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Satire offers new ground for silenced Pakistani journalists

Journalists and social activists chant slogans during a rally protest which they say is against layoffs and the non-payment of salaries, in Karachi
Journalists and social activists chant slogans during a rally protest which they say is against layoffs and the non-payment of salaries, in Karachi, Pakistan February 8, 2019. Picture taken February 8, 2019. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

March 28, 2019

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – An army boot and a sandal discuss what to do with fallen former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a satirical social media video that highlights the way journalists shut out from the country’s mainstream media are turning to the Internet.

The 70-second video, which has been seen more than 58,000 times, is the latest product of Matitullah Jan, a former television anchor at local Waqt TV, who says he was forced out of his job by Pakistan’s powerful military due to his criticism of the generals’ interference in politics shortly before the station closed last year.

Jan, a gray-haired 50-year-old, is among around 3,000 journalists and media workers laid off in recent months amid a crackdown that started in the run-up to a July general election that brought Prime Minister Imran Khan to power.

Like media organizations the world over, Pakistani newspapers and television stations are feeling the squeeze from social media companies such as Facebook that are eating into their advertising revenues.

But some journalists also say Khan’s government and the military establishment that looms over Pakistani politics have deliberately sought to push out critical voices, forcing them to seek alternative outlets by squeezing media companies financially and through burdensome new regulations.

“We don’t have to play with the words to say that the military establishment was pro-active in getting rid of pro-democracy journalists,” said Jan.

Pakistan’s military regularly denies undermining press freedom. Its media wing declined to comment in response to written questions submitted by Reuters. A government spokesman said job losses and declining business for some media was due to digital competition, not official pressure.

If they are no longer seen on television, however, at least some of those laid off have been able to find alternative outlets, in Jan’s case a YouTube channel and a satirical social media video series called “Funny Gala” – a play on Bani Gala, the Islamabad suburb where Khan has a palatial hilltop home.

In his video, “Boot Talk”, a play on a slang term used for the army, the sandal talks in the voice of the prime minister, meekly seeking orders from the military, who insist nonetheless that they are not interfering.

“It might be your decision, we don’t mind,” says the boot, as the two discuss exiling Khan’s predecessor Nawaz Sharif, who fell out with the military and is currently serving a 10-year jail sentence for corruption.

When the sandal voices fears that their joint efforts might go in vain, the boot laughs: “You might lose, we will never.”

PRESS FREEDOM

Behind the satire, is what many media workers say is an increasingly difficult environment for them in Pakistan. While journalists have rarely been jailed, writers and bloggers say several cases of reporters being abducted and beaten during the past year have created a climate in which they self-censor.

The military and government have denied state agencies have been involved in any of those incidents.

A report released by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) last year alleged that Pakistan’s military was using fear and intimidation to stifle the media and undermine press freedom. The military did not respond to requests for comment on the report at the time.

“Press freedom is at stake – probably the worst it’s been in the history of Pakistan,” Rana Jawad, news director for Geo TV, a leading local station that has seen its advertising revenues halved by a government crackdown on media spending.

The government has proposed a new draft law bringing regulation of all types of media under a single body, the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMRA).

“We want to make PMRA a body which will regulate social media, the electronic media and the one that is our formal print media,” Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said. “You need a regulator who sits above and regulates these things.”

At the same time, the government has also introduced a new advertising policy for the media, which makes good part of its revenue from public sector advertising, raising rates for some and cutting for others.

It has also refused to honor claims for past advertising spending, offering just 500 million rupees ($3.6 million) to settle claims media companies say amount to 8.5 billion rupees ($61 million).

Chaudhry says the aim of the policy was to stop undue favors extended by previous administrations to select outlets, but media managers and opposition politicians accuse the government of using it to create a compliant media.

“This government is confusing regulation with censorship, perhaps deliberately, in order to enforce a blanket one-party view on vital issues,” said opposition lawmaker Sherry Rehman.

CLOSURES

The media crisis has lately resulted in closures of news channels and newspapers, and leading organizations cutting their staff and salaries by up to 40 percent, correspondence between media groups and their staff seen by Reuters shows.

