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Haiti’s serious crime unit to investigate foreigners arrested with guns

A woman carries a deck in front of a main Haitian police station, where according to local media a group of foreign nationals including Americans armed with semi-automatic weapons were detained, after anti-government protests, in Port-au-Prince
A woman carries a deck in front of a main Haitian police station, where according to local media a group of foreign nationals including Americans armed with semi-automatic weapons were detained, after anti-government protests, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

February 19, 2019

By Ezequiel Abiu Lopez

(Reuters) – The serious crime unit of Haiti’s national police is investigating several foreign nationals, including Americans, who were arrested in possession of semi-automatic weapons, Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant said.

The group, which included five U.S. citizens, was arrested while driving in two vehicles on Sunday in the capital Port-au-Prince, adding to uncertainty in the impoverished Caribbean country after days of anti-government protests.

Ceant wrote on Twitter late on Monday that the investigation had been turned over to the Judicial Police Department, the detective service that works on serious organized and transnational crime in the poor Caribbean nation.

Ceant also said he had convened Haiti’s police security council, which includes the interior and justice ministers and senior police officials, to discuss the case. He did not say when the meeting would be held.

The U.S. State Department has said American citizens were part of the group but has not revealed their identities.

Names given by Haitian media correspond to social media profiles of American citizens and a Serbian who claim military backgrounds and currently work for security contractors.

National police chief Michel Ange Gedeon said the group face charges of illegal possession of weapons, Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported.

Thousands of Haitians have been staging demonstrations since Feb. 7, to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moise amid allegations of corruption and over high inflation. The protests have receded in recent days.

(Reporting by Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

Source: OANN

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Steinhoff ex-chair, top investor Wiese open to talks over $4 billion claim

South African tycoon Christo Wiese gestures during an interview in Cape Town
FILE PHOTO: South African magnate Christo Wiese, whose companies include Steinhoff and investment heavyweight Brait, gestures during an interview in Cape Town, South Africa, September 27, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

March 18, 2019

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former Steinhoff chairman and top shareholder Christo Wiese is open to negotiations over his 59 billion rand ($4.08 billion) claim against the scandal-hit company, he said on Monday.

“Everybody knows, the company does not have that kind of money, so our approach has been that the only way forward is for all the stakeholders to sit around the table and reconstruct the company,” Wiese told Reuters.

The South African retailer said on Friday that an independent report had found it had overstated profits over several years in a $7.4 billion accounting fraud involving a small group of top executives and outsiders.

(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng)

Source: OANN

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Gory details emerge about missing woman's suspected demise

After months of mostly silence from authorities investigating the disappearance of a Colorado mother on Thanksgiving Day, grim details about her suspected demise emerged this week, including accusations that the woman's fiance beat her to death with a baseball bat while their baby was in the next room.

Testimony from investigators at a court hearing Tuesday also revealed that Patrick Frazee had repeatedly asked an Idaho woman with whom he was having an affair to kill Kelsey Berreth, the mother of Frazee's 1-year-old daughter.

When she refused, he did it himself, authorities said.

Berreth's body has yet to be found, but Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Gregg Slater said information he gleaned from Frazee's girlfriend, Krystal Jean Lee Kenney, indicates she watched as Frazee burned the woman's remains. Kenney is now cooperating with investigators after pleading guilty to evidence tampering.

Berreth, a 29-year-old flight instructor, was last seen on Nov. 22 near her home in a mountain town near Colorado Springs, south of Denver.

Investigators testified that Frazee began planning Berreth's death in September and enlisted Kenney. Court records released Wednesday show that Kenney's ex-husband told investigators his ex-wife and Frazee dated during college and had a sexual relationship in 2016 and possibly 2017. A detective said Kenney revealed they rekindled an affair in March 2018.

Kenney, a 32-year-old former nurse, told police that Frazee claimed Berreth was abusing the couple's daughter. Police said there is no evidence that the girl was abused by her mother or anyone else.

Frazee asked Kenney to kill Berreth three times, Slater testified Tuesday. He said Kenney reported that Frazee suggested poisoning Berreth's coffee in September. Kenney told police that Frazee later told her to hit Berreth in the head using a metal pipe and a baseball bat.

Kenney said he was angry each time she failed to act. She loved Frazee and wanted to make him happy but could not hurt Berreth, Slater said.

Kenney told at least two friends in October that Frazee had asked her to kill Berreth, according to the newly released court records. Both women were later interviewed by police investigating Berreth's disappearance but the records give no indication that they contacted law enforcement after Kenney's admission.

One woman, who works as a paralegal, told investigators she urged Kenney to contact police but "did not believe Krystal ever went," the records said.

Kenney received a call from Frazee on Nov. 22 demanding that she drive to Colorado, Slater said.

"You got a mess to clean up," Frazee said according to Kenney's account to police.

She said she arrived two days later and found a "horrific" scene with blood spattered on the walls and floors of Berreth's townhome, Slater said.

Kenney told police that Frazee had wrapped a sweater around Berreth's head so she could guess the smell of scented candles and then beat her with a bat and stashed her body on a ranch. According to court records, the couple's young daughter was present in the home but in another room at the time.

After she cleaned the house, Kenney said she went with Frazee to retrieve Berreth's body and watched as Frazee burned it on his property along with the wooden bat, Slater said.

She said Frazee later told her he planned to throw the remains in a dump or river.

Frazee was arrested last December, about a month after Berreth was last seen alive. Prosecutors announced additional charges this week, including tampering with a deceased body. He has not entered a plea to any of the allegations.

His attorneys focused most of their questions Tuesday on Kenney's account.

Police acknowledged that Kenney did not see Berreth's body or a baseball bat. They also said Kenney denied knowing Berreth or having a personal relationship with Frazee when investigators first contacted her in mid-December.

David Beller, a Denver attorney who focuses on criminal defense, said examining the motivations and credibility of a witness who is cooperating with prosecutors is an essential strategy for defense attorneys.

"The defense attorney is going to examine whether the witness is somehow minimizing her involvement or her motivations to make him look more culpable than he is," said Beller, who is not connected to Frazee's defense. "Juries are skeptical of a cooperating witness' testimony and a defense strategy is always to highlight that skepticism."

Frazee's attorneys also highlighted a lack of blood or other physical evidence detected in his truck and questioned the Berreth family's access to Kelsey's townhome following initial police searches. Blood in the bathroom identified as Berreth's was discovered Dec. 6, days after police turned the property over to her family.

According to court records, police found blood on a bottle of bleach and a mop during a mid-December search of Frazee's property. Tests are not complete yet.

The hearing did not reveal why prosecutors believe Frazee killed Berreth. Her parents argue in a wrongful death lawsuit that they believe Frazee wanted full custody of the couple's daughter. The child has remained with them while the criminal case proceeds.

Source: Fox News National

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Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen to testify before House oversight panel next week

Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, arrives for sentencing at the United States Courthouse in New York
FILE PHOTO: Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, arrives with his daughter Samantha for sentencing at the United States Courthouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., December 12, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

February 21, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen will testify in a public hearing before a U.S. congressional committee on Feb. 27 and the panel’s chairman said Trump’s business practices would be a focus of the testimony.

Cohen had originally been scheduled to testify on Feb. 7 but his adviser Lanny Davis said he canceled because of threats against his family from Trump.

“I am pleased to announce that Michael Cohen’s public testimony before the Oversight Committee is back on, despite efforts by some to intimidate his family members and prevent him from appearing,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a statement.

Cohen has pleaded guilty to crimes including campaign finance violations during Trump’s 2016 election campaign and has cooperated with investigators.

Trump called Cohen a “rat” in a tweet in December for cooperating with prosecutors. Cohen had been Trump’s self-described longtime “fixer” and once said he would take a bullet for the New York real estate developer.

