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Wife of missing ex-Interpol chief says arrest in China politically motivated

FILE PHOTO: INTERPOL President Meng Hongwei poses during a visit to the headquarters of International Police Organisation in Lyon
FILE PHOTO: INTERPOL President Meng Hongwei poses during a visit to the headquarters of International Police Organisation in Lyon, France, May 8, 2018. Jeff Pachoud/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

March 28, 2019

PARIS (Reuters) – The wife of the missing Chinese former head of Interpol on Thursday dismissed allegations by authorities in China accusing her husband of graft and said his arrest was politically motivated.

China will prosecute former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei for graft after an investigation found he spent “lavish” amounts of state funds, abused his power and refused to follow Communist Party decisions, Beijing’s anti-corruption watchdog said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The press release openly reveals the political nature of Mr Meng’s case, without addressing the issues concerning our family’s fundamental human rights,” Grace Meng said in a statement sent to Reuters by her lawyers.

(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry and John Irish; editing by Grant McCool)

Source: OANN

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Graham derides Dems' 'Oliver Stone approach' to Mueller report

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Thursday said congressional Democrats have taken an "Oliver Stone approach" to the Mueller report. This, after Attorney General William Barr said earlier this week that the special counsel could not establish that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian officials to influence the 2016 elections.

"Do you really believe that Bill Barr would give us a summary of the key findings and it not be supported by the report?" Graham asked during an appearance on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto." "Give me a break. I mean, this whole Oliver Stone approach to the Mueller report by Democrats is getting a bit old."

Graham reserved special criticism for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., comparing him to a character played by Kevin Costner in Stone's conspiracy-minded 1991 film "JFK."

PELOSI CALLS BARR'S LETTER ON MUELLER PROBE 'CONDESCENDING'

"He's the Jim Garrison figure, trying to look for somebody who actually shot President Kennedy," Grahm said of Schiff. "This is getting to be a bit ridiculous. He told us time and time again he knows there's collusion, he's seen evidence of it. Well, Mr. Mueller undercut that narrative. So, Adam Schiff's got to make a decision about his political future. Does he want to be the guy that won't let it go when the authority of the investigation, Mr. Mueller, has concluded there was no collusion?"

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee urged Schiff to step down from his chairmanship in a letter made public on Thursday.

PRESIDENT TRUMP CALLS ON ADAM SCHIFF TO RESIGN, ACCUSES HIM OF 'KNOWINGLY AND UNLAWFULLY LYING AND LEAKING'

President Trump said Thursday that Schiff had "spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking." And on Wednesday night, Trump called Schiff "a disgrace to our country" in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

Graham also explained his call for Barr to appoint a second special counsel to look into alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) at the outset of the Russia investigation.

"Republicans believe that the FBI and DOJ – the top people – took the law in their own hands because they wanted Clinton to win and Trump to lose," he told Cavuto. "You know, there’s a lot of suspicion, there’s a lot of direct evidence, I think, of bias. Let’s have somebody like a Mueller to look at the other side of the story."

The senator said he wants to know what role the unverified and salacious Steele dossier played in securing a warrant to monitor the communications of Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

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"How could the system allow a dossier that was prepared by a foreign agent and paid for by the Democratic Party -- and that’s unverified to this day -- be used on four different occasions to get a warrant against an American citizen?" Graham asked. "And the evidence is pretty clear to me, without the dossier, the warrant would not have been issued. That should bother every American, that the system got so off the rails."

Graham said "counterintelligence investigations are designed to protect the target of the foreign influence. When they thought [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein [D-Calif.] had somebody in her office working for the Chinese, they told her about it and she fired him.

"Why didn’t they go to Trump and say, ‘Hey, we’re worried about some people in your campaign,'" he continued. "That really is disturbing, so I want to get to the bottom of it."

Source: Fox News Politics

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Spain kicks off campaign seen as Socialist, far right fight

Spain's political parties are set to start campaigning for the country's April 28 general election, in which the ruling Socialists are trying to remain in power and the extreme right is seeking to enter Parliament.

