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Musk’s lawyers say U.S. SEC has not met heavy burden to show contempt

FILE PHOTO: Musk looks on at SpaceX Falcon 9 post-launch news conference in Cape Canaveral
FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder Elon Musk looks on at a post-launch news conference after the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft, lifted off on an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., March 2, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

March 22, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lawyers for Elon Musk said on Friday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had failed to satisfy its heavy burden of showing that the Tesla Inc chief executive should be held in contempt of court.

In a Manhattan federal court filing, Musk’s lawyers also said their client “respects his obligations” to the electric car company, its shareholders and the court.

Musk is trying to avoid being held in contempt for violating his October 2018 fraud settlement with the SEC, for having tweeted on Feb. 19 to his more than 24 million Twitter followers that Tesla could build around 500,000 vehicles in 2019.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by G Crosse)

Source: OANN

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LSU Guard Tremont Waters Appears To Travel On Final Shot To Beat Maryland

David Hookstead | Reporter

LSU beat Maryland Saturday afternoon, and the refs really might have blown this one.

Tremont Waters hit the game winner in the final seconds of the second round matchup in the NCAA tournament against the Terrapins for the Tigers. (RELATED: The March Madness Bracket Has Been Released)

There’s just one major issue. It appears that Waters took at least three steps after picking up his dribble. Watch the play below.

My friends, I’m not sure how many more steps you need before the refs blow the whistle. Obviously, at this point it doesn’t matter anymore.

The refs aren’t going to change the outcome of the game, but it clearly should have been a turnover. There’s no doubt in my mind that Waters took an extra step, and the refs clearly blew the call.

LSU will now be in the Sweet 16, and the rest of us will debate endlessly if the Terrapins got absolutely hosed here. In my mind, it’s not even a question.

That game should have gone into overtime, and it’s not even close.

Follow David Hookstead on Twitter

Source: The Daily Caller

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Novartis’s Alcon spinoff ousts Baer from Swiss benchmark SMI

FILE PHOTO: Logo of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is seen in Hueninge, France
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is seen at the company's plant in Hueninge, France, Jan. 27, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

April 3, 2019

By John Miller and Paul Arnold

ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis’s spinoff of its eyecare division Alcon, set for Tuesday April 9, marks the largest Swiss stock deal in a decade and forces a reshuffle of the benchmark Swiss Market Index (SMI) as private bank Julius Baer gets booted out.

Novartis has estimated Alcon’s value at around 25 billion Swiss francs ($25 billion), while some analysts predict an initial market capitalization of 21 billion francs ($21 billion) to 23 billion, implying shares worth from 43 to 47 francs.

By contrast Baer’s value has tumbled by a third in a year to 9.3 billion francs. It will instead be included in the SMIM index, replacing Aryzta, SIX Swiss Exchange said after Tuesday’s market close.

Dominated by Nestle, Novartis and Roche, the SMI is Switzerland’s most important index. Membership is based on market capitalization, adjusted for the free float of readily tradable shares in its constituents.

Alcon is being spun off in a one-for-five share deal announced by Novartis last June as it focuses on new drugs rather than the surgical devices and contact lenses Alcon makes.

Joining the SMI may boost demand from funds focusing on the top Swiss companies. Yet Alcon’s inclusion means healthcare and medical technology will weigh even more heavily on the SMI.

Novartis’s weighting had been capped 18 percent, but with Alcon the two will account for up to 21.5 percent of the SMI, Zuercher Kantonalbank analysts estimated on Wednesday.

Novartis’s biggest owners – BlackRock, the Sandoz family, Capital Research Global Investors and Vanguard Group – will have similar holdings in Alcon, between 2.5 percent and 4.5 percent.

“We anticipate incremental buying of Alcon shares by some funds seeking to build a full-size position, offset by others not wanting to own a non-pharma eyecare company,” Jefferies analyst Peter Welford said.

Novartis bought Alcon’s eye surgery and contact lens portfolio in stages through 2010 for $52 billion from Nestle, only to see it lose ground to competitors as sales and profitability slipped.

In surgical equipment, Alcon competes against Johnson & Johnson, Germany’s Zeiss and Bausch in a $9 billion per year market. Rivals in vision care, worth $14 billion annually, include J&J, Cooper and Bausch.

In 2016, a new Alcon head, Mike Ball from Hospira, redoubled research and marketing spending to resurrect revenue, before Novartis chief Vas Narasimhan decided to shed the division.

The last comparable-sized Swiss listing was in 2010, when oil driller Transocean floated on the same day its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Editing by David Holmes)

Source: OANN

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House panels issue subpoenas to Deutsche Bank, others, in Trump probe

FILE PHOTO: The financial district with the headquarters of Germany's largest business bank, Deutsche Bank , is photographed on early evening in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: The financial district with the headquarters of Germany's largest business bank, Deutsche Bank , is photographed on early evening in Frankfurt, Germany, January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

April 15, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. House of Representatives committees have issued subpoenas to multiple financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank AG, for information on U.S. President Donald Trump’s finances, the panels’ Democratic leaders said on Monday.

“The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern. The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the president and his associates, as thoroughly as possible,” the committee’s chair, Maxine Waters, said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement the subpoenas issued included a “friendly subpoena to Deutsche Bank.”

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: OANN

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Armed Mexican soldiers confronted US soldiers on US soil

U.S. officials say two American soldiers in a remote area of Texas were confronted by Mexican soldiers who thought they had crossed into Mexico.

The Mexican troops reportedly took the weapon from the American soldier who was armed.

U.S. defense officials say the Americans were in a Customs and Border Protection vehicle in a remote area southeast of El Paso, Texas, when the incident occurred.

The incident happened on April 13 and was first reported by Newsweek.

A Northern Command statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday said the Mexican military members believed they were on Mexican territory at the time they confronted the Americans.

The U.S. troops are at the border as part of a Trump administration effort to reduce illegal crossings.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump blasts California governor for halting executions

President Trump on Wednesday blasted California Gov. Gavin Newsom for halting executions for the state’s 737 death row inmates.

“Defying voters, the Governor of California will halt all death penalty executions of 737 stone cold killers. Friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I!” Trump tweeted early Wednesday.

CALIFORNIA GOV. NEWSOM TO SIGN EXECUTIVE ORDER TO HALT DEATH PENALTY EXECUTIONS

The tweet comes hours before Newsom, a Democrat, is expected to sign an executive order that would halt all executions at San Quentin State Prison, closing a new execution chamber. The order would also withdraw lethal injection regulations. The order, though, would leave all convictions intact.

“The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual,” Newsom said in a prepared statement obtained by the Southern California News Group.

Newsom, who has been a vocal opponent of the death penalty, said that the measure is a “failure” that “has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford legal representation.” He also said that many innocent people have been wrongly convicted and sometimes put to death.

But Newsom’s order will go against the wishes of California voters, who in 2016 backed a measure to speed up executions.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys blasted Newsom for “usurping” the will of the voters and “substituting his personal preferences.”

But Newsom said that the death penalty is flawed because it is “irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error,” and expensive, costing California $5 billion since 1978.

Meanwhile, Trump has been a supporter of the death penalty. In October, Trump called for the death penalty for those who kill police officers.

NEW JERSEY MANSION MURDERS SPUR CALLS FOR STATE TO REINSTATE DEATH PENALTY

"Reducing crime begins with respecting law enforcement," Trump said. “We believe that criminals who kill our police officers should immediately, with trial, but rapidly as possible, not 15 years later, 20 years later—get the death penalty."

A week later, Trump called for the death penalty of the man responsible for the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.

Fox News’ Louis Casiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Short & distort? The ugly war between CEOs and activist critics

A screen displays a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average during trading on the floor of the NYSE in New York
A screen displays a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average during trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 21, 2019

By Lawrence Delevingne

NEW YORK (Reuters) – On the morning of July 11, Paul Pittman was on a corn farm in Western Illinois, unaware his company had taken a devastating hit.

Just before the stock market opened, an anonymous short seller named “Rota Fortunae” posted on Twitter and financial website Seeking Alpha that Pittman’s small real estate investment trust, Farmland Partners Inc, had engaged in dubious transactions and risked “insolvency.”

