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YouTube Facilitates Softcore Child Porn Exploitation Network, Says Content Creator

A YouTube content creator is accusing the video platform of facilitating a soft-core child porn exploitation network right out in the open.

YouTuber Matt Watson AKA “MattsWhatItIs” says he’s discovered “a wormhole into a soft-core pedophilia ring on Youtube,” in a viral video that’s garnered nearly 1 million views in under 24 hours.

“Youtube’s recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles’ ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual [child porn] in the comments,” the video’s description reads.

He claims certain searches eventually yield suggested videos which then allow users to tap into the international underground network.

TechCrunch confirmed it was “easily able to replicate the YouTube algorithm’s behavior that Watson describes in a history-cleared private browser session which, after clicking on two videos of adult women in bikinis, suggested we watch a video called ‘sweet sixteen pool party.'”

“Videos we got recommended in this side-bar included thumbnails showing young girls demonstrating gymnastics poses, showing off their ‘morning routines,’ or licking popsicles or ice lollies.”

Furthermore, MattsWhatItIs claims the videos are being monetized, with ads from major corporations such as McDonald’s, Disney, Purina, Ikea and other companies appearing in the content.

Due to the sensitive nature of the content, Infowars will not directly embed MattsWhatItIs’ analysis, but his video is available HERE for your viewing.

“It doesn’t matter that they flag videos and turn off the comments, these videos are still being monetized, and more importantly they are still available for users to watch,” says MattsWhatItIs.

Though the videos on the surface are innocuous, the content is characterized as sexual by the users’ many pedophiliac comments, which also include specific timestamps indicating when the girls are in what they view as sexually suggestive positions.

Google and YouTube did not return Infowars’ request for comment as of writing.

A spokesman for YouTube told TechCrunch it’s “reviewing its policies in light of what Watson has highlighted, adding that it’s in the process of reviewing the specific videos and comments featured in his video — specifying also that some content has been taken down as a result of the review.

“However, the spokesman emphasized that the majority of the videos flagged by Watson are innocent recordings of children doing everyday things. (Though of course the problem is that innocent content is being repurposed and time-sliced for abusive gratification and exploitation.),” TechCrunch reported.


Trump delivers remarks on his continued fight against sex trafficking and explains why the border wall can help with that problem.

Source: InfoWars

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Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory says man looking like ‘wrestler’ smashed car with tree limb

A man in North Carolina last week apparently recognized former Gov. Pat McCrory, who was behind the wheel of his car, and smashed the politician’s vehicle with a large tree limb.

The incident unfolded at an intersection in Charlotte when McCrory, a Republican, stopped his sedan to let a man walk through the crosswalk, the former governor said on his WBT radio show. The man started “cussing and yelling” and “banged on the hood” when McCrory said he noticed the man had something in his hand.

NORTH CAROLINA MOM FIRES GUN TO WARD OFF ARMED BURGLAR, POLICE SAY

“A huge stick — a limb,” McCrory said on his show. “A huge limb that’s taller than he is, and he is a big man. Probably 6’1”, 6’2”, gray hair with a gray beard, big man, looks like a former championship wrestler. This is how I remember him — God knows if it’s true.”

McCrory, 62, said he urged the man to continue crossing the street, but then the man recognized him and the situation escalated.

“'I recognize you,'” the man told the former governor, as McCrory recounted. “'You’re Pat McCrory, (expletive),’ and I’m going, 'Uh- oh,’" McCrory said. “He proceeds to take his big limb from a tree that he is carrying across the street like Moses would and he slams it on top of my car.”

McCrory said he reported the incident to police.

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The top of his Lexus sustained about $600 worth of damage from the tree limb, WSCO-TV reported, citing a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report. No arrests have been made.

McCrory served as the governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017.

Source: Fox News National

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Venezuelans rally to protest chronic power outages

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido attends a rally in San Antonio
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognised as the country's rightful interim ruler, attends a rally in San Antonio, Venezuela, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

March 30, 2019

By Deisy Buitrago and Shaylim Valderrama

CARACAS (Reuters) – Thousands of Venezuelan opposition sympathizers protested on Saturday against recurring blackouts that crippled much of the country this month and have aggravated the OPEC nation’s economic and social crisis.

Electricity has slowly been restored following a blackout on Monday that left most of Venezuela’s 24 states without power. That followed a massive week-long national outage on March 7.

President Nicolas Maduro has said the situation was caused by “terrorist attacks” on the Guri hydroelectric dam that powers much of the country.

