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US Latinas rally around 'Roma' actress Yalitza Aparicio

Yalitza Aparicio, the Oscar-nominated, first-time actress in "Roma," is finding strong support among Mexican-American women who identify with her indigenous roots despite backlash she is receiving in Mexico.

Some Mexican-American women say they are glad Aparicio's high-profile role is challenging typical images of light-skinned Latinas in Spanish-language films and TV shows, and they are expressing pride that she's the first indigenous woman to be nominated for best actress at the Oscars.

U.S. Latina Aparicio fans are holding Oscar watch parties, commenting to each other online with excitement and sharing on social media every move Aparicio makes.

"She's brown girl magic," said Jennie Luna, a Chicana/o Studies professor at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. "My students can't stop talking about her."

The praise north of the U.S.-Mexico border among fans of Mexican descent comes as Aparicio, who is from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, faces racist attacks online in her homeland and scorn from some Mexican actors. More recently, Mexican actor Sergio Goyri was caught on video criticizing Aparicio's nomination and using a racial slur to describe her. He later apologized.

After she appeared on the cover of Vogue México last year, Aparicio was hit with a tirade of online racist comments that criticize her physical appearance.

"I am proud to be an Oaxacan indigenous woman and it saddens me that there are people who do not know the correct meaning of words," Aparicio, who is of Mixtec descent, said in a statement earlier this month.

In "Roma," Aparicio plays Cleo, a domestic worker for a Mexico City middle-class family in the turbulent early 1970s. She speaks in an indigenous dialect and in Spanish and works to navigate the different worlds for her own survival.

Aparicio, a 25-year-old primary school teacher, is nominated alongside Glenn Close, Lady Gaga, Olivia Colman and Melissa McCarthy at Sunday's Oscars.

Astrid Silva, an immigrant rights activist in Las Vegas whose parents are from Mexico, said many Mexican-American women and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. see themselves in Aparicio for many reasons.

"She's a dark-skinned woman (who) comes from a poor region in Mexico like many of our families," Silva said. "She's not only challenging old notions of beauty that always involved blond hair and light skin. She's threatening them."

Aparicio's popularity is especially strong in California where many Mexican-Americans can trace their roots to migrants from the southern Mexican states of Oaxaca, Michoacán and Guerrero. Those states have vibrant, diverse indigenous populations that historically faced discrimination in Mexico.

"We've been working to rediscover our indigenous roots and Aparicio's presence is showing that we matter," said Lilia Soto, an American Studies professor at the University of Wyoming, who grew up in Napa, California. "The racism she's facing in Mexico also is an attack against us."

Soto said Aparicio also is popular among Mexican immigrants in New York City who largely come from the Mexican state of Pueblo — another region with an indigenous population.

When Aparicio visited New York City last year, she was treated to a hero's welcome among the Mexican immigrants she encountered.

Silva said she hadn't planned on watching the Academy Awards until she heard about Aparicio's nomination and "Roma's" best picture nod.

"It's hard to describe. It's not just pride we're feeling," Silva said. "Yalitza is just...us."

___

Associated Press Writer Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press' race and ethnicity team. Follow Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras

___

For full coverage of the Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/AcademyAwards

Source: Fox News National

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‘Just one more push’ to get Brexit, Britain’s May urges EU

Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on Brexit ahead of next week's vote in Parliament on her revised Brexit deal in Grimsby
British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech during her visit in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, Britain March 8, 2019. Christopher Furlong/Pool via REUTERS

March 11, 2019

By Elizabeth Piper

GRIMSBY, England (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May urged the European Union on Friday to make “just one more push” to break the Brexit deadlock but proposals from the bloc’s chief negotiator fell short of anything that would win over the British parliament.

Three weeks before Britain is due to leave the EU, May has failed so far to secure the changes to her divorce deal that she believes would gain the support of lawmakers, who handed the government a defeat of record proportions in January.

At the heart of the dispute is the so-called Northern Irish backstop, an insurance policy to prevent a return of border controls between the British province and EU member Ireland that Britain wants to change to ease fears in parliament.

But that dispute looked far from being resolved after EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s proposals were dismissed as a return to “old ideas” already rejected in talks.

A government source summed up the feeling in London by saying it was “not impressed”.

With no changes to offer parliament, May looks set to lose her second attempt on Tuesday to get lawmakers’ approval of her deal and smooth Britain’s exit from the EU, the country’s biggest shift in trade and foreign policy in more than 40 years.

