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American Airlines extends 737 MAX cancellations through June 5

FILE PHOTO: Employees walk by the end of a 737 Max aircraft at the Boeing factory in Renton
FILE PHOTO: Employees walk by the end of a 737 Max aircraft at the Boeing factory in Renton, Washington, U.S., March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo

April 7, 2019

(Reuters) – American Airlines said on Sunday it will extend cancellations of 90 flights a day through June 5 because of the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft following two deadly crashes in five months.

The extended cancellation by the largest U.S. airline is the latest sign that the airplane is not expected to return to service anytime soon. American Airlines said on March 24 it had canceled 90 flights a day through April 24. On Friday, Boeing said it plans to cut its monthly 737 aircraft production by nearly 20 percent.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Source: OANN

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Regulators knew before crashes that 737 MAX trim control was confusing in some conditions: document

FILE PHOTO: A Boeing 737 MAX 8 takes off during a flight test in Renton, Washington
FILE PHOTO: A Boeing 737 MAX 8 takes off during a flight test in Renton, Washington, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Redmond/File Photo

March 29, 2019

By Jamie Freed

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. and European regulators knew at least two years before a Lion Air crash that the usual method for controlling the Boeing 737 MAX’s nose angle might not work in conditions similar to those in two recent disasters, a document shows.

The European Aviation and Space Agency (EASA) certified the plane as safe in part because it said additional procedures and training would “clearly explain” to pilots the “unusual” situations in which they would need to manipulate a rarely used manual wheel to control, or “trim,” the plane’s angle.

Those situations, however, were not listed in the flight manual, according to a copy from American Airlines seen by Reuters.

The undated EASA certification document, available online, was issued in February 2016, an agency spokesman said.

It specifically noted that at speeds greater than 230 knots (265mph, 425kph) with flaps retracted, pilots might have to use the wheel in the cockpit’s center console rather than an electric thumb switch on the control yoke.

EASA and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ultimately determined that set-up was safe enough for the plane to be certified, with the European agency citing training plans and the relative rarity of conditions requiring the trim wheel.

In the deadly Lion Air crash in October, the pilots lost control after initially countering the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a new automated anti-stall feature that was pushing the nose down based on data from a faulty sensor, according to a preliminary report from Indonesian investigators released in November.

The flight conditions were similar to those described in the EASA document, a source at Lion Air said. The source said that training materials before the crash did not say the wheel could be required under those conditions but that Boeing advised the airline about it after the crash.

Boeing declined to comment on the EASA document or its advice to Lion Air, citing the ongoing investigation into the crash.

Ethiopia’s Transport Ministry, France’s BEA air accident authority and the FAA have all pointed to similarities between the Lion Air crash and an Ethiopian Airlines disaster this month. But safety officials stress that the Ethiopian investigation is at an early stage.

‘NOT PHYSICALLY EASY’

The crashes have also heightened scrutiny of the certification and pilot training for the latest model of Boeing Co’s best-selling workhorse narrowbody, now grounded globally.

In the EASA document, the regulator said simulations showed the electric thumb switches could not keep the 737 MAX properly trimmed under certain conditions, including those of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, according to the Indonesian preliminary report and a source with knowledge of the Ethiopian air traffic control recordings.

The trim system adjusts the angle of the nose. If the nose is too far up, the jet risks entering a stall.

Additional procedures and training needed to “clearly explain” when the manual wheel might be needed, according to the document. The EASA spokesman said that was a reference to the Boeing flight crew operations manual.

An American Airlines Group Inc flight manual for 737 MAX pilots dated October 2017 said the thumb switches had less ability to move the nose than the manual wheel.

The manual, which is 1,400 pages long, did not specify the flight conditions in which the wheel might be needed.

The trim wheel is a relic of the Boeing 737’s 1960s origins and does not appear in more modern planes like the 787 and Airbus SE A350. It is not often used, several current and former 737 pilots told Reuters.