Critics including opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is recognized by most Western nations as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, blame the electricity problems on corruption and mismanagement.

“We all know who is responsible for the blackout – Maduro,” Guaido said at a rally in the Caracas suburb of Los Teques on Saturday. “We must accelerate the process to remove this corrupt and thieving regime.”

Maduro has said Guaido is seeking to lead a coup against him, with the help of Washington.

The United States has levied crippling sanctions against Maduro’s government in efforts to push him from power, but he has hung on in large part thanks to continued loyalty by top military commanders.

He has also won diplomatic backing from Russia and China, which accuse Washington of meddling in the country’s affairs.

Government supporters also marched in Caracas on Saturday to protest against “imperialism” by the U.S. government, which Maduro accuses of causing the blackouts by attacking generation and transmission systems.

“It’s easy to see that (Guaido) doesn’t understand the country’s situation,” said Antonio Ponce, 56, a bus driver. “He’s been put there by the ultra-right, he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for.”

The outages have left hospitals without power, worsened the already precarious supply of drinking water and left many stores without functioning point-of-sale terminals – which are crucial in the hyperinflationary economy where cash is in short supply.

“Enough of all this humiliation, we do not deserve to live like this,” complained Yuderkis Varela, 46, in the western city of San Cristobal near the border with Colombia. “We don’t have power, we don’t have water, we don’t have gas.”

After Monday’s outage, the government shuttered businesses for three days and schools for four.

The blackout also halted operations at the main oil export terminal of Jose, which had restarted operations by Friday.

(Reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Shaylim Valderrama, Additional reporting by Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal; Writing by Diego Oré; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Source: OANN

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Motor racing: Raikkonen pushes Ferrari off the top of test timesheets

F1 - Pre Season Testing
Formula One F1 - Pre Season Testing - Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain - February 20, 2019 Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen in action during testing REUTERS/Albert Gea

February 20, 2019

By Alan Baldwin

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Alfa Romeo driver Kimi Raikkonen produced the fastest lap so far in Formula One’s pre-season testing to push his previous team, Ferrari, off the top of the lunchtime leaderboard on Wednesday.

It was the first time since testing started on Monday at the Circuit de Catalunya that Ferrari had not led at the end of a session.

The Finn, returning to the Swiss-based team previously known as Sauber, lapped with a best time of one minute 17.762 seconds on the softest, and fastest, C5 tyre compound.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, his team mate last season, was second fastest in 1:18.350.

Raikkonen’s lap was also the first time a team had gone faster in 2019 than they managed in last year’s pre-season testing.

Champions Mercedes continued to keep their powder dry, with Finland’s Valtteri Bottas the slowest of the nine cars on track but doing more laps than anyone else — 88 to Vettel’s 80, both on the same medium C3 tyre.

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was third fastest in 1:18.800.

McLaren, whose performance has been encouraging over the first two days, missed the first two hours after what they described as “some overnight changes” to the car but managed to get Spaniard Carlos Sainz out for 27 laps before lunch.

Williams continued to be absent from the track but were expected to appear in the afternoon after their much-delayed car reached the track in the early hours after problems finishing building it on time.

British rookie George Russell was scheduled to drive the opening laps for the former champions who finished bottom of the constructors’ table in 2018.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by David Goodman)

Source: OANN

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US Debt Unsustainable

Month after month, the Trump administration runs multi-billion dollar deficits. The national debt has ballooned to over $22 trillion. According to the most recent Treasury Report, the US has a net worth of negative $21.5 trillion. And this understates the problem.

As Wolf Richter of WolfStreet puts it, the US government has “debt out the wazoo.”

Is this sustainable?

In a recent WolfStreet report, Wolf analyzes the debt, who is buying it and why.

Wolf points out that few countries are in worse fiscal shape than the US. America is in the same situation as countries like Japan, Greece and Italy.

The US and Japan have one advantage over Greece, Italy and some other nations because they control their own currency. That means their central banks can simply print money to buy government debt.

The Bank of Japan continues to monetize its government’s debt, but over the last year, the Federal Reserve has not been buying US Treasurys. This may change soon with the end of the Fed’s balance sheet reduction program, but currently, the central bank is not propping up America’s spending binge. So, who is buying all of this debt?

And why?

Foreign investors hold $6.4 trillion in US Treasury debt. China and Japan rank as the largest foreign holders.

The Fed holds about $2.1 trillion in US debt.

US investors and institutions hold about 7.7 trillion – by far the largest category.

US government entities, such as pension funds and the Social Security Trust Fund hold nearly $6 trillion in Treasurys. Some argue this is money “we owe ourselves” so it cancels out. Wolf called this baloney.

“This money is owed to those beneficiaries and it doesn’t cancel out. It is a real debt that the US government owes and it has to pay.”

China’s holdings of US Treasurys are down about $46 billion from a year ago. In total, China and Japan’s combined hold about 10% of US debt. That’s down from a little over 11% in 2017.

Over the last 12 months, foreign investors added about $164 billion in US debt as the Federal Reserve shed around $250 billion. US government entities added $160 billion in Treasury holdings. That totals a net increase of $45 billion.

That means that US investors have taken on the bulk of US government debt – in the neighborhood of $1.2 trillion over the last 12 months.

Wolf points out that banks are aggressively trying to attract depositors and are competing with the federal government which has to fund its deficits. With interest rates so low, US bonds are actually an attractive place to stash cash.

“Two-point-four percent 20 years ago would have been a ludicrously low amount of interest to be attractive, but these days are not normal and 2.4% is a fairly attractive number.”

(Photo by Tyler Merbler / Flickr)

On top of that, there is a great deal of dividend risk in the stock market with so many companies overvalued. Wolf points to GE as one example of a company that has slashed dividends to close to zero.

Wolf says that the trillions of dollars of additional Treasurys the US government is throwing on the market just doesn’t seem to matter to US investors – at least at this moment.

The $64,000 question is how long can this last?

It doesn’t seem like a sustainable scenario. Right now, things appear pretty rosy. It’s a primrose path of debt, that while perhaps troubling on a theoretical level, isn’t really having any actual impact on the economy. But it seems likely at some point the oversupply of Treasurys will begin to swamp demand. When that happens, the US government will have a real problem.

Who will take up the slack?

If you look at who owns US debt, there is really only one viable option – the Federal Reserve. Practically speaking, this means more quantitative easing.

If demand for Treasurys starts to fall, that will push interest rates higher. This is a simple supply and demand function. The Fed will then face two choices.

  1. Intervene with interest rates cuts and more QE. In other words more inflation.
  2. Do nothing and let interest rates spike.

No. 2 would not bode well for an economy built on debt. The Sovereign Man summed up the implications.

“Make no mistake: higher interest rates will have an enormous impact on just about EVERYTHING. Many major asset prices tend to fall when interest rates rise. Rising rates mean that it costs more money for companies to borrow, reducing their leverage and overall profitability. So stock prices typically fall. It’s also important to note that, over the last several years when interest rates were basically ZERO, companies borrowed vast sums of money at almost no cost to buy back their own stock. They were essentially using record low-interest rates to artificially inflate their share prices. Those days are rapidly coming to an end.”

The bottom line is that the US federal government is on an unsustainable path.


Patrick Casey, head of the American Identity Movement, joins Owen Shroyer live via Skype to discuss how his team planned and executed their infiltration into a drag queen story time event.

Source: InfoWars

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Man who allegedly hid out in ex’s attic faces charges

A man who had allegedly been hiding out in the attic of his ex-girlfriend's Pittsburgh home is facing burglary charges.

Authorities say the woman found 31-year-old Cary Cocuzzi in her bedroom Saturday. They say she had a protection from abuse order against him.

Cocuzzi allegedly grabbed the woman and put a hand over her mouth. But she pushed him away and ran outside screaming, spurring several neighbors to call 911.

Police searched the house and found Cocuzzi hiding. They say he told officers he was homeless and had been sneaking in and out of the house for about two weeks.

The woman told authorities she had noticed odd details around her home, such as finding a blanket on the floor where she had not left it.

It's not known if Cocuzzi has retained an attorney.

Source: Fox News National

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Exclusive: Citgo, Valero try to return Venezuelan oil following sanctions: document

FILE PHOTO: Crude oil tankers are docked at Isla Oil Refinery PDVSA terminal in Willemstad on the island of Curacao
FILE PHOTO: Crude oil tankers are docked at Isla Oil Refinery PDVSA terminal in Willemstad on the island of Curacao, February 22, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero

March 11, 2019

By Marianna Parraga

(Reuters) – The top U.S. buyers of Venezuelan oil are in the unusual position of trying to return millions of barrels of crude they need but cannot accept because of U.S. sanctions on the South American nation and its state-run energy firm PDVSA.

