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Pacific typhoon expected to lash Guam with gusty wind, rain

A growing typhoon in the Pacific is heading toward the Mariana Islands and could lash Guam with strong winds, rain and surf this weekend.

The U.S. National Weather Service in Guam reports Typhoon Wutip was packing 100 mph (161 kph) winds and will continue to intensify through Saturday. The storm was about 480 miles (772 kilometers) southeast of Guam Friday.

Typhoon warnings remain in place for parts of the Federated States of Micronesia, and tropical storm warnings are in effect for Guam and other nearby islands. The typhoon is expected to track just south of Guam Saturday into Sunday.

"When it's near Guam, (wind) will be up to 115 mph (185 kph), but we won't see that on the island," said meteorologist Michael Ziobro of the National Weather Service in Guam.

Wutip has typhoon-force winds extending about 35 miles (56 kilometers) from its center and tropical storm-force winds up to 150 miles (241 kilometers) away.

Antoninette Arriola, a 48-year-old school aide, was doing laundry as part of her storm preparations. "After the storm is over, a lot of people are going to be here washing, so we wanted to do it before then."

She said she started her typhoon preparations earlier in the day. "We took off the tarp from outside our house that covers where we park, and we also bought some canned goods like Vienna sausage, Spam, corned beef, batteries, crackers, bread. We recently bought a small freezer so that we can put our ice and frozen meats in there."

Tyrone Quinata, 23, purchased coffee as his first storm preparation. He added batteries for his flashlights and radio. "I think we'll be fine," he said.

Chris Barcinas, 29, a heavy equipment operator, was filling his pickup truck with gasoline. He said he wasn't worried about the typhoon.

"I'm prepared. Guam's strong. We know what typhoons are," Barcinas said. "If it does come, I hope everyone stays safe and they have a good time during the typhoon," Barcinas added.

The peak season for typhoons in the region is late summer into fall, but strong storms in the winter are not uncommon.

"The Western Pacific is the only basin on the planet that has tropical cyclones year-round," said meteorologist Tom Birchard of the National Weather Service in Honolulu. "It's somewhat unusual, but it's not outside the realm of expectation."

Something that was unusual about Wutip, Birchard said, was where it formed.

"It formed at a very low latitude," Birchard said. "When you go to school and they teach you tropical meteorology, they tell you have to be more than 5 degrees from the equator for a tropical cyclone to form. Well this one formed at about 3.5 degrees north."

A westerly wind burst near the equator spun up Wutip shortly after the same winds formed tropical cyclone Oma in the southern hemisphere, Birchard said.

Westerly wind bursts in the area are often associated with El Nino weather patterns and can help create twin storms — one on either side of the equator, he said.

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that El Nino conditions had formed in January along the equatorial Pacific and were expected to continue into the spring in the northern hemisphere.

Sea surface temperatures near the equator where the storms formed are slightly above average, but ocean temperatures around and ahead of Wutip, where the storm will gain strength over the next two days, are not warmer than normal, Birchard said.

"With climate change, there could be areas where ocean temperatures are warmer than normal, and that could lead to increased storm formation," Birchard said. But "I've seen research on either side of that argument," noting that some studies argue that there could be fewer tropical cyclones in warmer climates because of increased vertical sheer, which can disrupt the rotation of tropical cyclones.

"If I'm looking for the primary formation mechanism in this case, it would be less of the sea surface temperature anomaly and more of the westerly wind bursts along the equator," he said.

___

Associated Press correspondent Caleb Jones reported from Honolulu.

Source: Fox News World

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Floods stall fertilizer shipments in latest blow to U.S. farmers

Contents of grain silos which burst from flood damage are shown in Fremont County, Iowa
FILE PHOTO: The contents of grain silos which burst from flood damage are shown in Fremont County Iowa, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Polansek

April 25, 2019

By Karl Plume

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Farm supplier CHS Inc has dozens of loaded barges trapped on the flood-swollen Mississippi River near St. Louis – about 500 miles from the company’s two Minnesota distribution hubs.

The barges can’t move – or get crucial nutrients to corn farmers for the spring planting season – because river locks on the main U.S. artery for grain and fertilizer have been shuttered for weeks. High water presents a hazard for boats, barges and lock equipment.

Railroads have also been plagued by delays from winter weather and flooding in the western Midwest, further disrupting agricultural supply chains in the nation’s bread basket.

The transportation woes are the latest headache for a U.S. agricultural sector reeling from years of slumping profits and the U.S.-China trade war, and they threaten to cut the number of acres of corn and wheat that can be planted this year.

The shipping delays follow months of bad weather in the rural Midwest, including a “bomb cyclone” that flooded at least 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of farmland last month and a record-breaking April snow storm.

“Our barges are a long way from where we need them in the upper Midwest,” said Gary Halvorson, senior vice president of agronomy at CHS. “We really don’t think that any rail line will be at their preferred service rate until summer.”

Agricultural retailers rely on barges and trains to resupply distribution warehouses across the farm belt. But river flooding has delayed the seasonal reopening of the northern reaches of the Mississippi River to barge traffic. The latest National Weather Service river forecasts suggest one of the river’s southernmost locks could remain closed until at least the first week of May.

FALLING PROFITS, PRODUCTION

Reduced or poorly timed fertilizer applications can hurt yields, potentially denting this year’s U.S. farm profits, which are already predicted to be about half of their 2013 peak, according to the latest U.S. government forecast. Delayed shipments can also mean lost sales for farm suppliers and higher demurrage penalties, or late-return charges, on stalled barges and rail cars.

CHS, one of the largest publicly traded U.S. agriculture suppliers, said this month cited poor weather as a key reason for a $8.9 million drop in agricultural profits during its fiscal second quarter.

Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co said severe weather and flooding would cut its first-quarter profit by $50 million to $60 million while DowDuPont said flooding would slash first-quarter profits in its agriculture division by 25 percent.

Fertilizer producers such as Nutrien Ltd, Mosaic Co and Yara International also lost sales due to bad weather in the fourth quarter of last year and first quarter of this year. Mosaic announced last month that it would cut U.S. phosphate fertilizer production by 300,000 tonnes for the spring season due to poor weather and large inventories left over from the fall.

Farm retailers such as CHS and privately held Growmark may see additional losses through the spring season as the tighter planting window limits the application services they provide, according to CoBank analyst Will Secor.

SCRAMBLING TO PROTECT CROP YIELDS

Farmers are not expected to skip nitrogen fertilizer applications entirely, which would cause yields to drop by about half, according to Purdue University agronomist Bob Nielsen. But higher nutrient costs could have growers applying less-than-optimal amounts.

Some farmers could shift from corn to soybeans, which can be planted later and require fewer fertilizer applications. But soybeans will continue to face uncertain demand as long as the U.S. and top buyer China remain locked in a trade war.

“Right now my plan is to plant more corn because the price of beans is so low,” said Don Batie, a farmer near Lexington, Nebraska.

The weather problems started last autumn, a period when some farmers treat fields after harvesting in preparation for the following spring. But wet weather prevented fall fertilizer applications, and an exceptionally snowy winter in many areas slowed or halted winter field work.

More recent storms have threatened to narrow the limited spring window for field treatments.

“When you add to it this re-supply constraint of not being able to move barges up the Mississippi, it puts us in a precarious position,” said Kreg Ruhl, manager for crop nutrients division at Growmark, the country’s third-largest agriculture retailer in terms of revenue.

PRICES RISING

Retail fertilizer prices have started rising in parts of the Midwest and are likely to rise further as local supplies are depleted and retailers scramble to resupply.

In Iowa, the top U.S. corn producing state, the price of the common fertilizer urea was up 20 percent in late April from a year ago, and anhydrous ammonia was up 27 percent. Both hit their highest early spring levels in three years, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Without timely barge deliveries, CHS will lean on its rail network that brings imported supplies from Galveston, Texas, to any of the 29 rail hubs it owns in places like Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Marshall, Minnesota; and Minot, North Dakota.

Higher U.S. fertilizer prices and strong demand from other countries could help producers such as Nutrien, Mosaic and Yara recover some recent profit weakness in upcoming quarters.

For farmers and fertilizer retailers, however, uncertain fertilizer deliveries will likely weigh on agricultural markets through the planting season.

“We’re doing our very best to make sure that our retail network is supplied,” said CHS’s Halvorson.

(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago Editing by Brian Thevenot and Caroline Stauffer)

Source: OANN

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Where Libya’s revolution began, many now yearn for a strong hand

Men restore their shops which were destroyed by the war in an old popular market, known as the Souk al-Jureid, in Benghazi
Men restore their shops which were destroyed by the war in an old popular market, known as the Souk al-Jureid, in Benghazi, Libya February 7, 2019. Picture taken February 7, 2019. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori

February 21, 2019

By Ulf Laessing

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Sitting in his cafe near the spot where the protests against Muammar Gaddafi touched off the Libyan revolution eight years ago, Miftah Atluba is not sorry the dictator has gone.

Yet like many in Benghazi, who are tired after three years of street fighting that flattened whole districts, the 45-year-old thinks it’s time to return to the old way of running things.

“Muammar needed to go but democracy hasn’t worked out in Libya,” he said, sipping coffee in one of the few buildings still standing in a city center where from 2014 to 2017 war raged between the forces of Khalifa Haftar, a general who turned against Gaddafi, and his mainly Islamist opponents.

Atluba’s cafe was damaged. But the building survived, unlike the courthouse next door where the families of political prisoners gathered to demand their release in February 2011, triggering the uprising that toppled Gaddafi.

“We’ve had chaos and terrorism. Now we need military rule to build a state,” Atluba said.

The United Nations wants to hold a national conference to prepare for elections and unite a country which sits on Africa’s largest proven oil reserves and produces just under one million barrels a day.

Currently, political control in Libya is split between rival tribes, armed groups and even administrations. The east has its own government, which is opposed to a U.N.-backed authority in Tripoli.

But the scars of war in Benghazi show the difficulties of reconciling two rival camps – former soldiers and tribesmen in eastern Libya versus Islamists and urban elites in the west.

Pictures of a somber Haftar, dressed in uniform, have adorned Benghazi’s streets since his Libyan National Army (LNA) expelled their enemies.

Many Haftar supporters see little point in reconciling with opponents, whom they call “terrorists” or “Muslim Brothers”.

That leaves limited scope for moderates who believe Libya can become a civil state without a dominant role for the military.

“In Benghazi, most people would not allow you to criticize the army because they’ve paid a price,” said Jamal Falah, an activist, referring to Haftar’s forces and the battles they fought.

Falah is trying to organize a forum for Libyans from different regions to discuss a political solution that does not involve the United Nations. He wants to include people in the east who say the U.N. is biased towards Islamists.

But many LNA supporters are skeptical about dialogue. They are more encouraged by a military offensive in the south, where Haftar has challenged the government in Tripoli by taking control of the region’s main city and biggest oilfield.

Some say the 75-year-old general should order his troops to head for Tripoli without waiting for an election.

“The army has secured the east and, thank God, with the southern offensive now also the south,” said Fawzeia al-Furjani, a business leader who is from Haftar’s tribe. “How can you hold elections in the west when you have militias in control?”

But a push to the west by Haftar seems unlikely for now as his forces are already stretched in the south. They would in any case face resistance in Tripoli and other cities in western Libya, where many are suspicious of Haftar as a new Gaddafi.

When asked about a possible offensive towards Tripoli, LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said only: “The army (LNA) is charge of protecting the whole of Libya.” He said the force supported the idea of elections but saw no chance of reconciliation with former anti-LNA fighters.

SPLIT

Benghazi was the first Libyan city to rise up, in February 2011, because Gaddafi had punished the east for disloyalty by essentially neglecting it during his 42 years in power.

While Tripoli saw two years of relative stability once Gaddafi was killed, things went downhill within months in Benghazi as rival camps began to fight.

By 2012, much of the city was a no-go zone with al Qaeda flags at checkpoints. The U.S ambassador was killed by Islamist militants.

Haftar assembled his old army comrades and declared war on the Islamists, a conflict he won only in November 2017.

Since then, life in Benghazi has improved. Critics say Haftar has resurrected the old police state and his supporters have seized the property of opponents who fled to western Libya, charges denied by officials. But residents enjoy late-night shopping, theaters have reopened, and fuel shortages are a thing of the past.

Benghazi is however divided over how much power should go to Haftar.

His supporters refer to him as “mushir”, or field marshal, a title granted by the eastern parliament. He is seen as a candidate for eventual presidential elections.

“I can only see Khalifa Haftar as president. He has built the state,” said Atluba, the cafe owner.

But some activists who welcomed Haftar’s military victory now want a civilian leader. They are careful to express support for the “jeish” (army), as the LNA is called, rather than for him.

“I am not ready to give up a civil state,” said a lawyer who gave his name as Essam. “For this we need an army like in any state. But it won’t have a political role.”

THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE

Residents meanwhile are testing the limits of how far they can go.