“It would be very unusual to use the trim wheel in flight. I have only used manual trim once in the simulator,” said a 737 pilot. “It is not physically easy to make large trim changes to correct, say, an MCAS input. You – or more than likely the other pilot – have to flip out a little handle and wind, much like a boat winch.”

The EASA document said that after flight testing, the FAA’s Transport Airplane Directorate, which oversees design approvals and modifications, was concerned about whether the 737 MAX system complied with regulations because the thumb switches could not control trim on their own in all conditions.

FAA declined to comment on the European document. A trim-related “equivalent level of safety” (ELOS) memorandum listed in its 737 MAX certification document is not available on the FAA website. The agency declined to provide it to Reuters.

CONFUSING SIGNALS

The night before the Lion Air crash, different pilots on the same plane faced a similar problem with MCAS and tried to use electric trim to counteract it, according to the preliminary report from Indonesian investigators.

After the third time MCAS forced the nose down, the first officer commented that the control column was “too heavy to hold back” to counter the automated movements, the preliminary report said.

Former FAA accident investigator Mike Daniel said that to prevent stalls, the control column was designed to require more force for a pilot to pull back than to push forward.

Boeing on Wednesday said software changes to MCAS would provide additional layers of protection, including making it impossible for the system to keep the flight crew from counteracting it.

On the 737 MAX, Boeing removed the “yoke jerk” function that enabled pilots to disable the automated trim system with a hard pull on the control column rather than hitting two cut-out switches on the center console.

In a blog post on his personal website, former Boeing engineer Peter Lemme said that could make things harder for a pilot in a crisis.

“In the scenario where the stabilizer is running away nose down, the pilot may only fixate on pulling the column back in response,” he said. “They may not be mentally capable to trim back or cutout the trim – instead they just keep pulling.”

Ultimately the crew the evening before the Lion Air crash stopped the automated nose-down movement with the cut-out switches and used the wheel to control trim for the remainder of the flight, the preliminary report said.

That was the proper procedure to deal with a runaway stabilizer, according to Boeing.

However, current and former pilots told Reuters that the way the trim wheel and other controls behaved in practice compared with in training may have confused the Lion Air crews, who were also dealing with warnings about unreliable airspeed and altitude.

“MCAS activation produces conditions similar to a runaway trim, but the training is not done with a stick shaker active and multiple other failures, which make the diagnosis much more difficult,” said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former commercial pilot. The stick shaker alerts pilots to a potential stall by vibrating the control column.

Reuters this month reported that an off-duty pilot in the cockpit on the night before the Lion Air crash spotted the runaway stabilizer problem, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Boeing on Wednesday said changes to the MCAS software would help “reduce the crew’s workload in non-normal flight situations.”

(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore; additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal, Cindy Silviana in Jakarta, David Shepardson in Washington, Marcelo Rochabrun in Sao Paolo, Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Tim Hepher in Paris, Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and Maggie Fick in Nairobi; Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Source: OANN

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Nadler requests Mueller testify before House Judiciary Committee ‘as soon as possible’

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler on Thursday requested Special Counsel Robert Mueller appear before his committee “as soon as possible”—and no later than May 23.

Nadler’s request came prior to the Justice Department’s imminent release of Mueller’s report to Nadler’s committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the American public.

BARR AFFIRMS MUELLER PROBE FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF RUSSIA-TRUMP COLLUSION, PREPARES TO RELEASE REPORT

“It is clear Congress and the American people must hear from Special Counsel Robert Mueller in person to better understand his findings. We are now requesting Mueller to appear before @HouseJudiciary as soon as possible,” Nadler tweeted Thursday.

Nadler also attached an image of the letter he sent to Mueller Thursday, requesting his testimony “as soon as possible—but, in any event, no later than May 23, 2019.”

“I look forward to working with you on a mutually agreeable date,” Nadler wrote to Mueller.

He added: "We cannot take Attorney General Barr's word for it. We must read the full Mueller report, and the underlying evidence. This is about transparency and ensuring accountability."

There was no immediate response from Mueller.

