Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Pope replaces Santiago bishop after abuse cover-up claims

Pope Francis has replaced Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati , the embattled archbishop of Santiago, Chile, after he became embroiled in the country's spiraling sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

Francis on Saturday accepted Ezzati's resignation and named a temporary replacement to govern Chile's most important archdiocese: the current bishop of Copiapo, Monsignor Celestino Aos Braco.

The 77-year-old Ezzati had submitted his resignation two years ago when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. But Francis kept him on, and he became the flashpoint of abuse survivors' ire for mishandling several cases of abuse.

Francis himself became embroiled in the scandal after initially discrediting victims during his 2018 trip to Chile.

After realizing his error, Francis summoned all Chile's active bishops to the Vatican and strong-armed them to offer their resignations.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Flags at half-mast after Utrecht shooting, police search for motive

Police officers are seen in front the building where the main suspect of the shooting has been arrested in Utrecht
Police officers are seen in front the building where the main suspect of the shooting has been arrested in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

March 19, 2019

By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Flags flew at half mast on government buildings across the Netherlands on Tuesday, a day after a gunman opened fire on a tram on the outskirts of Utrecht, killing three people.

A suspect – 37-year-old Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis – was detained after a seven-hour manhunt on Monday, and by Dutch law must be brought before a judge by Thursday.

Authorities said they were still trying to establish the motive for the attack in the quiet residential neighborhood which also wounded five people.

Regional police commissioner Rob van Bree said on a late night talk show that there was no connection known yet between the suspect and the victims, while Prime Minister Mark Rutte said “terrorist” motives could still not be ruled out.

But in an evening press conference, Utrecht’s top prosecutor, Rutger Jeuken, said family issues could also be involved.

The suspect had previously been arrested, Jeuken told reporters, without giving further details.

There was no immediate comment from Tanis or any lawyer representing him.

Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad identified one of the victims as a 19-year-old woman who worked in a cafe and another as a local football coach who was the father of two young children. Both have Dutch surnames.

The third victim has not been identified by police or press. Utrecht police did not answer telephone calls early on Tuesday but said in a Tweet they would issue a press statement “in the course of the morning.”

Utrecht, the Netherlands’ fourth largest city with a population of around 340,000, is known for its picturesque canals and large student population. Gun killings are rare there, as elsewhere in the Netherlands.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

0 0

Presidential candidate Klobuchar says eating salad with a comb was ‘a mom thing’

2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Saturday addressed the bizarre story of her eating a salad with a comb then told a staffer to clean it, saying she was "doing a mom thing" -- as she sought again to combat multiple reports of her mistreating her staff.

“The comb story was me, sort of doing a mom thing. I didn’t have a fork, I used a comb to eat a salad very briefly on a plane,” she said at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas.

AMY KLOBUCHAR REPORTEDLY ORDERED STAFFER TO CLEAN COMB AFTER SHE USED IT TO EAT SALAD

Klobuchar was addressing an anecdote, reported in The New York Times, in which an aide neglected to get plastic utensils at an airport in 2008. According to the Times, Klobuchar chastised the aide, then ate the salad using a comb, before handing the comb to the aide and telling him to clean it.

The story has become a more humorous example of more serious allegations of staff mistreatment aimed at the senator, who announced her 2020 intentions last month.

A HuffPost report, citing multiple staffers, found last month that Klobuchar was “well-known” for calling prospective employers of her current staff and shutting down job opportunities. Klobuchar’s office called the claim “completely false.”

According to a Buzzfeed News report, numerous staffers said Klobuchar routinely sent late-night emails and berated subordinates over minor details and missteps. The report also said, "One aide was accidentally hit with a flying binder, according to someone who saw it happen, though the staffer said the senator did not intend to hit anyone with the binder when she threw it."

HuffPost previously reported that Klobuchar’s conduct became so well-known that the Senate minority leader at that time, Harry Reid, D-Nev., told her to change her behavior.

Klobuchar acknowledged in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier last month that “I can be a tough boss and push people.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

“But that's because I have high expectations of myself, I have high expectations of those who work for me, and I have a high expectation for our country. My chief of staff has worked for me for six years, my state director for seven years, my campaign manager for 14 years."

She echoed that line on Saturday, although she conceded that she can be “sometimes too tough.”

“I know I can be tough on people, sometimes too tough, that I can push them too hard, that I can always do better,” she said.

Fox News' Madeleine Rivera and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Reuters reporter takes heat for sitting on Beto O’Rourke hacker story until after Senate race against Cruz

Reuters is facing ethical questions after admitting that reporter Joseph Menn sat on an unfavorable story about media darling Beto O’Rourke until after his crucial Senate race against Ted Cruz.

Reuters published its report Friday on the “Cult of the Dead Cow,” a famous group of hackers credited with inventing the term “hacktivism,” and revealed that now-2020 presidential candidate O'Rourke was a member. The group is responsible for a variety of shady activity like stealing credit card numbers to pay for long-distance telephone service, violating copyright laws and hacking into computers, according to the report, which stressed that O'Rourke himself never "engaged in the edgiest sorts of hacking activity."

