign for other Democrats during the 2018 midterm elections, according to Fox News.
One might ask why Sanders is too good for first class on a commercial airliner.
“How many yachts do billionaires need?” Sanders famously tweeted last year.
How does someone:
Own three homes
Become a millionaire in a free market system
Honeymoon in the USSR
Never hold a real job
Spend hundreds of thousands on private air travel
…claim to be a Socialist and qualified enough to be President?
Apr 20, 2019; San Antonio, TX, USA; San Antonio Spurs shooting guard DeMar DeRozan (10) is held back by teammate Patty Mills (right) after being ejected for throwing the ball at referee Scott Foster (48) against the Denver Nuggets in game four of the first round of the 2019 NBA Playoffs at AT&T Center. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
April 21, 2019
San Antonio Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan was ejected during the fourth quarter of Saturday’s 117-103 loss to the Denver Nuggets for firing the basketball in the direction of official Scott Foster.
DeRozan was called for an offensive foul after charging into Denver guard Gary Harris with 5:01 remaining. He then leaped in the air and spun and sent the ball flying to the left of Foster.
DeRozan headed to the exits with the Spurs trailing 110-92. He scored 19 points in 34 minutes.
The series is tied 2-2 after Saturday’s result. DeRozan’s status for Game 5 is unclear as he figures to draw a fine with the possibility of a suspension.
FILE PHOTO: Supporters wave their mobile phone torches in the colors of the rainbow during a rally after Taiwan's constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry, the first such ruling in Asia, in Taipei, Taiwan May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
February 21, 2019
By Yimou Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan on Thursday proposed a draft law to allow same-sex marriage in Asia’s first such bill, but the legislation was criticized by rights activists and conservative groups amid a heated debate over marriage equality.
Voters opposed marriage equality in a series of referendums late last year, defining marriage as between a man and a woman and asking for a special law to be enacted for same-sex unions.
The draft law unveiled by cabinet on Thursday would give same-sex couples similar legal protections for marriage as heterosexuals, but marriage in civil law would remain defined as between a man and woman.
Premier Su Tseng-chang said the bill respected the referendum results, although activists had said a separate law for gay marriage was discriminatory.
“Controversies are expected about the proposal, but I really hope our homosexual friends can wait a bit longer,” Su said in a statement.
“This might fall short of expectations, but after all it’s a start,” he said.
Jennifer Lu, coordinator of Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan, said the draft did not give complete legal protections to same-sex couples. She acknowledged the pressure on the government from all sides, but said activists will continue to fight for equal rights.
Taiwan’s parliament is expected to vote on the draft bill by late May, a deadline for legislation set by the constitutional court in May 2017 when it ruled that same-sex couples had the right to legally marry.
The divisive issue has been a challenge for President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party suffered a major defeat in local elections in November amid criticism over her reform agenda, including marriage equality.
Conservative groups that opposed same-sex marriage during the referendum said they will fight the draft bill too. The Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation on Thursday called the draft “unacceptable”.
(Reporting By Yimou Lee, Editing by Darren Schuettler)
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognized as the country's rightful interim ruler, attends a news conference to mark the 5th anniversary of the arrest of the opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez in Caracas, Venezuela February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero
February 21, 2019
By Angus Berwick and Vivian Sequera
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido plans to head to the Colombian border in a convoy of vehicles on Thursday to receive humanitarian aid for his crisis-stricken nation, despite the objection of increasingly isolated President Nicolas Maduro.
Guaido, recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, said the opposition plans to bring in aid by land and sea on Saturday to alleviate severe and widespread shortages of food and medicine.
He will undertake the 800-kilometer (497-mile) road trip from Caracas in the company of some 80 lawmakers from the opposition-controlled congress, which he leads, opposition legislators said.
Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency on Jan 23.
“Through this call for humanitarian aid, the population will benefit from the arrival of these goods to the Venezuelan border,” said opposition legislator Edgar Zambrano, as he waited in a plaza of eastern Caracas with other lawmakers to board buses.
Maduro’s government denies there is an economic crisis and has said soldiers would remain stationed along the country’s borders to prevent potential incursions.
He accuses the Trump administration, which is supporting the relief effort but has also levied crippling sanctions against his government, of seeking to force his ouster.
It’s still unclear how Guaido plans to bring in the aid. Opposition figures have suggested forming human chains across the Colombian border to pass aid packages from person to person and fleets of boats arriving from the Dutch Caribbean islands.
The United States has sent tons of aid to Colombia’s border with Venezuela, which Maduro has mocked as a “cheap show.” Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has alleged the aid is poisonous and could lead to cancer.
On Wednesday, Maduro’s socialist administration said it had closed the country’s maritime border with the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, after Curacao’s government said it would help store aid destined for Venezuela.
(Reporting by Angus Berwick; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
FILE PHOTO: The Ericsson logo is seen at the Ericsson's headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden June 14, 2018. Picture taken June 14, 2018. REUTERS/Olof Swahnberg/File Photo
March 27, 2019
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Telecoms equipment supplier Ericsson is yet to see an increase in contract wins on the back of security concerns over China’s Huawei, the Swedish company’s chief executive said on Wednesday
The mobile network gear maker counts market leader Huawei and Finland’s Nokia as its main rivals and some analysts think it could benefit from Western suspicions of Huawei, after Washington alleged its gear could be used by Beijing for spying.
Huawei has strongly rejected the allegations and launched a lawsuit against the U.S. government.
“What we see is that customers are worried,” Ericsson Chief Executive Borje Ekholm told Reuters ahead of the firm’s annual meeting at a venue close to its north Stockholm headquarters.
“And that of course leads to more discussions with customers for us, but we can’t see that contracts are being allocated. That has not happened yet.”
EU nations will be required to share data on 5G cybersecurity risks and produce measures to tackle them by the end of the year, the European Commission said on Tuesday, shunning U.S. calls to ban Huawei across the bloc.
“It’s good that the EU is trying to harmonize the regulations…they are trying to create some kind of umbrella, which I think is very good for Europe,” Ekholm said, adding that Ericsson will not take a position on national security issues.
Ericsson won back a 5G customer from Huawei in its own backyard last week when it signed a comprehensive deal with Denmark’s TDC to deploy its 5G platform and modernize the carrier’s radio access and core networks.
Huawei had signed a six-year networks deal with TDC back in 2013, establishing the Danish company as a ‘reference’ customer to showcase its performance.
TDC CEO Allison Kirkby was quoted as saying that the operator “is not blind” to widespread concerns about Huawei and information security, although she also pointed out that price was a significant factor.
Ericsson said it had won the contract because it is a technology leader in 5G.
“This is an important customer, we will be working with their whole network… and we see that as a strategically important cooperation,” Ekholm said, but added the deal had been on the table for “a few years”.
(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom and Helena Soderpalm, additional reporting by Douglas Busvine)
Russia will not destroy its 9M729 missile complexes, which the US claims to be violating the terms of the INF Treaty, the country’s Foreign Ministry has announced.
“We cannot go for destroying our 9M729 missile that Washington groundlessly believes to violate the treaty,” the ministry said in a statement. It added that the US side didn’t show “any readiness for dialogue,” but had become “fixated on the unacceptable ultimatum” for Russia.
Who sold Uranium to Russia? Who declared Russia an enemy? The quest to vanquish and de-legitimize Trump, coupled with the possible weapons deal fallout of Uranium One could lead to tensions with one of the biggest nuclear threats in history.
In February, the US announced its unilateral withdrawal from the INF Treaty. It claimed that Russia’s testing of the 9M729 missile breached the terms of the landmark 1987 deal, which bans ground-based missiles with a range of between 500km and 5,500km. In response, Russia also suspended the country’s participation in the treaty.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that the US was actively developing medium-range missile systems. The US abandoning the treaty opens the possibility of deploying these missiles in Europe. “We have to prepare ourselves for Washington’s potential deployment of these systems,” the statement read.
The ministry said that it would not “knock on a closed door” after Moscow’s attempts to save the INF Treaty were brushed aside by Washington, adding that the settlement proposals remain on the table. The INF Treaty is set to expire on August 2. If it is not renewed, it will seize to exist.
Will Johnson joins Alex Jones live via Skype to talk with callers about the distinct possibility of Globalist forces using the New Zealand shooting, whether as a premeditated false flag or not, to practice ’emergency’ internet censorship and gun confiscation on a global scale.
The new VR-1 headset from Finnish startup Varjo. Courtesy Varjo/via REUTERS
February 19, 2019
HELSINKI/LONDON (Reuters) – Atomico-backed Finnish startup Varjo on Tuesday launched its top-of-the-range virtual reality headset, aiming to take VR technology to the aerospace and automotive sectors.
The most widely known VR headsets such as HTC Vive or Facebook’s Oculus have so far mostly made headlines with consumer applications, but with a $5,995 price tag Varjo is betting on industrial uses in architecture, engineering and construction.
“There are millions of architects or engineers working on architectural projects … once they start to use VR on a daily basis, that’s when we start to see the volumes,” Niko Eiden, founder and CEO of Varjo, told Reuters.
“That’s when we start to see the cost go down.”
Varjo has collaborated with partners including Airbus, Audi, Saab, Volkswagen and Volvo in development of the VR-1, which was launched in 34 countries on Tuesday.
Varjo – which has raised around $45 million from investors such as Atomico and EQT Ventures – said its new headset has a resolution of more than 60 pixels per degree, more than 20 times higher than any other VR headset on the market.
“The Varjo headset is an important milestone for the VR industry because of the incredibly high resolution that it offers. This has the potential to offer the most realistic virtual reality to date,” said Ben Wood, head of research at UK-based tech consultancy CCS Insight.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki and George Sargent in London; editing by David Evans)
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)
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)
KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.
The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.
The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.
Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.
The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.
The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
April 26, 2019
By Charlotte Greenfield
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.
Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.
Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.
In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.
“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.
Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.
The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.
“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.
New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.
He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.
The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University
He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.
“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.
Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.
On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.
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