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Remains of hundreds of Jews unearthed in Nazi-era mass grave in Belarus

A Belarusian soldiers takes part in the exhumation of a mass grave containing the remains of prisoners of a former Jewish ghetto, discovered at a construction site in the centre of Brest
A soldier from a special "search battalion" of Belarus Defence Ministry takes part in the exhumation of a mass grave containing the remains of about 730 prisoners of a former Jewish ghetto, discovered at a construction site in the centre of Brest, Belarus February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

February 26, 2019

BREST, Belarus (Reuters) – Soldiers in Belarus have unearthed the bones of hundreds of people shot during World War Two from a mass grave discovered at the site of a ghetto where Jews lived under the Nazis.

The grave was uncovered by chance last month on a construction site in a residential area in the center of Brest near the Polish border.

Soldiers wearing white masks on Tuesday sifted through the site with spades, trowels and their gloved hands to collect the bones. They also found items such as leather shoes that had not rotted.

Dmitry Kaminsky, a soldier leading the unit, said they had exhumed 730 bodies so far, but could not be sure how many more would be found.

“It’s possible they go further under the road. We have to cut open the tarmac road. Then we’ll know,” he said.

Some of the skulls bore bullet holes, he said, suggesting the victims had been executed by a shot to the back of the head.

Belarus, a former Soviet republic, was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War Two and tens of thousands of its Jews were killed by the Nazis.

The site of the mass grave served from December 1941 to October 1942 as part of a ghetto, areas created by the Nazis to segregate Jews and sometimes other minorities from other city dwellers. Brest was part of Poland before the war.

The remains were discovered when builders began to lay the foundations for an apartment block.

Local authorities want to bury the bodies in a ceremony at a cemetery in the north of the city.

“We want to be sure that there are no more mass graves here,” said Alla Kondak, a local culture official.

(Reporting by Reuters TV; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: OANN

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Ohio finds numerous problems at troubled county jail

An Ohio county jail where prisoners are locked down for days because of staff shortages, dietary restrictions are ignored and toilets and showers go unrepaired has received mostly failing grades during its latest state inspection, according to a report released this week.

The Cuyahoga County Corrections Center in downtown Cleveland has been under increasing scrutiny since the deaths of seven prisoners over a four-month period last year and the release of a scathing report by the U.S. Marshals Service in late November that called conditions at the jail "inhumane" and unsafe for prisoners and staff.

The inspection by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction found nearly two-thirds of 135 state standards out of compliance. Only six standards were judged non-compliant by the same state inspector in 2017.

The 2018 state inspection report was released after the U.S. Marshals Service concluded that "life and safety concerns as well as inhumane conditions of confinement" at the jail violate prisoners' constitutional rights. Both inspections highlight a growing number of issues troubling state and county jails across the United States.

The FBI is conducting a civil rights investigation of prisoner treatment at the jail. The agency and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are also investigating allegations of public corruption regarding current and former Cuyahoga County officials, including issues surrounding the jail.

The Marshals Service has removed federal detainees from the downtown jail and now places them at a smaller county facility in the Cleveland suburb of Euclid.

Brandy Carney, Cuyahoga County chief of public safety and justice, noted in a statement that previous state inspections "held us in compliance."

"Since the Marshal's report, we have been aggressively working on fixing each issue raised and have made significant progress," Carney said.

JoEllen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, which inspects local jails, said Ohio's minimum standards are "significantly different" from those of the Marshals Service. She said 29 of the 84 non-compliant standards found during the latest inspection involved failures to provide documentation.

Smith said state officials reviewed the marshals' report "in an effort to identify potential areas of overlap that could impact the findings of the state inspection."

Brian Klak, a longtime Cuyahoga County corrections officer and union official with the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said overcrowding has been a problem at the downtown jail, which consists of two towers, for years. He said it became more acute when the county took over the city of Cleveland's jail operations early last year.

Persistent lockdowns called "red zoning," which result in prisoners being forced to remain in their cells for periods exceeding 24 hours, began in 2015 when the county took over two suburban jails, reducing the number of correction officers at the downtown facility, Klak told The Associated Press. During red zoning, one corrections officer might be required to keep watch on as many as four housing units while the prescribed staffing plan is one officer for each unit, Klak said.

"This didn't evolve in a couple of months or a couple of years," he said.

During the latest state inspection on Nov. 6, there were 2,202 inmates in a facility meant to hold 1,765.

Both state and federal inspectors said prolonged lockdowns deprive prisoners of access to showers, recreation, educational and substance abuse programs, family visits and conferences with their attorneys.

The state inspection report found juveniles housed with adults; temperatures between 52 and 60 degrees in housing units, menus developed without regard for special dietary or religious needs, showers infested with insects and unsanitary conditions in food service areas.

David Fathi, director of the ACLU's national prison project, said he wasn't aware of problems at the Cuyahoga County jail. He said the ACLU is involved in litigation over conditions at a number of large urban jails, including Maricopa County in Arizona, Broward County in Florida and Baltimore's city jail.

The Justice Department this month asked its inspector general to investigate conditions at a federal lockup in New York City where prisoners were forced to live without heat or electricity during frigid weather over a weeklong period earlier this year.

Civil rights lawsuits filed by jail prisoners claiming mistreatment prompted Ohio's Montgomery County, which includes Dayton, to hire consultants who detailed jail overcrowding and staffing problems there last summer.

The ACLU's Fathi said there are thousands of local jails in the U.S. that largely operate with no oversight or outside supervision.

"Some are well run and protect detainees' health safety and human dignity," he said. "And there other jails with truly Third World levels of squalor and misery."

Source: Fox News National

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Indiana moves to expanding religious objection to abortion

Indiana lawmakers are moving closer to allowing nurses, physician assistants and pharmacists to object on religious or other grounds to having any role in an abortion.

The Indiana House voted 69-25 on Thursday in favor of the legislation, which would expand the statute for medical professionals who don't want to perform an abortion or participate in any procedure that results in an abortion. That includes prescribing, administering or dispensing an abortion-inducing drug, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported .

State law already authorizes physicians, hospital employees and health clinic staffers to opt out of abortion-related health care based on an ethical, moral or religious objection to abortion. The new measure would extend that option to nurses, physician assistants and pharmacists.

Forty-six states currently allow some health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services, according to a March analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.

The Indiana bill's sponsor, state Rep. Ron Bacon, R-Chandler, said that nurses, physician assistants and pharmacists who aren't directly employed by a hospital or health clinic deserve the same right as other medical professional not to provide medical assistance for terminating a pregnancy if that conflicts with their personal beliefs.

Opponents argued that the proposal potentially puts women at risk of death if they are denied care in an emergency situation, or if a pharmacist refuses to provide medication required to complete a miscarriage because it also can be used to induce an abortion.

"Religious freedom does not include the right to harm others," said state Rep. Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis.

State Rep. Chris Chyung, D-Dyer, suggested that the legislation could also lead to pharmacists denying emergency contraception to rape victims seeking to prevent pregnancy.

But Bacon responded that his legislation "does not address contraception at all. This is abortion-inducing drugs."

The legislation now returns to the Senate to determine if that chamber consents to a technical change made by the House. If the measure is re-approved, it will go to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who is expected to sign it into law.

___

Information from: The Times, http://www.nwitimes.com

Source: Fox News National

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Aluminum producer Hydro hit by cyber attack on Tuesday

FILE PHOTO: Concrete pipes connecting the bauxite residue deposit to its water treatment station are pictured at the alumina refinery Alunorte, owned by Norwegian company Norsk Hydro ASA, in Barcarena
FILE PHOTO: Concrete pipes connecting the bauxite residue deposit to its water treatment station are pictured at the alumina refinery Alunorte, owned by Norwegian company Norsk Hydro ASA, in Barcarena, Para state, Brazil March 5, 2018. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes/File Photo

March 19, 2019

OSLO (Reuters) – Norsk Hydro, one of the world’s largest producers of aluminum, was sustaining a cyber attack on Tuesday that affected its operations, sending its shares lower.

“IT-systems in most business areas are impacted and Hydro is switching to manual operations as far as possible. Hydro is working to contain and neutralize the attack, but does not yet know the full extent of the situation,” it said in a statement.

