Deficit
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Apr 8, 2019; Kansas City, MO, USA; Seattle Mariners designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion (10) hits a three run home run in the sixth inning against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
April 9, 2019
Edwin Encarnacion hit a pair of home runs in the sixth inning, and the visiting Seattle Mariners scored eight times in the frame to earn a 13-5 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Monday.
The Mariners have scored five or more runs in 11 of their first 12 games and became the first team in the major leagues to win 10 games.
Encarnacion became the first major-leaguer to hit two home runs in an inning in almost three years. Mark Trumbo of the Los Angeles Angels did in on April 15, 2016, at Texas. Seattle also got homers from Daniel Vogelbach, Dylan Moore and Jay Bruce.
Roenis Elias (1-0) picked up the win, pitching three scoreless, hitless innings of relief. Royals starter Homer Bailey (0-1) gave up seven runs on eight hits, including three home runs, in five-plus innings.
Orioles 12, A’s 4
Jonathan Villar homered and had four RBIs while Cedric Mullins tripled twice and drove in three as Baltimore defeated visiting Oakland.
While most of the Orioles were enjoying a big offensive night, it was the opposite for Baltimore’s Chris Davis. He set a major league record for the longest hitless streak by a position player, going 0-for-5 to leave him 0-for-49 dating back to last year. Eugenio Velez had the previous record of 0-for-46.
Trey Mancini hit a solo homer in the first inning, and Mullins delivered a two-run triple in the second while scoring on a throwing error on the same play to give Baltimore an early 4-0 lead. The early margin helped the Orioles stop a four-game losing streak.
Cubs 10, Pirates 0
Ben Zobrist and Kyle Schwarber each drove in two runs, and Chicago rode a six-run second inning to a victory over Pittsburgh in the home opener at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs’ second win in eight games came with a caveat, as starter Jon Lester left during the third inning because of left hamstring tightness. Lester struck out four, walked one and gave up three hits in two-plus innings before four relievers combined to finish Chicago’s first shutout.
Brad Brach (1-0), who replaced Lester, gave up one hit in two innings. Pittsburgh starter Jameson Taillon (0-2), who gave up six unearned runs and four hits, left after two innings and will be re-evaluated after he took at least a glancing blow to the head on a comebacker by Anthony Rizzo.
Braves 8, Rockies 6
Ronald Acuna Jr. hit his third home run of the season to spark Atlanta past Colorado in Denver.
Acuna was 2-for-3, scored three runs and hit a two-run homer in the first inning to help give the Braves their sixth win in the past seven games. Dansby Swanson drove in three runs, and Nick Markakis was 3-for-4 with two RBIs for Atlanta.
Braves starter Julio Teheran (1-1) pitched five innings and allowed six runs, all coming in his last inning. The struggling Atlanta bullpen closed the game with four scoreless innings, handing the Rockies their fourth straight loss and their eighth defeat in the past nine games.
Astros 4, Yankees 3
Robinson Chirinos hit a two-run, game-tying double in the seventh inning, and Carlos Correa drove in the go-ahead run an inning later as Houston rallied for a victory over visiting New York.
Chirinos drove home Yuli Gurriel and Tyler White with his two-out double off the wall in front of the Houston bullpen, striking his blow against Yankees left-hander Zack Britton, who surrendered a leadoff single to Correa after entering in relief of starter Masahiro Tanaka.
The Astros stretched their winning streak to four games. Ryan Pressly (1-0) earned the win with a perfect eighth inning before Roberto Osuna notched his third save with a six-pitch ninth.
Angels 5, Brewers 2
Mike Trout did not hit a home run for the first time in five games, but he did steal a home run from reigning National League MVP Christian Yelich, helping Los Angeles extend its winning streak to four games with a win over Milwaukee at Anaheim, Calif.
Trout had at least one homer in four consecutive games (five total), but Brewers pitchers were able to keep him in the ballpark. Trout went 0-for-2 (strikeout, lineout) with two walks. He made up for it with his defense, reaching above the fence in left-center in the third inning to rob Yelich of what would have been his sixth homer of the year.
The Angels got a two-run homer from Tommy La Stella, a solo homer from Andrelton Simmons and a two-run blast by Justin Bour. Yelich wound up 2-for-4 with two singles.
Padres 6, Giants 5
Franmil Reyes capped a San Diego rally with a pinch-hit, two-run home run in the seventh inning as the visiting Padres overcame a five-run deficit and a Kevin Pillar grand slam to overtake San Francisco.
Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wil Myers also homered for the Padres, who had won three in a row before losing the finale of a series at St. Louis on Sunday.
The Giants, who have lost all three of their series this season, staked Madison Bumgarner to a five-run lead in the fourth inning. However, the ace left-hander wound up allowing five runs in six innings.
Phillies 4, Nationals 3
Rhys Hoskins hit two solo homers, including the tiebreaker on a full-count pitch in the last of the sixth, and Philadelphia beat visiting Washington.
Hoskins added an insurance run in eighth with a homer off Justin Miller to make it 4-2. It was the fourth multi-homer game of Hoskins’ career.
The first homer came off Anibal Sanchez (0-1), who was making his second start for the Nationals after coming over from the Atlanta Braves. He gave up seven hits and three runs in 5 2/3 innings with six strikeouts and two walks.
Rays 5, White Sox 1
Blake Snell allowed one run in six innings, and Tampa Bay continued to match its best start in franchise history with a win at Chicago. Snell (2-1) gave up six hits while striking out 11 and walking none.
Willy Adames had three hits, a walk and scored two runs in the No. 9 spot, and Avisail Garcia, Daniel Robertson and Yandy Diaz had two hits each for Tampa Bay, which has won eight of its first 11 games for the second time in team history.
Coming into the game, Tampa Bay starting pitchers had not allowed a run in their past 31 innings, and Snell had thrown eight straight shutout innings. He ran that streak to 12 before Jose Rondon hit a solo homer in the fifth to make it 4-1.
