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EssilorLuxottica shareholder body propose independent director to ease deadlock

FILE PHOTO: Sunglasses from Ray Ban are on display at an optician shop in Hanau
FILE PHOTO: Sunglasses from Ray Ban, a Luxottica owned brand, are on display at an optician shop in Hanau, Germany, March 18, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

April 18, 2019

PARIS (Reuters) – Valoptec International which represents employees and former employees of Ray Ban maker EssilorLuxottica has proposed the appointment of an additional independent director to the group’s board in a bid to resolve governance issues.

Valoptec said in a statement it had submitted a draft resolution for a May 16 EssilorLuxottica shareholders meeting, to appoint British national Peter James Montagnon as independent director.

The group that resulted from a merger of French lenses producer Essilor and Italian frame manufacturer Luxottica last October, creating the world’s largest eyewear maker in a 54 billion euro ($61 billion) deal, has been embroiled in a bitter dispute as each accuse the other of trying to dominate.

Valoptec said that with the appointment of Montagnon, EssilorLuxottica’s board would have a greater proportion of independent directors who would be able to promote exemplary and effective governance, and constructive perspective in implementing the merger agreement.

“EssilorLuxottica combines two great businesses which are being held back by a corporate governance logjam. The first task is to resolve this impasse in everybody’s interest,” Montagnon said in the statement.

(Reporting by Matthias Blamont; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Source: OANN

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Papa John’s founder Schnatter says he welcomes hedge fund Starboard

John Schnatter, founder and CEO of Papa John's Pizza, arrives at the 2011 American Music Awards in Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: John Schnatter (R), founder and chief executive of Papa John's Pizza, arrives at the 2011 American Music Awards in Los Angeles November 20, 2011. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

February 18, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Papa John’s International Inc founder John Schnatter welcomes hedge fund Starboard Value LP’s investment in the pizza restaurant chain, his lawyer said, even as he filed an updated lawsuit on Monday against the company.

Papa John’s this month unveiled Starboard’s investment of up to $250 million and named the fund’s chief executive, Jeff Smith, as its chairman.

Schnatter, who according to Refinitiv data owns about 30 percent of the company he founded in his father’s bar, served as chairman until last summer. He stepped down after reports he had used a racial slur on a media training conference call, a decision he said he regrets. He had stepped down as chief executive in December 2017.

Schnatter, who is still a member of Papa John’s board of directors, has been trying to gain more control of the chain. With the Starboard investment, the number of directors jumped to nine from six, diluting his influence.

“Mr. Schnatter welcomes the comments that have come from Mr. Smith and the company in the past few days,” Schnatter’s attorney Garland Kelley said in a statement. “Today’s amended lawsuit reflects support for Mr. Smith and his plans to invigorate the company for the benefit of all shareholders.” 

In his amended lawsuit filed under seal in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Schnatter aims to undo a new provision of a voting agreement between Papa John’s and Starboard that requires the hedge fund vote its company shares in favor of Papa John’s preferred directors.

“Such a provision serves only one purpose, to further entrench the prior board, one that has repeatedly proven itself willing to place its own self-interest above that of shareholders,” Schnatter said in a statement.

Schnatter also continues to challenge the poison pill Papa John’s adopted last year that he says prevents him from having discussions about the restaurant chain with other shareholders. The lawsuit was first filed in August.

When Papa John’s accepted Starboard’s offer, it snubbed a rival one from Schnatter.

Schnatter had said in a regulatory filing that he was evaluating his legal options after his offer was rejected.

Last month he claimed a victory when Chancellor Andre Bouchard of Delaware Court of Chancery ordered the Papa John’s board to give Schnatter some internal documents and communications, including text messages on personal devices, related to his firing.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli; Editing by Leslie Adler and Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev backs Tokayev for president

FILE PHOTO: Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaks during his meeting with South Korea's counterpart Moon Jae-in in Nur-Sultan
FILE PHOTO: Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaks during his meeting with South Korea's counterpart Moon Jae-in in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan April 22, 2019. REUTERS/Mukhtar Kholdorbekov

April 23, 2019

NUR-SULTAN (Reuters) – Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday secured veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev’s backing to run in the June 9 snap presidential election, virtually guaranteeing Tokayev’s victory.

Nazarbayev, who leads the oil-rich Central Asian nation’s biggest political party, Nur Otan, asked party members at a pre-election congress on Tuesday to officially nominate Tokayev.

(Reporting by Tamara Vaal; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Exclusive: U.S. blocks North Korean air traffic revival ahead of Trump-Kim summit

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Trump and North Korea's Kim meet at the start of their summit in Singapore
FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un meet at the start of their summit at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

February 19, 2019

By Allison Lampert and Hyonhee Shin

MONTREAL/SEOUL (Reuters) – The United States has blocked efforts by a U.N. agency to improve civil aviation in North Korea at a time when Pyongyang is trying to reopen part of its airspace to foreign flights, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The U.S. move is part of a negotiating tactic to maintain sanctions pressure on North Korea, one of the sources said, ahead of a second summit between President Donald Trump and leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in late February.

Washington is seeking concrete commitments from Pyongyang at the summit to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.

The United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), with 192 member countries, has been working with Pyongyang to open a new air route that would pass through North and South Korean airspace.

Airlines currently take indirect routings to avoid North Korea due to the threat of unannounced missile launches, which have been witnessed by some passengers on commercial flights.

If the space was deemed safe, international airlines could save fuel and time on some routes between Asia and Europe and North America, and North Korea could begin reviving its own commercial aviation industry.

The cash-strapped country has a population of more than 25 million but its economy has been squeezed by a series of sanctions for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Montreal-based ICAO was prepared to help improve North Korea’s aviation system by leading training sessions between its military and civil aviation staff, two sources said.

North Korea also asked ICAO for access to U.S.-produced aeronautical charts, they said.

U.S SEEKS LEVERAGE

But the United States discouraged the U.N. agency from helping North Korea with its air program as Washington wanted to “pool all the leverages and incentives” until Pyongyang makes substantial progress on denuclearization, a third source said.

“They would keep tight hold of all available leverage to make sure there is no loophole until the North Koreans take action that deserves a reward,” the source said.

All sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

ICAO cannot impose binding rules on governments, but wields clout through its safety and security standards which are approved by its member states.

Asked for comment, a U.S. State Department official said it does not publicly discuss details of diplomatic conversations. An ICAO spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Korea’s foreign ministry declined to comment, and North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2017, the United States proposed the U.N. Security Council freeze the assets of state-carrier Air Koryo, which flies to a handful of cities in China and Russia, as part of new sanctions on Pyongyang. The measure was dropped during negotiations between the 15 members.

Airlines including Air Koryo and Air China Ltd offer less than 200,000 available seats a year in the North Korean market, according to a January note from independent research firm CAPA Centre for Aviation.

That compares with over 13 million seats available in the South Korean market, which has roughly double the population, CAPA said.

The biggest beneficiaries of lifting air restrictions over North Korea would be South Korean carriers including Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines Inc, according to CAPA.

DENUCLEARIZATION PRESSURE

The United States has doubled down on sanctions enforcement ahead of the planned second summit amid concerns Pyongyang is not committed to denuclearization, though Washington promised to relax some rules on humanitarian aid.

South and North Korea, meanwhile, have rapidly advanced relations, which prompted U.S. officials to openly warn against moving too quickly without sufficient progress on denuclearization.

A fourth source told Reuters that the U.S. move to facilitate humanitarian aid was intended to appease South Korea, facing some complaints that Washington is not willing to make any concessions.

“But they made it clear that there will be no relief of economic sanctions until they see substantial progress,” said the source who also spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal and Hyonhee Shin in Seoul. Additional reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore, David Shepardson in Washington and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Tracy Rucinski and Lincoln Feast)

Source: OANN

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Mistrial for Iowa woman charged in ex-boyfriend's 1992 death

A hung jury has led to a mistrial in the murder trial of an Iowa woman accused in the 1992 beating death of her former boyfriend.

The Muscatine Journal reports that a judge declared the mistrial Tuesday afternoon when the jury of five women and seven men declared they could not reach a verdict. The jury began deliberating Monday in the trial of 56-year-old Annette Cahill, of Tipton.

Cahill was arrested last year in connection with the 1992 killing of 22-year-old Corey Lee Wieneke, whose body was found in his West Liberty home.

Cahill, who pleaded not guilty, has no criminal history and works for a company that helps train police officers. She has said Wieneke was her best friend and denied any involvement in his death.

___

Information from: Muscatine Journal, http://www.muscatinejournal.com

Source: Fox News National

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Scotland avalanche victims were 2 Frenchmen, 1 Swiss

Police in Scotland say the three people who died in an avalanche on Britain's highest peak were two Frenchman and a Swiss national.

The three perished Tuesday in an avalanche on Ben Nevis. Two died immediately while the third victim died before rescuers could get him to the hospital.

Police said Wednesday that a fourth person who was injured was also a Swiss national. He is in stable condition at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. The men ranged in age from 30 to 43.

Ben Nevis, located in the Scottish highlands, stands nearly 1,344 meters (4,409 feet) above sea level.

Source: Fox News World

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Ivanka Trump says she backs minimum wage — but not handouts for those ‘unwilling to work’

Ivanka Trump said Tuesday that she supports a minimum wage, but doesn’t back handouts for those “unwilling to work.”

Trump made the statement in a Twitter post in response to a Yahoo News article that asserted Trump was challenging a minimum-wage platform pitched by U.S. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

“No I did not,” Trump wrote in response to the Yahoo headline. “I support a minimum wage. I do not however believe in a minimum guarantee for people ‘unwilling to work’ which was the question asked of me.”

