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The Latest: Libya’s Hifter orders forces to march to Tripoli

The Latest on developments in Libya (all times local):

5:30 p.m.

Libyan army commander Khalifa Hifter in an audio recording posted online has ordered his forces to march to Tripoli, the capital of the U.N.-backed government.

Hifter, who commands the so-called Libya National Army based in the east, described his forces' move as a "victorious march" to "shake the lands under the feet of the unjust bunch."

He ordered forces not to open fire on any civilians saying, "whoever raises the white banner is safe."

His forces have taken over the town of Gharyan, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Tripoli.

___

10:15 a.m.

The U.N. chief says he's worried about a major armed showdown in Libya and is urging warring factions to instead turn to dialogue.

Antonio Guterres' remarks came as Libyan forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Hifter entered the town of Gharyan, about 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, south of the capital. It's the closest to Tripoli that Hifter's fighters reached in their campaign westwards from the country's east.

Guterres posted on Twitter on Thursday that he's "deeply concerned by the military movement taking place in Libya and the risk of confrontation."

He added: "There is no military solution. Only intra-Libyan dialogue can solve Libyan problems."

Guterres arrived in Libya on Wednesday — the first U.N. chief to visit since the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed long-time ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Source: Fox News World

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Resignation of Homeland Security’s acting deputy secretary continues Trump shakeup

President Trump's high-level overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security continued on Tuesday, with the announcement that DHS' acting deputy secretary is resigning amid a reported historic surge in illegal immigrants and asylum seekers at the border.

Claire Grady was technically the next in line to replace Kirstjen Nielsen, who resigned Sunday. But Trump chose Kevin McAleenan, the head of Customs and Border Protection, as acting secretary.

That meant Grady had to resign or be fired. Two officials with direct knowledge of the decision, speaking anonymously to The Associated Press, said Grady was pressed to quit.

Claire Grady official DHS portrait.

Claire Grady official DHS portrait.

In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Nielsen said Grady had offered her resignation, writing that "her sound leadership and effective oversight have impacted every DHS office and employee and made us stronger as a Department."

Nielsen added: "I am thankful for Claire’s expertise, dedication & friendship & am filled w gratitude for her exemplary service to DHS & to our country. I wish her all the best in her future endeavors."

INCREASING NUMBER OF FAMILY UNITS ARE TRYING TO ILLEGALLY ENTER U.S., CBP SAYS

Grady is a longtime civil servant with more than 28 years' experience at the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

On Monday, in another DHS shakeup, officials said Secret Service Director Randolph  Alles was stepping down.

Sources told Fox News on Monday that Alles was notified 10 days ago to "prepare an exit plan," in a signal that a transition in leadership at Homeland Security was imminent.

Trump has long signaled his displeasure with the rising number of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the country. The U.S. Border Patrol this week said it has set a new monthly record for apprehensions of families at the southern border, driven primarily by a surge of parents and children leaving Central America.

In this June 25, 2018, image Border Patrol agents load a migrant from Guatemala into a van after he was caught trying to enter the United States illegally in Hidalgo, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, file)

In this June 25, 2018, image Border Patrol agents load a migrant from Guatemala into a van after he was caught trying to enter the United States illegally in Hidalgo, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, file)

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The agency said Tuesday that it apprehended 92,607 people at the U.S.-Mexico border in March.

Just over 53,000 of the people apprehended were parents and children traveling together, which the Border Patrol refers to as "family units." That breaks a record set in February, when the agency apprehended 36,000 parents and children. Another 8,975 were children traveling alone.

The large numbers of families have forced many line agents into humanitarian roles and have strained detention facilities built when the Border Patrol primarily apprehended single adult men.

Fox News' Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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No Japanese companies plan to ditch UK as Brexit looms: survey

An employees of a foreign exchange trading company works as he is seen between British Union flag and an EU flag in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO - An employees of a foreign exchange trading company works as he is seen between British Union flag and an EU flag in Tokyo, Japan, June 24, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato

April 18, 2019

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese businesses with links to Britain say they have no immediate plans to flee the country as its government seeks to hammer out terms of its exit from the European Union, a Reuters poll found.

