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Gillibrand: Released 2018 Tax Return Out of 'Transparency'

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand early Wednesday became the first 2020 presidential candidate to disclose her 2018 income tax return, commenting that she thinks Americans have the right to know that politicians and candidates are working for them and nobody else, particularly since President Donald Trump has never released his own returns.

"I think transparency is so important in government," the New York Democrat told CNN's "New Day," shortly after disclosing the returns through a video on her YouTube channel. "When I first ran I posted my earmarked requests and financial disclosure and schedule."

The results show Gillibrand reported earnings of about $218,000 by bringing in $167,634 from her congressional salary and another $50,000 from a book deal, while her husband, Jonathan Gillibrand, did not report any income.

Gillibrand announced her candidacy on Sunday in front of Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York City, and told CNN Wednesday she picked that spot because she thinks Trump is "tearing apart the moral fabric of our country" and his Manhattan property" represents greed and division and vanity and all things that is not who we are on our best days."

She also addressed former Vice President Joe Biden's regrets about his part in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings that undermined Anita Hill's credibility 30 years ago.

"We know the Anita Hill hearings were deeply flawed," said Gillibrand. "There were a lot of corroborating witnesses that weren't even interviewed and which is why when we had the most recent [Brett] Kavanaugh hearings we were so focused on all these corroborating witnesses that the committee would not allow to testify."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Kershaw on rehab start: ‘Good first step’

Major League Baseball - National League - Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres
Major League Baseball - National League - Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres - Beisbol Stadium - Monterrey, Mexico May 4, 2018. Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw pitches against San Diego Padres during the first inning of their baseball game. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

April 5, 2019

Clayton Kershaw was upbeat Thursday night despite producing a mediocre pitching line during a minor league rehab start.

The Los Angeles Dodgers ace, on the injured list due to left shoulder inflammation, tossed 4 1/3 innings while pitching for the Triple-A Oklahoma City Dodgers. He allowed two runs on four hits, including a home run, and two walks while striking out six.

“I feel good,” Kershaw said postgame. “It was a good first step. Got through everything I needed to, got up to that fifth inning, got some guys on base, worked out of the stretch, did multiple different things. So it was a good day.”

Helped by a solo home run from Tyrone Taylor off Kershaw, the visiting San Antonio Missions spoiled Oklahoma City’s season opener by emerging with a 5-3 win.

It is unclear if Kershaw’s next start will be in the minors or if he will return to the Dodgers’ major league rotation.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Christians, hotel workers, tourists among Easter attack dead

More than 350 people were killed in bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.

Some details on the victims:

___

SRI LANKA

The vast majority of victims were Sri Lankan, many from the nation's Christian minority. Their names and details of their lives were slow to trickle in and difficult to report, in part because authorities blocked most social media after the blasts.

Colombo archbishop Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith says at least 110 people were killed at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, a seaside town that's the center of Sri Lanka's small Catholic community

Sneha Savindi, 12, was among them. Her uncle, Duminda, said her badly wounded body was only identifiable by a birthmark on her foot. Stroking the sealed coffin, Savindi's aunt, Lalitha, said, "I wanted to see you as a bride, but now you're in this box."

The Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo, the capital, said three of its employees died at work.

At the hotel restaurant, Nisanga Mayadunne posted a selfie on Facebook showing her and her relatives around a table, eating eggs and sausages. Moments later, she and her mother, Shantha Mayadunne, were killed.

Shantha was an acclaimed chef who hosted live cooking programs on Sri Lankan television.

"They were the most loving family anyone could ask for," Manik Mayadunne, Nisanga's cousin, wrote on his Facebook page Monday.

In some places, the violence struck entire families. On Easter Sunday, as they did every Sunday, Berlington Joseph Gomez, 33, and his wife, Chandrika Arumugam, 31, went to church at Colombo's St. Anthony's Shrine. As always, they brought their three sons: 9-year-old Bevon, 6-year-old Clavon and baby Avon, just 11 months old.

Two days later, they were all being mourned by dozens of neighbors gathered at the modest home of Berlington's father, Joseph Gomez.

Candles burned beside three coffins and women sang hymns. The bodies of two grandsons have yet to be recovered.

"All family, all generation, is lost," Gomez said.