Cardinals 4, Dodgers 3
Marcell Ozuna lined a two-run homer, and Paul Goldschmidt scored the decisive run on a wild pitch as St. Louis beat visiting Los Angeles.
Jose Martinez added a run-scoring single as St. Louis halted the Dodgers’ five-game winning streak. Los Angeles didn’t trail for 42 innings until the Cardinals moved ahead in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas (1-1) gave up three runs and five hits over six innings. He struck out three and walked one. John Gant pitched two hitless innings, and Jordan Hicks finished up for his second save.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Asad Umar gestures during a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, November 30, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood/File Photo
April 8, 2019
By Asif Shahzad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani Finance Minister Asad Umar urged people to declare their assets for a new tax amnesty, a scheme he denounced last year as legitimizing ill-gotten wealth, in a bid to identify high earners for more efficient tax collection in future.
The offer is a desperate attempt to broaden the government’s revenue base in a country where barely one percent of the adult population pay taxes.
The amnesty is due to take effect before the annual budget in May, which is going to be the first biggest challenge for the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Economists say the budget is likely to reveal the biggest ever fiscal deficit, with revenue collection facing a shortfall of nearly 500 billion rupees ($3.54 billion).
“Whenever this scheme is announced, it is my brotherly advice to all of my friends that please avail yourselves of it,” Umar said in an address in Islamabad. “Don’t complain later.”
He said the scheme was a last chance before cracking down on tax avoiders.
“Our capacity to track down those who don’t pay their due taxes is becoming far better than the past,” he said.
Khan’s predecessor, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of the opposition’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party, declared one such amnesty in April last year.
Both Khan and Umar ran a tirade against the scheme, which they said was only a way to legalize ill gotten and looted wealth, promising that they would arrest all those who benefited.
Successive governments have promised to rein in tax evasion and boost revenues but have faced fierce resistance to change, including from the many politicians and businessmen believed to be among those dodging payment.
Under Abbasi’s plan, all Pakistanis were invited to declare their unreported income and assets and bring their money into the tax base after paying a 5 percent one-off penalty and those living overseas would pay a 2 per cent one-time fine.
Pakistan’s nearly $300 billion economy faces a ballooning current account deficit and depleting foreign reserves.
After securing loans from friendly countries like China, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, Pakistan is in talks with the International Monetary Fund over a 13th bailout since the 1980s which is expected in the next few weeks.
“The crisis period is over and now we’re heading toward seeking stability,” Umar said.
(Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Source: OANN
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One month after the Democratic National Committee declared it would not partner with Fox News for its presidential primary debates, leading candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he would participate in an April 15 Fox News town hall. Those on the left who don’t want Fox to be treated as a legitimate news outlet quickly voiced their disapproval.
Carolyn Fiddler, communications director of Daily Kos, which organized a successful petition calling for the DNC to deny Fox’s requests to host presidential debates, told the Associated Press, “I don’t know why he would lend his considerable presence to a network that routinely pushes sexist and racist tropes about progressives and his supporters.” Katherine Krueger, managing editor of the progressive Splinter News — who likes Sanders because he makes “the right people irrationally angry” — urged him to reconsider: “The ones who are already tuned into Fox News when that town hall starts aren’t going to move an inch on this pinko socialist.”
Sanders is correct to ignore the naysayers, though perhaps not for the reasons he’s offered.Defending his decision on “The Daily Show,” Sanders said going on Fox News will help flip Donald Trump voters: “I think it is important to talk to those people and say, ‘You know what? I know that many of you voted for Donald Trump, but he lied to you. He told you, for example, he was going to provide health care to all people; now he wants to throw 30 million people off the health care that they had. He told you that he was going to give tax reform that would not benefit the wealthy; 83% of the benefits go to the top 1%.’ I think it is important to talk to Trump supporters and explain to them to what degree he has betrayed the working class of this country and lied during his campaign.”
This is pretty naïve, if not delusional. Though Sanders is correct that the president has, sporadically and inconsistently, tacked left on health care and taxes, Trump’s signature issue has always been restricting immigration. Sanders won’t be saying anything on Fox that will change the average Trump voter’s mind on that score.
Furthermore, as the shift toward Democrats in the 2018 House election indicates, anyone who voted for Trump on the grounds that he would expand access to health care and slap new taxes on the wealthy doesn’t need Bernie Sanders to inform them that didn’t happen.
Sanders’ youngest rival, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, had a somewhat more plausible argument for appearing on Fox News himself: “There are so many viewers who may never hear what our party has to say at all, if we’re never going on [Fox News] and explaining what we believe.” This may seem fruitless, if you assume that every Fox viewer is an immovable, blindly loyal right-wing Republican. But in a 2014 study of media consumption by the Pew Research Center, Fox was the third-most popular news source among people with “mixed” ideological views, and for those “mostly liberal,” it came in fourth.
Granted, that doesn’t translate into big portions of the Fox audience. Only 8% of the “mixed” audience and 5% of the “mostly liberal” audience cited Fox as their main news source. Still, these numbers are not zero. Considering that Democrats would have won the White House in 2016 if they flipped 80,000 votes in three Rust Belt states, they can’t be picky about where they go to hunt down hard-to-reach swing voters.
But while going out of one’s way to reach those voters for the general election makes sense, the Fox News audience is not a treasure-trove of voters that Democrats need to win the presidential primary. So what’s the point of going on Fox at this stage of the process?
The answer is: Democratic primary voters should get the opportunity to see how their candidates deal with questions from a conservative perspective, even if they are loaded with unfair right-wing talking points.
After all, the eventual nominee is not going to run in a vacuum. She or he will face plenty of sharp attacks from the right, and how well Democrats respond says a lot about how viable they would be in November 2020.
