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Mother pleads guilty in teen’s murder, dismemberment

A woman has pleaded guilty in the 2016 rape, murder and dismemberment of her 14-year-old daughter.

Former adoptions supervisor Sara Packer appeared in a suburban Philadelphia courtroom Friday afternoon and pleaded guilty to first degree murder and 18 other charges in exchange for a life sentence.

Packer admitted in court last week that she plotted to murder her adoptive daughter, Grace Packer, saying she hated the teenager and "wanted her to go away."

Sara Packer's boyfriend, Jacob Sullivan, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and related offenses and was sentenced to death.

Packer says she helped Sullivan tie Grace up and watched as he raped and strangled her. The couple stored Grace's body in cat litter for several months before dismembering it and dumping it in a wooded area.

Source: Fox News National

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Stan Lee, co-creator of Marvel Comics, dead at 95

Stan Lee, the legendary co-creator of Marvel Comics, has died, according to TMZ. TMZ reports an ambulance brought Lee from his Hollywood Hills home to a hospital Monday morning. Lee founded Marvel in 1961 alongside Jack Kirby and is credited with creating The Avengers and and other Marvel heroes. Mr. Lee YOU WILL BE MISSED!! […]

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Lagging U.S. healthcare stocks could see short-term boost but clouds linger

FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Second-quarter strength in U.S. healthcare stocks is almost as reliable for Americans as warming weather and the start of baseball season. This year, however, the already-lagging sector may struggle to sustain any kind of rally.

Healthcare shares are suffering from a broad market rotation favoring other groups, market-watchers say, as well as from policy-related uncertainty, although positive earnings reports in the coming weeks could provide temporary relief.

Federal government pressure to lower the cost of healthcare, and in particular prescription drug prices, for consumers continues. And as the 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign heats up, that focus is likely to intensify with numerous Democratic candidates keeping it front and center, which could heighten volatility for the group’s shares.

That could upend a traditional second-quarter trend. The overall market tends to be more rocky starting in the period, so investors become more defensive with their portfolios, benefiting groups such as healthcare that are seen as safer bets, according to CFRA strategists.

To some degree, healthcare is suffering from its own success. Healthcare was the best-performing major S&P 500 sector last year, when the overall stock market stumbled.

As the market rebounded this year, fueled by the Federal Reserve signal that it was not inclined to raise interest rates, optimism regarding global trade tensions and better-than-feared economic data, investors piled into laggards.

That favored sectors such as technology and industrials, while healthcare’s strength last year stemmed partly from its allure as a more defensive bet.

“When the Fed shifted their stance in early January, it totally changed the backdrop,” said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital in South Carolina. Investors sold healthcare stocks and “started buying the most beat-up names,” he said.

Earnings could provide a boost, starting on Tuesday. Results are due from diversified healthcare manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc, the biggest and third-biggest U.S. healthcare companies by market value, respectively.

Healthcare companies in aggregate are expected to increase first-quarter earnings by 4.4% from a year earlier, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. That is the second-biggest rise expected of the 11 major sectors and a stand-out as earnings for the overall S&P 500 are expected to drop 2.1%.

“If the healthcare companies are reporting good earnings and the stocks continue to underperform, then you start to get some valuation support,” said James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson.

The healthcare sector has climbed 72% of the time during the second quarter, according to CFRA, which looked at 30 years of data. That compares to 62% for the overall S&P 500, and is a higher rate than the other sectors. The healthcare sector on average has gained 3.6% in the second quarter, compared to 2.2% for the S&P 500, according to CFRA.

But the clouds that have rained on healthcare’s performance so far in 2019 are not expected to dissipate soon.

The S&P 500 healthcare sector has climbed 4% year to date, well below the nearly 16% gain for the overall S&P 500, as the benchmark index nears record highs.