Negombo resident Herman Peiris lost two sisters and two nieces — one of whom was about to get married. He said his sisters, Celine and Elizabeth, spent most of their time as involved members at St. Sebastian church, and now people in the community are afraid to go there. He called for more security and for leaders to take both the blame and action.

"We villagers, or civil people, we can't do much," Peiris said.

Carpenter Dileep Roshan, 37, left behind a wife and daughter, his family said.

"His wife and daughter won't be able to do much now because he is gone," said his older brother, Sanjeevani Roshan. "The real question is what will happen to their future."

In addition to the suicide attacks at the hotels and churches, authorities have said two people were killed at a guesthouse and three police officers were killed by an explosion later Sunday that was set off by suspects trying to evade arrest.

___

UNITED KINGDOM

Sri Lanka's top diplomat in Britain says authorities know of eight British nationals killed in the bombings.

Londoner Matthew Linsey's 15-year-old daughter, Amelie, and 19-year-old son, Daniel, died on the final day of their holiday while in the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo. They apparently survived the first explosion but were killed by a second. Linsey described the event to The Times of London newspaper: "People were screaming. I was with my children. I couldn't tell whether they were all right; it was dark. I was worried there would be another blast. We ran out — another blast."

Lawyer Anita Nicholson, son Alex Nicholson and daughter Annabel Nicholson also died while on holiday and sitting at the Shangri-la Hotel restaurant, her husband, Ben Nicholson, said in a statement. He said, "The holiday we had just enjoyed was a testament to Anita's enjoyment of travel and providing a rich and colorful life for our family, and especially our children."

Former firefighter Bill Harrop and doctor Sally Bradley, a British couple who lived in Australia, were killed in one of the hotels, a family statement to The Australian newspaper said.

___

INDIA

The Indian Embassy in Colombo says 10 Indian nationals died in the blasts.

H.D. Kumaraswamy, the chief minister of southern Karnataka state, mourned the deaths of two fellow Janata Dal Secular party members, K.G. Hanumantharayappa and M. Rangappa.

"I am deeply shocked at the loss of our JDS party workers, whom I know personally," he wrote Monday on Twitter.

___

UNITED STATES

The State Department says at least four Americans were killed and several others seriously injured. It did not identify the victims.

Fifth-grader Kieran Shafritz de Zoysa, spending a year in Sri Lanka on leave from the private Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., was among those killed, the school said in an email to parents. The email said, "Kieran was passionate about learning, he adored his friends, and he was incredibly excited" about returning to school.

Dieter Kowalski, who lived in Denver and worked for international education company Pearson, died in the blasts shortly after he arrived at his hotel for a business trip, the company and his family told the AP.

___

DENMARK

The Bestseller clothing chain confirmed Danish media reports that three of the children of its owner, business tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen, were killed in the attacks. However, spokesman Jesper Stubkier gave no details in an emailed response to a query on the matter and said the company had no further comment.

___

SWITZERLAND

Switzerland's foreign ministry says a Swiss national, a Swiss dual national and a non-Swiss member of the same family were killed in the bombings. It didn't identify the second country or give other details on the victims.

___

SPAIN

Spain's foreign ministry says a Spanish man and woman were killed but didn't provide further details. The mayor of Pontecesures in northwest Spain, Juan Manuel Vidal, told Radio Galega that he knew the local pair and says they were in their 30s, according to a report by the Spanish private news agency Europa Press.

___

AUSTRALIA

Australia's prime minister says a mother and daughter from that country were killed. Manik Suriaaratchi and her 10-year-old daughter, Alexendria, were attending a church service in Negombo when they died.

___

CHINA

China's foreign ministry says one Chinese citizen was killed in the blasts, while five are missing. Five others were injured, including two who suffered severe injuries.

___

OTHERS

The Netherlands, Japan and Portugal have confirmed that some of their nationals were among the dead.

Source: Fox News World

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Stick to Marx not ‘ghosts and spirits’, China warns party members

FILE PHOTO: Men check on a light installation in a shape of the party flag of the Communist Party of China, that is set up to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, in Jining, Shandong
FILE PHOTO: Men check on a light installation in a shape of the party flag of the Communist Party of China, that is set up to celebrate the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, in Jining, Shandong province, China January 29, 2019. Picture taken January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

February 27, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s ruling Communist Party warned party members on Wednesday to stick to Marx and Lenin and not believe in “ghosts and spirits”, in the latest effort to root out superstitious practices.