Nadler’s request for Mueller’s testimony came just moments after Attorney General Bill Barr addressed the press from the Justice Department. Barr affirmed that Mueller found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election.

Barr said during the press conference that, later Thursday morning, he would transmit the special counsel’s report, which is expected to be more than 300-pages-long, to the chairmen and ranking members of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and would post the full report to the Justice Department’s website for the American public to review.

Barr explained that the redactions were "compelled by the need to prevent harm to ongoing matters and to comply with court orders prohibiting the public disclosure of information bearing upon ongoing investigations and criminal cases."

TRUMP BLASTS RUSSIA PROBE AS 'HOAX' AND 'HARASSMENT' AHEAD OF MUELLER REPORT RELEASE

But as the DOJ tangles with Congress over redactions, Barr vowed to make a less-redacted version available to certain lawmakers. Still, he said he will submit the first version at 11 a.m. ET Thursday, describing its redactions as "limited."

Barr vowed to work with Congress to "accommodate their legitimate oversight interests with respect to the Special Counsel's investigation."

"Given the limited nature of the redactions, I believe that the publicly released report will allow every American to understand the results of the Special Counsel’s investigation," Barr said. "Nevertheless, in an effort to accommodate congressional requests, we will make available to a bipartisan group of leaders from several Congressional committees a version of the report with all redactions removed except those relating to grand-jury information."

Barr explained that those members of Congress "will be able to see all of the redacted material for themselves – with the limited exception of that which, by law, cannot be shared," referencing grand jury material included in the report.

Despite Barr's promise, though, Nadler has already said that the committee will "very quickly" issue subpoenas for the full report, should he and his colleagues be unsatisfied with the amount of and basis for the redactions in the report released Thursday.

Nadler’s request for Mueller’s testimony also comes after a joint-statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who also called for Mueller to appear before Congress.

“We believe the only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling of the Special Counsel’s investigation is for Special Counsel Mueller himself to provide public testimony in the House and Senate as soon as possible,” they wrote.

Later, Pelosi tweeted: "AG Barr has confirmed the staggering partisan effort by the Trump Admin to spin public’s view of the #MuellerReport – complete with acknowledgment that the Trump team received a sneak preview. It’s more urgent than ever that Special Counsel Mueller testify before Congress."

Source: Fox News Politics

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Trey Gowdy: Media never asked key FISA process, Comey questions during Mueller investigation

Former South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy slammed Democrats and the media for going after Republicans who pushed back against the Russia collusion investigation.

Gowdy praised his former colleague, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, after he announced a probe into alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) at the onset of the Russia investigation, including a call for Attorney General Bill Barr to appoint a new special counsel to investigate the "other side of the story."

"There have been some House Republicans that have been looking for the past 12 months at the FISA process, the organization of the FBI investigation in 2016. We were ridiculed by our Democratic colleagues, and quite frankly, most people in the media, for daring to ask how Jim Comey could've possibly cleared Hillary Clinton before she was interviewed. Democrats didn't want any part of that," Gowdy told "America's Newsroom" Monday.

SARAH SANDERS: DEMOCRATS SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED FOR RUSSIA COLLUSION CLAIMS - WHEN IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED UNDER OBAMA

He added that the media, following Graham's announcement, didn't ask a single question about the origins of the investigation.

"As an American, you should want a Department of Justice and an FBI that you can have confidence in, but if anyone listening to that press conference wants to know why so many of my fellow citizens have so little confidence in the media, after two years and finding no evidence of conspiracy or coordination, the first three questions were not about that - they weren't about the origin of the investigation, it was about obstruction of justice.

"Not one question...Nothing about the past two years, $25 million, 500 witness interviews, no media inquiries about that."

WATCH FOX NEWS' LIVE COVERAGE

Gowdy said former FBI Director James Comey needs to get off Twitter after he posted a picture of himself this weekend with the caption: "so many questions."

"Somebody needs to take Comey's Twitter account away from him, someone who hates the president as much as he does, and the president is cleared on any - even a scintilla of evidence - of collusion with the Russians...despite multiple offers by the Russians...they still didn't do it, and Comey is not satisfied."

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"The Department of Justice answers true-false questions. They don't write reports about other misconduct that doesn't rise to the criminal level and they don't do oppo research on people we don't like," Gowdy said. "That's part of how we got where we are today."

Source: Fox News Politics

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Dem, GOP Reps Ask FBI About 'Foreign Adversaries' Creating Fake Vets Accounts

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking the FBI about news reports that suggest "foreign adversaries," a list that includes Russia, have created social media pages for fake veterans groups in an effort to target past and present members of the United States military.

Reps. Gilbert Cisneros, D-Calif., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Greg Steube, R-Fla., wrote a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray asking if the bureau is looking into the claims.

They cited stories in the media and studies that found evidence of the practice by Russia and other foreign nations.

"As a Navy Veteran, it's troubling to see that foreign actors are distributing false information to our service members and their families, impersonating congressionally chartered [veteran service organizations], and deceiving the American people," Cisneros said in a press release.

"Our service members safeguard our country against threats to our democracy like the ones posed by these bad actors, and now it's time to safeguard our veterans and their families."

The congressmen asked Wray if the FBI is aware of the reports, if it has looked into them, and if it would be willing to meet with veterans groups.

"It is clear the FBI has a strong role to play in protecting our nation's veterans against these egregious attacks," the letter reads.

Source: NewsMax America

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In Mexico, migrants turn to ‘The Beast’ after highway raids

The train known as "The Beast" is once again rumbling through the night loaded with people headed toward the U.S. border after a raid on a migrant caravan threatened to end the practice of massive highway marches through Mexico

A long freight train loaded with about 300 to 400 migrants pulled out of the southern city of Ixtepec on Tuesday. They sat atop rattling boxcars and clung precariously to ladders alongside the clanking couplings. Most were young men, along with a few dozen woman and children. Mothers clambered up the railings clutching their infants. Migrants displayed a Honduran flag from atop the train.

The train known in Spanish as "La Bestia," which runs from the southern border state of Chiapas into neighboring Oaxaca and north into Gulf coast state Veracruz, carried migrants north for decades, despite its notorious dangers: People died or lost limbs falling from the train. Mexican authorities started raiding the trains to pull migrants off in mid-2014 and the number of Central Americans aboard the train fell to a smattering.

But about a week ago, a longtime migrant rights activist, the Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, noticed a change: Large numbers of migrants started getting off the train in Ixtepec, the Oaxaca town where his Brothers on the Road shelter is located.

Many had waited weeks for Mexican visas that never materialized, and simply decided to head north without papers. Others were part of a 3,000-person migrant caravan that was broken up in a raid Monday by federal police and immigration agents on a highway east of Ixtepec.

With dozens of police and immigration checkpoints dotting the highways, many migrants now view the train as a safer, albeit still risky, way to reach the U.S. border.

"They're riding the train again, that's a fact," said Solalinde, who shelter now houses about 300 train-riding migrants. "It's going to go back to the way it was, the (Mexican) government doesn't want them to be seen. If the migrants move quietly like a stream of little ants, they'll allow them to, but they are not going to allow them to move through Mexico publicly or massively" as they did with the large caravans that began in October. In fact, Solalinde predicts "they're not going to allow caravans anymore."

In Monday's raid, federal police and agents detained 367 people, wrestling men, women and children into patrol trucks and vans and hauling them off, presumably to begin deportation proceedings. Many other migrants abandoned the road and fled into the surrounding countryside.

The decision to turn to "The Beast" derives from several reasons, all related to the crackdown.

With throngs of police pickups and small immigration vans parked at checkpoints up and down the narrow waist of southern Mexico, hitchhiking, taking buses or walking is no longer an option. Truckers, warned by the government that they could face fines, no longer give rides to the migrants as they did last year. Migrants are pulled off buses, and rounded up off the sides of highways when they stop to rest.

"Now we're going by train because we can't go on buses, because they won't let us through," said Rudi Margarita Montoya, the wife of a Honduran carpenter, who was perched atop a freight car with her young son and daughter and her husband.

It's not as if the migrants think the train is safe; they acknowledge the dangers of riding through the darkness perched high atop the freight cars. Just like increased U.S. border protection, Mexico's increased enforcement efforts push migrants into using more dangerous means of travel.

Carlos Marroquín, a mechanic from El Salvador, and his wife Brenda Gómez, 24, clambered onto the train with their son, 5 and daughter, 10. Marroquin ticked off the dangers facing them on the rails: "There are drug traffickers, gangs, thieves, but we're putting everything into this, because it means everything."

"If we can't walk, if we can't take the bus, we'll go on the train," Marroquin said.

Denis Funes, a migrant from central Honduras whose sun-beaten skin and leathery hands betray his past as a farmworker, says he saw a fellow Honduran knocked off the train the previous night by a low-hanging branch that caught the man in the face and sent him hurtling to the tracks below. Funes and his companions could do nothing to help the man; the train was moving too fast to jump off. "He's still back there somewhere," Funes said. But he remains undeterred. "We're going to rely on the train, despite everything we know that can happen to us."

Gomez and many others were also driven to desperation by another change in Mexican policy. Whereas in late 2018 and early 2019 authorities were handing out humanitarian visas and processing asylum requests, they have now largely stopped doing so, instead making migrants wait weeks in the southern town of Mapastepec for visas that never seem to come.

Gomez said "They lied to us, they made us spend a month at the shelter, they told us they were going to give up papers but they never did."

Enrique Valiente, a 19-year-old roofer from El Salvador who came to the U.S. at 3, spent much of his life in Nevada and was deported last May after a traffic stop. He said Mexico had flatly refused to consider him for asylum. He is afraid to return to his native country — which he knows little about and where he has almost no remaining relatives — because he isn't familiar with complex rules of getting along with street gangs in El Salvador, and could fall afoul of them.

He doesn't even plan to sneak back into the United States; his dream is to use his perfect English to find work at a call center in the border city of Tijuana. But he can't do that without papers.

"I asked them to consider me for asylum and they just said 'No, you've been rejected."

The train was popular for years, back when "caravan" just meant small Holy Week demonstrations by migrants on the Guatemala-Mexico border. Now, the train is popular once again. Solalinde compared it to trying to squeeze off a leaky garden hose: Wherever Mexican authorities crackdown, the migrants find an alternate route.

"Nobody is ever going to be able to stop the flow of migration," Solalinde said.

Source: Fox News World

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Trump adviser Bolton cancels trip to South Korea to focus on Venezuela: spokesman

FILE PHOTO - Trump administration officials announce economic sanctions against Venezuela during press briefing at the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO - U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton arrives to address reporters as the Trump administration announces economic sanctions against Venezuela and the Venezuelan state owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Picture

February 23, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton has canceled plans to travel to South Korea ahead of next week’s summit in Hanoi aimed at addressing North Korea’s nuclear program, Bolton’s spokesman Garrett Marquis said on Friday.

Bolton decided to stay in Washington to focus on events unfolding in Venezuela, where the military faces a pivotal decision on whether to allow in convoys of humanitarian aid, Marquis said.

Bolton is still expected to attend the summit itself, he said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton)

Source: OANN

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

April 26, 2019

By Rupam Jain and Hameed Farzad

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani encouraged newly-elected lawmakers to participate in the peace process with the Taliban as he opened on Friday the first session of parliament since a controversial election.

Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to an assembly known as a loya jirga next week to discuss ways to end the 17-year war.

Several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the four-day assembly in Kabul, saying it was pulled together without their input and is being used by Ghani as he seeks a second term in a September presidential election.

“We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it,” Ghani said in the first session since parliamentary elections marred by technical problems, militant attacks and accusations of voting fraud last year.

“Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament,” he added.

Officials from the United States and the Taliban have held several rounds of talks to end the Afghan war.

U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reported some progress toward an accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks as al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The insurgents have so far rejected U.S. demands for a ceasefire and talks on the country’s political future that would include Afghan government officials.

The loya jirga, a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups, is an attempt by Ghani to influence the peace talks and cement his position for a second term, Afghan politicians and Western diplomats say.

Amid growing political divisions in Kabul, opposition politicians have demanded that Ghani step down when his mandate ends next month, and give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. Ghani has ruled that out.

The country’s top court said last week Ghani can stay in office until the presidential election in September.

(Reporting by Hameed Farzad, Rupam Jain, Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Thursday defended special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation while slamming former President Barack Obama’s administration for being slow to take action on Russian interference in U.S. elections and ex-FBI Director James Comey for telling Congress the agency was investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes,” Rosenstein said in a speech to the Armenian Bar Association, marking his first public remarks after the Mueller report was released, reports CBS News.

He also pointed out that the investigation revealed a pattern of computer hacking and the use of social media to undermine elections as “only the tip of the iceberg of a comprehensive Russian strategy to influence elections, promote social discord, and undermine America, just like they do in many other countries,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration also made “critical decisions,” including choosing not to publicize the full story about Russian hackers and social media trolling, “and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America,” said Rosenstein.

He noted that the Mueller probe began after Comey disclosed during a hearing before Congress that President Donald Trump “pressured him to close the investigation and the president denied that the conversation occurred.”

Rosenstein said two years ago, when he was confirmed, he was told by a Republican senator that he would be in charge of the probe and that he’d report the results to the American people.

However, he said he didn’t promise to do that, because it is “not our job to render conclusive factual findings. We just decide whether it is appropriate to file criminal charges.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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President Trump on Friday said “no money” was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, after reports that the U.S. received a $2 million hospital bill from Pyongyang for the late American prisoner’s care.

“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else. This is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terroist[sic] hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl!” Trump tweeted Friday.

NORTH KOREA GAVE US $2M HOSPITAL BILL OVER CARE OF AMERICAN OTTO WARMBIER, SOURCES SAY

The Washington Post first reported that North Korean authorities insisted the U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier, 21, who was a student of the University of Virginia, sign a pledge to pay the bill before allowing Warmbier’s comatose body to return to the United States. Sources confirmed the bill and the amount to Fox News on Thursday.

Sources told the post that the envoy signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions from the president, but a source told Fox News that the U.S. did not ever pay money to North Korea.

The White House declined to comment when asked on the bill, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders saying in a statement that: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”

Meanwhile, the president added: “’President[sic] Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years. No money was paid.’ Cheif[sic] Hostage Negotiator, USA!”

Warmbier was on tour in North Korea when he allegedly stole a propaganda sign from a hotel. He was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier, for unknown reasons, fell into a coma while in custody and was held in that condition for an additional 17 months.

North Korean officials did not tell American officials until June 2017 that Warmbier had been unconscious the entire time. He died less than a week after he returned to the U.S. North Korean officials, though, have repeatedly denied accusations that Warmbier was tortured, instead claiming that he had suffered from botulism and then slipped into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

AMERICAN PRISONERS HELD IN NORTH KOREA ON THEIR WAY HOME AFTER POMPEO VISIT, TRUMP SAYS

Fred and Cindy Warmbier sued North Korea over their son’s death and in December were awarded $501 million in damages – money that the Hermit Kingdom will probably never pay.

While the Warmbiers blamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump has said he believes Kim’s claims that he did not know about the student’s treatment.

Trump and Kim have met in two separate summits. The most recent, held in February, ended without an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told Fox News: “Otto Warmbier was mistreated by North Korea in so many ways, including his wrongful conviction and harsh sentence, and the fact that for 16 months they refused to tell his family or our country about his dire condition they caused.  No, the United States owes them nothing. They owe the Warmbier family everything.”

Last year, the Trump administration was also able to save three American prisoners held by North Korea. Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song were all detained in North Korea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the three Americans home last May, and said they were all in “good health.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Rich Edson, Nicholas Kalman, and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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