Geo, which has not paid salaries for the last four months, has long been at odds with Khan and the military.

In the run-up to last year’s election, cable companies stopped distributing Geo’s programming, effectively taking it off the air for most of the country. It was only restored after talks with the military on demands it make changes to its political coverage, according to officials at the channel’s media group.

In such an environment, critical voices in the mainstream media have dwindled.

“You are allowed to say things that the powerful wants you to say but you’re not allowed to say things that may be factual, that are a reality, but which do not sync with the narrative of the so-called state or the government,” Jawad said.

($1 = 139.5000 Pakistani rupees)

(Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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Don't Give ISIS Brides Victimhood Status. Try Them.

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As the Islamic State caliphate’s last redoubt of Baghouz falls to U.S. allied forces, more than 50,000 women and children have recently streamed into camps run by Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria. Among them is a 24-year-old Hoda Muthana, a former Alabama student and a three-time jihadi bride. This summer, a United States federal court will decide her appeal concerning whether she and her 18-month old son are American citizens and whether they can resettle here.

Wherever Muthana ends up — in a Syrian Democratic Force evacuation camp, an Iraqi detention center, or the U.S. — Washington should ensure that she and other women who flocked to ISIS face charges. They threw their support behind a terror group that the U.S. government officially designated as responsible for religious genocide against the Middle Eastern Yazidi, Christian, and ethnic Shiite minorities. These minorities will struggle for generations to recover, and they yearn for justice.

Muthana may no longer shout Allahu Akbar while flashing the IS sign, an index finger pointing upward for monotheism, but she rushed to join ISIS’s caliphate in its early months in 2014 and stayed until its bitter collapse. She enthusiastically answered ISIS’s call to be a wife for its militants and a mother for its next generation of holy warriors, and she played an important administrative role in the caliphate.  

An extensive 2018 Netherlands intelligence study found that “in many cases, jihadist women are at least as dedicated to jihadism as men and they … form an essential part of the jihadist movement.” That is demonstrably true for Muthana. On her social media posts, Muthana served as an IS propagandist under the name “Umm Jihad” (mother of jihad).  “Wake up u cowards,” she incited, “go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood.” She urged truck-ramming attacks against American veteran parades, like the 2016 Bastille Day gathering in Nice, France.  She joined IS’s al-Khanssaa Brigade, a female religious police unit led by Western women and known for lashing local Sunni women with cables for dress-code infractions.

Al-Khanssaa also enforced the caliphate rulings on slave houses – the emblematic institution of ISIS’ genocide. The survivors among 6,000 Yazidi and some Christian victims of IS slavery have testified firsthand about them. Yazidi advocate Pari Ibrahim related: “ISIS brides would lock [the Yazidi slaves] up and beat them. They would shower the girls, put them in nice clothes and put makeup on their faces to get them ready to be raped.”

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad, a Yazidi who escaped enslavement, wrote in her book “Last Girl” that IS women were often “crueler than men” and would “beat and starve their husbands’ sabaya [slaves], out of jealousy or anger or because we are easy targets.”  Iraqi Christian Rita Ayoub, liberated from enslavement in 2017, told of being beaten daily until bloody by a Moroccan jihadi bride in Syria, in an effort to force her to convert to Islam. Mingled among the Baghouz evacuees are more of their dazed Yazidi women and children slaves. ISIS wives have even been found concealing guns under their robes as they exit Baghouz.

Despite this, there’s a growing human rights movement that views jihadi brides as part of an undifferentiated class of oppressed women. Some assert that as a sub-class of ISIS’ victims, they merit government protection and housing, jobs and health care under the U.N. Protocol on Trafficking in Persons. (Minor girls who were groomed could fall into this category, but Muthana was of majority age when she joined IS.)

Ratified by the U.S. in 2005, this protocol was aimed at criminal prostitution gangs. Its vague wording, however, could allow foreign ISIS women to be defined as “trafficked victims”: They were “transferred” across Turkey-Syrian borders by ISIS for “the purpose of exploitation” and “deceived” by ISIS’ “fraudulent” claims of family life in an Islamic utopia.  The trafficked woman’s “consent” to the intended exploitation can be “irrelevant” if she had unspecified “vulnerabilities.” And “imperfect victims” — those with “unsavory affiliations” and who “committed crimes in conjunction with their trafficking” — are not disqualified. In other words, the women’s reliance on ISIS to smuggle them into the Islamic State negates their responsibility for their subsequent misdeeds.

