Deal
FILE PHOTO: KPN logo is seen at its headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands, January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
April 26, 2019
By Bart H. Meijer and Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch telecom firm Royal KPN NV said on Friday it would select a Western supplier to build its core 5G mobile network, making it one of the first European operators to make clear it would not pick China’s Huawei for such work.
The United States has been seeking to discourage its allies from using equipment made by Huawei because of concerns that it could eventually be used for Chinese government spying. Huawei says such worries are baseless and U.S. policy is driven by economic interests.
The Hague-based KPN, the Netherlands’ largest telecom firm, said its decision took into account “the evolving assessment on the protection of vital infrastructure and the influence this may have on future Dutch policy.”
The Dutch government has not taken a decision on the issue.
KPN, which also reported on Friday slightly worse than expected first quarter core earnings of 563 million euros ($627 million), said it would still use equipment made by Huawei in some capacities.
In addition, the company announced a preliminary deal with Huawei to upgrade existing mobile telecommunications gear to make it safer. Huawei has been a key supplier to KPN in the past decade.
The Dutch government set up a task force with KPN and other major operators in the Netherlands this month to analyze the “vulnerability of 5G telecommunications networks to misuse by technology vendors … and measures needed to manage risks.”
KPN said it would use equipment made by Huawei, which it described as a world leader in radio and antenna technology, to improve security on its existing network.
“This preliminary agreement can be adjusted or reversed to align it with future Dutch government policy,” it added.
Sources told Reuters on Wednesday that Britain’s National Security Council (NSC) had decided to bar Huawei from core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core areas.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Edmund Blair)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: World Bank Group President David Malpass and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the IMF and World Bank’s 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, U.S. April 13, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan
April 26, 2019
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 40 world leaders and scores of finance officials, including International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, are gathered in Beijing for China’s second Belt and Road infrastructure summit, but the World Bank’s new president isn’t among them.
David Malpass, fresh from a senior Trump administration post at the U.S. Treasury Department, is instead making his first foreign trip as the World Bank’s leader to sub-Saharan Africa to highlight his vision for the bank’s poverty reduction and development agenda.
A World Bank spokesman said Malpass will be traveling this weekend to Madagascar, Ethiopia and Mozambique before flying to Egypt and a debt conference in Paris. Malpass has said that Africa is a key priority for the bank due to its high concentration of the world’s poorest people.
World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva, who had been acting president during the leadership selection process, is representing the institution at the summit and had accepted China’s invitation before Malpass started at the bank on April 9, the bank spokesman said.
Former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim attended China’s first Belt and Road summit two years ago.
Leaders of two of the countries on Malpass’ trip, Ethiopia and Mozambique, are among a number of African leaders also attending this year’s summit.
Malpass, who was the Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs, is a longtime critic of China’s Belt and Road lending practices and had worked to raise alarms about them with G7 and G20 countries in that role.
“In lending, China often fails to adhere to international standards in areas such as anti-corruption, export credits, and finding coordinated and sustainable solutions to payment difficulties, such as those sought in the Paris Club,” Malpass told a U.S. House Financial Services subcommittee in December.
His absence coincides with a significant downgrade of the Belt and Road summit by the United States as the Trump administration tries to negotiate a deal to resolve longstanding trade and intellectual property disputes with China — talks in which Malpass frequently participated.
No high-level U.S. officials are attending, a State Department spokesman said, citing similar concerns about Belt and Road debt.
Malpass said at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings this month that meeting the development lender’s goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 calls for a focus on Africa.
“By 2030, nearly 9 in 10 extremely poor people will be Africans, and half of the world’s poor will be living in fragile and conflict-affected settings,” he told a news conference at the meetings. “This calls for urgent action, by countries themselves, and by the global community.”
He told reporters on his first day on the job that he wanted to “evolve” the bank’s relationship with China to one where Beijing is a bigger contributor of capital and cooperates more closely with the bank on development issues and poverty reduction.
But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Malpass’ former boss, on the same day told lawmakers that the World Bank under Malpass’ leadership and a new U.S. development agency “can be a serious competitor to (China’s) Belt and Road.”
(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Jason Neely)
Source: OANN
Apr 25, 2019; Nashville, TN, USA; Devin Bush (Michigan) is selected as the number ten overall pick to the Pittsburgh Steelers and poses for a photo with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during the 2019 NFL Draft in Downtown Nashville. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
April 26, 2019
Two teams looking to dethrone the New England Patriots as kings of the AFC — the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers — joined forces Thursday night and pulled off the first trade of the 2019 NFL Draft.
