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China’s Huawei makes second attempt at Brazil smartphone market

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

April 18, 2019

By Gabriela Mello

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is making a second attempt at cracking the Brazilian smartphone market, the fourth-largest in the world, with the launch of two high-end handsets this month, after its cheaper offerings failed to catch on earlier in the decade.

The move will take Huawei beyond its current role in Brazil as a supplier of cellular network equipment to challenge Samsung Electronics Co and Lenovo Group’s Motorola brand which dominate the local smartphone market.

“Brazil is a market with very significant opportunities for Huawei and we have a competitive portfolio to satisfy consumers’ expectations,” said Ketrina Dunagan, Huawei’s vice president of marketing for the Americas, in a statement emailed to Reuters.

Huawei’s plans for Brazil underscore the rise of Chinese companies expanding in Latin America’s technology and consumer sectors, moving beyond a traditional focus on commodities and infrastructure.

Brazil is a rare Latin American market where Huawei’s phones are still absent from store shelves. The company currently sells handsets in more than a dozen countries in the region, often with a double-digit market share.

Huawei, the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer, first launched a smartphone in Brazil in 2014, but the Ascend P7 handset met with weak demand and the project was discontinued.

Now, Huawei is planning to import two premium devices from the new P30 Series equipped with high-resolution cameras, the company said, withholding details ahead of the April 30 launch.

“The commercial strategy is completely different this time because the brand is still not well-known by Brazilians,” said a person familiar with the matter, requesting anonymity to speak openly about plans that have not been made public.

Whereas five years ago, Huawei set up as a supplier to mobile carriers, which sell just a tenth of new smartphones in Brazil, this time the company is looking to partner with retail chains that sell more than two-thirds of handsets, the source said.

More cutting-edge models should also help Huawei lure the attention of increasingly sophisticated buyers.

“The Brazilian market has reached a maturity level and manufacturers must bring novelties to convince consumers to replace their smartphones for new ones,” said Renato Meireles, a research analyst at IDC Brasil.

Smartphone sales in Brazil are expected to fall 4.3 percent this year, Meireles added, after a 6.8 percent drop in 2018.

“The first semester is still affected by economic and political turbulences, but sales should improve in the second semester with the arrival of new players”, he said.

(Reporting by Gabriela Mello; Editing by Brad Haynes and Bernadette Baum)

Source: OANN

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Brazil Prez, Trump Band Together to Bash “Fake News”

President Trump and visiting Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took shots at the mainstream media during a state visit at the White House, with both men attacking the “fake news” at a joint press conference.

Bolsonaro, who has often been called “Trump of the Tropics,” is on his inaugural trip to the U.S. since his stunning election win, culminating in today’s highly-anticipated first meeting between the kindred nationalist-populist leaders.

“May I voice my adoration and recognition to President Trump on this beautiful day where we seal a promising alliance between the two most promising and largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere,” Bolsonaro said. “May God bless Brazil and may God bless the United States of America.”

“May I say that Brazil and the United States stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles with respect to God our creator… and against fake news.”

Later in the press conference, President Trump praised his counterpart’s adoption of Trump’s signature ‘fake news’ phrase, asserting that their election wins were made all the more improbable by relentless negative coverage by globalist media.

“The incredible thing is that we can win an election and we have such a stacked deck, and that includes networks, frankly,” Trump said. “You look at the news, you look at the newscasts — I call it ‘fake news.’”

“I’m very proud to hear the President use the term ‘fake news,’” Trump said, gesturing towards Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro also expressed his confidence that President Trump will be reelected in 2020.

“It’s an internal affair, we will respect whatever the ballots tell us on 2020,” Bolsonaro said. “But I do believe Donald Trump is going to be reelected.”



President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and President Trump are meeting today at the White House. Alex delivers commentary on this breaking news.

Dan Lyman:

Source: InfoWars

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GOP Senators Backing Away From Possible DHS Candidate

Senate Republicans are expressing little interest in the possible nomination of Kris Kobach as the next secretary of Homeland Security, The Hill noted.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas said he could not back Kobach, if Trump nominates the former Kansas secretary of state to replace Kirstjen Nielsen as head of the DHS.

“I wouldn’t be able to support him,” Cornyn said on Wednesday. “I think his rhetoric on immigration is very damaging to Republicans and would not help us solve what is a very complex problem, which is going to require some negotiation and compromise.”

Kobach helped draft Arizona’s 2010 immigration law, which required police to demand proof of legal residency from suspect immigrants, The Hill noted. He later served on Trump’s voter fraud panel.

Outside allies of Trump have launched a public campaign urging the president to nominate Kobach. NumberUSA, a group that seeks to reduce immigration rates, released a statement on Tuesday saying there is “no one more qualified” for the job.

And Kobach told the Washington Examiner he would accept the post if nominated by Trump.

"If he wants to have me serve in this capacity, and thinks it would be the best thing for the country, I would certainly do so,” he said.

But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, one of Kobach’s home-state senators, doubted a nomination of Kobach would win Senate approval.

“Don’t go there,” Roberts told The Kansas City Star when asked about Kobach. “We can’t confirm him.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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North Carolina officials probe alleged ballot fraud in U.S. House vote

FILE PHOTO: Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Harris waits to be introduced during a volunteer meeting and rally at the Ardmore Auditorium in Winston-Salem
FILE PHOTO: Mark Harris waits to be introduced during a volunteer meeting and rally at the Ardmore Auditorium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Chris Keane/File Photo

February 19, 2019

By Marti Maguire

RALEIGH, N.C. (Reuters) – North Carolina election officials on Tuesday were to hear a second day of evidence concerning what investigators called a Republican political operative’s scheme to tip a congressional race in his party’s favor with unlawful absentee ballots.

The probe into the disputed Nov. 6 election for the state’s 9th Congressional District seat uncovered a “coordinated, unlawful” and well-funded operation during the competitive race last year, a State Board of Elections official said on Monday as the hearing opened in North Carolina’s capital, Raleigh.

The seat has remained vacant since state officials refused to certify the apparent victory by Republican Mark Harris over Democratic rival Dan McCready by 905 voters out of 282,717 ballots cast. A finding of fraud could trigger a new election.

Kim Strach, executive director of the state elections board, on Monday said Republican operative Leslie McCrae Dowless hired workers to collect absentee ballot requests from voters and then return to retrieve the ballots, in violation of state law.

In some instances, the paid workers falsely signed as witnesses and filled in votes for races left blank at Dowless’ home or office, Strach said.

Strach and witnesses said Dowless instructed those working for him to avoid detection by delivering ballots in small batches to a post office close to the voters and using the same color ink for the voter and false witness signatures.

Dowless declined to testify on Monday after the board said it would deny him immunity.

His lawyer, Cynthia Adams Singletary, said afterward that “he hasn’t done anything wrong.” Harris has said he was unaware of any wrongdoing.

Under state law, the five-member elections board can call a new election if the number of contested votes would sway the original election or if there were doubts about the election’s fairness.

Alternatively, the board could certify Harris as the district’s Congress member, at which point the U.S. House of Representatives would determine whether to seat him.

North Carolina Republicans have pushed for the board to certify Harris, while Democrats want a new election.

If the Democrats pick up the seat, they would widen their 235-197 majority in the House after taking control of the chamber from President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the November election.

(Writing by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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India’s Modi condemns Sri Lanka attacks, says he can defeat the ‘terrorists’

FILE PHOTO - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi listens to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he speaks during their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi
FILE PHOTO - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi listens to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he speaks during their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, February 20, 2019. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

April 21, 2019

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – After condemning the series of deadly bomb attacks on Sri Lankan churches and luxury hotels on Sunday that killed more than 200 people, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told voters that they needed to elect him to a second term as only he can beat the “terrorists” threatening India.

“Should terrorism be finished or not?,” he told an election rally in the western state of Rajasthan. “Who can do this? Can you think of any name aside from Modi? Can anybody else do this?”

Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have promoted the government’s national security record as a vote winner in India’s staggered general election that began on April 11 and will end on May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23.

In particular, Modi’s muscular stance against Pakistan, which New Delhi says backs armed Islamist militant groups, had boosted support for the BJP in a tightening election race where opposition parties have focused on weak jobs growth and low farm incomes.

Tensions between India and Pakistan peaked earlier this year after a February suicide bomb attack in disputed Kashmir that killed 40 Indian paratroopers, and was claimed by an Islamist militant group based in Pakistan. Modi then sent warplanes to Pakistan to bomb a purported training camp, in India’s first such aerial strike since 1971.

Indian officials say that three Indian nationals are known to be among the dead in the Sri Lankan attacks. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

“In our neighboring Sri Lanka, terrorists have played a bloody game. They killed innocent people,” Modi said.

At another rally in Rajasthan on Sunday, Modi again mentioned the attacks in Sri Lanka and said that India, too, continues to suffer because of militants.

“India has now ended its policy of getting scared of Pakistan’s threats,” Modi said, “‘We have a nuclear button, we have a nuclear button’ they used to say.”

“What do we have then?” he said, to cheers from the crowd.

Pakistan has 140 to 150 nuclear warheads, compared with India’s 130-140 warheads, according to estimates from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Both countries have ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Additional reporting by Jose Devasia; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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Trump, Germany’s Merkel discuss trade, NATO funding, Brexit

G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires
U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a meeting during the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

March 22, 2019

PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday to discuss a range of issues including trade and NATO funding, the White House and a senior administration official said.

The phone call took place shortly after Trump began a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

A White House statement said the conversation covered issues including trade, the Brexit debate in Britain, and upcoming meetings. A senior administration official said the conversation also covered funding for the NATO alliance.

Trump has long complained that Germany needs to pay more for the common defense in Europe.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton in Palm Beach, Florida; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Chapecoense mourn death of reporter who survived plane crash

Soccer players of Brazil's Chapecoense Neto, Ruschel and Follman and survivor journalist Henzel, survivors of the team's plane crash, pose during a news conference upon their arrival in Medellin, Colombia
FILE PHOTO - Soccer players of Brazil's Chapecoense (L to R) Helio Neto, Alan Ruschel and Jakson Follman and survivor journalist Rafael Henzel, survivors of the team's plane crash, pose during a news conference upon their arrival in Medellin, Colombia, May 8, 2017. REUTERS/Fredy Builes

March 27, 2019

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Rafael Henzel, a radio reporter who survived the crash that killed most of the Chapecoense soccer team in 2016, died of a heart attack on Tuesday, the Brazilian club said. He was 45.

Globo reported that Henzel collapsed while playing football in the southern city of Chapeco and despite being rushed to hospital he died soon after.

A highly respected figure in the area, Henzel returned to his radio job after recovering from the plane crash.

“Throughout his brilliant career, Rafael told the story of Chapecoense,” the club said on its web site. “He was a symbol of the club’s reconstruction and he will always be remembered in the green and white pages of this institution.”

Henzel was one of six people to survive the crash, which killed 71 of the 77 people on board. The flight was carrying the team to the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final in Medellin when it crashed into a hillside. Three players also survived the crash.

(Reporting by Andrew Downie; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Source: OANN

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Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

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Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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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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Joe Biden may have just stepped into the 2020 ring, but he’s wasted no time in throwing punches at President Trump.

Former Vice President Biden appeared on “The View” Friday in his first interview since officially announcing he is running for the White House on Thursday.

After batting away a softball opening question from host Joy Behar about why he took so long to enter the race, the ex-VP delivered what is likely to be his campaign’s major message.

Asked about the comment in his announcement that a battle is underway for “the soul of this nation,” Biden replied: “What I mean by that is we are not — this is not who we are the way we’re treating people. It’s not who we are as a nation when we’re talking about things like the reason for your problem is the other.

JOE BIDEN’S SENIOR ADVISER IN 2016: ‘WE DON’T NEED WHITE PEOPLE LEADING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RIGHT NOW’

“It really is what I said and I really mean it and I wrote an article at the time in “The Atlantic” magazine when Charlottesville happened. This is not who we are. It’s about decency, honor, including everyone. The idea to compare these racists and not condemn them. Neo-Nazis — I don’t ever remember that happening in an administration in well over 100 years.

“I found myself thinking — by the way I travel around the world a lot as vice president and since then I have as well. The rest of the world — I mean, they look at us like my god — what happened to America?”

Behar then asked Biden how he plans to win over “blue-collar voters, a group that Trump won.”

“By making the case that we have to restore dignity to work. Think about this. The way we treat ordinary hard-working Americans who are middle class and working class people fighting to get in the middle class is we treat them like they’re a means to an end as opposed to an ends to themselves,” Biden said.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG

“Go out. When’s the last time we went out and thanked the guy who kept the sewer from overflowing into your basement. What about the woman up on a bucket reconnecting a connection?

“Think about what we don’t do guys. It’s all been about dividing. There’s a real opportunity, incredible opportunity if we just treat each other with more decency.

“My dad had an expression. He said, ‘Joey, a job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your place in the community, it’s about your place in society and your self-worth. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say it’s going to be okay and mean it.’

“Think about how many people can’t do that today. This president has done nothing to help that group.”

BIDEN VOWS THAT ‘AMERICA IS COMING BACK,’ SPARKING ‘MAGA’ COMPARISONS

Biden’s appearance came after President Trump took a swipe at him in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

“I think we are calling him ‘Sleepy Joe’ ’cause I’ve known him for a while. Is he a pretty sleepy guy? He won’t be able to deal with [Chinese] President Xi, I will tell you. That’s a different level of energy and, frankly, intelligence. So I sort refer to him as ‘Sleepy Joe.’ A lot of people wanted me to change the word ‘sleepy’ to something else that rhymes with it,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “I thought it was too nasty.

“He’s not going to be able to do the job.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Biden officially announced his candidacy in a video Thursday morning, going directly after Trump.

“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Biden said in the video.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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