The posting pushed shares down enough to make thousands of previously-purchased stock options profitable, according to a later expert analysis, in turn causing more selling by those on the other side of the trade who committed to buy shares at a higher set price. The accelerating losses were probably compounded by high-frequency trading algorithms activated by price swings and negative keywords, according to that analysis.

Pittman’s stomach churned when he checked his smartphone around noon: Shares were off almost 40 percent. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2HyuFCE)

“The game was rigged,” Pittman, 56, told Reuters.

What followed exemplified a new, ugly phase in a war between companies and activist short sellers, with businesses fighting back against social-media fueled attacks and investors accusing executives of trying to muzzle critics.

Farmland sued Rota Fortunae – Latin for “wheel of fortune” – and other unnamed individuals alleging a “malicious scheme” to profit from the spread of false information and well-timed stock options. The short seller, a Texas-based individual whose identity has been kept secret, sent a statement to Reuters via an attorney that the litigation aimed to “intimidate and choke critical opinion” and that the idea of crashing the stock through “sophisticated trading” was “utter hogwash.” It is all under the watch of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been briefed on the matter.

The stand-off reflects a broader debate over how to balance the desire to keep public companies accountable with concerns over market manipulation.

Short selling, said to be as old as stock markets, used to be a low-profile affair where bearish investors relied on the media, analysts or regulators to take the lead in exposing over-valued companies. New tools such as Twitter and Seeking Alpha changed that, creating a small but prominent group of brash public activists.

Successful campaigns that exposed corporate fraud or dubious practices, including Carson Block’s Sino-Forest Corp takedown and Andrew Left’s shorting of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc, underscored short sellers’ role as market watchdogs. Such victories, coupled with elevated stock valuations, helped spur record numbers of short campaigns, according to industry tracker Activist Insight.

Activist Insight data show such campaigns can have a noticeable impact on stock prices. A 2017 working paper by researchers Yu Ting Forester Wong and Wuyang Zhao also showed they weigh on target companies’ investments, dividends and access to financing.

Block, Left and other prominent short sellers interviewed by Reuters say they do thorough research and help keep companies honest.

Yet targeted businesses say many short campaigns waged this decade amount to “short and distort” schemes. They accuse some activists of spreading false or misleading information to drive a stock down and then quickly cash out, a mirror image of “pump and dump,” where unscrupulous investors promote speculative stocks before selling out at the top.

Cases against short sellers are rare, though, given free speech protections and companies hesitant to put themselves under the microscope of regulators, lawyers say.

SHORT IDEAS AND OPTIONS

Recent research provides fresh fodder for the debate. Columbia Law School securities expert Joshua Mitts said in a working paper that he had looked at 1,720 pseudonymous short idea posts on Seeking Alpha between 2010 and 2017 and found that 86 percent were preceded by “extraordinary” options trading.

Mitts told Reuters his review of the posts found that, like with Farmland, many short sellers appeared to use fast-expiring put-options bought before the release of a report to spur more selling by underwriters.

“Shorts have to rely on good research, not trading tricks, to punish a stock,” said Mitts, whose work has led to paid consulting for Farmland and other companies.

He has also found other unusual trading patterns, including dozens of cases of “spoofing” and “layering,” illegal trading strategies of placing and canceling orders to create a false impression of demand or supply. Mitts said, however, that high-frequency traders were probably responsible, not activists.

Prominent activists deny engaging in practices described by Mitts and say they rarely use options. Instead, they would typically borrow stocks and immediately sell them in anticipation of a price drop, so they can buy them back for less and pocket the difference.

“I’m sure there are a few anonymous guys out there doing tricky stuff, but it’s not a systemic problem,” Left said.

One smaller short seller said he used put options in conjunction with Seeking Alpha posts to make larger bets given limited capital, but emphasized making unfounded claims could backfire.

“With options you can get totally destroyed,” said the investor, who requested anonymity. “A bad thesis can be debunked almost instantly.”

Activist Insight, which has analyzed hundreds of campaigns, found many cases where target share prices went up, not down.

So far Mitts is virtually alone in analyzing trading activity around short campaigns, but his findings have already drawn the attention of a top U.S. regulator.

SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson told Reuters the research was “important” and challenged his agency to “identify folks who are dancing a very fine line between trading and market manipulation.”