NBC’S SETH MEYERS MOCKS MSNBC’S BETO O’ROURKE COVERAGE: ‘WOW, HARD-HITTING STUFF YOU GUYS’

The report also revealed that a teenage Beto, in connection with the group, wrote bizarre fiction stories under the name “Psychedelic Warlord” -- including one story detailing the murder of two children.

The report was embarrassing for O’Rourke, who expressed regret for his past actions and writings shortly after the article's publication.

But the reporter, it turns out, knew about this history since 2017 -- and sat on it. According to Menn, members of the hacking group were protecting O'Rourke's identity and wouldn't confirm his affiliation unless the reporter promised not to write about it until after the November election. They apparently struck a deal.

Reuters reporter Joseph Menn agree to sit on an unfavorable story about Beto O’Rourke until his Senate race was over.

Reuters reporter Joseph Menn agree to sit on an unfavorable story about Beto O’Rourke until his Senate race was over.

“After more than a year of reporting, Menn persuaded O’Rourke to talk on the record. In an interview in late 2017, O’Rourke acknowledged that he was a member of the group, on the understanding that the information would not be made public until after his Senate race against Ted Cruz in November 2018,” Reuters wrote Friday in a piece headlined, “Backstory: How Reuters uncovered Beto O'Rourke's teenage hacking days.”

THIS IS CNN? PRIMETIME SHOWS FILLED WITH LIBERAL OPINION, NOT STRAIGHT NEWS AS NETWORK CLAIMS

Cruz – who defeated O’Rourke – took to Twitter to vent over Reuters' decision.

“So Reuters had evidence in 2017 that Beto may have committed multiple felonies -- which Beto confirmed on the record -- but deliberately withheld the story for over a year to help him win his Senate race? But when he’s running against Bernie etc, NOW it’s news?” Cruz tweeted.

“This is -- yet again -- a chilling example of just how pervasive the liberal media bias is today. It’s not just in how they report stories, but when and the standards they use to employ for that coverage. At every turn conservatives are held to a different standard than liberals,” conservative strategist Chris Barron told Fox News.

Reuters defended the outlet's handling of the story when reached for comment Monday.

BETO HAUNTED BY PAST ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL, DESPITE CONTROVERSIAL RNC TWEET

“While he was on leave from Reuters and writing a book on the Cult of the Dead Cow, Joe Menn made an agreement regarding the embargo date of his interview with Beto O’Rourke. This is a common arrangement between journalists and sources, which we described in detail in a Reuters Backstory article on Friday,” a Reuters spokesperson told Fox News.

Menn attempted to explain the situation in a series of tweets, saying nobody would discuss O’Rourke’s involvement until he promised not to jeopardize his chance at unseating Cruz -- but he was fine with it because he wanted the information for his book.

BETO O'ROURKE SAYS HE NEVER TOOK LSD, PROMISES TO STOP USING PROFANITIES

“That was OK: I wanted the full story for my book, which spans decades, rather than 1 scoop ahead of a state vote. I offered O’Rourke the same terms. He accepted, and we spoke,” Menn wrote.  “No one thought he would lose the Senate race & immediately enter onto an even bigger stage, but here we are, and the embargo is up. The book is out soon, O’Rourke is running for president, and people should hear the missing part of his story.”

But conservative commentators were stunned.

Mark Levin called it “another shocking media fraud,” while radio host Hugh Hewitt said the move is “troubling.”

“This is a weak attempt to cover his own backside. He wanted to be first to break the story about Beto after he announced for President so he went ahead and did so on Friday. Then when it got out that he hid the story in 2018, he starts using his book as an excuse. It doesn’t add up,” RedState’s Bonchie wrote. "If he truly wanted to save it for his book he would have, you know, actually saved it for his book."

“This is why people do not trust the media,” Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra wrote.

“Walter Cronkite used to claim that the media reported the news straight and let the chips fall where they may. But they don't. Liberals hold their chips like they're always playing political poker. Transparency is often delayed, or never employed,” Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham wrote about Menn’s decision.

Fox News’ Liam Quinn contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

AOC suffers social media gaffe by criticizing photo of ‘GOP’ politician who is actually a Democrat

One of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's, D-N.Y., tweets seemed to backfire on Thursday when she tried attacking Republicans over a picture of a politician stood next to a cardboard cutout of her.

"GOP: Let's pose our older male members next to cardboard cutouts of young female legislators," she tweeted. Her tweet included a post from the Republican Party of Kentucky. However, the politician pictured was Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth, Ky., not a Republican as she claimed.

Ocasio-Cortez later deleted the tweet but not before critics pointed out the gaffe on Twitter.

"It literally says in the tweet that she is quoting that Yarmuth is a Democrat," writer Ryan Saavedra tweeted.

"1st grade readers are in fact the worst," Matt Whitlock, a senior advisor to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, tweeted. He was knocking Ocasio-Cortez for one of her earlier tweets in which she called pundits "first graders" for apparently misinterpreting her comments on voting rights for prisoners.

