FILE PHOTO: Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gestures while talking with Army Chief of Staff General Ahmed Gaed Salah during a graduation ceremony of the 40th class of the trainee army officers at a Military Academy in Cherchell 90 km west of Algiers, Algeria June 27, 2012. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina/File Photo
April 1, 2019
DUBAI (Reuters) – Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who has faced mass protests and pressure from the army demanding he end his 20-year rule, will resign before his mandate ends on April 28, state news agency APS said on Monday.
APS said Bouteflika, who is 82 and in poor health, will take important decisions to ensure “continuity of the state’s institutions” before resigning.
(Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Catherine Evans)
FILE PHOTO: Women walk in front of the logo of Chinese car manufacturer BYD (Build Your Dreams) Auto stage before the opening of the 15th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition in Shanghai April 19, 2013. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
April 11, 2019
By Tom Daly
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Securing enough nickel is a major worry for electric vehicle firms, an executive from Chinese electric car and battery maker BYD Co Ltd said on Thursday, adding that the company would welcome joint ventures that help guarantee supply.
Nickel is one of several metals that are key components of electric vehicle (EV) batteries. A shift in battery chemistry toward higher nickel content, which would allow cars to go further on a single charge, is expected to boost demand further.
“The supply of nickel going forward is a big concern in everybody’s mind,” said Coco Liu, procurement director at BYD, at the Fastmarkets Battery Materials conference. BYD counts Warren Buffet among its investors and is also German automaker Daimler AG’s partner in China.
Analysts had earlier told the conference that the market would be short of nickel if Chinese-led projects in Indonesia fail to deliver.
BYD looks not only for suppliers who can provide high-quality products but also those who have experience in setting up joint ventures covering the whole EV value chain from upstream mining to precursor battery materials and finished products, Liu said.
Joint ventures are “a good way to go forward” and can save costs, she said, adding that BYD prefers to have diversity in its supplier base to reduce risks.
Liu said buying shares in a mine requires a large investment and entails risks, despite a potential rise in demand for raw materials for battery.
“We hope despite the volatility we can have a secure, stable supply with a relatively steady price. Then it will help with our final product sales and development,” she said.
(Reporting by Tom Daly; editing by Christian Schmollinger)
FILE PHOTO: People go about their day near Norway's central bank building in Oslo, Norway May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo
April 5, 2019
By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, will streamline its $300 billion fixed-income portfolio by cutting emerging market bonds from the benchmark index it tracks, the Finance Ministry said on Friday
Government and corporate bonds issued by Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, South Korea and Thailand will be removed, the ministry said in a statement.
“Along with certain adjustments to the country weightings for government bonds, the changes proposed will facilitate lower transaction costs in the management of the Fund,” it added.
The fund will still be able to buy emerging market bonds if fund managers want to actively invest in them, rather than passively tracking the benchmark index, although such paper would be capped at five percent of the fixed-income portfolio.
The Norwegian wealth fund, currently worth $1.05 trillion, invests around 30 percent of its assets in fixed income. The 70 percent invested in equities was not affected by the decision.
In 2017, the central bank, which manages the fund, proposed cutting 20 currencies from the fixed-income benchmark, leaving only U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds.
Friday’s decision means Danish, Swedish, Swiss, Japanese, Canadian and Australian bonds will remain part of the benchmark, as will those of Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
The proposals must be agreed by parliament, but as the Norwegian government holds a majority, the white paper is expected to be passed in June.
For a graphic of largest SWFs, see – http://tmsnrt.rs/2tskfub
WIND FARMS, SOLAR FARMS
The fund’s present mandate for renewable investments will double in value to 120 billion crowns ($14 billion), the ministry said, allowing investment in unlisted renewable infrastructure projects, such as wind or solar farms – something long demanded by environmental groups.
“Finally the government is…letting the oil fund invest in projects that can supply the world with green renewable energy,” said Else Hendel, interim policy director at WWF-Norway.
Hendel said the new mandate represented only 1.3 percent of the present value of the fund. “It is a start but Parliament should increase it further,” she said.
The ministry also proposed tightening its rules for excluding from its investments companies that derive more than 30 percent of their revenues or activities from thermal coal.
It appointed a committee to review the fund’s ethical guidelines. The fund cannot, for instance, invest in companies that produce tobacco, nuclear weapons and cluster munitions.
Apr 5, 2019; New York, NY, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets left wing Artemi Panarin (9) celebrates his shoot out goal past New York Rangers goaltender Alexandar Georgiev (40) at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports
April 6, 2019
Artemi Panarin scored the only goal in the shootout Friday night for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who clinched the last open NHL playoff spot by edging the host New York Rangers, 3-2.
With their sixth win in the last seven games, the Blue Jackets (46-31-4, 96 points) assured themselves of one of the wild-card berths in the Eastern Conference and eliminated the Montreal Canadiens (94 points) from contention.
The Blue Jackets are headed to the playoffs for the third straight season after making the postseason just twice in their first 15 seasons. They will enter the final day of the season as the second wild card, but they would move up to the first wild card if they beat the Ottawa Senators and the Carolina Hurricanes lose to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.
Panarin’s shootout tally capped an evening of roller-coaster emotions for the Blue Jackets, who trailed 1-0 after two before tying the game and going ahead in a span of a little more than 12 minutes in the third period on goals by Ryan Dzingel and Panarin — only to see Pavel Buchnevich tie the game with seven seconds left in regulation.
Blackhawks 6, Stars 1
Patrick Kane scored twice, and Chicago got goals from five different players as it thumped visiting Dallas, keeping its Central Division rivals from clinching the first wild-card spot in the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Stars (42-32-7, 91 points) have already sewn up a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2016, but they need one point in their final game, at home on Saturday against Minnesota, to secure the seventh overall seed in the Western Conference.
Chicago (36-33-12, 84 points) was eliminated from the postseason on Tuesday and will miss the playoffs for a second straight season.
Ducks 5, Kings 2
Korbinian Holzer scored his first NHL goal in more than two years, and rookie Sam Steel also tallied as Anaheim concluded a disappointing season with a home-ice victory over Los Angeles.
John Gibson made 44 saves — 20 of them in the third period — for Anaheim.
While the 30 other teams will play on Saturday, the Ducks (35-37-10, 80 points) are the first club to finish their campaign. Anaheim will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2011-12. The Kings (30-42-9, 69 points) will finish at the bottom of the Western Conference.
Jon Kotler applied for a license plate that would read COYW, an abbreviation of "Come on You Whites," a slogan used by fans of London-based Fulham Football Club, referring to their signature white shirts. (Pacific Legal Foundation)
A soccer fan who just wanted to celebrate his beloved Fulham Football Club all the way from California ran into a roadblock with the Department of Motor Vehicles when he was banned from putting a slogan that officials determined might be deemed offensive.
Jon Kotler, a lawyer and constitutional scholar at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalist, has been an avid fan of the London-based soccer club for years, diligently watching as they battled to re-enter the Premier League over the 2017-2018 season.
Inspired by their triumph, Kotler applied for a vanity plate to proudly proclaim his loyalty to the club by using an acronym for the team’s slogan, “Come on You Whites,” or “COYW.”
Fulham soccer players wear white jerseys.
Manchester City's David Silva, right, vies for the ball with Fulham's Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa during the English Premier League soccer match between Fulham and Manchester City at Craven Cottage stadium in London, Saturday, March 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
The California DMV rejected the proposed plate, claiming that the abbreviation could have “racial overtones,” and carry “connotations offensive to good taste and decency.”
Kotler claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles that the department’s rejection of his personalized license plate violated his First Amendment rights – specifically his freedom of speech.
Fulham's Aleksandar Mitrovic, center, and Watford's Adrian Mariappa battle for the ball during their English Premier League soccer match at Vicarage Road, Watford, England, Tuesday, April 2, 2019. (Nigel French/PA via AP)
"You can't allow bureaucrats to make decisions that are fundamental to what it means to be an American, and our free speech is one of those things," Kotler said in a news release. "As I tell my students, ours is the only constitution in the world that protects its citizens against their own government. When the government starts to infringe on our rights, that's when the individual citizen must speak up. If we don’t, we’ll get what we deserve and will have only ourselves to blame."
The Department of Motor Vehicles said Tuesday that it does not comment on pending lawsuits.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles office in the Arleta neighborhood of Los Angeles is seen Tuesday, April 9, 2019. A soccer fan claims in a lawsuit that the California DMV violated his First Amendment rights by rejecting a personalized license plate he said would celebrate his favorite team, but which the DMV said might be deemed offensive. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
In its rejection letter to Kotler, the Department of Motor Vehicles acknowledged the difficulties in balancing "an individual's constitutional right to free speech and expression while protecting the sensibilities of all segments of our population."
"I sent them tons of material," Kotler told the BBC. "Press releases, stories from the British media, letters from the chairman who uses 'come on you whites'.”
He added: “I pointed out that many clubs in Britain are known by their color - the blues, the clarets. Nobody thought the Liverpool reds were communists. Even when I did it, it was the furthest thing from my mind that anyone would object to it. I was shocked, absolutely."
The 78-year-old, who was born in New Jersey and now lives in Calabasas, California, told the BBC that he has been a fan of Fulham FC for decades after watching a match “by happenstance” during a visit to London.
He said he travels to see the team play in Britain an average of around eight to 10 times a season – often taking the 11-hour flight on a Thursday and returning back to the U.S. by Tuesday for classes.
Kotler's suit asks the court to declare the Department of Motor Vehicles' criteria for personalized license plates unconstitutional. He also wants the department to pay his court costs.
According to Los Angeles Magazine, the California DMV receives hundreds of thousands of vanity license plates applications – nearly 250,000 were fielded by the department in 2018.
The department employs four full-time workers to sort through the applications and eliminate any that may trigger the DMV’s standard of “good taste and decency.”
In a 1973 case, the California Court of Appeals upheld the Department of Motor Vehicles' standard in rejecting a plaintiff's claim that his free speech was violated when the department rejected his requested license plate, "EZ LAY."
Constitutional scholar David L. Hudson said courts are often split in cases claiming censorship over personalized plates.
"It appears in this case that the government has engaged in regrettable censorship of Mr. Kotler's speech," said Hudson, who teaches at Tennessee's Belmont University and is a fellow at the Freedom Forum Institute. "To me, courts should be very sensitive to viewpoint discrimination and should err on the side of protecting the individual's speech from government censorship."
Kotler is being represented pro bono by the libertarian-leaning nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation. The group criticized the Department of Motor Vehicles' "attempt to make itself the speech police" in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
"You can call Jon a sports fan or a First Amendment expert, but the DMV's misguided efforts to regulate license plates have misbranded Jon as a racist," the foundation said.
With special counsel Robert Mueller’s feverishly anticipated report on the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia expected to drop soon, the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times threw the spotlight (and some air kisses) toward Andrew Goldstein, a prosecutor in Mueller’s office, in “Cautious and Calm Prosecutor Quietly Anchors Mueller Team.”
The routine was always the same. President Trump’s lawyers would drive to heavily secured offices near the National Mall, surrender their cellphones, head into a windowless conference room and resume tense negotiations over whether the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, would interview Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Mueller was not always there.
Instead, the lawyers tangled with a team of prosecutors, including a little known but formidable adversary: Andrew D. Goldstein, 44, a former Time magazine reporter who is now a lead prosecutor for Mr. Mueller in the investigation into whether the president obstructed justice.
Reporters Noah Weiland and Michael Schmidt doled out some praise as well for Robert Mueller, the left’s favorite new former FBI director and prosecutor, whose law-and-order persona has become an ironic focus of many left-wing anti-Trump fantasies.
Mr. Mueller is often portrayed as the omnipotent fact-gatherer, but it is Mr. Goldstein who has a much more involved, day-to-day role in one of the central lines of investigation.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A woman will be criminally charged for falsely reporting that an Egyptian man tried to kidnap her daughter from a West Virginia shopping mall, a police detective told The Associated Press on Friday.
Barboursville Police Detective Greg Lucas said they are going to charge Santana Renee Adams with falsely reporting an emergency incident.
The charge would be the latest turn in a sensational tale of a mother who used a gun to thwart an abduction that quickly unraveled amid inconsistencies in her story.
Authorities on Thursday announced they were dropping charges against the man, Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, a 54-year-old engineer from Alexandria, Egypt, who was in the area for work. He cried as he greeted family members upon his release from jail.
Adams initially told police Zayan grabbed her 5-year-old daughter girl by the hair inside a clothing store and tried to pull her away but stopped when she produced a gun, authorities said. A criminal complaint went into further detail, describing a frightening scene where a Middle Eastern man dragged the girl by the hair as she dropped to the floor.
But the story started falling apart when no witnesses could be found and mall surveillance video didn't match up with the woman's original statement.
"There's quite a bit that doesn't line up," Lucas told the AP.
She later told investigators she may have overreacted and misinterpreted the man's intentions. Zayan doesn't speak English and police say he may have simply been patting the girl on the head.
"Unfortunately, as false accusations are becoming more prevalent in today's social media driven society, we are losing our grasp on 'presumed innocent until proven guilty,' and Mr. Zayan has been tried around the world by the court of public opinion," Zayan's public defender attorney, Michelle Protzman, said in a statement Thursday to The Associated Press.
Adams couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s rare public criticism of the Obama administration was a “soft” way of accusing the previous administration of covering up Russia’s attempts at hacking the 2016 presidential election.
While speaking Thursday in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, Rosenstein said that the Obama administration “chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls and how they relate to Russia’s broader strategy to undermine America.”
During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning, Huckabee called the comments an “unusually candid moment for Rosenstein.”
“I thought it was a soft way of him saying there was a cover-up,” Huckabee said. “They knew the Russians were attempting to influence the election and attempting to hack the election but they didn’t fully disclose that to the American people and certainly didn’t disclose it to the Trump campaign.
