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Some HBO GO users face issues ahead of GoT final season: downdetector.com

FILE PHOTO: The Iron Throne is seen on the set of the television series Game of Thrones in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast, Northern Ireland
FILE PHOTO: The Iron Throne is seen on the set of the television series Game of Thrones in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast, Northern Ireland, REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo

April 15, 2019

(Reuters) – Some HBO GO users were facing issues with the streaming service late on Sunday, according to outages monitoring website Downdetector.com, as the first episode of the much-anticipated final season of Game of Thrones was scheduled to air.

The website showed some users in the United States, Mexico and other parts of Latin America were experiencing issues.

“If you’re having difficulty accessing #HBOGO in Latin America, please connect to live chat at http://help.hbogola.com,” HBO GO posted on Twitter https://twitter.com/HBOGOhelp/status/1117585945514127360.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Source: OANN

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Rep. Liz Cheney: Socialist Voices ‘Driving’ Dems’ Agenda Now

Freshman lawmakers pushing socialist agendas are directing the Democratic Party even further left than the progressives, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., laments.

"You see an embrace of socialism," Rep. Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, told "The Cats Roundtable," according to The Hill. "You see an embrace of policies that would fundamentally steal power from the American people and give it to the government. They would essentially make us slaves to socialism.

"Those voices right now are driving the agenda of the Democratic Party."

Rep. Cheney pointed to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., pushing her Green New Deal, Rep. Ilhan Omar's, D-Minn., Muslim rebuke of Israel, Rep. Rashida Tlaib's, D-Mich., "impeach the motherf–er" call to oust the U.S. president. 

"Right now they're letting the most radical voices, including Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and Tlaib, they're letting them to set the agenda and they're following them," Rep. Cheney told host John Catsimatidis. "And I think that's very dangerous for the nation. I hope that that will stop, but unfortunately I don't see any signs that it will."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also often speaking out against President Donald Trump, has been slow to tamp down the youthful exuberance of the freshmen lawmakers, suggesting a lack of "control" over her party in the chamber, according to Cheney.

"So far we have not seen that Speaker Pelosi will exercise any kind of control, or that she knows how to exercise control over these socialists," Cheney said, per The Hill. "They ought to strip Ilhan Omar of her membership on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

". . . We can never get to the point where . . . the Democrats allowing [Rep. Omar] to stay on the Foreign Affairs Committee after her anti-Semitic comments. Now they're apparently letting her stay on that committee after her disgraceful comments about 9/11."

The latest controversy swirls around Rep. Omar's statement about the 9/11 radical Islamic terrorist attacks as being merely "some people did something" and Muslims are unfairly connected to the event, according to The Hill.

"CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties," Rep. Omar infamously but claimed said last week. CAIR says on its website it was founded in 1994.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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NHL roundup: Marner nets two to lead Leafs past Bruins

NHL: Stanley Cup Playoffs-Toronto Maple Leafs at Boston Bruins
Apr 11, 2019; Boston, MA, USA; Toronto Maple Leafs right wing Mitchell Marner (16) high fives center John Tavares (91) after an empty net goal against the Boston Bruins during the third period in game one of the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

April 12, 2019

Mitch Marner scored two goals — one on a short-handed penalty shot in the second period — and the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs went on to defeat the Boston Bruins 4-1 Thursday night in the opener of a best-of-seven, first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.

William Nylander and John Tavares (into an empty net) also scored for the Maple Leafs. Patrice Bergeron scored for the Bruins, who won a first-round series over the Maple Leafs in seven games last season.

Toronto goaltender Frederik Andersen made 37 saves and frustrated the Bruins on several occasions. Tuukka Rask stopped 29 shots for Boston.

After tying the game late in the first, Marner was tripped by Jake DeBrusk on a short-handed breakaway early in the second to earn a penalty shot. Marner deked Rask easily for what proved to be the game-winner at 2:47 of the second period.

Capitals 4, Hurricanes 2

Nicklas Backstrom scored two of Washington’s three first-period goals, and the Capitals held off a late Carolina rally for a victory in Game 1 of a first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.

Backstrom had multiple goals for the third time in his playoff career, coming just over three minutes apart in that opening period. Alex Ovechkin also scored in the first period, and John Carlson notched a hat trick of assists, getting helpers on all three first-period goals. That tied the NHL record for most assists in a period of a playoff game.

Hurricanes rookie Andrei Svechnikov scored twice in a span of 2:19 in the third period to cut the deficit to 3-2, but Lars Eller put it away with an empty-net goal in the final minute. Svechnikov (19 years, 16 days) became the youngest player with multiple goals in a playoff game since 1997.

Flames 4, Avalanche 0

Mike Smith stopped all 26 shots he faced to earn the shutout, and Matthew Tkachuk scored twice as host Calgary beat Colorado in the first game of their opening-round Western Conference playoff series.

Smith was undoubtedly the star while posting his fourth career playoff shutout and adding an assist in the process. His teammates rewarded him with more than enough offense. Andrew Mangiapane broke the deadlock late in the second period for his first playoff goal, and Mikael Backlund also found the net.

Avalanche goalie Philipp Grubauer made 28 saves in the loss.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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DOJ staff seek Goldman guilty plea in 1MDB settlement: FT

The Goldman Sachs Headquarters building is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City
FILE PHOTO: The Goldman Sachs Headquarters building is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

April 24, 2019

(Reuters) – A settlement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc over its role in the 1MDB corruption scandal should include a guilty plea at the parent company level, the U.S. Department of Justice has recommended, according to a Financial Times report on Wednesday.

The internal recommendation by prosecutors is now being considered by senior officials at the DOJ, FT said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Goldman’s shares fell 1.5 percent following the report.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

Source: OANN

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Brazil’s Bolsonaro warmly received by Netanyahu in Israel

Israel's prime minister has warmly welcomed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on his first state visit to Israel.

Bolsonaro touched down Sunday and received red carpet treatment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is running for re-election in nine days. The Brazilian leader opened his speech after landing with the words "I love Israel" in Hebrew.

The Brazilian president is expected during his three-day trip to decide whether to follow President Donald Trump's lead and move the Brazilian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move he has repeatedly promised.

Netanyahu called Bolsonaro a "good friend" and says Israel and Brazil have entered "a new era" of relations.

Source: Fox News World

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Barr to face grilling on Mueller report summary at Capitol Hill hearing

Attorney General William Barr is set to testify Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill, in his first appearance before lawmakers since he revealed the long-awaited central findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Top Democrats have made it clear that, following multiple media reports citing leaks from those close to Mueller's team, Barr will have some explaining to do.

The hearing -- conducted by the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee and scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. ET -- is expected to include a number of questions on routine budgetary matters. The hearing was scheduled to address Barr's fiscal year 2020 spending request for the Justice Department.

However, Fox News is told Barr's four-page summary of Mueller's conclusions will feature prominently. The subcommittee's chairman, Democrat José Serrano of New York, will cast doubt on Barr's actions in his prepared opening remarks, according to an excerpt released by his office late Monday.

BARR SETS DEADLINE FOR SENDING MUELLER REPORT TO CONGRESS

"In extremely quick fashion, you turned a 300-plus page report into a 4-page letter that supposedly summarized [Mueller's] findings," Serrano will say.

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Serrano indicated that while Barr mainly will face questions concerning appropriations, the Mueller findings would be "almost impossible" to ignore during the hearing.

Serrano also said he was worried Barr would send the Mueller report to Congress with "too many scratch-outs" and redactions.

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., will slam Barr's handling of the report as "unacceptable," according to her prepared remarks. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images, File)

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., will slam Barr's handling of the report as "unacceptable," according to her prepared remarks. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images, File)

Barr's letter to lawmakers, which stated that Mueller found no evidence of Trump-Russian collusion despite efforts by Russians to involve the Trump campaign, also said that Mueller had not exonerated Trump on the issue of obstruction of justice.

Barr and Attorney General Rod Rosenstein cleared the president of criminal culpability on that count as well, noting that Mueller had provided evidence on both sides of the issue and left the determination up to them. In his letter, Barr noted that legally-mandated redactions were in progress before the report itself could be released to lawmakers.

"Last week, the New York Times reported that the Special Counsel’s office had already created summary documents that were ignored in your letter, and that some investigators within the Special Counsel’s office felt that your summary understates the level of malfeasance by the President and several of his campaign and White House advisors," Serrano's prepared statement asserts.