This patronizing argument based on gender could find support in American courts. The U.S. government has focused on ISIS men while underestimating the role of their wives. The Justice Department tends to  charge women who “provided material support of ISIS” from within the U.S., but with few exceptions it ignores the crimes of women, American or not, who went to the caliphate.

One exception was Sally Jones, a 40-something British rocker and Muslim convert who, in 2013, went to Syria to marry a 21-year-old ISIS hacker and then joined the Islamic State. After posting online a hit list of American military personnel, they became known as “Mr. and Mrs. Terror.” Jones claimed credit for posting the address of the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden and she was part of the al-Khanssaa Brigade. In 2016, the U.S. added Jones to its terror list and, in 2017, reportedly killed her in a drone strike, the first targeting a woman. 

Another was Umm Sayyaf, the Iraqi wife of IS’ chief financier. She organized sabaya, institutionalized sexual enslavement, and personally managed the serial rape of 26-year-old American humanitarian Kayla Mueller. Kayla died enslaved in 2016 but we know of her ordeal from two Yazidi teenagers who were chained with her in the Sayyaf home. Umm Sayyaf also told American interrogators of jihadi wives who gathered intelligence for IS and aided jihadi operations. 

But even there, the U.S. was reluctant. In May 2015, Umm Sayyaf was captured in a U.S. Delta Force raid targeting her husband and, incredibly, was released without charge. In 2016, U.S. federal prosecutors, pressed by Sen. John McCain, eventually charged her with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization that resulted in an American death. She is now held in Iraq.

That neither Jones nor Umm Sayyaf held rank within ISIS did not exonerate their complicity in crimes of terror and human rights abuses. 

The real victims of IS deserve justice.  Specifically on the issue of jihadi brides, Ibrahim told us: “What we Yazidis want is for a court somewhere to recognize that these people are guilty of more than just terrorism, that they have committed genocide or crimes against humanity.”  Last year, President Trump signed a law  to help them get just such an accountability.  

The ultimate travesty would be to now confer the jihadi brides with victimhood status that absolves them of all responsibility for the heinous crimes committed by ISIS. Muthana and other jihadi brides should face charges and fair trials.

Nina Shea is a senior fellow and director of Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

Farahnaz Ispahani is a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, author, and former member of Pakistan's Parliament.

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The Latest: Ex-cop’s partner explains delay in citing thump

The Latest on the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman who had called 911 (all times local):

4:40 p.m.

The partner of a Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman is explaining why he didn't tell other officers at the scene about a thump on the officers' squad car he says he heard right before the shooting.

Officer Matthew Harrity is a key witness at the murder and manslaughter trial of Mohamed Noor. Noor fired a single shot in July 2017 that killed Justine Ruszczyk Damond, when she approached the officers' squad car minutes after calling 911 to report a possible rape behind her home.

Harrity testified Thursday that he feared an ambush after hearing the thump. In explaining why he didn't mention the thump in the aftermath of the shooting, Harrity said he was required to give only a brief public safety statement at the scene.

Harrity says he knew from training that he would be giving a full statement in days to come.

Ruszczyk Damond was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia and her death sparked anger in both countries. Noor was fired from the Minneapolis police force after being charged in her death.

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12:50 p.m.

The partner of a former Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an unarmed woman says he was startled by a thump on the officers' squad car and feared a possible ambush.

Officer Matthew Harrity is a key witness at the trial of Mohamed Noor. Noor killed Justine Ruszczyk Damond with a single shot as she approached the officers' squad car in July 2017. Damond was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

Defense attorneys have said Noor was reacting to a noise and feared an ambush when he fired his weapon.

Harrity was driving the police SUV. In his testimony Thursday, he described a glimpse of something to his left, then hearing something hitting the car and "some sort of murmur."

