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French bishops agree to compensation for sex abuse victims

A French Catholic Church official says the country's bishops have "agreed in principle" to provide financial compensation to sex abuse victims whose cases are too old to be taken to court.

Vincent Neymon, the deputy general secretary of the French bishops' conference, says he hopes a system for making "a financial gesture" to victims will be in place in under a year.

France hasn't been immune to the clerical abuse scandal that is the topic of a Vatican summit continuing Friday.

The French church had been reluctant to create a victims compensation program like many other national bishops' conferences but received pressure from people whose cases exceeded the statute of limitations on child sex crimes.

France recently extended the limit from 20 to 30 years after a victim turns 18.

Source: Fox News World

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Mortars land on Tripoli suburb as two-week battle rages on

Members of Libyan internationally recognised government forces react during the fighting with Eastern forces at Al-Swani area in Tripoli
Members of Libyan internationally recognised government forces react during the fighting with Eastern forces at Al-Swani area in Tripoli, Libya April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

April 18, 2019

By Hani Amara and Ahmed Elumami

AL-SUANI, Libya (Reuters) – Mortars crashed down on a suburb of Tripoli on Thursday, almost hitting a clinic and adding to people’s suffering after two weeks of an offensive by eastern troops on the Libyan capital, which is held by an internationally recognized government.

The shelling came a day after seven people were killed when Grad rockets hit a densely populated district of Tripoli, which the eastern Libyan forces of commander Khalifa Haftar have been trying to take, deepening the chaos that has plagued the oil-producing nation since 2011.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) of Benghazi-based Haftar has become bogged down in the southern suburbs of the capital.

In al-Suani, a southwestern suburb, Reuters reporters saw two mortars almost hitting a clinic. The fighting has killed 205 people, including 18 civilians, and wounded 913 since the start of the campaign, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

Locals blamed Haftar’s forces for the shelling, saying the rockets had been fired from the direction of his positions south of the capital.

“We say to the United Nations and the Security Council: listen. Listen to the bombing… Rockets are coming down on us. For this reason, please find a solution for us,” said Youssef Salem, a displaced man from al-Suani.

The LNA has denied shelling residential areas.

The Tripoli government issued arrest warrants for Haftar and other top eastern officials, blaming them for Wednesday’s shelling.

Eastern officials have already issued arrest warrants for Tripoli premier Fayez al-Serraj and other western officials as there is no sign of a political solution or even of a ceasefire.

Foreign powers are worried but unable to present a united front over the latest flare-up in the cycle of anarchy and warfare that has gripped Libya since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.

The internationally recognized interior ministry accused France of supporting Haftar and said it would halt security cooperation with Paris.

“Any dealings with the French side in bilateral security agreements” will halt, the Tripoli-based interior ministry said in a statement.

A French presidential source said in response to the accusation that France supported the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and that Emmanuel Macron’s legitimate interlocutor was Serraj, with whom he spoke on Monday and reaffirmed that.

The French government was not immediately available for comment.

France has helped train Serraj’s presidential guard and in October 2013 signed a deal between a consultancy of the French interior ministry and the Libyan interior ministry to train 1,000 police.

Most recently in February, France provided the Tripoli government with six patrol boats for its coastline.

Paris has given Haftar support in the past, however, viewing him as the best bet to end the chaos that has reigned since a NATO-backed rebellion to end Gaddafi’s murderous four-decade rule.

Italy, with considerable oil interests in the OPEC member, supports the Tripoli government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj and was furious with French reluctance to back a recent European Union resolution urging Haftar to halt his advance.

The conflict threatens to disrupt oil flows, foment migration across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, and allow jihadists to exploit the chaos.

Haftar enjoys the backing of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who view him as an anchor to restore stability and combat Islamist militants.

His forces came under attack on Thursday by an armed group at the Tamanhint base near the main southern city of Sabha.

The LNA managed to expel the attack, which killed two of its soldiers, an eastern official said. But it exposed a vulnerability as Haftar has moved much of its forces north.

The identity of the attackers was not immediately clear.

The LNA force seized earlier this year the south and its two oilfields, although tribesmen with flexible loyalties remain strong in the sparsely populated desert region.

On the weekend, the LNA dispatched a unit to the eastern oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider to prepare for a possible attack there.