‘A BAD WEEK’

Uncertainty over policy is particularly punishing shares of health insurers and other services companies, investors say. That includes proposals to change the drug-rebate system under which drugmakers refund money to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, and the prominence of Senator Bernie Sanders and other left-leaning presidential candidates who support “Medicare for All” government-run healthcare.

Last week alone, the S&P 1500 managed healthcare care index tumbled 10%, including steep drops for insurers Anthem Inc and UnitedHealth.

“It’s a bad week where all these things have kind of combined and people just want out,” Jeff Jonas, a healthcare portfolio manager with Gabelli Funds, said on Friday.

Shares of many large pharmaceutical and biotech companies – which comprise about half the sector – have struggled this year. Biogen Inc shares tumbled after the company’s closely-watched experimental Alzheimer’s disease medicine failed in clinical trials, the kind of event that analysts say scare off investors from drugmaker shares broadly.

Those stocks have largely avoided the pain doled out to services shares from drug pricing and other policy concerns, but that could change. “I am not sure if we are done with the news flow regarding that topic,” said Thrivent Financial healthcare analyst David Heupel.

Shares of life-science tool and healthcare equipment companies, viewed as relatively immune from policy concerns, have outperformed their healthcare brethren this year. But they also now trade at expensive valuations compared to their five-year averages.

After selling off to end 2018, many small- and mid-cap biotech stocks have rebounded this year, making valuations less cheap than they were.

“I’d love to say that healthcare is going to claw back a lot of this underperformance,” said Jeffrey Schulze, investment strategist at ClearBridge Investments.

But, he adds, political risk and his expectation that other market groups will lead “when it’s clear that global growth is going to come, may weigh on the sector’s prospects.”

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; editing by Alden Bentley and Bill Berkrot)

Source: OANN

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Massive Twin Star Discovered

Astronomers have discovered a binary star system with the closest high-mass young stellar objects ever measured, providing a valuable “laboratory” to test theories on high mass binary star formation.

An international team led by the University of Leeds has determined the distance between the massive young star PDS 27 and its orbiting stellar companion to be just 30 astronomical units away or 4.5 billion km. That is roughly the distance between our Sun and Neptune, making them the stellar companions with the closest proximity ever determined for young high mass stars in a binary system – a star system with two stars in orbit around a center of mass.

Study lead author, Dr. Evgenia Koumpia, from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Leeds, said: “This is a very exciting discovery, observing and simulating massive binaries at the early stages of their formation is one of the main struggles of modern astronomy. With PDS 27 and its companion we have now found the closest, most massive young stellar objects in binaries resolved to date.

“There is a shortage of known young massive binary systems in charted space. High mass stars have comparatively short lifespans, burning out and exploding as supernovae in only a few million years, making them difficult to spot. This limits our ability to test the theories on how these stars form.”


With no images transmitted back to Earth from their space probe, Alex Jones reveals the truth behind China’s exploration of the dark side of the moon, an adventure that, in all likelihood, has already been carried out by covert, American run space programs.

As part of their study the team has also identified a companion object for another young massive star referred to as PDS 37. The analysis revealed a distance between PDS 37 and its companion to be between 42 to 54 astronomical units –comparable to the distance between the Sun and Pluto. While further apart than PDS 27 and its companion, it is still a significant discovery given the need for confirmed massive young stellar binaries in astronomical research.

Dr. Koumpia continued: “How these binary systems form is quite a controversial question with several theories having been put forward. Observational studies of binaries in their early stages are crucial to verifying the theories of their formation.

“PDS 27 and PDS 37 are rare and important laboratories that can help inform and test the theories on the formation of high mass binaries.”

PDS 27 is at least 10 times more massive than our Sun, Dr. Koumpia explained, and about 8,000 light years away. To determine the presence of stellar companions for PDS 27 and PDS 37, the team used the highest spatial resolution provided by the PIONIER instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). This instrument combines light beams from four telescopes, each of which is 8.2 meters across, and mimics a single telescope with a diameter of 130m. The resulting high spatial resolving power allowed the team to resolve such close binary systems despite their huge distance from us and their close proximity to each other.