He said he immediately drew his gun. Harrity said that's when Noor fired.

___

11:27 a.m.

The partner of a Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an unarmed woman who had called 911 to report a possible rape near her home is describing the moments before the shooting.

Officer Matthew Harrity is a critical witness in the trial of Mohamed Noor. Noor killed Justine Ruszczyk Damond with a single shot as she approached the officers' squad car in July 2017.

Harrity testified Thursday that he and Noor were rolling down the alley behind Damond's house searching for anything related to the 911 call of a woman in trouble. Harrity testified he had pulled the hood off his gun's holster in case he needed to draw it.

Asked why, Harrity said he considers every call a threat until it's not.

His testimony is continuing.

Source: Fox News National

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Amid trade tensions and Brexit worries, IMF cuts global growth outlook

FILE PHOTO: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters building is seen ahead of the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington
FILE PHOTO: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters building is seen ahead of the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

April 9, 2019

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its global economic growth forecasts for 2019 and warned growth could slow further due to trade tensions and a potentially disorderly British exit from the European Union.

In its third downgrade since October, the global lender said some major economies, including China and Germany, might need to take short-term actions to prop up growth.

The global lender said it still expects that a sharp slowdown in Europe and some emerging market economies will give way to a general re-acceleration in the second half of 2019.

“However, the possibility of further downward revisions is high, and the balance of risks remains skewed to the downside,” the Fund said in its World Economic Outlook report for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington this week.

The global economy will likely grow 3.3 percent this year, its slowest expansion since 2016, the IMF said in a forecast that cut 0.2 percentage point from its January outlook.

The projected growth rate for next year was unchanged at 3.6 percent.

More than two-thirds of the expected slowdown in 2019 owes to trouble in rich nations.

“In this context, avoiding policy missteps that could harm economic activity should be the main priority,” the IMF said.

One potential misstep lies in Britain’s indecision over how to leave the European Union. Despite looming deadlines, London hasn’t decided how it will try to shield its economy during the exit process. The IMF’s new forecast assumes an orderly “Brexit” but the Fund said a chaotic process could shave more than 0.2 percentage points from global growth in 2019.

The IMF said the Bank of England should be “cautious” on interest rate policy, an apparent tip to wait before hiking.

Europe’s economic growth is already slowing substantially and it accounted for much of the reduction in the global growth forecast.

Germany’s outlook suffered from weaker demand for its exports, softer consumer spending and new emissions standards which have depressed car sales.

Germany may have to quickly turn to fiscal stimulus measures, the IMF said, also calling on the European Central Bank to keep stimulating the regional economy. The IMF also cut Japan’s growth outlook following a string of natural disasters.

The U.S. economy, while seen outperforming other rich nations, also got a downgrade on signs that a fiscal stimulus fueled by tax cuts was producing less activity than previously expected.

BOOST FROM FED PAUSE

The IMF said it supported the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to pause its rate-hiking cycle, which the global lender said would support the U.S. and world economies this year by easing financial conditions. The IMF raised its forecast for U.S. growth in 2020 by a tenth of a percentage point to 1.9 percent.

The global lender said it was slightly boosting its outlook for Chinese growth this year – to 6.3 percent – in part because it had expected an escalation in the U.S.-China trade war which did not materialize.

Still, America’s ongoing tensions with China and other major trading partners remain a risk for the global economy.

Already, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports are hitting Chinese growth, while also weighing on Latin America and other areas dependent on Chinese demand for commodities.

In a World Economic Outlook chapter released last week, the IMF said that an escalation of the U.S.-China trade war would drive manufacturing away from both countries and cause job losses, but would do little to change their total trade balances.

If 25 percent tariffs were imposed on all trade between the world’s two largest economies, U.S. GDP would fall by up to 0.6 percent and China’s would fall by up to 1.5 percent, the IMF said.

The IMF also cut its 2019 growth forecasts for Canada and Latin America as well as for the Middle East and North African countries.

China was trying to rebalance its massive economy away from investment and exports when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered higher tariffs on Chinese imports beginning in 2018. China responded with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.