The campaign period that starts at midnight on Thursday promises to be a fierce fight for what polls show is a large pool of undecided voters. Successfully wooing those voters could be key to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez continuing to govern or ushering in a coalition government made up of right-wing parties.

Polls indicate the far-right party Vox is poised to win its first seats in the lower house of Spain's parliament. If that happens, it could increase the fragmentation in Spanish politics by introducing a fifth national party of significant size.

Source: Fox News World

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U.S., Central America launch plan to crack down on people smugglers

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Nielsen takes part in a news conference in San Salvador
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen takes part in a news conference after the IV meeting of security ministers of the Northern Triangle of Central America in San Salvador, El Salvador February 20, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

February 20, 2019

By Nelson Renteria

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – The United States and three Central American nations on Wednesday announced an effort to combat trafficking of people to the U.S.-Mexico border, days after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, citing large-scale unlawful immigration.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen called immigration from the region a “humanitarian crisis” and said the regional security plan with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras would secure the border and improve conditions in the countries.

The total number of people apprehended crossing illegally into the United States from the southwestern border is sharply down from a decade ago, but more families from Central America, citing poverty and violence, are making the journey, many seeking asylum.

Trump last week declared the situation at the border a “national emergency” to free up billions of dollars to fund a border wall, a decision that has been challenged in a lawsuit by 16 U.S. states and another by the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a statement, El Salvador’s government said the new initiative was aimed at attacking the finances, logistics and communication platforms of people-trafficking networks.

The three Central American countries will seek to harmonize their legislation for tackling such groups and other criminal gangs, the statement said. Along with the United States, the three countries will increase the use of intelligence-sharing technology.

It was not immediately clear if the United States would provide additional funding for the new effort.

Not all migrants heading north from Central America pay people smugglers to help them cross perilous, drug cartel-controlled territory in Mexico or to ensure their passage across the heavily patrolled U.S.-Mexican border.

Thousands of Central Americans have banded together in so-called caravans this year as a form of protection against the perils that typically stalk migrants headed to the U.S. border.

“Today I ask everyone to show leadership to stop the formation of the caravans that have brought crime, violence and instability to the region,” Nielsen said.

While some caravans have been encouraged by activists, others emerged spontaneously, as news spread through neighborhoods about groups forming to head to Mexico and onward to the United States.

Fueled by attention from Trump, the caravans have attracted widespread media coverage. The number of people traveling in them, however, is a fraction of the total number of migrants who head for the U.S. border.

(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by Delphine Schrank; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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Brazil’s Bolsonaro eyes new body for environmental policy

The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro is considering a dramatic change in the council that oversees Brazil's environmental policy, replacing a broad-based panel of independent voices with a small group of political appointees, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Activists say they fear the move, which reflects Bolsonaro's oft-stated skepticism about environmental organizations, could lead to more deforestation and less oversight in the nation that holds about 60% of the vast Amazon rainforest, which scientists see as crucial for efforts to slow global warming and for the world climate systems.

A policy roadmap drafted by Bolsonaro's transition team before he took office Jan. 1 proposes a decree creating a "government council" to replace Brazil's National Council of the Environment, which has almost 100 members, including representatives of independent environmental and business groups. The new body would consist of five presidential appointees plus Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who is one of the authors of the plan.

The documents, first published by the Brazilian Climate Observatory environmental group, were obtained and verified by the AP.

Brazil's Environment Ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

Part of the transition plan has already come into force. The country's forestry service, aimed at promoting "knowledge, sustainable use and widening of forestry coverage," was transferred to the Agriculture Ministry on Bolsonaro's second day in office. On the same day, the Agriculture Ministry was given the power to determine the limits of indigenous lands, rather than Brazil's official indigenous rights agency.

As a congressman and candidate, Bolsonaro often questioned the reality of climate change and cast environmental groups as foreign-influenced meddlers restraining Brazil's economic growth by holding back mining and agriculture — stances that resemble those of U.S. President Donald Trump, who before taking office described the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a "disgrace" that largely should be dismantled.

The authors of Bolsonaro's transition plan say the current Environment Council, known as CONAMA, is a "confusing" body that "acts emotionally, without due technique, being subjected to ideological interference."

In another transition team document, lawyer Antonio Fernando Pinheiro Pedro argues that CONAMA's decisions have led to "the emission of norms and standards that are far from reality."

In an interview shortly after his election, Bolsonaro complained that it could sometimes take a decade to get an environmental license. "That will not continue," he said.

While officials haven't yet formally proposed the smaller council, there has already been increased friction over CONAMA. Security guards blocked alternate members of the council from joining the main meeting at a March 20 session in the capital of Brasilia, breaking a long tradition of wide-open debate in Brazil's top environmental council.

Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, which includes several nonprofit groups, said he believes that chaotic meeting was "more evidence that the plan (for a smaller council) is indeed being implemented."

"Deforestation ended 2018 on the rise. It is on the rise in 2019, but we haven't heard a word from the minister about that. We have heard about limiting the access to civil society so we can't have a fair discussion," Rittl said.

Former Environment Minister Rubens Ricupero speculated the new administration may have delayed creating the new council due to public anger over the collapse of a mine dam near the city of Brumadinho in January that killed at least 223 people, with 70 still missing.

Ricupero noted that Bolsonaro's chief of staff suggested closing the environmental ministry during the campaign, but said that the powerful agribusiness lobby is afraid such a move would damage trade and has prevented any such move.

"Then Brumadinho showed that our problem is not excessive care in environmental licensing — it is the lack of it," Ricupero said.

He added that hopes Bolsonaro would engage with environmentalists have not come to pass.

Bolsonaro recently defended his environmental ideas at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, saying that Brazil "is the country that most preserves the environment" and that "those that criticize us actually have a lot to learn from us."

The Bolsonaro transition plan also suggested closing the federal agency that oversees conservation zones such as national parks and biological reserves and issues fines for violation of environmental laws there. Many of those penalties are never paid, but several Brazilian agribusiness leaders have complained about them over the years.

Pinheiro Pedro, the transition team lawyer, wrote that the agency should be folded into the Environment Institute, which enforces other environmental legislation and aims to promote the sustainable the use of natural resources. He said the two have "the same objective" and streamlining environmental governance is key to "avoid international interference."

Rittl, of the Brazilian Climate Observatory, said he believes that change would reduce oversight in key areas by diluting the focus of regulators.

Environmentalists also took umbrage at the language used in the transition documents, though the tone echoes Bolsonaro's own pronouncements.

The plan says NGOs involved in climate change discussions are "uncontrollable organisms" that need to be stopped so the system is "closer to ministerial control." It also contends Brazil's environmental governance is crafted to give jobs to political appointees, describing that as "a risk to national sovereignty."

Emilio Bruna, a tropical ecologist focused on the Amazon who is based at the University of Florida, said the transition plan shows the "worst fears" about Bolsonaro's presidency "are starting to come true."

"Scientists are not only concerned about the government not creating new protected areas, but also the downgrading of existing protections in the rainforest," he said. "There was already a culture of impunity, but now it's being reinforced."

___

Associated Press science writer Christina Larson and EPA reporter Ellen Knickmayer in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Saudi Arabia to meet banks on export-credit finance plans, sources say

FILE PHOTO: View shows the construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh
FILE PHOTO: construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser -/File Photo

February 20, 2019

By Davide Barbuscia

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia will soon discuss with international banks its plans to use export-credit agencies in other countries to help it finance infrastructure projects, sources familiar with the matter said.

Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious economic transformation plan involving infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars, in areas ranging from housing to transport.

But it has accumulated almost $60 billion of debt in just over two years, and that has not included financing linked to the infrastructure projects.

