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Explainer: Egypt votes on changing its constitution

An Egyptian man walks in front of a school used as a polling station covered from outside by Egyptian flags, during the preparations for the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments in Cairo
An Egyptian man walks in front of a school used as a polling station covered from outside by Egyptian flags, during the preparations for the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments in Cairo, Egypt April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

April 19, 2019

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt holds a three-day referendum from Saturday on constitutional amendments that could allow President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to stay in office until 2030.

Parliament this week overwhelmingly approved the proposals, which would also bolster the role of the military and expand the president’s power over judicial appointments.

Supporters argue that Sisi has stabilized Egypt and needs more time to complete crucial economic reforms. Critics say they fear that the changes will further limit the space for dissent after a wide-ranging security crackdown.

WHAT ARE THE KEY CHANGES?

An amendment to Article 140 of the constitution extends the presidential term to six years from four. An outright bar on any president serving more than two terms will change to a bar on serving more than two consecutive terms.

An additional clause extends Sisi’s current term to six years from four currently since his election victory in 2018, and allows him to run for a third term in 2024.

The amendments provide for the creation of a second parliamentary chamber known as the Council of Senators. It would have 180 members, two-thirds elected by the public and the rest appointed by the president.

Article 200 of the constitution on the role of the military is expanded, giving the military a duty to protect “the constitution and democracy and the fundamental make-up of the country and its civil nature, the gains of the people and the rights and freedoms of individuals”.

The amendments also create the post of vice president, allowing the president to appoint one or more deputies. They task the president with choosing head judges and the public prosecutor from a pool of senior candidates pre-selected by the judiciary.

They further create a quota setting women’s representation in parliament at a minimum of 25 percent.

WHO IS BEHIND THE AMENDMENTS?

The amendments were initiated by the pro-government parliamentary bloc known as Support Egypt, and according to the parliament’s legislative committee report, 155 members submitted the initial proposal.

On Tuesday, 531 out of 596 members of Egypt’s overwhelmingly pro-Sisi parliament voted in favor of the changes.

Parliament speaker Ali Abdelaal has said that the amendments were a parliamentary initiative and that Sisi may not even choose to run again.

“This suggestion came from the representatives of the people in gratitude for the historic role played by the president,” the legislative committee report said.

Proponents of the changes have argued that Sisi, a former army chief, came to power with a huge mandate after mass protests in 2013 against Islamist President Mohamed Mursi’s one year in office. With macro economic indicators improving, they say Sisi deserves more time to build on reforms.

The legislative committee report said religious, academic, political and civil society representatives expressed strong overall support for the changes during a consultation period ahead of the parliament’s final vote.

WHAT DO OPPONENTS SAY?

The legislative committee acknowledged some opposition to the amendments from members of the judiciary and two non-governmental organizations.

Just 22 members of parliament voted against the amendments.

They and other opposition figures say a central promise of the 2011 uprising that toppled then-President Hosni Mubarak is at risk: the principle of the peaceful transfer of power.

They say the amendments were driven by Sisi and his close entourage, and by the powerful security and intelligence agencies.

They also fear the changes thrust the armed forces into political life by formally assigning them a role in protecting democracy.

“If you want your children and grandchildren to live in a modern democratic country with peaceful transition of power, I do not think this is the amendment we would want,” one of the opposition MPs, Haitham el-Hariri, told parliament this week.

While Abdelaal said a wide range of views were given a hearing during the consultation period, opposition figures and activists say genuine debate on the amendments was impossible due to a far-reaching crackdown on political dissent.

Egyptian officials deny silencing dissent and say that Egyptians from all walks of life were given a chance to debate the amendments, adding that all views were factored into the final proposals.

Abdelaal also denied that the amendments prescribe a new role for the military. He told parliament that the armed forces are the backbone of the country and Egypt is “neither a military or a religious state,” state-run Al Ahram newspaper said.

“This is part of (Sisi’s) consolidation of power,” said Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent U.S.-based think-tank. “From an institutional perspective, Egypt’s counter-revolution is largely complete.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Egyptians abroad start voting on Friday, while the vote inside Egypt begins on Saturday, meaning Egyptians have less than four days to read and discuss the changes following their approval by parliament.