The Oversight Committee said in a memo to its members that Cohen would be questioned about Trump’s “debts and payments relating to efforts to influence the 2016 election,” Trump’s compliance with tax and campaign finance laws, and Trump’s business practices, among other topics.

Davis confirmed in a tweet that Cohen would appear before the Oversight Committee and said Cohen “will speak about his decade long experiences working for Mr. Trump.”

Cohen will report to federal prison on May 6 after a judge granted him a two-month delay to allow him to recover from a surgical procedure and to prepare for his congressional testimony, according to a court filing on Wednesday.

Cohen is also scheduled to testify at a closed hearing of the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 28.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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Trump: Migrants Will Go to ‘Sanctuary Cities’

President Donald Trump said Monday that his proposal to send migrants to so-called sanctuary cities is taking effect.

Trump tweeted:

"Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!"

It was unclear, however, whether the Department of Homeland Security is taking any steps to implement the contentious plan. Lawyers there had previously told the White House that the idea was unfeasible and a misuse of funds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is already strapped for cash.

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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‘THANK YOU, WORKING HARD!’: Trump Touts Higher Approval Rating Than Obama

President Trump celebrated a two year high approval rating Tuesday by thanking his supporters and noting that he was right all along concerning the border crisis.

Trump’s approval reached 53 per cent in a new Rasmussen poll, reaching a high that he has not experienced since taking office in 2017 when his approval approached 59 per cent.

The poll found that 45 per cent of likely voters said they disapproved of Trump, down 2 per cent from the previous day.

The bump in approval comes following the end of the Mueller report which found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.

The economy and employment numbers could also be another factor in the soaring approval rating. January’s unemployment rate was at just 4 percent, and by March it dropped even further to 3.8 per cent, with almost 200,000 jobs added last month.

Trump himself appears to believe that the approval bump is down to immigration.

The President noted that “everybody is now acknowledging that, right from the time I announced my run for President, I was 100% correct on the Border.”

The President also re-tweeted a report by Breitbart News that points out Trump has a higher approval than Barack Obama at this same point his presidency.

The report notes that “On April 9, 2011, a little over two years into his first term, 46 percent of those polled by Rasmussen approved of the job Obama was doing, compared to 53 percent who disapproved. That put Barry upside down by seven points.”

“So not only is Trump’s overall job approval seven points higher than Obama’s was at this same time, Trump is scoring 15 points better (-7 compared to +8) on the question of approve/disapprove and a whopping 18 points better (-17 compared to +1) on the question of strongly approve/strongly disapprove.” the report concludes.

Source: InfoWars

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Iran says U.S. pressures on Iran, Venezuela making oil market fragile

FILE PHOTO: Iran's Oil Minister Zanganeh arrives for an OPEC meeting in Vienna
FILE PHOTO: Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh arrives for a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna, Austria, November 30, 2016. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader/File Photo

April 14, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran’s oil minister said on Sunday that U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and tensions in Libya have made the supply-demand balance in the global oil market fragile, and warned of consequences for increasing pressures on Tehran.

Oil prices have risen more than 30 percent this year on the back of supply cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and U.S. sanctions on oil exporters Iran and Venezuela, plus escalating conflict in OPEC member Libya.

“Oil prices are increasing every day. That shows the market is worried,” Bijan Zanganeh was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

“Venezuela is in trouble. Russia is also under sanctions. Libya is in turmoil. Part of U.S. oil production has stopped. These show the supply-demand balance is very fragile,” Zanganeh said.

“If they (the Americans) decide to increase pressures on Iran, the fragility will increase in an unpredictable way,” he added.

Zanganeh said one of the consequences of pressure on Iran was a rise in fuel prices in the United States.

“Mr. Trump should choose whether to add more pressure on Iran or keep fuel prices low at gas stations in America,” Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the oil ministry’s news agency SHANA.