The question, Jackson said, was whether the regulator would go after short sellers who engage in fraud as forcefully as it investigates companies for bad behavior.

“I hope the answer to that question will be yes.”

A hint came last September, when the SEC brought a rare “short and distort” case against hedge fund manager Gregory Lemelson for making false claims about Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc, an allegation which Lemelson has denied.

Jackson said, however, laws on anonymity and free speech could limit any steps that went beyond straightforward cases involving false information.

On March 12, for example, a New York state judge dismissed a lawsuit against short sellers by Indian media company Eros International PLC, noting their opinions on Seeking Alpha and elsewhere were substantiated and therefore protected.

Still, companies are increasingly retaliating with lawsuits, hiring private investigators and using other aggressive tactics, according to some activists. Block, for example, said he has faced “constant” legal threats, at least one undercover operative, and a failed $50 million investigation to discredit his research.

“More than ever, bad companies are trying to shoot the messenger through any means available,” Block said.

FARM WAR

In the days after Rota’s post, Farmland issued a public rebuttal and Pittman, a former farmer and financial executive, said the company had to go on an “‘I am not a crook’ tour” in meetings and calls with investors and business partners.

Most were sympathetic, Pittman said, including farmers who had traded land for stock, but Farmland lost a potential partnership and had to cut staff from 17 to 13.

George Moriarty, executive editor of Seeking Alpha, said that courts have respected the site’s status as a neutral platform and that its staff vetted all posts. In this case, Rota made “limited factual corrections” after Seeking Alpha contacted him about Farmland’s rebuttal.

Still, shares have never quite recovered, and Rota told Reuters that Farmland has yet to substantively address his concerns.

Stock analysts said Rota’s language was dramatic relative to the underlying issues and instead focused on broader business challenges and the potential costs of fighting back. Farmland recently reported about $1.6 million in extra expenses over 2018, before insurance, citing Rota’s campaign. That included defending against a related shareholder class-action and legal costs from its suit against the short seller.

Mitts has submitted his opinion on put options in the case, a pattern he said he discovered independently during his academic research.

The short seller behind the Rota moniker told Reuters he planned to challenge Mitts’ assertions and would continue his defense of first amendment rights. Farmland’s lawyers said Rota’s free speech argument was undercut by his acknowledgement of payments received for research on Farmland.

Whatever happens in court, the SEC is watching. Rota submitted his Farmland analysis to the agency’s whistleblower hotline, while Farmland later briefed SEC staff on its side.

The SEC declined to comment, but on Jan. 29 it denied Farmland’s request for records on Rota and options trading because, according to a letter revealed in a court filing, related information was in an “investigative file” from an “on-going law enforcement proceeding.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne. Editing by Neal Templin and Tomasz Janowski.)

Source: OANN

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A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

April 26, 2019

MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.

In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.

He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”

Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.

Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.

The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.

Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.

The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.

“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.

The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
FILE PHOTO: Pallbearers carry the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee at her funeral at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

April 26, 2019

BELFAST (Reuters) – Detectives investigating the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland last week suspect the gunman who shot her dead is in his late teens as they made a further appeal to the local community who they believe know his identity.

McKee’s killing by an Irish nationalist militant during a riot in Londonderry has sparked outrage in the province where a 1998 peace deal mostly ended three decades of sectarian violence that cost the lives of some 3,600 people.

The New IRA, one of a small number of groups that oppose the peace accord, has said one of its members shot the 29-year-old reporter dead in the Creggan area of the city on Thursday when opening fire on police during a riot McKee was watching.

The killing, which followed a large car bomb in Londonderry in January that police also blamed on the New IRA, has raised fears that small marginalized militant groups are exploiting a political vacuum in the province and tensions caused by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

Police released footage on Friday of immediately before and after the shooting showing three men who were involved in the rioting and identified one as the gunman who they believe is in his late teens. 

“I believe that the information that can help us to bring those responsible for her murder to justice lies within the community. I need the public to tell me who he is,” Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy told reporters.

Murphy said those involved in the disorder on the night were teenagers or in their early 20s, and that about 100 people were on the ground watching the trouble as it unfolded.

He added that police believed the gun used in the attack was of a similar caliber to those used before in paramilitary type attacks in Creggan. 