Election commissioner Lasheen Ibrahim, who announced the dates of the referendum on Wednesday, did not say when the votes will be counted or the results announced.

More than a week before parliament’s final vote, posters and banners sprung up across the capital Cairo urging people to “do the right thing” and participate, some calling directly for a “yes” vote.

(Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Spring training roundup: Athletics rally to defeat Padres

FILE PHOTO: MLB: Spring Training-Oakland Athletics at Seattle Mariners
FILE PHOTO: Feb 22, 2019; Peoria, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics shortstop Chad Pinder (18) flips his bat after drawing a walk in the second inning against the Seattle Mariners during the second inning at Peoria Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

March 9, 2019

Greg Deichmann hit a two-run home run to cap a four-run bottom of the eighth inning as the Oakland Athletics rallied for a 6-5 victory over the San Diego Padres on Friday at Mesa, Ariz.

Chad Pinder delivered a run-scoring double and Austin Beck plated another run on an infield single before Deichmann swatted a 2-0 pitch from Padres right-hander Luis Perdomo over the wall in right field.

Hunter Renfroe went 2-for-3 with three RBIs for the Padres. Renfroe’s two-run double in the fifth gave San Diego a 5-0 lead before Oakland began its comeback with Josh Phegley’s two-run blast in the seventh.

Rockies 11, Rangers 10

Peter Mooney recorded the tying double in the bottom of the ninth and Colton Welker stroked the winning two-out single as Colorado rallied to beat Texas at Scottsdale, Ariz. Elvis Andrus hit a grand slam to help the Rangers build a 7-0 lead.

White Sox 15, Angels 8

Yonder Alonso went 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs and Jon Jay went 3-for-4 with two RBIs as Chicago defeated Los Angeles at Tempe, Ariz. Albert Pujols had a run-scoring single for his second RBI of the spring for the Angels.

Marlins 10, Mets 3

Neil Walker went 3-for-3 with two homers and four RBIs as Miami rolled past host New York at Port St. Lucie, Fla. The Mets’ Robinson Cano hit his first homer of the spring while reaching base three times on two hits and a walk.

Brewers 6, Diamondbacks 3

Travis Shaw homered twice and drove in three runs as Milwaukee knocked off Arizona at Phoenix, Ariz. Andy Young and Wyatt Mathisen both went deep for the Diamondbacks.

Cardinals 3, Nationals 2

Matt Wieters had two hits and one RBI as St. Louis edged visiting Washington at Jupiter, Fla. Matt Adams and Jake Noll homered for the Nationals.

Blue Jays (ss) 5, Pirates (ss) 2

Right-hander Marcus Stroman gave up one hit over four shutout innings as the Blue Jays downed Pittsburgh at Dunedin, Fla. Freddy Galvis and Brandon Drury homered for Toronto, while Oneil Cruz went deep for the Pirates.

Royals 8, Reds 3

Alex Gordon and Khalil Lee had two RBIs apiece as host Kansas City cruised past Cincinnati at Surprise, Ariz. Jose Peraza smacked a two-run homer for the Reds.

Blue Jays (ss) 11, Pirates (ss) 0

Anthony Alford homered twice and Bo Bichette, Jonathan Davis and Billy McKinney each added solo shots as Toronto routed host Pittsburgh at Bradenton, Fla. The Pirates had three hits, all singles.

Orioles 4, Red Sox 2

Renato Nunez homered and Hanser Alberto lined the go-ahead double in the sixth inning as host Baltimore defeated Boston at Sarasota, Fla. The Red Sox had just two hits.

Rays 5, Twins 5

Ji-Man Choi, Willy Adames and Jake Smolinski each homered as Tampa Bay and host Minnesota played to a draw at Fort Myers, Fla. Tyler Austin went 3-for-3 for the Twins.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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NY Times: Dems Score Minority, Millennial Votes on Pot Push

Democrats have effectively connected legalized marijuana to social justice, uniting on those platforms for 2020 to pull in millennial and African-American voters, The New York Times reported.

"A Democrat who is not on board with legalization or addressing it in terms of repairing harms brought by prohibition for decades is going to have a tough time convincing any voter they're serious about racial justice," executive director of the Center on Race, Inequality and the Law at New York University Law School Vincent M. Southerland told the Times.

