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U.S. President Donald Trump waits to welcome Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to the White House in Washington, U.S., April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
April 10, 2019
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will issue two executive orders in the heart of the Texas energy hub on Wednesday seeking to speed gas, coal and oil projects delayed by coastal states as he looks to build support ahead of next year’s election.
Trump’s orders will direct his Environmental Protection Agency to change a part of the U.S. clean water law that has allowed states, on the basis of environmental reasons, to delay projects such as pipelines to carry natural gas to New England and coal export terminals on the West Coast.
Trump will issue the orders at a training center for union members in the petroleum industry in Houston, an event sandwiched between fundraising events in Texas for the 2020 campaign.
“Outdated federal guidance and regulations issued by the EPA have caused confusion and uncertainty leading to project delays, lost jobs and reduced economic performance,” a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call. “We are not trying to take away power from the states, but we are trying to make sure that state actions comply with the statutory intent of the law.”
An environmentalist decried the planned orders. “Trump can try to rewrite regulations in favor of Big Oil, but he can’t stop people power and our movement,” said May Boeve, the head of 350.org.
The orders will direct the EPA to review and update guidance issued during the administration of President Barack Obama on the so-called 401 provision of the Clean Water Act. The measure required companies to get certifications from states before building interstate pipelines approved by the federal government.
New York state used it to block pipelines that would send natural gas to New England, forcing the region at times to import liquefied natural gas from countries including Russia.
In 2017, Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat and 2020 candidate for president, denied a water permit for the Millennium Bulk Terminal, a coal export facility that would have expanded the ability of companies to send western coal to Asian markets.
‘ENERGY DOMINANCE’
The executive orders are part of the Trump administration’s policy of “energy dominance” to increase oil, gas and coal production, but forcing the EPA changes will take time. The official said the agency would have to follow normal procedures, including a comment period, and that projects already tied up in litigation “are obviously a much longer-term issue.”
One of the orders will direct the transportation secretary to propose allowing liquefied natural gas, a liquid form of the fuel, to be shipped in approved rail cars, a change that could increase its flow between terminals and markets.
The executive orders could also speed projects in Texas. Energy investors vying for permits to build oil export terminals along the Gulf Coast say they have worked closely with Trump officials in a bid to speed regulatory reviews of facilities capable of loading supertankers.
U.S. and state agencies overseeing permit applications have taken too long to approve projects, the investors said, adding they were worried their projects would miss the most profitable years of the U.S. crude export boom.
Four energy groups led by Trafigura AG, Carlyle Group, Enterprise Products Partners LP and Enbridge Inc have applied to build terminals in Texas.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington and Collin Eaton in Houston; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Workers hired by U.S. oil and gas company Apache Corp drill a horizontal well in the Wolfcamp Shale in west Texas’ Permian Basin near the town of Mertzon, Texas October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Terry Wade/File Photo
April 9, 2019
By Jennifer Hiller
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Having slashed spending plans and run out of willing buyers for assets, some U.S. shale producers are turning to workforce cuts as investors step up demands for returns.
Pioneer Natural Resources Co, one of the largest producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, and Laredo Petroleum Inc another Permian producer, this week disclosed plans to shed workers.
Irving, Texas-based Pioneer declined to say how many of its about 3,200 employees would be cut. The company has not had a layoff since 1998.
Severance packages will be offered and the company said it expects to dismiss workers by June. Pioneer has been trying to sell assets in South Texas to concentrate on the Permian for more than a year.
In February, it released fourth-quarter financial results that fell short of Wall Street expectations and that same month Chief Executive Tim Dove agreed to retire.
Shale firms have pushed U.S. oil output to record levels. But years of heavy spending led to investor pressure to reduce spending and use the cash to provide payouts, rather than produce more oil.
Pioneer employees told a Midland, Texas, TV station that the company wanted to cut about 300 workers, or about 10 percent of its workforce.
Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Laredo Petroleum said on Tuesday it cut about 20 percent of its 340 employees, which would save the firm around $30 million per year. It also replaced its finance chief.
Laredo had to make the staff cuts to “focus on increasing corporate-level returns and growing within cash flow from operations,” CEO Randy A. Foutch said in a statement.
Cash-strapped shale companies can expect increasing pressure from shareholders, analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co said in a note to clients Tuesday. It forecast more industry job cuts “over the coming quarters as companies address right-sizing the corporate cost structure.”
