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Sudan summons Egypt's ambassador over border dispute

Sudan has summoned Egypt's ambassador to protest his country's announcement of an international tender in a disputed border area between the two nations.

According to the official SUNA news agency, an unnamed senior Foreign Ministry official conveyed Khartoum's protest over Egypt's announcement for a bid in the disputed Halayeb triangle, a point of contention between Egypt and Sudan that dates back to British colonial times.

The move came days after Egypt's oil ministry announced the international tender.

Sudan also warned international firms from joining the bid or carrying any explorations in this area and urged Egypt to employ "peaceful means" to solve the border dispute.

Since 1958, Sudan annually renews its complaint to the U.N. Security Council over the territory.

Source: Fox News World

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Trump only ‘hurting himself’ with McCain attacks because they distract from strong economy: Marc Thiessen

President Trump’s approval ratings would be much higher if he didn’t go after respected Americans like the late Sen. John McCain, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen argued Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, at an event in Ohio, Trump continued his attacks against McCain, the longtime senator and former prisoner of war who died of brain cancer last August at age 81. Trump lamented that no one said “thank you” to him for approving Washington-area funeral arrangements for McCain.

During Wednesday's "Special Report" All-Star” panel, Thiessen -- along with former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile and Washington Examiner chief congressional correspondent Susan Ferrechio -- weighed in on Trump’s handling of his constant attacks against the late senator.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL SHOW

Thiessen began by expressing he understands why Trump disliked McCain and there are “legitimate grievances,” but the president isn’t “hurting” the senator since he’s dead and that he’s only “hurting himself” because he’s “stepping on his own story” regarding the strong economy.

“There are millions of people in this country who are benefiting from the Trump economy who have jobs and opportunity and better lives because of this and they like Trump’s policies but they don’t like him because of things like this,” Thiessen said. “The reason why he’s in the low 40s approval instead of above 50 is persuadable voters look at this and say, ‘I don’t want to support a guy that goes after a dead war hero.’”

Ferrechio noted the “big back story” has shown that Trump and McCain have “not liked each other for a long time,” highlighting traded jabs during the 2016 election and McCain’s involvement in the Steele dossier that helped catapult the Russia investigation. She agreed with Thiessen, adding that because of the “complicated” back story, the general public just sees Trump going after a war hero.

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Meanwhile, Brazile slammed Trump’s “tirade” against McCain, telling the panel that she learned as a child to “not speak ill of the dead.”

“John McCain leaves a legacy, a legacy of service, he leaves a legacy of sacrifice,” Brazile said. “John McCain should be honored for his service, but the criticism ... That’s beneath the office of the presidency.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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YouTube Blocks Advertising Promoting Anti-Vax Content

YouTube is blocking channels that promote anti-vaccination content from running ads, asserting they violate policy prohibiting advertisements with videos containing “dangerous and harmful” content.

BuzzFeed News first reported the move, noting a number of ads for companies selling health-related items slipped through YouTube's system and were allowed to play during videos on channels that promote anti-vax agendas.

One of the videos allowed to show ads was "Mom Researches Vaccines, Discovers Vaccination Horrors and Goes Vaccine Free," Buzzfeed reported. 

“We have strict policies that govern what videos we allow ads to appear on, and videos that promote anti-vaccination content have been and remain a violation of our longstanding harmful or dangerous advertising policy,” the video-sharing site said in a statement to USA Today.

“We enforce these policies vigorously, and if we find a video that violates them we immediately take action and remove ads.”

Some parents opt not to vaccinate because of the discredited belief that vaccines are linked to autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there’s no such link and that there are no ingredients in vaccines that could cause autism.

According to USA Today, Facebook is also considering making anti-vaccination content less visible on its platform, quoting a statement from the social media platform that it’s working with experts“"on additional changes that we'll be announcing soon.”

Source: NewsMax America

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Ethiopian crash report likely to be released this week as Boeing briefs airlines

An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked on the tarmac at the Boeing Factory in Renton
An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked on the tarmac at the Boeing Factory in Renton, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

March 26, 2019

By Kumerra Gumechu and Eric M. Johnson

ADDIS ABABA/SEATTLE (Reuters) – A preliminary report on an Ethiopian Airlines crash will very likely be released this week, the country’s transport ministry said on Tuesday, as Boeing prepares to brief more airlines on software and training updates on the 737 MAX.

The aviation industry and grieving families of victims of the March 10 crash anxiously await details from the Ethiopia-led investigation. Boeing has come under intense scrutiny since the crash, the second in five months involving its new 737 MAX 8 model.

The MAX software is the focus of investigations into the two crashes — in Ethiopia this month and in Indonesia last year — in which 346 lives were lost.

This week Boeing is briefing airlines on software and training updates for the MAX, with more than 200 global airline pilots, technical experts and regulators due in Renton, Washington, where the plane is built.

Any fixes to the MAX software must still get approval from governments around the world. The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices. Within less than a week after the Ethiopian crash, the jets were grounded globally.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s Transport Ministry, which is leading the investigation in Addis Ababa, told Reuters that the report will very likely be released this week though he cautioned that “there could be unpredictable things” and declined to give further details.

The statement came a day after Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam said he expected the preliminary report to be released this week or next week. Tewolde told Reuters the leading African airline may or may not attend Boeing’s briefing in the United States this week.

Boeing’s software fix for the grounded 737 MAX will prevent repeated operation of an anti-stall system at the center of safety concerns, and deactivate it altogether if two sensors disagree widely, two people familiar with pilot briefings told Reuters on Monday.

Upgrading an individual 737 MAX with Boeing’s new software only takes about an hour per plane, though the overall process could stretch on far longer as it is rolled out across the global fleet due to stringent testing and documentation requirements by engineers and regulators, according to a senior FAA official with knowledge of the process.

Ethiopian and French investigators have pointed to “clear similarities” between the two crashes, putting pressure on Boeing and U.S. regulators to come up with an adequate fix.

(Reporting by Kumerra Gemechu and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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China’s factory activity picks up slightly, but Asia broadly weak

Men work on a production line manufacturing robotic arms at a factory in Huzhou, Zhejiang
Men work on a production line manufacturing robotic arms at a factory in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, China January 8, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

April 1, 2019

By Marius Zaharia

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Factory activity in China showed a slight, surprising recovery last month, in a sign that stimulus injected into Asia’s growth engine may be yielding results, but worries of a global slowdown persisted due to weakness elsewhere in the region.

Even in China, growth in new domestic and export orders was marginal. Factory activity in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan shrank further, adding to expectations of a dovish turn from central bankers in the region.

The U.S.-China tariff war and slowing Chinese demand after a campaign to reduce financial risk-taking have caused broad damage, hurting everyone from small firms in the supply chains of Chinese manufacturers to global tech behemoths such as Apple and across the map from Australia to South Korea and Japan.

Later on Monday, euro zone activity surveys were expected to show contraction due to its own trade frictions with the United States, Brexit uncertainty, and fallout from the U.S-China trade dispute.

The weak external environment is feeding back into the U.S. economy, prompting the Federal Reserve to abruptly end its policy tightening last month and causing the Treasury yield curve to briefly invert last year – a potential signal of a looming recession.

Fed’s pause has changed the game for many Asian central banks and investors are betting on a growing list of potential rate cutters.

“The PMI data … is telling us that the stimulus measures that have been put in place by the Chinese authorities since the middle of last year are finally starting to have an impact,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ.

“Now, of course, this is just one month. I’m expecting Asian central bankers to continue to be accommodative and some of them to cut interest rates. There’s no doubt that overall growth still slowed.”

China’s Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) expanded at the strongest pace in eight months in March, rising to 50.8 from 49.9 in February, above the 50-mark dividing expansion from contraction and the highest level since July 2018.

An official survey on Sunday also showed modest expansion.

Economists also cautioned there were seasonal factors in play, with activity in March traditionally picking up markedly whenever the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays fell in February, as they did this year.

If the trend is sustained, it could mark the turnaround that China’s policymakers had hoped for after some heavy fiscal and monetary stimulus, including five cuts in bank reserve requirements in the past year, although analysts say more such measures may still be in the pipeline.

BofA Merrill Lynch analysts took note of the “green shoots” from the March PMI readings, but said real activity growth could have stayed under pressure in the first quarter, especially given the tougher environment for exports.

“We believe policymakers will stick to their commitment on policy easing to stabilize growth,” the BofA Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note to clients.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said last month the government has additional monetary policy measures that it can take, and will even cut “its own flesh” to help finance large-scale tax cuts.

On the trade front, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that talks with China were going very well, but cautioned that he would not accept anything less than a “great deal” after top U.S. and Chinese trade officials wrapped up two days of negotiations in Beijing.

BROAD WEAKNESS

Activity in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines grew at a modest pace, but in economies with a larger impact on regional growth the outlook remained bleak.

South Korea’s factory activity in March contracted for a fifth straight month.

Japanese manufacturing activity contracted at a slower pace in March than the previous month, but output fell at the sharpest rate in nearly three years. Japanese business confidence worsened to a two-year low in the first quarter of this year, a central bank survey showed.

Corporate spending in Asia is likely to fall for the first time in three years, with capital expenditure at 2,137 Asian companies seen slipping an average 4 percent this year, a Reuters analysis of Refinitiv data showed.

An analysis by Oxford Economics showed nominal Asian export growth fell 3.8 percent year-on-year in January-February combined, primarily driven by a sharp fall in North Asian exports, although growth in Southeast Asia was also weak.

“So far, there are few signs that the global trade cycle has bottomed, and we see global growth still synching lower in the near term,” said Joachim Fels, global economic advisor for PIMCO, adding, however, that the Fed’s change of tack and China stimulus could lead to stabilization or even a moderate pick-up.

“These factors could enable a soft landing of sorts for the global economy – albeit with further air pockets along the flight path.”

(Reporting by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Schultz Apologizes for Statement on Time Spent With Military

Former Starbucks CEO and possible candidate for president Howard Schultz on Thursday apologized for saying he had spent more time talking to military servicemembers than any other candidate, including two veterans.

“I probably have spent more time in the last decade certainly than anyone running for president with the military,” Schultz said in an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Thursday morning. “I’ve been to Okinawa, I’ve been to Kuwait. ... I’ve been to the national training center in the Mojave Desert.”

“Yesterday I gave a speech on failed political leadership in this country,” Schultz tweeted Thursday afternoon. “A point I tried to make is that leaders must take responsibility and own their mistakes. Today I said I spent more time with the military than any candidate running for president. That was wrong.”

Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, are the two veterans running for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Gabbard is a member of the Army National Guard and served in both Iraq and Kuwait, and Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve who served in Afghanistan

Butigieg mocked Schultz for his statement later that same day.

“I remember a Green Beans Coffee at the exchange at Bagram, and a decent espresso machine run by the Italian NATO element at ISAF HQ. But I don’t recall seeing any Starbucks over there...,” he tweeted.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Top Democrats Leave Open Option of Impeaching Trump After Mueller Report

Top congressional Democrats left the door open on Sunday to pursue the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump, but said they would first need to complete their own investigations into whether he obstructed justice in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

Democratic Party leaders have cautioned against impeachment just 18 months before the 2020 presidential election, although prominent liberals have called for the start of proceedings to remove Trump from office since the release on Thursday of Mueller's report.

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, whose panel would spearhead any impeachment proceedings, said Democrats would press ahead with investigations of Trump in Congress and "see where the facts lead us."

"Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable," Nadler said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

A redacted version of Mueller's long-awaited report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, the product of a 22-month investigation, built a broad case that Trump had committed obstruction of justice. While it stopped short of concluding Trump had committed a crime, it did not exonerate him.

Mueller noted that Congress has the power to address whether Trump violated the law, and Democrats said it would be a matter of discussion in the coming weeks.

"That's going to be a very consequential decision and one I'm going to reserve judgment on until we have a chance to fully deliberate on it," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said on "Fox News Sunday."

Nadler has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department to hand over the full Mueller report and other relevant evidence by May 1, although the Justice Department called the request "premature and unnecessary."

With Republicans standing by Trump, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has cautioned against an impeachment effort that would have no chance of success in the Republican-led Senate.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren became the first major contender for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination to call for the start of impeachment proceedings, saying on Twitter on Friday that "the severity of this misconduct" demanded it.

Democratic House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Congress needed to look at Trump's finances and gauge Mueller's intentions with his report.

He said even if Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic impeachment effort, "I think history would smile upon us for standing up for the Constitution."

Democratic presidential contender Tim Ryan, a member of the House, said the party should wait until the multiple ongoing investigations of Trump in Congress have had a chance to uncover more evidence.

"Let the process play itself out," he said on CNN's "State of the Union" show. "I would just rather us take this next step: educate the American people, really get these details out, let the Judiciary Committee do its work."

Trump, who has repeatedly called the investigation a "witch hunt," has claimed vindication from Mueller's report. Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers, tried to undermine the credibility of Mueller's investigators on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I don't think his people are fair," Giuliani said of Mueller's team. "I don't think that report is fair."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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

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

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

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

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

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

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONLINE RADICAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“HARD TO TAKE”

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

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

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

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

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

Zahran went into hiding once more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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Joe Biden may have just stepped into the 2020 ring, but he’s wasted no time in throwing punches at President Trump.

Former Vice President Biden appeared on “The View” Friday in his first interview since officially announcing he is running for the White House on Thursday.

After batting away a softball opening question from host Joy Behar about why he took so long to enter the race, the ex-VP delivered what is likely to be his campaign’s major message.

Asked about the comment in his announcement that a battle is underway for “the soul of this nation,” Biden replied: “What I mean by that is we are not — this is not who we are the way we’re treating people. It’s not who we are as a nation when we’re talking about things like the reason for your problem is the other.

JOE BIDEN’S SENIOR ADVISER IN 2016: ‘WE DON’T NEED WHITE PEOPLE LEADING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RIGHT NOW’

“It really is what I said and I really mean it and I wrote an article at the time in “The Atlantic” magazine when Charlottesville happened. This is not who we are. It’s about decency, honor, including everyone. The idea to compare these racists and not condemn them. Neo-Nazis — I don’t ever remember that happening in an administration in well over 100 years.