In a last-ditch appeal to the EU and to lawmakers at home, May said in a speech on Friday it was time to end the uncertainty over Brexit by approving the deal. Otherwise, Britain faced a “moment of crisis”.

The Brexit effort “needs just one more push to address the final, specific concerns of our parliament,” she said in the northern English port of Grimsby, where 70 percent voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

“So let’s not hold back. Let’s do what is necessary for MPs (members of parliament) to back the deal on Tuesday.”

After she spoke, Barnier announced he was ready to give Britain the unilateral right to leave the EU customs union.

But he said London would need to honor its commitment to keep the Irish border free of controls, potentially leaving Northern Ireland subject to EU rules, with a “border” in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the island of Britain.

That requirement has been rejected previously by London and would be particularly unpalatable to Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May’s government in parliament and opposes any proposals for Northern Ireland to have different rules from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Stephen Barclay, Britain’s Brexit minister, said it was “not the time to rerun old arguments. The UK has put forward clear new proposals. We now need to agree a balanced solution that can work for both sides”.

The DUP was equally unimpressed, with Nigel Dodds, its deputy leader, calling the proposal “neither realistic nor sensible”.

‘SIGN OF DESPERATION’

But despite the war of words, both sides say talks are continuing over the weekend, just days before May will face parliament once again after resoundingly losing the first vote in parliament on Jan. 15.

In Grimsby, she again said that if lawmakers wanted to end the uncertainty that has forced many businesses to put off investment decisions, they should vote for her deal and move on.

Otherwise, she said, Brexit might never happen and voters would be betrayed. Or, she added, Britain could leave without a deal to soften the shock, a nightmare scenario for many companies.

Those arguments largely restated her well-worn line and have yet to convince lawmakers, especially eurosceptics who say her agreement does not offer a clean break with the EU, as well as EU supporters who want to maintain closer ties.

Britons voted 52-48 percent in 2016 to leave the EU and the country remains deeply polarized over the move.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, said the appeal was “more like a sign of desperation”.

“These are very serious times. We don’t need any more delays and dithering by the government,” he told Sky News. “They’ve got to recognize her deal isn’t going to work, it doesn’t get support, and will not get through parliament.”

It was the first time that May had turned directly to the EU, showing signs of frustration that talks to secure changes to the backstop this week had as yet produced no breakthrough.

That frustration was matched on the EU side. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the British, not the EU, had to compromise, and the decision to leave the bloc had been “a problem of their own creation”.

One EU diplomat said May was preparing the ground for “a blame game” if she loses the vote on Tuesday.

If that happens, lawmakers will be able to vote on Wednesday and Thursday on whether they want to leave the bloc without a deal, or ask for a delay to Brexit beyond March 29 – all but wresting control of Brexit from the government.

In a last-minute flurry of diplomatic activity, May was due to speak to EU leaders by telephone over the weekend and a European Commission spokesman said “intensive work” was going on between London and Brussels.

And foreign minister Jeremy Hunt held out some hope that a deal was “entirely possible” in time for the vote.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Smout, James Davey and Joe Green in London, Conor Humprhies in Dublin and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Writing by Elizabeth Piper and William Schomberg; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Frances Kerry/Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Long recovery ahead in former Syria rebel enclave eastern Ghouta

A man sells goods along a street in Ein Terma, a district of eastern Ghouta
A man sells goods along a street in Ein Terma, a district of eastern Ghouta, Syria February 26, 2019. Picture taken February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

March 13, 2019

EASTERN GHOUTA, Syria (Reuters) – Hunkered near one of Syria’s hottest front lines for seven years, the eastern Ghouta district of Ein Terma sustained more damage than most areas in the conflict.

Its markets are now full and children throng the streets where shells were falling a year ago. But for the people who have returned to live there, the recovery is gradual.

As the eighth anniversary of the civil war arrives this week, Ein Terma’s battered streets attest to the long road ahead for Syria’s war-smashed towns and cities.

Many inhabitants have lost neighbors, friends or relatives as the population scattered through years of conflict. Despite government work, rubble still clogs many streets and the water and electricity supply is only partial.

Jobs are scarce, and for people who stayed in the area when it was controlled by the rebels, family paperwork for births and deaths in that period must be done anew.

Samiha Fares and her five children left their home in 2012, early in the war, as rebels gained control over the district.

She had been working for the Ein Terma municipal government and the rebels threatened her children and installed rockets on the roof of her house, she said.