Norsk Hydro’s website was unavailable on Tuesday. The company was not immediately available for further comment.

Hydro’s shares were down 2.9 percent at 0806 GMT, lagging an Oslo benchmark index up 0.13 percent.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)

Source: OANN

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Kim Kardashian studying to be a lawyer in apprenticeship program

Kim Kardashian attends the CFDA Fashion awards in Brooklyn
FILE PHOTO: Kim Kardashian attends the CFDA Fashion awards in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., June 4, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

April 10, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Reality star Kim Kardashian is studying to be a lawyer, inspired by her success in helping to win the release from U.S. prisons of two women.

Kardashian told Vogue magazine in an interview published on Wednesday that she has begun a four-year apprenticeship with a San Francisco-based law firm under a California program for those without formal qualifications. Kardashian, who dropped out of college, said she aims to take the bar exam in 2022.

The “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star said she made the decision last summer after visiting the White House and persuading President Donald Trump to commute a life sentence handed out to a 63-year-old woman in Tennessee for a first drug offense.

“I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society. I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more,” Kardashian, 38, told Vogue.

Kardashian helped to win clemency in January for another woman in Tennessee who had been convicted as a teenager of murdering a man who paid to have sex with her.

Kardashian said her first year of the apprenticeship involved studying three subjects: criminal law, torts and contracts.

“To me, torts is the most confusing, contracts the most boring, and crime law I can do in my sleep. Took my first test, I got a 100. Super easy for me,” she told Vogue. “The reading is what really gets me. It’s so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds.”

While best known for developing beauty and fashion products and showcasing her life with her sisters on the TV show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” Kardashian has some powerful legal DNA.

Her late father, Robert Kardashian, was a prominent Los Angeles lawyer who was part of the legal team representing football star O.J. Simpson in his 1995 trial and acquittal for double murder.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Dollar weaker on dovish Fed bets, sterling seesaws

FILE PHOTO: U.S. dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration
FILE PHOTO: U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

March 19, 2019

By Daniel Leussink

TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar was under pressure on Tuesday, weighed by growing expectations the Federal Reserve would shift to a more accommodative policy stance this week and concerns about slower U.S. economic growth.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was a shade lower at 96.495, hovering close to a two-week low. The index has lost 1.2 percent after hitting a three-month high of 97.710 on March 7.

The dollar has weakened in recent sessions on growing expectations the Fed will strike a dovish tone at its two-day policy meeting due to start later on Tuesday.

Many investors expect the Fed, which has raised rates four times last year, to keep its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged and stick to its pledge of a “patient” approach to monetary policy.

Masafumi Yamamoto, chief currency strategist at Mizuho Securities, said while the market is expecting more accommodative sentiments from the meeting, equity markets were unlikely to react positively to such a development.

“If the Fed really shows a gloomy outlook for growth and rates, then it’s also a negative for U.S. equities. Then that will be a negative for the dollar,” Yamamoto said.

“There is a high risk that whichever the outcome is, it will push down dollar/yen.”

As the dollar took a breather, other major currencies advanced by default. The yen rose 0.1 percent to 111.27 yen per dollar, extending its gains to a third session.

Sterling also gained, rising 0.1 percent to $1.3268. It had seesawed overnight after the speaker of Britain’s parliament said Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal could not be voted on again unless a different proposal was submitted.

The Bank of England is expected to leave its interest rate outlook unchanged at a policy meeting on Thursday due to the deep uncertainty over Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

The euro was down a tad at $1.1335.

Investors’ focus on Tuesday was also on Germany’s ZEW economic index for March, due for release around 1000 GMT.

The German economy, Europe’s largest, barely avoided recession in the final quarter of last year, as the negative impact from global trade disputes and Brexit weighed on a decade of expansion.

“The ZEW expectation index has been improving for four consecutive months,” said Mizuho’s Yamamoto.

“If another month’s improvement is shown, then I think that will be quite positive for the euro.”

(Editing by Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Putin Signs ‘Fake News,’ ‘Internet Insults’ Bills Into Law

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a controversial set of bills that make it a crime to “disrespect” the state and spread “fake news” online, Russian media reported on Monday.