In January last year, the country’s debt-management office said it had asked banks to submit proposals for potential financing backed by export-credit agencies (ECAs). Those agencies offer loan guarantees and sometimes financing to encourage trade and lower the costs of international business.

Some Saudi entities have already used such financing. Aramco, the state-owned oil company, last year signed a $2 billion line of credit with UK Export Finance, the British ECA.

But more than a year after requesting proposals, the government has not appointed a financial adviser, the sources said. Nor has it said what specific projects the financing would support.

The debt management office did not respond to a request for comment.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on mega-projects over the past decades, but a slump in construction and delays in payments to contractors have stalled existing developments. At the same time, lower oil prices have squeezed the state budget.

Work on King Abdullah Financial District, for example, a $10 billion project in Riyadh, began in 2006. But it has run into construction delays, cost overruns and doubts about an initial economic feasibility study.

The kingdom said last month it planned to start developing the first area of NEOM, a high-tech $500 billion business zone, in the first quarter of 2019.

ECA-backed financing could be useful for similar large projects requiring foreign equipment and contractors, as well as cheap debt financing over long periods, the sources said. But, they added, the government has not started talks yet on ECA-backed financing for NEOM.

The government has taken some steps toward project funding. Last November, the debt management office appointed as a temporary adviser MUFG banker Hirofumi Sakioka, who is the deputy head of ECA Finance EMEA at MUFG Bank.

The sources said his appointment was aimed at coordinating ECA financing requirements from various Saudi ministries.

About two years ago, the government asked ministries to review billions of dollars’ worth of unfinished projects with a view to shelving or restructuring them.

Many of the projects are relics of an era of high oil prices and lavish state spending, which ended when oil prices began to fall in mid-2014, making it increasingly difficult for Riyadh to find the money needed to complete them.

Source: OANN

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Patriots Unplug From Big Brother In Search Of Free Speech

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.

The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.

Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.

In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.

The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.

But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.

“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”

Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.

Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.

Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.

“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”

Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”

Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”

PAST VS. FUTURE

Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.

Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.

Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.

“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.

Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.

Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.

“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.

Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.

But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.

Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.

“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”

‘ONE OF US’

Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.

The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.

Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.

“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”

Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.

“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

April 26, 2019

MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.

In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.

He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”

Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.

Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.

The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.

Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.

The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.

“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.

The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
FILE PHOTO: Pallbearers carry the coffin of journalist Lyra McKee at her funeral at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo

April 26, 2019

BELFAST (Reuters) – Detectives investigating the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland last week suspect the gunman who shot her dead is in his late teens as they made a further appeal to the local community who they believe know his identity.

McKee’s killing by an Irish nationalist militant during a riot in Londonderry has sparked outrage in the province where a 1998 peace deal mostly ended three decades of sectarian violence that cost the lives of some 3,600 people.

The New IRA, one of a small number of groups that oppose the peace accord, has said one of its members shot the 29-year-old reporter dead in the Creggan area of the city on Thursday when opening fire on police during a riot McKee was watching.

The killing, which followed a large car bomb in Londonderry in January that police also blamed on the New IRA, has raised fears that small marginalized militant groups are exploiting a political vacuum in the province and tensions caused by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

Police released footage on Friday of immediately before and after the shooting showing three men who were involved in the rioting and identified one as the gunman who they believe is in his late teens. 

“I believe that the information that can help us to bring those responsible for her murder to justice lies within the community. I need the public to tell me who he is,” Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy told reporters.

Murphy said those involved in the disorder on the night were teenagers or in their early 20s, and that about 100 people were on the ground watching the trouble as it unfolded.

He added that police believed the gun used in the attack was of a similar caliber to those used before in paramilitary type attacks in Creggan. 

“I recognize that people living in Creagan may find it’s difficult to come forward to speak to police. Today, I want to provide a personal reassurance that we are able to deal with those issues sensitively,” Murphy said, echoing similar appeals in recent days.

(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson, editing by Padraic Halpin and Toby Chopra)

Source: OANN

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