“Instead they tried to set a trap for them. It failed. The Trump team did not take the bait. And that’s the one conclusion that we can certainly come away with from the $35 million worth of investigation,” Huckabee continued.
Next week, Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress and is expected to answer questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, which found that there was not adequate evidence to conclude that President Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, though the president could not be exonerated in terms of the possibility that he obstructed justice.
Barr will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday and to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.
“It is going to be a theater, an absolute show,” Huckabee said of the hearings. “Just like the Kavanaugh hearings were and like everything else is in Congress. We ought to close the curtain on them and can’t come back until after the election. They aren’t doing their job anyway. We aren’t paying them because they’re doing a wonderful service to the country and spare us the hypocrisy of thinking they’re interested in getting to the bottom of the facts,” he continued.
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte
April 26, 2019
By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.
Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.
More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.
Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.
“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.
He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.
“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.
On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.
Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.
Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.
The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.
In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.
Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.
‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’
He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.
“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.
Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.
“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.
President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.
Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.
Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.
(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)
FILE PHOTO: The Federal Reserve Board building on Constitution Avenue is pictured in Washington, U.S., March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
April 26, 2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve may lower the interest it pays on excess reserves banks leave with it by 5 basis points at its April 30-May 1 policy meeting in a bid to prevent the federal funds rate from drifting higher, Morgan Stanley analysts said on Friday.
This would mark the third such “technical” adjustment on the interest on excess reserves (IOER) following cuts last June and December.
(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Calling the advance in gross domestic product a “blow-out number,” Kudlow told “America’s Newsroom” Friday that it serves as concrete proof Trump’s measures to grow the economy have been successful.
“I’ll just say, Trump’s policies to rebuild the economy, lower taxes, regulations, opening energy, trade reform. Look, this stuff is working,” he said.
“It tells me, among other things, that the prosperity cycle we have entered into is continuing, it is strong. It has legs and momentum and frankly it is going to go on for quite some time,” he continued. “This is the new Trump economy. Some people don’t like that or they don’t agree with that. I respect the differences but I’ll tell you it’s working.”
Kudlow added that Trump has “ended the war” on business and success, and is rallying for the small business owners of America.
“The president is rebuilding incentives, he is rebuilding confidence, he the rebuilding optimism,” he said. “He is basically saying you should keep more of what you earn. He is basically saying to small businesses we’ll cut the paperwork back and make it easier for you to start a business and prosper.”
Kudlow said the Trump administration is also working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders to implement bipartisan deals to ensure the continuation of the GDP’s success.
“If the policies and the principles remain in place — and I believe they will — then I believe this new prosperity expansion cycle is going to go on for a whole bunch of more years,” he said.
FILE PHOTO: Tennis – Australian Open – Women’s Singles Final – Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, January 26, 2019. Japan’s Naomi Osaka attends a news conference after winning her match against Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – World number one Naomi Osaka came from behind in the final set to beat Croatian Donna Vekic 6-3 4-6 7-6(4) on Friday and move into the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix semi-finals.
Osaka comfortably won the opening set but was tested by the Croatian, who pushed her to the limit in the second and third. The Japanese made 45 unforced errors as she struggles to get to grips with swapping hard courts for clay.
Osaka was visibly frustrated and trailed 5-1 in the final set but she refused to give up and found her rhythm to break Vekic twice and prevent her from serving for the match.
In the tiebreaker, a confident Osaka upped her baseline game and had two early mini breaks before wrapping up the match in two hours and 18 minutes. An infuriated Vekic even smashed her racket after losing the match.
“I told myself I didn’t want to have any regrets here,” Osaka said. “I was stressed out when I went down 1-5… but this (comeback) was pretty good because I don’t play really well on clay.”
Earlier, world number three Petra Kvitova came back from a set down to beat Anastasija Sevastova 2-6 6-2 6-3 and move into the tournament’s semi-finals for the third time in her career.
Sevastova had a dream start, breaking Kvitova twice to take a 3-0 lead as the Czech struggled with her first serve. Kvitova also made a slew of unforced errors, with many of her returns going long.
Sevastova used the full width of the court to get the better of Kvitova, who played on the back foot for much of the first set as the Latvian gave her little time to catch her breath.
However, Kvitova recovered in the second set and she broke Sevastova’s serve when she was 3-2 up, winning 10 straight points to take a 5-2 lead. Sevastova looked shaken and was broken again to give Kvitova the second set.
Kvitova took command in the final set and broke a visibly upset Sevastova to take a 3-1 lead before easing into the semis.
“In the first set I missed almost everything. I was pretty slow and she just couldn’t miss,” Kvitova said. “In the second set it was very important for me to stay on my serve and the chance to break her came.”
Kiki Bertens plays Angelique Kerber later on Friday and Victoria Azarenka faces Anett Kontaveit in the last quarter-final.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
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