The bills amending existing information laws overwhelmingly passed both chambers of Russian parliament in less than two months. Observers and some lawmakers have criticized the legislation for its vague language and potential to stifle free speech.

The legislation will establish punishments for spreading information that “exhibits blatant disrespect for the society, government, official government symbols, constitution or governmental bodies of Russia.”

Online news outlets and users that spread “fake news” will face fines of up to 1.5 million rubles ($22,900) for repeat offenses.

Insulting state symbols and the authorities, including Putin, will carry a fine of up to 300,000 rubles and 15 days in jail for repeat offenses.

As is the case with other Russian laws, the fines are calculated based on whether the offender is a citizen, an official or a legal entity.

More than 100 journalists and public figures, including human rights activist Zoya Svetova and popular writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, signed a petition opposing the laws, which they labeled “direct censorship.”

The Kremlin, however, denied the legislation amounts to censorship.

“What’s more, this sphere of fake news, insulting and so on, is regulated fairly harshly in many countries of the world including Europe. It is therefore of course necessary to do it in our country too,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Tougher Internet laws introduced over the past five years require search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services and social networks to store users’ personal data on servers within the country.

Source: InfoWars

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FILE PHOTO: Naqvi Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos
FILE PHOTO: Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Arnold

LONDON (Reuters) – A London court case to extradite Arif Naqvi, founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj Group, to the United States on fraud charges was adjourned until May 24, a court official said on Friday.

Naqvi was remanded in custody until that date, the official said. A former managing partner of Dubai-based Abraaj, Sev Vettivetpillai, was released on conditional bail to appear again at Westminster Magistrates Court on June 12, the official said.

Under the U.S. charges, both men are accused of defrauding U.S. investors by inflating positions held by Abraaj in order to attract greater funds from them, causing them financial loss, the official said.

Vettivetpillai could not be reached for a comment.

Naqvi, in a statement released through a PR firm, has pleaded innocent.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Naqvi and his firm raised money for the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund, collecting more than $100 million over three years from U.S.-based charitable organizations and other U.S. investors.

Naqvi and Vettivetpillai were arrested in Britain earlier this month. Another executive, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court on April 11.

Abdel-Wadood appeared at the Manhattan hearing and pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

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Former Vice President Joe Biden announces his 2020 candidacy
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in this still image taken from a video released April 25, 2019. BIDEN CAMPAIGN HANDOUT via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in his first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate, said on Friday that he does not believe he treated law professor Anita Hill badly during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Biden had joined the burgeoning 2020 Democratic field a day earlier.

Biden’s conduct during those hearings, when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, became a renewed subject of controversy after the New York Times reported that Biden had called Hill earlier this month in the run-up to his presidential bid and that Hill was dissatisfied with Biden’s expression of regret.

Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden largely defended his actions as a senator almost 30 years ago, saying he believed Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment levied at Thomas and tried to derail his confirmation.

Activists have long been unhappy that Hill was questioned in graphic detail by the all-white, all-male committee chaired by Biden.

“I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated,” Biden said, but later, he asserted, “I don’t think I treated her badly. … How do you stop people from asking inflammatory questions?”

“There were a lot of mistakes made across the board and for those I apologize,” he said.

Biden praised Hill as “remarkable” and said she is “one of the reasons we have the #MeToo movement.”

Asked why he had not reached out to Hill earlier, Biden said he had previously publicly stated he had regrets about her treatment and that he “didn’t want to quote invade her space.”

That seemed to be a reference to another controversy that looms over Biden’s presidential run: allegations by several women that he made them uncomfortable by touching them at political events.

Biden also addressed that criticism, saying he was now more “cognizant” about a woman’s “private space.” But he maintained that he had been “trying to bring solace.”

He suggested he was still trying to sort out the guidelines for his conduct going forward.

“I should be able to read better,” he said. “I have to be more careful.”

Pressed by the show’s panel for an apology to his accusers, Biden would not entirely capitulate.

“So, I invaded your space,” he replied. “I mean, I’m sorry this happened. But I’m not sorry in a sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate.”