The family quickly moved to Jormana, a district located just across the front line from their old home in Ein Terma. When government forces recaptured the area at the end of March last year, Fares returned with her children.

Their house was empty and scorched by fire. “My children calmed me. At least our house was still there and we could live in it,” she said. She found an old carpet and mattresses and blankets to sleep on. But the financial situation was difficult.

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces retook eastern Ghouta during a fierce offensive under massive bombardment.

As the rebels surrendered, people who did not want to come back under government control left to opposition-held Idlib in Syria’s far northwest.

According to the United Nations commission of inquiry on Syria, up to 50,000 people were “evacuated” in this way to the northwest.

The Syrian war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, has driven around half of Syria’s pre-war population from their homes, 5.7 million of them living as refugees in neighboring countries.

HARDSHIP

Fares’ own income went on necessities for the family. During the fighting, she pulled her oldest son out of university so he could contribute, working to help pay the rent.

She was divorced so they had no other adult income and she renovated their war-damaged house with money paid as compensation to her daughter from a car accident.

But the once tight-knit neighborhood has changed. “I don’t know any of the neighbors. They’re all strangers. They all came from somewhere else, from other villages,” said Fares. Their relationship is limited to superficial greetings, she said.

However, the upstairs neighbor came back to see the house and may now renovate it and return there. “Everybody is waiting for the summer to come back,” Fares said hopefully.

Hisham al-Zaqawi is also finding things difficult. He was a jeweler and confectioner before the war, and he stayed in Ein Terma throughout the fighting when it was under rebel control.

He says he distrusted the opposition, but when the army retook eastern Ghouta, his two brothers chose not to come back under government control and joined the exodus to Idlib.

During the years of siege, food became so expensive that he had to sell his business and even his own wife’s jewelry. There are more job opportunities now, he said, but he struggles for work.

His two older children were born before or early in the crisis, but his three-year old daughter Sham must be registered with the government. The procedure is straightforward, but the fee is expensive, he said.

“Currently I don’t have a good job. I’m sitting without one. If there was a job in renovating or anything like that I wouldn’t say no. I’d work.”

(Reporting by Kinda Makieh in eastern Ghouta; Writing by Angus McDowall and Imad Creidi)

Source: OANN

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Kellyanne Conway Slams Obama, Hillary: ‘No Confusion’ on Victims

Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday criticized Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama for referring on Twitter to victims in Sri Lanka's Easter church bombing attacks as "Easter worshippers" rather than as Christians.

"You have to ask them about that," she told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" co-anchor Ainsley Earhardt after she asked Conway about the wording Clinton and Obama used. "There is no confusion on our part."

Conway added she knew Clinton would lose to Trump because she would never say the term "radical Islamic terrorists" while speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

"There are many evil people, many different ideological and many religions,  but when you have Islamic terrorism, when she was secretary of state, while her husband was president, murdering innocent people, call it what it is," Conway said. "We can solve the problem."

Also on Monday, Conway said it is a "ridiculous proposition" for Democrats to push for President Donald Trump's impeachment in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

"You can't impeach a Republican president for something the Democrats started, which is this ridiculous investigation that has cost us $25 million, over 2,500 subpoenas," she said.

Attorney General William Barr, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and the office of legal counsel determined there was no "obstructive conduct," Conway said, and "they could not bring obstruction charges. They made that decision."

"[Trump] won states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, that Republican nominees had not won in a long time," Conway said. "We have 19th Democrat running for president . . . Simple math, one, 19, 50, anything times zero, simple multiplication . . . 19 are running, but if your message is zero, it's a big zero."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Obama administration slow to answer early alarms about fentanyl: report

A failure by the Obama administration to react to numerous warnings by state officials and its own drug investigators about the rising peril of illicit fentanyl allowed the problem to fester over the years and claim tens of thousands of lives, according to The Washington Post.

And while states were seeing a growing number of fentanyl-related overdoses, Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new policy to ease prosecutions of low-level nonviolent drug offenses, which he said would address overly harsh mandatory-minimum sentences for first-time offenders. The move, law enforcement officials told The Post, led to fewer arrests and affected investigators' ability to reach criminals high up in the drug-trafficking chain through deals offered to lower-level offenders.

That, the newspaper said in its report on Wednesday, slowed law enforcement efforts to get to the sources and understand the networks behind the flourishing fentanyl trade.