(Photo by ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0, Wiki)

Study co-author Professor Rene Oudmaijer, also from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Leeds, said: “The next big question – which we have tended to avoid so far because of observational difficulties – is why so many of these massive stars are in binary systems?”

“It has become increasingly clear to astronomers that massive stars are almost never born alone, with at least one sibling for company. But the reasons why that is the case are still rather murky.

“Massive stars exert significant influence on their cosmic environment. Their stellar winds, energy and the supernova explosions they generate in turn can impact the formation of other stars and galaxies. The evolution and fate of high-mass stars is quite complex but previous studies have shown that they can be influenced to a large degree by their binary properties.

“The discovery of massive young binary stars provides a crucial step forward in being able to answer many of the questions we still have about these stellar objects. These discoveries were only possible thanks to the exquisite resolving power provided by the PIONIER instrument on the VLTI.”


Bob Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion is due to be released soon and Owen asks if Hillary Clinton’s crimes may finally be revealed.

Source: InfoWars

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Wonga victims ‘left to fend for themselves’, say UK lawmakers

The website of Wonga.com is seen on a computer screen in London in this picture illustration
FILE PHOTO: The website of Wonga.com is seen on a computer screen in London, Britain in this picture illustration taken August 28, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/Illustration

February 27, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Thousands of consumers seeking compensation for alleged mistreatment by bust British payday lender Wonga have been “left to fend for themselves”, lawmakers said.

Wonga was Britain’s largest provider of short-term, high-interest loans before going into administration last August.

Nicky Morgan, chair of the powerful Treasury Select Committee (TSC), has written to financial regulators and Wonga’s administrator Grant Thornton to say complaints from former customers of the lender are going unanswered.

At the time of Wonga’s failure some 10,500 consumers had complaints open about the firm.

“It cannot be right that over 10,000 people who may have been mis-sold loans are just cast aside, especially as many will be vulnerable consumers,” Morgan said.

“These people have been left to fend for themselves… They’ve been allowed to fall through the cracks with nobody taking responsibility for their mistreatment.”

“If Wonga continues to damage people’s finances from beyond the grave, it may be time for the government to intervene.”

The Financial Conduct Authority said in correspondence with the TSC that these consumers were not eligible for compensation under its various complaint schemes now that Wonga had collapsed.

Grant Thornton said in a statement it was aware of the Treasury Committee’s letter and would formally respond before the March 7 deadline.

The accountancy firm said it was developing a methodology for adjudicating claims “in a fair and reasonable way in the circumstances of the administration”.

A spokesman for Grant Thornton added: “Our aim is to treat claims fairly and efficiently, and to maximise the assets we receive in order to best compensate creditors, including claimants.”

(Reporting by Iain Withers; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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U.S. charges top Abraaj executives with defrauding investors

FILE PHOTO: Naqvi Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos
FILE PHOTO: Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo

April 11, 2019

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors on Thursday unsealed criminal charges against the chief executive and a managing partner of failed private equity firm Abraaj, accusing them of defrauding investors by lying about the Dubai-based firm’s financial condition.

Abraaj Capital Ltd founder and Chief Executive Arif Naqvi and Managing Partner Mustafa Abdel-Wadood were charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy in a pair of indictments filed in Manhattan federal court.

Abdel-Wadood is in U.S. custody, according to Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Biase declined to comment on Naqvi’s whereabouts.

Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer for Abdel-Wadood, declined to comment. No lawyer for Naqvi could immediately be identified.

Abraaj was the largest buyout fund in the Middle East and North Africa until it collapsed last year after investors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation raised concerns about the management of its $1 billion healthcare fund.

Prosecutors said in the indictments that from about 2014 until the firm’s collapse in May 2018, Naqvi and Abdel-Wadood schemed to give false information about the performance of Abraaj’s funds, inflating their value by more than half a billion dollars.

