Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Payments giant Worldpay targets growth in Australia and New Zealand

FILE PHOTO: A Worldpay booth is shown on the exhibit hall floor during the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas
FILE PHOTO: A Worldpay booth is shown on the exhibit hall floor during the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo

March 27, 2019

By Paulina Duran

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Payments group Worldpay said on Wednesday it was expanding its business in Australia and New Zealand, a new heavyweight disruptor vying for the business of the established payment networks and banks servicing most local firms.

The payment technology giant will open two offices in Australia as it seeks to benefit from rapid growth in the country’s almost $30 billion e-commerce industry, Worldpay General Manager of Global eCommerce for Asia Pacific, Phil Pomford, said.

“We see growth opportunities to come into a market where there is rising employment, great population growth, and where the shift into the e-commerce and mobile commerce is significant,” Pomford told Reuters in a telephone interview.

It will first target businesses in the online retail, travel, digital content and online gaming industries.

Worldpay is a major player in card and alternative payments globally, and particularly in Britain.

It was this month acquired by Fidelity National Information Services Inc in the biggest deal to date in the fast-growing electronic payments industry, valuing the company at $43 billion.

In Australia, the Ohio-based company already provides services for a number of digital-centric businesses such as travel websites Lonely Planet and Webjet, and online social gaming company Virtual Gaming World.

“[With the new offices] we will be better able to attract new customers and service them going forward,” Pomford said.

Worldpay competes against established credit card payment providers such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, merchant payment services issued by Australian banks, as well as with Dutch tech competitor Adyen.

It processes over 40 billion transactions annually through more than 300 payment types across 146 countries and 126 currencies, according to its website.

The company has also been granted a new payments license in New Zealand, Pomford said.

(Reporting by Paulina Duran; Editing by David Evans)

Source: OANN

0 0

Bond yield curveball stalls global stocks rally

The German share price index DAX graph at the stock exchange in Frankfurt
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Staff/File Photo

March 31, 2019

By Josephine Mason

LONDON (Reuters) – This year’s roaring rally in world equities ran into sand by the end of the quarter, with warning signs from bond markets, U-turns from central banks and persistent trade worries scattering consensus about what happens over the rest of 2019.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index has climbed 12.2 percent in the first three months of the year, its best quarter in four years, while the S&P 500 is on track for its biggest quarterly gain in nearly a decade.

A bounceback was expected after the historic rout in late 2018, but few investors predicted the size of the rebound or the scale of the about-turn by European and U.S. central banks on interest rates that helped fuel it.

The majority of the gains were logged in January – between 6 and 8 percent – as dovish comments from the Federal Reserve, economic stimulus in China and easing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington soothed worries about slowing economic growth.

In March, however, the pace slowed to 1 percent as euphoria over slower rate hikes turned to worries about what the uber-dovish Fed and ECB stance said about the world economy amid tepid U.S. and euro-zone growth.

Now few are taking a strong view.

“People are wondering if they’ve missed the rally and then they think it doesn’t make sense to invest when the curve is inverted and the economy is slowing,” said Willem Sels, chief market strategist at HSBC Private Banking.

He reckons global stocks have the potential to rise another 5 to 7 percent, with the inversion of the bond yield curve overdone.

“The next few weeks will be more volatile, people are going to be concerned until they see the data improve and Q1 earnings might not be very good so we’re in a zone of higher volatility,” he said.

A poll of investors across the globe in February revealed the wide dispersion of views about how equities will fare over the next 12 months, illustrating the lack of consensus across the market.

Take the estimates for the S&P 500: The highest called for the index to rise 25 percent, while the most bearish pegged the market falling by around 10 percent by mid-2020.

Europe displayed a similar disparity, with estimates ranging between a 15 percent rise and a plus-20 percent increase for the STOXX 600.

In the end, the median forecast for the pan-European STOXX 600 and FTSE 100 were level with the current markets, suggesting that gains across stocks have run their course.

(Graphic: Stocks poll forecasts – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Wp4txY)

(Graphic: Stocks poll forecasts 2 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Wpouoa)

For an interactive version of these charts, click here:

https://tmsnrt.rs/2Wgtc7w

https://tmsnrt.rs/2WmcQu3

Implied volatility in European and U.S. stock markets, often viewed as a gauge of fear, also plunged in the first quarter. The Wall Street fear gauge has more than halved to 13 points from the December peaks, while the same measure in Europe dropped to a third of its late-2018 highs.

(Graphic: The VIX volatility gauge falls by half in Q1 2019 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2V4QE7o)

(Graphic: Global market asset performance 2019 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HMUijc)

For an interactive version of these charts, click here:

https://tmsnrt.rs/2V2WLsT

https://tmsnrt.rs/2HN0aJE

YIELD CURVEBALL

Capping off a wild quarter were big gyrations in U.S. bond yields last week, which plunged investors deeper into confusion.

With 10-year U.S. bond yields below 3-month T-bill rates for the first time in more than a decade, recession fears were swirling.

But the 2- to 10-year yield curve steepened, offering conflicting signals that there was no cause for alarm.

After all, the world economy is actually chugging along at a decent clip, company earnings are still growing, albeit more slowly, and leading central banks are increasingly dovish.

While it might take months before the markets settle – and it’s dependent on decent macroeconomic data – Wouter Sturkenboom, chief investment strategist for EMEA and APAC at Northern Trust, reckons the bond moves have been overplayed.

“We believe government bonds are overdoing it right now. That’s a vote of no confidence in the Fed and its communication strategy. That’s why we are not de-

(Graphic: U.S. yield curve inverts for first time since 2007 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2UNVc1P)

To break stocks out of their lethargy, investors need some decent macroeconomic data and first-quarter earnings to restore battered confidence.

“We’ve gone a long way now toward pricing in the central banks, and for risk assets to push on into Q2 we are going to need growth to pick up the baton,” said Paul O’Connor, head of Janus Henderson’s UK-based multi-asset team.

“The way risk assets have begun to react to the yield curve is further confirmation that risk assets have probably extracted as much positivity as they can from lower yields.”

But analysts have slashed their 2019 earnings forecasts to their lowest in three years, and most expect the coming earnings season to be weak.

Companies listed on the S&P 500 index are expected to report a 1.9 percent contraction in earnings in the first quarter, down from almost 17 percent growth in the fourth quarter and the worst performance in years, according to I/B/E/S Refinitiv.

European STOXX 600-listed companies are expected to deliver 2.1-percent year-on-year earnings growth, the slowest since the third quarter of 2017.

After such a breathtaking run-up, Justin Onuekwusi, fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management, said he’s not overly concerned that stocks are now taking a breather.

“We have had such a strong bounceback, but markets don’t go in a straight line. It is inevitable you will get some kind of respite,” he said.

(Graphic: Earnings growth global March 29 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CKYuMj)

(Reporting by Josephine Mason; Additional reporting by Helen Reid and Sujata Rao; Graphics by Ritvik Carvalho; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

0 0

O’Rourke to rally in his native Texas, where tough 2020 presidential primary awaits

Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate O'Rourke is listens to a question in Portsmouth
Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke listens to a question from the audience during a campaign stop at Popovers Bakery and Cafe in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S., March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

March 29, 2019

By Tim Reid

(Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke will hold campaign rallies on Saturday in his home state of Texas, where he faces far different challenges in the 2020 race from those of his underdog U.S. Senate run in 2018.

O’Rourke’s campaign hopes the former congressman’s personal ties to delegate-rich Texas give him a critical early boost in the large Democratic field fighting for the party’s nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump.

But the primary is hardly a lock for the native son.

In the unexpectedly close race against incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz that earned O’Rourke national prominence last year, he was the lone Democrat competing against a Republican figure reviled by Democrats nationally.

Now, O’Rourke, 46, faces a diverse slate of accomplished and well-funded rivals hunting for the same votes, especially among the state’s African-American and Hispanic communities.

“It’s a much different animal this time,” said Colin Strother, a Texas-based Democratic strategist who has worked on state and federal races but is unaffiliated with a 2020 presidential campaign.

“He’s going to have rivals who are women candidates, women of color, male candidates of color, policy experts. He can’t campaign on the nostalgia of nearly beating Ted Cruz.”

Texas is a big prize in the Democratic presidential nominating battle. The state is one of many holding primary votes on “Super Tuesday” on March 3. California moved its primary up to that date, giving more influence to minority voters in the country’s two most populous states than in recent election cycles.

There are a combined 82 delegates up for grabs in predominately white Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote, according to the Democratic National Committee, which oversees the nominating contest.

Texas and California have a combined 757. To become the nominee, a candidate must accumulate 1,885 delegates.

Democratic rival Kamala Harris, a U.S. senator from California and the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, has made clear she intends to compete in Texas. Last week, her event at a historically black college in Houston drew a large crowd of blacks, Hispanics and whites.

Texas is also home to Julian Castro, another presidential contender who served as mayor of San Antonio. Castro, who is Hispanic, has received support from three dozen elected and appointed Democrats from across Texas.

O’Rourke’s campaign did not respond to an email requesting comment about the Texas primary.

O’Rourke, who launched his White House campaign on March 14, returns to Texas after barnstorming early voting states including Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. He will hold rallies on Saturday in his hometown of El Paso, as well as Houston and Austin.

His campaign said more than 1,000 watch parties were being held across the country to view the events via livestream.

‘STILL FORMIDABLE’

Juan Carlos Huerta, professor of political science at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said O’Rourke had an advantage in the Texas primary thanks to his statewide network and fundraising prowess.

O’Rourke smashed fundraising records as a Senate candidate and raised $6.1 million in the first 24 hours of his presidential campaign, the largest first-day haul of any announced candidate this year.

“He’s in a good position. He’s still formidable,” Huerta said.

Some Democratic strategists said O’Rourke did not campaign hard enough to win the support of minority voters in his last contest and would have to work to change the perception that he took them for granted.

Ernest Bromley, managing director of Pescador Public Strategies, a political messaging firm targeting Latinos, said O’Rourke had ground to make up after underperforming with Latino voters, particularly along the border with Mexico.

“He went to the large Hispanic counties, the border counties, and he would do these big rallies. And then he’d leave,” Bromley said, adding there was no sustained effort to turn out the Latino vote on Election Day.

“Last year, I think O’Rourke could have done much better with ethnic voters,” Bromley said. “The candidates that do focus on the ethnic vote in 2020 will do well in Texas. It’s going to be really interesting.”

(Reporting by Tim Reid in Los Angeles; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

0 0

Fire chief dies, suffers emergency at firefighter's funeral

The tragedy of a Maine firefighter who was fatally injured while shielding a colleague from flames was compounded Sunday by the death of a fire chief who suffered a medical emergency at the memorial service.

Oxford Fire Chief Gary Sacco suffered the emergency as several thousand people, including hundreds of firefighters from across New England, gathered to honor Berwick Fire Capt. Joel Barnes' sacrifice. Barnes was fatally injured in a four-alarm fire earlier this month.

Maine Medical Center spokesman Matt Wickenheiser confirmed that Sacco was stricken at the funeral, rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead in the emergency room. No further details have been released.

"Our hearts, already broken by the loss of Captain Joel Barnes, also mourn the loss of Oxford Fire Chief Gary Sacco. In a testament to his own character, Chief Sacco lost his life while honoring that of his fallen brother, fellow firefighter Captain Barnes," Mills said. "I join with people across Maine in offering my thoughts and prayers to Chief Sacco's family and friends, the Oxford Fire Department, and all of Maine's first responders. The State of Maine has given two of its best to the Heavens."

Barnes made the "ultimate sacrifice," Berwick Fire Chief Dennis Plante said.

"He is my hero," Plante said.

The service was held at the Cross Insurance Arena, one of the few venues in Maine big enough to host such a large gathering. The 32-year-old Barnes was the first firefighter to die while battling a fire in at least three decades in Maine.

Barnes' uncle, also named Joel, grew teary as he described a nephew who grew up dedicated to serving the community as a firefighter. He recalled how an elderly neighbor once gave a plastic firefighter hat to then-toddler Joel, who soon became "obsessed" with studying fire science books and preparing himself for a career that took him from Maine, to Massachusetts, to South Carolina and back to his family in Maine.

"Without hesitation, he gave his life to save the life of another firefighter," Barnes said. "And he did it in the most selfless, courageous way possible."

Maine Gov. Janet Mills lowered flags to half-staff to honor Barnes. She said his life and service exemplified "unfaltering courage, selflessness and love for his fellow man."

The day started with a private Mass for Barnes in Old Orchard, where he grew up. Then a procession escorted Barnes' body up I-95 to South Portland, where the casket was placed in a fire truck.

From there, the procession headed across the Casco Bay Bridge where fire boats saluted Barnes en route to the civic center.

Barnes was one of two firefighters who encountered a wall of flames on the third floor and had to be rescued during a March 1 four-alarm fire in Berwick, Maine. Five firefighters were injured that day, and Barnes died at a hospital in New Hampshire.

Saco Fire Chief John Duross said when officials finalize the investigation into the March 1 fire, the paperwork will demonstrate "one common theme," the heroism of Barnes.

"We vow to never forget," said Duross, also president of the Maine Fire Chiefs Association.

Barnes' work ethic, dedication and attention to detail gained him respect among colleagues and his community, his loved ones and co-workers said Sunday. Barnes loved teaching kids about fire safety and firefighting as a member of the department's fire prevention team, according to Plante.

Before the service, Berwick Capt. Travis Doiron joked that Barnes' attention to detail included a spotless truck. Barnes ensured that the trucks were wiped down so there were no water spots after a washing.

His death marked the first fatality of a Maine firefighter while battling a blaze in decades, said Stephen McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The last time it happened was in 1980 when Portland Firefighter Joseph Cavallaro Jr. died of burns and asphyxiation while fighting a three-alarm fire at the Phoenix Nightclub, McCausland said.

___

Associated Press writer David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Sen. Lindsey Graham: McCain Attacks Hurting Trump

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is coming to the defense of his late friend John McCain in the face of continued attacks by President Donald Trump.

After Trump threw another volley of verbal shots at McCain, a war hero, former POW, and retired Republican senator who died after a battle with brain cancer last August, Graham told reporters Wednesday that Trump's words are doing more damage to himself than McCain.

"I think the president's comments about Sen. McCain hurt him more than they hurt the legacy of Sen. McCain," Graham said. "I'm going to try to continue to help the president.

"My job is to represent the people of South Carolina. They want me to work with the president where I can. I've gotten to know the president. We have a good working relationship. I like him."

Graham, however, added he is not happy when Trump takes aim at McCain. The president and the late senator feuded ever since Trump questioned his status as a war hero during the 2016 campaign. Trump is still bitter about McCain's no vote on the Obamacare repeal in 2017, which killed the measure.

"I don't like when he says things about my friend John McCain," Graham said. "The best thing that can happen, I think, for all of us is to move forward."

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

France investigates after older protester is injured in Nice

French authorities are investigating the case of an older female protester who suffered head injuries when police charged people defying a yellow vest protest ban in Nice.

The woman was waving a rainbow flag marked "Peace" and wearing a yellow vest when riot police carrying shields suddenly pushed toward the protesters Saturday. An Associated Press reporter saw her fall to the pavement, blood spilling from her head.

Locals identified her as 73-year-old anti-globalization activist Genevieve Legay.

Regional broadcaster France Bleu Azur reported Sunday that she is in intensive care, and cited the Nice prosecutor as saying an investigation was opened.

French authorities banned protests in several areas Saturday to prevent a repeat of rioting that scarred Paris a week ago at yellow vest protests.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Instagram adds new feature to let U.S. users shop via app

Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Instagram logo in this picture illustration
FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Instagram logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

March 19, 2019

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s Instagram will now let U.S. users to shop products directly from the photo sharing app by adding a ‘checkout’ feature on items tagged for sale, the company said on Tuesday.

The move is in line with Facebook’s plan to monetize higher-growth units like Instagram, especially as the company’s centerpiece product, News Feed, struggles to generate fresh interest.

Instagram said it has partnered with more than 20 brands, including Adidas and H&M, on the new feature.

The photo sharing app has more than 130 million people tapping to reveal product tags in shopping posts every month, up from 90 million in September, it said.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru and Katie Paul in San Francisco; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

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].”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

DNA Force Plus

Limited Advanced Release

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

Source: InfoWars

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
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

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist