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Russian activist: Open probe into Jehovah's Witness abuse

A prominent Russian human rights activist is calling on Russia's Investigative Committee to open a criminal case in the alleged abuse of Jehovah's Witnesses adherents by investigators.

The religious denomination, which is banned in Russia, says seven of its believers were beaten, shocked and suffocated during interrogation in February at the Investigative Committee office in the city of Surgut.

The committee's regional office on Wednesday denied that the injuries were inflicted during interrogation.

Lev Ponomarev, head of the For Human Rights organization, told a news conference Thursday that he would push for a criminal case.

The religion's headquarters in the United States meanwhile said that police have raided the homes of Russian members this week in the cities of Chelyabinsk and Kirov.

Source: Fox News World

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Banning Huawei from 5G would cause difficulties: T-Mobile Polska CEO

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Huawei Technologies is pictured in front of the German headquarters of the Chinese telecommunications giant in Duesseldorf
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Huawei Technologies is pictured in front of the German headquarters of the Chinese telecommunications giant in Duesseldorf, Germany, February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo

February 21, 2019

WARSAW (Reuters) – If Poland excludes Chinese tech giant Huawei from 5G development it would cause difficulties and possibly delay the network rollout, the chief executive of the Polish unit of T-Mobile said on Thursday.

“If you exclude a market leader, and Huawei is a market leader in new technology, and knowing that you have almost all operators having Huawei equipment, this will bring some difficulties, this is clear. This could end up in a delay,” Andreas Maierhofer, CEO of T-Mobile Polska, told a news conference.

The Polish government is considering excluding Huawei equipment from its future 5G network over concerns first raised in the United States that Huawei technology could be equipped with back doors to allow access by the Chinese government, sources told Reuters in January. Huawei denies allegations that its technology could be used for spying.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish; writing by Agnieszka Barteczko; editing by Jason Neely)

Source: OANN

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Thousands march in Spain to demand more help for rural areas

Thousands of Spaniards are marching in Madrid to demand that the government take steps to curb the depopulation of rural areas.

Sunday's march under the slogan "The Revolt of the Emptied Spain" was organized by grassroots groups from rural areas in the southern European Union nation.

In Spain, 90% of the population is now concentrated in 30% of the country's territory, namely in Madrid and the coastal areas. That leaves 10% of its people spread over large swaths of the interior.

On Friday, the government announced measures to improve internet networks in the countryside.

The march comes before Spain's April 28 general election, when rural areas could play a key role in deciding if the Socialists stay in power. Spanish election law gives more weight to underpopulated areas.

Source: Fox News World

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Hong Kong Airlines power struggle deepens amid allegations head office ‘stormed’

FILE PHOTO: A Hong Kong Airlines Airbus A330 passenger plane taxies on the tarmac at the Hong Kong Airport
FILE PHOTO: A Hong Kong Airlines Airbus A330-300 passenger plane taxies on the tarmac at the Hong Kong Airport September 11, 2013. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 18, 2019

By Julie Zhu and Kane Wu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A power struggle at Hong Kong Airlines (HKA) intensified on Thursday as a group of shareholders accused a rival group representing indebted Chinese conglomerate HNA of storming the troubled airline’s head office and taking away documents.

Both groups also again staked claim to the chairmanship of the carrier.

Former HKA director Zhong Guosong and Chinese private equity firm Frontier Investment Partner, who together control about 61 percent of the airline, said in a statement that “HNA Group representatives stormed” the carrier’s office early on Thursday morning.

“It is believed that HKA’s key financial information and hard disks were taken away or destroyed, with the specific losses still unknown,” they said, adding the move took place in spite of an agreement between the two sides reached late on Wednesday to not remove documents.

However, HKA said via a spokesman: “No one broke into our headquarters or took away any company document this morning.”

HNA, which holds about 29 percent of HKA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Around eight security guards were visible in the lift lobby outside HKA’s head office, and in reception, when Reuters visited on Thursday afternoon. They declined to say who they worked for.

Multiple HKA staff approached by Reuters outside the head office declined to comment. Two, however, said that “all is normal” at the airline.

In a statement, HKA said: “The recent dispute among the company’s shareholders has seriously disrupted the order and operation of our office. As a result, we had to hire third-party security personnel and lawyers to assist us in dealing with the situation.”

The power struggle first went public on Tuesday when Frontier and Zhong, who hold 34 and 27 percent of HKA, respectively, said they had held an extraordinary shareholder meeting where they removed the existing directors and installed Zhong, already chairman of sister airline Hong Kong Express, as chairman.

This was disputed on Wednesday by Hou Wei, who is still listed on HKA’s website as chairman and who said in a memo to staff that he was still in charge of the airline.

Hou joined Hong Kong Airlines in September last year following more than four years with HNA’s Hainan Airlines, according to his LinkedIn profile. Hainan Airlines is China’s fourth largest carrier.

The fight comes as HKA is struggling to survive. Earlier this month, executives warned shareholders the company needed at least HK$2 billion ($255 million) or risk losing its operating license – and that it swung to a loss of about HK$3 billion last year.

Zhong and Frontier representatives at that meeting, however, demanded details of the 2018 accounts and questioned the close ties between HKA and HNA, which cut its controlling stake in the Hong Kong carrier in 2017.

Zhong and Frontier said on Thursday that the two sides had agreed that security personnel appointed by them could remain in the offices to safeguard documents and that executives promised to not destroy or remove information or data, or remove it from the office.

The two shareholders, who maintained that Zhong is chairman, added that they were “fully committed to exercising every possible legal means they have to act” to protect the interests of the airline’s employees, customers and business partners.

(Reporting by Julie Zhu, Kane Wu, Alun John and Shellin Li; Additional reporting by Jennifer Hughes; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

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30 Inches Of Snow! Another Bomb Cyclone “Detonates” Over The Midwest, And The NOAA Is Warning Flooding Could Extend Into July

We aren’t supposed to have a major blizzard in April. 

Less than a month after a “bomb cyclone” caused apocalyptic flooding in the central part of the country, another “bomb cyclone” is hitting the exact same area.  One meteorologist has called it “a life-threatening storm”, and at this moment over four million people are under blizzard warnings.  South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas are going to get absolutely hammered before the storm finally moves east on Friday.  The authorities are warning that this new “bomb cyclone” will cause additional flooding in the region, but at this point we do not know how bad that flooding will be.

The good news is that the ground has been softened up by warmer weather since the last “bomb cyclone”, and that should mean that more of the moisture is absorbed before it flows into the major rivers.

But the bad news is that we are being told that this storm “could break records”.  The following comes from the Daily Mail

A historic blizzard that could break records for April has hit the Great Plains and Upper Midwest.

Parts of six states were under blizzard warnings on Wednesday, in an area that included Denver; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Scottsbluff, Nebraska; and Pierre, South Dakota.

Early on Wednesday morning, thundersnow was reported in Pierre and surrounding parts of South Dakota, as well as southern Minnesota.

When meteorologists call this a “blizzard”, they aren’t exaggerating one bit.


Mike Adams breaks down how hospital ventilation systems across American and the world are pumping out a deadly superbug, right into the open atmosphere, where winds carry it to local communities and farms, infecting crops and foods with chemical-resistant fungal strains that have a reported 41% – 88% fatality rate in humans.

Some of the snowfall totals that are being forecast seem absolutely crazy.  According to CNN, some parts of the Midwest could actually get more than 30 inches of snow…

The Plains could get more than 2 feet of snow by Friday morning, and South Dakota could be the hardest hit, with more than 30 inches possible. High winds are making travel even more treacherous.

“Travel will be very difficult to impossible” Wednesday evening into Friday morning, a National Weather Service office in Nebraska said, using language nearly mirrored by offices throughout the region.

Needless to say, 30 inches of snow has the potential to cause a tremendous amount of flooding, especially since it is expected to melt very rapidly.

By noon on Wednesday, some portions of South Dakota had already received 18 inches of snow, and authorities in Minnesota had already responded to 213 auto accidents by Wednesday evening.

If you live in the areas affected by this blizzard, please do not go out unless it is absolutely necessary.

In case you are wondering, yes, this is incredibly unusual.

As CNN has noted, it is quite rare for a “bomb cyclone” to form over the middle part of the United States…

This one comes about four weeks after a similarly powerful system dumped heavy snow and rain on some of the same territory, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in livestock and crop damage in Nebraska alone, largely through flooding.

It’s rare enough to have one form inland, much less two in a month. More typically, bomb cyclones form off the US East Coast in the form of nor’easters.

So the fact that we have now had two in less than a month should tell you that something is up.

As I have repeatedly stressed, our planet is becoming increasingly unstable and global weather patterns are dramatically changing.

What we have seen so far is not the end of the story.  Rather, the truth is that we are only in the early chapters of a cataclysmic shift, and there isn’t anything that anyone can do to stop it.

In recent weeks I have written multiple articles about the historic flooding that we have witnessed so far in the middle of the nation.  The damage that we have seen up to this point has been absolutely unprecedented, and needless to say this new storm is going to make things even worse

The coming storm was expected to exacerbate flooding along the Missouri River in areas where dozens of levees were breached in March, exposing communities to future surges.

The river was not expected to crest in areas of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri until between three to five days after the storm.

Since the major rivers are not going to crest for several days, it is probably going to be about a week before we really know how much damage this new storm has caused.

And even once we get past the immediate threat posed by this storm, the truth is that this crisis is very far from over.

The National Weather Service has warned us that there will be “above-average precipitation across much of the Lower 48” for the next few months, and the NOAA just told us that flooding “will continue to be an issue along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers into July”.

Into July?

Seriously?

We are watching a great tragedy unfold in our nation’s breadbasket, and we should all be praying for the thousands of farmers in the middle of the country that have been financially ruined by all of this flooding.  Thousands upon thousands of them will not be able to plant crops at all this year, and many of them will end up leaving the profession for good.

This will affect the level of food production in the United States this year, and this comes at a time when other threats to global food production are becoming extremely serious.  To get an idea of what I am talking about, please see my previous article entitled “Hundreds Of Millions Of Pigs Feared Dead From Swine Fever – Price Of Pork Has Risen 38 Percent In The Last 4 Weeks”.

Unfortunately, it appears that the general population does not understand the gravity of the situation that we are facing yet.

Global events are starting to greatly accelerate, and “the perfect storm” is just beginning…

Source: InfoWars

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Cycling: Hurts to think of tragic Catlin’s pain, says rival Archibald

FILE PHOTO: 2018 European Championships - Glasgow
2018 European Championships - Track Cycling, Women's Omnium, Elimination Race - Emirates Arena, Glasgow, Britain - August 6, 2018 - Katie Archibald of Great Britain reacts after winning the race. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne

March 15, 2019

By Martyn Herman

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Olympic, world and European track cycling champion Katie Archibald says the suicide this month of American rival Kelly Catlin has hit her hard.

The 23-year-old Catlin, also a world champion, was part of the American team pursuit quartet beaten to Olympic gold in Rio in 2016 by a British squad featuring Scotland’s Archibald.

Catlin, likely to have been part of the U.S team to challenge Britain’s crown in Tokyo next year, was found dead this month in her apartment at Stanford University.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Archibald, who celebrated her 25th birthday this week, told Reuters in an interview on Friday. “It hurts me to think about the pain that she must have been hiding.

“That’s what has kept in my mind these past few days. It’s left a heavy feeling in your chest, in your stomach. It’s really horrible to imagine what Kelly was carrying around.”

Archibald said the shock was greater because she had always seen Catlin as someone who “walked with her head high”.

“She was an exceptional athlete, an exceptional talent,” she said. “Watching her in track center she always did stand out.”

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper this week Catlin’s father Mark questioned whether a concussion his daughter suffered two months before her death had contributed in any way to her mood.

“She had I think problems with reasoning, kind of befuddled,” he said. “She had changed and it was tough to see and it was a concern to us.”

Archibald suffered concussion after a crash in the omnium at the recent world championships in Poland.

STRICTER PROTOCOLS

She said protocols around head injuries to riders had improved in British Cycling.

“The contrast between having a crash five years ago and having a crash now with the check-ups and the procedures you go through, they are really a lot stricter,” she said.

“But it does scare you to think that a crash could not just take you out of your sport, but also take you out of yourself.”

While the reasons behind Catlin’s suicide are not known, the death of an elite Olympic athlete in the prime of her career has again shone the light on the pressure placed on the shoulders of young sportsmen and women.

A UK Sport review into the governance of British Cycling’s elite program, published in 2017, highlighted concerns such as fear, intimidation and bullying.

British Cycling implemented an Action Plan to address 39 areas of concern, including “athlete whole-life development and welfare”.

Archibald, who only took up cycling seriously aged 17, says while there is work to be done UK Sport and British Cycling are “pretty engaged” on athlete welfare.

“There is more sympathy for being human and having struggles,” she said. “There’s more focus now to who you are outside of sport, an identity that isn’t attached solely to performance. That’s an important part of mental health.

“Maybe less stigma too about acting as an individual. I never agreed with the idea that there is only one personality type that can be an Olympic champion. You don’t have to be devoid of emotion.”

After a tough time at the worlds which left her “waking up unhappy”, Archibald is looking forward to letting her hair down at this month’s Six Day event at the Manchester velodrome.

Starting on March 22 it boasts an international-quality field competing across a range of track disciplines with the lights turned down and the music turned up.

“Go out, race hard, and not stress if it doesn’t work out. It’s like no other event,” Archibald, who will be joined by Britain’s golden couple Jason and Laura Kenny, said.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Davis)

Source: OANN

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Spring training roundup: Boston’s Sale pitches five shutout innings

MLB: Spring Training-St. Louis Cardinals at Washington Nationals
Mar 23, 2019; West Palm Beach, FL, USA; St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas (39) connects for a two run homer against the Washington Nationals during a spring training game at FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

March 24, 2019

Boston left-hander Chris Sale pitched five shutout innings on Saturday shortly after his rich contract extension was formally announced as the Red Sox rolled to a 12-3 victory over the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates at Fort Myers, Fla.

Sale, who received a five-year, $145 million deal, was sharp while striking out six in five innings. He gave up two hits and walked one before departing.

Jantzen Witte and Chris Madera drove in two runs for Boston, which collected 15 hits. Ke’Bryan Hayes slugged a three-run homer over the center field fence for the Pirates.

Cardinals 4, Nationals 4

Pitcher Miles Mikolas hit a two-run homer off fellow right-hander Stephen Strasburg to help visiting St. Louis tie Washington at West Palm Beach, Fla. Anthony Rendon and Matt Adams homered for Washington.

Tigers 8, Rays 7

Cameron Rupp lined the decisive two-run double with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Miguel Cabrera homered earlier as Detroit edged Tampa Bay at Lakeland, Fla. Tommy Pham and Ji-Man Choi smacked homers for the Rays.

Pirates (ss) 5, Phillies 3

Oneil Cruz hit a tiebreaking homer in the fifth inning and Corey Dickerson slugged a two-run blast as host Pittsburgh defeated Philadelphia at Bradenton, Fla. Phil Gosselin homered for the Phillies.

Mets 12, Braves 2

Amed Rosario went 3-for-5 with three RBIs and right-hander Jacob deGrom struck out five in three perfect innings as New York routed host Atlanta at Kissimmee, Fla. Ronald Acuna Jr. and Andy Wilkins hit solo blasts for the Braves.

Blue Jays 7, Yankees 3

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. went 3-for-3 with a homer to help Toronto down host New York at Tampa, Fla. Gleyber Torres slugged a three-run homer for the Yankees.

White Sox 5, Dodgers 1

Eloy Jimenez went 3-for-3 with a homer and Yoan Moncada also went deep as visiting Chicago beat Los Angeles at Glendale, Ariz. Chris Taylor homered for the Dodgers.

Padres 11, Angels 4

Francisco Mejia drove in three runs and Wil Myers hit one of San Diego’s four homers as the host Padres cruised past Los Angeles at Peoria, Ariz. Justin Bour and Dustin Garneau homered for Los Angeles.

Giants 3, Diamondbacks 2

Alen Hanson hit the tiebreaking solo shot in the bottom of the seventh inning as San Francisco edged Arizona at Scottsdale, Ariz. David Peralta homered for the Diamondbacks.

Indians 8, Reds 5

Kevin Plawecki went 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs as Cleveland defeated host Cincinnati at Goodyear, Ariz. Jesse Winker and Jose Iglesias each homered twice for Cincinnati.

Royals (ss) 6, Brewers 4

Terrance Gore hit a tiebreaking two-run triple in the top of the ninth inning to give Kansas City the win over Milwaukee at Phoenix. Christian Yelich and Travis Shaw each hit two-run blasts for Milwaukee.

Brewers (ss) 7, Rangers 3

Ben Gamel hit a two-run homer to help Milwaukee defeat host Texas at Surprise, Ariz. Yohel Pozo had a two-run double for Texas.

–Field Level Media

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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