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

HSBC signs deal to use BlackRock’s ‘Aladdin’ software worldwide

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO - The HSBC bank logo is seen at their offices in the Canary Wharf financial district in London
FILE PHOTO: The HSBC bank logo is seen in the Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain, March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause

March 21, 2019

By Lawrence White

LONDON (Reuters) – HSBC has signed a deal to offer BlackRock’s Aladdin investment management software to the bank’s wealthy customers, in a boost to the U.S. asset manager’s plans to squeeze money from technology by selling it to rivals.

Aladdin began as an internal tool at BlackRock before becoming the linchpin of Chief Executive Larry Fink’s plan to increase revenues from technology. It is used by investment managers to help to oversee risks and make investment decisions.

Robert Goldstein, chief operating officer at BlackRock, said HSBC’s scale would mean many more advisers would have access to capabilities previously only available to institutional investors.

The partnership between Europe’s largest bank and the world’s biggest asset manager comes as both industries are battling to use technology to increase profits and improve service.

Guilherme Lima, HSBC’s group head of wealth management, said the software would help investors to understand hidden risks in their portfolios by acting as an ‘X-ray’ that could look through a mix of individual stock holdings, mutual funds and index trackers to reveal that all of them are exposed to a single stock, for example, or macro-economic risk.

That will help HSBC to respond to growing demand from wealthy customers for their banks to offer advice rather than simply selling products.

“It’s about being able to have a detailed conversation with the client and provide more value added advice,” Stuart Parkinson, global head of product, investments and collaboration in HSBC’s private bank, said.

BlackRock’s Fink has said he aims to increase revenues from technology to 30 percent of the firm’s total by 2022, as the broader stockpicking business has come under pressure from lower cost index funds.

More than 200 institutions and around 25,000 investment professionals use Aladdin and its risk analytics, BlackRock says.

Some market participants have questioned whether this presents a systemic risk, as the growing number of firms using the software for investment decisions could make portfolios more correlated and hence exposed to market shocks.

BlackRock executives have downplayed this idea, saying customers use Aladdin in different ways to suit their own purposes.

HSBC has already begun to roll out the platform in the United States and in Hong Kong, the bank said. Over the next 2-3 years Aladdin will eventually be offered to all customers who hold $1 million or more with the bank.

HSBC’s retail bank and its private bank which serves wealthier customers both chose Aladdin independently of each other after running a lengthy procurement process, HSBC’s Parkinson said.

(Reporting By Lawrence White. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

0 0

Swedish climate activist Thunberg admits she might be ‘very naive’

Greta Thunberg joins Italian students to demand action on climate change in Rome
Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg joins Italian students to demand action on climate change, in Piazza del Popolo, Rome, Italy April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

April 19, 2019

ROME (Reuters) – Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg wants to fix climate change and hopes for world peace, but acknowledges that she might be being “very naive”.

Thunberg, 16, has brought her campaign against rising global temperatures to Rome this week, meeting Pope Francis, addressing Italian parliamentarians and joining a student protest on Friday in a city-center square.

“I think what I want for the future is just that we fix everything and that we fix the climate and the ecological crisis so that everyone lives in peace, I guess, very naive,” she told Reuters, shrugging her shoulders.

Thunberg shot to prominence last August with weekly sit-ins on the cobblestones in front of Stockholm’s Parliament House with her “school strike for climate” sign.

Thousands of students around the world have since copied her and youth organizations have launched school strikes involving students in more than 40 countries.

Her single-minded determination have won her fans of all ages and she has also earned respect for living by her ideals.

“I do many small things just to change my habits, like I have become vegan, I have stopped flying, I have stopped shopping and small things like that,” she said, patiently straining to hear questions over the noise of the protest.

She rejected suggestions that she had stolen the limelight away from her cause, saying she did not like being a celebrity.

“I mean I don’t enjoy attention, but I enjoy making a difference,” she said, adding that she wanted to make sure that climate crisis was always the main focus of any trip.

Her blunt criticism of politicians has raised some eyebrows, but she warned that it was up to the current crop of leaders to find solutions because time was running out.

“When I am grown up, when I am old enough to become a politician, I mean it will be too late to act because we need to act now,” she said. “We can’t wait for people like me to grow up and become the ones in charge.”

(Reporting by Antonio Denti; Editing by Crispian Balmer and David Evans)

Source: OANN

0 0

Illegal Alien Admits To Killing Four People To Score Money For Meth

Jason Hopkins | Energy Investigator

An illegal immigrant confessed during an interrogation that he killed four people in Nevada because he needed money to purchase meth.

Wilbur Ernesto Martinez-Guzman, a 20-year-old from El Salvador living in the U.S. illegally, broke down into tears as he confessed to being behind four gruesome murders in Nevada, a detective told a grand jury on Thursday. Martinez-Guzman, who initially giggled as he denied any involvement in the murders, eventually confessed to doing something “unforgivable” when presented with numerous contradictions in his story.

The young Central American was arrested on Jan. 19 and indicted earlier in March for the murders of four individuals. During a rampage that spanned several days in January, Martinez-Guzman allegedly killed Connie Koontz, who was believed to be murdered on Jan 9 or 10, Sophia Renken, who was killed on Jan. 13, and Gerald and Sharon David, whose bodies were found on Jan. 16.

It appears Martinez-Guzman, using a stolen .22 caliber handgun, specifically targeted vulnerable victims. Married couple Gerald and Sharon David were 81 and 80 years old, respectively. Renken was a 74 year-old woman, and Koontz was a 56 year-old woman living with her disabled mother.

The murders, which took place in Nevada, gained widespread national coverage. President Donald Trump mentioned the victims during his State of the Union speech in February, highlighting the need for better immigration enforcement.

“I will fight for the memory of Gerald and Sharon,” Trump stated during his address, as the Davids’ daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter looked on in the gallery. (RELATED: Overwhelmed ICE Facilities Forced To Release 100,000 Illegal Aliens In Past Three Months)

The president had previously tweeted about the murders in January.

The Salvadorian immigrant said he committed the murders to get cash for his drug addiction.

“He said he needed the money for the meth and it was the meth,” Washoe County Sheriff’s Detective Stefanie Brady testified to a grand jury, according to a transcript that was filed on Tuesday in Washoe District Court.

Martinez-Guzman’s trial is not expected to start until April 2020. Prosecutors said they are seeking the death penalty.

Follow Jason on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Source: The Daily Caller

0 0

Plane crashes into Connecticut high school baseball field

A small plane reportedly crashed into a high school baseball field in Connecticut Thursday evening, injuring two people and causing a power outage that led the administration to cancel class Friday.

The pilot was performing a touch-and-go drill, which involves landing on a runway and taking off again without coming to a full stop, near Meriden-Markham Airport, when he crashed into ballfields at Wilcox Technical High School in Meriden, public information officer Sgt. Christopher Fry told WTIC.

PLANE CRASH IN COLOMBIA KILLS 14, OFFICIALS SAY

Police were called to the scene around 7 p.m. where first responders found two men, one in his 30s and one in his 50s, near the wreckage, WTNH reported. One man was able to pull himself out of the plane without assistance. The other was pulled from the plane by emergency personnel.

No one died in the crash and no one on the ground was injured. The two occupants of the plane, who are both pilots, were both transported to the hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed only two people were onboard.

Emergency crews look over the wreckage Friday morning April 12, 2019 of a plane that crashed on the field at Wilcox Technical High School in Meriden Thursday night.

Emergency crews look over the wreckage Friday morning April 12, 2019 of a plane that crashed on the field at Wilcox Technical High School in Meriden Thursday night. (Richie Rathsack/Record-Journal via AP)

The plane careened into a high tension power line, knocking it into a second power line, which resulted in a power outage. About 17,000 were without electricity due to the crash. Wilcox Technical High School canceled classes Friday.

Eversource Energy, the electric services company in the area, dispatched almost a dozen crew members to the site who were able to restore power by early Friday morning, WTIC reported. Some customers were prevented from going into their homes while crews made repairs.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

The Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the incident, confirmed the plane was a Piper PA-28 model. The National Transportation Safety Board will make a conclusion on the probable cause of the accident, WTNH reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Watch: 8-Year-Old Girl Skewers Ocasio-Cortez with Perfect Impression

DNA Force Plus

Limited Advanced Release

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body's cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body's cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body's cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body's cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body's cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body's cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Indigenous Brazilians gather to protest outside Congress

More than 1,000 indigenous Brazilians gathered outside Congress Wednesday for an annual three-day campout to protest what they see as rollbacks of indigenous rights under President Jair Bolsonaro.

Tents dotted the lawn in front of the National Congress, where indigenous leaders sang, danced and sold crafts while wearing traditional feathered headdresses with their faces painted red and black.

The event, known as the Free Land Encampment, began its 15th edition with a sense of animosity toward Bolsonaro, whose policies indigenous leaders are calling the biggest setbacks to their peoples' rights in recent history.

"This government came in immediately attacking us and our rights in a way we haven't seen before," said Paulo Tupiniquim, executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous People of Brazil, which organized the event. "We are here to show that we will resist and will not accept our rights being taken away."

The government has called in National Guard forces for security at the encampment as a "preventative measure."

At the same event in 2017, police shot tear gas at the indigenous protesters who retaliated by shooting at them with bows and arrows.

"We are not violent. Violent are those who attack the sacred right to free demonstration with armed troops," the organizers wrote in a statement protesting the National Guard presence. "They're trying to take the right to come and go from Brazilians who have walked these lands since long before 1500" the statement read, referencing when European colonizers first came to Brazil.

Before becoming president, Bolsonaro promised that if he were elected, "not one more centimeter" of land would be given to indigenous groups and likened indigenous people living in reserves to caged animals in zoos.

On his first day as president, Bolsonaro transferred the authority to designate indigenous land and to grant environmental licenses for businesses on indigenous reserves from the government's indigenous affairs agency to the agriculture ministry. Activists say the move will practically paralyze land allocations and facilitate operations for agribusiness and mining.

Bolsonaro's health minister sparked protests across the country last month when he proposed eliminating the federal indigenous health care program and putting indigenous health care needs in the hands of municipalities. Indigenous groups say that the current program is designed to attend to their specific needs in indigenous languages.

"The government is completely anti-indigenous," Joenia Wapichana, an indigenous congresswoman, told The Associated Press at the protest. "The government is not open to us. He is open to those who defend mining and land grabbing, which is his intention."

Source: Fox News World

0 0

The Latest: Neighbors rarely saw kids in Arizona abuse case

The Latest on an Arizona woman arrested on allegations of abusing adopted children (all times local):

2:15 p.m.

A neighbor of an Arizona woman accused of abusing her seven adopted children says the kids appeared unhappy one of the few times she saw them.

Sarisa Fragua, who lives two doors down from the Maricopa home of 48-year-old Machelle Hobson, said Wednesday that she rarely saw the woman or the children.

But last summer, Fragua says one of the woman's adult sons was filming a video with the children on a pathway behind her backyard.

According to Fragua, the children seemed withdrawn anytime they weren't being filmed. She thought it was odd but never saw anything that seemed abusive.

Authorities say Hobson used pepper spray to discipline the children and locked them inside a closet for days.

The children appear in a popular series of videos on the YouTube channel.

___

1:20 p.m.

The Arizona Department of Child Safety says it removed the children from the home of a woman with a popular YouTube channel who was arrested on suspicion of abusing her seven adopted kids.

The state agency said it took the children from 48-year-old Machelle Hobson's home Thursday, one day before her arrest. It cited confidentiality laws in declining to answer questions about Hobson, including whether it had prior contacts with her or prior complaints.

Hobson's last name was initially listed in court records as Hackney, but the Pinal County Attorney's Office says it has since been corrected.

Hobson's channel has millions of views. She also has related Instagram and Facebook accounts.

A police report released Wednesday says the children say they were disciplined with pepper spray or locked in a closet without food or water if they did not perform in the videos as directed.

It's not known if Hobson has an attorney.

___

This story corrects arrested woman's last name to Hobson.

___

11:25 a.m.

A YouTube channel of an Arizona woman arrested on suspicion of abusing her seven adopted children shows them in simple skits about a kid stealing cookies or a little boy with super powers.

The channel that authorities say 48-year-old Machelle Hobson runs has millions of views. She also has related Instagram and Facebook accounts.

A police report released Wednesday says the children say they were disciplined with pepper spray or locked in a closet without food or water if they did not perform in the videos as directed.

Two adult sons of Hobson were arrested on allegations of failing to report child abuse.

Hobson and the two grown sons remained in jail on Wednesday. It was unknown if any of the three have attorneys.

___

9:20 a.m.

Arizona authorities say two adult sons of a woman arrested on allegations of using pepper spray to discipline her seven younger adopted children are being held on suspicion of failing to report abuse of a minor.

A police statement released Wednesday says Logan and Ryan Hackney were booked into jail.

Authorities said their mother Machelle Hobson disciplined the adopted children by locking them in a closet for days without food, water or bathroom access. The kids were featured on her popular YouTube channel.

A police report says officers arriving at the house in the small city of Maricopa south of Phoenix found six of the children appeared malnourished and underweight.

It was not immediately clear if the 48-year-old mother or her two grown sons had an attorney.

___

8 a.m.

Arizona authorities say a woman has been arrested on allegations of using pepper spray to discipline her seven adopted children and locking them for days inside a closet.

A police report says Machelle Hobson's adopted children had no food, water or access to a bathroom for days while inside the closet at her home in the small city of Maricopa south of Phoenix.

The report says that officers who went to the house last week reported that six of the children appeared malnourished and underweight.

Hobson was being held at the Pinal County Jail on suspicion of two counts of molestation of a child, seven counts of child abuse and five counts of unlawful imprisonment and child neglect.

It was unclear Tuesday whether 48-year-old Hobson had a lawyer.

Source: Fox News National

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



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!
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!
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

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

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

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