From 2013 to 2017, nearly 70,000 people died of synthetic opioid-related overdoses, most tied to fentanyl, which is commonly obtained through the black market. In 2017, The Post noted, fentanyl became the leading causes of fatal overdoses.

“Everybody was slow to recognize the severity of the problem, even though a lot of the warning signs were there,” The Post quoted New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, as saying.

The appeals to the Obama administration were numerous and came from myriad sources.

Federal authorities on Monday seized 110 pounds of fentanyl in a shipment of iron oxide from Area Port of Philadelphia.

Federal authorities on Monday seized 110 pounds of fentanyl in a shipment of iron oxide from Area Port of Philadelphia. (cbp.gov)

A group of national public health experts sent a letter to senior Obama administration officials in 2016 begging for immediate action because, they stressed, thousands of people had been dying from fentanyl overdoses since at least 2013.

“The fentanyl crisis represents an extraordinary public health challenge —and requires an extraordinary public health response,” the group said in the letter, which was sent to officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and to the drug czar.

The administration, it said, acknowledged the letter but took no action.

AS DOCTORS TAPER OR END OPIOID PRESCRIPTIONS, MANY PATIENTS DRIVEN TO DESPAIR, SUICIDE 

One significant move that the CDC took in response to increasing public attention on overdoses due to opioids – which included largely illicit opioids such as heroin and illicit fentanyl – was to issue guidelines for general practitioners on prescribing opioids to people with chronic pain.

But many pain specialists and public health experts say those guidelines, while well-intentioned, made sweeping dose recommendations that remain debatable among medical professionals and have since been used to deny pain patients the doses they need. The guidelines also unleashed a wave of policies and laws around the country restricting doses and in some cases discouraging the prescribing of opioids, even to patients who long have relied on them and use them responsibly.

Meanwhile, painkiller prescription rates have declined, and many doctors are either forcing patients to taper off – against the recommendation of the CDC guidelines – or abandoning those pain patients altogether.

A Fox News series in December reported that while many pain patients in the United States have been left undertreated, creating a new public health crisis, overdose deaths due to illicit fentanyl continued to climb.

In June, Robert Mansfield, age 61, of Ladson, S.C., was sentenced to 20 years in prison for distribution of fentanyl resulting in the death of a man in December 2016, federal prosecutors said

In June, Robert Mansfield, age 61, of Ladson, S.C., was sentenced to 20 years in prison for distribution of fentanyl resulting in the death of a man in December 2016, federal prosecutors said (Charleston County Sheriff's Office)

Political leaders and police from areas hard hit by fentanyl overdoses told The Post that when the  Obama administration did address the overdose crisis, it focused on prescription painkillers and heroin, not the greater threat of fentanyl.

“Fentanyl was killing people like we’d never seen before,” said Derek Maltz, the former agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Operations Division in Washington. “A red light was going off, ding, ding, ding. ... We needed a serious sense of urgency.”

TOUGH NEW OPIOID POLICIES LEAVE SOME CANCER AND POST-SURGERY PATIENTS WITHOUT PAINKILLERS

But with no loud alarm coming from President Barack Obama or his senior officials, Congress did not move to provide the funding needed, U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not have the manpower or the equipment to detect fentanyl shipments entering from Mexico and China, and the U.S. Postal Service did not use electronic tools that would allow for detecting packages containing fentanyl that had been ordered through the Internet, The Post said.

Manchester [New Hampshire] Fire Chief Dan Goonan said he got tired of going to the numerous roundtable discussions that first responders, politicians and policymakers were having about fentanyl because nothing ever got done.

In 2014, the DEA started to alert local law enforcement agencies around the country about fentanyl, but it got little to no attention at the national level, the Post said.

President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

After actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a heroin overdose, attracting broad media attention to the problem, Holder appeared in a video calling heroin an “urgent and growing public health crisis.” But, just like others in the administration who saw the overdose crisis only in terms of heroin and prescription pills, Holder did not mention the bigger threat – fentanyl.

Holder’s former spokesman, Matthew Miller, defended him in an interview with The Post. “It says something that the people pointing fingers at the attorney general can’t point to a single action they recommended that he declined to take,” Miller said. “Eric Holder made fighting the opioid crisis a major focus, he strongly supported the DEA’s work in this area, and if the officials trying to now lay the blame at someone else’s feet had asked for more assistance, he would have given it.”

By the time Holder left his job, federal drug prosecutions had dropped, while fentanyl overdoses were spreading around the country.

