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Aid agencies scramble to rescue people from Mozambique flood

Hundreds are dead, many more missing and thousands at risk from massive flooding in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe caused by Cyclone Idai and persistent rains.

International aid agencies and government officials are scrambling Tuesday to rescue families trapped by the floodwaters from rivers that have burst their banks and are still rising.

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said the death toll could go as high as 1,000 from the cyclone and flooding. Although emergency workers caution they do not know if the fatalities will reach that estimate, they say this is the most destructive flooding in 20 years.

Hardest hit by the cyclone is Mozambique's Beira port, a city of 500,000, where thousands of homes have been destroyed. Flooding waters have inundated large areas of rural Mozambique and its neighboring countries.

Source: Fox News World

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Sling them out or long delay: Europeans weigh Brexit options

Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session in Strasbourg
FILE PHOTO: Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session in Strasbourg, France, March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

March 15, 2019

By Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders will tell Prime Minister Theresa May next week how much longer Britain can stay in the bloc as British lawmakers struggle to agree on how and when, or even if, the country is leaving.

EU leaders meet for a two-day summit starting on Thursday, with many in two minds about how long Britain should get beyond the March 29 Brexit day, which is enshrined in law.

May, meanwhile, will ask the British parliament to back the deal she has negotiated with the EU for a third time, after it was twice roundly rejected.

These are the broad choices facing the EU, which must find a unanimous decision that May must agree with:

SLING THEM OUT NOW – MARCH 29

Britain is due to leave in 14 days at the expiry of a two- year negotiating period launched by May. She has said she will ask to extend that to June 30 if her deal is approved next week, to give time for legislation. Despite frustration with London, EU leaders have indicated they would accept a “technical extension” of a few weeks if a deal is in the bag. But if there seems little sign the stalemate is ending, some may argue it is better to end uncertainty for business and go to a “no deal” Brexit, for which they have prepared.

JUST A FEW WEEKS MORE – MAY 10-22

Few want to be blamed for forcing Britain out against its will. But Europeans vote for a new European Parliament from May 23 to 26. Many leading figures have said Britain must be out before then to avoid any legal challenge to the legislature’s legitimacy. The European Commission has said Britain must either leave by then or elect its own Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

OUT BEFORE PARLIAMENT SITS – JUNE 30

This is the date May has given for an exit under her deal. The EU might accept a delay beyond the elections as the new parliament does not convene until July 2. As long as Britain were out by then, the lack of British MEPs should not pose a major legal problem.

The key question for any 2-3 month extension is will it resolve anything? The EU rules out reworking the deal May accepted. If she looks like she cannot ratify it, then a delay may give governments and businesses more time to prepare for a disruptive exit but leaders may also prefer to end doubts.

A short extension followed by a decision to extend for longer is possible in theory but senior EU officials say leaders will want a one-off delay.

GO AWAY AND THINK AGAIN – ANOTHER YEAR OR TWO?

May has said if she fails next week, she will seek a longer extension to reconsider the position. Summit chair Donald Tusk is urging the other 27 leaders not to rule that out. Some others back that line, though it may for now be a tactical choice to pressure hardline euroskeptics to accept May’s deal rather than risk a delay that might end up with no Brexit at all.

If May arrives at the Brussels summit deal-less, Tusk will argue that a short delay will achieve little but prolong uncertainty and, to avoid a disruptive no-deal, Britain should be asked to go away and sort out what it really wants – giving time for a new election or second Brexit referendum.

Some have suggested an extension to the end of this year, some for one year or to the end of 2020 or two years. It is not legally possible to leave it open-ended, EU officials say.

Advantages include: avoiding no-deal chaos, at least for now; keeping British funding for the EU for longer, although that would also continue in a transition period if the deal goes through; and potentially keeping the 28-nation EU together.

Disadvantages include: Britain having to return MEPs, disrupting a redistribution of seats in the European Parliament; a lopsided impact on parties, with the EU’s center-left gaining on the center-right and a boost for euroskeptic groups; prolonged uncertainty when the EU has other priorities; and the prospect of a lukewarm Britain staying when some would rather it left.

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald ; @macdonaldrtr; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: OANN

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The Latest: Boy suffered life-threatening injuries at mall

The Latest on a 5-year-old child injured in an apparent attack at Minnesota's Mall of America (all times local):

4:15 p.m.

Police in Minnesota say a 5-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when he was pushed or thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America.

Witnesses say the boy's mother was screaming and asking others to pray for her son.

Tiny Hailey of Burnsville, Minnesota, tells the Star Tribune she was walking with her husband on the mall's first floor when she heard screams. Hailey says the mother appeared to be in shock and "didn't know what to do," and that "Nobody was helping her."

Witnesses say a suspect ran away and was arrested at the mall's transit station. The 24-year-old man from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is being held at the Bloomington Police Department.

The boy was taken to a hospital. His condition is unknown.

Police say the suspect apparently does not know the victim or the victim's family.

___

2:15 p.m.

A witness says a woman screamed that her child was thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota.

Brian Johnson told WCCO-TV the woman was screaming, "Everybody pray, everybody pray. Oh my God, my baby, someone threw him over the edge."