The prosecutors also said that Naqvi and Abdel-Wadood caused “at least hundreds of millions” of investors’ funds to be misappropriated, either to disguise liquidity shortfalls or for their personal benefit and that of their associates.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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War Room – 2019-Mar-21, Thursday – Illegal Immigration Emergency: Thousands Released From Custody, System On Brink Of Shutdown

Today’s War Room features many great guests as Infowars kicks off it’s 50 hour emergency broadcast. Ali Alexander talks about his documentary Importing Ilhan, Julia Song talks about the arrest of a former Brazilian President and a Media Matters reporter that harassed her, Carpe Donktum shows us the latest censored video on Twitter and Alessandra Bocci reveals a major story from Italy ignored by American media.

Source: The War Room

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FILE PHOTO: Naqvi Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos
FILE PHOTO: Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Arnold

LONDON (Reuters) – A London court case to extradite Arif Naqvi, founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj Group, to the United States on fraud charges was adjourned until May 24, a court official said on Friday.

Naqvi was remanded in custody until that date, the official said. A former managing partner of Dubai-based Abraaj, Sev Vettivetpillai, was released on conditional bail to appear again at Westminster Magistrates Court on June 12, the official said.

Under the U.S. charges, both men are accused of defrauding U.S. investors by inflating positions held by Abraaj in order to attract greater funds from them, causing them financial loss, the official said.

Vettivetpillai could not be reached for a comment.

Naqvi, in a statement released through a PR firm, has pleaded innocent.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Naqvi and his firm raised money for the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund, collecting more than $100 million over three years from U.S.-based charitable organizations and other U.S. investors.

Naqvi and Vettivetpillai were arrested in Britain earlier this month. Another executive, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court on April 11.

Abdel-Wadood appeared at the Manhattan hearing and pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

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Former Vice President Joe Biden announces his 2020 candidacy
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in this still image taken from a video released April 25, 2019. BIDEN CAMPAIGN HANDOUT via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in his first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate, said on Friday that he does not believe he treated law professor Anita Hill badly during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Biden had joined the burgeoning 2020 Democratic field a day earlier.

Biden’s conduct during those hearings, when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, became a renewed subject of controversy after the New York Times reported that Biden had called Hill earlier this month in the run-up to his presidential bid and that Hill was dissatisfied with Biden’s expression of regret.

Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden largely defended his actions as a senator almost 30 years ago, saying he believed Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment levied at Thomas and tried to derail his confirmation.

Activists have long been unhappy that Hill was questioned in graphic detail by the all-white, all-male committee chaired by Biden.

“I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated,” Biden said, but later, he asserted, “I don’t think I treated her badly. … How do you stop people from asking inflammatory questions?”

“There were a lot of mistakes made across the board and for those I apologize,” he said.

Biden praised Hill as “remarkable” and said she is “one of the reasons we have the #MeToo movement.”

Asked why he had not reached out to Hill earlier, Biden said he had previously publicly stated he had regrets about her treatment and that he “didn’t want to quote invade her space.”

That seemed to be a reference to another controversy that looms over Biden’s presidential run: allegations by several women that he made them uncomfortable by touching them at political events.

Biden also addressed that criticism, saying he was now more “cognizant” about a woman’s “private space.” But he maintained that he had been “trying to bring solace.”

He suggested he was still trying to sort out the guidelines for his conduct going forward.

“I should be able to read better,” he said. “I have to be more careful.”

Pressed by the show’s panel for an apology to his accusers, Biden would not entirely capitulate.

“So, I invaded your space,” he replied. “I mean, I’m sorry this happened. But I’m not sorry in a sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate.”

Biden, 76, served as former President Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms. He is competing with 19 others for the Democratic presidential nomination and the chance to likely face President Donald Trump next year in the general election.