As polling shows a rapid increase in support for legalization, it proves to be "catnip" for Democrats to rally a wide swath of votes against social conservatives, according to the Times.

Also, legalization has stopped being merely supported white Americans.

"Over the last 15 to 20 years, African-Americans have switched to favor legalization," Carnegie Mellon University professor Jonathan Caulkins told the Times.

Among the legalization proponents and social justice political reformists, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has introduced the Marijuana Justice Act to legalize the drug nationwide and expunge past convictions.

"It's not enough to legalize marijuana at the federal level — we should also help those who have suffered due to its prohibition," Sen. Booker tweeted.

Many in the 2020 Democratic primary field have signed on as sponsors of his bill, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke also endorsed federal legalization, per the report.

"I say this as the father of a middle school student, where middle schools are one of the fastest growing markets for marijuana sales today: In the black market, they do not ID — they do not care — as long as they can make that sale," O'Rourke said Thursday in an appearance in Iowa, the famed opener for presidential primaries.

Now, former Vice President Joe Biden, once a leader in the '90's "war on drugs" faces his position on modern legalization as "his biggest liability in the 2020 primary," according to John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution to the Times.

"In 1994, Biden had a fairly mainstream position, but in 2020 that position is so far from the mainstream of Democratic politics that it is almost offensive," Hudak told the Times.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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3 Chinese Runners Banned Over Boston Marathon Cheating Allegations

Three Chinese runners received lifetime bans from competing in official races in their home country over allegations that they cheated in the recent Boston Marathon.

According to Xinhua news, two of the runners applied to race Boston, which occurred on April 15, with falsified qualification documents. The other runner is accused of giving his Boston bib to someone else.

Moving forward, neither of the three runners will be allowed to race in a Chinese Athletics Association (CAA) event.

The Boston Globe reported that 620 Chinese citizens entered Boston. Five hundred thirty-seven competed on race day, with all but three of them finishing.

"Although the recent cheating allegations are a disappointment, we are highly confident that the vast majority of the field works hard, trains through all conditions, and brings integrity and good sportsmanship to our course," the Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the marathon, told the Globe.

The Globe listed the three aforementioned runners' names as Wu Zhaofeng, Zhao Baoying, and Zhang Jianhua.

Source: NewsMax America

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Turkey's Erdogan renews verbal attack against Israel

The war of words between Turkey and Israel continued Friday when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rebuked the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for suggesting that Istanbul — formerly Constantinople — was under Turkish occupation.

The Turkish and Israeli leaders have been trading barbs this week, with Netanyahu calling Erdogan a "dictator" and criticizing the imprisonment of scores of journalists in Turkey. Erdogan brandished the Israeli leader a "thief" and a "tyrant" in reference to corruption allegations and Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

Netanyahu's son, Yair Netanyahu, jumped into the fray, tweeting this week that Istanbul "is actually a city called Constantinople! The capital of the Byzantine empire and center of orthodox Christianity for more than a thousand years before Turkish occupation!"

Erdogan hit back at Yair Netanyahu calling him "immoral" at an election rally.

"You occupied the whole of Palestine!" he said. "If the world is looking for a country that oppresses, it's Israel. If they are searching for a terror state that too is Israel."

Israel and Turkey were once close allies, but diplomatic relations between the two have soured in the past decade. Under Erdogan, Turkey has become a vocal critic of Israeli policies dealing with Palestinians, sparking frequent verbal feuds with Netanyahu.

Interviewed on Turkey's Haberturk television on Thursday, Erdogan said Benjamin Netanyahu was "walking around with this stain" of corruption. Erdogan also accused Israel of jailing 10,000 Palestinian women and children and of disrespecting holy sites in Jerusalem.

The latest exchange of words started Tuesday when Erdogan's spokesman called Netanyahu a racist for saying Israel was the nation-state only of the Jewish people.

Source: Fox News World

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Norwegian airline seeks compensation from Boeing after grounding 737 Max 8s

Norwegian Air Shuttles says it will seek compensation from aircraft maker Boeing after the low-cost carrier grounded its fleet of 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

Carrier spokeswoman Tonje Naess told The Associated Press Wednesday that the Oslo-based airline "should not have any financial burden for a brand new aircraft that will not to be used."

On Tuesday, Norwegian Air Shuttles grounded its 18 Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft on recommendation from European aviation authorities after Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash in which 157 people were killed.

An Ethiopian Airlines spokesman says the "black box" from the crashed Boeing jet will be sent overseas for analysis but no country has been chosen.

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS' UNIONS URGE US CARRIERS TO GROUND BOEING 737 MAX 8 AIRCRAFTS

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Asrat Begashaw says the airline has not decided where to send the data and voice records of the flight's last moments.

He says that "we have a range of options. What we can say is we don't have the capability to probe it here in Ethiopia."

The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff Sunday, killing all 157 people on board. The disaster is the second with a Max 8 plane in just five months and has set off a wave of groundings of the planes around the world.

Hong Kong will ban the operation of all Boeing 737 Max aircraft "into, out of and over" the key Asian aviation hub beginning at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The announcement from the Civil Aviation Department cited the crash of two of the planes within less than five months and said the ban would continue "until further notice."

The statement said: "The CAD has been closely monitoring the developments, the investigation progress and the information from relevant aviation authorities."

MULTIPLE COUNTRIES GROUND BOEING 737 MAX JETS AFTER ETHIOPIAN CRASH; FAA SAYS PLANES CAN STILL BE OPERATED

It said the CAD had noted that the U.S. Federation Aviation Administration has affirmed the planes' airworthiness and that investigations were ongoing.

It said the department has been in close contact with the FAA and other the relevant organizations, including the two airlines, SpiceJet of India and Russia's Globus Airlines, that use the aircraft to operate flights into and out of Hong Kong International Airport.

Much of the world, including the entire European Union, grounded the Boeing jetliner involved in the Ethiopian Airlines crash or banned it from their airspace, leaving the United States as one of the few remaining operators of the plane involved in two deadly accidents in five months.

The European Aviation Safety Agency took steps to keep the Boeing 737 Max 8 out of the air, joining Asian and Middle Eastern governments and carriers that also had safety concerns in the aftermath of Sunday's crash, which killed all 157 people on board.

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Referring to the Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people last year, European regulators said Tuesday that "similar causes may have contributed to both events."

British regulators indicated possible trouble with a reportedly damaged flight data recorder.

Source: Fox News World

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‘Erasing the poor’: Pakistanis feel crunch of rising prices

Vendor arranges different types of rice at his shop in a wholesale market in Karachi
A vendor arranges different types of rice, with their prices displayed, at his shop in a wholesale market in Karachi, Pakistan April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

April 4, 2019

By Saad Sayeed and Syed Raza Hassan

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI (Reuters) – Pakistan’s surging petrol prices have more than halved the income of taxi driver Yasir Sultan, just one of many consumers whose faith in a government elected last year on a pledge to help the poor has been shattered.

Inflation at its highest in more than five years has shocked many Pakistanis who voted for Prime Minister Imran Khan and his promise to eradicate poverty, create jobs and build an Islamic welfare state.

“Imran Khan has said big things about getting rid of poverty, but he isn’t erasing poverty. He is erasing the poor,” Sultan, 30, told Reuters.

“Sometimes I think I should set this taxi on fire,” he said from behind the wheel of his rundown 1980s-era Suzuki Mehran.

Wrestling with a ballooning current account deficit as it seeks a 13th bailout package from the International Monetary Fund, the government has a hard choice – impose pain now or face a balance of payments crisis that could crash the economy.

Foreign reserves of $8.5 billion are better than the start of the year, but barely cover two months’ worth of imports.

“Demand compression is part of stabilization to bring down current account and trade deficits,” said Asad Sayeed, an economist at the Collective for Social Science Research.

Inflation was over 9.4 percent in March, its highest since November 2013, with strong increases in food and energy, the two most sensitive items for most consumers.

The central bank forecasts growth at 3.5-4 percent in the 12 months to end June, well off a government target of 6.2 percent.

With a large pool of surplus labor keeping wage rises in check, living standards will suffer, Sayeed said.

“I voted for PTI believing in Khan’s slogan for the change. Now, I am repenting,” said Sara Salman in the bustling eastern city of Lahore, referring to the prime minister’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

With the rupee losing over a quarter of its value in the past year, the squeeze is acute in the creaking power sector where the government is under pressure to cut subsidies cushioning consumers against sharp price hikes.