Many said they would take a “wait-and-see” stance toward Brexit.

The Japanese government has been vocal about its concern over the impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom, the second-biggest destination for Japanese investment after the United States.

Tokyo warned last year that Japanese companies would have to leave Britain if trade barriers from Brexit made business unprofitable.

Britain’s decision to leave the EU has raised concern in London that Japanese companies may shift operations elsewhere if tariff-free trade ends with the rest of the European bloc.

But 89 percent of companies with business links to Britain said they would make no change in their operations and 3 percent are actually considering expanding business in the country.

Some 8 percent planned to downsize business operations in Britain, but none of the companies surveyed planned to leave the country, the April 3-15 survey showed.

However, in written comments many firms said they would watch Brexit developments “for the time being,” suggesting that they could leave if Brexit proves bad for business.

“We have a subsidiary in France so Brexit affects us. But we want to wait and see for the time being,” a manager of a precision machinery maker wrote in the survey.

“Britain still takes up an important position in Europe, and we have not completely figured out concrete effects of Brexit,” a machinery maker wrote in the survey.

The Reuters Corporate Survey, conducted monthly for Reuters by Nikkei Research, polled 478 large and mid-sized firms with managers responding on condition of anonymity. Around 240 answered the questions on Brexit.

Of those, 61 said they had business links to the United Kingdom, and responded to more detailed questions about Brexit.

At the end of 2016, Japanese business investment in Britain stood at 13.4 trillion yen (92 billion pounds). It accounted for 9 percent of Japan’s overall foreign direct investment, with successive leaders since Margaret Thatcher promising them a business-friendly base from which to trade across the continent.

After the shocking 2016 Brexit vote, Japan expressed fears about a cliff edge that could disrupt trade when Britain formally leaves the bloc.

So far, Honda said in February it will close its only British car plant in 2021 with the loss of up to 3,500 jobs.

Britain’s exit from the European Union was put off by a late night agreement in Brussels last week that gave Prime Minister Theresa May until Oct. 31 to persuade parliament to approve the terms of the country’s departure.

($1 = 0.7642 pounds)

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by Izumi Nakagawa; Editing by Malcolm Foster & Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Barclays to restructure 450 jobs, employee union sees heavy layoffs

FILE PHOTO: Workers are seen in at Barclays bank offices in the Canary Wharf financial district in London
FILE PHOTO: Workers are seen in at Barclays bank offices in the Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain, November 17, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

April 9, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – British banking giant Barclays is restructuring around 450 jobs, it said on Tuesday, in a move employee union Unite said would lead to large numbers of redundancies across the UK midlands.

The union said the lender had informed staff at its Coventry Westwood Park and Birmingham Snowhill sites that their jobs were at risk.

Further job losses will impact other Barclays sites in locations including Canary Wharf in London, the union said.

A Barclays spokesman said 400 of the staff affected would be offered jobs in new locations including Glasgow, Northampton and Manchester, with the lender expecting 50 roles to go.

British banks have made heavy job cuts in recent years as they have sought to slash costs in response to pressure on profits and more customers banking online.

The move comes after Barclays said it was weighing axing or relocating 280 staff from a call center in Leeds earlier this year.

(Reporting by Iain Withers, editing by Sinead Cruise)

Source: OANN

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Vodka 'bound for North Korea' to be destroyed or sold

Dutch customs officials who discovered thousands of bottles of vodka suspected of being smuggled to North Korea say the illicit cargo will likely be sold at auction or destroyed.

Customs office spokesman Roul Velleman said Wednesday those are the options for the estimated 90,000 small bottles found on a Chinese freighter in the port of Rotterdam last week.

The fate of the vodka, discovered in a container tucked away under an aircraft fuselage, may depend on whether prosecutors decide to press charges of attempting to breach United Nations sanctions against the North Korean regime.

Neither customs officials nor the Dutch foreign ministry will say why they believe the Russian vodka was bound for North Korea.

The financial prosecutions office did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

Source: Fox News World

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Five years after Crimea annexation, tensions remain

“Russia opened its arms, its heart and soul and welcomed you with joy and delight!” Russian President Vladimir Putin called out to exuberant crowds in Crimea Monday evening. He was at a concert in Sevastopol to mark five years since the annexation of Crimea.

“Five years passed like one moment. Now these emotions come back to me, the joy, the great victory,” said the Crimean President Andrei Babichev.

The taking of Crimea was an emotive moment for the nation and Putin’s popularity shot up 20 points, to the mid-80s, in the aftermath. But it recently lost those points. This was said to have been triggered by the raising of the pension age from 55 to 60 for women, from 60 to 65 for men. The relatively low Russian pension age was a sacred cow, a holdover from Soviet times. Some say the so-called “Crimean Consensus,” the ability of Crimea to put a smile on every Russian’s face, has dried up.

One could suggest that ratings don’t matter much in a Russia whose president has five years left on a term that should, in theory, be his last. But plenty of people would argue with that.

“I think it does matter,” said Eleonora Tafuro Ambrosetti, a researcher at the IPSI think tank in Milan.  “A decrease in popularity means an increase in the willingness of the population to take to the streets and protest and this is not something the Kremlin is used to and the Kremlin fears.”

There have been a scattering of demonstrations since the pension age was lifted. Over the weekend, several hundred took to the streets of Moscow calling for social and political change. Hundreds is not huge. But they were vociferous.

“This year we got a horrific pension reform, it is terrible,” said opposition figure Sergei Udaltsov. “We got new taxes. We got new restrictions on simply criticizing the authority. Today a person will be held accountable for an insult against an official. We got dozens of cynical, insulting statements from the officials of various levels. They almost went nuts in recent months.”

Some worry Putin may look for another crisis to boost his standing. He has militarized the Crimean Peninsula in the five years that have passed.

At a recent panel discussion about Ukraine at Chatham House, Col. Vadim Skibitksi, the deputy head of intelligence for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, displayed charts that showed the exponential increase in Russian military hardware in Crimea. For example, before the annexation, there were 22 combat aircraft stationed there, according to Skibitski.  Now there are 122.

“This is a threat for all countries in the Black Sea region,” he said.

Russian Sen. Viktor Bondarev recently said that the Kremlin is deploying nuclear-capable strategic bombers to Crimea.

James Appathurai, deputy assistant secretary general for Political Affairs at NATO, said that the annexation of Crimea is part of a pattern that began with Georgia and includes Russian intervention in Syria. But it was a game changer.

Appathurai said at that same Chatham House talk, “It is also important to recognize that Crimea gives Russia a stronger platform to project force and political influence far beyond Ukraine and even beyond the Black Sea. It is using this enhanced military capability to project force into the eastern Mediterranean, into the Middle East, and potentially elsewhere.”

NATO has spent the intervening years preparing to protect any further potential targets of Russian activity. And on the anniversary, the European Union countries reconfirmed they do not recognize the annexation. But the facts remain on the ground.

Despite the enormous cost of integrating the peninsula (one estimate is it will cost overall $82 billion) and the political costs of getting kicked out of the G8 and being slapped with sanctions, the overwhelming majority of Russians still support the annexation of Crimea, according to a recent poll. But increasingly, they are indicating that their main preoccupation is economic growth and stability.

Source: Fox News World

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Nauert Says She'll Withdraw as Trump's Nominee for UN Ambassador

Nauert Says She'll Withdraw as Trump's Nominee for UN Ambassador

Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew from consideration as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, according to a statement.

Trump had said in early December that he planned to nominate Nauert, 49, to replace Nikki Haley as UN ambassador. Suspicion later mounted that her nomination was running into trouble because the White House never formally submitted her name for Senate confirmation, even after Haley resigned at year end.

State Department officials insisted there was nothing unusual in that delay, arguing that Attorney General William Barr’s nomination went more smoothly because he had already been confirmed once, in 1991. They also blamed the 35-day government shutdown and the complexity of the vetting process.

“I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary Pompeo for the trust they placed in me for considering me for the position of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,” Nauert said in the statement. “However, the past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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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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