In criticizing Sanders’ decision, Splinter News’ Krueger said, “I’m willing to bet serious money that this ends up being a whole bunch of pointed questions about the Green New Deal, about why Sanders wants to take away the private insurance we all love so much, and about some newspaper column he wrote decades ago, with a question about the deficit thrown in for good measure.”
We should hope so! If Sanders doesn’t have good responses to pointed questions about his democratic socialist agenda, maybe his agenda isn’t ready for prime time. If he does, then he has an even stronger case to make why he should be the nominee and why his agenda should be enacted.
The questions for Sanders will likely be pointed, but not nasty. The moderators for town hall won’t be Trump boosters Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson; they will be straight-news anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. As Sanders reminded “The Daily Show” viewers, he did a Fox News town hall in 2016 with Baier, who “did it straightforwardly. Believe me, we went over the ground rules beforehand and they kept their word.”
That town hall, which was coupled with one for Hillary Clinton, made news because — unlike in the 2016 Democratic debates to date — Baier asked a question about abortion. And it was a question that reflected the interests of socially conservative Fox News viewers: “Can you name a single circumstance at any point in a pregnancy in which you would be okay with abortion being illegal?” After Sanders did not name one, Baier followed up by suggesting “there are some Democrats who say after five months, with the exception of the life of the mother or the health of the baby, that perhaps that’s something to look at.”
This was a heavily slanted phrasing of the question. Democrats weren’t the ones pushing constitutionally questionable abortion bans after 20 weeks, without any exemptions for the health of the mother. Republicans were. To assign that view to “some Democrats” makes the pro-choice position seem extreme.
But guess what? Candidates can be asked questions by journalists, and even voters, with unfair wording. You may not believe this, but sometimes a candidate’s opponent levels attacks in an unfair manner. Politics is not always fair! A strong presidential contender needs the skills to turn such questions and attacks to his or her advantage. What better way for a Democratic candidate to show off those skills by tackling, head-on, questions with a conservative skew?
Democrats may not want to legitimize Fox News. But no amount of shunning is going to make it go away. The Democratic nominee will have to function in a world in which Fox exists and conservative talking points are well amplified. Keeping the Democratic presidential candidates coddled in a partisan cocoon during the primary is not going to prepare the eventual primary winner for what is to come.
A farmer harvests a sugar beet field in Puits-la-Vallee, northern France, November 17, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
April 8, 2019
By Maytaal Angel
LONDON (Reuters) – Spot sugar prices in the European Union are recovering from last year’s record lows as world prices languish, prompting a pick-up in imports to one of the few global regions where output is slumping.
The EU sugar market is restructuring, with Europe’s biggest sugar refiner Suedzucker planning to shut five plants next season in a bid to combat overproduction, which soared in 2017/18 after the EU scrapped output and export quotas.
Spot EU white sugar prices were at 422 euros ($474) a tonne in late March, according to price provider S&P Global Platts, while global white sugar prices on ICE are currently at around $330 a tonne, not far off the 2018 decade low of $307.50.
(Graphic: EU versus global white sugar prices – https://tmsnrt.rs/2WKQfre)
The rise in spot EU prices is not captured in official European Commission data, which shows average prices at end-January at 312 euros a tonne based on invoices paid by buyers who booked their purchases at the start of the season.
“Commission price data is lagged. At sugar conferences at the moment people talk of low European prices, but in the real world prices have firmed up quite a bit and should continue to do so,” said John Stansfield, a sugar analyst at Group Sopex.
The rise in prices follows a poor EU harvest that has left output for the 2018/19 season at around 18 million tonnes, down some 3 million tonnes from 2017/18. The 2019/20 EU harvest is also seen at around 18 million tonnes following reduced beet plantings.
EU sugar stocks meanwhile slumped to 12.7 million tonnes at the end of January from 15.2 million a year earlier, European Commission data shows.
(Graphic: EU sugar stocks – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CUZYDQ)
“The EU market is gradually turning into a balanced situation, which is encouraging. Nobody is making money at these prices,” said Julian Price, consultant at julianprice.com and former trader at ED&F Man.
Suedzucker, which plans to reduce output by 700,000 tonnes per year starting next season, expects to make another operating loss in its sugar segment of 200-300 million euros in 2019/20. France’s Tereos, the world’s second-largest sugar maker, expects a full-year loss for 2018/19.
Agritel analyst Francois Thaury said the EU spot price rise was for now hurting regional sugar makers, many of which sold forward expecting a bumper crop and have been left scrambling for spot supplies to fill sales obligations.
They should eventually benefit, he said, but noted that EU sugar imports were also rising, meaning prices were capped and could come off the boil.
Sugar imports into the EU were at 163,000 tonnes in January, around double the year-earlier level, European Commission data shows. Although the imports are capped by a tariff regime, allocated tariff-free flows can still work to cool the market.
(Graphic: EU sugar imports – https://tmsnrt.rs/2WOOs4D)
For the non-EU market, reduced output in a key consuming region such as Europe comes as welcome relief to exporters scrambling for new markets.
Analysts expect the global sugar market to record a deficit of 1.9 million tonnes in 2019/20, but following years of surplus, stockpiles are plentiful, keeping prices stubbornly range-bound near decade lows.
(Graphic: World sugar market balance – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CWQVCh)
(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; Editing by Nigel Hunt and Dale Hudson)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: People walk past by AK Party billboards with pictures of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and mayoral candidate Binali Yildirim in Istanbul, Turkey, April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer/File Photo
April 8, 2019
By Ali Kucukgocmen and Jonathan Spicer
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan’s losses in local elections have dented investors’ hopes that Turkey will adopt painful reforms they say are needed to stabilize the economy as he moves to shore up his political base.
Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP), in power nationally since 2002, lost control of the capital Ankara and the business hub Istanbul in the March 31 polls, initial results showed. The AKP has demanded recounts in both cities.
Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogan’s son-in-law, is expected this week to announce to jittery foreign investors the structural reforms he hopes will revive an economy plagued by high inflation and a fragile currency. State-owned Anadolu news agency said the announcement would be on Wednesday.