Biden, 76, served as former President Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms. He is competing with 19 others for the Democratic presidential nomination and the chance to likely face President Donald Trump next year in the general election.

His first public event as a presidential candidate is scheduled for Monday in Pittsburgh.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei, Taiwan August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc’s stock slumped over 4% on Friday to its lowest price in two years, rounding out a rough week that included worse-than-expected quarterly results and a pitch by Chief Executive Elon Musk on autonomous cars that failed to win over investors.

With investors betting Tesla will soon raise capital, the stock has fallen 13% for the week to its lowest level since January 2017, before the launch of the Model 3 sedan aimed at making the electric car maker profitable.

One positive development for Tesla: a U.S. District Court judge on Friday granted a request by Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission for a second extension to resolve a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter.

On Wednesday, Tesla posted a worse-than-expected loss of $702 million for the March quarter. Musk said Tesla would return to profit in the third quarter and that there was “some merit” to raising capital.

Musk is still battling to convince investors that demand for the Model 3, the company’s first car aimed at the mass consumer market, is “insanely” high, and that it can be delivered efficiently to customers around the world.

Tesla ended its first quarter with $2.2 billion, down from $3.7 billion in the prior quarter, and the company is planning expansions including a Shanghai factory, an upcoming Model Y SUV, and other projects.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s cash – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DyJjX6)

On Monday, Musk hosted a self-driving event, where he predicted Tesla would have over a million autonomous vehicles by next year. Some analysts perceived the presentation as a way to deflect attention from questions about demand, margin pressure, increasing competition and even Musk’s ongoing battle with U.S. regulators.

Tesla’s stock has now fallen 29 percent in 2019 and the company’s market capitalization has declined to $41 billion from $63 billion in mid-December.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s declining market cap – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dwd62r)

Analysts now expect Tesla’s revenue to expand 19% in 2019, compared with 83% growth in 2018 and 68% growth in 2017, according to Refinitiv.

Following Tesla’s quarterly report, 12 analysts recommend selling the stock, while 11 recommend buying and eight are neutral. The median analyst price target is $275, up 16% from the stock’s current price of $236. Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl has the most optimistic price target, at $500, while Cowen and Company’s Jeffrey Osborne has the lowest, at $160, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s rare public criticism of the Obama administration was a “soft” way of accusing the previous administration of covering up Russia’s attempts at hacking the 2016 presidential election.

While speaking Thursday in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, Rosenstein said that the Obama administration “chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls and how they relate to Russia’s broader strategy to undermine America.”

During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning, Huckabee called the comments an “unusually candid moment for Rosenstein.”

“I thought it was a soft way of him saying there was a cover-up,” Huckabee said. “They knew the Russians were attempting to influence the election and attempting to hack the election but they didn’t fully disclose that to the American people and certainly didn’t disclose it to the Trump campaign.

SWALWELL NOT CERTAIN TRUMP ISN’T A ‘RUSSIAN ASSET’

“Instead they tried to set a trap for them. It failed. The Trump team did not take the bait. And that’s the one conclusion that we can certainly come away with from the $35 million worth of investigation,” Huckabee continued.

Next week, Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress and is expected to answer questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, which found that there was not adequate evidence to conclude that President Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, though the president could not be exonerated in terms of the possibility that he obstructed justice.

Barr will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday and to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.

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

“It is going to be a theater, an absolute show,” Huckabee said of the hearings. “Just like the Kavanaugh hearings were and like everything else is in Congress. We ought to close the curtain on them and can’t come back until after the election. They aren’t doing their job anyway. We aren’t paying them because they’re doing a wonderful service to the country and spare us the hypocrisy of thinking they’re interested in getting to the bottom of the facts,” he continued.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Ultimately, Huckabee argued, if Americans “took their partisan hats off,” they would see that President Trump was exonerated by the investigation.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Sri Lanka's former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

April 26, 2019

By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.

Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.

More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.

Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.

“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.

Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.

He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.

“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.

On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.

Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.

Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.

The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.

In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.

Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.

‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’

He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.

“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.

Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.

“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.

President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.

Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.

Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Source: OANN

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