In an ominous sign, the IMF said Beijing might need to unleash fiscal stimulus “to avoid a sharp near-term growth slowdown that could derail the overarching reform agenda.”

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source: OANN

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Senate leader McConnell calls for raising minimum age to buy tobacco products

A man smokes while watching Smallpools perform on the third day of the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware U.S.
A man smokes at the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware U.S., June 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mark Makela

April 18, 2019

(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday he plans to introduce legislation to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 from 18.

McConnell said https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=C7912202-0742-4404-8775-8836F261DDEF the bill, which will be introduced in May, will cover all tobacco products including vaping devices.

Shares of Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc fell 3 percent on the news. Philip Morris International and U.S-listed shares of British American Tobacco were also trading lower.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Source: OANN

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Verdict due in rights activist's case in Russia's Chechnya

A court in Russia's Chechnya is due to issue its verdict Monday in the case of a prominent rights activist.

Oyub Titiyev was detained in January 2018 and charged with drug possession in what has been largely perceived as a vendetta against this rare critic of the Chechen government.

Titiyev was the head of the Chechen office of prominent rights group Memorial and played a major role in exposing extrajudicial killings, kidnappings and torture perpetrated by the Chechen government.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who previously dismissed rights activists as liars and traitors, publicly called the 61-year-old Titiyev a "junkie." Titiyev's supporters say the case aims not only to silence the activist, who is known as a devout Muslim, but also discredit him in the eyes of the community.

Source: Fox News World

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Researchers Find Dark Matter Not Made Up of Tiny Black Holes

An international team of researchers has put a theory speculated by the late Stephen Hawking to its most rigorous test to date, and their results have ruled out the possibility that primordial black holes smaller than a tenth of a millimeter make up most of dark matter. Details of their study have been published in this week’s Nature Astronomy.

Scientists know that 85 percent of the matter in the Universe is made up of dark matter. Its gravitational force prevents stars in our Milky Way from flying apart. However, attempts to detect such dark matter particles using underground experiments, or accelerator experiments including the world’s largest accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, have failed so far.

This has led scientists to consider Hawking’s 1974 theory of the existence of primordial black holes, born shortly after the Big Bang, and his speculation that they could make up a large fraction of the elusive dark matter scientists are trying to discover today.

An international team of researchers, led by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe Principal Investigator Masahiro Takada, PhD candidate student Hiroko Niikura, Professor Naoki Yasuda, and including researchers from Japan, India and the US, have used the gravitational lensing effect to look for primordial black holes between Earth and the Andromeda galaxy. Gravitational lensing, an effect first suggested by Albert Einstein, manifests itself as the bending of light rays coming from a distant object such as a star due to the gravitational effect of an intervening massive object such as a primordial black hole. In extreme cases, such light bending causes the background star to appear much brighter than it originally is.


Alex Jones breaks down what globalists have been denying humanity.

However, gravitational lensing effects are very rare events because it requires a star in the Andromeda galaxy, a primordial black hole acting as the gravitational lens, and an observer on Earth to be exactly in line with one another. So to maximize the chances of capturing an event, the researchers used the Hyper Suprime-Cam digital camera on the Subaru telescope in Hawaii, which can capture the whole image of the Andromeda galaxy in one shot. Taking into account how fast primordial black holes are expected to move in interstellar space, the team took multiple images to be able to catch the flicker of a star as it brightens for a period of a few minutes to hours due to gravitational lensing.

(Photo by NASA)

From 190 consecutive images of the Andromeda galaxy taken over seven hours during one clear night, the team scoured the data for potential gravitational lensing events. If dark matter consists of primordial black holes of a given mass, in this case masses lighter than the moon, the researchers expected to find about 1000 events. But after careful analyses, they could only identify one case. The team’s results showed primordial black holes can contribute no more than 0.1 percent of all dark matter mass. Therefore, it is unlikely the theory is true.

The researchers are now planning to further develop their analysis of the Andromeda galaxy. One new theory they will investigate is to find whether binary black holes discovered by gravitational wave detector LIGO are in fact primordial black holes.