After a currency crisis last year that saw the lira lose nearly 30 percent of its value, economists say Turkey needs to make long-term commitments to increase exports, relieve debt-laden companies and free up the central bank to do its job.
Erdogan, who campaigned hard ahead of the vote, said on election night the AKP would now refocus on the economy.
But many analysts are skeptical about the chances for a comprehensive reform plan, especially after the elections, and fear the AKP will opt instead for short-term stimulus measures that fail to tackle, and may even exacerbate, deeper weaknesses.
“The AKP base want more pro-growth measures, they want more fiscal measures, they want lower inflation. It is exactly what they (the AKP) did before the elections and it will have to continue if (Erdogan) wants to remain popular,” said Guillaume Tresca, senior emerging markets strategist at Credit Agricole.
“I would not expect concrete reforms, it will be just words.”
BOOM AND BUST
At the heart of Turkey’s economic malaise is years of cheap foreign funding that drove a construction-driven boom. Once the lira collapsed, firms could not pay off debts and that exposed their lenders and employees to default and bankruptcy.
As the economy tipped into recession last year, the lira stabilized and inflation dipped a bit from a 15-year high of 25 percent, offering some relief.
But a series of ad hoc measures have stoked investors’ concerns that Turkey is not fully committed to letting its currency float freely or to allowing the central bank to keep interest rates high – at 24 percent since September – for as long as needed to bring inflation down from 20 percent.
To help hard-pressed Turks this year, the government launched discount fruit and vegetable stands and extended tax cuts on some goods. To tackle a lira meltdown last month, it ordered banks to choke off lira funding to a London foreign-exchange market and tapped into central bank reserves.
“It looks like the Erdogan instinct is to survive,” said Nihat Bulent Gultekin, a former Turkish central bank governor and now a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I don’t think they have any long-term objectives. It would require a constant focus on the economy for an extended period of time.”
HARD TO SWALLOW
Albayrak has given few details of the coming reforms, saying only that they would address a wide range of issues.
The lira has settled down in recent days after its pre-election volatility and analysts say Albayrak’s reforms will help determine whether volatility returns.
“The market expects concrete measures to address economic imbalances accompanied by a specific timetable,” said Piotr Matys, emerging markets forex strategist at Rabobank.
Moody’s said “the credibility and effectiveness” of reforms will be key to Turkey’s credit profile, which the ratings agency downgraded in August. “There is a risk that the government will embark on even more expensive stimulus programs as it begins to recognize the extent of the economic downturn,” it said.
Investors and economists say Ankara needs a plan to recapitalize banks dealing with corporate restructuring and non-performing loans, which could more than double this year.
It should also boost competitive export sectors such as auto and textile manufacturing in order to lower its annual current account deficit, which leaves the economy reliant on speculative foreign inflows, they say.
“We need to provide the right training and the right subsidies to the right sectors,” Selva Demiralp, professor at Istanbul’s Koc University. The reforms would take time and “there will be a price to pay because when the production structure is changing some people will be unemployed,” she said.
That may be hard to swallow for Erdogan and Turks in general who would not welcome a recession that lasts beyond the second half of 2019, when economists currently expect a return to growth. Unemployment has already risen above 13 percent.
Although an unlikely option for Erdogan, who has repeatedly said Turkey does not need the International Monetary Fund, Matys of Rabobank said the reforms should ideally be overseen by the IMF to restore investor confidence.
“A PowerPoint presentation (by Albayrak) with slides claiming that the economy is rebalancing quickly and a few bullet points may not prove sufficient to restore confidence among investors,” he said.
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen and Jonathan Spicer; Additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A worker monitors a process inside the plant at the copper refinery of Codelco Ventanas in Ventanas city, Chile January 7, 2015. REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido/File Photo
April 7, 2019
By Zandi Shabalala and Ernest Scheyder
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Global copper producers are converging in Chile this week as tightening supply buoys prices, even as the industry grapples with declining ore quality, project delays and worries the U.S-China trade war may hit long-term demand.
Despite these challenges, the industry is planning for substantial growth in the next decade thanks to an expected boom in production of electric vehicles, which use twice as much copper as internal combustion engines. Automakers are vowing to produce all-electric fleets.
With all that in mind, hundreds of investors, executives, analysts and regulators are gathering in Santiago, the Chilean capital, for the annual World Copper Conference.
“From a numbers perspective we have a deficit in copper, and it’s expected to be a tighter market in 2019 relative to last year,” said Eleni Joannides, a copper market analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
(For a graphic on ‘LME cash copper price’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2Vr2Qzw)
Relatively upbeat commodity prices since January have lifted producers such as Freeport-McMoRan Inc, Antofagasta Plc, BHP and Anglo American Plc out of the doldrums and presented them with a new problem: the hunt for high-quality assets at a time of geo-political uncertainty.
LME cash copper is expected to average $6,397 a tonne this year, a Reuters poll of 30 analysts shows, slightly lower than $6,437 on Friday.
“I think we’re heading into a bull market for copper,” said Jefferies mining analyst Christopher LaFemina.
A lack of new supply and steady demand this year for the metal, widely used in power and construction, should keep the 25-million-tonne market in a slight deficit and support prices, analysts said.
The industry is moving to bring new supply online, but it will take time. Freeport, the world’s largest publicly traded copper producer, cut its 2019 output forecast at Indonesia’s Grasberg mines by more than half as it transitions to underground operations, a costly process that will take years.
But Freeport, BHP, Nevada Copper Corp and other miners are spending more than $1.1 billion to develop fresh copper projects in the United States, a country once seen as a laggard in the global mining industry.
Panama, not historically associated with a large mining industry, is also seeing investment dollars. First Quantum Minerals Ltd plans to spend $327 million to expand a copper mine, with the goal of increasing production by 375,000 tonnes annually within five years.