The Broncos sent the 10th overall pick in the draft to the Steelers, who in turn used the pick to select Devin Bush, an inside linebacker who played at Michigan.
In return, Pittsburgh sent Denver the Nos. 20 and 52 picks in this year’s draft and a third-round pick in 2020. The Broncos used the 20th pick to select Iowa tight end Noah Fant.
According to multiple reports, the teams had been in talks about the 10th pick, but as the Broncos went on the clock, they presumed the Steelers were no longer interested in making a deal. However, in the closing minute of Denver’s allotted time to make a pick, Pittsburgh called and made the trade.
Bush will be looked upon to help address the void in production the Steelers have yet to fill since losing Ryan Shazier to a spinal injury in 2017. As a junior last season with the Wolverines, Bush had 66 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 8.5 tackles for loss and four passes defended.
According to reports, the Broncos were eyeing tight end T.J. Hockenson — Fant’s teammate at Iowa — with the 10th pick. However, Hockenson went to the Detroit Lions at No. 8.
–The Seattle Seahawks traded the 21st overall selection to the Green Bay Packers, who used the pick on safety Darnell Savage Jr. from Maryland. In return, the Seahawks got pick No. 30 plus a pair of 2019 fourth-round picks.
Savage was the first defensive back taken in a draft that initially was dominated by front-seven players and offensive linemen. Though not viewed by many prognosticators as being in the running to be the first defensive back off the board, the 5-foot-11, 200-pound Savage had at least 52 tackles in each of his final three seasons with the Terrapins. He also had seven interceptions and 10 passes defended over the last two seasons.
Savage could pair with Adrian Amos in a new-look back line for the Packers. The team signed Amos to a four-year contract this offseason after he spent his first four seasons in Chicago.
–On the very next pick, the Baltimore Ravens sent the No. 22 overall selection to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for the No. 25 overall pick as well as fourth- and sixth-round picks in this draft.
The Eagles used the pick to select offensive tackle Andre Dillard out of Washington State. He is the first offensive lineman from Washington State taken in the first round.
According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the Houston Texans targeted Dillard with the No. 23 pick, forcing the Eagles’ hand. Cornerstone tackle Jason Peters, a likely future Pro Football Hall of Fame member, is 37 and entering his 16th season.
–Field Level Media
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FILE PHOTO: A HNA Group logo is seen on the building of HNA Plaza in Beijing, China February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Jennifer Hughes and Julie Zhu
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shareholders summoned by Hong Kong Airlines this month for a meeting were greeted with some shocking news: the airline needed at least HK$2 billion in fresh funds or it would lose its operating license.
The carrier had lost HK$3 billion ($382.54 million) in 2018, they were told, and an infusion was crucial, according to people present.
Dialed in, but silent for the hour-long meeting on April 1, were executives for Hainan-based HNA Group,, which holds 29 percent of the airline’s shares.
Investors were blunt about HNA’s role in the company’s troubles, according to people at the meeting – including accusations that it was siphoning off cash, which the conglomerate denies.
“There’s no point raising fresh capital if we cannot solve the problem of (a) major shareholder pumping out HKA’s assets,” said Zhong Guosong, who holds 27 percent of the shares and is vying for chairmanship of the company.
Another shareholder echoed his views: “This is Hong Kong, not Hainan.”
In the last week, drama from the call has spilled into the open as HNA and a rival group battled for control of Hong Kong Airlines’ chairmanship. The airline declined to comment on shareholders’ activities and said its operations “remain normal.”
The infighting illustrates the convoluted nature of HNA’s holdings around the world, which range from real estate to banks and are often divided among opaque, related entities.
On paper, HNA gave up control of Hong Kong Airlines two years ago just as it began selling off assets collected in a $50 billion worldwide acquisition spree.
But the carrier has close ties with several HNA affiliates.
“HNA’s shareholding structure and how they structure investments has always been very complicated, and the HKA case isn’t any different,” said David Yu, adjunct professor of finance at New York University, Shanghai. “The issue now is that there is some distress at the parent group, and this is obviously having implications on the underlying companies, including HKA.”