Later, Congress asked for the creation of a National Heroin Task Force to look at the overdose epidemic. But again, the focus was heroin and prescription painkillers, which account for a minority of overdoses.

The Post noted that the task force produced a 23-page report on the OD crisis for Congress – within those pages, though, a mere five sentences mentioned fentanyl.

Michael Botticelli, the White House drug czar in the Obama administration, said, “In retrospect, it should have been a focus of the report.”

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Tom Frieden, who was the CDC head during the Obama administration, said he tried to impress upon officials the dangers of fentanyl and how it was becoming a major killer in many communities.

“I felt like I was a bit of a voice in the wilderness,” Frieden said. “I didn’t have the sense that people got this as a really serious problem.”

In an interview with CNN after the new report was published, one of the Post reporters, Sari Horwitz, said: “The Trump administration has done some things. They've talked about it more than the Obama administration. They've ramped up prosecutions. The Justice Department is going after fentanyl and drug trafficking.”

“But," she added, "people are telling us you cannot arrest your way out of this problem. There needs to be a three-pronged approach that involves prevention which is, as I said, a public service campaign to let people know how incredibly dangerous fentanyl is.”

Source: Fox News National

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Pakistan call for peace with India as it shows off its military might

Women from armed forces march in the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad
Women from armed forces march in the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Caren Firouz

March 23, 2019

By Saad Sayeed

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan wants peace with India and they should focus on health and education, the Pakistani president said on Saturday during a parade to show off its military might following a tense standoff between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Conflict between the rivals erupted last month following a suicide bomb attack claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group in the Indian party of the disputed and divided Kashmir region that killed 40 paramilitary police.

“We do not believe in war and want to solve problems through dialogue,” President Arif Alvi said in his Pakistani Republic Day speech.

“Instead of war we should focus on education and health.”

Pakistani warplanes engaged in a dogfight with Indian aircraft over Kashmir on Feb. 27, a day after a raid by Indian jets on what it said was a militant camp in Pakistan.

In their first such clash since their last war, in 1971, Pakistan downed an Indian plane and captured its pilot after he ejected over Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

The pilot was later released by Pakistan as a peace gesture.

The president, who largely holds ceremonial duties, said India had blamed Pakistan for the suicide-bomb attack without evidence, which he said was irresponsible.

Saturday’s military parade included an air show featuring the Pakistani-built JF-17 fighter jet. One of the aircraft shot down the Indian plane last month.

“Today’s parade is sending the message that we are a peaceful people but we will never be oblivious of our defense,” Alvi said.

The parade was attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who was invited to attend as the chief guest, and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Khan said on Twitter earlier that he had received a message from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his best wishes for Republic Day and calling for peace and regional cooperation.

“I welcome PM Modi’s message to our people,” Khan said.

“I believe it’s time to begin a comprehensive dialogue with India to address and resolve all issues.The dispute over the former princely state of Kashmir sparked the first two of three wars between India and Pakistan after independence in 1947. They fought the second in 1965, and a third, largely over what become Bangladesh, in 1971.

(Reporting by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: OANN

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Mueller Grand Jury Still 'Continuing Robustly'

Robert Mueller’s federal grand jury is continuing its work “robustly” even though the special counsel completed his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and submitted his report last Friday, assistant U.S. Attorney David Goodhand said Wednesday during a court hearing.

Goodhand made the revelation during a court hearing over whether court filings in the Mueller probe should be unsealed related to a foreign-owned company that has been held in contempt for avoiding a grand jury subpoena issued by Mueller.

Last year, a federal court in Washington ordered the corporation to pay a $50,000 daily fine until it complied with the subpoena. The company has argued the subpoena to be "unreasonable and oppressive" and has claimed immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

Mueller handed off his cases following the conclusion of his probe, including one against Roger Stone and Russian troll farm Concord Management.

"I worked with the prosecutor [Goodhand] in this matter,” said Gene Rossi, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia. “He uses his words very carefully. The use of 'robustly' is not bluster or gratuitous. That word strongly suggests that the handoffs from Robert Mueller's office are alive and kicking, and that the Washington U.S. Attorney's office could be another troubling front for the president and the White House."

Source: NewsMax America

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

April 26, 2019

By Rupam Jain and Hameed Farzad

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani encouraged newly-elected lawmakers to participate in the peace process with the Taliban as he opened on Friday the first session of parliament since a controversial election.

Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to an assembly known as a loya jirga next week to discuss ways to end the 17-year war.

