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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves towards his supporters during a roadshow in Varanasi, India, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
April 25, 2019
By Devjyot Ghoshal
VARANASI, India (Reuters) – Prime Minister Narendra Modi staged a show of strength on Thursday in his home city of Varanasi, one of the most sacred places for India’s majority Hindu population, as the country’s 39-day staggered general election neared its mid-point.
Dotted with ancient temples and sitting on the banks of the Ganges river, Varanasi was one of two seats that Modi fought and won at the last election in 2014. He has so far chosen to represent Varanasi in parliament and is not likely to pursue any other seat.
Surrounded by tens of thousands of supporters, Modi, who is seeking a second term as premier, bowed to the crowd with folded hands from an elevated podium.
He then toured the city in an SUV, standing to greet supporters through the sunroof. His security forces prevented the crowd from getting too close even as the vehicle moved slowly through the narrow alleys.
Modi was accompanied by senior BJP leaders, including the party President Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, where Varanasi is located. The northern state is India’s most populous and has the largest number of MPs. In 2014, the BJP won 71 seats there out of 80.
Modi is expected to file his nomination papers on Friday.
India’s election is being held over 39 days from April 11 to May 19, with votes due to be counted on May 23. Varanasi will vote on the last day.
Modi’s supporters talked up his achievements in bringing clean water, sanitation and electricity to more of India.
“The city has become clean. There is electricity 24 hours now, and there is water,” said 55-year-old Shyam Narayan Naik.
“No other party will be able to win here,” added Narayan, who runs a textile shop in the city that was shut on Thursday as Modi’s 5 kilometer-long roadshow passed by.
“NAMO AGAIN”
The city was decorated with BJP flags and saffron-colored balloons. Sounds of drums and songs praising Modi grew louder as the prime minister arrived.
Supporters wore “Namo Again” t-shirts or masks with Modi’s photograph, while others dressed as Hindu gods and goddesses.
“I think this time he’s trying to send the signal that he’s now far more confident, he doesn’t need the Gujarat seat and therefore he’s standing only from UP,” said Sudha Pai, referring to the other seat Modi won and gave up in 2014. Pai, a former political science professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, closely tracks politics in Uttar Pradesh.
But weak jobs growth, distressed farm incomes because of low crop prices, and charges of economic mismanagement have boosted the opposition. And in Uttar Pradesh, two formidable regional parties have allied to take on the BJP.
Modi often refers to “Mother Ganga” in his speeches, and his government has committed nearly $3 billion of funds to a five-year clean-up of the heavily polluted sacred river.
That program is due to be completed in 2020.
But last year, Reuters found that only a tenth of the funds had been used in the first two years of the project.
“It is what it was before. Nothing has changed. People are just using Modi to make money themselves,” said 70-year old Ramji, referring to the money spent on cleaning the Ganges.
(Editing by Martin Howell and Catherine Evans)
Source: OANN
Libyan artists work at the art gallery and cultural centre in the old city of Tripoli, Libya April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah
April 25, 2019
By Ulf Laessing
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – As a new war reached the Libyan capital, businessman Mustafa Iskandar opened an art gallery and cultural center, hoping to draw attention to a long-neglected old city in need of revival.
One of the best preserved in North Africa with monuments going back to the Romans, Tripoli’s old city has been rundown for years, with garbage filling the narrow streets and its ancient white buildings in dire need of repair.
Most Libyans who can afford it have long moved out of the old city to more modern districts of Tripoli, home to 2.5 million. But Iskandar bought a derelict house close to the landmark Roman Mark Aurelius arch, investing one million dinars ($720,000) to refurbish it as a gathering point for artists.
He sent an invitation to embassies and artists but in the end diplomats did not come, having fled the city as eastern Libyan forces started a campaign to take the capital using ground forces and jets.
It didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the businessman, who still lives in the old city, a settlement once inhabited by Ottomans and later Italian colonialists, with Muslims, Jews and Christians living for centuries in harmony.
“I want to give a signal for people to come back to the old city where I grew up and still live,” said Iskandar, who works for a Danish firm.
He hung paintings and moved in old furniture collected for years in Europe for his center, which is located next to a hotel that was once bustling with tourists who used to come to Libya until Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.
Under Gaddafi, authorities restored a handful of old buildings and were planning a larger rehabilitation project when the 2011 uprising broke out, stopping the work.
Little has happened since then, given the country’s chaos, but officials hope to reopen the national museum housed in the Red Castle from the Ottoman era, closed since 2015 over security concerns.
“We are trying,” said Mohamad Farraj Mohamad, the head of the museum’s antiquities department, when asked whether the museum will open next year after a rehabilitation.
For that, French experts who have been advising Libya on how to improve the exhibition need to be willing to come back once the fighting is over to help as the ancient authority lacks funding and expertise.
In the old city, a group of young people organize walks to explore sites and build ties with the remaining inhabitants, many of which are West African workers or poor Libyans.
Relying on their own funds and donations, they repainted a rundown wall in white, a small start for what they hope will be a rehabilitation in the future.
“We are trying to raise awareness of the heritage of the old city ” said Hiba Shalabi, founder of the #SaveTheOldCityofTripoli campaign. “We are building relations with people in old city and look up in archives information about history of houses.”
($1 = 1.3920 Libyan dinars)
(Reporting by Ulf Laessing, Editing by William Maclean)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A woman stands in front of the logo of Snap Inc. on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) while waiting for Snap Inc. to post their IPO, in New York City, New York, U.S. on March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
April 25, 2019
(Reuters) – Snapchat parent Snap Inc on Thursday named McDonald’s marketing head Kenny Mitchell as its first chief marketing officer, as the company seeks to attract new users to its platform.
Prior to his role at McDonald’s, Mitchell served as head of consumer engagement at Gatorade.
Mitchell, who will lead all consumer and product marketing programs at Snap, will also be part of its senior leadership team and report to Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel, the company said in a statement.
The news comes days after Snap’s first-quarter report that showed Snapchat users rose for the first time in three quarters, boosted by its original shows and a rebuilt Android app.
(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
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FILE PHOTO: The signature of the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi, is seen on the new 50 euro banknote during a presentation by the German Central Bank (Bundesbank) at its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
April 25, 2019
By Tommy Wilkes and Richard Pace
LONDON (Reuters) – After the euro’s slide to 22-month lows against the dollar, investors are scrambling to shield themselves from more weakness as Europe’s poor data contrasts with an upbeat U.S. economy that is sending the dollar surging.
Options markets suggest investors this week bought sizeable downside protection against further euro weakness against the dollar, after the single currency broke below its 2019 low of $1.1170, a level that has opened the door to more selling.
On Thursday, the pair traded as low as $1.1117, the lowest since May 2017. The dollar, meanwhile, soared against a basket of currencies as robust data on jobs and durable goods orders took its year-to-date gains to 2.2 percent.
“We have been increasingly doubtful that the euro can hold,” said Neil Mellor, currencies analyst at BNY Mellon. “Growth forecasts have been slumping and the ECB (European Central Bank) might have to revise its expectations again.”
This week’s fall — more than 1 percent so far — follows a period of calm during which euro/dollar, the world’s most traded currency pair, has been stuck in its narrowest ever trading range. The tiny price fluctuations have frustrated investors keen on volatility and clear direction.
(GRAPHIC: Euro hits 22-month low – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W4eDnX)
The Federal Reserve’s dovish shift at the start of 2019 would normally have hurt the dollar. But the Fed move was followed in March by the ECB’s decision to push back further planned interest rate rises.
Since then, euro zone business surveys have pointed to further gloom, with a widely-watched German business climate index showing deteriorating morale in April.
The U.S. economy, on the other hand, appears to be blooming; latest data showed new orders for U.S.-made capital goods increased by the most in eight months, while U.S. first-quarter growth could be as much as 2.4 percent, according to some estimates.
Until now, investors have had to pay relatively little to protect their portfolios against a euro downside, because currency volatility has been so low and few were buying options.
But that has changed – forex dealers said that a swathe of options were bought on Thursday giving holders the right to sell euros for $1.1000, including one for 500 million euros.
The market is already heavily long dollars, with speculative investors holding their biggest short position in euros since December 2016, CFTC data indicates.
(GRAPHIC: Euro positions – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W4JD73)
One-month implied volatility – a gauge of expected price moves – has also jumped, after threatening to hit record lows only last week.
(GRAPHIC: Euro/dollar implied volatility – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XOzlZx)
Euro/dollar volatility is likely to be boosted by the run-up to the May 23 European parliamentary elections, where populist parties could make a strong showing by tapping into anger about public expenditure cuts and income inequality.
Of course, not everyone believes the euro will spiral lower. Societe Generale analyst Kit Juckes, for instance, said the dollar – supported by an interest rate advantage of at least 70 basis points above its main economic competitors – was expensive, while the euro looked cheap.
“The risk, then, is that, having broken through the bottom of the recent euro-dollar range, all we do is add another coat of paint to the bottom of it, and settle into a marginally lower range,” he said.
(GRAPHIC: YTD G10 FX performance – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W4dZGQ)
But $1.10 is not unknown territory for the euro, which spent much of 2016 and 2017 below that level.
“It’s not really hard to rationalize,” said BNY Mellon’s Mellor. “The bad news is going to continue to mount from an (European) economic perspective.”
(Editing by Sujata Rao and Kevin Liffey)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai, China January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
April 25, 2019
(Reuters) – A capital raise for Tesla Inc will not come cheap and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk must finally prove to investors that he can produce and deliver Model 3s and higher margin electric cars on time, Wall Street analysts said on Thursday.
After unveiling a $700 million loss in the first quarter, Musk conceded on Wednesday evening that he needed to pull in more capital for the car world’s highest profile venture of recent years.
Seven Wall Street brokerages asked by Reuters said they expected Musk to tap investors for between $1 billion and $3 billion in the near future.
The results also stressed the company’s paying off of $920 million in existing debt in the first quarter, but bond yields in the company surged on the news, while shares fell, as investors began to price in what that might cost.
In European trading before the start of the U.S. business day, investors were already demanding a record risk premium for holding Tesla’s $1.8 billion junk bond, pushing the yield on the 5.3 percent note due in August 2025 to the highest in six months at 8.51 percent.
Tesla shares, already down more than 20 percent this year, dipped 1.4 percent to $255.13 in early trade.
After months of uncertainty following Musk’s swiftly retracted claim last summer that he was set to take the company private, and a series of failures to meet production targets, they said the cost of new capital would now be far higher than a year ago.
“Obviously, investors would have appreciated that confession (to raise capital) when the shares were higher, the fundamental performance better and Elon Musk less erratic,” Evercore analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in a note.
Tesla’s first quarter results disappointed both in terms of sales and a sharp drop in the number of vehicles delivered to global customers, and there was scepticism over promises of a return to profitability in the third quarter.
“Ultimately we believe the company’s guidance is aggressive,” analysts from Wedbush Securities said in a note to clients.
Musk has long resisted the need to raise capital, but he told a conference call with analysts it was now the right time.
Several analysts covering the company argued Tesla needed to simplify operations.
“For investors we think the question is whether or not people want to put capital into Tesla for Robo taxis and autonomous when Uber or Lyft or Nvidia could end up being better alternatives,” Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin wrote.
“We don’t think Tesla would need to raise capital as urgently if they weren’t spending so much money on these initiatives outside of their core mission of producing awesome EV’s”.
CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson said Tesla’s timing – with the stock down more than 22 percent year-to-date – is quite inopportune to raise capital and that Tesla should have completed an equity issuance months ago.
(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma and Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru; Writing by Patrick Graham, editing by Bernard Orr)
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FILE PHOTO: Shopping bags from Asda and Sainsbury’s are seen in Manchester, Britain April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Phil Noble/illustration
April 25, 2019
By James Davey and Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s competition regulator on Thursday blocked Sainsbury’s proposed 7.3 billion pound ($9.4 billion) takeover of Walmart owned Asda – a huge blow to the supermarket groups who wanted to combine to overtake market leader Tesco.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruling is also a major setback for Sainsbury’s Chief Executive Mike Coupe, the architect of the deal and the group’s boss since 2014.
Coupe made unwanted headlines when he was caught on camera singing: “We’re in the money” shortly after the deal was announced last April. Analysts said questions will be raised over his future after it failed to win approval.
The deal would have resulted in a substantial lessening of competition at both a national and local level, with prices rising in stores, online and at petrol stations, the CMA said.
Coupe took issue with the CMA’s analysis.
“The specific reason for wanting to merge was to lower prices for customers,” he said in a statement.
“The CMA’s conclusion that we would increase prices post-merger ignores the dynamic and highly competitive nature of the UK grocery market. The CMA is today effectively taking 1 billion pounds out of customers’ pockets.”
Sainsbury’s, Walmart and Asda said they had mutually agreed to terminate the transaction, opting not to challenge the CMA’s ruling through the courts.
As well as leapfrogging Tesco, the deal would have given Walmart a way to exit Britain, one of the weakest performers in its global portfolio.
Shares in Sainsbury’s were down 5.1 percent at 0820 GMT, extending their losses over the last three months to 23 percent.
WORSE OFF SHOPPERS
After delivering a damning provisional report in February, the CMA’s final report was equally stern, finding that UK shoppers and motorists would be worse off if Sainsbury’s and Asda combined.
“We have concluded that there is no effective way of addressing our concerns, other than to block the merger,” said Stuart McIntosh, chair of the CMA inquiry group.
Sainsbury’s share of the UK grocery market has dropped from 15.8 percent to 15.3 percent in the last year, while Asda’s has fallen from 15.6 percent to 15.3 percent, according to data from market researcher Kantar.
All of the big four grocers have lost share to German discounters Aldi and Lidl, which now have a combined 13.6 percent share. Tesco has 27.4 percent.
Sainsbury’s and Asda have argued that their share of the total market for food was smaller than the data indicated because of the emergence of new players like delivery services, but the regulator was not persuaded.
Coupe said he was confident in Sainsbury’s strategy, which focuses on own-brand products, and on the quality, provenance and ethical credentials of its food.
Judith McKenna, CEO of Walmart International, said she was disappointed by the CMA’s ruling.
“Our focus now is continuing to position Asda as a strong UK retailer delivering for customers. Walmart will ensure Asda has the resources it needs to achieve that,” she said.
IMPLICATIONS
The implications of the deal failing are likely to be significant. Some analysts believe Sainsbury’s will have to undergo a major shake-up that could see new chairman Martin Scicluna part company with Coupe.
Analysts at Jefferies believe the risk of a reinvigorated market leader Tesco continuing to recover customers historically lost to Sainsbury’s needs addressing with urgency.
Earlier this month Sainsbury’s lost its status as Britain’s No. 2 supermarket group by market share to Asda, according to Kantar data. Tesco in contrast is gaining momentum, reporting a 34 percent jump in full-year operating profit on April 10.
With one potential exit route from Britain for Walmart blocked, analysts have said the U.S. group might instead consider a stock market listing of Asda or try to sell it to private equity.
The Sunday Times reported in February that private equity group KKR was mulling an offer for Asda.
But both of these avenues are problematic.
“The problem with the idea of private equity is that the only way PE makes money is to have its own exit and there isn’t one because you can’t break-up Asda now,” one senior UK supermarket director told Reuters.
“The problem with an IPO is – what growth prospects are you selling? The story to investors is not a very good one,” he said, adding that Walmart may decide to run Asda as a profit center and simply instruct CEO Roger Burnley to make them more money.
(Reporting by James Davey and Paul Sandle, Editing by Keith Weir)
Source: OANN
Maggie Chapman of Voices for Scotland is photographed during an interview in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
April 25, 2019
By Elisabeth O’Leary
EDINBURGH (Reuters) – As Brexit gnaws at Britain’s political structure, supporters of an independent Scotland are launching a new grassroots campaign aimed at convincing a large majority of Scots to back a split from the United Kingdom.
Scots rejected independence in referendum 2014 and support since then has stuck at around 45 percent, opinion polls say.
But they also voted to remain in the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum in which England and Wales voted to leave, and discontent over how Brexit is being handled is widespread.
“Voices for Scotland”, a crowd-funded initiative with about 100,000 participants, will try to boost support for secession to 60 percent via a clipboard-wielding army of activists who aim to cover the whole of Scotland.
They are targeting around one third of Scots who they believe were “soft ‘No’” voters in 2014 through their family and friends.
“It’s about conversations with people you trust,” said professor Iain Black from Stirling University, who has compiled research for the group and took part in a news conference.
Black found that women, particularly those who are young, were changing their minds about independence because of “the closing off of opportunity of Brexit,” he said. Conversely those more opposed to the idea were older citizens.
The launch comes a day after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the country would start preparing for a second referendum on independence before May 2021 without permission from London.
In the campaign for the 2014 independence referendum, unionists said the only way for Scotland to stay in the EU was to stick with the United Kingdom.
Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party (SNP), which runs the devolved government in Edinburgh, says a second referendum just a few years later is justified as Scotland is now being dragged out of the bloc against its will.
On Thursday David Lidington, the de facto British deputy prime minister, ruled out any referendum on Scottish independence, saying the matter was settled for a generation in 2014. Opponents of independence say Brexit has not changed Scotland’s desire to remain part of the United Kingdom.
“UK is not OK”
Debate among family and friends is the way the Voices for Scotland intends to spread its message, providing training and resources for activists. Listening to worries about independence will be as central as touting the merits of ending the 300-year-old union.
“We have to take a big majority of the country with us, and in order to do that we have to change our discourse,” actress Elaine C Smith, one of the platform’s founders, told reporters.
Secessionists want to learn from the divisiveness of Brexit and take a different tone from the 2014 “Yes” independence campaign, they say.
“We can see in the political discourse of the last year or more what a very narrow vote can do to a country and a community. That is not what we want,” Smith said.
The grassroots independence movement is still a force to be reckoned with, having boosted support to 45 percent in 2014 from around 23 percent in 2012.
Britain is mired in political chaos after parliament rejected three times the withdrawal deal negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May and other EU leaders. It is still unclear when or even if it will leave the bloc.
“I get the sense that we are in the death throes of the United Kingdom,” Maggie Chapman, also part of Voices for Scotland and co-convenor of the Scottish Greens, told Reuters.
“One of the things that ‘no’ or undecided voters said to me in 2014, in the run-up to that referendum (on Scottish independence) was ‘why, what do you want to change, the UK is fine as it is’”.
“Brexit tells us that the UK is not OK”
(Reporting by Elisabeth O’Leary; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Source: OANN
Former Vice President Joe Biden is running into immediate headwinds from some progressive Democrats from the party’s left wing as he launches his 2020 presidential bid.
A group aligned with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Justice Democrats says in a lengthy statement that Biden is a centrist Democrat who could “divide the party.” It says Biden could squelch progressive enthusiasm for policies like single-payer healthcare and a Green New Deal.
The group said Thursday the “old guard” already failed to defeat President Donald Trump in 2016 and cannot be counted on to excite the base in 2020. But the statement still notes that Justice Democrats will support whoever wins the Democratic nomination next year.
Biden joined the crowded Democratic presidential contest on Thursday morning, declaring the “soul of this nation” at stake if Trump wins re-election.
Source: NewsMax Politics
Rohingya refugees carry bricks to a construction site at the Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
April 25, 2019
DHAKA (Reuters) – Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are at risk from landslides in the coming monsoon season and should be relocated to a remote island, the country’s foreign minister said on Thursday, a move opposed by many refugees.
Bangladesh wants to move 100,000 of the nearly 1 million Rohingya Muslims sheltered in cramped camps in its southeastern district of Cox’s Bazar to the remote island, known as Bhasan Char, which it has been developing for the past two years.
“We have information that this year there may be more rain and that may cause landslides,” Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told reporters after he met with officials from the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration.
“Bhasan Char island is now prepared and we can start to relocate Rohingya before the monsoon to avert any casualties in the coming monsoon,” Momen said.
The United Nations is making plans to help Bangladesh with the move, Reuters reported last month.
Some human rights groups have expressed concerns over that plan because the island is remote and prone to devastation from cyclones. Many refugees oppose the move that some human rights experts fear could spark a new crisis.
A Myanmar military-led crackdown in 2017 that U.N. investigators have said was conducted with “genocidal intent” prompted some 730,000 Rohingya to flee.
Myanmar has denied almost all allegations of atrocities made by refugees during what is says was a legitimate counterterrorism operation by its security forces.
(Reporting By Serajul Quadir; editing by Darren Schuettler)
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FILE PHOTO: Vice-President of the European Central Bank Luis de Guindos speaks during an event marking Latvia’s five years with the Euro in Riga, Latvia January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
April 25, 2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is prepared to resume its quantitative easing (QE) program if needed to reach its inflation target but so far it has not discussed such a prospect, its vice-president Luis de Guindos said on Thursday.
“We closed our QE program at the end of last year but… it’s something that we can use again if needed,” de Guindos told an event in New York.
(Reporting By Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Francesco Canepa in Frankfurt; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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