HNA TANGLE
Since Beijing in 2017 began cracking down on Chinese conglomerates’ rapid debt-fuelled global expansions, HNA has sold about $26 billion in assets, according to Dealogic data and Reuters calculations.
Disposals include control of the Radisson hotel group; a quarter stake in Hilton Hotels; prime property in New York, Sydney, Shanghai, San Francisco and Hong Kong; regional Chinese airlines; a stake in aircraft lessor Avolon; and half of its stake in Deutsche Bank.
But the prices HNA has sought and the complex structures, loans and other business links that bind its holdings have made unwinding its investments difficult.
HNA’s wider Hong Kong interests are a case in point. This week, HNA-controlled CWT International said lenders had seized assets, including U.S. property and its Singapore-based commodity trading and logistics unit, because it failed to repay a HK$1.4 billion ($178 million) loan.
HNA said that it was monitoring the situation, but that it was a matter for CWT and its creditors. Yet HNA units own 51 percent of CWT’s shares, and each of CWT’s executive directors has ties to other HNA businesses. CWT’s co-chairman, Mung Kin Keung, is a shareholder in Hong Kong Airlines.
HNA’s involvement with the airline is just as complicated. The conglomerate took control of CR Airways in 2006 and renamed it Hong Kong Airlines. In July 2017 it cut its stake, according to filings, by selling 34 percent to Chinese private equity group Frontier Investment Partners.
According to Hong Kong Airlines’ 2017 accounts, seen by Reuters, the airline held shares in four unlisted HNA affiliates, worth $367 million at the end of 2017, and had loaned $300 million to two other HNA firms.
That year, the airline’s trade receivables – money owed to it but not collected – jumped 50 percent even as revenue rose only 11 percent. Of those payments due, the amount HNA companies owed the airline more than doubled to HK$1.3 billion, or 73 percent of receivables.
Zhong is closely linked with HNA as well, having been a director of the airline for almost four years until August 2018. Since 2017, he has also been chairman of Hong Kong Express, Hong Kong Airlines’ low-cost sister, which HNA recently agreed to sell to Cathay Pacific for HK$4.93 billion.
Cathay’s announcement of the deal contained a warning that an HK Express shareholder planned to contest it. That shareholder is Zhong, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the issue. They declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In a further sign that the relationship between Zhong and HNA had soured, court papers show that HNA in December sued the company through which Zhong holds his 27 percent stake in the airline, seeking repayment of a HK$854 million debt from 2010.
A representative for Zhong did not provide comment.
CONTROL DISPUTES
Since the April 1 meeting, Frontier has aligned itself with Zhong, working to appoint him chairman of the airline as part of efforts to seize control and investigate its financial ties with HNA.
Late last week they won an injunction that blocked directors and executives from removing or destroying the airline’s documents.
That followed a week in which both Zhong and airline executive Hou Wei – still listed on its website as chairman – claimed control and fought over who had access to the company’s headquarters.
Adding to the confusion, a group called Grand City Investment Capital Limited this week said it owned the Frontier stake after a transfer dated April 11.
A spokesman for Grand City declined to discuss his company’s ownership. Frontier disputes Grand City’s claim to the stake.
Frontier and Zhong have also accused HNA of “embezzlement of HKA assets and serious financial misappropriation by HNA Group parties” – accusations that HNA has denied.
They and other shareholders are still demanding access to the airline’s 2018 accounts and details of how it lost so much money before they address its HK$2 billion capital shortfall.
Amid the court orders and competing statements uncertainty remains over who is in charge – although both sides have gone to lengths to ensure the airline keeps operating normally.
“There are so many moving parts that corporate control is under dispute because the changes are happening too rapidly for the company to organize coherently,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, which focuses on China. He described HNA as “a poster child for overexpansion of China’s worst conglomerates.”
He added: “Because there is always a lack of transparency at HNA, this makes it twice as hard to figure out what the nature of the dispute is.”
(Reporting by Jennifer Hughes, Julie Zhu, Kane Wu and Alun John; Additional reporting by Shellin Li and Jamie Freed; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO – September 9, 2018; Carson, CA, USA; Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) runs the ball against the Los Angeles Chargers during the second half at StubHub Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
April 26, 2019
An explosive audio recording aired by a Kansas City television station on Thursday night reportedly includes Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill threatening his fiancée, who accused him of injuring their young son.
In the recording broadcast by CBS affiliate KCTV, a voice identified as the boy’s mother, Crystal Espinal, tells Hill that her son said regarding who punched him, “Daddy did it.” She adds, “He is terrified of you.”
A voice alleged to be Hill replies, “You need to be terrified of me, too, b—.” The man identified by the TV station as Hill adds, “I didn’t do nothing.”
Espinal reportedly made the recording as an “insurance policy” and gave it to a friend, who passed it along to the TV station, according to a report from the Kansas City Star. The 11-minute recording, reportedly taped at a Dubai airport, includes Espinal accusing Hill of using a belt on the boy, along with an accusation that “you open up his arms and you punch him in the chest.”
–The Kansas City Chiefs officially announced their acquisition of defensive end Frank Clark from the Seattle Seahawks. The team’s announcement did not mention any signing of a new contract, but it did include a photo of Clark putting pen to paper. According to multiple reports Tuesday, Clark agreed to a five-year, $105.5 million contract, with $63.5 million guaranteed, as part of the trade.
The deal, which was reported Tuesday, sent the 29th overall pick in Thursday’s first round and a 2020 second-round pick to the Seahawks. The teams also swapped 2019 third-round picks, with the Chiefs moving up eight spots from No. 92 overall to No. 84.
Clark, who turns 26 in June, was set to make $17.1 million on the franchise tag in 2019, after being tagged by the Seahawks. Clark has 35 sacks and 72 QB hits through 62 games (33 starts) over four seasons since being drafted in the second round by Seattle in 2015.
–The Houston Texans are open to trading franchise-tagged defensive end Jadeveon Clowney for the right price, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported.
The Texans tagged Clowney earlier this offseason, and various reports since have said the sides are not close to a long-term extension. They have until July 15 to agree to a new deal, or Clowney will play 2019 on the tag, which is worth $15.967 million.
Clowney, 26, has 18.5 sacks and 42 quarterback hits over the last two seasons. He is likely seeking more than $20 million annually on a contract extension.
–The Philadelphia Eagles and defensive tackle Tim Jernigan agreed to a one-year contract. The move comes after Philadelphia previously declined to pick up Jernigan’s $11 million option in March.
Jernigan, 26, played in just three games last season after undergoing offseason back surgery to repair a herniated disc.
The previous season, he was a key cog in the Eagles’ Super Bowl-winning campaign and recorded 29 tackles and 2.5 sacks in 15 games.
–The Tampa Bay Buccaneers exercised their fifth-year option on cornerback Vernon Hargreaves III.
In 2018, Hargreaves was placed on injured reserve with a season-ending shoulder injury he suffered in the season opener against the New Orleans Saints. He also ended the previous season on injured reserve.
Selected 11th overall in the 2016 draft, Hargreaves is coming off a down 2017 season that saw him post 42 tackles over nine games, missing the team’s final seven contests with a hamstring injury. He had 76 tackles, a forced fumble and an interception in his 16-game rookie season in 2016.
–Field Level Media
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FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazil’s state-run Petrobras oil company is seen on a tank in at Petrobras Paulinia refinery in Paulinia, Brazil July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
April 26, 2019
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazil’s state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro said on Thursday it had closed a $1.29 billion deal with Malaysia’s Petronas to sell 50 percent of Petrobas’ exploration and production rights in two of its offshore fields.
The deal related to the Tartaruga Verde field and Module 3 of the Espadarte field.
The deal is part of Petrobras’ divestment program, which seeks to reduce indebtedness. In its statement, the company also announced it had nearly completed the full sale of its TAG pipeline unit to France’s Engie for $8.6 billion.
“Continuous portfolio management contributes to improving the allocation of capital, thereby increasing the generation of value for our shareholders, in addition to enabling the reduction of indebtedness and cost of the company’s capital,” the company’s chief executive, Roberto Castello Branco, said in a statement.
Petrobras said that the total amount of asset divestments so far this year already amounts to $11.3 billion.
Petrobras said the value of the transaction with Petronas will be paid in two installments: $258.7 million on Thursday and $1.03 billion at the close of the transaction.
Petrobras will maintain a 50 percent stake and the operation of the fields, while Petronas will get a bigger toehold in oil production in Brazil, where it already operates in the lubricants segment.
The Tartaruga Verde field began operations on June 22 and currently produces about 103,000 barrels per day of oil and 1.2 million cubic meters per day of gas.
Module 3 is an area of the Espadarte field to be developed in an integrated way with the Tartaruga Verde and is expected to begin producing oil in 2021.
Petrobras also announced the assignment of its total participation in 34 onshore production fields to the company Potiguar E & P S.A., a subsidiary of Petrorecôncavo.
The total value of the transaction is $384.2 million to be paid in three installments.
Petrorecôncavo, which presented the second best offer of the tender process, was selected after the disqualification of the company 3R Petroleum.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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FILE PHOTO: Tesla CEO Elon Musk leaves Manhattan federal court after a hearing on his fraud settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday sought a second delay and requested to provide the court another joint submission on or before April 30, indicating whether they have reached an agreement to settle a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter, both parties said in a court filing.
The SEC in February sought to have Musk found in contempt of a fraud settlement last year after the CEO tweeted details about Tesla production numbers that were not vetted by the electric vehicle company’s attorneys.
Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan ordered Musk and the SEC to try to resolve the dispute on their own. The parties have already requested one extension.
The SEC sued Musk last year for making fraudulent statements after he tweeted on Aug. 7 that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share. The parties later settled and Musk agreed to step down as chairman and have the company’s lawyers pre-approve written communications, including tweets with material information about the company. Musk’s lawyers have argued that the February tweet did not contain new information that was material to investors.
(Reporting by Alexandria Sage in San Francisco, Brendan Pierson in New York and Rishika Chatterjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Leslie Adler)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Shipping containers are seen at a port in Shanghai, China July 10, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song
April 26, 2019
By Shrutee Sarkar
BENGALURU (Reuters) – Major central banks are done tightening policy, according to a majority of economists polled by Reuters, with the growth outlook wilting across developed and emerging economies along with scant prospects for a surge in inflation.
While that is largely reflected in bond markets, with major sovereign bond yields falling this year, global equities have rallied, and the S&P 500 index is near record highs after its best start this year in more than three decades.
One striking conclusion from the latest surveys of over 500 economists from around the world, covering more than 40 economies, was not just a toning down of the economic outlook, but a clear shift away from long-held optimistic views.
Although economists who answered an additional question were split on whether a deeper global economic downturn was more likely than a synchronized rebound, this year’s growth outlook was downgraded or left unchanged for 38 of the countries polled.
“The recent weakness of global growth will persist for much longer than is commonly assumed. A dovish turn by central banks and stimulus in China will not be enough to boost world GDP growth from its current slow pace,” noted Jennifer McKeown, head of global economics at Capital Economics.
“Disappointing economic performance will leave inflation very low and cause monetary policy to be loosened almost across the board. But we do not see this prompting any meaningful recovery until 2021.”
Global growth was forecast to average 3.4 percent this year, the lowest since polling began for 2019 almost two years ago. The most optimistic prediction was also more modest than at the start of the year.
The 2020 forecast held at 3.4 percent, the joint lowest since Reuters began polling on it.
However, the 2019 consensus was a touch higher than the International Monetary Fund’s latest view of 3.3 percent.
The risk of an escalation of the U.S.-China trade war and prospects of Britain exiting the European Union without a deal – two of the more prominent threats that initially drove the current slowdown – have eased.
Yet most major central banks have been hinting at a move away from hiking rates, and nearly 60 percent of more than 200 economists who answered a separate question said they were confident the global tightening cycle was over.
On Thursday, the Bank of Japan dispelled any doubt about its commitment to ultra-loose policies and Sweden’s central bank said a forecast interest rate hike would come slightly later than it had planned.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is done raising rates until at least the end of next year, with about a third of economists polled predicting at least one rate cut by then.
With euro zone economic growth and inflation prospects dimming, the European Central Bank may have missed its opportunity to raise rates before the next downturn.
“The ECB blames the euro zone weakness on a slowdown in China and concerns about the trade war. The Fed, meanwhile, pointed the finger to Europe and China as the main drags on U.S. growth. But with everyone looking across the border for a scapegoat, someone must inevitably be watching the wrong space,” noted Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank.
“One could speculate that the central banks are pointing the finger just because they have little confidence that their actions are effective.”
Growth forecasts for developed economies – including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Britain, Japan, Australia, the United States and Canada – for this year and next weakened.
It was not very different for emerging market economies, despite efforts from policymakers to boost sluggish growth.
Economic growth in major economies from Asia to Africa to Latin America was predicted to lose more momentum.
