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Dutch police continue investigation in deadly tram shooting

Dutch police and prosecutors are questioning two suspects as they investigate whether a deadly shooting on a tram in the central city of Utrecht was an act of terror.

Police spokesman Joost Lanshage said Wednesday that officers arrested a 40-year-old man in Utrecht on Tuesday and released two other men detained earlier. The alleged shooter, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, remains in custody.

A man opened fire on a tram on Monday, killing two men and a woman and seriously injuring three others.

Prosecutors say they are seriously considering an extremist motive after finding a note in a suspected getaway car after the attack, and because of the nature of the shooting, but have not ruled out other possible motives.

Lanshage says, "we are looking into every lead there is."

Source: Fox News World

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Mexico's leftist president creates new style of government

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's first 100 days in office have combined a compulsive shedding of presidential trappings with a dizzying array of policy initiatives, and a series of missteps haven't even dented his soaring approval ratings.

Lopez Obrador has answered more questions from the press, flown in more economy-class flights, posed for more selfies with admiring citizens and visited more genuinely risky areas with little or no security than several combined decades of his predecessors. He's also surprised many by maintaining a cordial relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, helping contain Central American migrant caravans while resisting U.S. efforts to oust the leftist government of Venezuela.

The folksy perennial candidate took office Dec. 1 and by the end of his first month in office, Lopez Obrador's approval rating surpassed 80 percent. He has taken full advantage of that mandate to move quickly on many fronts — perhaps too many.

"Every week he announces at least one or two things," said Ivonne Acuna Murillo, a professor of political science at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. "Sometimes the speed of the issues he is putting on the agenda is such that an issue they put out in the morning is displaced by another in the afternoon."

Before Lopez Obrador had even taken office he held a referendum on the partially constructed $13 billion Mexico City airport. He used the resulting vote as a green light to cancel a project he had campaigned against.

During his first month in office, Lopez Obrador launched a military assault on the country's fuel theft gangs, dividing the security of Mexico's critical pipelines and refineries between the army and the navy. The hastily planned offensive created gas shortages across the country, but somehow didn't dampen his popularity.

This month, he overrode complaints by human rights campaigners and got the Congress and state legislatures to approve constitutional reforms creating a heavily militarized National Guard that he touts as the key to getting control of Mexico's runaway violence.

A typical day starts with his 6 a.m. Cabinet meeting, focusing on security, where he gets the daily crime report. At 7 a.m., he steps on the dais at the centuries-old National Palace to start a free-wheeling, open-ended press conference that often goes for 1 ½ hours.

From there he might hold a meeting on the initiative of the day, and then around noon he flies off — tourist class, fielding hugs and taking selfies with fellow passengers — to some provincial city, where he'll meet with local leaders, eat at some modest local cafeteria, then hold another open-air rally and take some more hugs. Then he'll catch another tourist-class flight to Mexico City. (He says he gets to bed early).

The part of the day he most clearly enjoys? Pressing the flesh and handing out time-tested one-liners at rallies in provincial towns — essentially, the same thing he has been doing for the last 20 years on the campaign trail as a three-time presidential contender.

"He is a bit messianic, meaning evangelical. He's out there preaching all the time," said Federico Estevez, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. "He's Bernie Sanders with power."

"I'm not sure if this a good governance model, but it's an exceptionally good political one," Estevez said.

It's easy to lose sight of how different this all is, unless you've lived through decades of Mexico's distant, imperial presidency, in which the president seldom appeared beyond orchestrated speeches, or as a motorcade of luxury vehicles speeded to the president's personal airplane hangar for flights aboard the presidential jet to carefully guarded events.

Gone are the motorcades, gone is the jet, gone is the security, gone is the official presidential residence. You're more likely to see Lopez Obrador buying himself a $1 styrofoam cup of coffee at a convenience store or eating beans at a roadside restaurant, than to see him rubbing elbows with foreign dignitaries.

Lopez Obrador rode a wave of popular discontent with corruption in Mexico, and has attracted a near-unquestioning devotion because of his own honest, rumpled style.

"The advantage that Andres Manuel has as leader is that he arrived with a backing that no president has had in Mexico," said Benjamin Arditi, a political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Lopez Obrador has already had spats with NGOs, regulators, environmentalists, outside experts and ratings agencies. His campaign against crime and violence has yielded few results. He chafes at those who ask for feasibility or environmental impact studies for his pet projects.

But hardly anyone notices. "There is a devotion, something almost religious," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst at Mexico's Center for Economic Research and Training. "It makes people believe only what he says, against everything that experts or ratings agencies or international organizations say. They don't matter, it only matters what he says."

At least two ratings agencies have downgraded their outlook on Mexico's debt to 'negative' since he took office. His decisions — like the one to cancel the airport project, "don't generate the slightest bit of confidence," Crespo said, "and that is going to have a cost, is having a cost, in terms of capital leaving, or money not being invested."

For Lopez Obrador, Mexico's foreign policy boils down to simply non-intervention, and he leaves the field to his top diplomat, Marcelo Ebrard.

But some critics say Mexico is doing Trump's bidding by accepting the U.S. "remain in Mexico" program and by restricting the movement of caravans of Central American migrants. "Remain in Mexico" makes Central American asylum applicants await resolution of their cases from the Mexican side of the border.

"It is a U.S. policy that once again subordinates Mexico's immigration policy," said Oscar Misael Hernandez, an immigration researcher at the College of the Northern Border in Matamoros.

Others saw it as a pragmatic calculation that U.S. courts will soon put a halt to the program. Allowing it in the meantime helps U.S. relations and helped Mexico win a $10.6 billion U.S. commitment for regional development, meant to create jobs in Central America and southern Mexico so fewer people feel compelled to leave.

With growing signs of anti-migrant sentiment in Mexico, containing migration costs Lopez Obrador little in political terms, and is balanced by his push to grant work visas for migrants.

The new administration's most widely criticized misstep was Lopez Obrador's decision to axe funds for nonprofits working on issues ranging from promoting art and culture to providing domestic abuse shelters, arguing the "intermediaries" were too often used to siphon away government funds. Lopez Obrador wants to give the money directly to the people who needed it, but experts say that won't work for complex social services like day care and shelters for battered women.

Mariana Banos, whose Fundacion Origen offers support services to women — often through partnerships with other organizations and local governments — said many groups will have to shut down because they depend entirely on government funding.

She scoffed at the corruption allegations and urged the government to reconsider.

"You have to work hand-in-hand, not create a divide, not stigmatize," she said.

Despite the frictions there are lighter moments to "The 4-T," a play on Lopez Obrador's description of his administration as the "fourth transformation" of Mexico.

Lopez Obrador sometimes laughs at his own jokes. He posts Facebook videos from roadside restaurants, with impromptu lectures on the health benefits of coconuts or local fruits. And Mexicans crack up at his frequent, folksy catch phrases like "Me canso ganso," equivalent to "I'll be a monkey's uncle."

Enterprising designers have come up with a web app that allows people to make resolutions and receive a text message from an AMLO-bot saying "Monica, you'll lose weight this year, or I'll be a monkey's uncle."

Source: Fox News World

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South Carolina mistakenly releases 10 prison inmates, recaptures only 6, officials say

South Carolina mistakenly gave early release to 10 inmates over a two-year period because of errors in calculating their sentences, the state Department of Corrections said this week. Only six have returned to prison, officials said.

Most of the inmates were serving time for drug-related convictions handed down between 2009 and 2017, agency spokeswoman Chrysti Shain told the State newspaper in Columbia. The last of the inmates was released in 2018.

ANTHONY WEINER RELEASED FROM PRISON AS PART OF FEDERAL RE-ENTRY PROGRAM

“SCDC has done a systematic review of its practices and has enhanced the system to make sure these types of errors will not happen again,” Shain told the paper in an email.

“SCDC has done a systematic review of its practices and has enhanced the system to make sure these types of errors will not happen again.”

— Chrysti Shain, spokeswoman, South Carolina Department of Corrections

By law, inmates are required to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. The corrections department caught the error in February after a records review. Prison officials then issued arrest warrants for the inmates who left.

The average length of remaining time on their sentences is two and a half years, Columbia's WIS-TV reported.

“Out of 9,000 to 10,000 inmates who are released each year, 10 were released early,” Republican state Sen. Katrina Shealy, who sits on the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, told the paper. “It was human error. That’s not an excuse. It’s an explanation.”

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The corrections department did not notify the public about the accidental release, citing that it knew the locations of the inmates and was working with the court system to apprehend them. The victims, however, were notified that the offenders had been let out.

Source: Fox News National

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NBA roundup: Cousins returns, leads Warriors to win

NBA: Indiana Pacers at Golden State Warriors
Mar 21, 2019; Oakland, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins (0) attempts to drive past Indiana Pacers forward Domantas Sabonis (11) in the fourth quarter at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

March 22, 2019

DeMarcus Cousins contributed six points to a third-quarter runaway in his return to the lineup Thursday night, helping the Golden State Warriors blow out the Indiana Pacers 112-89 in Oakland, Calif.

All five starters scored in double figures as the Warriors were able to retain a half-game lead over Denver in their duel for best record in the Western Conference. The Pacers saw their lead over Boston trimmed to a half-game in their fight for the fourth seed in the East.

Cousins, who had missed the final two games of Golden State’s just completed four-game trip with a sore ankle, recorded 19 points and 11 rebounds in 26 minutes of action. Klay Thompson had 18 points, and Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry each scored 15 for the Warriors.

Tyreke Evans had a game-high 20 points off the bench, and Thaddeus Young 18 for the Pacers, who went 0-4 on a Western swing.

Hawks 117, Jazz 114

Rookie Trae Young scored 23 points, including the go-ahead three-point play with 1:47 remaining, and Atlanta hung on to beat visiting Utah.

Dewayne Dedmon made a free throw with 6.2 seconds left to give the Hawks a 117-114 lead. Utah’s Kyle Korver then missed two free throws, the second on purpose, and Donovan Mitchell missed a 3-pointer that was rebounded by Atlanta’s Kent Bazemore as the clock expired.

The win broke Atlanta’s three-game losing streak and snapped Utah’s five-game winning streak. The Jazz got 34 points from Mitchell, his second straight 30-point game.

Nuggets 113, Wizards 108

Nikola Jokic had 15 points and 11 assists, and visiting Denver held off Washington for its fifth straight win.

Eight Nuggets scored in double figures, including Paul Millsap, Gary Harris, Jamal Murray and Torrey Craig at 15 points each.

Bradley Beal scored 25 points for the Wizards, who have lost three straight. Thomas Bryant added 22.

Hornets 113, Timberwolves 106

Kemba Walker scored 31 points, and host Charlotte rolled to a much-needed victory over Minnesota.

The Hornets scored seven straight points early in the fourth quarter to gain a working margin, and then they went on to lead by as many as 11 down the stretch, the latest at 111-100.

The Hornets had lost four of their previous five and 11 of their previous 15. The Timberwolves, who got 21 points and 16 rebounds from Karl-Anthony Towns, have lost five straight.

Kings 116, Mavericks 100

Buddy Hield scored 29 points, and host Sacramento took care of Dallas. The Kings bounced back after blowing a 25-point, fourth-quarter lead in their last outing against visiting Brooklyn on Tuesday, resulting in a 123-121 loss.

Hield connected on seven 3-pointers and now has made 238 treys. He trails Peja Stojakovic by only two for the most in a single season in Kings history. Marvin Bagley III came off the Sacramento bench to score 22 points and grab 12 rebounds, and Willie Cauley-Stein had 10 points and 18 rebounds.

Former Kings forward Justin Jackson led the Mavericks with 19 points. Luka Doncic scored 13 points and hauled down 10 boards.

Pistons 118, Suns 98

Wayne Ellington scored 23 points, hitting six 3-pointers, and Detroit pulled away for a win at Phoenix.

Detroit’s Blake Griffin had 17 points, seven rebounds and eight assists despite shooting 4 of 17 from the field. Andre Drummond supplied 16 points and 19 rebounds, and Luke Kennard also scored 16 points to help the Pistons win for the third time in four games.

Devin Booker led the Suns with 26 points, and rookie Deandre Ayton contributed 20 points and eight rebounds.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Chinese ‘Ivory Queen’ smuggler sentenced to 15 years jail in Tanzania

Chinese businesswoman Yang Feng Glan, dubbed the
Chinese businesswoman Yang Feng Glan, dubbed the "Ivory Queen", sits inside the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania February 19, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Herman

February 19, 2019

By Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – A prominent Chinese businesswoman dubbed the “Ivory Queen” was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Tanzanian court on Tuesday for smuggling the tusks of more than 350 elephants, weighing nearly 2 tonnes, to Asia.

Yang Feng Glan had been charged in October 2015 along with two Tanzanian men with smuggling 860 pieces of ivory between 2000 and 2004 worth 13 billion shillings ($5.6 million). All three denied the charges.

Police sources said Yang, 69, had lived in Tanzania since the 1970s and was secretary-general of the Tanzania China-Africa Business Council. A Swahili-speaker, she also owns a popular Chinese restaurant in Dar es Salaam.

Kisutu Court Magistrate Huruma Shaidi sentenced Yang, Salivius Matembo and Manase Philemon, each to 15 years, after they were convicted of leading an organized criminal gang.

Shaidi ordered them to either pay twice the market value of the elephant tusks or face another two years in prison.

In court documents, prosecutors said Yang “intentionally did organize, manage and finance a criminal racket by collecting, transporting or exporting and selling government trophies” weighing a total of 1.889 tonnes.

Conservationists welcomed Yang’s conviction, saying it was proof of the government’s seriousness in the fight against wildlife poaching but criticized the sentence.

“(It) is not punishment enough for the atrocities she committed, by being responsible for the poaching of thousands of elephants in Tanzania,” Amani Ngusaru, WWF country director, told Reuters. “She ran a network that killed thousands of elephants.”

Tanzania’s elephant population shrank from 110,000 in 2009 to little more than 43,000 in 2014, according to a 2015 census, with conservation groups blaming “industrial-scale” poaching.