Johnson says the woman was screaming that her child was thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall. The child landed on the first floor on Friday morning.

Police say the child is 5 years old. The police chief says the child suffered "significant injuries" and was taken to a hospital.

A suspect was arrested at the mall. Police don't think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child's family. Authorities don't know a motive.

___

12:55 p.m.

Police in Minnesota say they've arrested a 24-year-old man in an incident in which a child may have been pushed or thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America.

Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts says witnesses told police that the child may have fallen from the mall's third level to the first floor on Friday morning. Potts says officers gave first aid but the 5-year-old child suffered "significant injuries" and had been taken to a hospital.

Potts says the suspect took off running right after the incident but was quickly found and arrested at the mall.

He says police don't think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child's family. He says police don't have an idea about possible motive.

___

12:46 p.m.

Police in Minnesota say they're investigating an incident at the Mall of America in which a child was reportedly thrown from a third-floor balcony.

Police in Bloomington tweeted that a 5-year-old child suffered injuries and was being treated at a hospital Friday. Police didn't immediately respond to a message seeking details about the incident.

The Star Tribune reports that the child was being treated at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.

Source: Fox News National

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Facebook’s ads system leans on stereotypes for housing, job ads: study

FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration
FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 4, 2019

By Paresh Dave

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc directs advertising to audiences in ways that could promote racial and gender discrimination, a new study showed, adding to allegations that prompted the U.S. government to sue the world’s largest social media company last week.

Facebook’s algorithms, which match marketing messages with viewers, leans on stereotypes when it comes to housing and jobs, according to the study by researchers from Northeastern University, University of Southern California and advocacy group Upturn. The study was posted on arXiv, an online forum for research awaiting peer review, on Wednesday.

“Ad platforms themselves can shape access to information about important life opportunities in ways that might present a challenge to equal opportunity goals,” said the group, whose university researchers have done separate studies on online ad systems.

Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne responded in statement that the company recognizes it must do more, and said the findings would be included in ongoing discussions about changing its ads system.

“We’ve been looking at our ad delivery system and have engaged industry leaders, academics, and civil rights experts on this very topic – and we’re exploring more changes,” he said.

The researchers advertised lumber job ads on Facebook and found that the algorithms delivered the postings to mostly white men, while secretary positions mostly went to black women. That held true even when lumber ads pictured black people, and the secretarial jobs white people.

The Facebook study also found that ads about homes for sale in North Carolina reached a mostly white audience while rental ads went to a mostly black one.

Facebook does not provide race data, according to the researchers, but they inferred it by linking general audience details to voter registration data.

Though the pictures of people in the job ads did not appear to affect the audience makeup, the photos used did appear to be a factor for Facebook’s algorithm in other cases.

Showing a football or soldiers versus a flower or paint set led to a mostly male audience for an otherwise identical ad unrelated to jobs, the researchers found.

The Trump administration sued Facebook last Thursday, accusing it of selling targeted advertising that discriminated on the basis of race, in violation of the U.S. Fair Housing Act.

Facebook removed some targeting options in response to complaints from the government and civil rights groups.

Addressing racial and gender discrepancies in automated systems, including for facial recognition, has become a priority for Silicon Valley.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

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Mystery of plastic Garfield novelty phones washing up along French coast solved after 30 years

Plastic Garfield phones have been washing up along the French coast for over 3 decades with no explanation, until now.

The mysterious cat headsets have perplexed the local communities and environmentalists since the 1980s.

“Our association has existed for 18 years and in that time we have found pieces of Garfield telephones almost every time we clean,” Claire Simonin, the head of beach cleaning group Ar Viltansou, told the AFP news agency.

But after a French paper wrote about the strange feline phenomenon, a local resident came forward to reveal a 20-year old secret.

STONEHENGE MYSTERY SOLVED? PREHISTORIC SAILORS MAY HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR LEGENDARY STRUCTURE

“Our association has existed for 18 years and in that time we have found pieces of Garfield telephones almost every time we clean,”

— Claire Simonin, head of beach cleaning group Ar Viltansou

Rene Morvan and his brother went to the beach during a large storm two decades ago and found the phones blanketing the coast, according to franceinfo. They returned to the beach when it was low tide to enter into surrounding cliffs and find out where the cat trinkets were coming from.

There still remains a bit of mystery because no one has been able to determine how the shipping container ended up along the coast of France.

There still remains a bit of mystery because no one has been able to determine how the shipping container ended up along the coast of France. (AFP/Getty)

“We found a container that was stranded in a fault, it was open, a lot of things were gone but there was a stock of phones,” Morvan said.

He justified not sharing his knowledge with the community by only saying: “At the time, there was a lot of things that came to us from the sea.”

Once learning of their whereabouts, Simonin ventured out and recovered an additional 23 Garfield headsets, on top of collecting over 200 plastic pieces and wires over the last few decades.

MYSTERIOUS UNDERGROUND CHAMBER DISCOVERED AT CANADIAN PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLY

For the Ar Viltansou cleaning group, the discovery is bittersweet. The brightly orange colored cats have proven to be an environmental nightmare and they see the local ecosystem has been affected, thanks to the pollution the spillage has created.