Although India is still expected to be the fastest-growing major economy, growth predictions were lowered compared with the previous poll.
“Looser fiscal and monetary policy should help to cushion the impact of weaker export demand on growth in emerging Asia. Nevertheless, regional growth this year is still likely to slow to its weakest rate in a decade,” added Capital Economics’ McKeown.
(Analysis and additional reporting by Indradip Ghosh in Bengaluru; Polling and reporting by the Reuters Polls team in Bengaluru and bureaus in Shanghai, Tokyo, London, Milan, Paris, Oslo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Toronto, Brasilia, Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Caracas and Santiago; Editing by Ross Finley and Hugh Lawson)
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, Russia in this undated photo released on April 25, 2019 by North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA via REUTERS
April 25, 2019
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, during his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said peace and security on the Korean peninsula will entirely depend on the future U.S. attitude, state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Friday.
Kim’s remarks are seen as keeping pressure on the U.S. to be “more flexible” in accepting Pyongyang’s demands to ease sanctions, compared to the U.S. stance during the collapsed second U.S.-North Korea summit in February in Hanoi, as he said earlier this month.
Kim said at the time he will wait “till the end of this year” for the United States to change its mind.
“The situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point where it may return to its original state as the U.S. took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-U.S. summit talks,” KCNA reported Kim saying, using North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kim invited Putin to North Korea at a convenient time and Putin accepted, KCNA said.
The first face-to-face talks between Putin and Kim, held on an island off the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok on Thursday, did not appear to have yielded any major breakthrough.
The two leaders had an in-depth discussion on the ways for the two countries to promote the strategic communication and tactical collaboration in the course of ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region, KCNA said.
Putin said afterward he thought a deal on Pyongyang’s nuclear program was possible and that the way to get there was to move forward step-by-step in order to build trust.
But any U.S. guarantees might need to be supported by the other nations involved in previous six-way talks on the nuclear issue, Putin said, which was seen as an attempt to use the summit to strengthen Russia’s diplomatic clout as a global player.
Both Russia and North Korea agreed to take positive measures in several fields in order to further cooperate in trade, economy, science and technology, KCNA said.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Chris Reese)
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A Los Angeles business owner says she is at her wits’ end as local streets are piled with garbage and flooded with “raw sewage” by homeless people and squatters while lawmakers turn a blind eye.
Karen Hix, a lifelong resident of the area whose family has owned a business in the same location for over 100 years, says transients are being allowed to create a “health crisis” by officials in the sanctuary city.
Hix’s plight caught the eye of Tucker Carlson, who invited her onto his show to discuss the decay of her neighborhood and share photos of the filth.
“Some of these pictures are almost too disgusting to put on the screen, but we have a number of them of RVs – people are living those full-time?” Carlson asked.
“Yes, people are living in them full-time,” Hix confirmed. “You’ll notice there is raw sewage that is coming out. This raw sewage ends up in one place – in our gutters, which go down to our ocean. It’s more than an environmental crisis, it’s a health crisis down in this area.”
“I have reached out to our councilperson, Councilman [Curren] Price; I’ve reach out to Mayor [Eric] Garcetti, and as of today, they have not contacted me.”
A shocked Carlson asked Nix how someone such as Garcetti, who lives in Los Angeles, could not notice his city is falling apart.
“I would love to have a discussion about how, ‘You have invited them here to live on our streets and our sidewalks by disregarding the laws that are actually in place and not letting our law enforcement actually enforce these laws, so now you need to deal with what this has brought’ – that’s what I would love to say to them,” Hix responded, alluding to the city’s ‘sanctuary status’ for illegal aliens and vagrants.
Interestingly, the aforementioned Councilman Curren Price was recently awarded the 2018 “Champion for Change” award by the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), in recognition of his work on behalf of “immigrant families” residing in the district.
“Councilman Price partnered with CARECEN from 2017-2018 to provide FREE legal service and filing fee assistance to individuals and families living in CD 9,” touts Price’s website. “The program helped nearly 600 South LA neighbors with their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and citizenship applications.”
California officially declared itself a ‘sanctuary state’ in January, 2018.
Owen Shroyer satirically announces California’s passage of ‘The New Gangrene Deal’ in light of exploding homeless populations across the state.
Dan Lyman: Follow @CitizenAnalyst
Source: InfoWars
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