(For a graphic on ‘Exchange stocks for copper’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2VmZbmd)
Tightening supply this year was Freeport, due in part to the Grasberg mine plan, while miner Glencore halved its 2019 output from its Mutanda copper and cobalt mine in Democratic Republic of Congo to 100,000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, global visible inventory in the form of combined stocks held by the London Metal Exchange, Comex and the Shanghai Futures Exchange have nearly halved from a year ago to around 500,000 tonnes, data from the exchanges show.
(For a graphic on ‘Mining companies vs. Copper price’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2Vs3xJ8)
Analysts said this has helped boost sentiment in copper and some other metals, which had been held down by the U.S-China trade dispute and hiccups in economic growth of top consumer China where stimulus has been promised.
Copper is one of the metals that will benefit the most from an expected boom in the use of electrical vehicles, but significant demand for the low-emission automobiles is expected to only ramp up in the middle of 2020’s.
Roskill expects sales of electric vehicles powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries to rise to 17 million units, or 20 percent of the total, in 2025, and 32 million, or 37 percent, by 2030 compared with 3 percent, or 2.1 million, last year.
Still, some copper executives are concerned that aluminum may try to supplant copper’s role in electronic equipment in the near future. Aluminum is a cheaper alternative to conduct electricity, although less efficient.
A large portion of the weeklong conference is devoted to research presentations from industry scientists studying new applications for the red metal, part of a plan to go on the offense against aluminum.
(For a graphic on ‘Copper market deficit’ click https://tmsnrt.rs/2VoIGq5)
(Reporting by Zandi Shabalala and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Veronica Brown, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Italian Economy Minister Giovanni Tria shake hands during a final vote on Italy’s 2019 budget law at the Lower House of the Parliament in Rome, Italy, December 29, 2018. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo
April 7, 2019
By Gavin Jones and Giuseppe Fonte
ROME (Reuters) – Italy will probably raise its 2020 budget deficit goal to around 2.1 percent of gross domestic product when it publishes new targets this week, three government sources told Reuters, and the figure could be hiked again after the summer.
Italy, whose public debt is proportionally the highest in the euro zone after Greece’s, is struggling to hold its finances in check while keeping costly promises made by the populist ruling coalition.
The new forecasts will be presented in the annual Economic and Financial Document (DEF) due to be issued by Wednesday, which sets the framework for the 2020 budget.
The current 2020 deficit target, set in December, is 1.8 percent of GDP, down from 2.04 percent this year, but a recent economic downturn means both years will have to be revised up.
Next year’s GDP growth will be trimmed to just below 1 percent from the current forecast of 1.1 percent, two of the sources said. They asked not to be named because they are not authorized to talk about the DEF.
The numbers in the DEF will not be finalised before the end of ongoing talks between the ruling coalition of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League.
The government will update its targets again in September, when it will have to find a way to avoid some 23 billion euros ($25.81 billion) of hikes in sales tax scheduled to take effect in 2020, but which the ruling parties have promised to scrap.
Claudio Borghi, the League’s economics spokesman, suggested last month the government might cancel the sales tax hikes simply by increasing public borrowing, which would raise the deficit above the EU’s 3 percent of GDP ceiling.
This is sure to be resisted by Economy Minister Giovanni Tria, an academic who is not a member of either ruling party.
Promised tax cuts, championed in particular by the League, add to Tria’s difficulties in keeping a lid on the deficit.
The government will gradually lower income tax and simplify the system by reducing the number of tax bands from five to two, and cut the company tax rate to 20 percent, according to a draft National Reform Programme seen by Reuters, which will be published alongside the DEF.
This year’s GDP growth forecast will be probably be cut to 0.3 percent or 0.4 percent from 1.0 percent, and the deficit will be raised to around 2.3 percent, Reuters reported on April 3, citing government sources.
The DEF will attempt to set the public debt on a declining path from last year’s record of 132.1 percent of GDP, Tria said last week, though the economic slowdown makes the task harder.
On Tuesday statistics bureau ISTAT will issue revised debt figures for 2018 and 2017, which are expected to show an even higher debt-to-GDP ratio.
($1 = 0.8913 euros)
(Writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Source: OANN
They became notable presidential candidates in Iowa after narrow losses that nonetheless put them on the national political stage. They’re competing for some of the same young voters. And this weekend, they’ve been driving around this first-in-the-nation caucus state reintroducing themselves to voters as others in the 2020 Democratic field dispersed to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
It’s been Bernie versus Beto all weekend in Iowa, with both hopefuls reintroducing themselves as the man with a plan to deny President Donald Trump a second term. Sanders swept back into the state as the early front runner after raising $18 million in 41 days during the first quarter of the year, the most of any candidate. O’Rourke raised $9.4 million in 18 days.
In dueling rallies, town halls and house parties, they spoke most of improving health care and affording college tuition.
Other hopefuls fanned out to political hot spots elsewhere, with much the same mission: Gauging early strength in a crowded field and raising enough money to secure a coveted spot in the presidential debates that begin in June.
Republican leaders have relished the jockeying among Democrats.
“I’d be happy with any of ’em, to be honest,” the president said of the Democratic derby.
Here’s a roundup of the crowded Democratic campaign.
Iowa Democrats know Sanders, the Vermont senator who lost the state — and the Democratic presidential nomination — to Hillary Clinton in 2016. At two town halls in counties he won during that caucus fight, Sanders’ questioners asked most about making health care more affordable.
Over and over, people told Sanders grim stories about medical bills putting them deeply in debt. He empathized, at one point putting an arm around a young woman who had begun weeping as she spoke. Sanders told his audience that he supports “Medicare for All” and a single-payer health care system. But he didn’t get into specifics.
Shannon Abel, a 28-year-old coordinator at a nonprofit organization in Muscatine, Iowa, said she still liked what she heard from Sanders. Then again, she had only begun seriously paying attention to politics after nearly a year of being ill and seeing the medical bills — with an $80 co-pay — put her family deeply in debt.
Of Sanders, Abel said, “He knows what it’s like to not have money.”
O’Rourke is calling for a range of educational changes to alleviate college debt, including providing free community college and allowing students to potentially eliminate or refinance their debt through public service.
“The cost of higher education, and not just tuition . is out of reach for so many of our fellow Americans,” O’Rourke told a crowd gathered for a campaign house party in Polk City, Iowa. He said the tens of thousands in debt that students carry when they graduate “is a weight that literally sinks them into the ground.”
To solve the problem, he offered a number of proposals to help students “stop digging the hole” and stop taking on debt when they go for a college degree: Making community college free, allowing students to earn an associate degree while they’re in high school so they’re “ready to earn a living wage on day one,” increase access to union apprenticeships. For those already saddled with student loan debt, O’Rourke said he’d like to “re-up the public service student debt forgiveness program” — a federal program that currently accepts only a fraction of applicants and is eliminated altogether in President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal.
If students are willing to work in in-demand jobs at places like the Department of Veterans Affairs, or “willing to teach school or be in a support role in a community that needs your talent and human capital, I want to wipe clean your student loan debt. At a minimum I want to refinance what you have at a much lower rate.”
Sanders says he wants to make college free and pay for it by getting rid of tax havens and lowering taxes for the richest Americans.
That’s been received with some skepticism among budget and deficit hawks. But to Trevor Meyers, 19, it sounds right.
Meyers, like Sanders, is a democratic socialist. The Muscatine County resident attends a nearby college and lives at home with his family, which owns a farm. A sibling, he said, is five figures in debt from college.
“How is anybody in our society going to get started in life?” he wondered.
He liked Sanders, but said he’s going to check out one of O’Rourke’s events too.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is discussing gun control and death penalty issues with survivors of a massacre that claimed nine Bible study participants at a historic black church in South Carolina.
Hickenlooper sat down on Saturday with Anthony Thompson and Polly Sheppard during a visit to Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston.
Thompson’s wife was slain in the June 2015 shooting. Sheppard, who survived the ordeal but lost her son and aunt, has said the shooter told her he was sparing her life so she could tell others what happened. He is now on federal death row.
The church has become a place of pilgrimage for some 2020 presidential candidates as they campaign in the state, home of the first primary in the South.
Hickenlooper is known as a staunch advocate for gun control legislation. Following the fatal 2012 shootings in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, the then-governor called for and signed bills requiring universal background checks and limiting magazine capacity to 15 rounds.
Both Thompson and Sheppard told Hickenlooper they want those kinds of reforms in South Carolina and elsewhere.
Sen. Michael Bennet told reporters in Nashua, New Hampshire, that he hopes to be on the move again a few weeks after surgery for prostate cancer.
“I don’t think there’s any point in dwelling on it,” said the Colorado Democrat. “If it turns out to be worse than I think, I’ll deal with it then.”
The cancer diagnosis has “slowed us down a little bit,” Bennet said when asked about how it would impact him getting on the debate stage for the Democratic presidential debates, with well over a dozen candidates now running.
“It’s obviously slowed down our ability to raise money and at some point it could have an effect on whether we get to the debate stage or not, but I think we have a good chance to get there,” he said.
And with how he’s feeling right now, Bennet said he’s likely to run.
“I mean, I didn’t pick this particular set of circumstances,” he said. “This is not how I would have rolled it out.”
Democrats running for president will have to do more than campaign on an anti-Trump message if they want to take back the White House in 2020, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said on Saturday.
“If your message is ‘not-Trump,’ it’s not going to work,” the Democratic presidential hopeful told about 500 supporters who packed a high school gymnasium in Reno, Nevada. “Our job is to talk about our vision.”
Warren, D-Mass., blasted Trump’s economic and environmental policies and touted her plan to invest $500 billion over the next 10 years to build, preserve and rehabilitate affordable housing for low-income families. She said she would pay for it by returning the estate tax thresholds to where they were during President George W. Bush’s administration and imposing a new “wealth” tax on the nation’s 17,000 wealthiest families.
“Washington is working for the ultra-super-duper rich, and until we change that we are going to stay on this path. This is our moment,” she told the cheering crowd.
Warren was making her second campaign stop this year in the early caucus state, which on Feb. 22 follows only New Hampshire and Iowa in the nominating process. She spoke for about 30 minutes, took questions from the audience and posed for photographs for another half hour. More than half the crowd lined up to take selfies with her.
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South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg headed to New Hampshire after his campaign announced he’d raised more than $7 million this year.
Hundreds of voters interested in the mayor attended his two events in the state; some were turned away because the venues were at capacity.
The mayor gave short speeches at both his Friday and Saturday events and did not take town hall style questions from the two crowds.
Speaking at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord on Saturday morning, the 37-year-old Buttigieg said he understands people’s difficulty in avoiding the spectacle of politics these days.
“As hard as it is to take our eye off what we see on cable, because grotesque things have the quality of drawing your eye, and we can’t take our eye off that show, but the show’s not what matters,” he said. “What matters is our everyday life.”
He later told voters, “We’ve got to change the channel, and that’s what we’re about.”
Source: NewsMax America
Apr 6, 2019; Nashville, TN, USA; Nashville Predators right wing Viktor Arvidsson (33) is congratulated by teammates after scoring the go ahead goal and setting the single season scoring record during the third period against the Chicago Blackhawks at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
April 7, 2019
Viktor Arvidsson completed the comeback — and set a franchise record in the process — as host Nashville scored five unanswered goals to beat Chicago 5-2 on Saturday night and claim the top spot in the Central Division on the final night of the regular season.
The Predators (47-29-6, 100 points) will face the Dallas Stars in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. They are on a roll, having won eight of their last 11 games down the stretch to claim a second consecutive division crown.
Arvidsson — with his 34th goal of the season, a new standard for a Predators skater — broke a 2-2 deadlock with a power-play goal 3:33 into the third period. As the Predators rushed up the ice, Arvidsson received a cross-ice pass inside the blue line and wired a shot that ended up the game winner.
Late goals by Colton Sissons, his into an empty net, and Nick Bonino rounded out the scoring for Nashville, which received a 31-save performance from goalie Pekka Rinne.
Jets 4, Coyotes 2
Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor collected a goal and an assist as visiting Winnipeg posted a win over Arizona in both teams’ regular-season finale at Glendale, Ariz.
Nikolaj Ehlers and defenseman Jacob Trouba also tallied, and Connor Hellebuyck made 19 saves for the Jets (47-30-5, 99 points), who recorded just their second win in their last seven games (2-4-1).
Winnipeg, which finished second in the Central Division, will have home-ice advantage when it faces St. Louis in the first-round of the playoffs. Nashville’s victory over Chicago earlier on Saturday ended the Jets’ bid to claim the Central title.
Blues 3, Canucks 2 (SO)
Ryan O’Reilly and David Perron scored goals in a shootout as host St. Louis beat Vancouver.
The Blues (45-28-9, 99 points) briefly moved into first place in the Central Division, but the Predators wound up as division winners for the second straight season after defeating Chicago. St. Louis was in last place in the NHL on Jan. 3 but finished in third and has become the hottest team in the league since then. They will face second-place Winnipeg (47-30-5, 99 points) in the first round of the playoffs.
The Canucks, who will miss the playoffs for the fourth straight year, completed 2018-19 with a 35-36-11 mark for 81 points.
Lightning 6, Bruins 3
Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov each scored to reach career milestones as visiting Tampa Bay matched an NHL record with their 62nd victory, a win over Boston.
The Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning (62-16-4, 128 points) equaled the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings’ mark for single-season wins. They also posted the fourth-most points ever in a season and became the second team in league history to win 30 road games.
While the Lightning rested key performers Brayden Point and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, Stamkos posted his 45th goal for a career-high 98th point, and Kucherov scored his personal-best 41st goal as the visitors scored four straight to erase a 2-0 deficit. Kucherov, who added an assist, finished with an NHL-leading 128 regular-season points — the most by a Russian-born player in league history.
Canadiens 6, Maples Leafs 5 (SO)
Ryan Poehling scored three goals in regulation, including the tying goal in the third period in his NHL debut, then added the winner in a shootout as Montreal ended its season by defeating visiting Toronto.
Jordan Weal and Andrew Shaw each had a goal and an assist for the Canadiens, who had been eliminated from the playoffs. Nicolas Deslauriers and Artturi Lehkonen each added two assists.
Zach Hyman had a goal and an assist for Toronto. Jake Gardiner, Trevor Moore, William Nylander and Kasperi Kapanen also scored for the Maple Leafs, who will face the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs.
Blue Jackets 6, Senators 2
Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice as Columbus defeated host Ottawa in the regular-season finale.
The Blue Jackets, who had already clinched one of the Eastern Conference’s two wild-card playoff berths, hoped to gain the top wild-card slot and avoid Tampa Bay in the first round of the postseason. But those hopes were dashed when Carolina beat Philadelphia to edge the Blue Jackets (47-31-4, 98 points) by one point in the standings.
Markus Nutivaara, Alexandre Texier, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Riley Nash also scored for the Blue Jackets, and goaltender Joonas Korpisalo made 27 saves.
Sabers 7, Red Wings 1
Jeff Skinner scored twice to reach the 40-goal mark and Buffalo closed out its season with a thumping of host Detroit.
Rasmus Dahlin supplied a goal and an assist. Sam Reinhart, Conor Sheary, Zemgus Girgensons and Brandon Montour also scored for the Sabres (33-39-10, 76 points). Linus Ullmark made 23 saves.
Skinner reached the 40-goal mark for the first time in his nine-year career. He also had 32 even-strength goals this season. That gave him the most even-strength goals by a Sabre since Alexander Mogilny (49) in the 1992-93 season.
Devils 4, Panthers 3 (OT)
Travis Zajac scored a power-play goal 56 seconds into overtime as New Jersey defeated host Florida.
Nathan Bastian, a 21-year-old who was New Jersey’s second-round pick in 2016, scored twice for the Devils and now has three career goals in seven NHL games. Pavel Zacha scored New Jersey’s other goal, and 22-year-old rookie Mackenzie Blackwood made 37 saves.
The Panthers got goals from Jonathan Huberdeau and Mike Hoffman in the final four minutes to send the game to overtime. Aleksander Barkov also scored for the Panthers. It marked his 35th goal of the season, and he set the franchise record with his 95th point to break the previous record set by Pavel Bure (94) in the 1999-2000 season.
Hurricanes 4, Flyers 3
Jordan Staal scored the go-ahead goal in the second period as visiting Carolina completed a season sweep of Philadelphia.
Staal joined Teuvo Teravainen in collecting a goal and assist for the Hurricanes (46-29-7, 99 points), who clinched the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and will face Metropolitan Division champion Washington in the first round of the playoffs.
Warren Foegele and defenseman Justin Faulk scored for the second consecutive contest, Brock McGinn notched a pair of assists and Curtis McElhinney made 28 saves in the win.
Rangers 4, Penguins 3 (OT)
Ryan Strome scored on a wrist shot from the left dot at 2:09 of overtime to give visiting New York a win over Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh’s playoff lot came down to Saturday’s results on the final night of the regular season. The Penguins (44-26-12, 100 points) finished third in the Metropolitan Division and will be the road team in a first-round series against the New York Islanders.
Brendan Smith, Brady Skjei and Vladislav Namestnikov also scored for the Rangers, who are out of the playoffs and finished 32-36-14 for 78 points. Goaltender Alexandar Georgiev made 36 saves.
Islanders 3, Capitals 0
Valtteri Filppula, who missed the previous eight games due to injury, scored twice and goalie Robin Lehner stopped all 29 shots he faced as New York clinched home-ice advantage in the playoffs for the first time in more than 30 years with a win over host Washington.