China officially guarantees freedom of religion for major belief systems like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, but party members are meant to be atheists and are especially banned from participating in what China calls superstitious practices like visiting soothsayers.

There have been numerous scandals in recent years where senior party members have been accused of involvement in superstition.

A lengthy statement on how best to strengthen the party’s role and its leadership, issued on the official Xinhua news agency, said Marxism was the guiding thought for China and the party.”Resolutely prevent not believing in Marx and Lenin and believing in ghosts and spirits, not believing in the truth and believing in money,” the party statement said.

“Resolutely oppose all forms of mistaken thought that distorts, misrepresents or negates Marxism.”

President Xi Jinping said last year that the party’s decision to stick with the political theories of Karl Marx remained “totally correct”, to mark the 200th anniversary of the German philosopher’s birth.

Chinese people, especially the country’s leaders, have a long tradition of putting their faith in soothsaying and geomancy, looking for answers in times of doubt, need and chaos.

The practice has grown more risky amid a sweeping crackdown on deep-seated corruption launched by Xi upon assuming power in late 2012, in which dozens of senior officials have been imprisoned.

The founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, banned fortune telling and superstition in puritan, communist China after the 1949 revolution, but the occult has made a comeback since the still officially atheist country embraced economic reforms and began opening up in the late 1970s.

In one of the most famous recent cases, China’s powerful former security chief Zhou Yongkang was jailed for life in part due to accusations he leaked undisclosed state secrets to a fortune teller and healer called Cao Yongzheng, known as the “Xinjiang sage” after the far western region where he grew up.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Trump Jr. calls mainstream media ‘a blight on our republic’

President Trump’s son echoed his father’s frequent criticism of the press on Sunday, calling the media “a blight on our republic” in the wake of the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference into the 2016 election.

Speaking to Fox News’ Howard Kurtz on “Media Buzz,” Donald Trump Jr. said that while some journalists tried to be fair to his father, it has become “a business model” for media outlets to attack the current White House administration.

“I think there were some people that tried to actually be fair,” Trump Jr. said. “When they were actually fair you'd see the other side just try to just obliterate them… it became a business model for most media to attack Donald Trump and to buy into this narrative. And if you didn't, you upset a lot of people and risked your career, you risked other things.”

TRUMP PUSH TO INVALIDATE OBAMACARE SPARKED CLASH WITHIN ADMINISTRATION

Trump Jr. added that he believes mainstream media outlets have done “irreparable damage” to themselves with the coverage of the Mueller investigation, and the coverage of the Trump administration overall.

“They did a terrible disservice to this country, to journalism as a profession,” he said. “I think they've done irreparable damage to the faith that the average American is going to have in terms of mainstream journalism. I think it's a blight on our republic, on democracy, and on our Constitution that's not going to come undone very quickly.”

Trump Jr.’s comments come just days after his father unleashed some of his most withering criticisms of the media and a week after Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of Mueller’s report, in which he said the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

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“The Fake News Media is going Crazy!” The president tweeted. “They are suffering a major “breakdown,” have ZERO credibility or respect, & must be thinking about going legit. I have learned to live with Fake News, which has never been more corrupt than it is right now. Someday, I will tell you the secret!”

During his interview on "Media Buzz," Trump Jr. admitted that his father’s tweets can sometimes be problematic for the White House agenda, but said that he, too, has sent out tweets that he now regrets.

Trump Jr. added: “I think there are times where that certainly happens. I mean I'm guilty of it myself.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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In cyclone-hit Mozambique, a quest to find and name the dead

He was haunted by the thought of a small child's skull, unburied and lost in the debris of a cyclone that had claimed hundreds of lives.

Stephen Fonseca stood in a field of ruined maize where a tiny spine had been found, and he wanted to find the rest of the body. But in every direction were scattered kernels and stalks bleached by the sun. At a glance, much of the landscape looked like bones.

The stark scene brought home the overwhelming challenge that Fonseca, the only body recovery specialist to search the rural Mozambique region struck by Cyclone Idai, faced every day since wading into the devastation nearly a month ago.

If a final death toll ever emerges — it is now more than 600 in Mozambique alone — it will be strongly informed by Fonseca's work in the field, and the quest to name the missing and the dead.

The storm tore apart frightened families and swept whole villages away, with floodwaters as high as treetops rushing toward the sea. Parents lost their grip on children. Exhausted people clinging to branches for days fell into the waters and drowned.

For days on end, Fonseca followed the accounts of villagers who spoke of seeing the dead floating by.

As the waters began to recede, he walked for miles through mud so thick it sucked boots off feet. Crocodiles, hippos and snakes posed threats but hungry dogs and pigs were a bigger concern. Fonseca needed to find the bodies before they did, and bury them well.

His search was guided by smell, and animal tracks, and flies. It was uncomfortable but necessary work, as bare bones are far more difficult to find, and time was running out.

"This is our one good opportunity to get as much as possible," said Fonseca, the South Africa-based forensic coordinator for Africa with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

As he pushed through the rural farmland he met local people who were just as concerned about the dignity of the dead. Desperate for news of their missing family members, some communities sent out search teams.

Bodies that were found were given a quick but respectful burial, even when they were strangers. Some of the dead wore the uniforms of neighboring Zimbabwe's security forces, having been swept down mountainsides some 60 miles (100 kilometers) away by the raging waters.

Burials were difficult work. Shovels, like homes, had been lost. Some people dug with their bare hands, then watched the holes fill with water from the still-sodden ground.

"They take the time because one day our time will come as well," Fonseca said. He found the community burials comforting, with people even pausing from handing out badly needed humanitarian aid to take turns digging.

And yet he knew the burials almost certainly went unreported to authorities, meaning they would not be counted in the official death toll and families might never know their loved ones' fates.

Shallow graves were precarious, too, vulnerable to animals and further floods, the possible scattering of bones.

"You bury who you can but not always well," said Ibrahim Ismail, a local farm manager. "So he's helping."

Fonseca offered to do exhumations and reburials but only with permission. One family that had tracked down and buried two relatives near a termite mound, a natural marker, decided to let them be. In their culture a person should not be dug up and moved, they said.

"I appreciate what he's doing. It's life-saving for some of us," said Manuel Joaquim Makanije, a community member who nevertheless understood the family's decision.

Relatives long for closure, but the bodies could be anywhere.

Fonseca came across the corpse of a young girl tangled high in a tree. A local man scrambled up the trunk and slowly lowered her to the ground, while children watched.

On another long hike Fonseca saw a boatman ferry a woman to a body found on an island. The face was missing, but the woman wept, certain it was her missing relative.

With forensic methods such as DNA tests, fingerprinting and dental records almost impossible in rural Mozambique, Fonseca respects what he called "cultural identification." Clothing, location and other signs were considered in the interest of grieving relatives' peace of mind.

Without a mandate from Mozambique's government to issue death certificates or compile official figures, Fonseca instead gave community leaders guidance on handling the dead. He distributed wooden grave markers, body tags, gloves.

It reflected his wider work in Africa helping to strengthen forensics awareness on a continent where people increasingly seek accountability, and answers, over the dead.

Fonseca's time in Mozambique was ending and he would soon head home to South Africa. The work, in very challenging conditions, takes a toll, colleague Neil Morris said. "Stephen knew when he needed to return."

In one last try, Fonseca gravitated back to the maize field where nine members of a single family had died.

Soon farmers would burn the fields to plant a short-term crop to help avoid months of hunger, as the cyclone had struck just before the annual harvest. The fires would further complicate identifying the dead.

As people picked their way through the field salvaging maize kernels, resuming their lives, Fonseca resumed his search for what he knew were now bare bones.

The farmers shouldn't have to discover them, he said. "They've been through enough trauma."

He searched slowly. It took hours. "There's a little cranium somewhere here," he said, half to himself, thinking of the child. "Someone's going to find it."

Finally he stopped and tied a blue latex glove to a stalk of maize, as a marker.

He had found a small shin bone, not much larger than a pencil.

The bone likely belonged to the same child whose spine had been found not far away.

In the end, the bones would be buried together.