WOW: CHELSEA HANDLER SAYS SHE HAS 'FEELINGS' FOR ROBERT MUELLER

"The American people," Serrano will say, "have been left with many unanswered questions; serious concerns about the process by which you formulated your letter; and uncertainty about when we can expect to see the full report."

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani hit back against those leaks last week in an interview with Fox News' "MediaBuzz" with Howard Kurtz.

“That leak really indicates all you need to know about Mueller’s prosecutors,” Giuliani, who favors releasing the Mueller report, said on the Times’ unnamed sources. “Leaking like that…that’s been the biggest canard in this investigation.”

Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Sunday morning, March 24, 2019. Barr is preparing a summary of the findings of the special counsel investigating Russian election interference. The release of Barr's summary of the report's main conclusions is expected sometime Sunday.(AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)

Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Sunday morning, March 24, 2019. Barr is preparing a summary of the findings of the special counsel investigating Russian election interference. The release of Barr's summary of the report's main conclusions is expected sometime Sunday.(AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., will also slam Barr's handling of the report as "unacceptable," according to her prepared remarks.

"I must say, it is extraordinary to evaluate hundreds of pages of evidence, legal documents, and findings based on a 22-month long inquiry and make definitive legal conclusions in less than 48 hours," Lowey will say. "Even for someone who has done this job before, I would argue it is more suspicious than impressive."

In a statement last week responding to media reports, the DOJ defended Barr's rollout of Mueller's conclusions.

"Given the extraordinary public interest in the matter, the Attorney General decided to release the report's bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately — without attempting to summarize the report — with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redaction process," the Justice Department statement said.

The statement also said that every page of Mueller's report was marked that it may contain grand jury material "and therefore could not immediately be released."

A Justice Department official, speaking Thursday on condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential process, said summaries of the findings that Mueller's team included as part of its report also contained grand jury information, making it hard for a swift release.

Fox News is told the Tuesday hearing could also focus on the Trump administration's recent decision not to defend ObamaCare in court, as well as solutions to gun violence.

Serrano's opening statement wiil lbe followed by remarks from the top Republican on the subcommittee, Alabama Rep. Robert Aderholt.

On Monday, Aderholt told Fox News he hopes the hearing will focus primarily on appropriations, and not the Mueller report.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Lowey and Texas GOP Rep. Kay Granger will also speak prior to Barr's opening statement.

Barr will then present an opening statement. The hearing, which is expected to run approximately until noon, will then toggle between questions posed by Democrats and Republicans.

Fox News' Chad Pergram, Andrew O'Reilly, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Soros-Funded Media Matters Smears Tucker Carlson Over Decade-Old Shock Jock Radio Appearances

Media Matters launched a new smear against Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Sunday compiling a bunch of out-of-context, heavily edited comments/jokes he made over a decade ago while on shock jock radio with Bubba the Love Sponge.

You can see Media Matters’ manipulative edited video on YouTube if you’re so inclined.

Tucker is refusing to apologize:

Carlson was employed by MSNBC at the time and it caused no controversy.

Bill Maher made similar comments in the past and was defended by the left:

Does anyone believe for a second these leftists give a s*** what Tucker Carlson said on shock jock radio with Bubba the Love Sponge so many years ago?

They want to take him down because he represents a threat to the establishment.

They don’t like the fact he stands up against the US war machine and speaks out against mass immigration.

They don’t like the fact he gives honest leftists like Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang a platform on national television.

That’s why some loser went through potentially hundreds of these old interviews and listened to them in their entirety just find some comments/jokes they could take out of context to attack him over.

Ian Miles Cheong nailed it:

They’re trying to destroy this man because of the threat he represents to the establishment and their billionaire globalist bosses. They can’t argue in favor of prog-globalism and defend brainwashing kids with transgender propaganda so they just dig up old comments they can misconstrue and take out of context.

A search of their archives shows they defended Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s defense of infanticide and didn’t even write about his blackface-KKK controversy (other than to attack one Fox News employee for suggesting Northam should “dig in” and not resign [which was also taken totally out of context]).

These dishonest hacks don’t give a damn about anything other than helping their globalist masters seize power.

Kudos to Tucker Carlson for refusing to issue a groveling apology and instead standing strong in the face of these dishonest smears.

Source: InfoWars

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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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