Authorities on Monday hiked petrol prices by 6 rupees to 98.88 rupees ($0.70) a liter, bringing pain to skilled workers who earn 1,000-1,300 rupees ($7.08-9.20) a day and laborers who make up to 600-800 rupees.

The price hikes will keep consumers away from all but essential items, economists say.

“The fiscal trajectory now depends on what extent the government is going to adjust energy prices,” said Saad Hashmey, chief economist at Topline Securities, adding it has to fix the energy deficit and bring earnings in line with production costs.

“If they are to go the full extent they need to plug the gap, then inflation in a few months will go into double digits,” he said.

FRIENDLY COUNTRIES

Finance Minister Asad Umer has said an IMF deal could be agreed by May, its 13th bailout since the late 1980s and the last one needed by Pakistan, the government says.

While talks continue, Pakistan has sought help from China, its partner in the $60-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of Beijing’s vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also extended about $11 billion in loans and credit arrangements on oil deliveries in recent months.

The government says it is stepping up efforts to replace imports with domestic production and build up an export sector that has traditionally relied on textiles with special economic zones designed to attract new investment.

It is also trying to widen the tax net to boost collections, but has struggled on both fronts.

Rising oil prices and a currency devaluation “were bound to happen”, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said this week, adding, “God willing, a better time will be coming.”     

For a government that promised an “Islamic welfare state” focused on uplifting the poor, the forecast is uncomfortably vague, observers say.

“They have to undertake a very painful economic adjustment,” said Khurram Hussain, business editor of Pakistan’s Dawn Newspaper. That means higher taxes and interest rates, lower imports and government spending, and a devalued rupee, he said.

“In that environment it is extremely difficult to deliver on welfare oriented promises,” Hussain said.

While economists believe Pakistan has no choice but to cut spending and raise prices, consumers’ patience is wearing thin.

“The current financial policies and price-hike shows contempt for the people,” said Muhammad Waqas, a Lahore school teacher. “If the PTI government cannot resolve these problems, it should step down.”

(Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Writing by Saad Sayeed; Editing by James Mackenzie and Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf – Masters – Augusta National Golf Club – Augusta, Georgia, U.S. – April 14, 2019 – Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

April 26, 2019

Tiger Woods is sending a message that he thinks he still has enough left, emotionally and physically, to win three more major championships to tie Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 titles.

Speaking to GolfTV in his first sit-down interview since the Masters, Woods said he has taken some time off since his victory at Augusta National, which still doesn’t feel real.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Woods said. “I was texting one of my good friends last night … that I couldn’t believe that I won the tournament. That it really hasn’t sunk in. I haven’t started doing anything. I’ve just been laying there. And every now and again, I’ll look over there on the couch and there’s the jacket.”

That’s the fifth green jacket for the 43-year-old Woods, who hadn’t won a major tournament since the 2008 U.S. Open. Along the way, four back surgeries, a divorce and other personal issues derailed him.

He said he has been spending time with his children – daughter Sam, 11, and son Charlie, 10 – who weren’t born when their father was the most dominant golfer on the planet.

“They never knew golf to be a good thing in my life and only the only thing they remember is that it brought this incredible amount of pain to their dad and they don’t want to ever want to see their dad in pain,” Woods said. “And so to now have them see this side of it, the side that I’ve experienced for so many years of my life, but I had a battle to get back to this point, it feels good.”

He said he hopes – maybe expects — they’ll see this side again.

And no one will take Woods for granted at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black Course on Long Island, N.Y., which starts May 16.

Woods said he’ll be ready for a course he already conquered once in a major: the 2002 U.S. Open.

“I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend,” he said.

Before Woods encountered health and personal problems, it was expected that topping Nicklaus’ major mark was “when” and not “if.” Then the certainty went away, but Woods thought he still had a chance.

“I always thought it was possible, if I had everything go my way. It took him an entire career to get to 18, so now that I’ve had another extension to my career – one that I didn’t think I had a couple of years ago – if I do things correctly and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’m never going to say it’s not.

“Now I just need to have a lot of things go my way, and who’s to say that it will or will not happen? That’s what the future holds, I don’t know. The only thing I can promise you is this: that I will be prepared.”

–Field Level Media

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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