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli, Ahmed Elumami, Ulf Laessing, John Irish and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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Sen. Rick Scott Moves to Protect Pre-existing Conditions

Amid the Obamacare fight and President Donald Trump's declaration of the GOP as the "party of healthcare," Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is introducing a budget amendment to protect preexisting conditions.

"Today at the @SenateBudget markup I will be introducing my amendment to protect health care coverage for those with pre-existing conditions," Sen. Scott tweeted Thursday.

Scott's announcement, as a nonbinding addition to the Trump 2020 budget, comes as Republicans were caught off guard by President Trump's declaration and the Justice Department's push to declare the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional in the courts.

"I don't think there was any heads-up on anything that he was going to say," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday, according to The Hill.

President Trump is seemingly settling the table for 2020 on the one large campaign promise that has plagued him, repealing and replacement of Obamacare. Democrats lining up for 2020's primary are honing in on healthcare failures.

"I frankly do not understand why Republicans seem to have such a hatred toward providing healthcare to the American people," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said, per The Hill.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., is positioning himself as a moderate Democrat on the issue, saying the ACA is failing but a complete abolishment is not the answer either.

Regardless, President Trump wants his party to make headway before 2020, as he tweeted Tuesday:

"The Republican Party will become 'The Party of Healthcare!'"

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Airbus proposes Rene Obermann as next chairman from 2020

FILE PHOTO: Deutsche Telekom CEO Obermann attends news conference to present a joint initiative for encrypted email with United Internet in Berlin
FILE PHOTO: Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann attends a news conference to present a joint initiative for encrypted email with United Internet in Berlin August 9, 2013. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo

April 10, 2019

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – European planemaker Airbus said it would propose former Deutsche Telekom chief Rene Obermann as its next chairman starting from 2020, completing the shift to what current chairman Denis Ranque called a “new generation of management”.

Obermann was chief executive of Deutsche Telekom from 2006 to 2013. He is currently a managing director of private equity investor Warburg Pincus and had been seen in Berlin as the favorite of the German government for the post.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)

Source: OANN

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France's Yellow Vests hit streets for 17th time, protest at Paris airport as numbers dwindle

French Yellow Vests protested across the country for the 17th straight weekend, briefly taking over a Paris airport as the movement sought to reignite fervor among France's working class.

Protesters are pressuring the government to reverse economic policies they see as favoring the rich. Some demonstrations have been marred by violence and vandalism.

The Yellow Vest movement has rocked France since November 2018, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets demanding President Emmanuel Macron’s resignation.

Late last year, in an effort to quell protests, Macron called for three months of national debate over economic reforms.

He addressed the country in December, promising to speed up tax relief and urging companies to give bonuses to workers. Macron also reiterated his promise to raise the minimum wage and said the government would scrap a planned tax hike on pensioners.

Saturday's march in Paris began near the Arc de Triomphe and was to end at the Luxembourg Gardens near the Senate.

EMMANUEL MACRON URGES EUROPE TO REJECT NATIONALISM AHEAD OF EU ELECTIONS, CALLS FOR ‘RETHINK’ ON MIGRATION

Hundreds of other demonstrators have come up with other ways to get the government's attention, including organizing a so-called flash mob at the Charles de Gaulle airport to protest proposed privatization plans, France24 reported.

A three-day sit-in on the Champ de Mars, a park facing the Eiffel Tower, was planned, but police quickly ended it, according to reports.

The protests unfolded as the Yellow Vests prepared for next Saturday, which would mark the end of Macron’s “Great National Debate.”

FRENCH BOXER-TURNED-‘YELLOW VEST’ PROTESTER CONVICTED FOR POLICE ATTACK

The movement has been gradually losing steam. Last week, only around 40,000 people protested across the whole of France, with about 4,000 in Paris, compared with hundreds of thousands last year.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz unveils ‘Green Real Deal,’ as conservative answer to AOC pet project

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz unveiled the “Green Real Deal” on Wednesday as a free-market counterproposal to the Green New Deal being pushed by Democrats to combat climate change.

“The question for America is pretty simple: either we want a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington telling us what we can’t do, or we empower American innovators to unlock things that we can do,” the Florida congressman said at a press conference in front of the Capitol building.

AOC MOCKS CRITICS OF GREEN NEW DEAL'S ESTIMATED $93 TRILLION PRICE TAG: 'THEY SOUND LIKE DR. EVIL'

His plan, which he is putting forward in a House resolution, involves a number of planks including revisiting global trade and intellectual property policies to create “an international marketplace fair to American innovators.”

Gaetz's plan also aims to modernize the electric grid, which he says currently “functions as a wet blanket over American innovation.” Gaetz claims that upgrading the grid will create an “entire class of energy entrepreneurs across the country.” He also wants to "unlock federal lands" from current regulations, saying they can be “an open canvas” for renewable energy research, testing and evaluation.

The plan comes in response to the Green New Deal, a once-fringe policy that seeks to overhaul the nation’s economy and energy use to combat climate change and combat income inequality. But this year it has emerged in the Democratic mainstream, with a resolution introduced in the House and support from most major 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. However, a test vote on the proposal recently failed in the Senate with no senator voting to begin debate on the legislation.

The proposal includes a host of costly and controversial big-government programs -- including a push for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, universal health care and job guarantee programs.

In the press conference, Gaetz made references to FAQs released by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., office that said the deal aims to "upgrade or replace every building" for energy efficiency and render air travel unnecessary, while joking about getting rid of “farting cows.”

"Do we really believe that if we outlaw cars, cows, planes and buildings that the rest of the world will follow?” he said. “Of course not, they will laugh at us.”

While Gaetz’s proposal consists of free-market and small-government ideas of the kind Republicans have long embraced, the plan is a notable shift for the party toward tackling climate change in some fashion.

WASHINGTON STATE COLLEGE OFFERS COURSE ON 'ECO-ANXIETY,' 'CLIMATE GRIEF'

Traditionally, Republicans have been more skeptical about man’s influence on the climate. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler was asked in January at his confirmation hearing if he believed warnings from scientists about the threats of climate change.

“I would not call it the greatest crisis, no” he said.

In an indication of likely conservative opposition to Gaetz's plan, advocacy group FreedomWorks issued a statement calling it a "sad example of Republicans thinking they’re conservatives by being slightly to the right of far left."

"What’s more, it is presented as a collection of bold, new ideas yet most of them are policies and programs that exist and aren’t working. This is perhaps the only thing ‘real’ about the ‘Green Real Deal,'” the statement said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Gaetz said at the press conference that he doesn't think the EPA has done a good job of combating climate change and said he wants to shift the debate among Republicans -- from focusing on the existence of climate change, to how to combat it.

"I didn't come to Congress to argue with a thermometer and I think that more of my colleagues need to realize that the science of global warming is irrefutable," he said.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Smartphone shipments to China hit six-year low in February: market data

Mobile phones are seen on display at an electronics market in Shanghai
FILE PHOTO: Mobile phones are seen on display at an electronics market in Shanghai, China, June 24, 2015. REUTERS/Aly Song

March 13, 2019

By Josh Horwitz

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Smartphone shipments to China in February fell to their lowest in six years, market data indicated, as consumers continued to put off handset purchases amid a slowing economy.

Shipments to the world’s biggest smartphone market totaled 14.5 million units, down 19.9 percent from a year ago, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a government-affiliated research institute.

That is the lowest since February 2013, when shipments to the China totaled 20.7 million.

Overall consumer purchases typically slow during February as the Chinese spend much of the month with family celebrating the Lunar New Year. But shipments this year fell more than usual as a slowing economy, exacerbated by a Sino-U.S. trade war, hurt demand for gadgets across the board.

Apple cited slowing iPhone sales in China when it took the rare step of cutting its sales forecast earlier this year. The firm then teamed up with China’s Ant Financial and local banks to offer interest-free iPhone financing in its first such move in the country as it looked to boost waning sales.

Several third-party retailers have also offered iPhones at discounted prices.

With smartphone sales expected to stay weak, companies like Chinese market leader Huawei Technologies have aimed to launch more expensive models to corner higher margins.

In 2018, Huawei’s market share of China’s $500-$800 device segment rose to 26.6 percent from 8.8 percent, according to Counterpoint Research. Apple’s share fell to 54.6 percent from 81.2 percent as it launched devices cracking the $1,000 price point, while others released competitive devices for less.

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Source: OANN

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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.

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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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