His first public event as a presidential candidate is scheduled for Monday in Pittsburgh.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei, Taiwan August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc’s stock slumped over 4% on Friday to its lowest price in two years, rounding out a rough week that included worse-than-expected quarterly results and a pitch by Chief Executive Elon Musk on autonomous cars that failed to win over investors.

With investors betting Tesla will soon raise capital, the stock has fallen 13% for the week to its lowest level since January 2017, before the launch of the Model 3 sedan aimed at making the electric car maker profitable.

One positive development for Tesla: a U.S. District Court judge on Friday granted a request by Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission for a second extension to resolve a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter.

On Wednesday, Tesla posted a worse-than-expected loss of $702 million for the March quarter. Musk said Tesla would return to profit in the third quarter and that there was “some merit” to raising capital.

Musk is still battling to convince investors that demand for the Model 3, the company’s first car aimed at the mass consumer market, is “insanely” high, and that it can be delivered efficiently to customers around the world.

Tesla ended its first quarter with $2.2 billion, down from $3.7 billion in the prior quarter, and the company is planning expansions including a Shanghai factory, an upcoming Model Y SUV, and other projects.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s cash – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DyJjX6)

On Monday, Musk hosted a self-driving event, where he predicted Tesla would have over a million autonomous vehicles by next year. Some analysts perceived the presentation as a way to deflect attention from questions about demand, margin pressure, increasing competition and even Musk’s ongoing battle with U.S. regulators.

Tesla’s stock has now fallen 29 percent in 2019 and the company’s market capitalization has declined to $41 billion from $63 billion in mid-December.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s declining market cap – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dwd62r)

Analysts now expect Tesla’s revenue to expand 19% in 2019, compared with 83% growth in 2018 and 68% growth in 2017, according to Refinitiv.

Following Tesla’s quarterly report, 12 analysts recommend selling the stock, while 11 recommend buying and eight are neutral. The median analyst price target is $275, up 16% from the stock’s current price of $236. Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl has the most optimistic price target, at $500, while Cowen and Company’s Jeffrey Osborne has the lowest, at $160, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s rare public criticism of the Obama administration was a “soft” way of accusing the previous administration of covering up Russia’s attempts at hacking the 2016 presidential election.

While speaking Thursday in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, Rosenstein said that the Obama administration “chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls and how they relate to Russia’s broader strategy to undermine America.”

During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning, Huckabee called the comments an “unusually candid moment for Rosenstein.”

“I thought it was a soft way of him saying there was a cover-up,” Huckabee said. “They knew the Russians were attempting to influence the election and attempting to hack the election but they didn’t fully disclose that to the American people and certainly didn’t disclose it to the Trump campaign.

SWALWELL NOT CERTAIN TRUMP ISN’T A ‘RUSSIAN ASSET’

“Instead they tried to set a trap for them. It failed. The Trump team did not take the bait. And that’s the one conclusion that we can certainly come away with from the $35 million worth of investigation,” Huckabee continued.

Next week, Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress and is expected to answer questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, which found that there was not adequate evidence to conclude that President Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, though the president could not be exonerated in terms of the possibility that he obstructed justice.

Barr will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday and to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG 

“It is going to be a theater, an absolute show,” Huckabee said of the hearings. “Just like the Kavanaugh hearings were and like everything else is in Congress. We ought to close the curtain on them and can’t come back until after the election. They aren’t doing their job anyway. We aren’t paying them because they’re doing a wonderful service to the country and spare us the hypocrisy of thinking they’re interested in getting to the bottom of the facts,” he continued.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Ultimately, Huckabee argued, if Americans “took their partisan hats off,” they would see that President Trump was exonerated by the investigation.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Sri Lanka's former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

April 26, 2019

By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.

Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.

More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.

Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.

“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.

Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.

He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.

“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.

On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.

Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.

Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.

The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.

In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.

Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.

‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’

He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.

“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.

Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.

“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.

President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.

Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.

Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Source: OANN

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