“I support a minimum wage. I do not however believe in a minimum guarantee for people ‘unwilling to work’ which was the question asked of me.”

— Ivanka Trump

IVANKA TRUMP SAYS NEW PROJECT AIMS TO HELP LIFT WOMEN IN DEVELOPING WORLD

Trump later wrote about her recent efforts to assist American workers.

“I’ve spent much of the last 2 years focused on inclusive economic growth via workforce development and skills training as well as pro-working family policies such as the doubled Child Tax Credit & CCDBG,” Trump wrote.

On Monday, Trump had told Fox News host Steve Hilton – for an interview that will air on Sunday’s “The Next Revolution” -- that she believed many Americans would reject a minimum wage for people who are unwilling to work, seeing it as a form of handout.

“I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something,” Trump said. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get.

"I don’t think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get."

— Ivanka Trump

MARC THIESSEN: ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ IS AN ECONOMIC ILLITERATE -- AND THAT'S BAD NEWS FOR AMERICA

“So, I think that this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want. They want the ability to be able to secure a job. They want the ability to live in a country where’s there’s the potential for upward mobility.”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump’s excerpted Monday remarks had prompted Ocasio-Cortez to respond that Trump had only a “2nd-hand” understanding of work.

“As a person who actually worked for tips & hourly wages in my life, instead of having to learn about it 2nd-hand, I can tell you that most people want to be paid enough to live,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “A living wage isn’t a gift, it’s a right. Workers are often paid far less than the value they create.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The freshman congresswoman then cited data from the Economic Policy Institute claiming that the gap between productivity and a typical worker’s pay had increased dramatically since 1973 – around the time of the Arab oil embargo.

According to the Hill, guaranteed pay for those unwilling to work was a proposal listed on a Green New Deal fact sheet that Ocasio-Cortez's office said was released in error and did not appear in the actual bill submitted to the House.

Source: Fox News Politics

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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A remote controlled robot for the 'Isotopium: Chernobyl' game is seen at the game's location in Brovary
A remote controlled robot for the ‘Isotopium: Chernobyl’ game is seen at the game’s location in Brovary, Ukraine April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

April 26, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian computer game that brings to life a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may not sound like everyone’s idea of fun but has attracted 60,000 people globally since its launch in October.

Players of “Isotopium: Chernobyl” drive tanks around the ghost town of Prypyat near Chernobyl, knocking out competitors as they search for an energy source called isotopium and collecting points every time they find some.

While the game takes its theme from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, which marked its 33rd anniversary on Friday, it was also inspired by the 2009 science fiction film “Avatar”.

Newcomers to the game think they have entered a virtual world when in fact they are controlling a real robot, equipped with a camera and computer, which makes its way around a model of the town rendered down to the tiniest detail.

“When playing our game, for the first 5-10 minutes many players don’t understand that it is not fictional,” said the game’s co-founder Sergey Beskrestnov. “They message us saying: ‘You have cool texture, you have good graphics, your designer is good, well done. You have a cool operating system.’

“People then reply: ‘It is not an operating system, it is real,’ and the player can’t believe it is real,” said Beskrestnov, speaking mid-game from Prypyat city square as he towers over surrounding five-storey buildings.

Kiev-born Beskrestnov was just 12 years old when on April 26, 1986 a botched test at the nuclear plant in the then Soviet Union sent clouds of smoldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe, forced over 50,000 people, including Beskrestnov’s family, to evacuate and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean-up.

Beskrestnov and his partner Alexey Fateyev used Google maps and hundreds of pictures from the Chernobyl area to recreate Prypyat landmarks, including residential buildings, a hotel, concert hall, amusement park and a stadium.

The game’s real-scale model occupies a 180 square meter (1,938 sq. ft) basement of a residential building in the Ukraine city of Brovary, just 150 km (93 miles) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and 30 km east of Kiev.

Miniature radioactivity warning signs, graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and tables and chairs left scattered inside a small cafe all add to the creepy atmosphere of a once lively town.

“It’s a really neat concept …,” Shaun Prescott wrote in a review of the game published by PC Gamer magazine in January. “Controlling the tanks is kinda cumbersome, but they are tanks, after all.”

An attentive player will notice at least one inaccuracy – the real Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not located in town as it is in the game.

It costs $9 to immerse in the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic town for an hour but only 20 people at a time can play simultaneously. Beskrestnov’s company, Remote Games, said 62,615 people around the world have registered to play the game, including around 15,000 in France and 10,000 in the United States.

A camera fixed on top of a moving tank broadcasts high quality signal in real time, allowing players from as far apart as Australia and Canada enjoy the game without facing any time delay in delivering video signals.

Its creators next ambition is to devise a game featuring the colonization of Mars in which 1,000 people will be able to simultaneously control robots on different missions involved in the operation.

“Many people advise us to contact Elon Musk directly because it resonates his dreams and ideas,” Beskrestnov jokes.    

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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