“I found myself thinking — by the way I travel around the world a lot as vice president and since then I have as well. The rest of the world — I mean, they look at us like my god — what happened to America?”

Behar then asked Biden how he plans to win over “blue-collar voters, a group that Trump won.”

“By making the case that we have to restore dignity to work. Think about this. The way we treat ordinary hard-working Americans who are middle class and working class people fighting to get in the middle class is we treat them like they’re a means to an end as opposed to an ends to themselves,” Biden said.

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

“Go out. When’s the last time we went out and thanked the guy who kept the sewer from overflowing into your basement. What about the woman up on a bucket reconnecting a connection?

“Think about what we don’t do guys. It’s all been about dividing. There’s a real opportunity, incredible opportunity if we just treat each other with more decency.

“My dad had an expression. He said, ‘Joey, a job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your place in the community, it’s about your place in society and your self-worth. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say it’s going to be okay and mean it.’

“Think about how many people can’t do that today. This president has done nothing to help that group.”

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Biden’s appearance came after President Trump took a swipe at him in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

“I think we are calling him ‘Sleepy Joe’ ’cause I’ve known him for a while. Is he a pretty sleepy guy? He won’t be able to deal with [Chinese] President Xi, I will tell you. That’s a different level of energy and, frankly, intelligence. So I sort refer to him as ‘Sleepy Joe.’ A lot of people wanted me to change the word ‘sleepy’ to something else that rhymes with it,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “I thought it was too nasty.

“He’s not going to be able to do the job.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Biden officially announced his candidacy in a video Thursday morning, going directly after Trump.

“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Biden said in the video.

Source: Fox News Politics

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A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co’s board has retained executive search firm Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new chief executive, ideally a woman who can tackle its regulatory and public perception issues, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wells Fargo’s ambition to become the only major U.S. bank with a female CEO underscores the need to restore its image with a wide range of constituents, including customers, shareholders, regulators and politicians, after it became mired in a scandal in 2016 for opening potentially millions of unauthorized accounts.

Former CEO Tim Sloan left abruptly last month, becoming the second CEO to leave the bank in the scandal’s fallout.

The board plans to approach Citigroup Inc’s Latin America chief Jane Fraser, one of the sources said. During Fraser’s 15-year tenure at Citigroup, she has gained experience running consumer and commercial businesses as well as its private bank.

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

The board also discussed approaching JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Marianne Lake, but after the bank named her to run JPMorgan’s consumer lending business last week, that option became less viable, the source added. The board wants someone who can convince regulators, employees, investors and customers that the bank has fixed problems underpinning the sales scandal, the sources said.

The bank’s board feels that choosing a woman might please lawmakers in Washington who have been critical not only of Wells Fargo’s misbehavior, but of the broader banking industry for a lack of diversity and gender equality, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also believes that such a move could bolster Wells Fargo’s image with the households of customers where women play a leading role in managing finances, one of the sources added.

The new CEO will also have to resolve litigation and regulatory matters. There are 14 outstanding consent orders with government entities, as well as probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice.

To be sure, Spencer Stuart will approach and consider several male candidates for the CEO job as well, one of the sources said. The top priority is to find an external candidate who can navigate the bank’s regulatory issues, the source added.

Finding an outsider who meets all those qualifications and wants the job will be difficult, the sources said. There are few people with the necessary experience, even fewer of those who are women, and it is not clear if any of the obvious candidates would be open to taking the role.

The sources asked not to be identified because Wells Fargo’s board deliberations are confidential.

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

Wells Fargo’s board has not made any public statements about its requirements for a new CEO, beyond Chair Betsy Duke saying the job should attract the “top talent in banking.”

The board wants to complete the search within the next three to six months, one of the sources said.

STALLED SHARES

After Sloan’s ouster, Wells Fargo’s board appointed Allen Parker, who had been general counsel, as interim CEO. The board has said it is looking for an external candidate as a permanent replacement. It is not clear whether Parker will stay at the bank.

Others whose names have been mentioned by analysts, recruiters and industry sources as perspective CEO candidates include Alphabet Inc finance chief Ruth Porat and Bank of America Corp’s chief technology officer Cathy Bessant.

Wells Fargo shares have stalled since Sloan’s departure on March 29th, while the KBW Bank index has rallied more than 7 percent.

Wells Fargo would be “the best stock on earth to buy” if it had the right CEO, said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Donaldson Capital Management in Indiana.

Donaldson held about 50,000 Wells Fargo shares, but sold the stake last year as problems mounted. The CEO change could convince him to re-invest, depending on who it is, he told Reuters.

“It would be very smart for them to get a woman,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Greg Roumeliotis and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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