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Controversial Australian lawmaker ‘egged’ after comments on New Zealand mass shooting

Australian Senator Fraser Anning has an egg smashed on his head while talking to the media in Victoria
Australian Senator Fraser Anning has an egg smashed on his head while talking to the media in Victoria, Australia March 16, 2019 in this still image taken from a video obtained from social media. THE UNSHACKLED/via REUTERS

March 17, 2019

By Will Ziebell

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australian police said they were investigating after a teenager smashed an egg on a controversial right-wing lawmaker who had blamed New Zealand’s mass mosque shootings on the country’s immigration program.

The footage, shared widely on social media, showed Senator Fraser Anning being approached from behind at a political event on Saturday, before having an egg cracked on the back of his head.

The footage showed Anning appearing to try to hit the person, before that person was dragged to the ground.

Victoria Police released a statement saying the incident was being investigated “in its entirety” and that it involved a 17-year-old boy.

Anning has received widespread condemnation following comments he made that saying cause of New Zealand’s worst peace time shooting was letting “Muslim fanatics” migrate to the country.

“(Anning’s) conflation of this horrendous terrorist attack with issues of immigration, in his attack on Islamic faith specifically, these comments are appalling and they’re ugly and they have no place in Australia,” Australia’s Prime Minister Morrison told journalists on Saturday.

Calls to Anning’s electoral and parliamentary offices went unanswered on Sunday.

A GoFundMe campaign had raised more than A$19,000 ($13,500) for the teenager to cover the cost of legal fees and so he could “buy more eggs” by Sunday and the hashtag #EggBoy was trending on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Australia’s immigration minister announced on Saturday that controversial conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos would not be allowed to enter Australia following Yiannopoulos describing Islam as a “barbaric” and “alien” religion.

“Mr Yiannopoulos’ comments on social media regarding the Christchurch terror attack are appalling and foment hatred and division,” immigration minister David Coleman said in a statement.

Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after 49 people were killed and dozens wounded in mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques.

(Reporting by Will Ziebell; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Source: OANN

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Barack Obama Warns Progressives Not to Form ‘Circular Firing Squad’

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Source: InfoWars

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Newmont shareholders OK $10 billion Goldcorp takeover, creating biggest gold producer

FILE PHOTO: Visitors pass the Newmont Mining Corporation booth during the PDAC convention in Toronto
FILE PHOTO: Visitors pass the Newmont Mining Corporation booth during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo

April 11, 2019

By Nichola Saminather

TORONTO (Reuters) – Newmont Mining shareholders on Thursday approved the company’s $10 billion takeover of Goldcorp Inc which is set to create the world’s biggest gold producer with assets across the Americas, Africa and Australia.

About 98 percent of votes at a special meeting were in support of Newmont’s proposal to issue new stock to fund its takeover of Goldcorp, the Denver-based company said in a statement. Goldcorp’s investors voted to approve the acquisition last week.

The deal, the biggest takeover in the gold sector’s history according to Refinitiv data, faced some initial opposition from Newmont investors who said it overly favored Goldcorp shareholders. But they rallied behind the proposal on the promise of a special dividend.

The 88-cent-per-share special dividend will be paid on May 1 to those who hold Newmont shares as of April 17, according to the statement.

Newmont shares were 0.7 percent lower at $36.01 in morning trading in New York, in line with the benchmark S&P/TSX Global Gold Index. Goldcorp shares slipped 0.26 percent to C$15.41 in Toronto.

“We thank Newmont’s shareholders for their overwhelming support for this compelling value creation opportunity as we build the world’s leading gold company,” Newmont Chief Executive Gary Goldberg said in the statement.

The new company, to be called Newmont Goldcorp, will overtake current market leader Barrick Gold Corp in annual production, churning out 6 million to 7 million ounces of gold annually over the next 10 years, compared with Barrick’s forecast of 5.1 million to 5.6 million ounces for 2019.

Newmont Goldcorp expects to shed between $1 billion and $1.5 billion of assets to focus on its most promising operations. This, combined with mines Barrick plans to sell in the wake of its acquisition of Randgold Resources, is expected by analysts to fuel a flurry of deals in a sector that has been focused on cutting costs rather than pursuing growth for several years.

Newmont’s acquisition of Goldcorp had faced several hurdles, beginning with Barrick’s hostile takeover bid for Newmont in February, which required it to abandon its deal with Goldcorp.

That was resolved through the creation of a joint venture of Newmont and Barrick’s operations in Nevada, which was estimated to create $4.7 billion in synergies.

(Reporting By Nichola Saminather; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Source: OANN

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Bashar Assad moves to regain full control of war-torn Syria with ISIS all but defeated

With the ISIS caliphate all but defeated and routed out of Syria, strongman Bashar Assad is using all means necessary to re-consolidate control over his war-ravaged country, targeting civilian infrastructure within rebel-held territory.

Throughout March, the Assad regime has targeted a school, a bakery, a hospital, and other medical facilities in its brutal attempt to regain control of Idlib Province, the last rebel stronghold of the Syrian opposition.

“Eight years into the crisis, the Syrian government continues to show utter disregard for the laws of war and the lives of civilians,” said Lynn Maalouf, Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International.

“The ongoing attacks in Idlib fit the same pattern we’ve seen before, in Aleppo, Daraa, Damascus Countryside, whereby Syrian government forces hit hospitals, medical facilities, emergency responders, bakeries, schools, leaving people no choice but to flee,” Maalouf added.

AS CALIPHATE CRUMBLES, ISIS FIGHTERS RAGE OVER ABSENT LEADER AL-BAGHDADI

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, people hold Syrian flags and portraits of President Bashar Assad during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's move to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, in the coastal port city of Tartus, Syria, Wednesday, March. 27, 2019.

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, people hold Syrian flags and portraits of President Bashar Assad during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's move to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, in the coastal port city of Tartus, Syria, Wednesday, March. 27, 2019. (SANA via AP)

Assad has essentially won the civil war which broke out in 2011. While his autocratic rule was once threatened, he is making attempts to reestablish himself as a world leader on the international stage.

Formerly opposed to Assad, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and other regional actors accepted the undeniable reality on the battlefield that Assad is victorious and there is no chance of a rebel victory.

The UAE, once a major foe of Assad that called for his removal, announced in December it would restore ties with Damascus and reopened its embassy. Bahrain also resumed diplomatic relations the same month.

Assad’s main backers, Iran and Russia, will likely ensure that Syria receives the necessary post-conflict reconstruction funding to stabilize the country while also increasing their influence in post-civil war Syria.

Reconstruction funding for Syria is estimated at $400 billion.

BRITISH ISIS BRIDE ADMITS SHE WAS 'BRAINWASHED' INTO BELIEVEING ISIS, HOPES FOR SECOND CHANCE

22 March 2019, Syria, Idlib: Members of the Syrian civil defense extinguish a fire in a house allegedly targeted by an airstrike in the town of Kafraya in the north of Idlib. According to activists 10 people died in airstrikes allegedly carried out by Russian warplanes.

22 March 2019, Syria, Idlib: Members of the Syrian civil defense extinguish a fire in a house allegedly targeted by an airstrike in the town of Kafraya in the north of Idlib. According to activists 10 people died in airstrikes allegedly carried out by Russian warplanes. (Getty)

It’s also likely Syria will need substantial assistance from the United States and the European Union. Much like Syria’s neighbors, calls for Assad’s removal have largely died down in the West, as the U.S. and E.U accepted the hard truth that Assad won. However, the U.S. and E.U want Syria to commit to political reforms before providing economic assistance.

But Assad has made it clear he does not intend on implementing any political reforms to reduce his hold on power.

The United States and European Union will have to balance the reality that there are millions of people suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Assad regime's indiscriminate repression against the need to stabilize the country and prevent it from civil war recurrence.

The ongoing battle for Idlib could spark a renewed refugee crisis with millions potentially looking to flee the onslaught from Assad and regime allied forces, causing massive civilian casualties.

THE ISIS CALIPHATE IS GONE - BUT ISIS WILL BE BACK

“If this turns into an all-out offensive on Idlib, it would result in mass casualties and displacement,” Faysal Itani, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News.

Puppeteer Walid Rashed performs a puppet act for Syrian children, in the midst of the rubble of damaged buildings, to mark the World Theatre Day as part of his tour of Saraqib in the rebel-held province of Idlib. 

Puppeteer Walid Rashed performs a puppet act for Syrian children, in the midst of the rubble of damaged buildings, to mark the World Theatre Day as part of his tour of Saraqib in the rebel-held province of Idlib.  (Getty)

There are three million people trapped in Idlib, and nearly one million are displaced from other places in Syria. Idlib was also one of the first cities to take up armed resistance against the regime and the remaining rebels hunkered down in the province are primarily Jihadist militants.

Jidhasit fighters in Idlib are numbered in the low thousands, according to some estimates, and are also some of the most extremist forces that are left battling the government.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, is the most formidable Jihadist group currently operating in Idlib.

LAST ISIS ENCLAVE A SCENE OF 'DEVASTATION': FOX NEWS VISITS ONLY REMAINING VILLAGE RULED BY TERROR GROUP

The United States remains deeply concerned about the humanitarian consequences of the recent attacks on Idlib. In early March, the U.S. State Department accused Russia and Syria of escalating violence against innocent civilians in Idlib.

“The United States views with grave concern escalating violence in recent days in Idlib and neighboring areas prompted by Russian and Assad regime airstrikes and artillery,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino said in a statement.

“Despite Russia’s claims to be targeting terrorists, these operations have caused dozens of civilian casualties and have targeted first responders as they attempt to save lives on the ground. These abhorrent attacks on civilian infrastructure and on settlements for internally displaced people must end now."

Source: Fox News World

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Top Netanyahu challengers unite for Israeli elections

Israel's primary centrist challengers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have announced they are joining forces.

Ex-military chief Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, said early on Thursday they'll present a joint list for the upcoming Israeli elections that "will constitute the new Israeli ruling party." In a joint statement, the two said they were "motivated by national responsibility."