The U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran in November after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear accord between it and six world powers. The sanctions have already halved Iranian oil exports.

U.S. President Donald Trump eventually aims to halt Iranian oil exports, choking off Tehran’s main source of revenue. Washington is pressuring Iran to curtail its nuclear program and stop backing militant proxies across the Middle East.

OPEC and its allies meet in June to decide whether to continue withholding supply. Though OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, is considered keen to keep cutting, sources within the group said it could raise output from July if disruptions continue elsewhere.

The producer group’s supply cuts have been aimed largely at offsetting record crude production in the United States.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Jan Harvey)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

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A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City
FILE PHOTO: A Wells Fargo logo is seen in New York City, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 26, 2019

By Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co’s board has retained executive search firm Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new chief executive, ideally a woman who can tackle its regulatory and public perception issues, two people familiar with the matter said.

Wells Fargo’s ambition to become the only major U.S. bank with a female CEO underscores the need to restore its image with a wide range of constituents, including customers, shareholders, regulators and politicians, after it became mired in a scandal in 2016 for opening potentially millions of unauthorized accounts.

Former CEO Tim Sloan left abruptly last month, becoming the second CEO to leave the bank in the scandal’s fallout.

The board plans to approach Citigroup Inc’s Latin America chief Jane Fraser, one of the sources said. During Fraser’s 15-year tenure at Citigroup, she has gained experience running consumer and commercial businesses as well as its private bank.

Fraser could not be immediately reached for comment.

The board also discussed approaching JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Marianne Lake, but after the bank named her to run JPMorgan’s consumer lending business last week, that option became less viable, the source added. The board wants someone who can convince regulators, employees, investors and customers that the bank has fixed problems underpinning the sales scandal, the sources said.

The bank’s board feels that choosing a woman might please lawmakers in Washington who have been critical not only of Wells Fargo’s misbehavior, but of the broader banking industry for a lack of diversity and gender equality, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It also believes that such a move could bolster Wells Fargo’s image with the households of customers where women play a leading role in managing finances, one of the sources added.

The new CEO will also have to resolve litigation and regulatory matters. There are 14 outstanding consent orders with government entities, as well as probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice.

To be sure, Spencer Stuart will approach and consider several male candidates for the CEO job as well, one of the sources said. The top priority is to find an external candidate who can navigate the bank’s regulatory issues, the source added.

Finding an outsider who meets all those qualifications and wants the job will be difficult, the sources said. There are few people with the necessary experience, even fewer of those who are women, and it is not clear if any of the obvious candidates would be open to taking the role.

The sources asked not to be identified because Wells Fargo’s board deliberations are confidential.

Spokespeople for Wells Fargo and Spencer Stuart declined to comment.

Wells Fargo’s board has not made any public statements about its requirements for a new CEO, beyond Chair Betsy Duke saying the job should attract the “top talent in banking.”

The board wants to complete the search within the next three to six months, one of the sources said.

STALLED SHARES

After Sloan’s ouster, Wells Fargo’s board appointed Allen Parker, who had been general counsel, as interim CEO. The board has said it is looking for an external candidate as a permanent replacement. It is not clear whether Parker will stay at the bank.

Others whose names have been mentioned by analysts, recruiters and industry sources as perspective CEO candidates include Alphabet Inc finance chief Ruth Porat and Bank of America Corp’s chief technology officer Cathy Bessant.

Wells Fargo shares have stalled since Sloan’s departure on March 29th, while the KBW Bank index has rallied more than 7 percent.

Wells Fargo would be “the best stock on earth to buy” if it had the right CEO, said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Donaldson Capital Management in Indiana.

Donaldson held about 50,000 Wells Fargo shares, but sold the stake last year as problems mounted. The CEO change could convince him to re-invest, depending on who it is, he told Reuters.

“It would be very smart for them to get a woman,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra, Greg Roumeliotis and Susan Thomas)

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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