With the win, the Islanders (48-27-7) locked up third place in the Metropolitan Division and home ice against Pittsburgh for a first-round postseason series. It is the first time New York has held home ice since the 1987-88 season, which was the longest active home drought among the four major North American sports leagues.
The shutout also ensured the Islanders would allow the fewest goals in the league after allowing the most last season, when they missed the playoffs by 17 points. Lehner’s shutout was his career-high sixth and the team-record 11th of the season.
Stars 3, Wild 0
Tyler Seguin scored twice in the first nine minutes of the third period, and that’s all goaltender Ben Bishop needed as Dallas defeated visiting Minnesota to clinch the Western Conference’s first wild-card spot.
The Stars (43-32-7, 93 points) are in the postseason for the first time since 2016 and enter the Stanley Cup playoffs as the seventh seed in the West. Dallas won five of its final seven games and will play Nashville, the Central Division champion, in the first round, with the schedule to be determined.
The Wild (37-36-9, 83 points) won only four of their final 14 games and missed the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons. Minnesota was shut out 11 times this season and managed only 24 shots in the loss.
Oilers 3, Flames 1
Leon Draisaitl’s 50th goal of the season was overshadowed by Connor McDavid sustaining an injury early in the second period as visiting Edmonton beat Calgary.
McDavid was driving to the net when he was tripped up by Flames captain Mark Giordano and went crashing into the post, his left shin taking the brunt of the force. He remained on the ice for several minutes and didn’t put any weight on his leg as he was helped to the dressing room. Giordano was assessed a tripping penalty on the play.
Edmonton took advantage of the ensuing power play with Alex Chiasson netting his 22nd goal of the season. Flames goalie Mike Smith couldn’t contain Oscar Klefbom’s point shot, and Chiasson pounced on the loose puck for the eventual game-winning goal.
Kings 5, Golden Knights 2
Ilya Kovalchuk scored two goals and Anze Kopitar had a goal and an assist to lead host Los Angeles to victory over Vegas.
Jeff Carter and Matt Roy also scored goals for Los Angeles, which finished last in the Western Conference for the first time since 2007-08 with 71 points and a 31-42-9 record. Dustin Brown added a pair of assists.
Jonathan Quick finished with 29 saves to pick up his 309th career victory, fourth best among U.S. born goaltenders in NHL history. Quick, pulled after giving up seven goals on 25 shots in a 7-2 loss to Calgary in his previous start on April 1, finished the season with a 16-23-7 record.
Sharks 5, Avalanche 2
Even before the opening faceoff of its road loss to San Jose, Colorado knew its fate as hopes of claiming the first of two Western Conference wild-card playoff berths were dashed when Dallas defeated Minnesota earlier in the evening.
That means Colorado (38-30-14, 90 points) will play Calgary, who finished second in the President’s Trophy race behind Tampa Bay. The Sharks (46-27-9, 101 points), who finished second in the Pacific Division, will face Vegas in the first round of the playoffs.
Evander Kane and Gustav Nyquist each had a goal and an assist for the Sharks, who won for just the third time in their last 12 games (3-8-1). Brent Burns, Kevin Labanc and Micheal Haley also scored, Tomas Hertl notched two assists and Martin Jones made 28 saves.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN
Apr 6, 2019; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Texas Tech Red Raiders guard Matt Mooney (13) shoots the ball against Michigan State Spartans guard Cassius Winston (5) during the first half in the semifinals of the 2019 men’s Final Four at US Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
April 7, 2019
MINNEAPOLIS – Texas Tech extended its first-ever trip to the Final Four with a 61-51 victory over Michigan State on Saturday in a national semifinal game at U.S. Bank Stadium.
The Red Raiders advance to the final game of the NCAA Tournament, Monday’s national championship game against Virginia.
On the back of fifth-year senior graduate transfer guard Matt Mooney’s 22 points, Texas Tech came out firing in the second half and held off a Spartans’ rally.
Cassius Winston led Michigan State with 16 points but shot just 4 of 16 from the floor while being tracked most of the game by Mooney, who made 8 of 16 shots and 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver, the Big 12 Player of the Year, was quiet until a raindrop right-handed runner gave Texas Tech its first field goal in five minutes and a 54-51 edge with 2:28 left.
He finished with 10 points.
Senior Matt McQuaid’s bid to tie with a long 3-point attempt at the other end rattled in and out, and Culver made the first of two free throws. Texas Tech got the ball back with its fourth steal of the game on Michigan State’s next possession, and Culver hit an uncontested trey from the top of the key, putting the Red Raiders up 58-51.
Senior Norense Odiase made two free throws to seal it with 39.7 seconds left after the Spartans’ Kenny Goins clanked a 3-point try.
The Spartans stayed in the game at the free-throw line. Sophomore Xavier Tillman rattled in two after Winston connected on four consecutive shots from the stripe, and Michigan State whittled a 12-point deficit to five (52-47) with 5:38 remaining.
The Spartans cut it to three with just over three minutes to play on freshman Aaron Henry’s two makes, then made it 52-51 when Henry’s slashing layup went in with 2:44 left.
Texas Tech roared out of the halftime locker room with buckets on four of five possessions and took an eight-point lead — 39-31 — on a three-point play by freshman Kyler Edwards. Edwards drove hard from the left baseline and moved the ball from his right to left hand, putting it off the glass as he was fouled.
On the next possession, Mooney connected on a 3-ball from the wing and after a Michigan State turnover, the senior transfer drilled another to stake Texas Tech to a 45-33 advantage, prompting a red-faced Tom Izzo to call timeout.
Most of the damage was done while Culver watched from the bench with three fouls.
Suffocating defense won the first half on either end and neither team could find its legs. Only 15 of 49 field-goal attempts went through, and Texas Tech led 23-21 at the break.
–By Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media
Source: OANN
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