“I recognize that people living in Creagan may find it’s difficult to come forward to speak to police. Today, I want to provide a personal reassurance that we are able to deal with those issues sensitively,” Murphy said, echoing similar appeals in recent days.

(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson, editing by Padraic Halpin and Toby Chopra)

Source: OANN

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Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 26, 2019

By Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were flat on Friday, as investors paused ahead of GDP data, which is expected to show the world’s largest economy maintained a moderate pace of growth in the first quarter.

Gross domestic product probably increased at a 2% annualized rate in the quarter as a burst in exports, strong inventory stockpiling and government investment in public construction projects offset a slowdown in consumer and business spending, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

The Commerce Department report will be published at 8:30 a.m. ET.

The GDP data comes as investors look for fresh catalysts to push the markets higher. The S&P 500 index is about 0.5% below its record high hit in late September, after surging nearly 17% this year.

First-quarter earnings have been largely upbeat, with nearly 78% of the 178 companies that have reported so far surpassing earnings estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

Wall Street now expects S&P 500 earnings to be in line with the year-ago quarter, a sharp improvement from the 2.3% fall expected at the start of April.

Amazon.com Inc rose 0.9% in premarket trading after the e-commerce giant reported quarterly profit that doubled and beat estimates on soaring demand for its cloud and ad services.

Ford Motor Co shares surged 8.5% after the automaker posted better-than-expected first-quarter earnings largely due to strong pickup truck sales in its core U.S. market.

Mattel Inc jumped 8% after the toymaker beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue, as a more diverse range of Barbie dolls powered sales in the United States.

At 6:52 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 35 points, or 0.13%. S&P 500 e-minis were down 1.5 points, or 0.05% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 10.75 points, or 0.14%.

Among decliners, Intel Corp slumped 7.7% after it cut its full-year revenue forecast and missed quarterly sales estimate for its key data center business.

Rival Advanced Micro Devices declined 0.8%.

Oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp are expected to report results later in the day.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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General view of a destroyed building during World War II is pictured in Warsaw
General view of a destroyed building during World War II is pictured in Warsaw, Poland April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

April 26, 2019

By Joanna Plucinska

WARSAW (Reuters) – Germany could owe Poland more than $850 billion in reparations for damages it incurred during World War Two and the brutal Nazi occupation, a senior ruling party lawmaker said.

Some six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war and Warsaw was razed to the ground following a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.

Germany, one of Poland’s biggest trade partners and a fellow member of the European Union and NATO, says all financial claims linked to World War Two have been settled.

The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) has revived calls for compensation since it took power in 2015 and has made the promotion of Poland’s wartime victimhood a central plank of its appeal to nationalism.

PiS has yet to make an official demand for reparations but its combative stance towards Germany has strained relations.

“Poland lost not only millions of its citizens but it was also destroyed in an unusually brutal way,” Arkadiusz Mularczyk, who heads the Polish parliamentary committee on reparations, told Reuters in an interview.

“Many (victims) are still alive and feel deeply wronged.”

His comments come a month before European Parliament elections in which populist and nationalist parties are expected to do well. Poland will also hold national elections later this year, with PiS still well ahead of its rivals in opinion polls.

EU LARGESSE

Mularczyk said the reparations figure could amount to more than 10 times the estimated 100 billion euros ($111 billion) that Poland has received so far in European Union funds since it joined the bloc in 2004.

Germany is the biggest net donor to the EU budget and some Germans regard its contributions as generous compensation to recipient countries like Poland which suffered under Nazi rule.

In 1953 Poland’s then-communist rulers relinquished all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a Soviet satellite, from any liabilities. PiS says that agreement is invalid because Poland was unable to negotiate fair compensation.

Mularczyk said his committee hoped to complete its report on the reparations issue by Sept. 1, the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s invasion.

Accusing Berlin of playing “diplomatic games” over the issue, he said: “The matter is being swept under the rug (by Germany) … until it’ll be wiped from the memory, from people’s awareness.”

His comments come after the Greek parliament voted this month to seek billions of euros in German reparations for the Nazi occupation of their country.

(Additional reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Editing by Justyna Pawlak and Gareth Jones)

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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