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Apr 22, 2019; New York City, NY, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Steven Matz (32) pitches against the Philadelphia Phillies during the first inning at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports
April 23, 2019
Jeff McNeil had two hits, including a solo home run, to lift the host New York Mets past the Philadelphia Phillies 5-1 on Monday in a game that saw Phillies right fielder Bryce Harper get ejected while arguing from the dugout.
Mets starter Steven Matz (2-1) was effective, allowing three hits and one run in six innings. He struck out six and walked two. It was a completely different outcome from his last start against the Phillies in which he faced eight batters and failed to record an out on April 16.
Rhys Hoskins ripped a solo homer for the Phillies. Cesar Hernandez had Philadelphia’s only other two hits in the game, as the Phillies failed to support starter Jake Arrieta (3-2). The right-hander threw six-plus innings and gave up seven hits and four runs (three earned). He fanned seven and walked one.
In a bizarre circumstance, Harper was tossed with two outs in the fourth. After a questionable called strike to Hernandez, plate umpire Mark Carlson motioned to the dugout and ejected Harper for arguing balls and strikes. Harper had reached base in all of his previous 21 games with the Phillies before going 0-for-2 with two strikeouts and being ejected.
Rockies 7, Nationals 5
Nolan Arenado homered and finished with three hits — including the 1,000th of his career — while Mark Reynolds and Raimel Tapia also went deep to lead Colorado past Washington in Denver.
Trevor Story had two hits and Seunghwan Oh (1-0) pitched an inning of relief for the victory. Colorado has won seven of its past eight following an eight-game losing streak. Wade Davis pitched the ninth inning for his second save.
Arenado’s milestone hit came leading off the seventh inning, when he hit his fourth home run of the season off reliever Wander Suero (1-2) to make it 6-5. Brian Dozier homered, and Howie Kendrick drove in two for the Nationals.
Cardinals 13, Brewers 5
Dexter Fowler matched his career high with four hits, drove in four runs and scored three to help St. Louis throttle visiting Milwaukee in the opener of the three-game series.
Paul Goldschmidt had three hits and three RBIs, and Jose Martinez, Paul DeJong and Matt Carpenter contributed two hits each for St. Louis, which blew the game open with seven runs in the seventh inning.
Cardinals right-hander Jack Flaherty (2-1) made his third start of the season against the Brewers and delivered his longest outing, going six innings and giving up four runs and three hits, all homers. He struck out a season-high 10 and walked one. Milwaukee’s Adrian Houser (0-1), making his first major league start, went four-plus innings and gave up five runs on nine hits.
Twins 9, Astros 5
Jorge Polanco recorded his second four-hit game of the season, and he belted a two-run, two-out homer in the eighth inning to carry Minnesota to victory in the opener of a three-game series in Houston.
The Twins, winners of five of their past six, scored two in the first and another run in the second — Jason Castro’s first home run of the season leading off the frame — off Brad Peacock (2-1). Minnesota’s Jake Odorizzi (2-2) limited the Astros to two runs on eight hits over 5 2/3 innings, striking out two without walking a batter.
Houston trailed 7-1 before getting a solo homer from Michael Brantley in the sixth inning and a three-run blast from Carlos Correa in the seventh, but like Sunday night (when Houston rallied from a nine-run deficit and loaded the bases with two outs in the ninth inning before falling 11-10), the Astros couldn’t complete the comeback.
Rays 6, Royals 3
Tampa Bay hit for the cycle in the bottom of the seventh, scoring three runs to emerge with a win over visiting Kansas City. Mike Zunino hit a 425-foot, two-run home run to dead center for the key hit in the inning.
Wilmer Font (1-0) recorded the final out of the seventh and picked up the victory for the Rays, who snapped a four-game losing streak. Emilio Pagan pitched the ninth to record up his first major league save.
Brad Keller (2-2) took the loss for the Royals, who dropped their fourth in a row. He had not surrendered more than three earned runs in any of his first five starts, but he gave up five runs on seven hits in 6 1/3 innings.
Diamondbacks 12, Pirates 4
David Peralta smacked a three-run triple and Christian Walker added a two-run homer during a seven-run seventh inning as Arizona clobbered host Pittsburgh.
Pirates starter Joe Musgrove, who had allowed two earned runs this season, was charged with three runs and five hits in six-plus innings. He struck out five and walked two. Kyle Crick (0-1) took the loss after giving up four runs in two-thirds of an inning.
Eduardo Escobar homered and drove in three runs, and John Ryan Murphy added three hits for Arizona, which has won six of its past eight games. Diamondbacks starter Zack Godley gave up four runs and seven hits in four innings, but Matt Andriese (3-1) got the win with two scoreless innings of relief.
White Sox 12, Orioles 2
Jose Abreu hit his 150th career home run and drove in five runs while James McCann hit a homer and had four RBIs as Chicago scored a season high in runs to win at Baltimore.
Orioles starter David Hess (1-4) kept the White Sox quiet in the first four innings, but homers have troubled him this season, and it happened again in this game. With the game scoreless, Tim Anderson started the fifth with a double and Nicky Delmonico walked. McCann then crushed a three-run shot to left-center — the eighth surrendered by Hess.
Manny Banuelos made his first start this season for Chicago — his first major league start since September 2015 — and scattered five hits in four shutout innings. Jace Fry (1-0) got the victory in relief.
Tigers at Red Sox, ppd.
Detroit’s scheduled game at Boston was rained out and will be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader Tuesday.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Valero Houston Refinery is seen in Houston, Texas, U.S. August 31, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
April 23, 2019
By Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. independent refiners are expected to roll out lower than expected first-quarter profits after a spate of outages, weak gasoline margins and a surge in the price of Canadian oil, according to analysts.
Major independent refiners cut production dramatically during the quarter, with some electing to undergo maintenance rather than produce barrels at a time when gasoline margins slumped.
Several major U.S. refiners, including Valero Energy Corp, HollyFrontier Corp, and Marathon Petroleum Corp, are all expected to fall short of consensus estimates when they report results, according to Refinitiv Eikon’s SmartEstimate model, which values more recent revisions from higher-ranked analysts.
However, reduced refining output in the early part of the year sets up the industry for a potential rebound as the critical summer months approach. With gasoline stockpiles at a four-year low on a seasonal basis, margins have rebounded in anticipation of driving season.
U.S. refinery utilization dropped to 87.5 percent in early April, the lowest seasonally since 2014. Refiners had been running full-tilt for much of 2018, encouraged by strong demand for distillates. But in the process, they overproduced gasoline, tanking margins for the fuel along the way.
Those margins fell to $3.64 a gallon in January, the lowest since 2009. They have since recovered, and were at about $23.00 a gallon on Monday, as inventories have fallen to about 228 million barrels from almost 260 million barrels in mid-January.
(GRAPHIC: Gasoline stocks fall as refinery runs drop https://tmsnrt.rs/2Iafyjp.)
Refiner earnings kick off this week with Valero on Friday. Since the beginning of April, analysts, on average, have revised projections for refiners lower by more than 5 percent, according to Refinitiv data.
Analysts have sharply lowered estimates for Valero, Marathon and HollyFrontier, along with PBF Energy and Phillips 66, in the past month, putting them in the bottom quartile among U.S. companies in terms of revisions, according to Refinitiv data.
On top of heavy maintenance, fires broke out at facilities over the last few months, including at Valero’s Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, Exxon Mobil Corp’s Baytown, Texas, refinery and HollyFrontier’s El Dorado, Kansas, refinery.
HollyFrontier lowered the amount of crude it expected to process in the first quarter by 5,000 bpd. Analysts at Goldman Sachs downgraded the company’s outlook last week on concerns that profits would take a hit after Canadian crude differentials collapsed.
Sandy Fielden, director of commodities and energy research at Morningstar, said PBF also lost out because of “the Canadian crude discount just disappearing.”
Canadian crude oil had been heavily discounted due to oversupply and lack of pipelines, but that discount eroded after the province of Alberta instituted production cuts. Western Canada Select (WCS) recently has traded around $9.25 a barrel under U.S. crude, compared with $15.65 at the beginning of the quarter. [CRU/CA]
BUMPER BUNKER PROFITS?
Some refiners decided to undergo heavier planned maintenance during the quarter to ready facilities for new low-sulfur marine fuel requirements. The new regulations required by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) are due to come into effect on Jan. 1, 2020 and could produce bumper profits.
The rules outlaw high-sulfur fuels traditionally used for shipping – a boon for complex refineries that can break down products used by marine vessels into lower-sulfur products with higher margins.
Refiners could now run their plants at higher rates to take advantage of the higher margins, and analysts expect gasoline inventories to climb through the remainder of the year as a result.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Susan Thomas)
Source: OANN
Chinese navy personnel perform at an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in Qingdao, China, April 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 23, 2019
By Ben Blanchard
QINGDAO, China (Reuters) – The Chinese people love peace and countries should not threaten each other with the use of force, President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday as he kicked off a large-scale naval parade marking 70 years since the founding of China’s navy.
Xi is overseeing a sweeping plan to refurbish the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by developing everything from stealth jets to aircraft carriers as China ramps up its presence in the disputed South China Sea and around self-ruled Taiwan, which have rattled nerves around the region and in Washington.
The navy has been a key beneficiary of the modernisation plan, with China looking to project power far from the country’s shores and protect its trading routes and citizens overseas.
Meeting foreign naval officers in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, Xi said the navies of the world should work together to protect maritime peace and order.
“The Chinese people love and long for peace, and will unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development,” Xi added, in remarks carried by the official Xinhua news agency, after foreign reporters were asked by Xi to leave the room.
“Everyone should respect each other, treat each other as equals, enhance mutual trust, strengthen maritime dialogue and exchanges, and deepen pragmatic cooperation between navies” he added.
“There must be more discussions and consultations between countries, and there cannot be resorts to force or threats of force at the slightest pretext,” Xi said.
“All countries should adhere to equal consultations, improve crisis communication mechanisms, strengthen regional security cooperation, and promote the proper settlement of maritime-related disputes.”
Xi is expected to review the naval parade from sea later in the day, though it is unclear whether poor weather in Qingdao – with mist and driving rain – could affect the event.
The parade will feature 32 Chinese vessels and 39 aircraft, as well as warships from 13 foreign countries including India, Japan, Vietnam and Australia.
China has said it will display for the first time new nuclear submarines and warships.
China has frequently had to rebuff concerns about its military intentions, especially as military spending continues to scale new heights.
Beijing says it has nothing to hide, and invited a small number of foreign media onboard a naval ship to watch the parade, including from Reuters.
China’s last naval battles were with the Vietnamese in the South China Sea in 1974 and 1988, though these were relatively minor skirmishes.
Chinese navy ships have also participated in international anti-piracy patrols off Somalia’s coast since late 2008.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The Samsung Galaxy Fold phone is shown on a screen at Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s Unpacked event in San Francisco, California, U.S., Feb. 20, 2019 REUTERS/Stephen Nellis
April 23, 2019
By Ju-min Park
SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is retrieving all Galaxy Fold samples distributed to reviewers to investigate reports of broken screens, a day after it postponed the phone’s launch, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
The retrieval comes as the world’s biggest smartphone maker met with embarrassment ahead of the foldable device’s U.S. release on April 26, with a handful of technology journalists reporting breaks, bulges and blinking screens after a day’s use.
The South Korean tech giant postponed the handset’s launch for an unspecified period of time while it investigated the matter. It said initial findings showed the issues could be associated with impact on exposed areas of the hinges.
A representative declined to comment further on Tuesday.
Samsung’s share price was 0.4 percent lower as of 0425 GMT, in a flat Seoul market. However, parts suppliers fell, with hinge maker KH Vatec Co Ltd shedding 3.1 percent.
A person with direct knowledge of the supply chain said KH Vatec conducted an internal review of hinges used in the Galaxy Fold and found no defects. The supplier declined to comment.
In March, Samsung released a video showing robots folding Galaxy Fold handsets 200,000 times for its durability test.
Samsung’s head of IT and mobile communications, DJ Koh, has repeatedly said foldables are the future of smartphones.
Though the issue does not hurt Samsung’s balance sheet, the postponement damages the firm’s effort to showcase itself as an innovative first mover, not a fast follower, analysts said.
In some cases, reviewers had peeled off a layer of film which they mistook for a disposable screen protector.
“It’s disastrous that Samsung sent samples to reviewers without clear instructions on how to handle the device, and that the firm needs to fix screen flickering,” said analyst Kim Young-woo at SK Securities.
One Samsung employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “On the bright side, we have an opportunity to nail down this issue and fix it before selling the phones to a massive audience, so they won’t have same complaints.”
Samsung emailed pre-order customers upon delaying the launch, online outlets said on Twitter.
“Your pre-order guarantees your place in the queue for this innovative technology,” Samsung said in the email. “We’ll update you with more specific shipping information in two weeks.”
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
Source: OANN
A worker stands in front of Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway exhibition hall at Walini tunnel construction site in West Bandung regency, West Java province, Indonesia, February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
April 23, 2019
By Fanny Potkin and Tabita Diela
WALLINI, Indonesia (Reuters) – In a rural part of Indonesia’s Java island, two orange-clad workers confer in Mandarin over plans to lay tracks on a stretch of a $6 billion high-speed rail project between the capital Jakarta and the textile hub of Bandung.
Both are employees of the state-owned China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC), and have previously worked on a rail project in Uganda, another part of Beijing’s sweeping multi-billion dollar “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI) to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond.
Delayed for nearly three years over land ownership issues, construction on the 142 km (88-mile) Indonesian line finally kicked into high gear in 2018.
When China hosts its second summit of nations that are part of BRI this week, Beijing is likely to showcase the Indonesian project along with its recent success in getting Malaysia’s East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) back on track after months of negotiations.
Analysts say the two projects will be held up as China’s answers to criticism about high debt and the lack of transparency in the BRI and its attempt to refocus the program on sustainable financing, green growth, and high quality.
China’s foreign ministry said last week Beijing would “work together with all parties to benefit people across the world by jointly promoting the high-quality development of BRI in line with the national conditions of each country”.
The BRI is a key policy of Chinese President Xi Jinping but has been controversial in many Western capitals, particularly Washington, which views it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad and saddle countries with unsustainable debt through nontransparent projects.
According to a draft communique seen by Reuters, participants at this week’s summit will agree to project financing that respects global debt goals and promotes green growth.
“This bucks the trend of recent negative headlines around the BRI and challenges facing projects in several countries,” said Peter Mumford at the Eurasia Group consultancy.
But in Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed agreed to put the 668-km ECRL back on track only after cutting the cost of the project from $16 billion to $10.7 billion.
“The risk for China is that other countries, having seen Mahathir’s success, now try to adopt similar tough re-negotiating tactics on BRI projects, which could slow progress elsewhere,” said Mumford.
To be sure, there is no sign of any of the BRI countries attempting to re-negotiate deals signed with Beijing. Analysts say China is likely to use its willingness to work with partner nations and make projects feasible to seek more business.
“GOLD-PLATED”
Bankers familiar with the deal say the Indonesian project is being constructed under “gold-plated terms”.
Of the total $6 billion cost, China’s Development Bank will provide a $4.5 billion loan at 2 percent interest, according a project prospectus seen by Reuters. The remaining 25 percent of the project cost will be funded by equity provided by the consortium.
The loan will have no sovereign guarantees, which are among the most controversial parts of Belt and Road projects, as they shift risk onto the governments of partner countries.
Beijing lobbied hard against Tokyo in 2015 to win the Indonesian project as a way to showcase its high-speed rail expertise to international customers.
“China wanted to deliberately show that its fast train was better than Japan … we asked for the lowest rate possible and they gave 2 percent,” Rini Soemarno, Indonesia’s minister for state-owned enterprises, told reporters earlier this year.
The railway’s financial terms came under debate during April’s presidential election between Indonesian President Joko Widodo and challenger Prabowo Subianto, who pledged to review the project if he pulled off a victory.
While the results are still to be officially confirmed, sample vote counts by independent pollsters show Widodo to be headed for a second term.
At the project site, there seem to be no doubts that it will be completed. Deep in Indonesia’s tea country, workers are directing drilling machines into a hillside, displacing red earth to carve out two tunnels that will lead to the station of Wallini, a tea plantation near Bandung.
Chinese workers there told Reuters they had been at the site for a year and expected to stay until the project’s completion in 2021. Four new satellite towns will be built by the train consortium along the route.
Widodo’s government is currently offering up to $91 billion in infrastructure projects to Chinese companies, according to Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs, who said Chinese officials have toured regional governments in search of projects to fund.
Two top officials told Reuters Widodo intends to lead a delegation to the Belt and Road forum, where some of those projects are expected to be signed.
One of the officials, Indonesia’s investment board chief, Thomas Lembong, told Reuters he expected this week’s summit to be a turning point, a “Belt and Road 2.0” with China more willing to negotiate.
“The Chinese leadership will do whatever it takes to make Belt and Road a success, even if that means making it more professionalised, transparent, and more cooperative,” he said.
THE SINGAPORE LINK
The revival of the Malaysian project is likely to give China hope of securing another train project: the high speed rail (HSR) between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which was postponed by Mahathir after he initially threatened to cancel it.
“China will likely take heart from the ECRL outcome and focus their efforts on ensuring that the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR remains on track,” Harrison Cheng, an analyst at Control Risks, told Reuters.
Beijing had been intent on being awarded the project to prove that its rail expertise could win over rivals in a first-world country like Singapore, with its diplomats describing it as a “must win at all costs project”.
Apart from CREC, consortiums from Japan, South Korea, Europe, Singapore and Malaysia are also in the race, if the project is revived.
A source in the Singaporean government said Malaysia would have to pay significant penalties to cancel the project altogether.
Mahathir as well as Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will take part in this week’s Belt and Road summit, which could see China make a renewed push for the project.
(Reporting by Fanny Potkin and Tabita Diela in JAKARTA and WALLINI; Additional reporting by Gayatri Suroyo and Cindy Silviana in JAKARTA, Sumeet Chatterjee in HONG KONG, Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI, Joseph Sipalan and Liz Lee in Kuala Lumpur, and Joe Brock and John Geddie in SINGAPORE, Editing by Ed Davies and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe look on during a Parliament session marking the 70th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Government, in Colombo, Sri Lanka October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo
April 23, 2019
By Sanjeev Miglani
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lankans woke to emergency law on Tuesday as authorities searched for those behind suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels that killed 290 people at the weekend, with the focus turning to militants with links to foreign groups.
No group has yet to claim responsibility for Easter Sunday’s attacks on three churches and four luxury hotels that also wounded about 500 people.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the number of people arrested since Sunday had risen from 24 to 40. They are mainly Sri Lankans, although Gunasekera said police were investigating whether foreigners were involved in the attacks carried out by seven suicide bombers.
The president’s office declared that emergency law would come into effect from midnight, giving police extensive powers to detain and interrogate suspects without court orders. An overnight curfew was also put into effect.
The declaration came after nerves were frayed even further in the seaside capital Colombo when explosives went off on Monday near one of the churches hit in Sunday’s attacks while bomb squad officers were working to defuse a device.
CNN reported the blast was a controlled detonation.
Tuesday was also declared a national day of mourning.
The attacks brought a shattering end to a relative calm that had existed in the Indian Ocean island since a bitter civil war fought by Tamil separatists ended 10 years ago and raised fears of a return to sectarian violence.
It also underlined concerns over fractures in the Sri Lankan government, with questions raised over whether an intelligence tip-off was shared at the appropriate levels.
A government spokesman has said an international network was involved in the bombings but suspicion has focused on Islamist militants in the Buddhist-majority South Asian country. The nation of about 22 million people also has significant numbers of Hindus, Muslims and Christians.
The Washington Post quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were being sent to Sri Lanka to assist in the investigation.
The FBI has also offered laboratory expertise to test evidence and analysts were scouring databases for information that might shed light on tea attacks, the Post said.
U.S. intelligence sources said the attacks carried some of the hallmarks of the Islamic State extremist group, although they were cautious because the group had not claimed responsibility.
Islamic State is usually quick to claim responsibility for, or links to, attacks against foreign targets or religious groups whether they were involved or not.
INTERNAL FEUD
A document seen by Reuters showed that police had received a tip-off of a possible attack on churches by a little-known domestic Islamist group this month.
The intelligence report, dated April 11, said a foreign intelligence agency had warned authorities of possible attacks on churches by the National Thawheed Jama’ut group. It was not immediately clear what action, if any, was taken in response.
Questions over why the intelligence warning was not acted upon could feed into a feud between Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Maithripala Sirisena.
Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe last year only to be forced to reinstate him under pressure from the Supreme Court and their relationship is reported to be fraught.
International experts said, even if a Sri Lankan group had carried out the attacks, it was likely that al Qaeda or Islamic State were involved given the level of sophistication of the apparently coordinated bombings.
Footage on CNN showed what it said was one of the bombers wearing a heavy backpack. The man patted a young child on the head before entering the Gothic-style St. Sebastian church in Katuwapitiya, north of Colombo. Dozens were killed there.
Most of the dead and wounded were Sri Lankans, although government officials said 32 foreigners were killed. That included British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals.
China’s embassy in Sri Lanka warned Chinese nationals on Tuesday against traveling to Sri Lanka in the near term because of “huge security risks”.
China is a major investor in Sri Lanka. The embassy said one Chinese national was killed, five were wounded and another five were missing.
Among the victims were three of the four children of Anders Holch Povlsen, Denmark’s richest man.
Eight Britons were also killed, including Anita Nicholson, her 14-year-old son and her 11-year-old daughter. Nicholson’s husband survived the attack on the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo.
(GRAPHIC: Sri Lanka bombings – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Xy02BA)
(GRAPHIC: A decade of peace shattered – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W4wZoU)
(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball and Kieran Murray in WASHINGTON, and Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo in BEIJING; Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: An apartment complex which is currently under construction is seen in Seoul, South Korea, August 30, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
April 23, 2019
By Joori Roh and Cynthia Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s first quarter economic growth likely slowed to the weakest pace in more than a year, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday, as exports faltered and investment activities cooled amid U.S.-China trade frictions.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy is forecast to have expanded 0.3 percent in the January-March quarter from three months earlier, according to a Reuters poll, the weakest since the economy contracted 0.2 percent in the last quarter of 2017 and slowing from the previous quarter’s 1 percent growth.
From a year earlier, the economy probably expanded 2.5 percent in the first quarter, according to the median forecast of 17 economists, also slowing from 3.1 percent growth in the fourth quarter.
Policymakers have pledged to draft an extra budget to juice growth that is projected to fall to a seven-year low of 2.5 percent in 2019 as exports continue to weaken while a delay in chip demand is clouding the outlook for shipments. [nL3N21Z0GB]
Exports contracted for a fourth month in March, putting pressure on the authorities to offer stimulus or shift to an easing stance to ward off growing external risks. [nS6N20R02G]
“An over 8 percent fall in exports in the first quarter from a year ago was probably the worse among Asian countries. Undoubtedly, it should have caused a dent to GDP growth,” said Rob Carnell, an economist at ING, referring to an 8.2 percent decline in January-March shipments from a year earlier.
In a sign of continuing strain, exports declined 8.7 percent in the first 20 days of April in annual terms, data showed.
Carnell expects the economy to have posted zero growth in the first quarter.
Market expectations of a rate cut have also gathered momentum in the past month, after the U.S. Federal Reserve recently signaled an end to its tightening cycle.
Moon Jung-hui, an economist at KB Securities, sees limited effect from the planned supplementary budget.
“We predicted a 0.3 percentage point boost in growth for the next two years with a 13 trillion won extra budget, but if it ends up with half the amount, the impact will not be big,” Moon said.
The country’s finance minister said on April 10 the ministry will submit an extra budget of smaller than 7 trillion won ($6.14 billion) to parliament by the month-end, which will likely focus on tackling pollution and downside risks to the economy. [nS6N20Z00B]
South Korea’s parliament in March passed a set of bills to fight air pollution that has blanketed parts of the country in recent years, with one bill designating the problem a ‘social disaster’. [nL3N20Z0UN]
The Bank of Korea will release first-quarter preliminary growth figures early on Thursday. (2300 GMT Wednesday).
($1 = 1,139.7000 won)
(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
Source: OANN
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WASHINGTON — The constitutional case for impeaching President Trump was best made two decades ago by one of his most servile enablers, Lindsey Graham, now the senior senator from South Carolina:
“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body [the Senate] determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role … because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
The political case for moving deliberately but fearlessly toward impeachment is even clearer: If timorous Democrats do not seize and define this moment, Trump surely will.
What just happened is that special counsel Robert Mueller delivered a searing indictment of a president who has no idea what “honor” and “integrity” even mean — a president who lies almost pathologically, who orders subordinates to lie, who has no respect for the rule of law, who welcomed Russian meddling in the 2016 election, who clumsily tried to orchestrate a cover-up, who tried his best to impede a lawful Justice Department investigation and failed only to the extent that aides ignored his outrageous and improper orders.
What Trump claims just happened is a “witch hunt.”
Anyone who thinks there is a chance that Trump will lick his wounds and move on has not been paying attention. Having escaped criminal charges — because he is a sitting president — Trump will go on the offensive. With the help of Attorney General William Barr, whose title really should be Minister of Spin, the president will push to investigate the investigators and sell the bogus counternarrative of an attempted “coup” by politically motivated elements of the “deep state.”
Here is the important thing: Trump will mount this attack no matter what Democrats do. And strictly as a matter of practical politics, the best defense against Trump has to be a powerful offense.
I fail to see the benefit for Democrats, heading into the 2020 election, of being seen as such fraidy-cats that they shirk their constitutional duty. Mueller’s portrait of this president and his administration is devastating. According to Lindsey Graham’s “honor and integrity” standard — which he laid out in January 1999, when he was one of the House prosecutors in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in the Senate — beginning the process of impeaching Trump is not a close call.
It is also important for Democrats to keep their eyes on the prize. The election is the one guaranteed opportunity to throw Trump and his band of grifters out of the White House, and the big anti-Trump majority that was on display in last year’s midterm must be maintained and, one hopes, expanded.
But that task will largely fall to the eventual Democratic nominee, whoever that turns out to be. Presidential contenders should be free to position themselves however they see fit on the impeachment question. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has chosen to single herself out by leading the charge. Others may choose to demur and focus instead on the kitchen-table issues, such as health care, that polls show voters care about.
But most Democratic members of Congress (believe it or not) are not running for president. Their focus has to be on their constitutional duty — and nowhere in the Constitution does it say “never mind about presidential obstruction of justice or abuse of power if there’s an election next year.”
I have no intention of letting congressional Republicans off the hook. They have constitutional responsibilities as well, though it’s clear they will not fulfill them. Imagine, for a moment, if the tables were turned — if a GOP majority were running the House and a Democratic president did half of what Trump did. Do you think Republicans would hesitate for a New York minute? Articles of impeachment would have been drawn up long ago and stern-faced senators, including Graham, would already be sitting in judgment.
The conventional wisdom is that Republicans made a political error by impeaching Clinton. But they did win the presidency in 2000 and go on to dominate Congress for most of George W. Bush’s tenure. If impeachment was a mistake, it wasn’t a very costly one.
Does it “play into Trump’s hands” to speak of impeachment? I think it plays into the president’s hands to disappoint the Democratic base and come across as weak and frightened. Voters who saw the need to hold Trump accountable decided to give Democrats some power — and now expect them to use it.
(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group
Polling officers wait to collect the election materials at a distribution centre ahead of third phase of general elections in Ahmedabad, India April 22, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave
April 23, 2019
By Devjyot Ghoshal
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Voting began in the third and largest phase of India’s staggered general election on Tuesday, including in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat and southern Kerala, where opposition Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi is contesting.
In all, 188 million voters are eligible to cast ballots in 117 constituencies during the day – across 15 states and federally-controlled territories.
The general election, which has seven phases, began on April 11 and will end on May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23.
“This is, sort of, an inflection point,” said Rahul Verma, a fellow at the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Policy Research, with more than half of India’s parliamentary constituencies having voted by the end of the third phase. The country’s parliament has 545 members.
So far, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has aggressively pushed Modi’s national security record as it seeks to offset the opposition’s charges of economic mishandling, inadequate jobs creation and widespread farm distress.
“I think job creation, sustainable development, and communal harmony should be the top priorities for the upcoming government,” said Ubaidullah Mohyideen, 26, who voted on Tuesday in Kerala’s Wayanad, one of the two seats that Gandhi is contesting.
At an election rally in western Maharashtra state on Monday, Modi mentioned the attacks on Sri Lankan hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that killed 290 people before saying India’s security had been enhanced after his government came to power in 2014.
“Friends, remember what India’s situation was before 2014,” Modi said. “Weren’t there bombs going off in different corners of the country every other day?”
Verma said Modi’s repeated reference to the Sri Lankan attacks were a sign that the BJP would double down on the security issue for the remainder of the election campaign, which the prime minister began as a front-runner amid escalated tensions with neighboring Pakistan.
“I feel BJP is hell-bent on running this campaign on national security,” Verma said. “Basically if they bring up any other thing, they would be on a difficult terrain, like on economic issues or on their performance.”
In late February, Modi sent warplanes to Pakistan to bomb a purported training camp in response to a suicide attack in India-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian paratroopers. The attack was claimed by an Islamist militant group based in Pakistan.
(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Additional reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Martin Howell and Michael Perry)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning arrives prior to the state funeral for former U.S. President George H.W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, U.S., December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Young
April 23, 2019
The Arizona Cardinals still haven’t tipped their hand as to how they’ll use the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft on Thursday, and teams continue to inquire about a trade, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Monday.
He also said general manager Steve Keim, coach Kliff Kingsbury and owner Michael Bidwill have a final meeting scheduled to make a decision.
The assumption is Cardinals will draft Kyler Murray, who won the Heisman Trophy and led Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff in 2018. Reports over the weekend surfaced that the Cardinals plan to keep Josh Rosen at quarterback and draft a difference-maker on defense.
CBS Sports columnist Pete Prisco reported that Bidwill wanted the team to take Murray, but that has changed. “Now all of a sudden they’re pulling back and, from what I have been told, they’re going to go in a different direction,” Prisco said. “They’re not going to draft Kyler Murray.”
–Washington Redskins senior vice president of player personnel Doug Williams made it clear that the team is still seeking an upgrade at quarterback after trading for Case Keenum last month.
The Redskins, who hold the 15th pick in Thursday’s first round, have been connected to some of the draft’s top quarterback prospects and also to Rosen, whom the Cardinals could trade if they draft Murray.
“Case has done a good job over the last couple of years where he’s been, and you know, we needed a quarterback and was able to trade for Case,” Williams told reporters. “But that does not put us out of the realm of picking a quarterback if there’s one there that we like at 15. We don’t know who’s going to be there at 15. We’ve got some guys we do like, and if those guys are there, that’s the discussion that has to be had.”
–Peyton Manning will not join ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcast team this season, Sporting News reported.
The future Hall of Fame quarterback met with network executives last month in Denver about replacing Jason Witten, who has returned to the Dallas Cowboys after one season in the booth.
But Manning is reluctant to comment on games while his younger brother, Eli, is still playing, according to NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk. Eli’s New York Giants have two Monday night games scheduled in 2019.
–Former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb clarified his recent comments about current Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz.
“For those of you who misread, didn’t understand, were confused or just didn’t like my comments let me clarify it for you,” McNabb wrote on Twitter. “Let me start by saying there’s no beef, riff or ill-will toward (Wentz) or the @Eagles. My comments were strictly based off of experience and understanding of how the business of football works.”
McNabb said on Saturday the team should consider drafting another quarterback if Wentz doesn’t take the Eagles beyond the second round of the playoffs within “two years or so.”
–A week after Russell Wilson agreed to his four-year, $140 million deal with the Seahawks, he reportedly decided to share the wealth with the Seattle offensive linemen, gifting them each $12,000 in Amazon stock.
Each of Wilson’s 13 linemen reportedly received a letter with the gift, expressing his gratitude and hopes that the gift would help them “prepare for life after football.”
“You sacrifice your physical and mental well-being to protect me, which in turn allows me to provide and care for my family. This does not go unnoticed and it is never forgotten,” he wrote in a letter first published by TMZ.
–Atlanta Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett signed his franchise tender on Monday, locking in a one-year, $15,209,000 salary for 2019.
The team has been vocal about its intentions to sign Jarrett to a long-term deal, which the sides have until July 15 to negotiate. If no extension is agreed upon, he will play out 2019 on the tag.
The Falcons also announced the signing of free agent safety J.J. Wilcox, who spent 2018 with the New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts.
–The Green Bay Packers intend to exercise their fifth-year option, expected to be worth about $8 million, on defensive tackle Kenny Clark for the 2020 season.
General manager Brian Gutekunst confirmed that plan to reporters, although the team has until a May 3 deadline to make the move official.
–Buffalo signed free agent running back T.J. Yeldon to a two-year contract. Terms were not disclosed.
Yeldon, 25, had 414 rushing yards and one touchdown with the Jacksonville Jaguars last season.
–The Denver Broncos signed defensive linemen Billy Winn and Mike Purcell, along with offensive lineman Jake Rodgers.
Winn was out of the league last year after missing all of 2017 with a knee injury. He had 19 tackles for Denver in 2016.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN
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