THE MOST MEMORABLE POLITICAL GAFFES OF 2018

This wasn't the first time the freshman congresswoman appeared to mix up her political parties. While appearing in a video with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., she enthusiastically declared that she would turn a Kansas house seat "red" — the color often representing the Republican Party.

In 2018, she also faced criticism after she suggested that the government could pay for a large portion of Medicare-for-all by transferring "$21 trillion" in Pentagon "financial transactions" — a claim that fact checkers disputed.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Ocasio-Cortez has been portrayed as one of the leaders of the progressive wing in the Democratic Party. She, along with Sanders, has received intense criticism for policy proposals like the "Green New Deal."

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Is Logan Paul A Closeted Infowarrior?

Super Male Vitality

Limited Advanced Release

69.95

31.47

The all new and advanced Super Male Vitality formula uses the newest extraction technology with even more powerful concentrations of various herbs and extracts designed to be even stronger.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/smv-200.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/super-male-vitality.html?ims=jftqm&utm_campaign=IW+-+SuperMale+-STFA+-+55%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-SuperMale-55%25off-Widget

https://www.infowarsstore.com/super-male-vitality.html?ims=jftqm&utm_campaign=IW+-+SuperMale+-STFA+-+55%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-SuperMale-55%25off-Widget

Super Male Vitality

69.95

31.47

The all new and advanced Super Male Vitality formula uses the newest extraction technology with even more powerful concentrations of various herbs and extracts designed to be even stronger.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/smv-200.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/super-male-vitality.html?ims=jftqm&utm_campaign=IW+-+SuperMale+-STFA+-+55%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-SuperMale-55%25off-Widget

https://www.infowarsstore.com/super-male-vitality.html?ims=jftqm&utm_campaign=IW+-+SuperMale+-STFA+-+55%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-SuperMale-55%25off-Widget

Brain Force Plus

39.95

15.98

Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with the all-new Brain Force PLUS: 20% more capsules and a critically enhanced formula featuring a brand new ingredient and increased potency* – all for the same low price.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bf-300-1.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

Brain Force Plus

39.95

15.98

Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with the all-new Brain Force PLUS: 20% more capsules and a critically enhanced formula featuring a brand new ingredient and increased potency* – all for the same low price.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bf-300-1.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

Brain Force Plus

39.95

15.98

Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with the all-new Brain Force PLUS: 20% more capsules and a critically enhanced formula featuring a brand new ingredient and increased potency* – all for the same low price.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bf-300-1.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

Brain Force Plus

39.95

15.98

Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with the all-new Brain Force PLUS: 20% more capsules and a critically enhanced formula featuring a brand new ingredient and increased potency* – all for the same low price.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bf-300-1.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

https://www.infowarsstore.com/brain-force.html?ims=bnlem&utm_campaign=IW+-+Brain+Force+-STFA+-+60%25+Off+-+Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=IW-STFA-BrainForce-60%25off-Widget

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Technology ethics campaigners offer plan to fight ‘human downgrading’

FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a binary code in this illustration picture
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a binary code in this illustration picture, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic//File Photo

April 24, 2019

By Joseph Menn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Technology firms should do more to connect people in positive ways and steer away from trends that have tended to exploit human weaknesses, ethicists told a meeting of Silicon Valley leaders on Tuesday.

Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin are the co-founders of the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology and the ones who prompted Apple and Google to nudge phone users toward reducing their screen time.

Now they want companies and regulators to focus on reversing what they called “human downgrading,” which they see as at the root of a dozen worsening problems, by reconsidering the design and financial incentives of their systems.

Before a hand-picked crowd of about 300 technologists, philanthropists and others concerned with issues such as internet addiction, political polarization, and the spread of misinformation on the web, Harris said Silicon Valley was too focused on making computers surpass human strengths, rather than worrying about how they already exploit human weaknesses.

If that is not reversed, he said, “that could be the end of human agency,” or free will.

Problems include the spread of hate speech and conspiracy theories, propelled by financial incentives to keep users engaged alongside the use of powerful artificial intelligence on platforms like Alphabet Inc’s YouTube, Harris said.

YouTube and other companies have said they are cracking down on extremist speech and have removed advertising revenue-sharing from some categories of content.

Active Facebook communities can be a force for good but they also aid the dissemination of false information, the campaigners said. For example, a vocal fringe that oppose vaccines, believing contrary to scientific evidence that they cause autism, has led to an uptick in diseases that were nearly eradicated.

Facebook said in March it would reduce the distribution of content from groups promoting vaccine hoaxes.

In an interview after his speech, Harris said that what he has called a race to the bottom of the brainstem – manipulation of human instincts and emotions – could be reversed.

For example, he said that Apple and Google could reward app developers who help users, or Facebook could suggest that someone showing signs of depression call a friend who had previously been supportive.

Tech personalities attending included Apple Inc co-founder Steve Wozniak, early Facebook funder turned critic Roger McNamee and MoveOn founders Joan Blades and Wes Boyd. Tech money is also backing the Center, including charitable funds started by founders of Hewlett Packard, EBay, and Craigslist.

The big companies, Harris said, “can change the incentives.”

(Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Rosalba O’Brien)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

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].”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist