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FILE PHOTO: An attendee plays a video game next to the Nintendo booth at the E3 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 13, 2017. REUTERS/ Mike Blake
April 25, 2019
By Sam Nussey
OSAKA (Reuters) – Japan’s Nintendo Co Ltd cautioned it will take time for the launch of its Switch console in China and dampened speculation about introducing a low-cost version of the device.
Nintendo’s partner Tencent Holdings won approval last week to sell the hybrid home-portable device in China. But though Nintendo Chief Executive Shuntaro Furukawa praised Tencent and the partnership on Thursday, he said Switch sales in China wouldn’t begin soon.
The news of the partnership and hopes that it will extend to mobile gaming helped lift Nintendo’s stock price to six-month highs last week. Mobile and PC gaming in China, the world’s largest video games market, dwarfs the market for consoles, whose growth has been pegged back by local regulations.
Nintendo’s push into mobile is yet to deliver a major hit, although analysts point to Mario Kart Tour, developed with DeNA and due for release this summer, as a possible contender.
The Kyoto-based gaming company, which has a reputation for making conservative forecasts, said it would sell 18 million Switch console units globally this financial year, up 6.2 percent from last year.
It expects operating profit to rise 4.1 percent to 260 billion yen ($2.3 billion) this year, well below an average analyst estimate of 342 billion yen, according to Refinitiv data.
Media reports that Nintendo is preparing a low-cost version of the Switch have helped push its shares higher in recent weeks.
Furukawa said at a news conference that while the company is always developing new hardware internally it has nothing to announce and had no plans to reveal new hardware at the E3 trade show in June.
Nintendo sold 16.95 million Switch hardware units in the year just ended, slightly undershooting its revised forecast of 17 million units. Nintendo had initially forecast sales of 20 million units before Furukawa took up the role in June.
The Switch games pipeline continues to create fan excitement, with two full Pokemon titles due later this year.
Nintendo expects to sell 125 million copies of Switch games in the current fiscal year, versus 118.55 million in the year ended in March.
The industry is facing a shake-up with established console gaming companies like Nintendo and Sony Corp exposed to competition from new entrants like Alphabet Inc’s Google offering browser-based games streaming services.
Furukawa said he welcomed new technology bringing games to users.
Nintendo’s shares closed up 1.3 percent ahead of the earnings announcement. Its share price has risen 32 percent year-to-date, pushing its market capitalization above 5 trillion yen.
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Source: OANN
Greek artist Virginia Axioti works on the billboard of the “Avengers: Endgame” movie in Athens, Greece, April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
April 25, 2019
By Renee Maltezou and Michele Kambas
ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek artist Virginia Axioti’s work is seen by thousands of people every week, but none of it is digital.
As the designer of hand-painted billboards that hang over the entrance to Athens’ Athinaion cinema advertising the newest film, she can count on a regular audience without having to embrace the internet.
Her latest work set the scene for the Greek opening on Wednesday night of “Avengers: Endgame” from Disney’s Marvel Studios, the culmination of 22 Marvel films since 2007, which could break global box-office records.
Sticking with hand-painted billboards continues a tradition introduced in 1960 at the 970-seat cinema, when it was founded by Axioti’s grandfather and great-uncle. One of the city’s oldest cinemas, it is the only one that still crafts its billboard posters by hand.
“The most basic difference (with digital posters) … is the human touch. It stands out, the gaze will stay on it … it is not static, it is like something alive,” the 41 year old artist, now a co-owner of the cinema, told Reuters.
Still, creating an advert for Disney’s latest blockbuster sets a particular challenge, with seven superheroes in various poses to accommodate.
“I am forced to add more elements than I would (normally), which makes it too busy for my taste, like it has a lot of noise,” Axioti said from the studio in her home in an Athens suburb, as she deftly added color to Tony Stark’s hair, played on screen by Robert Downey Jr.
Axioti works in turns with Vassilis Dimitriou, a former boxer who has been painting for the Athinaion for over four decades.
The cinema’s location at a busy intersection in the Ampelokipoi district of the city guarantees a big audience for her work and allows passers-by an opportunity for escapism however brief, she said.
Axioti, a fine arts graduate who also sings and plays music, spends three to four days at a time to complete a poster and produces between 20 and 25 each year.
The size of the billboards, which average 6.2 x 2.20 meters pose a regular challenge, she says, because she is quite petite.
Her favorite billboard was for the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour” about a period of Winston Churchill’s time as British prime minister during World War Two.
A big fan of the actor Gary Oldman who plays Churchill, she liked it so much, she said, that she kept it at home for a day, just so she could keep looking at it on her living room wall.
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Michele Kambas; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Source: OANN
With the entrance of former Vice President Joe Biden into the 2020 Democratic presidential contest on Thursday, the field is largely set, with all the big names included.
The sprawling Democratic field features candidates ranging from 37 to 77 years old; liberals and moderates; senators, governors and mayors; and an unprecedented number of women and minorities. Democrats view the upcoming election as a must-win, and they’re looking to nominate someone who is their best hope to beat President Donald Trump.
Here are the 20 candidates:
JOE BIDEN
Age: 76
Best known for: Being former President Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017 and U.S. senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009.
Biggest strength: He’s well-known nationally and popular in some places Democrats have lost recently, such as working-class swing states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, his birthplace.
Biggest weakness: Biden would be the oldest person ever elected president, with a nearly five-decade record for opponents to comb through, at a time many in his party are clamoring for a new generation to take the reins. The notoriously chatty former senator also tends to commit verbal gaffes and faced recent accusations by some women of uninvited, though nonsexual, touching.
CORY BOOKER
Age: 49
Best known for: Serving as mayor of Newark and, currently, U.S. senator from New Jersey. He made headlines last year during his self-proclaimed “‘I am Spartacus’ moment” as he flouted Senate rules against disclosing confidential documents during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation fight.
Biggest strength: His optimistic, unity-first attitude could resonate at a time of deep political divisions.
Biggest weakness: Trying to convince voters that he’s tough enough to take on Trump.
PETE BUTTIGIEG
Age: 37
Best known for: Serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and being a former Naval intelligence officer.
Biggest strength: He’s won over voters and many skeptics with his intelligence and an articulate yet plain-spoken speaking style. He’s also shown an ability to inspire voters of different ages with a message of hope and “a new generation of leadership” and has been able to raise millions more than many of his Democratic rivals.
Biggest weakness: His youth and lack of political experience — his only public office has been leading the community of about 100,000 people — will give some voters pause. He also will need to ramp up his campaign operations and do more to appeal to minority voters in order to maintain his early momentum.
JULIAN CASTRO
Age: 44
Best Known for: Serving as Health and Human Services secretary during President Barack Obama’s second term and as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, for five years.
Biggest strength: His youthfulness and status as the only Latino in the race could help him win the votes of Democrats looking for a new face of their party.
Biggest weakness: His fundraising lags well behind other contenders.
JOHN DELANEY
Age: 56
Best known for: Being a former congressman from Maryland.
Biggest strength: He has rolled out a rural-focus policy that includes proposals to strengthen family farmers and rural infrastructure, a plan that could play well in the battleground Rust Belt states won by Trump.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition.
TULSI GABBARD
Age: 38
Best known for: Serving as a U.S. representative for Hawaii; the first American Samoan and first Hindu to be elected to Congress.
Biggest strength: Her military service in Iraq and Kuwait with the Hawaii National Guard.
Biggest weakness: She has been criticized for traveling to Syria in 2017 to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has been accused of war crimes and even genocide. She was also forced to apologize for her past work advocating against gay rights.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND
Age: 52
Best known for: The senator from New York is one of her chamber’s most vocal members on issues of sexual harassment, military sexual assault, equal pay for women and family leave.
Biggest strength: Not being afraid to defy her own party in the #MeToo era, calling early for Democratic Sen. Al Franken’s resignation over sexual misconduct allegations and saying Bill Clinton should have voluntary left the presidency over an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.
Biggest weakness: Sluggish campaign fundraising in the wake of some unpleasant #MeToo headlines of her own, with Gillibrand acknowledging there were “post-investigation human errors” made when her Senate office investigated allegations of sexual misconduct against various staffers.
KAMALA HARRIS
Age: 54
Best known for: The former California attorney general is now the junior U.S. senator from California, known for her rigorous questioning of Trump’s nominees.
Biggest strength: As the one black woman in the race, she’s able to tap into networks like historically black colleges and universities and her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority that haven’t been fully realized before.
Biggest weakness: Her prosecutorial record has come under scrutiny amid a push for criminal justice reform.
JOHN HICKENLOOPER
Age: 67
Best known for: Being a quirky brewpub owner who became a politician late in life, rising to governor of Colorado.
Biggest strength: An unorthodox political persona and successful electoral track record in a swing state. He’s one of the few governors in a race heavy with senators and D.C. stalwarts.
Biggest weakness: He’s previously joked that he was too centrist to win the Democratic nomination. As governor he disappointed some environmentalists by not regulating the energy industry more. He’s another white male baby boomer in a party filled with younger and more diverse candidates that better reflect its base.
JAY INSLEE
Age: 68
Best known for: Being governor of Washington state and a former congressman.
Biggest strength: His campaign emphasis is on combating climate change, which he frames as an economic opportunity in addition to a moral imperative.
Biggest weakness: He risks being labeled a one-issue candidate.
AMY KLOBUCHAR
Age: 58
Best known for: The three-term Minnesota senator raised her national profile during a Senate committee hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when she asked him whether he had ever had so much to drink that he didn’t remember what happened. He replied, “Have you?”
Biggest strength: She’s known as a pragmatic lawmaker willing to work with Republicans to get things done, a quality that’s helped her win across Minnesota, including in rural areas that supported Trump in 2016. She says her Midwestern sensibilities would help Democrats reclaim critical battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Michigan.
Biggest weakness: Her pragmatism may work against her in a primary, as Democratic voters increasingly embrace more liberal policies and positions. There have also been news reports that she has mistreated staff.
WAYNE MESSAM
Age: 44
Best known for: Serving as the mayor of Miramar, Florida, and playing on the Florida State University Seminoles’ 1993 national championship football team.
Biggest strength: He touts his mayoral experience balancing government regulations needed to protect the environment while allowing room for companies to prosper.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition and funding.
SETH MOULTON
Age: 40
Best known for: The Massachusetts congressman and Iraq War veteran gained national attention for helping lead an effort within the party to reject Nancy Pelosi as House speaker after Democrats regained control of the chamber.
Biggest strength: Military and congressional experience.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition, late start on the fundraising necessary to qualify for the summer debate stage.
BETO O’ROURKE
Age: 46
Best known for: The former congressman narrowly lost the 2018 Senate race to Republican Ted Cruz in Texas, the country’s largest conservative state.
Biggest strength: A do-it-yourself campaign style that packs lots of travel and multiple events into long days and encourages off-the-cuff discussions with voters that still allow O’Rourke to talk up his days as a onetime punk rock guitarist and his love for his home on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Biggest weakness: He’s longer on enthusiasm and vague, bipartisan optimism than actual policy ideas, and the style-over-substance approach could see O’Rourke’s strong early fundraising slip once the curiosity begins to fade.
TIM RYAN
Age: 45
Best known for: The Ohio congressman made an unsuccessful bid to replace Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic leader in 2016.
Biggest strength: Ryan has touted himself as a candidate who can bridge Democrats’ progressive and working-class wings to win the White House.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition, late start on grassroots fundraising.
BERNIE SANDERS
Age: 77
Best known for: A 2016 presidential primary campaign against Hillary Clinton that laid the groundwork for the leftward lurch that has dominated Democratic politics in the Trump era.
Biggest strength: The Vermont senator, who identifies himself as a democratic socialist, generated progressive energy that fueled his insurgent 2016 campaign and the best fundraising numbers of any Democrat so far.
Biggest weakness: Expanding his appeal beyond his largely white base of supporters.
ERIC SWALWELL
Age: 38
Best known for: The California congressman is a frequent guest on cable news criticizing President Donald Trump.
Biggest strength: Media savvy and youthfulness could appeal to young voters.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition, late start on grassroots fundraising.
ELIZABETH WARREN
Age: 69
Best known for: The senator from Massachusetts and former Harvard University law professor whose calls for greater consumer protections led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under then-President Barack Obama.
Biggest strength: Warren has presented a plethora of progressive policy ideas, including eliminating existing student loan debt for millions of Americans, breaking up farming monopolies and mammoth technology firms, implementing a “wealth tax” on households with high net worth and providing universal child care.
Biggest weakness: She is viewed as one of the most liberal candidates in the Democratic field, which could hurt her chances among moderates. Her policy-heavy approach also risks alienating voters at a time when other candidates are appealing to hearts as much as to minds.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Age: 66
Best known for: Best-selling author and spiritual leader.
Biggest strength: Outsider who could draw interest from voters who are fans of her books.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition, little political experience.
ANDREW YANG
Age: 44
Best known for: Entrepreneur who has generated buzz with his signature proposal for universal basic income to give every American $1,000 a month, no strings attached.
Biggest strength: Robust policy agenda, tech savvy.
Biggest weakness: Low name recognition, no political experience.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO: A man uses phone under a Volkswagen logo at the Shanghai Auto Show, in Shanghai, China April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song
April 25, 2019
By Yilei Sun and Norihiko Shirouzu
BEIJING (Reuters) – German automaker Volkswagen AG’s joint venture with China’s Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Co (JAC) plans to invest 5.06 billion yuan ($750.8 million) in a new electric car factory in eastern Hefei city, according to local authorities.
A document posted online by the Hefei Economic and Technological Development Area on Monday showed that Volkswagen and JAC had obtained approval from environmental authorities to build a plant capable of producing 100,000 all-electric battery cars a year.
Volkswagen Group China on Thursday confirmed the numbers that had been included in previous official documents and said JAC-Volkswagen would launch its first model soon.
A spokesperson for the joint venture confirmed plans for the plant, saying the approval represented an “orderly advancement of the project”, and the venture’s first electric model, the E20X, will be launched this year.
GO GREEN
The German company, China’s largest foreign automaker with sales of 4.21 million cars on the mainland and Hong Kong in 2018, has pledged to ramp up production of zero-emission vehicles as part of its growth strategy in the country.
Volkswagen has said it plans to produce more than 22 million electric cars in the next 10 years, with over half of them built in China. It plans to launch 14 new energy vehicle models in China this year.
VW’s joint venture with JAC, approved in 2017, said last year it would launch a research and development center. It also planned to introduce the SEAT brand to China by 2020-2021.
Reuters reported this month that Volkswagen is in talks with South Korean battery maker SK Innovation to accelerate electric vehicle development.
China’s car market, the world’s largest, contracted for the first time last year since the 1990s. However, the new energy vehicle segment is still growing rapidly and NEV sales jumped 61.7 percent to 1.3 million units in 2018.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers has said new energy vehicle sales could hit 1.6 million units this year.
Volkswagen has started building a $2.5 billion new energy vehicle plant in Shanghai with SAIC Motor Corp Ltd, which will make VW’s luxury Audi AG brand cars.
SAIC Volkswagen said the new plant would have an annual capacity to make 300,000 cars and begin production from 2020.
(Reporting by Yilei Sun and Norihiko Shirouzu in Beijing; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Darren Schuettler)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Sudanese opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi meets supporters in Khartoum, Sudan December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
April 25, 2019
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan could face a counter coup if military rulers and the opposition don’t reach agreement on a transition of power, opposition leader Sadiq Al Mahdi told Reuters on Thursday.
Al Mahdi said he believed Sudan’s military council would hand over power to civilians if the current stalemate were broken. He also said he would consider running for president only in an election, not during the transition period.
(Reporting by Michael Georgy and Khalid Abdelaziz; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Source: OANN
The headquarters of Wirecard AG, an independent provider of outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payment transactions is seen in Aschheim near Munich, Germany April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder
April 25, 2019
By Douglas Busvine
MUNICH (Reuters) – German payments company Wirecard sought on Thursday to refocus on growth after securing audit approval of annual results which had been delayed by allegations of fraud and false accounting at its Singapore office.
Germany’s leading fintech company has been shaken by a string of reports in the Financial Times, which it has denied, citing a whistleblower’s allegations that local staff padded revenues through sham transactions.
Wirecard said auditor EY had found “no objections against the accounting treatment of the facts that were the subject of various allegation made by a purported whistleblower in Singapore”.
Wirecard won the backing of a heavyweight investor on Wednesday when it announced a partnership with Japan’s Softbank that included the sale of a 900 million euro five-year bond convertible into a 5.6 percent stake in the company.
Its annual results were delayed by an investigation by Wirecard’s outside law firm Rajah & Tann, which exonerated head office but did find that local staff in Singapore may have committed crimes that were not material to the company’s finances.
CEO Markus Braun, who remains the company’s largest shareholder with a 7 percent stake, said that management recognized weaknesses in the handling of software licenses used by its partners and would tighten up compliance in this area.
“We are a growth company,” Braun told a news conference in Munich.
“This is all about innovation and expansion, but of course we must catch up when it comes to compliance, audit and controlling.”
SOFTBANK ALLIANCE
Management confirmed guidance that earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) would rise to between 740 and 800 million euros ($825-$892 million) this year.
Wirecard, which recently displaced Commerzbank from Germany’s DAX blue-chip index, reported a 36.6 percent gain in EBITDA to 560.5 million euros in 2018, while EBITDA margin widened by 0.2 percentage points to 27.8 percent.
Management proposed a dividend of 20 euro cents.
Braun said the Softbank deal offered the chance to work with companies backed by a group which runs the world’s largest venture fund and counts ride hailing firms Uber, Grab and Didi in its portfolio.
Digital payments scenarios that the alliance could work on included connected vehicles or food delivery, said Braun, who will seek shareholder approval for the arrangement.
Wirecard, founded in 1999, has profited from a boom in online payments by acting both as an acquirer, handling payments to merchants, and as an issuer of real and ‘virtual’ payment cards to consumers.
It handled a total of 125 billion euros in transactions for 280,000 merchants last year, generating revenues of 2 billion euros. It expects revenues to grow to 3 billion euros in 2020 and 10 billion in 2025 as digital payments become increasingly pervasive.
ANOTHER FT DENIAL
Even as Wirecard has grown apace, it has remained a favorite target of ‘short’ sellers seizing on negative reports to try to profit from declines in its share price. This has sparked investigations into suspected market manipulation by German prosecutors and the market regulator.
Wirecard, which has already sued the FT, denied another report in the newspaper on Wednesday that alleged the accounts of a Dubai-based unit were not audited in 2016 and 2017. It said all its subsidiaries were audited regularly.
The FT’s reporting, starting Jan. 30, triggered a 50-percent slide in Wirecard’s share price, while Singapore police have opened an investigation and raided Wirecard’s office there.
Braun said he retained his appetite for running a listed company.
“I enjoy being on the stock market,” the Austrian said, “and I haven’t lost my passion for the job in the last two months.”
(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Additional reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Paul Carrel/Keith Weir)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The logo of taxi company Uber is seen on the roof of a private hire taxi in Liverpool, Britain, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
April 25, 2019
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Uber resumed operations in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava on Thursday, a year after a court ban, the ride-hailing company said.
A Slovak court ordered Uber to suspend its operations in March 2018 amid taxi drivers’ protests that the service represented unfair competition.
Slovakia has since passed legislation that allows Uber to operate legally if its drivers and cars meet requirements that professional taxi drivers must meet.
Uber’s re-launch in the central European country comes as Bratislava gears up to host the World Championships in ice hockey next month, an event expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors.
(Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova; editing by Jason Neely)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A house built by the D.R. Horton company is seen for sale in Arvada, Colorado January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo
April 25, 2019
(Reuters) – D.R. Horton Inc on Thursday forecast full-year home sales, the mid-point of which was below Wall Street expectations.
The company said it expects to deliver between 55,000 homes and 56,000 homes in 2019. Analysts on average were expecting home sales of 55,668 homes.
Net income attributable to the company was $351.3 million, or 93 cents per share, in the second-quarter ended March 31, from $351.0 million, or 91 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose to $4.13 billion from $3.79 billion.
(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
Source: OANN
A girl carries a stack of bread on her head as she walks near rubble of damaged buildings in Aleppo’s Kalasa district, Syria April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
April 25, 2019
By Angus McDowall
ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) – The bodies of three-year-old Malak Kasas and two neighbors still lie under a pile of rubble in Aleppo’s Kalasa district more than two years after the Syrian government recaptured the area.
Malak’s grandfather, Omar, and uncle, Mahmoud, live in the building opposite. When they stand on the balcony, they see the collapsed building that is her tomb. Whenever Omar says her name he bursts into silent, convulsive, sobs.
The state’s failure to pull bodies from the rubble of east Aleppo points to the grim prospects for an area that, like many others in Syria, was held by rebel forces for much of the country’s eight-year-old conflict. The western part of the city has remained in government hands throughout the fighting.
The opposition has accused President Bashar al-Assad of withholding services from districts where the rebellion against him flared to punish residents, and in Kalasa there was little evidence of a big government effort to improve conditions.
The government blames the slow recovery, shortages and hardship on the war and Western sanctions. It has denied treating recaptured areas differently to ones that remained under its control throughout the war and has said it is working to restore normal services to all areas.
The conflict that has killed half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million continues, and Reuters could hear bombardments over several nights in Aleppo from a nearby frontline during a recent visit.
In Kalasa, recaptured in late 2016, there is no systematic reconstruction of residential areas. State services are minimal. Work to renovate war-damaged buildings is almost entirely done and paid for by local people, residents say.
Kalasa has no state electricity supply, charities dole out boxes of food aid to crowds waiting behind chains. As elsewhere in Syria, fuel shortages cause long lines at petrol stations and people rely on firewood for heat.
Some damaged buildings in Kalasa have recently collapsed, falling debris killed a man last year and the many large heaps of rubble in areas where children play in the street are covered in stinking rubbish, dead rats and swarming flies.
Kalasa’s situation is not unusual for east Aleppo – other districts toured by Reuters showed equally bad or worse conditions. The western part of the city has suffered less damage because the rebels had no air power.
In other cities, there also are no reports of widespread rebuilding or data to suggest it has started.
Ayad Batash, 35, a former soldier and builder who was optimistic about life in Kalasa when Reuters met him two years ago, said things had become much worse for his family with a fuel shortage and a lack of work.
“This year’s not like before. This year is worse. The economic situation is worse than before,” he said.
Two years ago, he had regular work and thought the electricity supply would soon resume. He expected to move back into his own apartment and thought his neighbors would return from life as refugees.
“If the situation continues like this, people won’t come back,” he said.
RUBBLE
Reuters journalists spent several days reporting in a small neighborhood of Kalasa that they also visited in 2017 after the government retook the area, interviewing dozens of residents including several they had met previously.
A government official accompanied Reuters at all times in Kalasa. Local people criticized the rebels that held the area from 2012 until 2016 but not Assad or his government.
The recapture of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, was a turning point in the war. In just one city center square, Reuters counted 18 posters of Assad.
Some things have improved since Reuters last visited this district two years ago. There is now piped water and some rubble, and debris blocking streets and alleys has been cleared.
More schools have opened, though they are crowded, and more government-subsidized bakeries operate in the area, though queues for bread are long.
Those considerations are scant comfort to the people of Kalasa. Omar Kasas no longer leaves his flat. He remembers the bombardment in September 2016 that killed his daughter Iman and her daughters Ayah, Mayas and Malak in the building opposite.
People dug out the bodies of Iman, Ayah and Mayas, and nine dead neighbors, but could not reach Malak or two other women. Since the government took the area, there has been no effort to shift the rubble or find the bodies, residents said.
FUEL SHORTAGES
For Ayad Batash, a government supporter with two brothers in the army, the fuel shortages have aggravated other problems. During a cold winter, his four children, aged between two and 10, had no way to keep warm but with blankets.
A neighbor, retired school worker Ahmad Zarka, 73, kept a stove going to keep warm. The black smoke that pours out of it has turned his white songbirds in a cage on the wall a sooty grey. Rationed gas supplies were not adequate, he said.
The Western districts of Aleppo receive state power supplies for several hours a day. In Kalasa the only source of power is private generators that run on rationed diesel fuel.
Snack bar owner Rabiah al-Najar said the cost of electricity for selling sandwich wraps ate up nearly half his weekly profits.
Batash blames the lack of electricity for the lack of work. Using diesel-powered generators during a fuel shortage can double the cost of a job renovating a damaged apartment, he said. “So the customer just delays the work,” he said.
Opposite a petrol station near Kalaseh, where 80 cars were lined two-deep along the road waiting for rationed fuel, men sat on the curb, their tools lying on upturned concrete blocks to advertise their services as laborers.
“We wait from 7.30 a.m. until about 1 p.m. Then we go home and there’s nothing to do until the next day,” said Mohammed Ahmedi, 53, one of three sitting together, smoking as they waited for a job. They had not worked in 10 days, he said.
FOOD QUEUES
Batash has also had little work over the winter, he said. He considered moving but believes things are little better elsewhere.
Every few weeks his family joins the crowd waiting behind a chain strung across a nearby alleyway to receive food aid from the World Food Program and a local charity.
Men and women queue separately, each clutching their green ration card, waiting for their number to be called to collect a cardboard box with salt, chickpeas, lentils, bulgur wheat, sugar, rice and cooking oil.
There are queues even for bread. At a Kalasa bakery, people had to wait more than half an hour to receive their flat loaves.
There is no official rationing for bread but the baker, Hamid Atiq, said he limited what he sold each person because he did not have enough flour or fuel to power his oven long enough to supply all that the neighborhood wanted.
His bakery is wedged between the rubble of several bomb sites, and a dead rat lay on the ground nearby as a crowd gathered round the service window jostling to be served.
On the other side of the main road is an area of ramshackle older houses of two or three storeys. Mohammed Ramadan Daha, 61, is frightened to sleep in his house there.
The house behind his collapsed recently. The one next door has a large crack running up the side. He fears his will collapse too.
“It’s terrifying,” Daha said.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Source: OANN
Cleaning crew picks up plastics from debris in the harbour after massive flooding in Durban, South Africa, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Rogan Ward
April 25, 2019
DURBAN/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Almost 70 people have been killed in South Africa after torrential rains along the eastern coast, an official said on Thursday, and rescuers are still recovering bodies.
KwaZulu-Natal province, where most of the deaths occurred after the downpours led to flooding and mudslides, has heavy rain every year, but they rarely kill so many people in such a short space of time.
The number of people killed was “approaching 70”, Lennox Mabaso, a spokesman for the provincial Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs department, said by phone.
“I don’t recall that in history,” he said, attributing the severity of the storm and its impact on the population to climate change.
A Reuters witness saw rescuers come to collect the body of a woman who had been dug out of the mud by locals. Mabaso said a more precise death toll would be given later on Thursday.
Eye witnesses recounted on Wednesday how flood waters and mudslides crashed through houses, many with people inside, and destroyed roads and other infrastructure.
The rains carved chunks out of hills and roads in the region, with cars, tin roofs and other rubble swept into the deep muddy trenches left behind.
In other places, people buried their dead on muddy hillsides churned up by the storm, marking their resting place with simple wooden crosses.
Vanetia Phakula, a senior forecaster at the South African Weather Service, said the storm was not currently seen as unusual, though the level of rainfall might have been higher than normal.
Over 100 millimeters of rain was recorded as falling at numerous stations within the area between Monday morning and Tuesday, she said.
Phakula said the high death toll could instead be explained by the flooding and mudslides occurring in more highly populated areas.
“Hence the death toll is what it is today,” she said.
While more rain was expected on Thursday it was not expected to be heavy, and the service was forecasting dry weather in most areas by Friday, she added.
(Reporting by Rogan Ward in Durban and Emma Rumney in Johannesburg; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Source: OANN
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