A formal announcement is expected later.

Polls suggest together the two could surpass Netanyahu's ruling Likud to become Israel's largest faction after the April 9 vote.

Under their unity arrangement, the two agreed to a rotation leadership under which Gantz would first serve as prime minister and would be replaced by Lapid later. In contrast to Netanyahu, they say they will "heal the divide within Israeli society."

Source: Fox News World

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Iraq PM says country could take non-Iraqi IS detainees from Syria

FILE PHOTO: Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi speaks during the opening of Baghdad International Fair
FILE PHOTO: Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi speaks during the opening of Baghdad International Fair, Iraq November 10, 2018. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani /File Photo

February 26, 2019

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq could help transfer non-Iraqi Islamic State detainees held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday.

Iraq will either help repatriate those citizens to their home countries, or prosecute on its own those suspected of having committed crimes, he said at his weekly news conference.

“Some countries could ask Iraq to help to transfer some of her Daesh citizens to the other country, like France for example,” Abdul Mahdi said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “Iraq might help, would help, helped to transfer those people to their country. It is one battle and Iraq should fulfill its duties and obligations.”

“Fighters belonging to Daesh from other countries that their states, their countries refuse to receive – how should we deal with that?” he asked.

“Each case we should study the names, whether they participated in terrorist acts in Iraq. Then they could be judged by Iraqi tribunals.”

Earlier in the press conference, the prime minister specified that Iraq would not receive from Syria foreign fighters whose home countries refused to take back from Iraq.

The comments came one day after Iraqi President Barham Salih said that 13 Islamic State detainees who were transferred to Iraq last week from the Syrian Democratic Forces would be tried in Iraq. [nL5N20K52I]

Two Iraqi military sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S.-backed SDF handed over 14 French and six non-Iraqi Arab Islamic detainees last week. [nL5N20J11D]

The fate of foreign detainees in SDF custody has become more pressing in recent weeks as U.S.-backed fighters planned an assault to capture the last remnants of the group’s self-styled caliphate. [nL5N20L5KE]

The militant group still poses a threat in Iraq and some western officials believe that Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, may still be hiding in the area.

“We will deal with the case because if we don’t, then they can use a 600 km (372.82 miles)border with Syria and infiltrate once again in Iraq. So it’s a case that really concerns us, worries us and we have to deal with it,” Abdul Mahdi said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Raya Jalabi in Erbil; Writing by Raya Jalabi; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

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Alabama Has A Plan To Allow Tax Refunds To Help Pay For The Border Wall

A bill that would allow taxpayers to donate a part of their refunds to a nonprofit collecting money to build more border wall has successfully passed the Alabama Senate.

Alabama state senators voted 23-6 along party lines Thursday in favor of SB 22, the Montgomery Advertiser reported. The legislation would add We Build The Wall Inc. to a list of about 20 groups and programs on state income tax forms that residents can check off and donate with their tax refunds.

“I think it’s a way for Alabamians to say to the president and to the nation that we think strong border security is important. We want to promote that. We want Washington to build that wall,” GOP Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, the bill’s sponsor, stated according to The Associated Press.

“This bill is about sending a message to Washington that we support President Trump and his mission to secure our southern border,” Marsh said, who is mulling a 2020 U.S. Senate bid.

We Build The Wall — which began in December as a viral GoFundMe campaign by Air Force veteran and triple amputee Brian Kolfage — is a nonprofit group that is raising money for wall construction on the U.S.-Mexico border. The GoFundMe page is nearing $21,000,000 in donations.

However, the legislation may be more symbolic than anything else. Before funds from We Build The Wall can be used, Congress must vote to allow the money to be directed to the Department of Homeland Security. Given that the Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives, this is unlikely to happen in the immediate future.

The private contributions are rolling in as President Donald Trump continues to fight for more wall funding. Trump signed into law a resolution that gave him $1.375 billion to build 55 miles of barrier on the Texas border. He then declared a national emergency that has allowed him a total of $8 billion in funding, but numerous progressive groups are suing his emergency declaration in court.

People work on the U.S./ Mexican border wall on February 12, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

People work on the U.S.-Mexic0 border wall on Feb. 12, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The president, in his latest budget proposal, is asking for an additional $8.6 billion in wall funding.

Back in Alabama, local Democrats derided SB 22, which will later be voted on by the state House.

“What about the Northern border? More people are crossing over the Northern border but you don’t want to pay them any attention,” Alabama state Sen. Bobby Singleton, a Democrat who called the measure a “feel good” bill, said according to AP. (RELATED: Overwhelmed ICE Facilities Forced To Release 100,000 Illegal Aliens In Past Three Months)

Singleton’s comments are technically correct. Over 960 people have illegally crossed the U.S.-Canada border in 2018, according to government data, representing a 91 percent increase from the previous fiscal year. However, that number remains a minuscule fraction of the apprehensions taking place on the U.S.-Mexico border, where border officials expect to find nearly 100,000 foreign nationals in the month of March alone.

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Alex Jones – Info Wars

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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)

Source: OANN

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