PDVSA’s U.S. refining subsidiary Citgo Petroleum Corp and Valero Energy are proposing to return 2 million barrels of crude loaded before sanctions, while a third U.S. oil company, Chevron Corp, has sought so far unsuccessfully to legally pay for 4.3 million barrels, according to an internal PDVSA document seen by Reuters.

In effect, more than 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude remain in limbo as a result of U.S. sanctions imposed on Jan. 28 by Washington in an effort to oust President Nicolas Maduro. The United States and dozens of other nations recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nation’s legitimate leader.

To comply with U.S. sanctions, Valero, Citgo and others are not allowed to pay PDVSA. Guaido’s administration has yet to establish its own bank accounts to receive proceeds from oil sales to U.S. customers, leaving those shipments stranded.

Overall oil exports from the OPEC member state dropped by about 40 percent in the first full month of sanctions, as the U.S. sought to cut oil revenue to Maduro, who presides over a nation beset by a years-long economic crisis, with millions fleeing for a lack of food and medicine.

PDVSA, Citgo and Valero did not reply to requests for comment. Chevron does not comment on supply and trade matters, a spokesman said.

STRANDED TANKERS

The standoff has stranded some 6.4 million barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude onboard 11 tankers originally destined for the United States, as they have not been authorized to set sail. The vessels fell into limbo because PDVSA demanded prepayment for the cargos after sanctions were imposed, which U.S. firms cannot do.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil firm by market value, wanted to take the oil shipments in lieu of loans and dividends stemming from joint ventures with PDVSA, a person close to the matter said. The cargoes were loaded at Venezuelan ports ahead of sanctions, but they remain undelivered, according to the document, and it is unclear if PDVSA would accept that offer.

Valero proposed to pay PDVSA for 1.05 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, but that request was rejected by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which oversees sanctions, the documents said.

The Houston-based Citgo cut ties with its parent company in compliance with U.S. measures that halted its purchases of PDVSA’s oil, the documents said.

A U.S. Treasury spokesperson declined to comment on the requests to pay PDVSA for the cargoes.

As of March 8, the 11 loaded vessels remained anchored off ports in Venezuela. Two other Chevron-chartered cargoes were stuck off the U.S. Gulf Coast and a third was returned to Venezuela’s Amuay terminal, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel-tracking data.

PDVSA does not expect Citgo or Valero to accept the cargos and intends to “commercially reallocate the volumes onboard so tankers can be freed,” a Feb. 21 trade and supply document showed. The same document expressed worry over demurrage fees – the daily cost for storing the oil on tankers – which have been accumulating for over a month.

PDVSA SCRAMBLES TO AVOID EXPORT SHORTFALL

Separately, a days-long blackout across the country has halted exports from Jose port, the nation’s primary crude export terminal. PDVSA on Monday was trying to restart operations.

The Venezuelan company has been forced to redesign its production and export logistics in recent weeks to avoid halting operations, including formulating new crude blends, swapping a large portion of its oil for imported fuel, selling through intermediaries and finding new customers.

But the efforts have not been enough to avoid an export decline. The OPEC-member country’s oil shipments fell to some 920,000 barrels per day (bpd) in February according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

PDVSA exports could fall further due to a lack of imported naphtha, a light distillate, needed to dilute its extra heavy oil as the company has been able to secure only two 500,000-barrel cargoes versus 2-3 million barrels per month needed, according to the document.

If it cannot import enough naphtha to formulate its oil for export, PDVSA plans to start mixing other domestic fuels to ready oil for export.

Lack of maritime crews to take PDVSA tankers idled due to unpaid shipping fees is also hampering oil deliveries between domestic ports and to the Caribbean, where PDVSA stores and ships much of its export barrels.

Some shipping firms’ reluctance to work in Venezuela after sanctions have stopped PDVSA from using leased tankers to ease storage bottlenecks at its Orinoco Belt’s joint ventures. The ones willing to work with PDVSA are charging high prices and extra fees, the document added.

On March 4, PDVSA completely shut output at its Corocoro oilfield, which was producing some 12,000 bpd, due to lack of storage capacity. Its Pedernales oilfield could follow due to similar issues, according to the report. The four Orinoco upgraders were working at minimum on Monday.

(GRAPHIC: Venezuelan crude exports to U.S. refiners link: https://tmsnrt.rs/2t4ullS).

(Graphic: Top importers of Venezuelan crude link: https://tmsnrt.rs/2RYGk2E).

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; additional reporting by Leslie Wroughton in Washington and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Source: OANN

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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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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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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

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