There were no child-sized body bags. Fonseca improvised one using duct tape.

"Some people think it gets easier. I think it gets harder," he said of his work. "Now I'm a parent. I start to relate to some degree how absolutely devastating it is to lose a child. But I will never say I fully understand what they are going through."

He and a local chief, Moises Mukoto, went to the burial site, a short walk through tall grass. Fonseca, sweating in the hot sun, dug open a small grave as the chief wrote the time of day in a notebook, and waited.

The bag with the shin bone was gently laid in the hole alongside the tiny spine, which had been buried there earlier. Then the chief quickly hoed the earth back in place.

"Even one bone is important," Fonseca said. "It represents someone special."

The wooden grave marker, written in permanent ink, said: "Don't touch. The body of a child."

It will take months, even years, to discover the cyclone's dead, Fonseca said.

Not everyone will be found.

___

Associated Press video journalist Pindai Dube and photographer Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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George Conway Questions Trump's Sanity

George Conway on Wednesday questioned President Donald Trump's sanity in a series of tweets.

"Have we ever seen this degree of brazen, pathological mendacity in American public life? One day he makes a harmless slip of the tongue, something any mentally balanced person would laugh off," said Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

"But instead he lies about it. He denies what the world can see on videotape. Even his donors and supporters wonder, what is wrong with him? Why would be feel compelled to tell such an absurd lie?"

"But one lie on any subject is never enough for Donald Trump," he added. "So, he next tells a different lie. Yes, I omitted a word, but to save time. A ridiculous assertion, of course — he really said 'Tim Apple' instead of 'Tim Cook of Apple' to save **a third of a second**?"

Conway went on to call Trump pathological and irrational and suggested he had a disorder.

"Whether or not impeachment is in order, a serious inquiry needs to be made about this man's condition of mind," he said.

Conway was reacting to Trump's claim Judge Amy Berman Jackson exonerated him of collusion.

"That was proven today – no collusion," Trump said following the additional sentencing of his ex-campaign chief, Paul Manafort. "There was no collusion . . . it was all a big hoax . . . Today, again, 'no collusion.'"

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said Tuesday that a detailed plan for a merit-based immigration system will be presented to President Trump, giving priority to skilled immigrants rather than those with family ties to the U.S.

“I do believe that the president’s position on immigration has been maybe defined by his opponents by what he’s against as opposed to what he’s for,” Kushner said at the Time 100 Summit in New York City. “What I’ve done is I’ve tried to put together a very detailed proposal for him.”

KUSHNER: RUSSIA INVESTIGATION HAD ‘HARSHER IMPACT’ ON US THAN ELECTION MEDDLING

Kushner announced that the new immigration proposal, which Trump will receive this week or next, will resemble the point-based systems in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and will unify people by ensuring strong wages and secure borders while protecting humanitarian values.

“We want to protect our country’s humanitarian values. We want to make sure we’re reunifying families, and we want to do this in a way that allows our country to be competitive long term,” he said. “And my hope is we can really do something that unifies people around what we’re for on immigration.”

“We want to protect our country’s humanitarian values. We want to make sure we’re reunifying families, and we want to do this in a way that allows our country to be competitive long term. And my hope is we can really do something that unifies people around what we’re for on immigration.”

— Jared Kushner

JARED KUSHNER RESPONDS AFTER HASAN MINHAJ CALLS OUT HIS TIES TO SAUDI PRINCE

Kushner denied in the same talk that he has clashed with White House staffer Stephen Miller, who’s seen as tougher on immigration than others, adding that the plan was concocted with the help of Miller and Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

“And I say that If that if I can get Stephen Miller and Kevin Hassett to agree on an immigration plan, then Middle East peace will be easy by comparison,” Kushner joked, referring to the Israel-Palestine peace plan he’s working on.

“And I say that If that if I can get Stephen Miller and Kevin Hassett to agree on an immigration plan, then Middle East peace will be easy by comparison.”

— Jared Kushner

After the plan gets presented to Trump, it will likely undergo some changes and then he will decide when to proceed with it, Kushner said.

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“It’s very, very complicated, but it’s a very interesting issue, and if we can solve it, I do think it’s a critical component for America’s long-term competitive advantage,” he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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