Infowars Chief Council, Robert Barnes sits down with Alex Jones to talk about the cannibal zombie fest that is the Democratic primary.

Source: InfoWars

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday said his government must make men aware of the dangers of poor hygiene after expressing dismay over the 1,000 penis amputations that apparently occur in his country each year.

“In Brazil, we have 1,000 penis amputations a year due to a lack of water and soap,” he said while speaking to reporters in Brasilia after visiting the Education Ministry. “We have to find a way to get out of the bottom of this hole.”

The far-right leader called the figure “ridiculous and sad,” Reuters reported. A spokeswoman for the Brazilian urology society told the news agency the number is based on its official data for penis amputations.

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The amputations were conducted out of necessity over untreated infections, along with complications from HIV and various cancers, she said.

Source: Fox News World

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A top Russian diplomat says Russia is willing to negotiate a new nuclear weapons treaty with the United States and China.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Friday Moscow is closely following reports in the United States that the U.S. would like to reach a nuclear weapons deal with both Russia and China, and is “willing” to negotiate. The story was reported by CNN earlier Friday.

Ryabkov also said that Russia “would like to convince” the U.S. to adopt a joint statement that would condemn any use of nuclear weapons.

Ryabkov’s comments come just months after the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a cornerstone of the post-Cold War security, and Russia followed suit. Each claims breaches by the other.

Source: Fox News National

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Government dysfunction and an intelligence failure that preceded the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka are traced to simmering divisions between the president and prime minister after a weekslong political crisis that crippled the country last year.

The government has admitted to a “lapse of intelligence” after officials failed to act upon near-specific information received from foreign agencies. Suicide bombers exploded themselves last Sunday in three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 253 people and wounding 400 more. Authorities said eight Muslim militants blew themselves up at their targets while the wife of one of the attackers blasted herself on being rounded up by police.

The carnage has brought forth arguments that worshippers and holidaymakers fell victim to the rivalry and a lack of communication between the country’s two leaders — President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Cabinet led by Wickremesinghe says neither he nor his ministers were informed of the intelligence received by the defense authorities. Sirisena is the head of state, defense minister, minister in charge of the police and head of the armed forces. He also chairs the National Security Council, which includes the heads of security agencies and departments. Traditionally the prime minister also plays an important role on the council.

According to Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, Sirisena has not included Wickremesinghe in national security affairs since a dispute between them came into the open in October last year. This is an unusual departure from the protocol, he said.

Senaratne said that Sirisena was overseas when the attacks took place and even after that, the National Security Council refused to meet with Wickremesinghe as he tried to give them instructions.

Sirisena has also said that he was not informed of the intelligence received and vowed to overhaul the leadership of the defense forces.

The top bureaucrat at the Defense Ministry, Hemasiri Fernando, has resigned at Sirisena’s insistence.

“It is a major factor,” said Jehan Perera, the head of local activist group National Peace Council, referring to the alleged lack of coordination between the leaders contributing to the failure to prevent the attacks.

“The primary responsibility has to be taken by the president, he did not give the information and he did not act,” Perera said. “He had the Ministry of Defense, took the police from the prime minister, chaired the National Security Council meetings and did nothing,” Perera said.

Kusal Perera, a journalist and political commentator, says security and intelligence officials should have acted on the information whether or not they received orders from politicians.

“If they (Wickremesinghe and his party) were not invited to the National Security Council, why did not they say in Parliament that they were not responsible for the security of the country any longer,” said Perera, who is not related to Jehan Perera.

“Saying that now is taking political advantage, not taking responsibility,” he said.

Sirisena and Wickremesinghe belong to different political parties but came together for Sirisena’s presidential campaign in 2015. Their relationships broke down and their differences exploded last year when Sirisena suddenly sacked Wickremesinghe as prime minister and appointed in his place former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he defeated in the presidential election. The crisis crippled the country for more than seven weeks to the point of not being able to pass this year’s national budget on time.

A court decision compelled Sirisena to reappoint Wickremesinghe, but the two leaders have been rivals within the same government.

Rajapaksa, who is the minority leader in Parliament, blames the government for weakening intelligence and dropping its guard, which he had maintained to defeat the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels 10 years ago to end the 26-year-old civil war. He also criticized the government for the detention of intelligence officers accused of extrajudicial killings and abductions during the closing days of the war, which he said crippled the security apparatus before the bombings. According to conservative U.N estimates, some 100,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka’s conflict.

Sirisena summoned an all-party conference Thursday to which Wickremesinghe was also invited. At the conference, Sirisena stressed “setting aside all the political beliefs and difference (so that) everybody should collectively commit towards building a peaceful environment within the country,” a statement from his office said.

“It is not a secret that the disagreements between me and the government aggravated over the past two years,” Sirisena told the country’s media executives Friday. “One of the reasons for that is weakening of military intelligence and arresting military officials unnecessarily and my speaking up against it within and outside the government.”

Jehan Perera said that the security threat could prove politically advantageous to Rajapaksa and his family, with a presidential election scheduled at the end of this year. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a younger brother of Mahinda, was the powerful defense secretary during his brother’s reign and has expressed his interest to join the contest.

“People are saying we want a stronger leader and they are talking about Gotabhaya. It (the blasts) has worked to their benefit,” Perera said.

Source: Fox News World

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Cyprus police are intensifying a search for the remains of more victims at locations where an army officer, who authorities say admitted to killing five women and two girls, allegedly had dumped their bodies.

Police said Friday’s search will concentrate on a military firing range, a reservoir and a man-made lake near an abandoned mine approximately 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital Nicosia.

On Thursday, the 35-year-old suspect told investigators that he had killed four more people than he had previously admitted to. All the suspect’s alleged victims are foreign nationals.

Police have already found the bodies of a 38-year-old Filipino woman and two as yet unidentified women.

Search crews are now looking for the daughter of the 38-year-old, a Romanian mother and daughter and another Filipino woman.

Source: Fox News World

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A California man who allegedly fatally shot his ex-girlfriend in broad daylight last month before fleeing the country has been returned to the U.S. following his arrest in Mexico on Wednesday, authorities said.

Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montlcair, is accused of shooting his 25-year-old ex-girlfriend Thalia Flores and a second unidentified male victim March 21 around 2:45 p.m. while the two were sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot of a discount store in Chino. Both communities are about 36 miles east of Los Angeles.

ARREST MADE IN DOUBLE HOMICIDE OF EX-PRO HOCKEY PLAYER, COMMUNITY ADVOCATE, POLICE SAY

Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montlcair, Calif. was located in Mexico Wednesday and returned to California where he faces murder and attempted murder charges related to the death of his ex-girlfriend, Thalia Flores.

Julio Cesar Rocha, 25, of Montlcair, Calif. was located in Mexico Wednesday and returned to California where he faces murder and attempted murder charges related to the death of his ex-girlfriend, Thalia Flores. (City of Chino Police Department)

Flores died at the scene. The man, whose name was not released, walked to a nearby hospital where he’s recovering from his gunshot wounds.

Rocha allegedly fled the scene and remained at large for more than a month, the Daily Bulletin reported. He was formally arrested at 4:30 p.m. after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport from Mexico, KTLA-TV reported.

The suspect was booked at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on murder and attempted murder charges, the City of Chino Police Department said on Facebook.

Flores ended her seven-year relationship with Rocha just two months before her death and still lived in fear of him until that point, a sister of the victim, Bernice Flores, told the Daily Bulletin.

“He said himself so many times to other people, ‘If I can’t have her, no one will.’ ” Flores said, adding that her sister stayed in the relationship longer that she would have liked in fear that Rocha would hurt her or her family if they broke up.

Rocha was convicted on misdemeanor battery in 2016 and sentenced to 60 days in prison. He was originally charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon, but the charges were lowered in a plea deal, the Daily Bulletin reported.

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Rocha was convicted of misdemeanor resisting or obstructing a peace officer in 2014. A second charge of misdemeanor battery was dropped in a plea deal, and Rocha was ordered to complete a 26-week anger management course, according to San Bernardino County Superior Court records. Rocha was later arrested and sentenced to 10 days behind bars for failing to complete the course.

Source: Fox News National

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