Demand for ivory from Asian countries such as China and Vietnam, where it is turned into jewels and ornaments, has led to a surge in poaching across Africa.

In March 2016, Tanzania sentenced two Chinese men to 35 years each in jail for ivory smuggling, while in December 2015 another court sentenced four Chinese men to 20 years in jail each after they were convicted of smuggling rhino horns.

Yang was escorted under tight security to the Ukonga prison in Dar es Salaam where she is expected to serve her jail time.

(Reporting by Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Williams)

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Trump Smears Ilhan Omar as an Enemy of America

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President Trump has summoned Joseph Welch from the grave. Welch stood up to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954 when the demagogic Wisconsin Republican smeared Welch's associate, Fred Fisher, as a communist sympathizer. When McCarthy persisted, Welch earned his way into every Bartlett's by saying, "Have you no decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" McCarthy had none and neither does his heir in slime, Donald John Trump.

The latest proof is Trump's attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat. Omar, whose true talent may be sloppy, irresponsible speech, clumsily referred to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by saying "some people did something," which, taken out of context, shockingly trivialized mass murder. Predictably, her remarks were indeed taken out of context, first by the journalistically squalid New York Post and then by the object of its affections, the president of the United States.

The New York tabloid put a picture of the burning Twin Towers on its cover with the virtually neon headline, "Here's your something," and then, "2,977 people dead by terrorism." The New York Post is Trump's virtual brain trust. So it was no surprise that Trump followed up with a tweet declaring "WE WILL NEVER FORGET" along with a video showing Omar saying the offending words and segueing to images of Lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks.

The White House was instantly criticized for that tweet as yet another attempt by Trump to incite hatred. Quickly, a good chunk of the flash mob that has materialized to seek the Democratic presidential nomination came to her defense without any of them suggesting that she think before she opens her mouth. She has, after all, said some doozies. "It's all about the Benjamins baby," she tweeted back in February, implying that overwhelming congressional support for Israel is bought by Jewish money. She apologized for the tweet. But then she told a D.C. audience that American supporters for Israel are pushing "for allegiance to a foreign country."

That was a shockingly dumb remark that Congress could not bring itself to condemn on its own. Instead, it subsumed into a general condemnation of everything vile: bigotry directed at "African Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others." It is that "and others" that managed to render the whole exercise both silly and offensive.

Here is a fact: Omar was elected by 267,703 people in Minnesota. Here is another: There are 327.2 million people in America. Omar is a first-term congresswoman, chairperson of no committee, and should matter little. That she does matter is partly attributable to her being a political exotic and partly to her gift for offensive statements. If you listen to the entirety of her remarks about the 9/11 attacks, even if you want very much to find them offensive, you will come away uncertain. The supposedly clear case dissolves under scrutiny.

Actually, it was not Omar who denigrated those terrorist attacks. It was first Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and then his Fox News and finally Trump. They were the ones who exploited this horrid crime for political purposes. They are intent on making Omar the face of the Democratic Party -- a caricature that's thoroughly leftist, repellently anti-Semitic, frighteningly non-white and terrifyingly non-Christian. The end is nigh.

As Trump has repeatedly shown, he has no shame and he has no empathy. His continuing feud with the quite dead John McCain seems out of Shakespeare -- some deranged character haranguing the ghost of an old foe. Trump's inability to appreciate how intensely McCain suffered as a prisoner of war in Vietnam evinces a meanness and moral rottenness that shames both himself and the many in his party who look the other way.

But in the way a Typhoid Mary can spread a disease but is immune to it, so is Trump immune to shame. He has, though, infected the Republican Party. It has to know that Trump is exploiting the horror of 9/11 to rally the faithful for his reelection effort, but it says nothing. The party has become a kind of horror film, Republican after Republican arising from a swamp -- the living dead, marching toward political survival, lacking only a soul.

Ilhan Omar is both as important and unimportant as Fred Fisher, the young lawyer that McCarthy attacked and Welch defended. They were both meant to represent larger forces -- communism in Fisher's case and Islamism in Omar's case -- but they came instead to represent something their antagonists did not intend: victims of a shameful abuse of political power.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

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Police: Wife and child of arrested militant die in explosion

Indonesia's national police chief says the wife and child of an arrested Islamic militant died in an explosion during a siege of their home in North Sumatra.

Dedi Prasetyo told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the woman is believed to have blown herself up hours after throwing a home-made bomb when police tried to search the house in Sibologa district.

Prasetyo said the incident was believed to have happened around 1:30 a.m.

He said: "Police are now still conducting sterilization at the crime scene and finding a safe way to evacuate bodies of the woman and her child."

Prasetyo said the arrested militant known as Husein was a member of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, a militant network affiliated with the Islamic State group.

Source: Fox News World

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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)

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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)

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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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