(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller)
Source: OANN
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on course to securing a record fifth term with another right-wing coalition, Israeli TV exit polls indicated after voting ended on Tuesday, as both he and his principal rival claimed victory.
Netanyahu, in power consecutively since 2009, is fighting for his political survival. He faces possible indictment in three corruption cases, in which the right-wing Likud party leader has denied any wrongdoing.
If he wins, Netanyahu, 69, will become the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s 71-year history this summer.
Exit polls on two of Israel’s three main TV channels showed that main challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party won slightly more seats that Likud in the 120-member parliament, while a third survey forecast a tie.
Though neither party captured a ruling majority in the Knesset, according to the exit polls, the surveys put Netanyahu in a stronger position to form a coalition government with the help of right-wing factions.
Some political analysts, however, cautioned it was too early to determine the outcome, with many hours to go before a final tally is in.
Channel 13 forecast Netanyahu could piece together a ruling bloc controlling 66 seats compared with 54 for a Blue and White-led coalition of center-left and left-wing parties.
Public TV Kan put the ratio at 64 to 56 in Likud’s favor, while Channel 12 predicted a tie, at 60 seats each.
“The rightist bloc led by Likud has won a clear victory,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “I will begin forming a right-wing government with our natural partner this very night.”
A spokesman for Gantz’s party declared: “We won. The Israeli public has had their say.”
Ofer Zalzberg, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Likud and Blue and White would have to learn the fate of smaller parties to know whether they had garnered enough support for a coalition.
“Netanyahu is more likely to establish another right-wing government, but we will have to wait and see,” he said.
During the campaign, the rival parties accused each other of corruption, fostering bigotry and being soft on security.
Netanyahu highlighted his close relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, who delighted Israelis and angered Palestinians by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and moving the American Embassy to the holy city last May.
In a rare turn during the race towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Netanyahu further alarmed Palestinians by promising to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank if re-elected. Palestinians seek a state there and in the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Commenting on the Israeli election, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in the West Bank: “We hope they choose the just path, in the right direction, to reach out for peace.”
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.
COALITION-BUILDING
A close result in the election would put smaller parties in a powerful position, even turning marginal political figures into kingmakers.
Once the votes are tallied, President Reuven Rivlin will ask parties that have won parliamentary seats who they support for prime minister. He will then pick a party leader to try to form a coalition, giving the candidate 28 days to do so, with a two-week extension if needed.
One factor may be the turnout of voters from Israel’s 21 percent Arab minority. Many were angered by Israel’s nation-state law, passed in 2018, which declared that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country. Netanyahu supported the legislation.
Netanyahu’s party sent monitors equipped with body cameras to a number of polling stations with Arab constituents on election day. Arab politicians condemned the move as voter intimidation.
Voting in Tel Aviv, businessman Dedi Cohen, 44, said he supported Gantz. “I considered voting for Bibi (Netanyahu). Life isn’t bad: I’ve been around the world and seen that Israel is a good place in terms of the economy and security.
“But still, a change is in order. After 13 years, it’s time for some ventilation up top,” added Cohen.
Backing Netanyahu, Avi Gur, 65, a lecturer at Ariel University in a settlement in the West Bank, said he was “very excited.”
“I hope that rightism will win,” he said.
Source: NewsMax Politics
When I was a kid in the 1980s, Velcro shoes hit the stores in force.
Although Puma first started using the fasteners in 1968, it was not until the 1980s that the shoes became commonplace on the street and at retail outlets.
At the time, many of us mocked the idea. “Who is so lazy he can’t tie shoelaces?” we snickered. We were all sure we were quite superior in our willingness to tie our own shoelaces. Years later, I noticed that quite a few elderly people — and others with reduced mobility or disabilities such as severe arthritis or cerebral palsy, often wore shoes fastened with Velcro. At that point, my playground cleverness didn’t seem quite so clever anymore.
Velcro shoes, of course, aren’t the only product that might strike us as only for lazy people.
The Huffington Post has mocked tomato slicers and corn “kernelers,” to name just two examples among the plethora of “useless” products marketed by greedy capitalists who will sell anything to make a buck.
Many of these products, however, aren’t pointless at all. While everyday tasks like slicing a tomato may be easy for those of us with normally functioning bodies, that’s not necessarily the case for everyone.
In Vox last year, responding to criticisms of allegedly useless products like the “Sock Slider,” author s.e. smith [sic] writes :
“If I didn’t have that silly piece of plastic with ropes, I wouldn’t be able to put socks on,” says Emily Ladau, a disabled advocate, writer, and speaker with Larsen syndrome , a congenital skeletal disorder. Ladau, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, cannot bend over to put on socks. Without a “sock putter-onner,” as she calls it, she would be forced to rely on the assistance of a personal care attendant (PCA) to put her socks on every morning. “Something that people think is a silly piece of plastic is one of the reasons I don’t need a PCA when I travel.”
Environmentalists to the Disabled: Screw You
The daily hassles faced by the disabled, though, appear to have gone quite unnoticed by environmentalists who have taken to attacking useless products as not only silly, but as morally objectionable. These products, we are told, are environmentally damaging.
One example is a case of Twitter-manufactured outrage over “wasteful” packaging of pre-peeled oranges at Whole Foods. In 2016, an apparently non-disabled woman posted a photo of the oranges on the shelf and complained — with the usual level of tiresome snark we’ve come to expect on Twitter — “If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn’t need to waste so much plastic on them.”
As of this writing, the comment has over 104,000 likes, and Whole Foods eventually responded, saying “Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel.”
That comment received over 750 likes.
What received far fewer likes was a comment from another user, who wrote:
I’m so sorry you’ve decided to do that. I have rheumatoid disease and it’s often impossible to peel an orange.
This, however, was apparently not very convincing to the Environmental Justice Warriors. One dismissively told the woman claiming to have rheumatoid disease to buy an orange peeler, which earned the response “If I could handle that, I could handle an orange. 🙂 It’s really no different from baby carrots in a bag or getting a pizza delivery.” To that, the Enlightened Environmentalist essentially responded “tough luck, there’s too much plastic in the ocean.”
Another environmentalist posted in response to the photo of the pre-peeled oranges:
Fu—ing hell. That makes me unbelievably angry actually. Talk about necessarily contributing to plastic taking over the planet.
When confronted with the idea that “not everyone is physically able to peel an orange,” she retorted “You know, as well as i do, that that is NOT who that is marketed towards.”
By this way of thinking, products that help the disabled are only to be tolerated if their packaging is emblazoned with phrases like “great for cripples!” or “designed for invalids!” All other products that aren’t obviously aids for disabled people shall be mocked as “useless,” and “wasteful” or perhaps banned under force of law.
The environmentalists’ war against the disabled perhaps reached a fever pitch in 2018 when activists throughout the wealthy West began demanding that small business remove all plastic straws from their stores, and that governments even outlaw them.
Some advocates for the disabled noted that plastic straws as essential in allowing many disabled people to enjoy the products and services many other people take for granted. One of these advocates, Alice Wong, explained at eater.com:
Plastic is seen as cheap, “anti-luxury,” wasteful, and harmful to the environment. All true. Plastic is also an essential part of my health and wellness. With my neuromuscular disability, plastic straws are necessary tools for my hydration and nutrition.
This argument didn’t get much of a better hearing than the orange-peel argument. Many social media readers suggested that disabled people should just carry their own straws everywhere. And after all, what’s the big deal? What did disabled people do before straws anyway?
Entrepreneurs vs. Consumers
There are many unpleasant lessons we could learn from these exchanges about the problems that come with being smug and self-centered.
But as this is an economics site, I’d like to focus here on what the “useless products” debate illustrates about the difference between consumers and entrepreneurs.
The lack of sensitivity we encounter with the anti-plastic environmentalists isn’t only a product of a single-minded ideology. It’s also the result of the narrow-mindedness that comes from thinking primarily as a consumer and lacking the broader mindset of an entrepreneur.
For example, in order to consume, one needs to think only in terms of himself and others like him. “I don’t need a tomato slicer,” the thinking goes, “so it’s safe to say that no one else needs one either.”
The entrepreneur, on the other hand, approaches things far differently. He (or she) thinks in terms of changing the status quo. The entrepreneur thinks in terms of meeting an unmet need.
Whether or not the entrepreneur thinks explicitly in terms of meeting the needs of disabled people is, of course, completely beside the point. The fact is that many new products created by entrepreneurs end up helping disabled people, and that’s now a common outcome in a marketplace. It’s to be expected in a marketplace where entrepreneurs think constantly in terms of expanding the world of products and services available to a large number of consumers.
So, as the universe of consumer goods expands to include Sock Sliders and tomato peelers and plastic straws, the market also expands to meet the unmet needs of more and more people.
Also irrelevant is the fact that many entrepreneurs and inventors of various products may have no idea of how these products might be used ahead of time. Entrepreneurs are partly in the business of guessing what new products and services people want. But since those products and services don’t exist already in the marketplace, they can’t know for sure.
Some products may, at first, appear to be useless. It may be the inventor of the Sock Slider didn’t set out to invent a “sock-putter-onner” at all. The inventor may have simply been toying around with a variety of different ideas, as is suggested by inventor Simone Giertz:
The true beauty of making useless things [is] this acknowledgment that you don’t always know what the best answer is … It turns off that voice in your head that tells you that you know exactly how the world works.
Giertz is summarizing what many entrepreneurs also ready know: they can’t be sure about “exactly how the world works.” But, they are willing to try to deliver new products and services that the world might be willing to pay for. They often fail to guess properly. But they also sometimes succeed. The question is always this: can I meet an unmet need at a cost below the price people are willing to pay?” When the answer is “yes,” the world often gets new and better products — and many of them improve the lives of the disabled.
The consumer who wants to ban plastic straws and “useless” products for “lazy” people thinks in an entirely different way. These people already consider themselves experts on what everyone needs. They think they know exactly “how the world works” and they’re itching to pass laws and shame others to make sure the world fits their vision. Rather than expanding the world of new products and services, these consumers want to shrink it — to keep it in line with their personal needs, and to reflect what they themselves consider to be important.
While the consumer thinks “nobody needs that!” the entrepreneur thinks “I wonder if someone needs that.” These are two very different ways of looking at the world. Only one of them helps disabled people live easier lives.
Will Johnson presents a video and breaks down how a female was attacked by a leftist simply for wearing her ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.
Source: InfoWars
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a session of the International Arctic Forum in Saint Petersburg, Russia April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov
April 9, 2019
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Gleb Stolyarov
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia and OPEC should discuss the future of their oil output-cutting deal later this year, adding that current oil prices suited Moscow.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other large oil producers led by Russia agreed to reduce their combined output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from Jan. 1 this year for six months in an attempt to balance the market.
Russia undertook to cut its production by 228,000 bpd but has struggled to comply with the pact.
On Monday, one of the key Russian officials to foster the pact with OPEC, Kirill Dmitriev, signaled that Russia wanted to raise oil output when it meets with OPEC in June because of improving market conditions and falling stockpiles.
But Putin, the ultimate decision-maker in Russia, seemingly softened that stance, saying it was too early to judge whether the deal should be extended.
“We are ready for cooperation with OPEC in decision-making … But whether it would be cuts, or just a stoppage at the current level of output, I am not ready to say,” Putin told an Arctic conference in St. Petersburg.
“We are not supporters of uncontrollable price rises,” he said. Putin also said current oil prices suited Russia, which is heavily dependent on sales of oil and natural gas.
OPEC and allied oil producers are due to meet in late June in Vienna.
“Of course, we and our partners … are closely watching the market. We agreed that if there is a need for joint efforts, we will gather in the second half of the year and hold discussions,” Putin said.
Putin also said Russian companies had their own plans and their intention to develop new fields should be taken into account.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said earlier on Tuesday there would be no need to extend the output deal if the oil market was expected to be balanced in the second half of the year, the RIA news agency reported.
Novak later said all options were on the table.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Dale Hudson and Maria Kiselyova)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters building is seen ahead of the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo
April 9, 2019
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its global economic growth forecasts for 2019 and warned growth could slow further due to trade tensions and a potentially disorderly British exit from the European Union.
In its third downgrade since October, the global lender said some major economies, including China and Germany, might need to take short-term actions to prop up growth.
The global lender said it still expects that a sharp slowdown in Europe and some emerging market economies will give way to a general re-acceleration in the second half of 2019.
“However, the possibility of further downward revisions is high, and the balance of risks remains skewed to the downside,” the Fund said in its World Economic Outlook report for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington this week.
The global economy will likely grow 3.3 percent this year, its slowest expansion since 2016, the IMF said in a forecast that cut 0.2 percentage point from its January outlook.
The projected growth rate for next year was unchanged at 3.6 percent.
More than two-thirds of the expected slowdown in 2019 owes to trouble in rich nations.
“In this context, avoiding policy missteps that could harm economic activity should be the main priority,” the IMF said.
One potential misstep lies in Britain’s indecision over how to leave the European Union. Despite looming deadlines, London hasn’t decided how it will try to shield its economy during the exit process. The IMF’s new forecast assumes an orderly “Brexit” but the Fund said a chaotic process could shave more than 0.2 percentage points from global growth in 2019.
The IMF said the Bank of England should be “cautious” on interest rate policy, an apparent tip to wait before hiking.
Europe’s economic growth is already slowing substantially and it accounted for much of the reduction in the global growth forecast.
Germany’s outlook suffered from weaker demand for its exports, softer consumer spending and new emissions standards which have depressed car sales.
Germany may have to quickly turn to fiscal stimulus measures, the IMF said, also calling on the European Central Bank to keep stimulating the regional economy. The IMF also cut Japan’s growth outlook following a string of natural disasters.
The U.S. economy, while seen outperforming other rich nations, also got a downgrade on signs that a fiscal stimulus fueled by tax cuts was producing less activity than previously expected.
BOOST FROM FED PAUSE
The IMF said it supported the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to pause its rate-hiking cycle, which the global lender said would support the U.S. and world economies this year by easing financial conditions. The IMF raised its forecast for U.S. growth in 2020 by a tenth of a percentage point to 1.9 percent.
The global lender said it was slightly boosting its outlook for Chinese growth this year – to 6.3 percent – in part because it had expected an escalation in the U.S.-China trade war which did not materialize.
Still, America’s ongoing tensions with China and other major trading partners remain a risk for the global economy.
Already, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports are hitting Chinese growth, while also weighing on Latin America and other areas dependent on Chinese demand for commodities.
In a World Economic Outlook chapter released last week, the IMF said that an escalation of the U.S.-China trade war would drive manufacturing away from both countries and cause job losses, but would do little to change their total trade balances.
If 25 percent tariffs were imposed on all trade between the world’s two largest economies, U.S. GDP would fall by up to 0.6 percent and China’s would fall by up to 1.5 percent, the IMF said.
The IMF also cut its 2019 growth forecasts for Canada and Latin America as well as for the Middle East and North African countries.
China was trying to rebalance its massive economy away from investment and exports when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered higher tariffs on Chinese imports beginning in 2018. China responded with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
In an ominous sign, the IMF said Beijing might need to unleash fiscal stimulus “to avoid a sharp near-term growth slowdown that could derail the overarching reform agenda.”
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Source: OANN
Will this finally make the GOPe give a damn about mass deplatforming and corporate censorship?
Immigration and civil rights groups recently sent a list to the CEOs of American companies urging them not to hire Trump officials who were involved in last year’s separation of migrant children from their families.
[…] [Kirstjen] Nielsen’s name appears on a list that a cabal of immigration and civil rights groups recently sent to the CEOs of American companies, urging them not to hire Trump officials who were involved in last year’s separation of migrant children from their families.
We’re carrying a simple message in today’s @nytimes:
Corporate America should not allow administration officials responsible for Trump’s family separation policy to seek refuge in their corner offices or boardrooms.#FamiliesBelongTogetherhttps://t.co/J0CZcUpklk pic.twitter.com/KMveqNPb52
— Restore Public Trust (@RestoreTrustOrg) April 7, 2019
[…] “Some of these individuals have left the administration in recent months,” the letter to the CEOs states. “Regardless of when they leave, they should not be allowed to seek refuge in your boardrooms or corner offices. Allowing them to step off the revolving door and into your welcoming arms should be a nonstarter.”
[…] The letter was signed by 41 immigration and civil rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has targeted Nielsen in the past.
Corporate America is just as much an “enemy of the people” as the corporate media.
In 2013, the Supreme Court reversed a determination by the Internal Revenue Service that $363,053 in inheritance taxes were owed on an estate of $4.1 million. One side of the American political spectrum swooned in joy—the left. These supposed opponents of inequality were largely indifferent to the financial element of the case. They were simply cheered by the fact that United States v. Windsor held that the Defense of Marriage Act had unconstitutionally limited the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples. And so avoidance of inheritance taxes was celebrated as an achievement for equality.
We can see a similar dynamic when it comes to corporate politicking. President Obama said of the 2010 Citizens United decision, “This ruling strikes at our democracy itself,” and “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest.” Yet one searches in vain to find progressive denunciations of the role played by corporations in several recent high-profile controversies about state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. The governors of Arizona, Arkansas, and Indiana all retreated from enacting these laws when threatened with capital strikes and the relocation of major sporting events. Corporations successfully ousted North Carolina’s governor after he supported legislation that required transgendered persons to use bathrooms matching their biological sex. Far from decrying such corporate interference as a corruption of democracy, the left cheered it on. Frank Bruni wrote a column in the New York Times titled “The Sunny Side of Greed” in which he said it was “fine with me” if “big corporations will soon rule the earth,” given that they were “more democratic” than politicians—at least on issues of sexuality.
These examples encapsulate one of the strangest features of contemporary progressive politics: the transformation of the egalitarian agenda from an economic program into a movement for sexual liberation. The party that once promoted the interests of the working class now celebrates when wealthy couples dodge the “death tax” and corporations overturn democratic verdicts—all the while holding up signs displaying the equal sign.
[…] Paul further explains how a powerful combination of institutions—the universities, corporations, and media—have shamed and silenced those who stand athwart the arc of history. Elites are able to invoke both moral and scientific arguments while subjecting any inconvenient scientific findings (such as those of Mark Regnerus) to a massive barrage of moral outrage framed as scientific refutation.
[…] Paul’s book shows that these purported antagonists share a broad project of de-norming. They are particularly committed to displacing traditional arrangements of family, marriage, and child-rearing in favor of individual autonomy, self-creation, and lifestyle choice shorn of long-standing commitment. World-straddling corporations have a strong interest in fostering atomized, de-normed subjects. Because their “identities” arise primarily from appetites that can be altered through both marketing and technology, they are the ideal consumers. The ideological justification for this economic project has been long-prepared by the intellectual class, which over the last four decades has devoted itself to the project of displacing traditional norms in favor of theories of self-creation in a world governed not by tradition or natural law, but solely in accordance with the human will.
Paul’s book powerfully reveals why the progressive sexual agenda of the intellectual class and the profit motive of corporations have fully aligned. There’s both apparently limitless freedom and vast quantities of money to be gained in overcoming human nature’s final frontier: sexual complementarity and all that follows. It should be a wake-up call to those who continue to believe that capitalism is an unmitigated boon for conserving the blessings of marriage, family, and children.
Source: InfoWars
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Staff
April 9, 2019
(Reuters) – European shares opened slightly lower on Tuesday, weighed down by planemaker Airbus and its suppliers, which took a hit from proposed U.S. tariffs, while an event-packed week kept investors cautious.
At 0728 GMT, the pan-European STOXX 600 index dipped 0.07 percent, with Paris’s CAC down 0.2 percent and Frankfurt’s trade-sensitive DAX off 0.1 percent.
Shares of planemaker Airbus dropped 2.5 percent after the U.S. Trade Representative proposed tariffs on a list of European Union products including large commercial aircraft and parts. Washington is seeking to retaliate for more than $11 billion worth of EU subsidies to Airbus that the World Trade Organization has found cause “adverse effects” for the United States.
Airbus suppliers such as Safran, Leonardo and Dassault lost between 0.7 percent and 1.2 percent.
Investors are also keeping a close eye on a trade summit between the European Union and China on Tuesday in which the bloc will try to coax Beijing to open up its markets.
The European Central Bank is expected to hold borrowing costs when its policymakers meet on Wednesday, the same day British Prime Minister Theresa May’s request to delay Brexit until June 30 will be formally discussed by EU leaders at a special summit.
Swiss drugmaker Novartis slipped over 2 percent, among the biggest drags on STOXX 600, trading for the first day after completing the spin off its eyecare division Alcon.
Alcon shares surged 32 percent in its debut.
Bechtle AG dropped more than 2 percent and pulled the tech sector lower after Berenberg downgraded the German IT company’s stock to “hold”.
Merck KGaA dipped on winning the backing of Versum’s board for a sweetened $6.5 billion takeover bid, overturning an agreed merger with rival Entegris as it bets on a recovery in electronic materials markets.
Norwegian mobile operator Telenor slipped after agreeing to buy a 54 percent stake in Finnish telecoms firm DNA for 1.5 billion euros ($1.69 billion).
Keeping losses in check were shares of Total SA, which rose after the French oil and gas major and its partners signed a long-awaited deal with Papua New Guinea that will allow initial work to start on a $13 billion plan to double the country’s liquefied natural gas exports.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Businessman Bill Browder speaks after the coroner ruled that Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichnyy probably died of natural causes outside his home in 2012, after the inquest concluded at the Old Bailey, in London, Britain, December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo
April 9, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – Russia has asked Interpol for the seventh time to arrest Bill Browder, a London-based Kremlin critic who leads a campaign to punish Russian officials for the 2009 death of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Once the biggest foreign money manager in Moscow, Browder has become one of the most vociferous Western critics of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, Russia’s preeminent leader since 1999.
According to a letter reviewed by Reuters, Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Files wrote to Browder’s lawyers to say that Russia’s National Central Bureau had requested his arrest for charges including deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion.
“The NCB of Russia has authorized the Commission to disclose to you its wish to request police cooperation for your client through an INTERPOL diffusion to arrest,” Interpol said in a letter dated Jan 21, 2019.
Russia has repeatedly asked Interpol to arrest Browder, who was sentenced in absentia by a Russian court to nine years in prison for deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion.
Interpol has rejected the requests six times. Browder says he is the victim of a vendetta by corrupt officials in the Russian state and denies all the charges.
Such is Browder’s notoriety that Putin even suggested to U.S. President Donald Trump last year in Helsinki that Russian officials be allowed to question him for allowing associates to earn $1.5 billion without paying any proper Russian tax.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Kate Holton)
Source: OANN
Scientists are expected to unveil on Wednesday the first-ever photograph of a black hole, a breakthrough in astrophysics providing insight into celestial monsters with gravitational fields so intense no matter or light can escape.
The U.S. National Science Foundation has scheduled a news conference in Washington to announce a “groundbreaking result from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project,” an international partnership formed in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole.
Simultaneous news conferences are scheduled in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo.
A black hole’s event horizon, one of the most violent places in the universe, is the point of no return beyond which anything – stars, planets, gas, dust, all forms of electromagnetic radiation including light – gets sucked in irretrievably.
While scientists involved in the research declined to disclose the findings ahead of the formal announcement, they are clear about their goals.
“It’s a visionary project to take the first photograph of a black hole. We are a collaboration of over 200 people internationally,” astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, said at a March event in Texas.
The news conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) on Wednesday.
The research will put to the test a scientific pillar – physicist Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, according to University of Arizona astrophysicist Dimitrios Psaltis, project scientist for the Event Horizon Telescope. That theory, put forward in 1915, was intended to explain the laws of gravity and their relation to other natural forces.
SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES
The researchers targeted two supermassive black holes.
The first – called Sagittarius A* – is situated at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, possessing 4 million times the mass of our sun and located 26,000 light years from Earth. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
The second – called M87 – resides at the center of the neighboring Virgo A galaxy, boasting a mass 3.5 billion times that of the sun and located 54 million light-years away from Earth. Streaming away from M87 at nearly the speed of light is a humongous jet of subatomic particles.
Black holes, coming in a variety of sizes, are extraordinarily dense entities formed when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. Supermassive black holes are the largest kind, devouring matter and radiation and perhaps merging with other black holes.
Psaltis described a black hole as “an extreme warp in spacetime,” a term referring to the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time joined into a single four-dimensional continuum.
Doeleman said the project’s researchers obtained the first data in April 2017 from a global network of telescopes. The telescopes that collected that initial data are located in the U.S. states of Arizona and Hawaii as well as Mexico, Chile, Spain and Antarctica. Since then, telescopes in France and Greenland have been added to the network.
The scientists also will be trying to detect for the first time the dynamics near the black hole as matter orbits at near light speeds before being swallowed into oblivion.
The fact that black holes do not allow light to escape makes viewing them difficult. The scientists will be looking for a ring of light – radiation and matter circling at tremendous speed at the edge of the event horizon – around a region of darkness representing the actual black hole. This is known as the black hole’s shadow or silhouette.
Einstein’s theory, if correct, should allow for an extremely accurate prediction of the size and shape of a black hole.
“The shape of the shadow will be almost a perfect circle in Einstein’s theory,” Psaltis said. “If we find it to be different than what the theory predicts, then we go back to square one and we say, ‘Clearly, something is not exactly right.'”
Source: NewsMax America
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