At one theater, actors tackled corruption and the decline of state services by playing Libyans who need to go to Tunisia for medical treatment but can’t get tickets as officials have bribed airport staff to board overbooked flights.

They steered clear of the military, but took a swipe at conservatives who have been backing the LNA.

When one Libyan, having finally arrived in more liberal Tunis, is chided by a fellow countryman for drinking beer, he retorts to a roar of approval from the audience: “In Tunisia, you don’t need security approval to have a drink.”

Haftar benefits from historic divisions between east and west – separate regions before Libya’s independence in 1951 – which have sharpened in recent years.

His forces depend on tribal alliances in eastern Libya. They have put out feelers to the west, where some have voiced support for Haftar, but their power base is in the east.

The LNA has also attracted supporters of a “federalist” movement, campaigning since 2011 for more power for the east, which sits on much of Libya’s oil.

The war’s destruction has created a sense of neglect in Benghazi as there is no money to rebuild. At least 10,000 apartments and other sites such as the port and university campus were damaged or destroyed, officials say.

The Tripoli-based central bank had almost $75 billion in foreign reserves but sends little cash to the eastern government, working only with the internationally recognized administration in Tripoli.

Many Benghazi residents have lost patience with politicians and look to the military to get things done.

“I refurbished my shop, which had been heavily damaged, without any help from the government,” said Anis Tajouri, who had just reopened a one-room store selling wedding dresses in Benghazi’s old market, formerly a combat zone.

He called for a strong national leader: “The democracy we’ve had since 2011 hasn’t worked out. We are a tribal society.”

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: OANN

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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee says he regrets wearing Confederate uniform in college yearbook

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he regrets dressing in a Confederate uniform for an "Old South" fraternity party at Auburn University, as seen in a 1980 yearbook photo.

"While I never intentionally acted in an insensitive way, with 40 years of hindsight, I have come to realize that was insensitive and have come to regret that," the Republican governor told The Tennessean.

MORE CONFEDERATE LICENSE PLATES THAN EVER ON TENNESEE ROADS

A spokeswoman for Lee confirmed on Thursday that Auburn's 1980 yearbook includes a photo of the governor and another man in Confederate uniforms.

Lee was 17 when joined the university's Kappa Alpha fraternity. The fraternity ended the tradition in 1992, a school spokesman said.

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His office declined to provide any additional comment on Thursday.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Tiger on Masters: ‘It really hasn’t sunk in’

Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf - Masters - Augusta National Golf Club - Augusta, Georgia, U.S. - April 14, 2019 - Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

April 26, 2019

Tiger Woods is sending a message that he thinks he still has enough left, emotionally and physically, to win three more major championships to tie Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 titles.

Speaking to GolfTV in his first sit-down interview since the Masters, Woods said he has taken some time off since his victory at Augusta National, which still doesn’t feel real.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Woods said. “I was texting one of my good friends last night … that I couldn’t believe that I won the tournament. That it really hasn’t sunk in. I haven’t started doing anything. I’ve just been laying there. And every now and again, I’ll look over there on the couch and there’s the jacket.”

That’s the fifth green jacket for the 43-year-old Woods, who hadn’t won a major tournament since the 2008 U.S. Open. Along the way, four back surgeries, a divorce and other personal issues derailed him.

He said he has been spending time with his children – daughter Sam, 11, and son Charlie, 10 – who weren’t born when their father was the most dominant golfer on the planet.

“They never knew golf to be a good thing in my life and only the only thing they remember is that it brought this incredible amount of pain to their dad and they don’t want to ever want to see their dad in pain,” Woods said. “And so to now have them see this side of it, the side that I’ve experienced for so many years of my life, but I had a battle to get back to this point, it feels good.”

He said he hopes – maybe expects — they’ll see this side again.

And no one will take Woods for granted at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black Course on Long Island, N.Y., which starts May 16.

Woods said he’ll be ready for a course he already conquered once in a major: the 2002 U.S. Open.

“I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend,” he said.

Before Woods encountered health and personal problems, it was expected that topping Nicklaus’ major mark was “when” and not “if.” Then the certainty went away, but Woods thought he still had a chance.

“I always thought it was possible, if I had everything go my way. It took him an entire career to get to 18, so now that I’ve had another extension to my career – one that I didn’t think I had a couple of years ago – if I do things correctly and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’m never going to say it’s not.

“Now I just need to have a lot of things go my way, and who’s to say that it will or will not happen? That’s what the future holds, I don’t know. The only thing I can promise you is this: that I will be prepared.”

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Merkel: EU has made clear, far-reaching proposals on Brexit

German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

March 12, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday the European Union had made clear, far-reaching proposals to Britain on Brexit and that applying pressure was not the right way to convince London.

“Clear, far-reaching proposals have been made that take into account the concerns of Britain and that seek to find answers to them,” Merkel told reporters, adding she wanted an orderly Brexit and the British parliament now had to decide.

At the joint news conference, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said the latest proposals were a step forward.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin and Paul Carrel; editing by Thomas Seythal)

Source: OANN

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Cory Booker says if elected president, he will bring fight against NRA like it 'has never seen'

The Democratic presidential hopeful who once likened himself to "Spartacus" is now vowing to battle the National Rifle Association.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in a town hall event that aired on CNN Wednesday, made the declaration in response to a North Carolina’s woman’s question about what he would do to ensure the safety and freedoms of Americans who “have to live each day in fear of gun violence in schools, places of worship, concerts, and even from law enforcement.”

“I am tired of going to funerals where parents are burying their children and so I am gonna bring a fight – we are gonna bring a fight like the NRA has never seen if they’re going to defend corporate gun manufacturers more than represent us people,” Booker told the cheering crowd.

“We are going to bring that fight on every level necessary. I’m a guy that has taken on tough fights before and won them, and this is one that we are gonna win, together.”

CORY BOOKER DENIES HE'S A SOCIALIST, SAYS HE WOULDN'T PARDON TRUMP IF HE WERE PRESIDENT

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker speaks during a town hall meeting in Rock Hill, S.C., on Saturday.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker speaks during a town hall meeting in Rock Hill, S.C., on Saturday.

Booker added that he thinks he is the “only person in this race that has had shootings on their block.”

“This is very personal to so many of us,” he said. “Me, because I’m a black man, and black males are six percent of the nation’s population. But they make up the majority of homicide victims in this country.”

Booker also accused the NRA of not representing its members and instead being more interested in loopholes that allow people of differing criminal backgrounds to purchase firearms.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I’m telling you right now, we and Americans on most of the core issues, on so many of them, we actually agree. Gun owners and non-gun owners agree that we need to have universal background checks and close so many of these loopholes,” he said. “And the NRA does not represent their membership. Because their membership actually agrees with closing those loopholes.”

Fox News has put in a request to the NRA for comment.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf – Masters – Augusta National Golf Club – Augusta, Georgia, U.S. – April 14, 2019 – Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

April 26, 2019

Tiger Woods is sending a message that he thinks he still has enough left, emotionally and physically, to win three more major championships to tie Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 titles.

Speaking to GolfTV in his first sit-down interview since the Masters, Woods said he has taken some time off since his victory at Augusta National, which still doesn’t feel real.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Woods said. “I was texting one of my good friends last night … that I couldn’t believe that I won the tournament. That it really hasn’t sunk in. I haven’t started doing anything. I’ve just been laying there. And every now and again, I’ll look over there on the couch and there’s the jacket.”

That’s the fifth green jacket for the 43-year-old Woods, who hadn’t won a major tournament since the 2008 U.S. Open. Along the way, four back surgeries, a divorce and other personal issues derailed him.

He said he has been spending time with his children – daughter Sam, 11, and son Charlie, 10 – who weren’t born when their father was the most dominant golfer on the planet.

“They never knew golf to be a good thing in my life and only the only thing they remember is that it brought this incredible amount of pain to their dad and they don’t want to ever want to see their dad in pain,” Woods said. “And so to now have them see this side of it, the side that I’ve experienced for so many years of my life, but I had a battle to get back to this point, it feels good.”

He said he hopes – maybe expects — they’ll see this side again.

And no one will take Woods for granted at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black Course on Long Island, N.Y., which starts May 16.

Woods said he’ll be ready for a course he already conquered once in a major: the 2002 U.S. Open.

“I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend,” he said.

Before Woods encountered health and personal problems, it was expected that topping Nicklaus’ major mark was “when” and not “if.” Then the certainty went away, but Woods thought he still had a chance.

“I always thought it was possible, if I had everything go my way. It took him an entire career to get to 18, so now that I’ve had another extension to my career – one that I didn’t think I had a couple of years ago – if I do things correctly and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’m never going to say it’s not.

“Now I just need to have a lot of things go my way, and who’s to say that it will or will not happen? That’s what the future holds, I don’t know. The only thing I can promise you is this: that I will be prepared.”

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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