Fabien Boileau, the director of the Ironise Marine Nature Park, said: “We will still go there to recover the remains of phones. It will always be less plastic and electronics in the sea. But I have little hope that we will be very effective."

There still remains a bit of mystery because no one has been able to determine how the shipping container ended up along the coast of France.

“We have no idea what happened at the time: we do not know where it came from, what boat,” Fabien Boileau, the director of the Ironise Marine Nature Park, told AFP.

The phones are still popular among collectors and are being sold for around $40.00 each on eBay.

Source: Fox News World

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2nd Amendment Foundation: Gun Control Efforts Misguided After New Zealand Attack

Proponents of gun control are misguided in their attempt to renew efforts on firearms restrictions in the United States in the wake of last week’s terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 50 worshipers in two mosques, says Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, USA reports.

In an opinion piece on Tuesday, Gottleib argues that gun control proponents hope American citizens “gripped by emotion, will overlook the obvious and agree that law-abiding gun owners should face additional restrictions on their rights.” He writes stricter gun laws would have no effect with people bent on doing harm, and said citizens needed to be able to protect themselves.

“The real lesson to be learned from the Christchurch massacre is that madmen aren’t deterred by gun control laws, or laws against murder. Morality doesn’t enter into their thinking, so honest people must be prepared for the unthinkable and be able to respond.

“The gun prohibition lobby hopes to capitalize on a terror attack half a world away in an effort to advance its agenda. Forget, for a moment, that the Second Amendment stands in their way. Focus on the irrational notion that somehow a defenseless victim is morally superior to an armed private citizen who can fight back and save lives,” he writes, adding, “Millions of law-abiding American gun owners should not be penalized because of murderers’ misdeeds.”

Instead, Gottlieb posits that the New Zealand attack “provides ample justification of our right to carry now exercised by millions of citizens who choose not to be victims.” He said Americans’ Second Amendment rights were “not negotiable.”

Gottlieb also notes that the New Zealand shooter acquired his firearms legally, as have most mass shooters in the U.S.

“We must not allow hysteria to overcome common sense. We must protect our right to defend ourselves, our families, and our communities from those to whom laws mean nothing,” Gottlieb concluded.

Source: NewsMax America

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After Nielsen, temporary Homeland Security chief in tough spot

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan speaks about the impact of the dramatic increase in illegal crossings that continue to occur along the Southwest during a news conference, in El Paso
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan speaks about the impact of the dramatic increase in illegal crossings that continue to occur along the Southwest during a news conference, in El Paso, Texas March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo

April 8, 2019

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The temporary replacement for Kirstjen Nielsen, who quit on Sunday as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), faces the difficult reality of a boss who is demanding legally dubious solutions to an influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kevin McAleenan, presently commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will be the fourth person to helm the agency under Trump. McAleenan takes over as U.S. border officials estimated that 100,000 migrants were apprehended at the southern border in March, the highest level in a decade.

As acting secretary, McAleenan follows Nielsen and Elaine Duke, who led the department on an acting basis after John Kelly, Trump’s first DHS secretary, became White House chief of staff in 2017. Trump took office in January of that year.

The president, who made immigration a key campaign theme, has grown increasingly frustrated with his officials, even as they have implemented aggressive policies to limit immigration.

Nielsen oversaw a “zero tolerance” prosecution policy that led to the separation of thousands of parents and children, and launched a policy to return asylum seekers to Mexico until their claims are heard. Both policies garnered legal challenges.

Memorable images of women and children fleeing tear gas on the Mexican border happened on Nielsen’s watch, and McAleenan, whose officers made the decision to use tear gas canisters, defended its use.

“Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation was long overdue,” California Senator Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said on Twitter on Monday.

“I will under no circumstances support a nominee who does not forcefully denounce this administration’s policy of separating families at the border,” Harris said.

Trump increasingly has demanded policies that would violate U.S. laws, international agreements and court settlements or require Congress to pass dramatic legislative changes.

A congressional official familiar with the matter said some in Congress believe Trump forced out Nielsen in part because she was trying to obey laws on treatment of refugees, granting of amnesty and separation of families.

It was unclear early on Monday what legally sound strategies McAleenan could implement to achieve Trump’s objective of limiting migrant crossings at the southern border, especially as crossings are expected to reach their yearly peak in the coming months, immigration experts said.

On Friday, Trump called for Congress to “get rid of the whole asylum system” and get rid of immigration judges, and criticized a long-standing federal court decree mandating certain standards of care for migrant children.

“So much of what the president put out there isn’t really legally feasible,” said Sarah Pierce, an immigration policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, D.C. “I, like many, and maybe Nielsen herself are kind of puzzled as to what could happen.”

Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under Democratic President Barack Obama, said McAleenan likely will not have much freedom to pursue policies opposed by Trump or his powerful senior aide, Stephen Miller.

“It just seems to me that whoever is put in that position in this administration is going to have a very hard time resisting the philosophy of the White House,” Legomsky said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang North Korea
FILE PHOTO – Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea’s top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey)

Source: OANN

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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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