Several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the four-day assembly in Kabul, saying it was pulled together without their input and is being used by Ghani as he seeks a second term in a September presidential election.

“We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it,” Ghani said in the first session since parliamentary elections marred by technical problems, militant attacks and accusations of voting fraud last year.

“Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament,” he added.

Officials from the United States and the Taliban have held several rounds of talks to end the Afghan war.

U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reported some progress toward an accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks as al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The insurgents have so far rejected U.S. demands for a ceasefire and talks on the country’s political future that would include Afghan government officials.

The loya jirga, a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups, is an attempt by Ghani to influence the peace talks and cement his position for a second term, Afghan politicians and Western diplomats say.

Amid growing political divisions in Kabul, opposition politicians have demanded that Ghani step down when his mandate ends next month, and give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. Ghani has ruled that out.

The country’s top court said last week Ghani can stay in office until the presidential election in September.

(Reporting by Hameed Farzad, Rupam Jain, Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Thursday defended special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation while slamming former President Barack Obama’s administration for being slow to take action on Russian interference in U.S. elections and ex-FBI Director James Comey for telling Congress the agency was investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes,” Rosenstein said in a speech to the Armenian Bar Association, marking his first public remarks after the Mueller report was released, reports CBS News.

He also pointed out that the investigation revealed a pattern of computer hacking and the use of social media to undermine elections as “only the tip of the iceberg of a comprehensive Russian strategy to influence elections, promote social discord, and undermine America, just like they do in many other countries,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration also made “critical decisions,” including choosing not to publicize the full story about Russian hackers and social media trolling, “and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America,” said Rosenstein.

He noted that the Mueller probe began after Comey disclosed during a hearing before Congress that President Donald Trump “pressured him to close the investigation and the president denied that the conversation occurred.”

Rosenstein said two years ago, when he was confirmed, he was told by a Republican senator that he would be in charge of the probe and that he’d report the results to the American people.

However, he said he didn’t promise to do that, because it is “not our job to render conclusive factual findings. We just decide whether it is appropriate to file criminal charges.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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President Trump on Friday said “no money” was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, after reports that the U.S. received a $2 million hospital bill from Pyongyang for the late American prisoner’s care.

“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else. This is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terroist[sic] hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl!” Trump tweeted Friday.

NORTH KOREA GAVE US $2M HOSPITAL BILL OVER CARE OF AMERICAN OTTO WARMBIER, SOURCES SAY

The Washington Post first reported that North Korean authorities insisted the U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier, 21, who was a student of the University of Virginia, sign a pledge to pay the bill before allowing Warmbier’s comatose body to return to the United States. Sources confirmed the bill and the amount to Fox News on Thursday.

Sources told the post that the envoy signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions from the president, but a source told Fox News that the U.S. did not ever pay money to North Korea.

The White House declined to comment when asked on the bill, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders saying in a statement that: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”

Meanwhile, the president added: “’President[sic] Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years. No money was paid.’ Cheif[sic] Hostage Negotiator, USA!”

Warmbier was on tour in North Korea when he allegedly stole a propaganda sign from a hotel. He was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier, for unknown reasons, fell into a coma while in custody and was held in that condition for an additional 17 months.

North Korean officials did not tell American officials until June 2017 that Warmbier had been unconscious the entire time. He died less than a week after he returned to the U.S. North Korean officials, though, have repeatedly denied accusations that Warmbier was tortured, instead claiming that he had suffered from botulism and then slipped into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

AMERICAN PRISONERS HELD IN NORTH KOREA ON THEIR WAY HOME AFTER POMPEO VISIT, TRUMP SAYS

Fred and Cindy Warmbier sued North Korea over their son’s death and in December were awarded $501 million in damages – money that the Hermit Kingdom will probably never pay.

While the Warmbiers blamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump has said he believes Kim’s claims that he did not know about the student’s treatment.

Trump and Kim have met in two separate summits. The most recent, held in February, ended without an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told Fox News: “Otto Warmbier was mistreated by North Korea in so many ways, including his wrongful conviction and harsh sentence, and the fact that for 16 months they refused to tell his family or our country about his dire condition they caused.  No, the United States owes them nothing. They owe the Warmbier family everything.”

Last year, the Trump administration was also able to save three American prisoners held by North Korea. Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song were all detained in North Korea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the three Americans home last May, and said they were all in “good health.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Rich Edson, Nicholas Kalman, and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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